06/29/00 (cont'd)
And still, the onslaught of e-mail and various other commentary regarding my unfortunate outburst of the other day. Jesus Christ--part of me is incredibly embarrassed, and yet the warped and twisted part of me finds it slightly amusing. Like some people have nothing better to do than to tell me things about myself I already know. Here are but a few examples:
"You need help." Well, thank you, I've been getting "help." I got "help" when I realized I was afraid of everything and everybody and that I was seriously considering chucking down a bottle of PTU, a bottle of beta blockers, some assorted antibiotics and allergy pills, and a bottle of gin. I got "help," and went from being horribly afraid to horribly angry. So in a sense, I suppose, my "help" backfired. Oops.
"You have no right..." Hmmm...free speech...ever hear of it? In this lovely country, we have every right to say whatever we want, at the expense of whoever, at whatever price, and in that right, we also have the right to be misunderstood--which X was--and to get our asses chewed for it, which we both did.
"You must not have had a happy childhood of your own." There's an observation. Did all angry people have unhappy childhoods? What psych book did you pull that one out of? And for the record, no, I didn't have a happy childhood, but that doesn't automatically create hostility. In a lot of cases, it creates the opposite--timid, frightened mice.
Oh, God, I said I wasn't going to spend days dwelling on this. But it's hard not to when the barrage just keeps coming. What really amuses me is the tone of half of these criticisms--like this has never happened to me before, and I'm probably just shaking in my boots right now thinking that all of these people are now out to get me. Please. When I was a kid, my favorite book was "Harriet the Spy," in which a kid--Harriet--who fancies herself a spy, keeps a "notebook" full of observations about her friends and neighbors. Eventually, the friends find the notebook and proceed to make her life hell in retaliation for the things she said about them. Woo-boy, could I ever relate to that...
I had a really big mouth when I was a kid. I mean, a really big mouth. My mother was constantly telling me, "that smart mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble some day." This was usually followed with her knocking me upside the head. You would think that the atmosphere in my childhood home would have taught me to keep my mouth shut, but it kind of did the opposite. I just kept my mouth shut at home. I was the kid no one really liked anyway, because I was smart, I was goofy-looking, and I was about a foot shorter than the rest of my class. (My mother always told me I'd grow--she lied.) I hated being smart, I hated being goofy-looking, I hated hated HATED being short, oh God, I hated being short. But having a big mouth made me feel...bigger, I guess. The class pretty-boy used to love taunting me about how short and ugly (and undeveloped) I was, so I started giving it back to him. I remember one such confrontation, he was standing inches from my face, hands clenched in fists, nostrils flaring...it was beautiful. I dared him to hit me, but I guess he'd been warned about hitting girls. In the 6th grade, I told my sometimes-friend Michelle one day that Angel so-and-so was a bitch. Well, she was. She had come from out of town and loved to talk about how she had been a model and even brought her stupid portfolio with all of her Jean Benet-ish pictures to school so we could all oooh and ahhhh over her. And for a 12-year-old, she had that hair flip down to a science. Michelle (who also had a big mouth) decided to try for a spot in the "in" crowd and told Angel that I had labeled her a bitch. Thing about those popular kids--they're like Texas fire ants. Within seconds, they were all over me. They had me cornered against the building on the playground, hurling insults right back to me...and I couldn't go anywhere. And I could hardly fight back, because I was surrounded. I was finally rescued by one of my former teachers who made the popular ants go "shoo."
It's just more of the same. My whole life has been Harriet the Spy. But I don't think it's because I want attention--trust me, I could do without some of the attention my big mouth has landed me. I think sometimes it's more that I want to be heard, and I want someone--anyone--to agree with something I have to say. I think sometimes it's because I feel like I'm witnessing some sort of gross injustice and I can't keep my mouth shut. I think, too, that in a lot of respects, it's because I think I'm right about everything and the rest of the world is just damned stupid.
In this most recent case, it was a misunderstanding. I really thought some of the things X had to say were direct hits, when the truth is merely that she...well, she can really be a bit obscure. Some of her entries I have read and said to myself "what the fuck is she talking about?" But the few in particular that seriously offended me, I was just looking at her words from the wrong angle. And yes, I jumped on her, hard, because I was deeply offended by what I thought she was saying. And no, it wasn't the voices in my head. And yes, I was harsh, because I'm just mean, okay? Get over it.
Well...so much for not spending days in rationalization. At any rate, I've certainly won a new title for myself--Bitch of the Web. Skippity-do-dah. And here I am, writing in my secret on-line journal, with the woman I write a whole lot of unsavory morsels about right in the same building! Man, am I on a roll or what! I can just envision her walking through that door...or better yet, sitting behind me right now, reading over my shoulder. Yes, I just looked--no, she's not.
I have determined that daytime t.v. ("Montelevision" I like to call it) is the absolute worst self-esteem builder in the world. Think about it--in between Montel and Oprah and Springer and "Forgive or Forget" you have all kinds of commercials...for "alternative" phone service ("with no credit checks, no hassle!"), for trade schools ("I'm such a loser, I need job skills today!"), and my favorite--lawyers. "If YOU'VE been injured, you need to GET PAID for your injury!" Why? Does getting hurt on the job automatically qualify you for millionaire status? I don't get it. And tampon commercials. Good God Almighty. What is with these people? "Feel as fresh and clean..." As what? A spring breeze. Hmmm...what if I live near a landfill? Those spring breezes are kind of, well, icky. Which is just how I typically feel when I need your product--not like dancing around on a big fluffy cloud. Get real.
And does anyone besides me feel sorry for Jenny Jones? All she does are makeover your sexy teen shows and hot twin shows. I guess that's all she feels safe doing after the whole Scott Amedure thing. That was so completely lame of that dickhead to try to blame her for his own ignorance and homophobia, which was probably just his own internalized homophobia and unrest with his own fag self. Jackass. "Jenny Jones made me do it." What's next? "Bert and Ernie told me to be gay?" "Mr. Rogers told me to prostitute myself with that 'every body's fancy' song?" So yeah, I feel sorry for Jenny. She probably makes all of her guests take a psych evaluation before she lets them on her show.
Almost 4:30 now. I'm going to go home and have a nap. Or try, anyway. When I'm home from work I just want to sit on my ass and eat. And laundry...ugh.
Happy hatemongering...
But wait, there's more...