I've never been a fan of my birthday, or other people's birthdays. Christmas either, but that's more recent, because of all the Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas kvetching.
I don't like having that much attention focused on me, and if you tell the restaurant crew that it's my birthday and they come and sing obnoxious songs at me, so help me, I'm going to leave you at the table with the bill.
Also, I've got enough stuff already. I keep moving to apartments and then not unpacking half my shit because I don't need it. There's a box under my bed right now that's been moved every time i move for about four years now without being unpacked all the way. It's mostly art supplies.
But, more, I hate getting gifts that I feel like I've asked for by telling someone it's my birthday. I hate people asking me what I want for my birthday. If you should be getting me a gift, you'd probably already have a decent guess. I'd rather get a gift that's not quite something I wanted, but the person put thought into it, than get a gift that they just asked me what I wanted and they got exactly that without thinking.
So, usually I just tell people to donate to a charity for me. A charity that I'd like-- I usually suggest one, so people don't go off donating to the GOP or various anti-gay-marriage "family" groups in my name. Last year it was America's Second Harvest/Feeding America.
People get pissy when I tell them this. I guess they're insulted, but I can't figure out exactly why. Maybe it's supposed to prove my friendship if I display the pointless crap they give me.
This is all leading up to the fact that I got an email from my brother the other day, wishing me a happy early birthday and telling me about my gift.
Turns out he just got to the FGM section of his human sexuality textbook in class. He says he apologises for any previous idiocy on his part, and has put a check in the mail to donate $50 to an organisation against it.
See? What's bad about that?
15.9.08
8.9.08
If your kid is a fuck up, you are a fuck up.
Okay, I think Palin is a bad choice for VP. I think this for a lot of reasons, mostly having to do with her lack of experience, blatant lying, and corruption charges. There's also that I think McCain should have said a hearty "Fuck You" to all the people telling him not to go with Lieberman or someone similarly moderate-- The Republicans are going to vote for you, the Democrats (barring the crazy ones) are going to vote for Obama. It's the undecided voters who you have to attract. If conservative voters think you aren't conservative enough, they aren't going to throw a hissy and vote for Obama (unless they're the parallels to the Clinton-> McCain people, who I suppose might exist). Go moderate! Attract the undecideds! Don't drive them away!
Anyway. I've been accused of thinking this because I'm sexist. I'm probably not going to convince these people that I'm not.
But, I think this image is hysterical. So apparently now I'm picking on her kids.
No, see, I'm not. I feel bad for Bristol. She's in an embarrassing situation (or I'd like to think it's embarrassing, but times change), and she's under media scrutiny to boot. Furthermore, I highly doubt that marrying her boyfriend is her idea (or his). I feel bad for all those kids, because there's five of them and I think that's a bad idea in general.
I'm picking on her mother. Because Bristol's pregnancy is her mom's fault. Or her dad's. Both, really. It's her parents' fault.
A teenage pregnancy represents a critical failure in parenting. I'm not saying all fuck ups get knocked up, or that if your kid isn't up the duff that you're doing fine. I am saying that, if your daughter is pregnant/your son knocked a girl up, you (singular or plural, depending on how many parents there are) fucked up bad somewhere down the line.
I highly doubt there are exceptions to this.
You, the Palin family, the Spears family, the family of anyone you knew in high school (or god forbid middle school) who was knocked up/knocked someone up, failed. There's no partial credit here. Almost doesn't count.
Your (their) failure was in one or more of these areas:
-Keeping an eye on your damn kid. I realise this isn't possible 24/7, but you should know who your kid is hanging around with and what sort of people they are.
-Raising your kid with your belief system (if applicable). I'm willing to bet Sarah Palin thinks you should stay a virgin till you're married, but evidently she didn't get that through to Bristol.
-Teaching your kid about sex and birth control. Even if you hope your kid will never use the information, even if your religion bans birth control entirely. Because (see last point) your kid may find themselves wanting that information. If you tell your kid that condoms fail more often than they succeed, and your kid doesn't use them, that is your fault. If you neglect to tell your kids that "pull & pray" is not a valid BC option, and they use that, it is your fault.
These three are supplementary reasons. They always go with this, the one thing that I've noticed in all teenage pregnancies (and related teenage fuckups like eloping with a random internet 30-year-old) :
You failed to instill the respect for her/himself and others needed to not have sex then.
Maybe you never paid enough attention to your kid and s/he thinks you don't love him/her.
Maybe you support your daughter's shopping habit instead of making sure she has self esteem that isn't contingent on others' approval.
Maybe you never had the chat with your son that every woman is someone's daughter, and possibly someone's sister or their future wife- treat her like you'd want someone else to treat your future wife.
Maybe you never told your kids that if their friends wouldn't be friends with them over something they didn't want to do, they're not their friends in the first place.
Maybe you didn't inspire your children to strive for anything better. The girls who got pregnant when I was in high school stayed in that small town, working jobs like gas station clerk and ice cream scooper. None have gotten any education after high school, not even stupid pottery courses at the local community college or anything like that. Some still live with their parents. But hey, why not have a baby in high school if no-one's ever showed you how life great can be if you get to go at it full force, if no-one's shown the confidence in you to tell you about it?
This is the vital one. Tell your kids that they don't have to have sex to be cool, they don't have to have sex to be loved. Tell them that they can see the world and have everything they never even knew they wanted, if they don't limit themselves by having a baby in high school. Make sure they believe you.
If you were a teenage parent yourself, is less damaging for you to say "I(we) love you and I couldn't live without you, but I could have given you a better life if I'd waited a few years to have you" than for you to let them believe that what you did was fine or even brilliant. If you have a first-hand example of how hard it was and how you never got the things you wanted, and you don't get it through to your kid, you are a double fuck up.
If you are the guardian of a teen who is/got someone else pregnant, you cannot call yourself a parent. Your lack of parenting ability has gimped your child's chances of a successful future. The fault for your kid's fuck up falls squarely on you. You are a fuck up.
Anyway. I've been accused of thinking this because I'm sexist. I'm probably not going to convince these people that I'm not.
But, I think this image is hysterical. So apparently now I'm picking on her kids.
No, see, I'm not. I feel bad for Bristol. She's in an embarrassing situation (or I'd like to think it's embarrassing, but times change), and she's under media scrutiny to boot. Furthermore, I highly doubt that marrying her boyfriend is her idea (or his). I feel bad for all those kids, because there's five of them and I think that's a bad idea in general.
I'm picking on her mother. Because Bristol's pregnancy is her mom's fault. Or her dad's. Both, really. It's her parents' fault.
A teenage pregnancy represents a critical failure in parenting. I'm not saying all fuck ups get knocked up, or that if your kid isn't up the duff that you're doing fine. I am saying that, if your daughter is pregnant/your son knocked a girl up, you (singular or plural, depending on how many parents there are) fucked up bad somewhere down the line.
I highly doubt there are exceptions to this.
You, the Palin family, the Spears family, the family of anyone you knew in high school (or god forbid middle school) who was knocked up/knocked someone up, failed. There's no partial credit here. Almost doesn't count.
Your (their) failure was in one or more of these areas:
-Keeping an eye on your damn kid. I realise this isn't possible 24/7, but you should know who your kid is hanging around with and what sort of people they are.
-Raising your kid with your belief system (if applicable). I'm willing to bet Sarah Palin thinks you should stay a virgin till you're married, but evidently she didn't get that through to Bristol.
-Teaching your kid about sex and birth control. Even if you hope your kid will never use the information, even if your religion bans birth control entirely. Because (see last point) your kid may find themselves wanting that information. If you tell your kid that condoms fail more often than they succeed, and your kid doesn't use them, that is your fault. If you neglect to tell your kids that "pull & pray" is not a valid BC option, and they use that, it is your fault.
These three are supplementary reasons. They always go with this, the one thing that I've noticed in all teenage pregnancies (and related teenage fuckups like eloping with a random internet 30-year-old) :
You failed to instill the respect for her/himself and others needed to not have sex then.
Maybe you never paid enough attention to your kid and s/he thinks you don't love him/her.
Maybe you support your daughter's shopping habit instead of making sure she has self esteem that isn't contingent on others' approval.
Maybe you never had the chat with your son that every woman is someone's daughter, and possibly someone's sister or their future wife- treat her like you'd want someone else to treat your future wife.
Maybe you never told your kids that if their friends wouldn't be friends with them over something they didn't want to do, they're not their friends in the first place.
Maybe you didn't inspire your children to strive for anything better. The girls who got pregnant when I was in high school stayed in that small town, working jobs like gas station clerk and ice cream scooper. None have gotten any education after high school, not even stupid pottery courses at the local community college or anything like that. Some still live with their parents. But hey, why not have a baby in high school if no-one's ever showed you how life great can be if you get to go at it full force, if no-one's shown the confidence in you to tell you about it?
This is the vital one. Tell your kids that they don't have to have sex to be cool, they don't have to have sex to be loved. Tell them that they can see the world and have everything they never even knew they wanted, if they don't limit themselves by having a baby in high school. Make sure they believe you.
If you were a teenage parent yourself, is less damaging for you to say "I(we) love you and I couldn't live without you, but I could have given you a better life if I'd waited a few years to have you" than for you to let them believe that what you did was fine or even brilliant. If you have a first-hand example of how hard it was and how you never got the things you wanted, and you don't get it through to your kid, you are a double fuck up.
If you are the guardian of a teen who is/got someone else pregnant, you cannot call yourself a parent. Your lack of parenting ability has gimped your child's chances of a successful future. The fault for your kid's fuck up falls squarely on you. You are a fuck up.
5.9.08
Diplomacy and the workplace.
I was talking to a friend about some stuff happening at my job recently, and she said "C, every time you talk about work, I'm glad I don't work in [your branch of the media]."
I was talking with another friend some time ago about the same things, and he said that what I was complaining about was why he quit the media altogether.
Now, I love my job. Really. The problem is the people I work with. I'd do it for free if it showed up under my door every morning and I never had to deal with anyone else. My meager paycheck is bribing me to show up to the office itself.
One of my coworkers, we shall call her "Evil Ad Cow"(She's not really evil, but she is quick to anger and indignation), is between me and part of my job. There are a few very small tasks I can complete in the morning without her, like opening the programs and Web sites I'll be using, but then I'm stranded until she produces the specifications of what I can use where. I have a morning prep shift from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m., this sheet of specifications was not coming into my hands until 10:40. Questioning her about it revealed that she had until noon to get it to us, and she got it to us by 10 or 10:30 as "a courtesy," but she'll see if she can't get it done earlier. (She is in another department, which has apparently not been in the loop about how we're going to get more work done across the day.)
This week, the sheet is in my inbox before I even show up! I finish my work, get it all done-- and I stop by her office on my way out, to thank her and tell her that I really appreciate her getting the sheet to me early.
"Thank you, C," she chirps back, "I had some time before a meeting this morning, I'll try to keep getting it to you early."
Look! Look how easy that was!
On the other hand, we have a co-worker of mine, whom we will call Dylan (for reasons that will become apparent if I ever tell the Other Story about him). Recently, Dylan looked over a project he had not been involved in and found it to be very sub-par.
Dylan took all the e-mail addresses he could find in our department (missing some people, including a few who did not work here anymore) and sent out a long email with the subject line of" [DEPARTMENT], You really dropped the ball!"
He went on to tell us how we (I say we, but it's two people per project and this wasn't mine) made simple mistakes that could have been caught if we had any idea what this had been about, and since we clearly didn't we should have looked online, that we should have changed X (what he wanted changed was a valid thing for this type of project, even if he disagreed), and dropped an all-caps F word along the way.
I guess in training meetings where I've explained how diplomacy gets you your results so much faster, I hadn't been looking pointedly enough at him.
"Hey guys, when you're trying to get something worked out with another department, I know sometimes it's frustrating. But if you go over and say, '[Department!] You got this wrong and you need to fix it right now,' they will get defensive and not work with you. If you go over and say 'There's a problem, and these are the options for you to fix it,' they will 99% of the time fix it on short order. So apply some tact and diplomacy, it works wonders."
Dylan's complaint about other departments is, verbatim, "they get defensive and won't work with me." But he goes over and says, loudly, "You got this wrong and you need to fix it right now" whenever there's an issue.
I'm baffled at how he's never absorbed this, never absorbed that this chat about diplomacy was based on how his own words don't work, but then I remember the Other Story and say "Well, I suppose he's an egocentric nutjob misanthrope, so I shouldn't be surprised."
At any rate. As you might guess, the people who "dropped the ball" did not come forward seeking absolution, and in fact a meeting was scheduled for our immediate boss, the boss of our department of departments, and the Editor in Chief to have a happy chat about Dylan and what they wanted to do about this.
However (breaking news, I found this out as I was typing this), Dylan opted to quit the day the meeting was supposed to happen.
Ha, ha, ha. Good riddance.
Moral of the story: If you don't want the office to think you're a dickhead who's impossible to work with, don't be a dickhead who's impossible to work with.
---
Grammar of the day: Dangling modifiers.
Incorrect: "The dump will only be taking tree branches from city residents that were damaged during the storm." Residents damaged during the storm probably have more important things to worry about than who will take their tree branches.
Incorrect: "The dump will only be taking tree branches that were damaged during the storm from city residents." The city residents were not what damaged the branches during the storm.
Correct: "The dump will only be taking tree branches that were damaged during the storm, and only city residents are eligible."
I was talking with another friend some time ago about the same things, and he said that what I was complaining about was why he quit the media altogether.
Now, I love my job. Really. The problem is the people I work with. I'd do it for free if it showed up under my door every morning and I never had to deal with anyone else. My meager paycheck is bribing me to show up to the office itself.
One of my coworkers, we shall call her "Evil Ad Cow"(She's not really evil, but she is quick to anger and indignation), is between me and part of my job. There are a few very small tasks I can complete in the morning without her, like opening the programs and Web sites I'll be using, but then I'm stranded until she produces the specifications of what I can use where. I have a morning prep shift from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m., this sheet of specifications was not coming into my hands until 10:40. Questioning her about it revealed that she had until noon to get it to us, and she got it to us by 10 or 10:30 as "a courtesy," but she'll see if she can't get it done earlier. (She is in another department, which has apparently not been in the loop about how we're going to get more work done across the day.)
This week, the sheet is in my inbox before I even show up! I finish my work, get it all done-- and I stop by her office on my way out, to thank her and tell her that I really appreciate her getting the sheet to me early.
"Thank you, C," she chirps back, "I had some time before a meeting this morning, I'll try to keep getting it to you early."
Look! Look how easy that was!
On the other hand, we have a co-worker of mine, whom we will call Dylan (for reasons that will become apparent if I ever tell the Other Story about him). Recently, Dylan looked over a project he had not been involved in and found it to be very sub-par.
Dylan took all the e-mail addresses he could find in our department (missing some people, including a few who did not work here anymore) and sent out a long email with the subject line of" [DEPARTMENT], You really dropped the ball!"
He went on to tell us how we (I say we, but it's two people per project and this wasn't mine) made simple mistakes that could have been caught if we had any idea what this had been about, and since we clearly didn't we should have looked online, that we should have changed X (what he wanted changed was a valid thing for this type of project, even if he disagreed), and dropped an all-caps F word along the way.
I guess in training meetings where I've explained how diplomacy gets you your results so much faster, I hadn't been looking pointedly enough at him.
"Hey guys, when you're trying to get something worked out with another department, I know sometimes it's frustrating. But if you go over and say, '[Department!] You got this wrong and you need to fix it right now,' they will get defensive and not work with you. If you go over and say 'There's a problem, and these are the options for you to fix it,' they will 99% of the time fix it on short order. So apply some tact and diplomacy, it works wonders."
Dylan's complaint about other departments is, verbatim, "they get defensive and won't work with me." But he goes over and says, loudly, "You got this wrong and you need to fix it right now" whenever there's an issue.
I'm baffled at how he's never absorbed this, never absorbed that this chat about diplomacy was based on how his own words don't work, but then I remember the Other Story and say "Well, I suppose he's an egocentric nutjob misanthrope, so I shouldn't be surprised."
At any rate. As you might guess, the people who "dropped the ball" did not come forward seeking absolution, and in fact a meeting was scheduled for our immediate boss, the boss of our department of departments, and the Editor in Chief to have a happy chat about Dylan and what they wanted to do about this.
However (breaking news, I found this out as I was typing this), Dylan opted to quit the day the meeting was supposed to happen.
Ha, ha, ha. Good riddance.
Moral of the story: If you don't want the office to think you're a dickhead who's impossible to work with, don't be a dickhead who's impossible to work with.
---
Grammar of the day: Dangling modifiers.
Incorrect: "The dump will only be taking tree branches from city residents that were damaged during the storm." Residents damaged during the storm probably have more important things to worry about than who will take their tree branches.
Incorrect: "The dump will only be taking tree branches that were damaged during the storm from city residents." The city residents were not what damaged the branches during the storm.
Correct: "The dump will only be taking tree branches that were damaged during the storm, and only city residents are eligible."
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