Monday, April 18, 2005

Office hurts

Today I went into Office Max. I just love office supplies. I know that’s weird, but I just can’t get enough of them. I have things in my desk that I don’t even have a use for or even know what it is. I don’t think I need 4 different colors of Post-it notes, or a handy little pen-like dispenser for glue. That seems particularly useless seeing as though I haven’t glued anything since the third grade. I even like the smell of permanent markers and rubber cement.

Anyway, I’m a sucker for anything that is an office supply. I guess it makes me a cheap date when I’d probably be just as happy with a bouquet of mechanical pencils as I would be with flowers. It also makes me terribly geeky I think.

I think my love of all things office started when I was younger and my dad would take me with him to work. Every once in a while on a Saturday, my dad would have some work to finish so he’d drag my brother and I along with him. He’s an electrical engineer and this was back when computer monitors only used the color green. Every time we’d go he’d get us a sub from 7-11 and a Slurpee. So while he was working on something or tinkering around with prehistoric geek parts, I would play with the things in his desk. I could make a chain of paperclips 3 miles long, make a projectile weapon with erasers and rubber bands, or draw little pictures on the corner of his dry erase board.

The neat thing was that every time I went back to his office I would see that he still had the pictures that I drew up on his dry erase board. He never got rid of them, and every time I went there I would give him a new one to look at. He was, and still is, a very quiet man. So he never told me that he liked them, but I knew he did just by the fact that they were never removed. To me and at that age, he was everything. He had all the answers. He was my hero.

It wasn’t until I was older that I had to face the fact that he was anything but perfect. We couldn’t be more different. It’s always hard when the person that you place on a pedestal falls from your grace. I think my teen years were especially hard on our relationship just because we are both two very different people with very real faults.

However, it still hurt the other day when he mentioned that he would be for an amendment that would ban gay marriage. This isn’t going to be a blog entry with my political rants, rather one of my sheer disappointment over his thinking. I don’t understand it, and I never will. It saddens me that my once hero would think this way and not even understand how it affects his child. It’s almost like he doesn’t understand what he is saying. Yet he knows and somewhat supports my lifestyle now. Civil unions he’d be okay with, but that’s all I really know because I wasn’t up to talking with him about it.

We have been on a rollercoaster, and I’d thought we were on an upswing from the damage of my teenage years. I guess this will be a test of my tolerance as well. I never thought I’d have to forgive my father for his moral view, but I it looks like I will have to. The bottom line is I wont allow a philosophical difference destroy all the hard work we’ve done. He taught me better than that.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Monday, April 11, 2005

Happy Easter

When I was a kid we used to hide the eggs around the house. Well my parents did because the Easter Bunny is rather busy you know. We would decorate like 8 hard boiled eggs the night before and leave them out. Anyway, they were terrible hiders. I mean come on; those suckers would be sitting on a self. Then they were sneaky and would hide one or two in impossible spots. They would say things like, “Well I think the Easter Bunny hid alla the eggs in this room.” ~or~ “The Easter Bunny might have been tired last night and wasn’t able to reach anything over eye level.” They would also hide our Easter baskets in odd places. You really never know what you’ll find in the tub or behind the water heater on Easter morning. However, seeing as though these people are related to me, our holiday was not without its share of disaster.

How could I ever forget the time that the dog grabbed the fake grass stuff out of the Easter baskets and drag it around the house. Or what about when my brother and I were finally in charge of the eggs and forgot to boil them? There is nothing harder in this world to get out of a squirming child’s hair than egg. Of course that wouldn’t have been a problem if my brother hadn’t crushed them on my head. I think the worst was when we forgot to find one of the eggs. It took us months to figure out what that mysterious smell was coming from the living room. I think the Easter Bunny was fired that year, but I can’t be sure.

The holiday was always one of my favorites and still is when I look back on it. It’s not about the candy because my brother would steal that anyway; it was that my parents always got so into the whole thing. They didn’t just sit back and let us open presents like on Christmas, but they got their hands dirty and wandered around pretending to look for things they had hidden. For one day they too were a child.

This Easter was good but in a different way. I didn’t go to mass. There is something about me going to church as a lesbian in conservative Arizona that didn’t really appeal to me. I did buy myself a chocolate bunny, but I didn’t hide it. How sad would it be if I hid my own bunny? I did see alla my family in the morning, played with the furry monster that just learned that sleeping under the covers is the cool place to be, chatted with friends, and ordered an Easter pizza. I know it might sound like I didn’t do much but it was nice to have a relaxing day chatting with friends. Of course that was only enhanced by the fact that one was from Ireland, two from the UK, one from Australia, and a few from the states. Now let me tell you, the accents alone that I was hearing over yahoo’s voice conference were enough to make any woman in her right mind swoon. I don’t care if you are in love with someone or in a relationship; you couldn’t have heard these woman talking and not have been loving life. That alone makes for a nice day. Well that and I got to chat with people that always make me smile even if they do call me girly.

I guess the point is that I would have thought I would have missed being a kid today, or being surrounded by family. I didn’t really. I had my chocolate bunny and found myself surrounded with the same feelings that good friends bring. That’s really the point I guess. So I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday and you managed to laugh. And if you could hear a woman with an accent you really were one of the lucky ones!

"A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway.” -- Fr. Jerome Cummings

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Ah competition...

Ah competition... It’s everywhere. Generally I love it... I find it motivating, and I used to thrive on it. So much of my life has been spent in one form of competition or another. But when it reaches a point that I feel competition in my personal life or the way I relate to others, I shut down.... I give up.

Competition for the sake of it, or for spite, isn’t something I handle very well. Those kinds of games send me hiding under the bed with a stash of peanuts and Tab cola. Maybe it’s because growing up life was one great big competition. With my brother and I being polar opposites, it was only natural. And in most cases I enjoy it, or at least am inspired by it. It’s interesting that at every opportunity my family seems to foster this game of theirs. Sometimes people or situations have the ability to pit people against each other... never a good thing if you have an underling fear of not measuring up.

Now I feel I’m too old for it. Or maybe I feel in some cases that I’m just out gunned. I’ve long since believed in not playing the game if I don’t think I can win. Forget the joy of the game... I’d like there to be a goal of some kind I’m shooting for. So now when I hear that there’s some competition within my personal life, I have to fight the urge to just back away. I’ll have to find a way to ignore that I’m not holding alla the cards, and the house isn’t dealing a fair game. I think I’m going to have to see these inevitable moments in a better light, and not assume that I’ll never stand a chance. How do you convince yourself that the games you hate are sometimes the ones worth playing?

Games are everywhere, some more fun than others. But I wonder why some just seem to love them so much. There are those that seem to feed on them and the drama that surrounds them. They can’t be upfront with you, but have no problem complaining when life becomes too complicated. Why wouldn’t you just come out with what you’re saying? Why wouldn’t you say what you’re willing to tell others? This confounds me. I can’t imagine why my hiding spot under the bed isn’t more crowded and people are fighting me for the last peanut.

“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” -- Jane Austen