Swipe Right/Left/Up/Down and All Around...

A little over a week ago I signed up for an OK Cupid account. That was a mistake. Being unemployed I couldn't afford the “upgrades” which would allow me to see who was “liking” my profile (not sure that I would ever pay for a dating profile anyway), but I did get over a hundred likes in the three days I kept the account open.  I don't know if that's good or not. 

My profile was pretty boring. I had some of my less ogre-ish looking selfies, a picture of me with my son, and a few pictures of me lifting. I was also very forthcoming in my description about my political leanings and motivations for creating a profile. I wanted to meet men or women for friendship, conversation, and that's about it. I miss adult humans.  Or thought I did.  That I'm aware there's not an app that lets you meet people for friendship, or simple conversation. I guess MeetUps come close, but I'm not keen on meeting people right off the bat.  I am probably wrong about the non-existence of a "friendship app," as there does indeed appear to be an app for just about everything. I was also very clear (maybe too clear) that I wasn't interested in random hook-ups, relationships, or anything along those lines. I even mentioned that I am going on five years without sex and wouldn't be upset if I ended up going another five years or more. Of the two men (sadly, no ladies wanted to be friends) who reached out to me, one was incredibly boring. So much so that I thought perhaps he was a Turing Test bot sent by OK Cupid to measure my ability to navigate their product. The other was nice enough, but asked me a little too much about what it's like to go five years without sex. “Fine,” I told him. “I miss intelligent conversation more than I miss sex.” After that he told me he had to take a shower, and then I never heard from him again. I wasn't upset.  The next morning I deactivated my account and deleted the app from my tablet and phone.

Ultimately, I am left wondering why it's so difficult for me to make connections with people. I wasn't hoping for love, but was merely hoping someone would see we had common interests, reach out, and engage me. It didn't happen. My conclusion? I am not very interesting. But I've known this. Even when I was in my prime years (maybe my early twenties) I would not have described myself as interesting. So it's not surprising that my profile failed to elicit a meaningful response of any sort. 

I mean, I've had a pretty shit last few weeks and have heard from none of my flesh and blood friends. A total of three people have contacted me to ask me if I'm OK.  One person has called (someone I've never even met, but love like I've known her for years).  Otherwise, my so-called "real" friends, they couldn't be bothered to give a fuck about how I'm feeling.  Once upon a time I would have been offended and taken their lack of concern as a measure of my value as a human being, now I've simply decided to return the favor and not give a shit about them either.  Sorta.  They're still all people I love and would help if I could, but my sense of urgency might be blunted a bit.  

What my brief OK Cupid experiment has done is gotten me to thinking about the subject of compatibility as a general proposition.  Not just romantic compatibility, but human compatibility.  The last thing I want is a romantic relationship, but I'm fascinated by human relationships, even the romantic kinds. I wish I could sit down with people in relationships/deep friendships and ask them what it is they think makes things work for them. The usual questions don't interest me. Questions like, “How did you meet?” “How long have you been together/been friends?” I guess I'm interested in more abstract things. What keeps people glued to one another for years and years? What makes someone decided to pick up the phone and check in on someone they saw less than twenty-four hours ago?  How do they avoid the usual traps that appear to torpedo most relationships/friendships? What makes someone someone else's “favorite” person? 

I guess I'll never know. 

Anyway. I won't be joining any dating services again. Ever. And that's not a knock on them. My baby sister is engaged to a very nice young man she met on a dating app. She's a Millennial. I think that shit just works better for them.

Tina was right, what's love got to do with it?

Forewarning, this is going to be one of those meandering, personal blogs.  And I'm completely sober (though I have had a lot of coffee).

I am an older single mother.  I'll be 42 in less than six months.  I've essentially lived half of my life without much to show for it in terms of conventional measures of success.  I don't own a home, a car, or have a nest egg of any sort.  I spend a lot of time thinking about this, but this morning I woke up thinking about something I actually never think about:  love.  As in romantic love.  

I am not lonely.  I don't want a relationship or a partner.  In March it will be five years since I had sex with or kissed another human being. (I actually do miss kissing more than I miss intercourse, but that's another post.)  What I was trying to remember was the feeling of being in love with someone.  I was trying to remember the tiny joys.  I've only really been in love, and had that love returned, three times in my life.  Once with a woman, the other two times with men.  All of the relationships ended badly, and one ended badly and also in pregnancy.  Put plainly, I suck at relationships.  Like, really suck at them.  My insecurities played a huge part in ending those relationships, and while I remain insecure, I am less insecure about my looks insofar as I don't give a shit that I'm not, nor have I ever been conventionally attractive.  My insecurities rear their ugly heads on other fronts, like those briefly mentioned at the beginning of this post (i.e. lack of professional and financial security or success).  At my age there aren't many people interested in coupling up with a woman like me.  And that's fine.  I don't blame them.  These days, I don't have much to offer a potential partner.  And I miss friendships more than romantic relationships.  But back to those tiny joys of romantic love.  

I don't remember what it feels like to fall in love, much less be in love, with someone willing to love me back.  I remember that I enjoyed little things like Sunday under the covers, coffee before work, movie nights with a bottle of wine, trips to the grocery store, spontaneous sex, hand holding in public, inside jokes...Otherwise, it all felt like so much work.  I never found the right kind of partner.  While I enjoyed some of those tiny joys, I never found someone with whom I could enjoy a deeper connection.  Someone with whom I could read the same books, engage in deep discussions about the bizarre shit that interests me (politics, music, intersectional feminism, critical race theory, economics, education policy, history, the mystery of consciousness, quantum entanglement, income inequality...sexy shit like that).  There was never that level of connection with my lovers, and often barely with any of my friends.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not above weekend marathons of Top Chef or Project Runway (when I'm unemployed, I'm really good at these), but I like to sprinkle my mind trash with the occasional cerebral jolt, you feel me?  Not because I think I'm better than anyone, but because it really is the kind of thing I enjoy.  I guess what I'm saying is that I always wanted to fall in love with someone's mind, and have them fall in love with my mind seeing as how my physical offerings were never going to leave them gasping.  It never happened.  I never found that man/woman.  And now, I'm almost beyond giving a shit.  I'm too old to care about falling in love.  I don't have the liberty of trying.  I have a child I can't support, but must try and support anyway.  Oh yes, there's my child to include in the new calculus.  What man/woman would want to be with a woman (like me) who has a child?  Again, none that I've known.   

A different version of me would have found this all very depressing.  Today's version thinks it is what it is.  You get old.  You become even more unattractive.  And you fail to impress the world.  You also forget what it ever felt like to be in love.   

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.