What's Going On

Quotes

  • Jennifer Finney Boylan:
    "The world is full of false hopes, most of them dumber than the hope of being transformed by love."
  • Hugh Macleod:
    “Good ideas come with a heavy burden; which is why so few people execute them. Few people can handle it.“


  • Fiona Glennane on meditation:
    “I want you to close your eyes and breathe deep. Picture a peaceful mountain stream. Can you do that? Picture yourself drowning the kidnapper in the stream.”
  • Sarah Haskins:
    "We used to just grow old and be spinsters. Now we have a lot of options: We can be spinsters or cougars."
  • The Doctor:
    "All that attitude, all that lip, 'cos all this time... you think you're not worth it. Shouting at the world 'cos no-one's listening. Well... why should they?"
  • Winter, the guy trying to visit all the Starbucks before they close:
    "Pointless though it might it be, a goal is a goal."
  • Carolyn Hax:
    Carlsbad, N.M.: How do I figure out what to be when I grow up? Carolyn Hax: I dunno, but it's easier if you grow up first, then figure it out. Otherwise you'll just change your mind when you get there.
  • Bobby Singer:
    "Are you under the impression that family is supposed to make you feel GOOD? Bake you an apple pie, maybe? They're SUPPOSED to make you miserable, that's why they're family!"
  • Dan Savage:
    "You want crazy frosting on sane cake."
  • fillyjonk on Susan Boyle:
    "What makes people stop laughing — or at least, what makes you stop caring if they do? The discovery that something about you is utterly remarkable."
  • Gregg Levoy:
    "Chaos is just going to throw on a tie-dye shirt and come to work with no pants on."
  • Carrie Fisher:
    "My mother always said to me, “Don’t be so hard on yourself, dear!” and I wanted to say, “Oh, okay! Then I won’t! I thought that it was a good thing to rough yourself up, but you say it’s not, so I’ll just stop! Thanks for the tip!”
  • deering:
    "Someone who wants to be a doctor or an engineer isn't told right off that bat that they are untalented, or impractical, or can't make it, ever. :P"
  • Jonathan Coulton:
    "This is the thing about the new landscape that drives everyone crazy: you can’t see inside the cow; you can only build one, feed it music, and wait for it to poop."
  • Andrew Ramer:
    "All life wobbles on this planet. Wobbles, or dances. As sometimes, when someone bumps into you on the dance floor, you turn to them with anger in your eyes. And sometimes, you turn to them and love stares back, and the bruise on your thigh was all worth it. So with Earth. It smiles, and rubs its hip. "When you understand fire, you no longer stick your hand in it, you contain it and cook with it. When you understand the wobble, you no longer fear it or hate it, you move with it, use it. And sometimes, when your life is a mess, when you've been in therapy for 57 years and you're still falling in love with the wrong person--stop blaming your parents or yourself. Stop and take a deep breath and say to yourself--I'm living on a world that wobbles on its axis. It has seasons and changes. And sometimes, what seems to be going wrong in my life isn't really a flaw in my nature. It's just that I haven't learned to wobble with the world yet. The Earth laughs at itself. Can you?"
  • Carolyn Hax:
    "Short description of a long process: Figure out the things that make you feel confident/fulfilled/energized; that give you a sense of purpose or accomplishment; that tap into your natural abilities and strengths; and that -don't- put you at the mercy of any one person, and orient your life around those. Often, this requires another step--concurrently or as a precursor--of reducing the role in your life of things that make you feel worthless/empty/exhausted; that require skills that don't come naturally; that feel like a waste of time; or that put you routinely at the mercy of others."
  • Kitty Norville:
    "People are always saying that to me--how can I possibly be a skeptic given what I am? Given how much I know about what's really out there, how can I turn my nose up at any half-baked belief that crosses my desk? Really, it's easy, because so many of them are half-baked. They're formulated by people trying to con other people and make a few bucks. The fact that some of this is real makes it even more important to be on our guard, to be that much more skeptical, so we can separate truth and fiction. Blind faith is still blind, and I try not to be."
  • Kitty Norville:
    "The supernatural world was like an onion. You peel back the layers, only to find more layers, on and on, hopelessly trying to reach the mysterious core. Then you start crying."
  • regicide is good for you:
    "Are ads even trying to sell anything anymore, or just keep us vaguely, constantly aware that there are generally things on sale somewhere nearby? I like this new model. People get paid to delight me, and I walk away still blissfully unaware of products."
  • Hanna Rosin:
    "One fleeting thing—an unearned pile of money, a one-night stand, a tattoo, a suddenly paralyzed teammate—can change your entire life. Accident and coincidence are more powerful than any God-driven holistic narrative."
  • B.J. Love (what a name, eh?):
    “People may think art is a waste of time because it’s not ‘goods’ that can be bought, sold and taxed, but down the road art is all we got. The only historical documents I've read from the 1860s are the Gettysburg address, a poetic speech, and Leaves of Grass and THAT is how I understand those times, and I think years from now, poetry will still be how we understand times, these time included.”
  • Seymour, "Burn Notice":
    "Don't argue with destiny. It will kick your ass."
  • NoStyleHere:
    "So I'm 48, good god man, and my experience is that every time you think life is finally starting to be less weird, it busts loose with a whole new *kind* of weird. Life ebbs and flows and changes and much of the joy of it is in its utter unpredictability."
  • Patricia Briggs:
    "As an author, I sometimes feel like the wicked witch. My job is to find someone happily minding their own business, and mess up their happy little lives until they're upset enough to get off their rump and go change something."
  • Elliot Bangs:
    "What the hell was I doing? I asked myself, more than once. But haven't you ever needed to follow a mystery past all the limits of common sense? Have you ever found yourself in a whole awful prison of a world in which every last familiar and sensible thing has finally come up hollow and pointless? Have you ever been left with nothing on which to stake all your hopes of transcendence, save one good leap into the abyss? It also suffices to say that the story would have ended here if it hadn't been for alcohol."
  • Elsa:
    For me it’s like being a horse… a thoroughbred. That "horse is born to run… pretty much that is why it is here. It can rest but the basic life is getting ready to run, running and then recovering from running. If you take a horse like that or a person like me and you tie them down, you are killing that horse. You are perverting nature. That horse is not going to thrive and God or the universe is going to be very pissed at you. He or it will also be pissed at the horse because what’s it doing standing there when it knows damned well it’s supposed to run?"
  • Carrie Fisher:
    "Now, keeping yourself impervious to mockery is a full time occupation. I’ve been working at it ever since I can remember."
  • Murdoc Niccals, The Gorillaz
    "Always be wary of people who use quotes." I don't know who said that."
  • flipside:
    "Following your heart through life is like following your feet across a piano."
  • The Doctor:
    "You want weapons? We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself."
  • Jessica Lovejoy:
    "You know what would be great? This totally impossible thing!"
  • D. Brian Burghart:
    "I’d like to be in love—if not with a person, then with a consuming new idea or project that will move me from the waiting for the next phase of my life to the real deal."
  • Anonymous:
    "If a cannibal can find someone to volunteer to be killed and eaten, surely our problems of finding the appropriate relationships to suit us are considerably more minimal."
  • Joss Whedon:
    "Honestly, it really is that little chaos factor. It's when the thing starts talking back to you. When you come up with something that is a little bit more than just a good reproduction of what was in the book, and somehow reflects you in a way that you didn't understand yourself: that's art."
  • Rasputin:
    "This is what has always bothered me about relationships. It’s never just you and your partner who get into one: It’s always you, your partner, and society. And that’s not a three-way I’m comfortable with."
  • Anonymous:
    It's funny how quickly your plans change from "changing the world and chasing your dreams" to "getting really fucking drunk."
  • Keith Olbermann:
    "You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know...It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person… Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too."
  • Lafayette from True Blood:
    "Ain't no freak gonna tell no other freak how to live."
  • Mitch Hedberg:
    "I'm tired of following my dreams. I'm just going to figure out where they're going, and hook up with them later."
  • Cathal Morrow:
    "Two truths I didn’t realise until just now: 1. I’ve always had the sense that my life is moving towards some sort higher truth 2. It’s not going particularly well"

« Valentine's Day entries, early. | Main | And that's even worse competition. »

February 11, 2005

The Five Commandments of Valentine's Day.

Bitemevalentine "The fact that I feel it neccessary to engage with this conversation is a testament to the commercialization of holidays, and just how great social pressures are at making normally strong, stable, happy people think that there's something wrong with them." -Kameron.

"Instead, it's a time when the ever-present Romance Monster really pulls out its fangs and starts ripping into people's soft, human flesh. And make no mistake, in America at least, Romance is a monster with a single-minded desire to get people to conform." -Amanda.

"It's the one day of the year you're not allowed to be single. Any other day of the year it's not unusual for me to receive the odd comment from my married friends along the lines of "You're lucky you're still living the single life." But not around Valentine's Day. Oh, no. On Valentine's Day, living la vida sola is strictly verboten." -Liv Heatherington, Hating Valentine's Day

There's two holidays- the "dating" holidays- that I dread every year. New Year's and Valentine's Day.

New Year's is one of the two major holidays that it's important to have a date on (not in quite the same way some might want dates for Christmas), or at least a swarm of people to party with. I always feel pressured to be doing something interesting and fabulous, preferably with a guy or at some place where hot guys will be, on that date. Naturally, I've only had about four NYE's in my life where I wasn't at my own house, with my parents, bored out of my damned mind and depressed looking at the party people on the television. I didn't even KNOW you were supposed to kiss someone at midnight until 1998, folks.

Valentine's Day causes similar issues, but on a much grander scale. It's more public than NYE. NYE is an afterthought to Christmas that only gets worried about for a week, tops. Plus, you go out one night, you party, or you hide in your house, and it's over. Valentine's Day, on the other hand, is all over the world for at least a month beforehand. You can't avoid having it rubbed in your face. (I'll never forget the year I was having a particularly horrible post-dumping Valentine's Day, going to work, and having my boss's husband send in a barbershop quartet to serenade her while on deadline.) You can't go anywhere or do anything without having the 5 Commandments Of Valentine's Day thrown in your face.

  • Thou shalt not be single on this date.
  • Thou shalt have a SO, and he/she must bedeck you with flowers, candy, and/or jewelry/stuffed animal/lingerie. And those flowers really better be sent to your work or school so you can show them off.
  • Thou must be taken out to a really goddamned expensive restaurant.
  • Thou must get laid.
  • Anyone who does not follow these commandments is a colossal loser and nobody loves them.

If your VD does not live up to those expectations, you feel shitty. And you especially feel shitty because you go outside of your house and look around, and see tons of people complying with the commandments. And then you start the shame spiral: Why can't YOU get that? Why are you still single? (God forbid you still be single at 42, or else everyone thinks you're a lesbian.) If you have a boyfriend, why isn't your boyfriend giving you flowers and candy today? If you have a girlfriend, is she going to be pissed off at you if you buy her tulips instead of roses because they were out of roses?

I'm always tempted to call in sick on the day (especially after The Year Of The Barbershop Quartet), except somehow circumstances always coincide to make SURE that I have to show up somewhere outside my house on that day. But it's so depressing to just have those reminded of the Commandments rubbed in your face.

I have had pretty goddamned crappy Valentine's Day's. Even when I've had boyfriends, they have been crappy. I've had my date canceled because he had to work. I've had my boyfriend go out of town that weekend (and not really um, do anything to make up for it afterwards either). I've spent so much time traveling to see a guy that I don't get there until it's too late to do anything. I think the only actual gifts I've gotten for Valentine's Day were a pile of stuffed animals he won during a work raffle.

And then there was last year, when I got dumped for it, of course. God forbid I actually request that we see each other on the day, especially since Valentine's Day that year was on a Saturday and since we were in an LDR, it was kind of sad if we didn't. *insert eye-roll here*.

And the ironic thing is, I LOVE BEING SINGLE! It's been...a year tomorrow?... and I'm still acting like the kid from Home Alone, running around the house screaming, "I'M FREEEEEEEEEEEE!" I don't miss having a boyfriend, I'm loving having my time to use as my own and doing what I want with my own money, and I'm happier now than I've been in years. I actively want to discourage guys from becoming interested in me because I can't be arsed to have my wings clipped again, even to get nookie.

So why the hell am I still upset and bitter and pissed off when the day comes around, when I don't even WANT a boyfriend?!

I admit it: I don't even necessarily want a guy to prove his love on that date so much as I just want to "keep up with the Joneses" for ONCE in my life. I want to flaunt flowers in the faces of people with flowers. I want the candy, even though to be honest I hate those candies with the goop inside and don't even eat them. I want to be shown off on Valentine's Day in a fancy restaurant NOT with my parents, wearing a skimpy dress, and finally feel like I'm having the holiday Hallmark always promised me, so I can be good enough, hot enough, and goshdarnit, SOMEBODY LOVES ME AND LOOK, HE SPENT BUTTLOADS TO PROVE IT TO THE WORLD!

Is that going to happen in my entire life? The 8-Ball says, "Doubtful." Hell, last year was the year where I realized that my parents had done much more for me on VD's (bought me jewelry and stuffed animals and dragged my sulking ass out to dinner even when I didn't want to be seen in public alone with my parents) than any guy ever had. Kind of a shocker there.

In my saner moments, i.e. not in the first few weeks of February, I don't really care one way or the other if I ever get the flowers and the candy. (Restaurants, on the other hand, are always acceptable.) I don't care about showing off that I got attention. I am generally secure when I am in relationships that the guy loves me. I don't care about bragging and flaunting then. But with all the stuff out there in the world in February, suddenly this envy monster comes out in me, and I just want to have someone publicly make me fit in with the popular crowd. And on VD, you can't really prove it by yourself without some date to take you to dinner, even if you send yourself flowers and candy with a faked note attached. And it's NOT OKAY to be single.

Every year, my feelings get hurt. I'm the queen nerd that nobody likes all over again.

I never know how to handle being disappointed, embarrassed, and shamed on this day. I can't avoid leaving the house and pretend it's not happening. There's always the people who say things like, "You should go help out at a soup kitchen!" on that day, but I just don't feel like hanging out with total strangers on the day of love, thanks. There's also the school of thought of "Celebrate love for EVERYBODY! Make valentines for your friends and even your dog! It'll be grade school all over again!", but somehow I've never managed to drag myself onto that particular bandwagon. I'm not really a "card" person anyway, and barely managed to send my parents a card this year. Then again, the fun of grade school Valentine's Day was that everyone was making and sending valentines, and it seems to me it might fall flat to be the only one making cards when everyone else isn't. (But that's me.)

And finally, there's the other typical advice, which Kameron above has mentioned doing and even Britney advises the single gals to do: "round up a group of your friends" and eat diet ice cream. Or have one of those rumored "Anti-Valentine's Day" or "I Hate Valentine's Day" parties where everyone single gets together and watches serial killer movies and bitches and has a fabulous time turning the day on its ear.

I'd ABSOLUTELY LOVE to do this one. I really would. But I can't. Wanna know why? NOBODY ELSE SINGLE IS AROUND ON VALENTINE'S DAY. Everyone I know is having a happily schmoopy date on that day. Even my lone single friend in town has (non-romantic) plans on that day. Meanwhile, my roommate, who has been similarly VD-cursed, has had the curse broken by her current boyfriend, and they shall be having the nookie, the dinner, and the gifts all night, I'm sure, since he went all out for Christmas and is known for going all out for girlfriends on Valentine's Day. And I'm just trying to think of somewhere I can go so I don't have to be home watching the boob tube while they eventually get it on at home.

I don't even want a boyfriend, and yet I feel like I should be dragged out into the street and shot on February 14 for not having one. I'm a loser and I know it on that day, and I can't seem to find a way to trick myself out of feeling like that, no matter what I try.

Stskeletor

Mgfvabitchrant_1 (This entry has won a Media Girl Feminist Valentine Blog Award.)

Posted on February 11, 2005 at 01:30 PM in Feminist Chick Talk |

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