Desensitization!!!1!!11!!! (is that even spelled correctly?)
So, work is...work. Like, I mean, like, you know, am I right? Though there's this one section of the call floor they call 'The Bridge' to which I responded with the mental mantra, thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not laugh until our leader admitted, "It's a bit of a Star Trek theme, I guess," at which point we all felt free to laugh.
And there are motivational posters on the walls. They are hanging there in all seriousness. No irony in sight. Who does that? Really?
But best of all, today we had to go through DESENSITIZATION. Yeah, you read that correctly. This means that we all had a heart-to-heart about what strange things people say on the phone. Things like swear words and racial slurs and sex. Not going to lie, the racial slurs made me feel extremely uncomfortable, but the rest of it was no biggie. But there were ROLE PLAYS and the people that our leader picked to act out the role plays were homegrown, midwestern, Twilight-merchandise-carrying good girls who stumbled over announcing their wetness and completely lost it when one had to announce the possibility of allowing anal penetration later that night. Oh, sorry, "I have a surprise for you. I may let you in the ass." HAHAHAHAHA! They couldn't even say it. That made my day, I'm telling you. And that wasn't even the weirdest thing, either...talks of splinters and cheese and really, some of the most hilarious made-up dialogue I have ever seen. Literally. That I have ever seen.
Of course I was never chosen to be in a role play. My new buddy, C, and I were sitting in the back row going, "Why can't I role play? Fuck, I swear all the goddamn time. I would poker-face THE SHIT out of that crap." And I bet I could have, too. Which has led me to the realization that I do not need desensitization. This has happened for two reasons:
1) I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN TOO MUCH THEATRE. Oh, so we have to touch each other awkwardly now? I have to scream and yell for no reason? You want me to crawl around like a kitten? We have to kiss each other even though I hate your guts? So we're going to build a pool and choreograph incestuous sex to take place in it? DA, I CAN DO ZAT.
2) I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN TOO MUCH FANDOM. Especially since most of the fandoms I'm involved in are in either the 'fantasy' or 'scifi' genres. There are completely believable reasons, canonically speaking, for, I don't know, genderswapping [interesting], male pregnancy [never reading that shit again], time travel [fucking awesome], de-aging [cute!], and the ever popular ALIENS MADE THEM DO IT. Oh! And blood that can come in all different colors. And...you know...worse things. Things that I might never be allowed to erase from my brain, but in the end have left me unsurprised as to how far into the strange depths of imagination the human mind can plunge. [Don't ask. I mean, you can, I guess, and I'll tell you...you just won't thank me for it later.]
Sometimes I wonder just how naive and ignorant other people are. And how naive and ignorant I myself would be, without either theatre or fandom. MY WEIRD BRAINZ, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM.