Kids:
A few hours ago, I landed in Los Angeles, turned on my phone, and confirmed what you already know. Sony Pictures Television is replacing me as showrunner on Community, with two seasoned fellows that I’m sure are quite nice - actually, I have it on good authority they’re quite nice, because…
We are in the darkest timeline. There is no Community without Dan Harmon. It’s dead.
(via mightyhunter)
There’s no “I” in 99% percent (if you don’t spell out 99).
(via mightyhunter)
Think Twice About Becoming Vegan
In today’s trendy artsy world, more and more young people are becoming vegan every single day. The reason most of these people become vegan is for the protection and welfare of animals. They encourage vegan meals, no meat, cheese, dairy, eggs etc. What most vegans do not realise is that there is a dirty underworld to the growing and manufacturing of this disgusting world trade that is kept well hidden from society.
Above is a picture taken in Indonesia of a carrot being prepared and slaughtered. The carrots are first skinned, then drowned, and can be eaten raw or are cooked in boiling water.
Also above is a disturbing picture of potatoes being ripped from their home. The preparation is the same as the carrots.
Bananas grow together in a herd. When they ripen, they are stolen from their family, and whilst they are still alive their skin is peeled back and their entire body is usually eaten in about 6 bites.
heartless fucking bastards.
You should see what I did to a butternut squash the other day. Brutal.
(via adampknave)
Whenever I’m in the grocery store, I always tend to look at someone’s cart and then immediately make a judgement about that person based on the contents of it. I think Webster’s dictionary defines that as “Being an judgmental asshole,” but so be it. Anyway, after one such trips to the grocery store I went home and fired up the ole’ photoshop machine and did this.
Yes, I’ve been absent from the blog. I’ve been really busy with other writing projects and a new job. Yes, a new job! I started on Monday, and so far I’m loving it. I’ll probably have things to say about that and other things soon enough, but for now I am enjoying a long weekend with Awesome Boyfriend and a fridge full of delicious Thanksgiving leftovers.
I’m taking a break from 30 Days of Truth today. I can’t think about anything else but this, so I may as well get it out there. If I don’t, I’ll only continue to lie awake until 3 a.m. with my heart pounding. Frankly, I probably will anyway, but it’s worth a try.
I’m scared shitless.
I have $400 in my bank account, with no real prospects for increasing that amount. The problem with money is that, even when you don’t have it, people want it from you. The consequence of that fact is that the day when that number becomes $40 and then $4 is visible on the horizon, and the view from there… well, if I think on that much longer I’ll have a full on panic attack. Awesome Boyfriend’s not doing much better. Due to an earlier overpayment, his unemployment benefits (which are by no means sufficient even without a garnishment) have been slashed in half.
The temporary assignment I believed would continue until the end of the year ended three weeks ago, and my agency hasn’t given me a new assignment. While I immediately applied for unemployment benefits, I didn’t work enough hours this year to qualify for benefits, because until June, I was a full-time student. Finally, my job search has become an exercise in futility. I may as well stand on the corner shouting, “please hire me!” at the top of my lungs. The only job I applied for wherein I got a response of any kind turned out to be an unpaid opportunity that “might” pay at some point. The ad, naturally, said nothing about this. Yes, please, let me devote my blood, sweat, and tears to helping you realize your dreams, random stranger. Who needs trivial things like food, winter clothing, socks without holes, electricity?
I have a roof over my head thanks to the apartment management. My mom is currently covering my phone bill. It could be so much worse, I realize, but nevertheless I feel so defeated, so desperate, paralyzed, and overwhelmed. I can tell Awesome Boyfriend does, too. The atmosphere in our apartment is so tense—the sound of teeth grinding and hand wringing is deafening. Like, street workers were sawing into the concrete across the street from us and it took me almost an hour to realize that sound was actually outside, not in my head. I fled the house holding my throbbing head and walked up to the coffee shop around the corner where I”d saved up enough stamps for a free drink. They’re playing cheesy 80s music, which slightly mutes the endless litany of worries looping in my head.
Slightly.
I thought landing in a bigger city would mean more jobs, and while that’s true, there’s also far more people competing for them, and I can’t even score an interview these days, let alone a day of work. Just a day of work.
Day 07: Someone who has made your life worth living for.
I’ve already spent a lot of time trying to live my life for others, basing my happiness upon whether the person I’m with is happy. I would fall into patterns of putting all my effort into lifting the other person up and, when ultimately unsuccessful, I’d sink into the doldrums of their depression with them. At least I wasn’t alone, right? Well, it sucked, probably for them as much as for me—it’s hard enough sometimes to be happy without the added pressure of responsibility for someone else’s happiness.
The only person who can make my life worth living is me, so I’m trying as hard as I can to be a worthwhile person who finds joy wherever she can. When my mom calls me feeling angry and hopeless, I know I can’t solve her problems, but maybe I can make her laugh. I can be concerned when Awesome Boyfriend is down, I can’t let my empathy extend so far that I’m just as inconsolable at my failure to life him up. I struggle with the balance between caring too little or too much about my loved ones’ happiness and have varying levels of success, but it’s an all-around better arrangement for all parties involved that I seek the right balance and get closer to it every day.
Certainly I attribute some of my life’s worth to the relationships I have with friends, family, and lovers. But the connecting thread is me, so the only person that can make my life worth living is me. To be more accurate, the person who makes my life worth living is the person I strive to be. She’s a work in progress, to be sure, but I like how she’s shaping up.
Day 06: Something you hope you never have to do.
The obvious answer for my friends with children is “I hope never to bury a child.” Since the question of whether or not I’ll ever procreate is still somewhat up in the air, that seems like a huge cop out for me, even if it is a terrifying thought.
Conversation with myself follows:
How about something you’ve already done, then? Something you’re doing right now, maybe?
I dunno, wouldn’t that be cheating?
I guess, but it’s your blog, your rules, remember?
Okay, fine. I hope never to get divorced again.
This last year has, in a nutshell, sucked balls. I watched the person I thought was “my person” become someone else, and I had to realize, as much as I wanted to believe he could be “my person” again, that the damage was irrevocable. And in one week, he’ll forever be my ex-person, not just for all intents and purposes, but also legally.
I’ve been struggling with that all week because, while I have moved on in most ways, I still find myself on occasion pining for the man I married. I mean, I really, really miss that guy. Perhaps I always will. On these occasions, I’ll think about that day in May, nearly four years ago, and think, wistfully, “He was my person.”
For however briefly I had my person, I’m not sure I’ll ever get that feeling again. Was that it? I’ll wonder. Was that my Great Love? Will I ever again feel, with true conviction, that I’m with the person for me?
I love Awesome Boyfriend very much, but I sometimes feel I fall short of the affection and devotion I should give him. What’s that about? It comes down to trust, only not how much I trust him. On the contrary, it has to do with how much I trust myself. I feel as though I’ll never trust myself enough to truly believe, “okay, THIS is it,” about anyone ever again.
This is really hard to write, because I know Awesome Boyfriend will read it. I worry it will make him think he’s not good enough for me, or that I don’t love him. Nothing could be further from the truth. He’s wonderful, kind, sweet, funny, loving, and I truly adore him. I’m building a life with him, and I love that life, even if we’re going through a really hard time right now, financially. No, he’s more than enough. The truth is that I sometimes worry I’m not enough for him. I worry that I’m incapable of giving him my whole heart, because some part of it belongs to someone else, even if that someone else is basically a construct of my mind. A very real-seeming, very vivid construct that I pledged my heart and soul to. And I really fucking meant it.
Part of me is still in love with this memory, and while the pain and feelings of loss fade with time, I worry it won’t ever blur into the background enough for me to focus on what’s in the foreground. Meanwhile, I think, “what if I’m with my person NOW, but this ridiculous mental astigmatism won’t let me see it?”
There are other times, times much longer than these brief periods of self-doubt, where I know with certitude that my ex wasn’t my person. There were too many things I let my love blind me to: the fact that he’d cheated in some way on nearly every woman in his life; his selfishness; his unforgiving nature; the way he nurtured grudges. I was no saint, and I own my part in the story of the end of us, but I also know that the elements were there before we said, “I do.”
But then event these realizations can feed the doubt. Acknowledging the fissures in my marriage inevitably leads me to study each tiny crack, each blemish, in my current relationship with more scrutiny than it warrants. Is this the tiny crack that will become the great fault line that separates us? If it’s not 100% right, is it all wrong? No. I know that’s wrong, but only as much as I know that logic has little to do with this.
I’m just so scared of fucking it all up again. When I think of having to go through this again, my stomach swirls with panic, because divorce is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This last year, I felt like someone amputated half of my heart. I could feel the phantom piece, throbbing away. Now, while the phantom pains are fewer and not quite so intense, I frequently fear that the love I have to give now is incomplete and inadequate without that amputated piece.
The pain of that amputation was so unbearable that I feel, when I’m having these doubts, as though I’d do anything to prevent ever feeling it again. Even if it means preventing myself from feeling true happiness again. Thankfully, I have a healthy desire for happiness. I realize that the cost of happiness lies in the fact that it takes so much work to find it and even more to keep it alive. I just hope my desire for happiness will eventually win out over my fear of losing it.
Day 05: Something you hope to do in your life.
I usually find this sort of question easy enough to answer. I have a lot of hopes. However, having been unemployed just under a week, with a rapidly dwindling bank balance, my hopes right now lean more into immediate needs:
Things like that.
I can say, however, having spent the past post-college months doing things I’d rather not, that my biggest hope is to one day have a job I can say, unequivocally, that I love to go to every morning. It has to involve (a) doing what I love most—writing—about (b) something I care about.
The two short-term jobs I’ve held down since June met one, but not both, of the criteria. The first was fundraising for non-profit organizations I really believe in. However, the job involved standing on a street corner getting rejected 45 times for every one time someone stopped to listen to what I had to say. The second involved writing and editing (hooray!) policies and procedures for a savings and loan (boooo!).
Of course, for now my most immediate hope is for any job that will allow me to cover such frivolous expenses as my phone bill and groceries. That said, one day I hope that my writing and activism powers activate; form of awesome job.
Day 04: Something you have to forgive someone for.
You know what? You don’t have to forgive everything and everyone. Some things are unforgivable. What happened to me when I was 11 years old? Not forgiving it. It’s not going to happen.
That was not just abuse or a “loss of innocence.” He shattered my family and let me take the blame for it. Few 11-year-olds (thankfully) ever experience the unique horror that comes when your mother puts your breakfast in front of you, looks you dead in the face, and says, “You ruined this family.”
Side effects include: extreme weight loss and gain and loss and gain (resulting in a cholecystectomy at 17); painful eczema; crippling depression; major trust issues.
Yep, there are definitely things I don’t have to forgive.
And you know why? Because I don’t owe you shit, man. I’m just fine holding onto this hate for you. The closest thing I have to a belief in hell is this hope that some day you’ll die. And, when you’re dead, you’ll be able to feel every inch of my hatred for you. My hate will be a color and a smell and taste and a sound that penetrates every neuron, and you’ll never escape it. And that notion of hell for you, motherfucker, makes me smile.
So anyone who wants to tell me that forgiving others is for me and I’ll feel better when I let it go, and all that peace and love bullshit? You should just know that some hate can be a warm blanket.
I do have someone I need to forgive, but that’s between me and the person I need to forgive, and that’s the truth.
