America the Beautiful

And the beautifully cruel.

The current presidential election season has roused strong emotions. It seems that none of those emotions are going to do America any good though. The political climate has been rocky for years. I can't remember the last time I heard anything good said about politicians.

I understand that the house I was raised in leans towards being conservative and extremely distrustful of authority figures. It was only recently that I found out none of my friends parents would quiz them on appropriate behavior for being arrested. Every time we watched a cop show as a family my dad would mute the commercials and ask us what to say if we had been arrested for those crimes. The answer was the same every time.

"I want a lawyer."

Say nothing else, not even your name until you get a lawyer.

In retrospect it seems a little strange that my dad would be so adamant about this particular problem. Was he expecting us to be a family of bad criminals. Bad as in they are always getting caught, because good criminal don't get caught, that's what makes them good. Or was he just preparing us to live in world were people are persecuted for not following the norm. Because if that was the case it would make a lot of sense.

I don't even have any answers, it's just something that has been bothering me for a while now.

So long 2015, I really hated you.

Today is the last day of 2015 and I am so very, very glad it's going to be over. I hated this year. Looking back on all the things that have happened doesn't bring back cherry, heart warming memories. It brings back pain, loss and agony.

Several people dear to me died this year. We weren't necessarily the closest of friends, we were definitely not confidants, but they had been a back ground part of my life for years. When one person dies it's a tragedy, when another one dies it's heart breaking, when people die every couple of weeks or months it's numbing.

The worst part of death is watching my friends fall to pieces and having no idea how to help them. All the words I know mean nothing in the face of loss. I don't know how to support someone who's grieving. What can you do?

And so, it's with great pleasure I say good bye to 2015. May there never be another year like this one.

Because ... Money.

I am job hunting.

Unfortunately it appears my hunting gear is not high enough quality. I need to get a bigger net to capture them in. Which seems unfair (gasp, life is never unfair). I have great qualifications.

I will show up on time (ish), I will not smell and I will not be drunk.

Is that not a good enough reason to hire me?
What does it matter what my life goals are?
What does it matter where I have worked before?
Why do you care where I am going to be in five years?
Or ten?

Really.

No one knows. I feel like being punished for having vague goals is not acceptable. Would I like to have a white picket fence and 2.5 children?

Not really.

Does it change anything about me that I want a library attached to a fantastic bar?

Nope.

What life choices I make have no bearing on my work ethic. I inherited my work ethic from parents who are workaholics; from siblings who are perfectionists. I used to think I had no work ethic, or that it wasn't very good. Kind of like a day old salad, edible but weirdly wilted. I maintained that belief until I got out my childhood bubble. The first job I held as an adult showed me how very wrong I was. I am not a workaholic, I am not a perfectionist, I do believe in doing things in a timely manner and correctly. I am being paid to provide a service and it behooves me to get it done to the best of my ability in the shortest amount of time as possible. It is not my right to work. I am not entitled to employment. If I am doing an unsatisfactory job then I should be fired.

This is not a commonly held view point.

If more interviews and applications asked questions along those lines I would already have a job. Instead I get questions about my life plans, of which I have none, and when I can't answer or when they see through the bullshit answers I am done. They move on to the next applicant who still believes, naively, that life will actually allow a master plan. Those poor dears. Life happens and plans fall apart. It's much easier to adapt plans if they aren't hammered down in concrete and dreams.

This is how I feel after getting the "We decided to go with a more qualified candidate, but please apply to similar positions when they are posted on our site" email.

I have reached a new level of stupid

I am not a fan of bad customer service. And by bad customer service I mean these new automated answering systems that make you talk back to them. Because when you say snarky, very sarcastic things under your breath the automated lady voice thinks you're talking to her. To be fair, I was talking to her. I just didn't realize she'd respond with -

"I didn't understand what you said. To repeat this message say 'repeat' or press one."

It took about five minutes into the call for me to be offered a press a number option. Why? None of the options on the "speak to me now" menu were what I needed. I needed the "I am unbelievably stupid, please help" option. This is a great option. It should be an option on the website of every business. It means I have screwed up in a new and slightly surprising way. I need to talk to a real person to get this figured out.

The worst part was when I called back. After hanging up in a rage induced fit of pique. The evil lady, instead of saying her usual spiel, asked if I was calling about a package with this tracking number. I should have just said no, instead I said yes and got the whole "this package was not deliverable and is being returned to the original sender."

I wanted to bang my head against a wall. Repeatedly.

I feel an explanation of events is now in order. I have recently(ish) moved in with a friend. I have also recently(ish) gotten a new pair glasses. The glasses arrived about a week after I had moved. Instead of driving the ten hours it takes to get home I asked my mother to mail them to me. In a moment of unbelievable stupidity I gave her the wrong mailing address. The address I gave her doesn't exist outside of Google Maps. Yeah. I fail hard.

My mother, being the reason behind half my DNA, put the wrong address on the shipping label. My parents had also recently(ish) moved. To make a long, dramatic story kind of short. It got lost in the mailing system for a few days but eventually got taken back to the post office in Wyoming, where my mom picked it up. A few days and addresses later I got my new glasses. They are pretty nice.

The only reason we got it worked out is because I called a random post office and they gave me the number for the people I needed to call. Talking to an actual person is so much easier.

I tried to decapitate my toe

Yesterday afternoon we were getting ready for a picnic when I cut open the bottom of my toe/foot area. It was highly unpleasant. And kind of embarrassing. My mom asked me to grab something from the pantry (our pantry is like 10 feet tall). It was barely out of my reach. Instead of taking the minute or so of time to move stuff around and set up the step ladder I decided to be time efficient and just jump up and grab it.

In retrospect it does seem like a dumb decision. However, I have lived in this house for over a year and jumped up to grab items on numerous occasions. At the time it seemed a reasonable action to take.

I landed on something and it hurt. It felt like a paper cut, a sharp stabbing pain. I looked down, this was possibly another mistake. Blood had gushed out of my foot all over the floor. There was a small puddle of blood on the pantry floor that was getting bigger while I put pressure on my foot. I turned my foot over and could see into my toe. A flap of skin had popped open, it looked like someone had tried to peel all the skin off. I freaked out.

My family members all rushed to the kitchen to see what they could do to help. After looking at the wound they decided it needed stitches. They bandaged up the toe in an attempt to stop the bleeding and took my to InstaCare.

Unfortunately the place was located in an intersection that is under construction. Traffic was at a standstill and we took the side roads, which ended up being blocked off and we did a circle around the building before getting to the lot. My father was driving and was not happy with the traffic. I was sitting in the middle of the back seat with my foot propped up on the passenger side seat. I did what most people do. I texted my best friends a picture of my bandaged foot. Responding to their messages kept me from freaking out about getting stitches. I have never had stitches before. 

The clinic was basically empty. I am assuming it's because of the horrible traffic. I got in to see a doctor in what is probably record time. I am almost positive you can't really read my handwriting on the information form. I probably should have had my father fill it out, but it's a little late for that.

The nurse was very nice. I remember she had on these light blue cowboy boots and black scrubs. She also had a really nice voice when she said my heart rate was elevated. Had I not been in so much pain it would have been funny in a I wan to punch you sort of way.

Had that nurse been the doctor things would have gone better. He came in and it all went down hill from there. He was an older, heavy man with a slow, wanna be Texas drawl. (I say want to be because it's Wyoming and most people from Wyoming who try and effect a Texas drawl don't do it right.) After looking at my foot he declared it a superficial lesion slapped two bandages on it and sent me home.

It was slightly more involved than that but the whole visit couldn't have taken more than fifteen minutes. I have a gouge out of the bottom of my toe and slice out of the side. The side cut almost looks like my skin just burst open. It's disturbing to look at. What's slightly more disturbing is that the bottom gouge connects to the side slice so that half of my toe skin can flap up.

I spent most of the examination gritting my teeth and trying not to bitch every time his pudgy fingers poked the open wound. For some reason the doctor did not realize, or possibly care, that it was really only one cut. He kept saying it didn't need stitches. Now it is possible there was nothing to keep the stitches in and they would only cause more problems but that isn't what he said. The doctor also told me I would be able to walk on it with out any problems. He only told me that after I asked. He also said I could take ibuprofen or Tylenol but didn't say how often or how much. Which I found highly irritating because I try to never take pain medicine if I could to something else to alleviate the pain, like drinking more water or eating something different.

By the time I got home I had already bled through the bandages the doctor had put on. I was so tempted to call them back and bitch at him. He had specified, the only thing he'd actually told me to do, that I needed to change the bandages once a day for the next ten days or so. When I'd asked if I would need to do more than that he'd said in a very snooty voice, "Once a day will be fine."

Subtext "I am the doctor, this is not a real problem."

You know when you can just hear what someone is saying?

That's what happened then. The doctor had decided I was a young woman who came in because of a little cut. Problem solved.

Even the nurse asked if he should look at it from another angle. If you are a doctor what would it hurt to have another look at something? It would have taken less then a minute and might have possibly made my life a little easier. It's not like he had another patient to look at.

Instead of him doing his job my mother has bandaged up my toe and I've been on bed rest. Which is very boring. Very boring. And quite possibly the only reason I wrote this post. Because every time I get up and walk around blood starts leaking all over the place. It's messy and disgusting.

Super Bowls and Food Stamps.

Bread and Circuses.

Sound familiar?

It should. Many history teachers preach on the subject. How governments give the people distractions to keep them content. It's a sleight of hand technique to keep control.

All that being said. I have no problem with the Super Bowl. I like watching it; the commercials are always interesting. I am not a sports person. I don't play them and I never watch a game. The whole thing is uninteresting to me. I'd rather be reading a book. I understand that they are important to other people, some of my close friends and family members are huge fans of football. Honestly, it's more fun to watch them watching a game then to watch it myself. They get so into it.

I also have no problem with food stamps. Sure, some people are working the system but there is always going to be a group of individuals that game the system.

It's what con men, grifters, do.

I've been called naive for believing that. For believing in the goodness of people. I don't want to believe we have become so depraved that everyone one food stamps shouldn't be. I don't want to believe we've lost that much. America has always been a country of values and I refuse to believe it has changed. The values may have changed (of course), that's part of growing up, maturity adds a new perspective to life.

If nothing had changed since the founding I wouldn't be able to vote. I am a women. I am an educated women. If nothing had changed my life would have been different.

Superficially my life would have been much the same. I would still be a women, I would still have gone to college, I would still be able to think. But I wouldn't be allowed to do anything about it. I wouldn't be me. I would have grown up in a culture constantly telling me I am inferior, I am  not good enough. That I will never be good enough. Because of my gender.

It's almost laughable.
Except that it's not funny when it happens.
Not going to lie. I got a lot of that already. It just would have been exponentially worse.

I'd like to think that I would have been a spinster working in a library. That is if I was born before women were allowed to be equal. By equal I mean legally. The unwritten rules have taken longer to change. They always do.

I can't tell you how happy I am to live in a world where my opinions are valid; where I can be both an intellectual and a women. It's such a refreshing idea, women can think logically (please note that's mostly sarcastic).

But more than anything else I am happy my value is not based on relationships. I do not have to be a wife to have value. I do not have to be mother to have value. I am an asset because of my brain. Because of my work ethic. Because of my humor. Because I am a valuable individual.

I am.

Anything I want to be.
Anything I want to become.
Anything I work hard enough for.

I am a women and that is enough.

And if I am naive for believing in the goodness of people at least I am happy in my naivete.

My original point was that we can't complain about stupid government decisions when we elected  the people making those choices. (I don't care if you didn't vote for that president/governor/senator/mayor/congressperson; they got elected by the majority. Deal with it) Don't bitch when you don't care enough to research the people you elect. If you don't like the direction the country is going, do something about it. You are an important part of this era and your choices make an impact.

If you're wondering what one person can do to change a country take a look at the names below:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rosa Parks
Mahatma Gandhi
Nelson Mandela
Mother Teresa

All of those people had huge impacts on the world. They changed the fabric of their cultures. Forever.

Here are some more individuals who've had an impact on cultures, eve if it is more oblique (and not always a good thing):
William Shakespeare
Mark Twain
J.K. Rowling
Stephanie Meyer
Suzanne Collins
Joss Whedon

They all started out with an idea, a dream, something they couldn't give up. Something to live for. Regular, everyday, people who didn't give up.