Good Advice

Advice columns are my most guilty pleasure, even more so than chocolate, television and ice cream.  Maybe it all started in the fourth grade when I had to write a Dear Abby letter for an assignment, but I love reading the confessional style of letters, and the sympathetic or sarcastic advice that others have to share with that person and the readers.

I’ve thought about sending a letter to one of the many advice columns I read but I don’t want to post my problems out there too much.  So instead of sending this to Dear Prudence (whom I love) I’ll post my question here.  So read!  Advice is needed.

Dear Readers,

I’m having a bit of a conundrum.  Currently I work for Americorps and I’m finishing up my contract.  When I first started a year ago, I met this woman, also in my program but worked at a different site, and I developed a huge crush on her.  She and I have connected a few times and the content of our conversation has always been fun, polite and even flirty at times, but whenever I extended an invitation to hang out outside of work,she’s always declined.  I found out a few months later she was in a relationship so I backed off and went on to pursue other interests.  About two months ago she and her partner split up and she finished her contract.  I thought I was completely over it but I saw her at a party recently, and we were back to flirting again.  I’d really like to purse her friendship and a possible relationship, and I realized at this party that I still kinda like her.  However, in the past she’s always declined to spend time around me after work.  Since we’re no longer working together for the same organization and she’s single, I could attempt to pursue this again and it would be ethical.  Yet, would it be stupid?

– Aspires to be ethical and smart

High Anxiety

This life sucks right now. I would explain, but maybe I can’t.  There have been a lot of thoughts jumbled in my mind, occupying my head at all times to where I just get paralyzed and don’t do anything but watch reruns of Intervention.  Is it my job? My home life?  Is it my friend’s home life?  All that is up for debate.

Let’s start with the job.  Last week I had my performance review with my boss where I ascertained that he thinks I’m a poor worker who he wishes he could fire, that I’m too quiet and socially awkward and I need to snap out of this because the next boss I have may not be so forgiving.  He had some legitimate points.  My work quality definitely has slacked off in the past few months, but nothing I do satisfies him anyway, so I figured there’s no point in trying to please him.  He complained that he reads my neutrality as negativity and due to my introverted qualities, he doesn’t trust me to do presentations or schmooze with people, but he flipped out when I said that he and I don’t have a relationship.  Which we don’t.  It’s such a loaded word that I try to avoid using, unless it’s a verbal spoken commitment to each other that we will stay connected even when things get rocky.  Unless I have that commitment, I don’t consider what I have with the other person to be a relationship, but to be a prolonged social interaction.  It’s an argument in semantics,  but it’s one that makes my life a little easier.  For now, I’ve concluded that he just needs me to be an admin assistant, which isn’t my job description, but if it can get me through these next six weeks and get me my education award, I’ll do it.  A former VISTA like me, also had a horrible boss, and she found a real job and quit her contract, but she lost about seven grand in the process.  I’m too stubborn for that.

And yet, I want a new job.  Summertime has brought forth tons of hoochies (or as they are called up here, hoes in training)  in booty shorts and halter tops with kool aid red and purple hair, and I think I’d have more fun chatting on the cell phone walkign through the mall. Or as a barista.  Or as a stripper.  I go to MacDonalds and order my frozen yogurt ice cream cone and roll my eyes with contempt, knowing that the folks behind the counter make more money than I do.  After that scathing three hour review/therapy session I wondered, why do I even continue down this route of sacrificing so much to help others?  The next day three fourth graders who I was surprised knew my name flocked over to me at Rite Aid, clutching and hugging each limb because they were so excited to see me, and I thought, this is why I do this.  Because the people who need me the most appreciate it.  But it’s hard living without an actual wage.  And using food stamps.  And not having health insurance.  I’m not sure if I have it in me to be a full time hero.

I’ve been job searching.  Ideally I’d like to get an entry level job in PR or marketing, but I’ll settle for a grubby admin job if it allows me to get off food stamps and rent a larger space.  Since taking this job I’m envious of those people with office jobs because when they leave work, work leaves them.  With Americorps, you take your work with you, everywhere you go.  It’s haunting.  It’s like a bad ex wife, nagging you for more alimony.  Which is probably why the stipend it so low.  Living in an expensive area, you’re reminded of all the awesome things you can’t do because you commited to this.

  I feel like I’ve just been tricked into doing admin work for a sweatshop price.  On the outside my house is nice, and but my roommates telepathically communicate that I’m not one of them and they want me to leave, and I can’t because I can’t afford to.   Whenever I hang out with people I know I shift around when the check;s brought out, and even though they’ve always covered me, I wish for once, I could treat them.  To show that my generosity can extend to my wallet like it has from them so many times, but I can’t do that either. 

Or maybe my anxiety comes from the news of the neighborhood.  Last week my friend told me her brother in law was murdered and I’m trying to not let this get to me, but it’s messing with my head.  I moved across the other side of the lake six months ago, and walking home the trees are littered with posters that ask if someone has seen their lost dog, cat or iguana.  When I lived on the other side of the lake, posters graced streetlamps and poles, asking if anyone has seen their beloved father, daughter or child.  Police announcements asking if anyone has information that could lead to solving the murder of so and so are all over the city.  It’s a sad state of affairs to hear about so many people going missing and dead due to violence, but it’s shocking when it’s someone that you met, shared a glass of champagne with who cracked hilarious jokes about the Brittany and KFed affair.  He was a flesh and blood person who I met, and now he’s gone.  I didn’t even know him all that well, but it’s eerie to be close to such violence.  It’s holds a grip on you, like a praying mantis, and you never know who could be next.

This isn’t the first violent place I’ve ever lived.  In Riverside there were tons of deaths and shootings, and somehow I managed to block that out.  I didn’t full acknowledge it until one of my fellow Americorps members had a knife pulled on him by the 12 year old.  Somehow I want to go back to ignoring it, or at least to a time where my work, my roommates and loss didn’t bleed into so many other parts of my life.  I want my sushi nights back.  I want the zeal I had for going to work and helping people back.  I want my best friend back.

And yet, I know I’m not getting any of those things back.  Not ever.  And I won’t be able to move forward until this contract is over, because it’s holding me captive.  I have to endure the summer, which sucks because it’s my favorite season because fresh fruit, block parties and hanging by the pool are the memories I have from it.  But endure sounds better than get through it.  I’ll have to keep reminding myself of that.

Loud and Proud

Every spring and summer I have this inner debate with myself about my sexuality. No, I don’t mean if I want to get it on with something, but I usually think about pride. With the glimmer of the sun, longer days and warmer nights the rainbow flags, go go dancers and leather wearers abound and people come out for Pride. For the past few years I’ve wanted to go, but I always rationalize a way out of it. The most common reason is because I’m not “out” in real life to my family classmates or coworkers. Whenever I’m around a lot of gay people I tend to feel like a fraud because there is no accurate word for how I feel about my sexual orientation, just a bunch of words, so what business do I have gay crashing a place that’s meant for them to feel safe? That, and places packed with people, loud music and overpriced drinks tend to scare me. So this year when Pride was approaching, that internal debate stirred. I’m not out in my daily life. Should I go? Do I want to? So before I could overthink this, I got dressed and ran out the door for pride last Saturday.

It was in San Fransisco. It was cold. I tightened my black cotton hoodie around my waist, trying to preserve some heat which would surely be lost to the evening. Pink triangles and rainbows abound, tons of vendors selling magazines, clothing and overpriced food littered the streets. Wedding photographers took pictures of gay couples, and there was a lot of information on the marriage of equality, along with some drag queens strolling about in seven inch heels, and several naked people, who made me more cold than disgusted. The entire event was basically a way for people to commercialize their businesses and make money. No one asked me if I was a lesbian. No one commented on the way I looked. My imagination must’ve been working overtime to make Pride into a bigger event than what it really was, and I’m a little sad I stayed away from it for so long. Or maybe not. I wasn’t all that impressed.

The sky turned grey, then the sun said hi during the dykes on bikes march, then it rolled into the clouds and became a pretty navy, but really cold. I went to the block party where I got lost several times, and while I had wonderful conversations and snorted loudly, laughing at people’s jokes and how expensive the drinks were and how cold the naked people looked, I was freezing, tired and perplexed. Me at 19 would’ve loved this scene, or at least, been more tolerant of it. But at 23, I’m old, exhausted, and ready for bedtime when ten rolls around. Maybe I just wasn’t able to find what I was looking for. What was I looking for anyway?

One of the things that kept me from pride is my own struggle with my orientation. At 16 I sort of identified myself as bisexual, but wasn’t fully comfortable with it because it felt limiting. It’s not like someone who’s gay or straight. That has a particular look to it since both orientations are monosexual, and normally associated with maturity and stability. Bisexuality always seems more complicated and dubious, dirty almost. I don’t consider myself to be homophobic, but what I may have been looking for was a mirror — someone who had the same questions and concerns, to know that I’m not as crazy or confusing as I may seem. I’ve never lied about my orientation to someone I’m interested in. They deserve to know the truth. But I have been rejected or seen as inconsistent and unable to settle down because of it. And with my own experience of bisexuals I have my own gripes with bisexuality. Here are some of my pet peeves:

1. If I tell people I’m bi, they automatically want to assume what gender I’ll end up with long term.

2. That I’m always thinking about sex.

3. That my sexuality is somehow more easily accessible than a straight woman or a lesbian.

4. That my past involvement will determine my future.

5. That if I get involved with someone then my identity will somehow be put on hold and I’ll become that lesbian couple or that straight couple in order to gain privilege.

6. My gay friends may not ask about someone I’m dating if it’s a man.

7. That bisexuality is fun, hip, glamorous or trendy (I kinda blame Tila Tequila and Girls Gone Wild for this one).

8. That I’m crazy, deranged, or something else is horrendously wrong with me.

9. That if I’m on a date I need to prove I’m bisexual (example — a few years ago I went on a date with a woman who asked me to flirt with guys with her. I told her she was the only person I was interested in flirting with that evening).

10. That I’m polyamorous

11. That I’m not polyamorous (and I just cheat and sleep around)

And finally the stereotype that I absolutely positively hate hate hate:

12. That as a bisexual woman I claimed I’m bi because I made out with a girl for a guy’s approval and I really liked it, but I’ve always had relationships with men, and I’ll always chose men, and in order to appease my bi side, I may try to get some poor unsuspecting woman to join us in our bedroom to spice it up.

That last one really angers me since I’m afraid that if I openly identify as bi that’s all I’ll attract. It’s misogynistic and manipulative to treat some single woman as an oversized marital aid just so you can have something interesting to fantasize about afterwards. I feel like telling couples like these to seek out other couples, and please leave the poor cute bi girls alone. Chances are, we don’t want to be a part of your triad. And if that’s all that approaches you, chances are also likely a gay or queer woman won’t.

But how do you show that? Most days I wake up wishing I had been born completely gay or completely straight. At least then I’d have a community to be rooted and accepted in, without too many questions or limitations. But in this in the middle position (which I don’t know how to articulate) I don’t have any community to go home to. And I could explain what my sexual orientation means to me, but it sounds all jumbled and it’s a little too private for me to even say here. So I hope this gives a glimpse of what goes on in my head every spring. The same questions appeared when I was asked by various men (because no woman wanted to talk to me) what kind of girls do you like? Are you just coming out of the closet? And I reply, it’s complicated. Because it is.

In the midst of the dykes on bikes, the chubby, hairy chested bears, the cruising and 80s Madonna songs, Pride is all about the simplicity of celebration at its core (without the expensive vendors and their unnecessary gear) and where I’m at is more complex than that. Sure, it’d be nice to out to everyone where everyone knows what your orientation is and they’re okay with that, but we don’t live in that world and not every place is gay friendly. Some people can be out with everyone and others can’t. I might be one of those ones who can be selectively out, but I have to be okay with that. And maybe because I’m on my way to accepting that, Pride has lost its allure and symbolism to me. Which is a shame. I wish I’d had the courage to go years ago. I might have needed it more back then.