Back...AGAIN!

Six years is a long time. 

I want to blog again.  No, I need to blog again.  And here's why:  I don't have anything else to do!  And I remember feeling that words were important to me, that it was important for me to write, express myself, and take the time to examine the world around me.  I'd like to explore that feeling again.

Let's recount some of the things which have happened in the six years since I've written anything for this space.  

• I had a child.  
• I left my child's father after deciding he would be bad for us (he drank a LOT). 
• After that relationship ended, I returned to the States from Korea and remained unemployed for four years.  
• I finished a master's degree which was funded by one of the kindest humans on the planet. 
• I found a job.  Granted, it was only a part-time job, but the market for newly minted librarians in this part of the world isn't great.  In fact, it sucks.  For a lot of reasons.   
• I was fired from that job after less than four months, and told nothing other than, "you're not the right person for this job."  It's done.  I don't want to dwell on it, because ultimately, I don't give a shit insofar as it can't be undone.  Does it mar my ability to find another job...oh yeah.  So, I am unemployed again.
• Unemployment is why I am considering another return to Asia.  China this time, possibly as a librarian, but more than likely as an English teacher...again.  

Until then, there are thoughts to be thought, ideas to be explored, and because all I have is time, why not use some of that time to write about the things that interest me, even though I'm actually not a very interesting person.  That's not a knock.  Seriously.  It's just me telling it like it is.  I have interests, just like any other person, but they're not very original.  For example, I am interested in:  

• Powerlifting
• Quantum physics 
• Economics 
• Public policy 
• Education policy 
• Information literacy 
• Art 
• Identity 
• Addressing inequality of access to quality information, healthcare, education, infrastructure, food...this list could go on and on.  
• Social Justice

These are just a few things that interest me, but like I said, I myself am not very interesting.  I had thought that becoming a librarian would be a prime opportunity to advocate for the things which interest me, things about which I am passionate, but I am fairly certain I was wrong about that.  Librarians aren't social justice actors.  I don't know that librarians see themselves capable of effecting such change.  Many of them are terrified of the idea that their profession might be good for anything other than story times, readers' advisory, or circulation.  Librarians aren't great innovators.  What's more, many librarians are constrained by politics or ideology and can't be more than babysitters anyway.  Librarians aren't capable of a creative destruction that could transform the profession for the better when there are stakeholders (council members, deans, and citizens) to whom they must answer.  Pissing people off isn't an option.  So maybe I don't care about librarianship so much as it is information that I care more deeply about, especially if it means getting information to at-risk communities for whom the right information has real-life consequences.  As a queer woman of color and single mother, this is more important to me than the title of librarian.  After all, librarianship remains an incredibly white profession; therefore, would I ever be able to find my way, be comfortable, or be fully accepted?  In my short-lived job I felt invisible to the white patrons.  A few of them had a look of skepticism that I could be an actual librarian.  Me?  The only black-ish, non-white person on the staff?  How could that be so?  After all, I didn't look like a librarian.  

And that's true.  I don't look like a librarian because not many librarians look like me.  So, rather than try and make myself feel comfortable in a profession whose demographics exclude me from acceptance, I am going to hold on to the tenets of the profession which I believe can serve my larger visions and beliefs.  True, I'm not feeling very empowered right now as an unemployed single mother, but I'm going to hold on to librarianship's tenets of intellectual freedom, inquiry, and access, and somehow use my education to advocate for information's power to transform the lives of people like me.

After a Three Year Hiatus...

A good friend of mine has inspired me to try this old blogging schtuff once again.  Let's see how far I get this time.

I spent a few minutes reading through some of my older posts and two things came to my attention.  One, I am actually not a bad writer.  Two, depression is a frightening illness.

It was tempting to delete some of the more harrowing and depressing posts on this blog before making any effort to revive it.  Reading some of those old posts was chilling, but instructive.  So much in my life has changed since then.  Mostly for the better, and a few things for the worse.  But rather than see that as some type of cosmic declaration about the value of my life I've come to recognize it for what it is:  just the way shit happens.  The most significant achievement I have made in my life is that I have learned to give myself a break.  I have learned to be grateful for the person that I am.  I have learned that there are quite a few people in my orbit who think I am worth knowing, and these are people I love and respect.  I have learned to keep myself surrounded by people who will continue to appreciate my value, and thereby allow me to give them the same due reward.  It's a reciprocal honor and it's friendship at its best.  What would I be saying about these friends if I were to continue to be so dismissive of their willingness to invest their time and emotion in me?  It would be a mark of poor friendship, and even poorer humanity.  I don't want that.  Not any more.

You only get so much time in this world to do so many things.  And many people won't have the type of life they envisioned or dreamed of having, but they still manage to remain content or happy.  Simple pleasures are indeed their own reward.  I would like to do what I can to ensure that whatever remains of my life is invested procuring of life's simple, yet satiating, moments.  And from here on out, I can do so without thinking the worst of others, but most especially without thinking the worst of myself.    

Neurotic City

There is a line from Colum McCann's novel Let the Great World Spin which I often find myself turning over and over again in my mind. I may be paraphrasing a bit, but essentially the line is as follows:

"It takes courage to live an ordinary life."

This is true. Very true. But I would take the sentiment one step further. Living an ordinary life sometimes requires more than courage, it requires compromise, forgiveness, and ultimately acceptance. And even if you manage to find all of these things you are not guaranteed peace of mind or happiness.

Introspection is a restive compatriot, but the alternatives are often just as frightening. For all of the voids I see in my life I know that I would very much prefer to be the deep-thinking, solitary, literate soul that I am, than pretend to care for things and people I do not. Pretending is more punishing than facing the truth and it often requires that one sacrifice what little exists of their sense of self. And my sense of self is already frayed. I'd like to keep what little remains of it for me and me alone.

There is no requirement that I must be someone who people understand. There is not even an understanding that I must understand myself, but I would much rather understand myself than engage people who fail to bring anything to my growth as a human being. Because even if I am no success, even if I have nothing to show for 33 years on this planet, I intend to spend each and every one of my days learning and experiencing something new about this world I live in, and I will commit myself to that until the day I stop breathing. Even if it's only between the pages of a book or in the pages of my journal, I intend to delve.

Life doesn't reward one for being good, and life surely doesn't reward you for being giving. It is what you own and what you can do that matters. That will not change. I imagine I have probably already lived half of my life and I don't expect to own or do much more with the time that's left. What comes of a life lived without some minimal thresholds or standards of accomplishment? Oftentimes one's only consolation is the knowledge that emotional abstraction and intellectual complexity (even for all of your lack of conventional value) are the only things which make you worthwhile. All I have is my thoughts. It is a task to understand and accept that just because we live in society does not mean that we are all meant to be social animals. I feel stifled by the idea of friendships, perhaps it is because of late I have mostly known false friends. There is shame in failure, but there is also no harm in being indifferent. I used to think I was a "people" person. I used to believe that being a "people" person made for a more interesting life. I no longer believe that. But maybe that's because I know I'm not equipped for what's standard in "interesting" and "worthwhile" lives (i.e. friends, love, marriage, children, homes, vacations, all of those things).

I still believe there is good to be had, I'm just beyond believing myself destined for any taste of it. My life is not ordinary. It's something else, maybe something worse. It is dull, diminished, and distracting. But it's mine.

32 . . . and a little blue . . .

So today is my birthday and it has now been one year since my father passed away. He's been on my mind since I woke up this morning. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit to crying a little bit. It's been on and off. I miss him. I miss him something awful. I have stop to ask myself, "Will it always be like this? Will each birthday be a mixture of melancholy and merriment? Will I keep counting the years until it's my time?" I hope not.

Long time no blog . . .

What can you do? Life happens. Even if that life is really no life at all.

I am still monstrously underemployed (though I can actually tolerate my coworkers . . . with one notable exception), I still hate where I live, I'm still broke, and I'm still just me. I'm just trying to keep myself distracted. If I spend too much time thinking about my life and how really pathetic it is I get to the point where I don't ever want to leave the indoors. Clinicians call it depression, I call it a reality check.

I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about love, romantic love. Not because I'm especially interested in the concept, but because as I grow older more and more people I've known and excised from my life are finding their way into domestic arrangements. A lot of people are married these days. I recall having a conversation with someone a few years ago about how I was just never one of those females who would imagine the perfect wedding. I know such women exist, I've been friends with a couple of them. Even so, I was never party to the fantasy. Marriage is fine, but love is so much better. I've only had small tastes of love, but what I tasted was enough for my lifetime. It didn't fill me up and when things went sour it was difficult to remove the sour taste from my mouth; but I'm still one of love's biggest advocates, even if I never want anything to do with it again for as long as I may live.

I'm alone. I've always been alone. And it feels as though I'll probably always be alone. But strangely this doesn't bother me nearly as much as it used to when I was younger. I have gotten over the supposed belief that if you aren't attached, married, or having sex on a regular basis, you must surely be miserable. Meh. There are so many other parts of my life that are royally fucked up that it would be the cruelest thing imaginable to try and bring someone else into this nightmare of a life I've been forced to settle for. I'm not so cruel. It's largely one of the reasons why I avoid friendships, old and new, by any means necessary.

Another friend I no longer know once told me that I could expect all of my married friends to be divorced within 10-15 years. It had happened to her and a few of her friends. I shook my head, "I hope not. That would make me sad. I want people to have good love."

And that's no lie.

Stream?

It's Friday.

I have nothing to do and no one to do it with. Why should this matter? I'm a 32 year old woman (almost!) who can't just be content with her own company. After an internal recitation of this reality I thereafter proceed to consider issues such as the following:

*I have no partner.
*I have no spouse.
*I have no car.
*I have no home.
*I have no friends.
*I have no financial security.
*I have no job worth mentioning.
*I have no solvency.
*I have no prospects.
* I have no idea what I'm doing.

Of course, this list is not all-inclusive. It's just a bunch of spittle. I am thoroughly disgusted with myself and where I am. I want to be someone or anyone else. But that's impossible. Instead I remain me. I just wish (Tiffany doesn't pray sports fans) I had more to show for myself. It's not a good thing when sometimes the only thing you look forward to in the evening is the ability to import that new CD you just checked out from the library. Yeah, the library you go to AT LEAST three times a week, because it's "something to do."

You're always looking for something to do, aren't you Tiffany? Without question this would probably be because of the fact that you've not ever really done SOMETHING with yourself. So, just keep busy. Stay distracted. Pretend you're not unhappy. Pretend you're not a smudge. Try to keep faking it.

I just want something/someone/somewhere to look forward to.

I don't know any French people . . .

. . . but I sure do get a kick out of the way they think. Brilliant. Read the Objectif Lune piece.

It really is like riding a bicycle . . .

Not sex, but rather, driving a car.

I am cat sitting this weekend. A friend and her husband needed a last minute cat sitter in order for them to make their annual trip to the New Orleans' Jazz Fest. I jumped at the chance. Time alone in a nice house in one of the few charming neighborhoods in Austin? And I get to stay with two cute cats? I jumped at the chance. In addition, I get use of one of the two hybrid vehicles owned by the family. (They are both college professors. Makes sense now, doesn't it?)

So I filled up the tank with gas and drove to my father's grave. I hadn't seen it before, and I'm not really sure why I wanted to, but I did. The anniversary of my father's death is also the day of my birth. Talk about cursed luck?

I didn't really get emotional and I only cried a little. My mother has been to my father's grave twice and had once attempted to make me feel better (maybe I was at a low point, I'm not sure) by saying that he was in a very lovely spot. Well, he, or his remains rather, are in fact in a very lovely little soft rolling hill which, because of the recent rains, is soft with fresh green grass. His stone was a simple white granite of the type seen in Arlington National Cemetery. My father is buried in a veteran's cemetery. When my mother had tried to describe my father's resting place to me I was far too abupt, rude surely, and said, "Mother, he's dead. I don't think he cares where they put him." I quickly apologized.

Daddy issues.

One of my coworkers (the obnoxious writer) and I had a conversation about parents and my father came up. "Daddy issues" was the way he belittled my preoccupations. "I've got bigger problems than Daddy Issues. My mother and I have serious problems." Oh really? I tore into him. "Well my father is fucking dead asshole! I can't try and 'address' anything with him. That's done. If there were things I should have said to him, there are no fucking do-overs. You, you at least have the opportunity to try and right whatever it is you feel is wrong with your mother. She breathes. If you want another chance, it's still there. The only thing stopping you is you. Try doing any of that when she's dead."

My coworker didn't say anything else to me.

I've known my father was dead. Yet somehow, there was something very final about seeing his headstone. The inscription says, "Gone, but not forgotten." I don't know who chose it. I know it wasn't me. I like it though. It's really rather appropriate, because try as I might, I can't seem to forget him or remember that it's okay to let go of any of my anger toward him, and that it's even okay to just cry when I miss him and thank him for the gifts he did give me. I dance, I sing, and I groove along to the beat of my own twisted drummer because I inherited a little bit of soul from a man who once knew what it was to live life with simple joy. In the end he traded all of that in for hard drugs and hard drinking and died too soon, but he used to live, he used to laugh, and he used to dance. He shared these things with me, they are my father's legacy barreling through my veins.

I may not be rich, powerful, or beautiful . . . but I'm a singing, dancing, and loving fool because I learned from a beautiful man that it's okay to be that way.

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.

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.

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.