A little peace

Woah, When was the last time I stopped by?

Fired!

Anyway. Ended up moving in with an ex boyfriend turned roomate. Bad situation which I do not recomend. He was never even home at that. So I had the place mostly to myself.

Ladies. I cannot stress this enough. Every time someone tells you a story. (In this case about some insane violent tenancies) If during said story you think to yourself, "Man, I hope that never turns out to be me." Chances are that is your inner voice tell you to get the frick out.

So having a threat made on my life for no apparent reason by a man who's clearly off his rocker and I never really even wanted to date in the first place I got the heck out of there. I am now living with a butch lesbian who's so awesome I don't want her to move away when she might. Not having a terrible living situation is kind of new to me. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself.

Come to think of it. I've gained some really awesome friends this past year. They all love and accept me for who I am. Genius! One in particular I absolutely adore even if we don't always connect quite the same ways I always take her opinion to heart.

Sometimes though, when we start talking about feminist stuff I feel a bit out of the loop. I barely have time to get everything I want to do done so I don't get to devote very many hours to feminist blog land and am a bit out of the loop with how things are going in general. Actually, I've never really felt that up to part because all in all I've just been surviving up to this point and the only thing I really have to contribute is my own experiences. I'm not a genius by any standards. Though genuine, much of what I say tends to be gut reaction that may or may not conflict with what I have to say later.

I guess what I am saying is that I don't feel very intellectual. I feel very humbled by the people around me.

Where has my time been going? Working mostly. I've got a great job now, getting ready to go back to school (again), writing to try and improve my grasp of the English language, studying Japanese because thats where I'm headed in the work field hopefully, and networking with people in the business on this side of the ocean's Japanaese music scene via my more music related blog.

Maybe, I'm not as hands on as most feminists. But I'm still all there.

I notice this the most lately at work. I am a courtesy clerk and this entitles taking in the receiving, collecting shopping carts, and helping people out with their groceries.

The guys in the back are starting to learn that I am a lot stronger than I look and do not take very kindly to being asked why I don't have one of the boys lift the boxes, or ask if I need help. "I do not need the boys help to do a job I got because I'm well qualified to work it," I often snap.

This kind of came to a head for me last week when a woman who I was bagging for asked if she could have help out. I nodded and told her yes, wondering to myself what she needed help with because she was quite able bodied and had little in the way of groceries. So I turned and started heading out with her when she stopped dead in her tracks and looked up to me in horror ,"Oh, no, not you..."

"Ma'am." I stared back at her resolutely. "I am just as strong as any of the boys here, if not stronger."

She nodded and swallowed her words a bit because I don't think she quite expected that response. Then again, what other response could she have gotten? When we got about halfway to her car she started stuttering. "Oh, I'm all for womans lib...I don't want you to think..." Couldn't remember quite the rest of what she said because I put the bags in her car and went back into the store with a cloud over my head. Maybe it shouldn't make me as mad as it does but it does. One of my biggest pet peeves in the world is being told I can't do something on the basis of what set of reproductive equipment I happen to own.

Brings me back to a conversation I had in a bar with a drunk police officer one night. He swore up and down that women were not physically suited to do push ups. I told him that was the most bogus thing I had ever heard. He asked if I could do push ups. I told him of course not. I'm overweight and terribly out of shape.

"Sir," I told him. "If a woman is told her whole life that she can't do something and she never thinks on her own to try of course she won't be able to do it. She never built that muscle! There are plenty of women out there who work out and could probably even out pace you as far as push ups go. We're just talking about arm muscle here."

Maybe its a stretch. I wonder though, why I don't apply my words to other areas of my life.