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Monday, Apr. 29, 2002 / 7:12 p.m. ~Would it Be Better to Be a Man?~ I have a little entry I wrote at work that I want to upload, why?, fuck if I know, but I couldn't get online at work on my second break. D., the Supervisor, was using the computer and when I asked if she was going to take the usual 15 minute break to use it, she said, "Job related", like I was accusing her of something. She's always, always, defensive like that. Still, I walked away saying, "Huh. 'Job related'", all smarmy and pissed off. Because that's how I felt. Right now I'm pissed, but not fuming. The Sandy thing is not good right this moment. He knows I get online when I get home from work, I told him this, he calls and leaves me messages on my CallWave Internet Answering Machine, and every time he's all huffy about it. He even mentioned Saturday night that he's not sure I get the messages, he doesn't seem to understand how it works. It's an Answering Machine. Can you say "Answering Machine"???? But it's different because it's not an actual "machine", it's a software application on my PC. Understand? Christ! I feel like I need to call him up and apologize, "I'm sorry, I was on the computer, as you know, my friends in Utah sent me some digital photos and it took like 20 minutes to download 1 meg, my PC is SLOOOOOOOOWWWWWW, a 14.4 connection, you understand?", but as soon as I start to explain he'll interrupt, "No, no, no, you don't need to explain, no, no", well then why the fuck are you giving me shit for being on my PC when you want to be able to reach me?! Sure, I understand it must be frustrating, maybe as frustrating as it used to be to call Hermione when she was on the phone with her mom, or whoever, and without Call Waiting it would just be busy, busy, busy, for an hour or so. I hated it! See, fucking phones. I hate them. Right now I have the CallWave turned off, I closed it. Fuck him. I'm mean. It's my period and I'm mean. I've been in some degree of pain the entire day, I've been logy and lethargic, enervated even, depressed, down, low, hurting, ow, do I need to go on? Did I need to begin? I can't wait to come home, all day, I want to get online, write in my diary, read my favorite diaries, lie on the sofa and watch TV, have a bite to eat, my last Andouille sausage, etc., you know? RELAX. The pattern is this: unlock door, shove it open (it sticks), enter, close door behind me, remove backpack, sit on floor to remove shoes, put shoes out of cats' reach, walk to bedroom with cats running ahead, go into closet for cat food, feed said cats, walk to laundry room, peeling off clothes as I go, put on shorts, tshirt, turn on computer, or turn on computer on my way to feed cats. Or turn on TV, then computer, then feed cats, or feed cats, turn on TV, then turn on computer. Any way it goes, the clothes come off, the cats are fed, the TV is turned on, the computer is turned on. Habit. My private habit. No one has a say in this. It's MINE. This is MY life. Is this a difficult concept to grasp? You want to call me? On the telephone? After I've been working in a CALL CENTER all day?! Do you think I want to talk on the phone? You get an answering machine? An "answering machine" that's not really a machine? Leave a fucking message, move on. I'm such a bitch, I know. Sandy wanted to invite me to some thing at the University, some Middle Eastern whatever, last minute, so he leaves this message and asks, seemingly frustrated with having to leave a message, "Can you hear me right now?", and if I could? The last time, I logged off, immediately, called him back, I didn't want him to bitch and moan, but this time I was in the middle of downloading this huge email filled with photos from S., and I've told him not to send me huge emails, but there you are, and I wasn't about to log off to tell Sandy no thanks, then log back on and start the stupid download all over again. So he calls me back, "Here's my cell phone number". I'm not calling you on your cell phone. I HATE cell phones, I created a "cellphonessuk" diary ring in Diaryland. Truth is, I seldom turn on my speakers anymore, I have so many .wav files for every Windows function it's annoying sometimes. Sure, it's cute at first, but not always. As he was leaving his stupid message the speakers were off and I was in the dining room checking my mail, opening up my new book from QPBC, The Great Mango Book! I love it!!!! I wasn't sitting right here playing Solitaire, listening to Sandy leave his little message and ignoring him. It's like when people call and they assume you're standing right there, "Pick up!". Grrrrrr...... Ugh. Surprisingly, though I'm ranting and raving, I'm very calm. I'm relaxed, I feel great. But now I have to deal with this Sandy thing, calling him back, telling him why I didn't call right back immediately, hearing him interrupt me to tell me how I don't have to explain, knowing all the while that he wants an explanation, that he's sick of leaving me messages, but I am not going to change my life for this person who means incredibly little to me. I told Lulu today that I really don't care if I hear from him or not, and she gasped. I said, "I'm just not sure my life will be richer with him in it", but she said I need associations, and I said no I don't. How many days out of every month do I truly, I mean truly, want to be in the company of a good friend or lover? Two? Less? How often am I truly lonely? The same. This is what I wrote from work, more of the same, might as well skip it, really, consider it my private diary: I feel like such utter crap, it's a wonder I'm upright and semi-functioning. I have an intense desire to be horizontal, and maybe outside, in a hammock stretched between two old oak trees, gently swaying in the breeze. It's a beautiful day, I was just in it, home for lunch, and back now to the cube. I just took a phone call, and I swear I didn't think I could find the energy to even talk. Hard to believe I'm typing these words. What's wrong with me? Menstruation. Plain and simple. I came to work this morning, barely alive, told Penelope and Lulu I long to be a man. There is nothing about being a woman that seems good to me, now. If I were a man I could make more money, I could pee outside whilst standing (and not pee all down my legs), I could wear shorts without worrying about how hairy my legs are, I wouldn't bleed every month and I wouldn't have a uterus that would seize up during that bleeding period. Penelope asked when the transformation would be taking place, but I don't want it that badly. I'm just tired of having a vagina, a uterus, ovaries, and maybe fallopian tubes too. Oh, and breasts. I'm not using any of it, take it away. I just asked Lulu what's so great about being a woman, and wouldn't it be great if we could be women half our lives, then switch, or something similar? And she said no, definitely not, told me it's great to be a woman because we can appeal to men (I said I don't want to appeal to men!), we can look in the mirror and feel good about ourselves (Horrors! Is there no other way to feel good about being a woman than to look in the mirror?!), we can wear dainty clothes� luckily we were interrupted right there. I couldn't bear to hear any more of that smack from her. Okay, maybe it's fun having labia, and a clitoris, but I'm not even into having orgasms anymore. Do you think I'm depressed? I do. Last night I was lying in bed watching that intense documentary on HBO, about the California father turning his 13 and 15 year old kids on to Ecstasy, and I got these horrible, horrible cramps, so bad I moaned with the pain, in spite of myself, and I started to cry because of it, and because of everything. It's never just one thing, but something like pain is good to get it going. Didn't last long, but it was enough that it began at all, that I was in that much pain that I couldn't help but cry. Today is not as bad, but I feel so weak, so lethargic, and who wants to feel this way? I think right now I'd simply prefer not to have a body at all, but to maybe exist as some floating particles carried around from place to place on the wind. I could be carried all the way to the ocean and float on a wave to China. Once there I'd be scooped up with some blowfish in a fishing net, taken to a fine dining establishment and I'd be rinsed off in the sink, trickle down into the sewer and back out to sea. What a fine adventure I'd have. Me, the non-corporeal being. That documentary was weird, I mean what was that man thinking? How could he possibly not see that Ecstasy and marijuana and alcohol, and any other drugs, are not really good, nor healthy, for young teenagers to ingest? It was so outrageously creepy watching him "roll" with his 13 year old son. So, so, creepy. But the thing is, he meant well, he so totally did. It was so clear he loves his kids, he is simply impaired in the judgment category. Well wait a second, let me think� my mom used to make Sangria when she had her big parties with all her crazy Latino friends, a big pot of arroz con pollo sitting on the stove, and we were allowed to drink some. I was 10 years old, drinking wine. Hmmm� when my father moved in with me after my mom died, I was 17 and he bought bags of pot to keep around, let me take as much as I wanted. We got stoned together. Maybe it's not so wrong after all????? I think it's just because it's Ecstasy and it has a funny chemical name, an acronym, MDMA?, and do we know what that stands for?, and it's been found to cause brain damage, or something, it's supposed to be bad, bad, bad, so that makes it creepy, but how wrong was it really for him to allow his son to "roll"? He didn't actually give him the "X", he enabled him to purchase it, lent him the money, right? And at least he stayed right with him, rubbing his chest and back, making sure he was okay, right? And the older kid was 18, so that's okay, that's legal, HE was the one who turned his dad on in the first place. And now that kid is clean. It was interesting. I have work to do. 2:30 p.m., cubicle time. I didn't eat lunch, I wasn't hungry. Norma and I sat and read diaries whilst I was at home. And when I came back here, to work, I sat in my car in the parking lot, watching the workmen up the street, doing whatever work it is they were doing, the trees blowing in the wind, the new green of it all, the blue of the sky, the temperature perfectly perfect, and I wanted to sit there forever. Now I'm sitting here forever, instead, three and one half more hours of forever, wasting my life, wishing I were a man, wishing Lulu wouldn't keep saying she'll talk to me after my period is over, instead of now, while I'm like this. Cost of the War in Iraq
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