Saturday, November 14, 2009

Day 167: I'm Not Offended if You Call me Primitive

We are all primitive creatures at heart. Those of us who believe in evolution (and really, shouldn’t we all, even if you believe in God?) might agree that we are primitive due to biological reasons, but I think most people understand we have some needs that are largely instinctual. Primitive gets a bad rap. People immediately assume it means something negative and therefore any type of primitive urge is considered undesirable. To hell with that, I am a primitive kind of woman and I embrace that in myself.

I am all instinct and usually my instincts serve me well. My urges, my gut feelings, my desires, they have gotten me this far and my life doesn’t completely suck, so I’m okay with them. For instance, I eat what I crave. I assume that most often a craving means my body must be lacking something, so if I crave a bloody steak then maybe I need the iron. Sometimes I crave salad, sometimes I crave chocolate, they can’t all be winners. My instincts led me to my husband and he’s the best person I know, so that’s a win and every now and again my gut tells me that someone I meet is either worthwhile or not, so I listen.

This is mostly how I make friends. I tend to shy away from shallow relationships and people, so it is important to me that anyone I spend time with is someone I connect with on a deeper level. You know those people you just “click” with or else have a strong aversion to? I try to like the “right” types of people, but I just suck at it. I’d love to have a large group of women friends, but women can be cagey, petty and back-stabbing so I meet less of them with whom I have a connection. I have more guy friends because I can read them better and more easily. They either want to be friends or they want to sleep with you. There is something comforting about understanding a person’s motivations. I like complicated people, but they are more difficult.

What would a world be like if we all felt more free to act on our instincts? Would we revert to animalistic behavior in the literal sense of primitive or would we actually be happier? Without the societal constraints and mandates for behavior and interpersonal interactions we might discover what we truly need to be happy and who is actually real in our lives and who has selfish or manipulative motives. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, I realize, and my instinct-based behavior makes people uncomfortable sometimes, but I try to be as real and honest as possible. I don’t need everyone to like me or to spend my life dieting to fit some arbitrary standard of beauty. I eat mostly what I want, like who is real, love who lets me and navigate the rest as it comes. Primitive isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s definitely never boring.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Day 166: Are you Okay with Your Inner Whore?

You are a strong, independent, confident person. You know who you are and what your life is about. You never let anyone else’s opinion or judgments about you crack your exterior and cause self-doubt. Well . . . I mean, sometimes they might be right. You think you’re okay, but maybe you really are a whore, a bitch, an asshole, a loser, a user, an idiot, insert your personal adjective here. It seems that no matter how hard we work to build our self-esteem and ignore the nagging fears and doubts in the back of our mind, all that positive self-image building doesn’t always eliminate the negative.

I spend my life reassuring that inner voice that I’m living a good life, staying true to myself and that I’m okay with whatever might be said. Still, that nagging doubt lingers. When I was single it was a point of pride that I felt okay about sleeping around if that is what I wanted to do. I dated, flirted, kissed and bedded pretty much whomever I wanted if I felt like it. I did not feel like a slut, I felt sexually liberated. Mostly. I’m not a good drinker, I mean I really enjoy having a few cocktails, but my tolerance is low. I’ve never felt like I have a problem simply because I enjoy wine or whiskey and feel like it’s okay to talk about. Yet one night I overheard two businessmen who noticed my single malt talking about how “serious drinkers, even women, need stronger drinks.” So what, I’m an alcoholic because instead of 8 cheap beers, I splurged on one nice scotch?

Whatever your personal demon and insecurity, we all have them and we all spend time alternately obsessing over them and reassuring ourselves they aren’t true. I honestly believe what I tell myself, but what if I’m wrong? What if I am that loser, that idiot, that asshole? What if we never escape those self-doubts and demons? Can we live a happy life despite fearing our inner core? Are you a bad Mother? An ungrateful child? A cheater? A bad employee? I think there is a little of everything inside all of us. Perhaps the one quirk that we get judged for the most sticks in our brain and gets worked over and over until we allow ourselves to believe just a hint of it. Maybe the only real solution is to embrace our inner demons, our bitches and whores and drunks and learn to make friends with them instead of denying their existence. Maybe it is only through acknowledgement and acceptance that we can find real peace despite our flaws. So here’s to you promiscuous girl of my past, you showed me a good time and I’m okay with that.

Day 165: Do we Know What it Means to be a Guy?

While watching some bad television show the other day a male character confessed he sometimes goes to a strip club just to have a drink and get away. “Sometimes a guy just needs to be a guy,” he said. Sure, that makes sense, I get that. Wait . . . what does it mean if your guy doesn’t want to drink at a strip club just to be a guy? Is my guy broken? Is he not a guy? Am I keeping him from being a guy? What the hell is going on?

Jeff will go to strip clubs with me. I’m going to say I’m nearly 100 percent certain he’s a guy. So if it makes so much sense that a guy just likes to have a beer while watching strippers, how come my guy doesn’t wanna go? By what standards do we measure what it means to be a guy and isn’t it possible that those standards are outdated? Jeff likes women and will not object should a hot one decide to take off her clothes and dance in front of him, but he’s, well he’s a brain. Jeff is a voracious reader, consummate professional, and socially enlightened. He does not have that “typical guy” cave man quality that leads us to make generalizations such as “boys will be boys” or “that’s how guys are.” Though he’s not a sensitive 90’s guy either. You remember the 90’s? That’s when men all grew pony tails, listened to soulful grunge music and tried to be sensitive because that’s what they thought we wanted.

I like sensitive in some ways, but I don’t want my guy to be crying and reading me poetry every day. I need a man. So what does that mean? Jeff is a soldier, that’s macho. He has a hairy chest, macho. Whiskers that grow a five o’clock shadow 30 minutes after he shaves, macho. Can he be macho if he doesn’t seek out T n’ A while having a beer? I like macho men, I like sweaty, wallet chain, leather boot wearing biker types and none of those men are Jeff. So forget for a minute that we’re trying to discover what type of man my husband is and ask instead what kind of woman I am? Do I really want Dean Winchester when I have Sam Winchester (if you’re not watching Supernatural you should have started three years ago)? What smart woman wants the stereotypical guy at the strip club?

I am constantly reevaluating myself, my life, my emotional health and what I need. Jeff is not the evaluator I am in his personal life. Maybe he’s just enough hard-core male, just enough sensitive ponytail. Women have been so conditioned by fairy tales, society, high school and everything else that we believe men have to be macho jerks who dig beer and strippers. The issue isn’t finding the typical macho jerk that is also sensitive enough that you can overlook the jerk part, it’s in retraining ourselves to want what is healthy and good for us. The bad boy is actually bad. Life isn’t like a movie, Wolverine isn’t really a tortured soul, he’s just a hairy killer. I guess the answer to my second question is that I’m the type of woman that finally realized the impulse buy doesn’t make me as happy as the wise investment.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Day 164: Yeah, That's Totally on my List

I am a list maker. If there is something to be done or planned concerning my house, job, diet, exercise, holiday, vacation or life then I have surely made a list for it. I cover details and often will even put a timeline to it. Making lists is one way that feel like I have accomplished something. That is to say that a list is an organizational process forcing you to focus on what needs to be done and laying out a plan of attack for completing all of those tasks. There’s just one problem with my obsession with lists: I’m not so much a list completer.

Completing jobs added to a list takes effort and generally time away from pleasurable activities. Making the list itself is pretty much my work part of obligation. I clearly define what needs to be done and even sometimes at what point it would be ideal to do so, but then once the lists are organized I feel the need the need to order a pizza or go for a drive. I realize there is a slight flaw in my logic which leads to absolutely nothing ever being accomplished except for my recognition of what should in fact, be accomplished. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, it’s still a work in progress, perhaps I’ll add it to a list.

I realize that for most people it is the checking off of “to do” items that gives them the sense of satisfaction. I simply cut out the middle and get the pleasure and satisfaction from the list itself. I seriously advise that you try it. You may notice an increase in chaos and lack of career accomplishment, but that just gives you another list to make and really, isn’t being aware of the problems the most important part? When things get to be too overwhelming for lack of anything being done, simply go shopping, out to lunch or for a drive. You will clear your head and be ready to tackle the creation of another list cataloging what else has gone wrong. It’s a beautiful system really, it’s just that one little snag of actual progress that keeps it from being perfect. Oh well, I’ll make a list of things I can do to fix it later. Right now I need to find some wine, I think I had it on a list to buy some.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Day 163: Please Leave my Kegels Alone, I Have Enough to Worry About

So, I am looking at nine days until my husband is home from Iraq and I’m going to be honest with you, besides the happiness, I am freaking the fuck out. If I have to listen to one more person make some thinly veiled comment about how I pretty start limbering up or working on my kegels, I’m going to lose it. There is a lot of pressure on being reunited with someone after a year-long absence. It’s not just the physical people, though that is strange too, it’s the fact that you are getting to know someone again in a 24/7 way. A daily email or skype conversation is not the same as battling over how to squeeze the toothpaste or which side of the bed to sleep on. We take the living together in relationships for granted and after a year, it’s kind of like inviting your internet boyfriend to move in with you.

You may know one another as people, but the physical togetherness is a whole different story. I have lived alone in my condo for the last year. This is a new home and one that Jeff has never lived in. I suddenly have to share my closets, my dresser, my bathroom space and it feels a bit like I’m making room for a guest. I have that same hospitality hostess quality happening. I don’t really want to move all my shit, but I don’t want him to think he’s not welcome either. So it’s the day-to-day that is preoccupying me more now, but the other is lurking in the back of mind as well.

When you are in a long-term relationship, let’s face it, the sex part is . . . well, it’s familiar. That is in fact, part of what’s comforting. It wasn’t that long ago that I finally stopped sucking in my stomach with Jeff and I still prefer to back out of rooms. I mean come on, I’ve seen my naked ass, I know what’s lurking back there and it’s not my best side. The fact remains that we are married and retain intimate knowledge of one another despite our geographical distance. He’s likely seen me pick my nose – not that I’ve ever done that – and yet, there is this awkward, nervousness surrounding his coming home to live with me again.

So will it make it better? More exciting? Awkward? Who knows the reality his return will cause in our lives. We don’t have kids, which I think are the great normalizers for most people in our situation. It’s difficult to be awkward around one another when you have screaming children to look after. It’s just going to be us, my toned up kegels, a big bed that’s sagging on only one side, and that ass of mine that has been free to come and go as it pleases without worrying how it might look. Lock and load, kids, I’m about to have my first date with my husband and I have no idea how it’s going to turn out. Well, I do know that he’ll still be there in the morning and that’s really the best part.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Day 162: So Much for Do Unto Others

It is not about liberal or conservative politics, in fact, it is not about politics at all. Sometimes it is a matter of human decency. Where is the concern for others in our race to score a bigger paycheck, have a nicer house, pay more for childcare? As a society we have lost sight of our humanity. I don’t care about Capitalism or Socialism or Republicans, Democrats, the Green Party, I care about people having food, shelter, a modicum of security in a frightening world. Are you really so much more concerned with sending your child to the school down the street rather than enduring the horrors of bussing them a district over to “that” school than teaching your children that people matter, regardless of their socio-economic status, accent or social skills?

We used to teach our children to respect their elders and authority figures, which had the unwitting effect of creating a mindless group of children afraid to say no to an abuser or exert their instinctual street sense. The end result was a polite society that missed the main point, do not respect people simply because they are older or in a uniform, we should respect people because they are people. I have never agreed with the statement that people need to earn respect. Respect is a given, it can be lost, but should exist from square one. What has happened to our common sense? A woman who was the victim of rape lost her health insurance and cannot procure another policy because her being victimized necessitated counseling and anti-HIV meds in case she contracted HIV. The anti-HIV meds, standard protocol for rape victims, made her uninsurable due to a pre-existing condition. Since she didn’t actually contract HIV, that pre-existing condition is her rape.

Why do we fear change in health care to the point that we’d rather see people suffering go without than to sacrifice our own even a little? It’s not about socialism, it’s about if it is ever okay to have two percent of the population have 100 percent of the benefits and 98 percent make do with whatever they can. We all come from varying circumstances, no two lives are exactly alike, but some people I know got lucky. Raised in affluent families they could afford great schools or had contacts who gave them a leg up in their careers while others scraped and worked for everything, including just trying to figure out how to go school, what a career means and overcoming a family without education or career aspirations.

I don’t want to work hard only to see my money pay for someone else when I am barely making it on my own, but the point is that I AM making it. Some people are not and just the very fact that I am human is enough for me to want to help those who need it. If we all give a little, no one will have to give a lot and then you might not have to be bothered by people asking you for money on the streets. Can we not stop hoarding our material goods long enough to be okay with helping someone else just because they need it. We’re a society run amok. Common sense and human decency seems to have gotten left behind.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Day 161: The Surprises We Leave Behind

Have you ever put away your winter coat for the season or an old purse, suitcase, etc., and when you finally got around to wearing it again you reach your hand inside and discover forgotten treasure? Sometimes it’s money, sometimes a favorite pair of sunglasses or even just that lip gloss you loved. Every year, I get that forgotten treasure feeling when I drag out winter storage and rediscover my favorite sweater. This year, I was excited and more than a little bit daunted to dig through an entire garage worth of storage and find those beloved treasures we’d hurriedly packed, stored and forgotten for an entire year.

When Jeff deployed to Iraq we knew we’d need to leave storage behind for his return and eventual setting up of his place while I continued to live in Charlotte. Today I visited our storage area prepared to sift through long ago packed boxes of beloved books, favorite winter scarves, maybe even a few cherished mementos that somehow got lost in the packing process. Instead, what I found was the husband’s backpack stuffed to the seams with a wide variety of lost treasure.

When we moved, I packed each box carefully and laboriously labeled the contents and taped up the seams so as not to allow any insects to burrow inside. I packed almost the entire house myself, including much of the husband’s clothes and personal belongings. Jeff had only the last bit of his own things to pack the final weekend before Thanksgiving last year and then it would be done. Why is it that men are such bad packers? It’s not that he packed in a disorganized fashion or that he did not label his boxes, it’s that he combined every scrap of whatever was left, be it trash, treasure or in between and through it in boxes. As an example, I will now divulge the contents of Jeff’s backpack which I dug out of storage today after one year of languishing.

One New York Times newspaper dated April 30, 2008. One NY Times newspaper dated May 15, 2008. Several articles and scholarly papers printed and stapled together on topics ranging from guerilla warfare, the decision to invade Iraq, “Europe’s Tied Hands” and high altitude warfare. One pair winter gloves. One pair ear plugs. An Army issued stress management guide. A half bottle prescription pain killers. My eye drops. Five empty packets of Splenda. Six Simfast Optima snack bars of varying degrees of flatness. Two band-aids, various cold and sinus medications., three throat lozenges, several Emergen C drink powders and a box of “no jet lag” homeopathic pills from our trip to Vietnam two years ago. There was also three plastic bags that once housed the aforementioned NY Times. One empty Ziploc back and one Ziploc bag with a tablespoon or so of mixed nuts left in it. Finally, we come to the coup de grace: a plastic grocery bag with the remains of several moldy, crumbled M&M cookies I baked for him at some point before we moved.

It’s been an interesting and slightly gross walk down memory lane. I am currently debating between disposing of the trash and saving whatever is worth saving or leaving the whole thing to him. I suppose after a year of getting shot at I could do the nice and loving thing, then again, I’m still me. That backpack is going in his closet as a lovely surprise for his return.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Day 160: Putting Us on a Pedestal is Still Prejudice

At first when I read the story of the Fort Hood massacre I was shocked and concerned on a personal level. The husband served at Fort Hood before coming to Fort Bragg, we still own a house in the neighboring town of Kileen and his unit in Iraq is attached to a Calvary unit out of Hood. This is a little too close to home for me so I was watching the details very closely. Then the story broke of officer Kimberly Munley who reacted very quickly, responding to the call and eventually shooting Major Hassan several times while being shot herself. After reading more than one article citing Munley’s actions as the sole cause of the end of the gunman’s rampage I was prepared to believe that this was a case of one female officer using her training to stop a horrific tragedy from becoming even more deadly. Then I read the New York Times’ account

The NY Times story read much like every other story, detailing what was known of the gunman’s actions, the casualties and his eventual wounding by officer Munley. What the Times article said that none of the other articles mentioned was that Munley had a partner and that the partner might also have shot at Hassan. That’s it. That’s all that was written about officer Munley’s partner. Well, they did mention his name, that and the fact that he might also have shot at Maj. Hassan. Um, isn’t that kind of a big deal? We have an entire story about the bravery and history of Munley, but no mention of her partner aside from a one sentence introduction of his name. If this partner might have also shot Hassan and he was with Munley when she responded to the call then doesn’t that meant that THEY responded to the call?

I’m still not sure to the extent that this randomly mentioned partner might have played in the shooting, but I am struck by what is not being said. The female officer is a big story. A heroic female cop rushing to the scene, bravely taking on a mass murderer mid-rampage . . . but is that really the way it happened? More likely, Munley and her partner heard the call over their radio and being in the near vicinity decided to respond to it together. Pulling up to the scene both officers would have seen the same situation and reacted. Of the four shots that hit Hassan, how many were Munley’s and how many her partner’s? The news stories aren’t talking about that. In fact, in four separate stories I’ve read about the injuries to Hassan, only one mentioned the partner and his firing shots. How do we know all four shots weren’t his? I guess in our society we are so accustomed to male centric violence – either the criminal or the hero – that a woman’s involvement is so notable as to hijack a story. We saw this in the case of Jessica Lynch. In that scenario not only were there also men captured and wounded, but there was another woman, a black woman named Shoshana Johnson who was shot and captured.

For whatever reason our society is enamored with the idea of white women as the victim and hero to the extent that we are willing to ignore all other circumstances save our majestic white heroine. What officer Munley did, was very clearly the actions of a hero, but if she were with a partner then that glory should also be extended to him. Only when we stop exalting the heroics of the white female above others will we finally be free of the prejudice such heralding extols. Why should she be any more heroic than her male partner or a black female in similar circumstances? It is by our very attempt to point out the extraordinary, in the singling out those whom we deem the unlikeliest of heroes, that makes us sexist. Why shouldn’t a female officer or soldier react the same way a man would be expected to act? Why is Munley’s partner’s heroics less noteworthy than her own? Because she is a woman? We do Munley an injustice by suggesting her actions are heroic because she is female. Her actions, and those of her partner (should he actually exist) are heroic because of the actions themselves, not because of who it was that reacted.