I live in an area crowded with old brownstones from the ’50s, low-rises with big windows, balconies, and narrow streets between them. The illusion of it being an intimate neighbourhood is exceedingly well done.
For all its lack of imposing, stacked up against the major metropolitan downtown that’s only a few kilometres from here, it’s amazing how little I’ve met the people I’ve lived around for a decade. Maybe a third of those in my alleyway have lived here for the decade I have. Of them, I know perhaps five.
For three months now, I’ve wondered where one of them, the neighbour I overlook from my kitchen, was. I assumed some big trip around the world, since more than a few people around here have turned out to be travellers.
But then I saw her Friday for the first time in three months — more than 100 pounds heavier, looking 15 years older, tired, worn, and just about to quit — life, not just her job. My heart went through the floor. Continue reading
Tag Archives: asking for help
Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News
Sex, even mere hanky-panky, is a workout.
All that squirming and groping and thrusting makes your whole body (if you’re doing it right) tense and flex. Maybe even throb a little.
Injuries can happen in sex. Hell, people die shagging when their hearts give out. From orgasm to aneurysm, just like that. Continue reading
In Praise of Pink Slips
What a difference a day makes. 24 hours ago, I was sitting there sullenly at my desk, kind of loathing my existence. Today, I’ve got a paid day off, and tomorrow I return to the only job I’ve ever known that made me feel like I was part of a family.
It has been 12-13 years since I had a job with an asshole employer. This was the first time since that I’d had an employer that I felt was, well, unfair. I’m not going into specifics. It is what it is, and I have too developed a readership to go slagging anyone.
But let’s face it, not everyone knows how to manage. There are people who have such great personalities that they get overlooked for how they sometimes treat others, and they can be hell to work for.
I’m a big believer in learning from life as it happens. You can just dismiss things and say “shit happens,” or you can ask “why does shit happen?” Everything I ever needed to know I learned from Philosophy 101. Why?
For me it makes life so much better when I assign value to all the things that go down in my life. For every failure, I try to learn something. And whether I want to accept it or not, I was fired. I failed in some capacity, and while I consider myself fortunate to have been uninvited from that particular party, there’s a part of me that knows what rejection feels like again.
Do you ever sit back in your comfy arm chair, watching some talk show, on which is some woman telling of all the abuse she endured through her many years of marriage, and sit there, thinking, “Jesus, honey! Why didn’t you leave?! At what point do you finally clue the fuck in and say, ‘Gee, I think this might be a bad situation?’ Fuck!”
Yet how many of us work every day in jobs we hate? Jobs where you know it’s just a paycheque, baby? How many of us tolerate rude, belligerent employers who don’t know how to sit the fuck down and trust us to do the jobs we’re supposed to be hired to do? It’s psychological abuse, really, when you work in a situation like that. But because they sign our paycheques and keep the roofs above our heads, we somehow feel like they’ve got permission to treat us like they do.
And I don’t give a fuck what kind of job it is, what kind of pressure it is, it’s not too goddamned much to ask that employees everywhere get treated in a reasonably professional manner. I’m not so sure that’s how I was treated of late. Two people there were good, though. Pity about the unbalance.
So, uninvited from the party, I have to tell you that today’s the first time since about… February of this year that I’ve woken up without this palpable fear of whether all the bills are going to be paid and whether I’m gonna have my integrity intact at the end of the day. In the spring I was just financially insecure. Of late, I was underpaid and treated somewhat questionably. Different scenarios, but similar results.
I feel like a fucking mammoth weight has come off my shoulders, is what I’m trying to say. And I’m also trying to suggest that, if you’re one of those people working a job you hate, you really need to start asking yourself if the cost benefit ratio of going through THAT every single day is worth it. I mean, shit. I feel like I’ve just broken the water’s surface and am finally breathing again. I had no idea those many months were taking the toll they’ve now so obviously been taking.
I always said I was lucky to never have really had to work in a bad situation. Now I have. I’m one of those freaks that likes having difficult experiences because then I always grow. It’s my choice to gain from the situation, ain’t it? So I’m having a good day. Friday’s coming and so’s that 33rd birthday. Older? Wiser? Fucking right I am.
I wouldn’t have had the guts to quit without another job to go to. Getting fired was the only way that situation was gonna get resolved, unless one of the headhunter positions worked out. So my perfect record gets smeared. Whatever. I’m glad I’m moving on to potentially better times.
It’s one of those times where you, the reader, gets to sit back and ponder your own life’s satisfaction. Is it really going the way you want? Is it worth it to keep compromising? Think about it. Then remember one of my favourite sayings: Life’s too fucking short.
Hallelujah. I got fired. Uninvited. Ha. And look, it’s sunny out. Go fuckin’ figger.
Good news! I got fired!
Heh. Yep, you read right. I’m happy I just got fired.
I hated the job, or more accurately, one of the bosses. Worse yet: It sucked the will to write right out of me.
Putting words on a screen’s pretty fucking easy most days and I can do it in my sleep, but the GOOD writing, well, that comes from places that machines can’t mine. When the mix is off, it’s really, really difficult to get things gelling again. And, honestly, something about that job just killed my creativity.
And, being such an affable and good chick as I am, the folks I worked the last six years for are taking me back without even thinking twice. Not permanently, but “for a while” at the very least, and “for a while” is what I need.
And the moral of this story, boys and girls, is that when adversity happens, don’t think about the fucking adversity. Think about overcoming it. Within 10 minutes I went from losing a job to getting another one, in essence, and that comes from acting, not fretting.
I’m a happy camper. I lost a job I hated. I’m going back to one that had me, for some weird reason, writing better than I’ve ever written before. Methinks I’ve come out ahead.
But the good news for you is, soon I’ll be back to writing well. Don’t think I don’t know this blog’s been off-kilter for some time. I know it all too well. I already have a couple fun things planned for postings.
I’d kill to hear “Ding, dong, the witch is dead” right now, ‘cos it sums up how I’m feeling pretty nicely.
Addicted to love: When do you stop?
A reader contacted me recently to ask what had to be a very, very hard question to ask. To protect them, I have removed all reference to their identity.
Dear Cunt–
I have a major cheating problem. I love sex so much that it’s almost compulsive, almost a disorder. My love for sex has ruined every relationship I’ve been in. I can’t stop myself from cheating. Even if I’m completely happy in a relationship, my eyes are always wandering. Naturally I’m a sensation seeker, and I don’t know how to stop it. I know that it’s wrong and hurtful to cheat, yet I just keep doing it. I think maybe there is some type of psychological reason for this behavior. I’ve dated a few scumbags, but I’ve also dated some really good guys before. Either way, even if I am passionately in love, I still cheat. A friend gave me some advice recently when he said he thought that maybe I don’t feel like only ONE man can truly love me, and that is why I look to others. Have you ever heard of this situation? I feel like there is something wrong with me, like I don’t have control over it.
-Unintentionally Wanting
I’ve already responded to Unintentionally’s email, but I think it’s an important topic, and something people don’t like talking about.
Sex can be an addiction. Yes, there are folks out there snickering and saying shit like, “I’ll show you addicted…” But yes, it can be a compulsion, a life-affecting disorder. There are support goups for sex addiction, too.
I’m not a shrink. I don’t profess to have an inner Freud who can unlock the mysteries of the mind for my masses, but I’m at least a pretty with-it chick.
My speculation? Yeah, maybe, all right, maybe there are pangs of “no one man can ever love me enough,” kinds of sensations going on. Or maybe it’s something deeper, darker, like “no one man will ever love just me, so I need to protect myself and keep others on the horizon.” Or maybe it’s much more intense and buried than that. As Toucan Sam would say, “Only the nose knows. The nose always knows!”
The reasons for addictions of any kinds come from some pretty dark places. Places it takes more than just a flashlight and a curiousity to find your way around. Getting to the bottom of addictions takes courage, unflinching examination, and relentless studying. It’s hard work. It’s paralyzing at times, when you’re jumping without the only parachute that’s ever kept you insulated from the world. I don’t see why something like sex addiction would be any different.
Are you addicted? Well, has it negatively impacted your life? Have you chased away someone you love as a result? Has it ever affected your job? Has it ever affected your friendships? If you can answer yes to any of those, you might have a problem. But if you click here, you can answer a basic quiz that’ll give you a better notion on all ‘o this.
Like I says, I ain’t no shrink. I’m not some sorcerer of the psyche who’s able to wave a wand and make a diagnosis. This is my gut reaction, and the limit to which I feel comfortable commenting.
Sex Addicts Anonymous offers a support network that includes more than 750 meetings worldwide. There are online chat systems so you can talk to others like you. There are books, tapes, meetings, everything you need to have for an assessment of where you stand. Hell, there’s four or five groups that meet in my city, Vancouver, including one for gays and lesbians.
I’m betting there’s a few dickheads out there thinking, “Oh ho! Now there’s where to go when I need to be gettin’ a little somethin’-somethin’…” And if so, then it’s important to note that yes, you are indeed a dickhead. It ain’t a singles bar. These are people trying to eliminate unhealthy sex from their lives. Don’t fuck ’em, and don’t fuck with ’em.
I haven’t heard back from Unintentionally. I imagine she’s doing some soul-searching, or else she thinks I’m a twat. Either way, here’s hoping it comes together. What a shitty thing to be mired in. I’d like to hear back from you, chickie.