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so, some dick who used to work for my school broke in about a week ago and stole some bikes, including mine.
now, my bike was a wreck, a purple/pink/teal wreck from the early 90s that had flat tires and rust, but it's been my bike since i was about 11, and i'm really very sad that it was stolen.
so, if you didn't mind putting out some energy that it will turn up when i call around to the used bike shops, or somewhere abandoned on campus, that would be great.
keep your eyes open, too, please. it was a women's bike with a purple seat and handlebars, a teal/pink/purple splash painted frame (circa 1992) and had the words savoy carnival painted on it. i miss it.
i'm really upset about this. i feel like things are being taken from me left and right, people, possesions, all sorts of things, and i can't do anything about it.
thanks.
t
Monday, October 13, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Ain't just a river in Egypt
Denial, that is.
Denial, the process of deluding oneself about something, the refusal to face up to a disliked reality. Why do we do it? To protect ourselves, whether from something major which we don't want, consciously or subconsciously, to deal with, or from something minor which is simply unpleasant or inconvenient.
This is a blog about denial.
I'm discovering that there are kind of a lot of things that I have been in denial about for a while now. This in itself is not that remarkable. I'm one of those people who was taught as a child that repression is an art form, and who quickly mentally subverts anything that is not the way that I think it should be. Normally this is not a problem, and it's largely harmless. In many ways it's actually beneficial, because it allows me to interact calmly with people who make me crazy, and deal well with problems even if I don't want to. In fact, studies have shown that people who "repress" are actually far more productive and successful than those who don't, because they don't let things get in their way. They are more likely to adopt the "shit happens" attitude and trudge along, instead of throwing temper tantrums or being incapacitated by feelings of upset.
The reverse side of this, of course, is that when we eventually let the lid loose on something, or we come up against something that contradicts the way we think things are, the resulting fallout can be perplexing at best, devastating at worst. It can also result in people who repress things not having a very good handle on who they are, because they have squelched anything that didn't fit with what/who they were told/internalized that they were supposed to be.
In my case it's usually anger. I'm pretty good at dealing with disappointment, or sadness, or frustration, but I can be very bad at figuring out when I should be angry. So, every so often, like has been happening recently, something will click and I will suddenly realize that I really should have been angry about x event or at x person from ten years ago. And then I'm angry. But it is really such a revelatory experience, it's fairly hilarious.
Case in point, the other day I was going through some photos from the summer I turned 14. I went on a camping trip with my Dad and his friend and her two kids. She was divorced, and had these two kids who were about 10 and 8 or so, and Dad thought that it was important for them to learn how to do things like go camping even though they didn't have their father around. My step-mother didn't like camping much, but I did, so it wasn't unreasonable that we would go without her.
I didn't like this woman much, but it wasn't a big deal. She was just kind of flaky, and her kids were too wild, but it was still fun. I was just getting old enough to be aware of how adults interacted with each other, and I remember one night after we had all taken solar showers, she was wearing a dress and perfume, and I thought "what kind of nutcase puts on perfume in the middle of the Arizona desert", and then I figured out that she was flirting with my father. Which lessened my opinion of her, but that was the last I thought of it.
It wasn't until many years later when my Dad and step-mother nearly divorced, and I learned that they had been routinely cheating on each other, that I put several other pieces together about this woman ( how I was told not to talk about her and not let my step-mom see my pictures of the trip, among other things) and figured out that they had been having an affair, and were using this camping trip to facilitate it. (For the record, it was confirmed by my father. It's really not all in my head)
The best part of this story, however, is that it took me until last fall to suddenly one day sit up and go "these people used their KIDS to facilitate and extra-marital affair. not only that, they used kids who had already been through things that made them emotionally damaged. and then they made their kids perpetuate the secret. THAT'S WRONG!"
Somehow, that part had never occurred to me. And then I went through a period of being angry about it.
Anyway, that's a very long way of saying that anger is a problem for me. I've been having a lot of rage issues this fall. I've been feeling very angry at a lot of people for a lot of things, mainly things from years ago, but which I'm just now able to process. It's a strange place to be in.
The other piece of denial that is raising its head is in regard to creativity. I've been better this summer about dealing at least somewhat with the idea that I may be a creative person, and that maybe just maybe I like creating things. This is still a very scary thing for me, but I'm working on it. But specifically in the last week I've been dealing with writing denial.
I have a couple of friends who consider themselves writers, and who write as much as they can. They are always after me to write and to blog, in spite of the fact that I tell them repeatedly that I don't do those things. Last year they got me to participate in NaNoWriMo, and it was a blast. This year I realized that I am actively looking forward to it.
I never ever wanted to be a writer. Both my mom and my dad are writers, and as a kid I spent way too much time around flaky melo-dramatic "artists" and heard enough bad poetry read in smokey coffeehouses that I developed a very real dislike/disdain for anyone who considers themselves to be "writers". I feel the same about "artists", for the most part. I will be the first to admit that it is a prejudice, no question. Nonetheless, it is one that has made me very actively resist any sort of association with writers or artists, except that I end up being friends with lots of them. who knew?
So, last night, having talked to my friend about doing NaNoWriMo again this year, and setting up a new story outline on my computer, I decided to count just how many "novels" I have going. The result is over 30 on my laptop alone. Now, granted, most of them are in the outline stage, and none of them are past about 30K words, but still, the fact that I have so many just sitting there, and that I have, in spite of my very active prejudices, committed them to paper, seems as though it must be indicative of something...
My friends, may I introduce you to my denial?
Denial, the process of deluding oneself about something, the refusal to face up to a disliked reality. Why do we do it? To protect ourselves, whether from something major which we don't want, consciously or subconsciously, to deal with, or from something minor which is simply unpleasant or inconvenient.
This is a blog about denial.
I'm discovering that there are kind of a lot of things that I have been in denial about for a while now. This in itself is not that remarkable. I'm one of those people who was taught as a child that repression is an art form, and who quickly mentally subverts anything that is not the way that I think it should be. Normally this is not a problem, and it's largely harmless. In many ways it's actually beneficial, because it allows me to interact calmly with people who make me crazy, and deal well with problems even if I don't want to. In fact, studies have shown that people who "repress" are actually far more productive and successful than those who don't, because they don't let things get in their way. They are more likely to adopt the "shit happens" attitude and trudge along, instead of throwing temper tantrums or being incapacitated by feelings of upset.
The reverse side of this, of course, is that when we eventually let the lid loose on something, or we come up against something that contradicts the way we think things are, the resulting fallout can be perplexing at best, devastating at worst. It can also result in people who repress things not having a very good handle on who they are, because they have squelched anything that didn't fit with what/who they were told/internalized that they were supposed to be.
In my case it's usually anger. I'm pretty good at dealing with disappointment, or sadness, or frustration, but I can be very bad at figuring out when I should be angry. So, every so often, like has been happening recently, something will click and I will suddenly realize that I really should have been angry about x event or at x person from ten years ago. And then I'm angry. But it is really such a revelatory experience, it's fairly hilarious.
Case in point, the other day I was going through some photos from the summer I turned 14. I went on a camping trip with my Dad and his friend and her two kids. She was divorced, and had these two kids who were about 10 and 8 or so, and Dad thought that it was important for them to learn how to do things like go camping even though they didn't have their father around. My step-mother didn't like camping much, but I did, so it wasn't unreasonable that we would go without her.
I didn't like this woman much, but it wasn't a big deal. She was just kind of flaky, and her kids were too wild, but it was still fun. I was just getting old enough to be aware of how adults interacted with each other, and I remember one night after we had all taken solar showers, she was wearing a dress and perfume, and I thought "what kind of nutcase puts on perfume in the middle of the Arizona desert", and then I figured out that she was flirting with my father. Which lessened my opinion of her, but that was the last I thought of it.
It wasn't until many years later when my Dad and step-mother nearly divorced, and I learned that they had been routinely cheating on each other, that I put several other pieces together about this woman ( how I was told not to talk about her and not let my step-mom see my pictures of the trip, among other things) and figured out that they had been having an affair, and were using this camping trip to facilitate it. (For the record, it was confirmed by my father. It's really not all in my head)
The best part of this story, however, is that it took me until last fall to suddenly one day sit up and go "these people used their KIDS to facilitate and extra-marital affair. not only that, they used kids who had already been through things that made them emotionally damaged. and then they made their kids perpetuate the secret. THAT'S WRONG!"
Somehow, that part had never occurred to me. And then I went through a period of being angry about it.
Anyway, that's a very long way of saying that anger is a problem for me. I've been having a lot of rage issues this fall. I've been feeling very angry at a lot of people for a lot of things, mainly things from years ago, but which I'm just now able to process. It's a strange place to be in.
The other piece of denial that is raising its head is in regard to creativity. I've been better this summer about dealing at least somewhat with the idea that I may be a creative person, and that maybe just maybe I like creating things. This is still a very scary thing for me, but I'm working on it. But specifically in the last week I've been dealing with writing denial.
I have a couple of friends who consider themselves writers, and who write as much as they can. They are always after me to write and to blog, in spite of the fact that I tell them repeatedly that I don't do those things. Last year they got me to participate in NaNoWriMo, and it was a blast. This year I realized that I am actively looking forward to it.
I never ever wanted to be a writer. Both my mom and my dad are writers, and as a kid I spent way too much time around flaky melo-dramatic "artists" and heard enough bad poetry read in smokey coffeehouses that I developed a very real dislike/disdain for anyone who considers themselves to be "writers". I feel the same about "artists", for the most part. I will be the first to admit that it is a prejudice, no question. Nonetheless, it is one that has made me very actively resist any sort of association with writers or artists, except that I end up being friends with lots of them. who knew?
So, last night, having talked to my friend about doing NaNoWriMo again this year, and setting up a new story outline on my computer, I decided to count just how many "novels" I have going. The result is over 30 on my laptop alone. Now, granted, most of them are in the outline stage, and none of them are past about 30K words, but still, the fact that I have so many just sitting there, and that I have, in spite of my very active prejudices, committed them to paper, seems as though it must be indicative of something...
My friends, may I introduce you to my denial?
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