09 January 2001 ~ Standards and negativity...

"I got a raise," I whispered to Nathan today at work, grinning my stupid gleeful "hi-I'm-six-please-play-with-me" grin.

"That's great!" he said. "You deserve it!"

I'm not entirely sure whether I deserve it or not. I certainly don't feel like I do. But Nathan's a good friend. So is his partner, Johann (I finally gave him a name today!). They're fantastic people, and can almost always be counted on to make good news better and bad news forgotten.

I've been wondering today about why other people bother with negativity.

Peter wrote some rather disparaging comments about me in his journal yesterday: about me always trying to make myself out to be a victim and everyone else out to be monsters. That I do not speak of him or anyone else with respect. That anyone who has lived with me despises my journal. I fail to see his logic, actually. Aaron does not despise my journal. My mother doesn't. Norman and Nathan and David and Jayden don't. Besides, you fuck with me, I say something about it -- how does this make me into a victim? I think it makes me a little stronger; says that I don't necessarily take bullshit.

Why couldn't Peter have sent me an email that says, "congratulations. I still think you're a bitch, but congratulations on being recognized in the newspaper"? Would have been a little nicer than bashing me for having made some sort of accomplishment, wouldn't it?

Maybe he's just pissed off because I unlinked him and got rid of his books. Oh well. I'm not going to bother responding, or getting pissed off. I'm just going to go on about my life. I know Peter doesn't see me in a very positive light. I don't think he ever has. But that's his problem, not mine. I'm a good person at heart, and I don't take comments about my apparently inherent evilness to heart.

Someone sent me a private guestbook entry -- something about being a sick fuck, and writers being the lowest of the low. I'm not going to let that bother me, either. The word "writer" puts a bad taste in my mouth ever since college open-mike nights: kids putting on airs and Gap clothes and reading rigid, melodramatic nonsense pretending they were The Shit because they had a lot of money and called themselves Creative Writing majors. I don't consider myself a writer; I consider myself a person with an addiction to a keyboard, stationary, and a large collection of pens. Also, if I'm a "sick fuck," well, I've never heard that complaint from anybody I've, ahem, been intimate with, so I'm fairly unconcerned. Seems to me as though somebody else, some nameless stranger, has a personal problem.

What's up with this negativity? Why should people make me want to feel bad?

Someone said to me last night -- and I'll not even bother using his name, because this is ridiculously uncharacteristic of him and I don't want to make a shitty impression of someone I care about -- a comment about lowering my standards. I mentioned that I was happy; something about getting a raise, or being happy with... I don't even remember what we were talking about. He said, "don't lower your standards," and I questioned him about that. What standards am I lowering? If I'm happy, I'm happy! Should I be discontented with what I have when what I have is pleasant? I guess if I'm going to join the Revolution, I ought to be discontent, but I've no interest in Revolution, nor raising my standards such that I expect a hundred bucks an hour for doing a job I enjoy and hanging out with a bunch of people I like; such that I expect to be kicking it with beautiful millionaires and living in a brick mansion with a fireplace and a dog... I'm not interested in attaining much of anything besides a futon, a VCR, my dryer sheets, and a someday-trip to Seattle. "I would not be happy if I had your job," he said. Perhaps he meant, "I, personally, would not like to do what you do," which is entirely plausible, but I took it a little differently. I took it as: "You should be seeking something better. This is not good enough."

WHAT isn't good enough?

I could go back to school, get my four-year degree, learn a million more things, experiment with substances I've never experimented with, and have a hell of a lot more opportunity than I have now. But why do I want more opportunity? I work for people I love, I live in a place I love, and someday I'm going to go to Seattle and stalk Tom Robbins until I find him and take him out to dinner. What in the world is wrong with that? Have I lowered my standards? I think I've heightened them, honestly.

Today, I saw a movie with my friend Joey: "Goya En Bordeaux." It didn't do much for me, but he loved it. He loved the movie, he loved having tea afterwards, he loved my apartment and my kitty. He loved talking trash about people neither of us has seen in years, and giggling about blowjobs and such. What a damn friend! What a positive person! And yeah, he's a bit older than me -- graduating high school when I still had a bedtime of eight o'clock -- and working in a little shop downtown for what I expect is hardly thirty bucks an hour, but he's still quite able to smile and enjoy a nice evening with a movie and tea. I imagine Joey could get run over by a train and come up grinning. This is not a person who goes online and tells perfect strangers that they're "sick fucks."

Satisfaction ISN'T wrong. As a matter of fact, I think it makes me, and Joey, and Nathan, and Aaron, and a LOT of other people I know, a lot more worthy of oxygen than your average cynic.

There are things I look forward to, things I would like to improve about myself and my situation. But nothing impossible, and nothing that's unforeseeable. I would like to make more money, of course; it would be nice to be more financially secure. It would be nice to go back to school, I think. It would be nice to make more close friends and get a few more hobbies and all... I dunno. A lot of things would be nice. A futon, for one. A VCR, for another. But what the hell ever.

Also, I'm not a sick fuck. Or a victim.

I need to get going. Goodnight.

Make love, not bombs...
~Helena*

PS: And look what was made for me by someone I barely know! Thank you so much!

thank you, irina!