(no subject)
Working so much has made it so that I don't have as much energy to update frequently like I used to. However, since LJ is such an important part of my life and my communication with my friends, I figured I should make an effort to post as frequently as I can. :)
A lot has been going on. Scott had his twenty-fourth birthday party here at our house, which was a lot of fun...and then a few days later, left us to go back to Chicago. :( I'm so happy for him that he'll be living in Chi-Town again and going to seminary with his colleagues there, but we still really miss him. Whenever I come home from work and see his now-empty room, I get all sad and stuff (he always used to be there to greet me when I got home from work and Erika was still in class). Oh well, we'll see him again in December.
Work has gotten better because I'm feeling a lot more confident about my ability to get things done correctly and stay on top of things. I've noticed about myself that whenever I start a new job, I'll suck at it for the first few weeks or so, but then one day it'll just click, everything will fall into place, and suddenly it's like, "I get it." That's kind of what's happened at Sunflower's recently, and it's a huge relief.
Although there was an incident last week when I got kinda (well, very) pissed off at my boss. She saw my UU chalice tattoo on my left shoulder blade, and asked me what it was. I told her, and when she gave me a blank face in response, I asked her if she knew what Unitarian Universalism was, and she said she'd only heard a few things but didn't know a whole lot about it. So I explained it to her, using the best "elevator speech" I could come up with at the time...something along the lines of, "It's a liberal religion that has no creed or doctrine, but believes that it's the responsibility of every individual to come up with his own theology. We believe that there's wisdom in all of the world's religions. We also place a lot of emphasis on social justice work." (I'm sure that when I actually said it, it didn't sound anywhere near that eloquent, but that was the gist of it.) And she gave me this look that I don't really know how to describe, but it looked as though she were trying to keep from saying something. Finally she said (again I'm paraphrasing), "That's interesting, but...I guess I feel that if truth is truth, how can there be multiple versions of the truth?" Which isn't a bad question to ask (as Scott pointed out to me when I told him about it), but she basically looked as though she was trying to bite back from saying that my religion is wrong. I really didn't want to get into a theological debate with her, so I just smiled faintly and said, "Well, to each their own." She said something like, "That's true," and dropped it.
It just really bothers me that she came that close to arguing with me about it. She's my friggin' boss -- not only is it unprofessional of her to discuss religion with her employees, but it's also really uncool for her to act or insinuate as though there's something wrong with my religious beliefs. I'm all for theological debates (why wouldn't I be, as a UU?), but not with my boss. I only gave her my elevator speech because she gave me such a blank look when I told her what my tattoo was; proselytizing for UUism isn't something that I really do. I thought that since she asked me what it was, and I explained, she would just leave it at that, but she didn't. It's actually made me kind of afraid to reveal anything else about myself at work....good thing that when she asked me what I was doing after work a few weeks ago, I didn't tell her that I was going to the new lesbian bar. :-P I've often wondered whether I should come out at work if the question arises during conversations with my co-workers, and this pretty much confirms to me that I shouldn't. I need this job really badly, and the last thing I need is to fall out of my boss's good graces because I'm not a straight Christian.
Um, let's see, what else...I went to an interesting party with Erika the other night. It was at the home of our friend Aaron and his roommates, Blake and Matt. It was pretty fun -- Lori from work (who I adore) was there, I had some interesting conversations with people, drank something called a "hand grenade" that was so strong it made my back hurt, and smoked a hookah for the first time. And we stayed there til 6 in the morning -- I haven't partied for that long in forever! One thing about it that kind of weirded me out though was that I met this guy named Mike, who is a colleague/classmate of many of the people there. We started talking because we've both been to Ireland and the U.K., and it turns out we had a lot of things in common in terms of books and music we like. So at first I thought he was pretty cool, and even exchanged information with him and discussed the possibility of us hanging out or talking about books and music again. But then, later in the night, he started getting way too friendly (and it wasn't even the influence of alcohol or other substances). He started sitting way too close to me, touching my knee when he talked to me, and at one point he leaned over to whisper in my ear but I never got to hear what it was he was saying because everyone started looking at us. I don't blame them for being weirded out; I was weirded out myself. And then, right before we left, I walked up to Erika and started snuggling her, and Mike actually came up and snuggled me with his arm around my waist. Here's the thing: not only had I just met this guy, but he's 41. He's eighteen years older than me. I don't typically discriminate based on age, but when it comes to strangers being that touchy with me, that kind of age difference makes me feel even more uncomfortable. It's like this guy met me, saw that we had all these things in common, and immediately decided that we were soulmates or something and that he was going to latch onto me like a leech. Not cool at all. (As I later told Erika and Aaron, if I'd felt something poking me in the back when he latched onto me, I would have had to choke a bitch.) The next day he emailed me, but I haven't responded to it yet. I'm torn between just ignoring it and forgetting that we ever met, or actually emailing him back and saying, "Dude, you freaked me out. You came on way too friendly and you're almost twenty years my senior." But I don't know which I should do. I did change my sexual orientation on MySpace to lesbian though in the hopes that maybe he'll get the hint and leave me alone. XD
To change topics...I've been trying to write (as always), and it's been going neither well nor badly. I came up with an idea for an original story recently, a sort of dark fairytale in the vein of Hans Christian Andersen, but I have yet to figure out all the details for it. So I've just been doing a lot of brainstorming and outlining...which, while not "real" writing, is better than nothing. I don't know what it is, but it's just so hard for me to come up with anything original, from what my characters look like to what kind of people they are to what happens in the plot; my imagination just isn't working well lately. I don't know if my brain is fried from having been in school for so long, or what. I just hope that soon, I can get the gears of my imagination to start working again and find the "spark" that I need to come up with something amazing. Because I know it's in me, somewhere, I just don't know where...
My 24th birthday is next Wednesday, the 12th. I decided that I'm going to go out with my family that night, and then have a low-key get together with my friends the following Saturday night. I also am planning this weekend to go to Warlocks (a tattoo parlor in our area) and talk to them about getting some ink done soon. For a long time, I've been wanting to get my UU chalice tattoo touched up because it's gotten faded and its linework isn't the greatest. But I also want to add some words in Coptic Greek to it from The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. The quote is, "Those who have ears, let them hear." It pretty much sums up everything I feel about how being a UU means keeping an open mind and not shutting out any ideas. Like everyone else, I'm not always as open-minded as I could be, so it could serve as a reminder to myself as well as a statement about what I already believe. If the tattoo artists can do it the way I want it, the Coptic Greek words will bend around my pre-existing tattoo in a kind of circle. I can't wait to get it done, as I've had this idea for a very long time. Of course, I'll post pictures of it once it's done. :)
A lot has been going on. Scott had his twenty-fourth birthday party here at our house, which was a lot of fun...and then a few days later, left us to go back to Chicago. :( I'm so happy for him that he'll be living in Chi-Town again and going to seminary with his colleagues there, but we still really miss him. Whenever I come home from work and see his now-empty room, I get all sad and stuff (he always used to be there to greet me when I got home from work and Erika was still in class). Oh well, we'll see him again in December.
Work has gotten better because I'm feeling a lot more confident about my ability to get things done correctly and stay on top of things. I've noticed about myself that whenever I start a new job, I'll suck at it for the first few weeks or so, but then one day it'll just click, everything will fall into place, and suddenly it's like, "I get it." That's kind of what's happened at Sunflower's recently, and it's a huge relief.
Although there was an incident last week when I got kinda (well, very) pissed off at my boss. She saw my UU chalice tattoo on my left shoulder blade, and asked me what it was. I told her, and when she gave me a blank face in response, I asked her if she knew what Unitarian Universalism was, and she said she'd only heard a few things but didn't know a whole lot about it. So I explained it to her, using the best "elevator speech" I could come up with at the time...something along the lines of, "It's a liberal religion that has no creed or doctrine, but believes that it's the responsibility of every individual to come up with his own theology. We believe that there's wisdom in all of the world's religions. We also place a lot of emphasis on social justice work." (I'm sure that when I actually said it, it didn't sound anywhere near that eloquent, but that was the gist of it.) And she gave me this look that I don't really know how to describe, but it looked as though she were trying to keep from saying something. Finally she said (again I'm paraphrasing), "That's interesting, but...I guess I feel that if truth is truth, how can there be multiple versions of the truth?" Which isn't a bad question to ask (as Scott pointed out to me when I told him about it), but she basically looked as though she was trying to bite back from saying that my religion is wrong. I really didn't want to get into a theological debate with her, so I just smiled faintly and said, "Well, to each their own." She said something like, "That's true," and dropped it.
It just really bothers me that she came that close to arguing with me about it. She's my friggin' boss -- not only is it unprofessional of her to discuss religion with her employees, but it's also really uncool for her to act or insinuate as though there's something wrong with my religious beliefs. I'm all for theological debates (why wouldn't I be, as a UU?), but not with my boss. I only gave her my elevator speech because she gave me such a blank look when I told her what my tattoo was; proselytizing for UUism isn't something that I really do. I thought that since she asked me what it was, and I explained, she would just leave it at that, but she didn't. It's actually made me kind of afraid to reveal anything else about myself at work....good thing that when she asked me what I was doing after work a few weeks ago, I didn't tell her that I was going to the new lesbian bar. :-P I've often wondered whether I should come out at work if the question arises during conversations with my co-workers, and this pretty much confirms to me that I shouldn't. I need this job really badly, and the last thing I need is to fall out of my boss's good graces because I'm not a straight Christian.
Um, let's see, what else...I went to an interesting party with Erika the other night. It was at the home of our friend Aaron and his roommates, Blake and Matt. It was pretty fun -- Lori from work (who I adore) was there, I had some interesting conversations with people, drank something called a "hand grenade" that was so strong it made my back hurt, and smoked a hookah for the first time. And we stayed there til 6 in the morning -- I haven't partied for that long in forever! One thing about it that kind of weirded me out though was that I met this guy named Mike, who is a colleague/classmate of many of the people there. We started talking because we've both been to Ireland and the U.K., and it turns out we had a lot of things in common in terms of books and music we like. So at first I thought he was pretty cool, and even exchanged information with him and discussed the possibility of us hanging out or talking about books and music again. But then, later in the night, he started getting way too friendly (and it wasn't even the influence of alcohol or other substances). He started sitting way too close to me, touching my knee when he talked to me, and at one point he leaned over to whisper in my ear but I never got to hear what it was he was saying because everyone started looking at us. I don't blame them for being weirded out; I was weirded out myself. And then, right before we left, I walked up to Erika and started snuggling her, and Mike actually came up and snuggled me with his arm around my waist. Here's the thing: not only had I just met this guy, but he's 41. He's eighteen years older than me. I don't typically discriminate based on age, but when it comes to strangers being that touchy with me, that kind of age difference makes me feel even more uncomfortable. It's like this guy met me, saw that we had all these things in common, and immediately decided that we were soulmates or something and that he was going to latch onto me like a leech. Not cool at all. (As I later told Erika and Aaron, if I'd felt something poking me in the back when he latched onto me, I would have had to choke a bitch.) The next day he emailed me, but I haven't responded to it yet. I'm torn between just ignoring it and forgetting that we ever met, or actually emailing him back and saying, "Dude, you freaked me out. You came on way too friendly and you're almost twenty years my senior." But I don't know which I should do. I did change my sexual orientation on MySpace to lesbian though in the hopes that maybe he'll get the hint and leave me alone. XD
To change topics...I've been trying to write (as always), and it's been going neither well nor badly. I came up with an idea for an original story recently, a sort of dark fairytale in the vein of Hans Christian Andersen, but I have yet to figure out all the details for it. So I've just been doing a lot of brainstorming and outlining...which, while not "real" writing, is better than nothing. I don't know what it is, but it's just so hard for me to come up with anything original, from what my characters look like to what kind of people they are to what happens in the plot; my imagination just isn't working well lately. I don't know if my brain is fried from having been in school for so long, or what. I just hope that soon, I can get the gears of my imagination to start working again and find the "spark" that I need to come up with something amazing. Because I know it's in me, somewhere, I just don't know where...
My 24th birthday is next Wednesday, the 12th. I decided that I'm going to go out with my family that night, and then have a low-key get together with my friends the following Saturday night. I also am planning this weekend to go to Warlocks (a tattoo parlor in our area) and talk to them about getting some ink done soon. For a long time, I've been wanting to get my UU chalice tattoo touched up because it's gotten faded and its linework isn't the greatest. But I also want to add some words in Coptic Greek to it from The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. The quote is, "Those who have ears, let them hear." It pretty much sums up everything I feel about how being a UU means keeping an open mind and not shutting out any ideas. Like everyone else, I'm not always as open-minded as I could be, so it could serve as a reminder to myself as well as a statement about what I already believe. If the tattoo artists can do it the way I want it, the Coptic Greek words will bend around my pre-existing tattoo in a kind of circle. I can't wait to get it done, as I've had this idea for a very long time. Of course, I'll post pictures of it once it's done. :)