What to say…

Last week Dreamboat PM’d me on Facebook to invite me to a costume party.

It’s an Egyptian Steampunk Costume Party.

Sounds fun, right?

As you may or may not know, I am not a social events type of girl – especially if I don’t know anyone there and I don’t arrive at the choice to go there on my own.

That latter bit is something I just learned about myself. Maybe it seems dumb that I didn’t see that before now, but I am stubborn. If I feel any pressure at all to do something I don’t want to do, I then want to do it even less.

Recently I have been forcing myself to get out and do those different things, but they are events and environments and times of my choosing. That way I can feel a little more in control of the situation…  and I can leave whenever I want.

Opening Up

I unloaded a lot on Alaska Monday night and he didn’t back down from any of it.

He let me cry and didn’t try to stop me. He let me tell him how frustrated I was. I even got a chance to tell him that I didn’t always like the way he treated me and that, for a brief while, I never wanted to see another dick because of how *he* face-fucked me.

After all of that, he took me into his lap, wrapped me in his arms and let me cry until I was done.

He told me how special I am and how truly honored he feels that I let him have so many of my “firsts”.

He took my face in his hands and made me look him in the eye as he thanked me for my submission.

I told him how hard it’s been to get over him. Every time I think I’m close, he sends me another text.

Word of the Day: Novaturient

TC sent me this last week…

Word of the Day: Compassion

Excerpts taken from Compassion is Unreasonable on Om Swami

(I recommend clicking the link above and reading the entire article. It’s not much longer, and better, than the little I have reposted here.)

…Compassion is in fact an unreasonable emotion. It is not really based on any reasoning. For, mind is the seat of reasoning whereas it is heart for the compassion. As a behavior, compassion may well be supported by some reason, but as an emotion, a feeling, it is neither supported nor triggered by any reason. Behavior can be deceptive but feelings, because they live inside you, cannot be artificial. They are what they are.

I wanted to be in a good mood, but then work happened…

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! I wanted to be in a good mood today. Most days I want to be in a good mood… My last post even suggests that I wanted to be in a good mood!

I’ve written one other post about this co-worker in the past. It was lame and boring and I was going to delete it, but I didn’t… Well, she is in rare form today, let me tell you…

I have talked to my boss about this co-worker before and the things that she says and how she acts, so at least she is aware of the problem and that this is not the first time. Boss-lady agrees, but says that “right now ‘bitchy girl’ is going through a very difficult time in her personal life.” Does that really give her an excuse to behave like this at work 2-3 days a week? This is the letter that I just sent to my boss about my super-mega-bitch co-worker from hell!

‘Bitchy girl’ came into my office and started spewing at me about how I make her feel stupid all the time and how I am always condescending to her. This was after I jokingly said to her that sometimes *I* am uncomfortable around *her* (hopefully you are catching the irony here?) (our boss had just left her office and bitchy girl had just said that our boss makes her feel uncomfortable. I was only trying to be silly.).

When she came in and started spewing at me, right before your meeting now, she closed my door and asked me to tell her why I feel so uncomfortable around her. I told her that it’s situations exactly like this where she corners me and starts attacking me. She told me again how stupid I make her feel all the time (those words were stressed) and asked me again why I am so uncomfortable around her. I wanted to tell her that I feel like I am walking around pins and needles around her: one day I say something and it’s okay but the next day I could say the exact same thing and I am the worst, most evil person on the planet. I understand this behavior coming from my 15-year-old daughter, but I don’t think that I should have to figure out how to deal with this behavior when I am at work – I shouldn’t have to act like I am dealing with a 15-year-old. In fact, I honestly don’t think that I should always feel like I am walking on glass whenever I speak to a peer, especially at work.

I feel that any other confrontations that I have with ‘bitchy-girl’ today will only be negative and turn out badly. I would like remove myself from the situation so I can try and displace myself from the things she said to me. I have a very hard time working alongside someone who thinks I am always talking down to her and treating her like a moron. Especially when I make such an effort NOT to treat her that way!

Thank you for listening and I would give anything to get to go home, but I can’t… So, I will try and behave.

But, this time I would like to officially go on the record and say that I have a severe problem with bitchy girl’s behavior.

I don’t have the hours to take the rest of the day off otherwise I would have just walked out while they were in their meeting (after sending the email to my boss); I checked before I wrote this. The hardest part about staying at work for the rest of the day is that Loverman has the day off and is waiting for me, in my neighborhood, to take me to lunch!! I could just leave for the rest of the day and be somewhere I want to be — somewhere with someone whom I do NOT make feel stupid and like a moron. Someone with whom I never feel uncomfortable.

(FYI – I am posting this out of spite and anger! She has no idea that I have a bog, but I feel like being severely passive aggressive — I almost left her name in it!)

Paulo Coelho’s “Manual for Killing Trolls”

I absolutely love Paulo Coelho’s ideas on life. They are so honest and refreshing and wise…

This blog post was in my Facebook newsfeed yesterday and I thought that it was a nice follow-up for my Word of the Day: Harassment. Also, I wanted to share it because I thought is was good…

The red words are the parts that meant the most to me. I kind of like that I can choose to NOT help someone based on the fact that they are an asshole! And a BLACKLIST – OMG!!!! But I think that might be taking it too far the wrong way…

Manual for Killing Trolls

by Paulo Coelho on February 4, 2013

1] Bullying/trolling only happens to people who have made an impact on the world.

• If you are being bullied, it is because you are someone who makes a difference.

• If you are not convinced about this theory, please read the comment box or a Twitter search of any news on any celebrity – artist, politician, sportsperson, etc.

2] Bullying/trolling is a sign of pathological behavior of frustrated people. To help them, you have to kill the troll that lives inside them.

3] And the only way to kill a troll is by making him/her aware that there is no such thing as anonymity on the internet. Therefore, anything they do now will have consequences in the future. Maybe not next month or next year, but one day they will need you.

4] So keep a list of these bullies/trolls and one day they will ask your help. And you will say without feeling guilty: “NO”.

5] Insults may hurt you now, but a warrior of the light is patient. Sooner or later you will have the last word!

PLEASE NOTE:
It is not a matter of being vindictive, but of respecting yourself and what you do. Adversaries are there to test you and your will.
Trolls do not deserve mercy, because they do not respect anyone, finding themselves “powerful” because they naively think they are acting anonymously.

People who spread hatred and darkness should be treated as they deserve. You can also choose to ignore them, in the name of “forgiveness”, but they will continue to spread anger and pain.

Therefore, first forgive, and then hit hard.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
When I was young I was very vulnerable and people used to take advantage of putting me down so they could shine. I was hurt, desperate and alone, but I could do nothing except to wait.
I decided to create two lists: one of people that I would thank and help in the future (in my book The Zahir I write about the Favour Bank ) and a list of those who hurt me.

The day arrived when both groups needed me. And I could repay my debts and ignore the pleas of those who were always putting me down.
And I can assure you, more than 150 in the second list asked me for help in the past 10 years. Of course I was very polite, but I told them why I was not going to help.

I have had my Favour Bank List and my Blacklist for the past 30 years. I don’t update my list anymore, but my office does this diligently.
(LOL! I found this last note very amusing…)

Word of the Day: Harassment

Legal definition of the word ‘Harassment‘

the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may vary, including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force someone to quit a job or grant sexual favors, apply illegal pressure to collect a bill, or merely gain sadistic pleasure from making someone fearful or anxious.

We had a mandatory class about Workplace Harassment yesterday afternoon. Let me just say that it never ceases to amaze me how sensitive people are.

I guess I am fairly sensitive myself… But that ‘sensitive’ feeling is something more akin to annoyance, not harassment. In fact, I rarely feel “harassed” in the workplace. In any place, really. I mean, you have to go out of your way for me to make a deal about it. Like, don’t overtly grab my breasts or ass and we should be just fine (stressing should be — after all, I am a girl ;)).

For the first 15 years of my employment history, I worked in a manual-labor-type environment with mostly only men, and I loved the hell out of it. Yes, they would say things about my breasts, or whistle at me on days I wore a dress. Sometimes they would even tell me that they wouldn’t let me do things “because you’re a girl and girls shouldn’t have to do that with so many men around”. That never offended me. I never felt harassed. I felt like the guys that I worked with cared about me…

For the past 10 years I have worked in an office-type environment with mostly females. I can tell you that I am more offended (and more frequently offended) by women than I ever was by a man! Women are judgmental and catty. Women have no problem telling you how they feel, no matter what the topic is (politics, religion, what you are wearing…) and they also have no problem telling you when your opinions and beliefs are wrong. They also seem to have no problem pretending to be your friend and then turning around and immediately start “shit-talking” you with her cell-mate neighbor about all the “stuff” you do on your personal time.

Those just aren’t things that men do.

Men are straight-up honest: they don’t gossip (for the most part, unless it’s really juicy) and (generally speaking) they say what they mean, not what they want you to think they mean.

It makes me wonder if maybe there should be gender-specific harassment training…