Gender Lines

Okay... after many clicks of my random button... I have got to ask... what is up with young girls who are turning into women and these diaries? It has become somewhat of a epidemic...but at the same time when you think about it, there has always been the image of the young girl who is turning into a woman having her little book of her secret thoughts and desires and musings. And the little boys who are turning in to men are outside running and jumping and doing the little boyman things that the little girlwoman is writing about.
So soon our little girlwomen are learning to keep their mouths shut, to keep their hearts hidden, to conceal everything that really matters to them...their anguish, their pain, their joys and their laughter. So soon our little girlwomen have realized that no one else will listen to them other than themselves, and so early they are learning that they can barely trust each other. *sighs* While the little boymen are running and jumping and fighting, having learned much much earlier that little boymen do not cry, and there is never anything wrong with them, and god forbid that they have any feelings to share. Because if the little boymen don’t act like they have no hearts, and like they have no tears, and have no fears and have no worries and no loves for things other than themselves and the thing all the other good little boymen love, they are called boywomen, and cast out of the gender.
So our little girlwomen turn all of their passions inside and hide them between thin paper and locked books, and our little boymen have no passions that are not of the body and through the flesh, and we wonder why the sexes don’t get along.

It is written...on the wall.

the Day After the Night Before

Also known as Today

It’s rather sad when you write a diary entry simply because you have a diary title that won’t leave you alone. Do I have something to say... yes.. but at the same time... it is the title that really brought me to open up MSWord and start typing.. otherwise I would have put it off as I tend to put off so many other things in my life. Any how... this was not intended to be a depressing entry, or even a very maudlin one. It is one of those entries that looks at me straight in the face and gets all rude & stuff.
What am I looking myself in the face about today? Hm... life... oh life as De’sree says... I have a decision to make... one that is really to all intents and purposes made... but there area few little points that need to be ironed out. And I have to decide what will be the deciding factor here. Of course, I am once again talking about the job offer. *sighs* yeah yeah yeah I know.. so far out of a wide range of people who I have told, only one was not wholeheartedly supportive in me taking the offer. And only because I hold him in high esteem am I even still thinking about taking the offer. So... I will do my classic listing of things ( not classic here.. but in my RWL)

Pros:
1) A nice salary
2) Good Benefits
3) Guaranteed Job after school

Cons:
1) In a different city
2) In a cold city
3) I might not like the duties


Well, the pros tend not to be the things that are argued with.. it is the cons that have to be beat down.

The fact that I will be in a city other than the one that I plan on making my permanent residence in...well, I AM only 23. If I stay up north for five years and come back... I will still be only 28.... and free of most (if not ALL debt) and really ready to settle down. The fact that it is a new city, and I will have to learn my way around, well, I would have to do that here too.. once I got a car and a real job. The fact that I will be leaving most of the people I know... well... in two years or so they will all be leaving anyway (graduation tends to do that to folx) and I would still be here all by my lonely.
Okay... the fact that the city is cold. Hmm.... my main problems with cold here is the fact that I have to be OUT in it. When I was at home and had car to house to store to where-ever access, I wasn’t bitchin about the cold half as much because I wasn’t really feeling it. I am thinking that once I have car, and since where I am working has underground parking with a direct connection to the main building, I might not have to be that cold at all.. I will have enough money to crank up my house heat as much as I like, and... *thinks* how else could I get cold?? That is about it....so the next item is
What if I don’t like what I am doing. Well... there is no guarantee that wherever I go, whether it be here or whether it be there that the first job I get will be the ONE that I want. And there is also really low to no chance of me getting the same kind of salary (comparable) that I would be getting up there, at least not here, considering that here it would have to be almost 10,000 more to equal up.

So what is left? What is holding me here...at least for right now? Sentiment? Humph. A lover? Not anymore.
Friends? None that will be here for more than two years. A love of the city? I don’t plan on being gone forever. Chasing the money? Not really... it came to me. well... I still have almost a month to think about it....maybe something will become clear...or maybe it won’t. Dammit... I REALLLLY need to talk to someone who is already in my field. Mentor.. mentor... helllloooo???? Ah. :) co-workers..... *makes a mental note*

---

Anyway... *sighs* after all that the real reason for the title. *laughs* took me long enough hmm? Anyhow... me and Tashi went out to go see a movie.. then we went to grab some food. Cool cool right? Apparently not really (this is another of those entries I am writing as the tale is unfolding). She wants to know if we are dating or if we are just friends. Why would you want to date the person you just broke up with because the could not give you what you need? *sighs* this woman is skilled at holding on. Something told me that I should have said no to going out... but I said... ‘she is your friend.. she already thinks you are going to ditch her like last months egg salad... don’t give the woman a complex’ *sighs* So...I try, yes? And I will keep trying... but I will NOT get pulled back into another relationship with her. This may sound really standoffish and almost cruel...but I think I am doing this for her own good. *sighs* she needs to be.. own her own.... and I have never liked being anyone’s crutch. I start to feel real suffocated real fast. *sighs* woman. women. What to do what to do? I refuse to cut her off... that is not my way...but at the same time... I don’t want to let her hold on. I don’t know... I will see how life goes.
Life....oh life.....

Stay Jazzed.

Seconds in Time

I don’t think that anything could hurt as much as this does here. Even as I wondered what we were going to do.. I had always assumed that we would be able to do it together. I mean damnn.. I have worked harder at this relationship...consciously worked harder at it than anything else. And yet is still fell to pieces around me. I can’t give her what she needs she says. If what she needs in someone who can drop everything for her.. no I can’t.. I have some other life-long paths in front of me. If she means someone who gives up her every waking moment to her.. no I can’t.. I would be suffocated to death. If she means someone who can love her and respect her and want to be with her...then that I can do. I thought it would be enough. I guess I was wrong.

Nothing stopping me from going to Indy now. I think I will call them Monday... iron out a few more details and sign the damn papers.

Ouch. This is really shocking me in how much it hurts. I have always been the cool and collected one.... shrugging relationships off with not a look back or a missed step. But this one...hurts. *sighs* Maybe it’s cuz I am the one getting dumped this time around. And the fact that I am quite hormonal doesn’t help either.
Shit. Whoever it was who said that sex made the world go round wasn’t lying. IT can make it go round.. or it can make it stop.

I said a looonnggg time ago that I needed to stay out of relationships. It seems like I was right. I knew it was coming to this point. I told one of my friends last night... " We have hit that discovery zone. We are diggin up things about each other that we don’t like very much" damn. I didn’t think it would be this bad...or this soon.

One thing I have noticed about me... when I feel death coming I don’t fight it... I don’t try to hold it back. I guess I have acknowledged that death is a part of every life cycle. So when I feel something is dying.. I don’t try to hook it up to life-support cuz that means nothing more than an extension of pain and a delay of the utterly inevitable.

Okay... this is odd. Why I am telling my recently ex girlfriend that dammit she CAN make it on her own. All her life relationships (lovers) have been handed to her on a silver platter. And now she feels that she will be alone for the rest of her life because the perfect person won’t just fall into her lap. *sighs* This whole situation is weird as hell. Weird Weird weird. And ya know what? I don’t feel half as shitty anymore.

Yet the one person who REALLLLLY wanna talk to...is in NY. *sighs* Papi... come home.

Stay Jazzed.

For Money or Location or Love

It’s odd how life flies...how things can change in a matter of days...seconds even. I got a job offer from the company that I went to interview with in Indianapolis today. A great offer. A wonderful offer. A freaking ASTOUNDING offer in fact. They are offering (as a base salary) 47, 000 plus a guaranteed bonus that would up the total salary to 51,000. And that is to start....my first year out of school. To say I was FLABBERGASTED is putting it mildly. But to every golden cloud there tends to be a silver lining. There are problems... one major.. one not so major. The not so major one is that I reallly want to stay in Atlanta. I love the city, I love the people here ( most of the time) and I love the weather. Indy is cold, far away, and cold. The second major problem is of course Tashi. We worked out our differences, and laid down some grounds rules that should keep this relationship intact, for a while at least. But now there is this... the whole job thing. If I do so choose to move to Indy, I KNOW that I do not want her to move with me. I am not committed enough to the relationship to ask her to tear up the roots and contacts that she has made, both professionally and socially (which are few, but that is the subject of another entry), and follow me to another city, that I don’t plan on staying in any longer than 5 years anyway. Yet, at the same time, I don’t want to trash the relationship, but hell five years is a LONG time to wait for somebody... it is a long time for an LDR, considering I am not sure if I will be able to give her that much of my time anyway. And...considering that HER family is moving out of the city in a few months, she has nothing to tie her too Atlanta either. *sighs* So.... I have this GORGEOUS job offer (which is easily 10,000 above the starting average for new grads) in a cold city, far away from the woman I am currently committed to. Add to that the fact that I have a track record of doing GREAT with my first offers and not so good with my second/subsequent offers, AND this is the only serious job offer that I have gotten. So what to do what to do?? I kinda sorta have game plan together.
1) Keep looking for jobs... in the Atlanta area (that will give me the same amount of money)
2) Wait to see what she says in her diary about it (I know I know)
3) Talk to her about it...cuz honestly she is the only thing keeping me here....away from 51,000 dollars. And considering how very-Capricorn like & money hungry I am...that is saying alot.

*sighs* Papi is asking me all the hard questions that I am sure others will. Five years, to me isn’t that long of a time. Honestly, I know that I can’t buy a house is any less that five (or maybe 7) years cuz my credit is shot to HELL. Besides I have this thing about debt. I hate having it over my head, yet I love spending money. *sighs* So my main goal would be to in five years, pay off the 25,000 worth of debt that I have now, and save at least 15,000 for a house. Plus get those years of experience that will make me worth a hell of alot more in Atlanta. Maybe even a MBA. I don’t know.... I have plenty of time to sleep on it and think about it. But I KNOW me...and that much money is an INCREDIBLE lure....

Stay Jazzed

Issues: Part 2

I did say something about a pair of issues didn’t I?? Welllll... I guess that means that I am honor bound to start spewing on the other set of issues too huh??

2) Me.
How banal... how obvious.. how utterly and fully and totally true. I think that I have more issues with myself and within my self than a little bit. And then again sometimes I wonder if I just think that I am odd in order to feel better about myself. If I worry about my own sanity in order to set myself as different from the rest of the mostly idiotic people in the world. I mean... what is there that is special about me (except my skill at breaking hearts?) So.. what are my issues with me??? I have so many that I am not sure where to start...but since I am on the whole relationship kick lets start there. I don’t interact with people very well. I don’t keep many friends (because I can cast them aside so easily) and I don’t open my heart up much. I have stopped blaming most of that on my twisted childhood, but still, I know that has something to do with it. I don’t really know how to properly interact with people.... when to know how to hold on and how to let go and when someone or something is worth fighting for. I say that I don’t blame it on my childhood because I am old enough and know enough about myself to try to start teaching myself how to be human...or at least a reasonable facsimile of one. I hit what I call my bitchy modes everyonce in a while where I really couldn’t give a flying fig about others.. and it is almost like someone else has taken over my body because the rest of the time I am almost a mushface trying to please everyone and keep everyone pleased with me. Okay.... so those are my main interpersonal issues.... then there are MY issues. Mainly the fact that half the time not only do I not know what is going on, but I don’t care. As I am writing this I wonder if I am being too hard on myself (damn near everyone else sees me as a near miracle) but I don’t think so. I am simply peeling away the layers of facade and looking dead at all of my insecurities and fears and doubts and trying to figure out how many of them are real and true and how many of them are just the loads of shit I think they are. I feel so shallow.... like a blank slide.. a blank plate.... I said in an earlier entry that I don’t have any passions.... mainly because I don’t have the depth or the backbone to hold on to them.. passions require a fight a sense of determination a sense of hope and hopefulness and determination and all of those other lovely action words that mean that you have gumption and there is a foot up you butt... even if it is your own. So....the whole exercise route that I am going I am doing mainly because I that... I figure that if I can stick to doing one thing... to making a few hours in my day count towards something that I am doing only for me...for no monetary or other outside gain... then maybe I can start having other passions... I can start REALLY writing like I used to, I can start taking the pictures that I see in my head all the time...I can start talking to people like I want to.. I can start making the friends and contacts that I need. *sighs*

Stay Jazzed.

Issues: Part 1

*sighs*
The times of my life... I tell you.. sometimes I don’t know what I am going to do with myself. I have a pair of issues that I am dealing with right now... and none of them do I know what to do with.... okay...

1) Tashi.
She isn’t an issue in and of herself. It is more how I interact with her that is the issue. I don’t know really what she wants from me and that does make a difference in how I treat her. It has too. I am afraid that she wants more than I am willing to give. In fact I know that she wants more than I am willing to give, and I have to wonder if she will be happy with what I can offer. It’s odd because I don’t write about her much, and what I do write about her tends to be really superficial...but this time I need.. I want to go down deep into our relationship. We started as partners in a three-some. I wanted her husband first, then I wanted her. I got her.. mostly to myself, and loved it. I loved that fact that I didn’t have her all to myself either. Then he got tired of seeing the love that he felt was his go to another and he left. Now I have her all to myself and I don’t know what to do with her. I don’t really want a girlfriend, not because she is a girlfriend but more because I have no freaking clue what to do with her. How to work that whole human to human interaction thing when there is a ‘relationship’ involved. I don’t know how to balance her emotions with my general cool, calm and damn near Vulcan side. I don’t know how to tell her what I want, because I don’t know what I want. Sometimes I feel that it is unfair of me to ask her to put up with me not knowing what or who I want from one moment to the next. I wonder how long she will endure it. How long I will let her endure it.
What brought all this to a head?? This past week has sucked majorly as far as our relationship goes. It started on MLK Day ( well actually the day before) when I had been at her house, or a t least with her for almost a week straight. I had to be gone and on my way by 8 the next morning and I wanted to go home. However I knew that she would not be happy about the fact that I was leaving, and so I put off asking her to take me home/to the train station. When I finally did ask her.. she got quite upset and damn near started tearing up. Now.. if there is one thing I can’t stand it is anyone evincing a dependency on me that smacks of need. *frowns* I don’t know if that came out right. I hate to feel as though I am such a part of someone that if I am not there they are not happy. It scares me, and it is more emotional responsibility than I think that anyone should have to deal with. Missing someone is cool.... if you haven’t seen them for over a month. But a day? A few days? A night? *sighs* too much drama for me. So that started my coolness. I wanted her to back off, to release some part of her need for me. Apparently I did the job slip shod and half assedly because now she says that she is afraid to ask me over, afraid to touch me for fear that I don’t want to be touched. *sighs* and that is how this past week has gone.. me not wanting to touch her cuz I think she is mad, her not wanting to touch me for fear that I will be cold. So that is the state of affairs that I am at know. And since, according to the talk that we had this morning, the stiffness that has crept into our relationship is mostly my fault.. I have to come up with some solutions to it. *shrugs* Honestly...I don’t really know what to do. So far I have only come up with three 1) Break up. Just toss the relationship out, and keep the friendship 2) Forget the whole thing ever happened. Write it off as a miscommunication and forget about it 3) Start over. Set up guidelines for each thing that happens. For each occurrence of miscommunication, gain a bureaucracy that will attempt to rule our hearts and our minds. Those have been the only things that I have been able to come up with and I am not sure that any of them will work. Which would I prefer?? I don’t know.... to me friends have always been more important and more rare than lovers. Thus... if we break up and keep the friendship, I would be happy. If we stay together and keep the friendship, I would be happy. And, giving her the benefit of the doubt, she was trying to stay friends with her soon to be ex husband. But with him the love had faded to be replaced with a kind of endurance. She put up with him, endured him, and that was about it. I don’t think that she was any longer in love with him, and that of course, makes all the difference. I think that I will do a reading with my love cards and see what they say.

Mutter Mutter blah blah blah

It’s amazing what a little time will do for a woman. I think that I have pinned down a few things about me that I had not previously noticed, based mainly on my change in diet ( or the flying leap I took from it as the case may be). Anyhow... I noticed that when I eat carbs I get ALOT more tired, more grumpy, more moody in general, and my skin looks bad. *laughs* okay...maybe I am going a bit far, but really... I think that in all honesty how I have been eating has had alot to do with the utter malaise I have been feeling.. and considering that the worse I feel the more I want to eat and the more I eat the worse I feel.... *nods* yeah a nice little cycle gets started. Anyhow.... I signed up for a rigorous pattern of exercise today...I got a little scared last night when I tried to do a high kick and my leg creaked.... I mean I KNOW that I am 23 and all but this is ridiculous. So I have a hour of weights, and a hour of aerobic Monday, Wednesday , Tuesday & Thursday, plus an hour of tone & sculpt on Monday and an hour of swimming lessons on Wednesday. All courtesy of my wonderful little school. Now the goal is to stick to it.... I figure that if I can eat right, exercise and get good grades life will be alot better.

Stay Jazzed.

1/21/00

I changed my mind. Does it really matter who reads me as long as what I write is truth?? I don't think so. The truth hurts like hell sometimes, but I have to...for my sake and for the sake of those I love and those who love me...I have to start telling the full and unvarnished truth. A level of honesty and openess that will feel like a stab in the back sometimes..and other times like an incredible level of freedom...but for my health and well being I have to.
Well...I am still reading Tashi's diary. Should I tell her this at some point? What she writes there is the unvarnished version of what she is telling me...but on a more intense more personal level. Somehow I hope that this truth telling of mine will overflow into all sections of my life. She gave me a ring that has TRUTH engraved on it. That is all she ever promised me. That is all I can ever promise her.
I have been finding gifts for people all over the place. Gifts for diffrent occasions and different reasons.
I have been looking into getting some comestic surgery done (way way in the future). The procedure is called mastopexy (breast lift) and while it may seen hopelessly vain, I have to do SOMETHING to work on this situation.

every beginning...is another beginnings end.

What are you passionate about? What excites you and brings forth joy? What would you want to do no matter what no matter where no matter why? My immediate response would have to be photography and writing/reading. But at the same time I can’t lay claim to those passions because I am not passionate about them. I don’t burn to take pictures... my hands don’t feel empty when I don’t.... I don’t feel lost when I am not writing (even though I do it so much and so casually ..maybe I am always writing) but somehow I feel that I drift through life. No.... I have figured out two of my new years resolutions.. just by looking at my life and figuring out what was wrong with it. 1) I will work out. Every day. Without fail. I have no excuse.. no reason NOT to. 2) I will tell the truth. Honest unflinching. And if I can’t tell it to myself here.. where else will I be able to tell it at?? So... in pursuit of being able to tell my own version of my truth.. the private unvarnished angry shit I told Tasha that I wrote.. I am making my diary private... yeah... I will vanish off of the face of the OD to all intents and purposes..but I never really came here for those other folx. I cam e here for me, for what I need to do...for what I need to be about. So, back to what I was saying. I don’t feel that I drift through life. I KNOW that I drift through life. Most of the major and important things that have happened e to me in my life have come about through little to no effort on my own part. I don’t think I have ever truly fought for anything. I don’t think I have ever felt passionate enough ABOUT anything to fight for it. I feel like a big fat old sloth, and most of the time I act like one too. It is sad and ugly and utterly ridiculous because it is limiting me in who I am and who I can become. So I want to try to pull some of the slothhood out of me and trample it by the roadside. I have noticed that my diet makes I difference. I have been eating carbs with a vengeance all this week and god knows I have not felt like doing anything but laying up in bed, reading, and eating more carbs *shudder* So as of Monday of next week (the 24th) I am back on my diet. Strict as ever... and maybe even a little stricter. And I will start to work out. *shrugs* NPO choice. I remember someone saying to me that they did not have the will power to be on a diet... and I told them that it wasn’t really about willpower. I t was all about saying that for my life... for my health... I have NO other choice. For my life and what I want my life to be.. I have no other choice. It isn’t an option anymore... it is a total need. It’s like saying I have the will power to breathe. HAH! No.. I have no choice. Anyway...enough about the diet and so forth... the real issue at hand is Tasha.... it’s all about Tasha. I don’t know what I want. I wonder if us being friends and only friends wouldn’t be a better thing... and then my mind comes up with will what would the major difference be. Tasha is talking about how she may spend the rest of her life alone. I don’t see that happening. And oddly enough.. that marks another difference between us. I wouldn’t really mind spending most of my life no in a relationship. I have my friends, my family and my work. I have more love than I know what to do with.. and to me sex isn’t a biggie. To her however, the thought of being alone is scary somehow... she doesn’t see the value or the strength in aloneness. In the silence and peace you can’t get any other way then being utterly by yourself. She has been in a relationship with the same man for 10 years... and yet she says that she knows herself. How can you know fully who YOU are... when most of your maturing.. your growing up has been done in the presence of one person? I told her that she was sliding out of one marriage and trying to slide right into another one. And that is the truth. She wants a ready made love affair there for her that is like the old one as much as possible... but with a woman and with the total and full truth in volved within it. I know me.... I know what plans that I have made for me life.... : ) They area good bit different from what she wants, what she plans. And I don’t know if we will be able to make those wants and planes mesh together. So am I saying that we will break up?? Not now.. no I don’t think so... but at some point in the future?? Yes... the fairytale is over and real life has poked it’s nosy little head in.... and I hope that we can spilt with peace... with a measure of dignity and calm.
Okay.... in pursuit of my NSL (non slothful life) I am about to finally clean my house as I have been saying that I will do all damn week. *sighs*

Stay Jazzed.

Dancing Dancing Dancing....with JOY!

*grins* *scatters hugs and kisses* I’m back I’m back thank the GODDESS Almighty I am BACKKKKKKK.
*sighs* I am simply afraid of all of the catching up that I have to do.. .because I KNOW that everyone (except me) has been faithfully writing in their diaries and so I will just have to go through my entire favorites list and hope for the best.
I missed you people.... thanks & extra kisses to everyone who left me a note... :) I was at ‘home’ (my mothers house) and she has a 486 computer with a 66mhz processor and a distinct aversion to working right. Add AOL 3.0 on top of that and it was a disaster waiting to happen. :) I gave up trying to access the Internet after a few hours (yes HOURS) and contented myself with checking my email everyonce in a while. Anyyhoowwww..... I think that we may have been the only people affected by the Y2K bug. My mothers computer died a peaceful death somewhere between 12/30/1999 and 01/03/00 because when I tried to boot it up after new years, it calmly informed me that not only was there no operating system on the computer, there was no hard drive to pull it from. *sighs* I kept trying to tell her to buy a new computer but nooooo.... so now she has a lovely and very expensive paperweight sitting on her desk.
What else has been going on??? Me & my Tashi are still going strong.. *grins* I am so glad that she has free cellular minutes otherwise my mother would KILL me when she saw her long distance bill. Anyhow we are going a trip together tomorrow ( this is the first night I am spending in my apartment until some point next week) and *grins* I love her more and more every day. We were out shopping today and the cashier asked us if we were best friends. *smiles* I just grinned and said ‘oh.... something like that’ and walked out the store. :) hmmmm two women glowing like that have to be best friends right??
Ummm... I did good in school last semester.... and I am kinda looking forward to this semester too... only because it will bring me closer to the time when I can be OUT OUT OUT.... :) I have to start interviewing and stuff..... well more than I am doing now because I want to have a job by May...... June at the latest.... cuz the bills and the bill collectors are startin to HOUND me.. *sighs* but that is okay.....

I think that I might transcribe some of what I handwrote over break into here...but I am not sure.. anyhow.. I gotta go.. I have a long day tomorrow and need to finish packing and get some sleep.


Stay Jazzed