Shame

Dear Diary (for which the whole world can read),

A friend of mine asked me what I would wear to church today, and I didn't answer, because, as is the common ailment of our sex, I didn't have a thing to wear, in a closet stuffed to overflowing.

I have pretty dresses, and like I fancy the Irish do, I favor the green, and I have solid colors and prints ... and a little yellow summer dress number from the Banana Republic that I love.

But what did I wear to Mass today? I didn't know at the time of the question, so I didn't answer, instead, scurrying, as I do, to the closet to stare at it and grab something off the rack, ready-to-wear.

In the old days, the commoners wore 'off the rack' and 'ready-to-wear.' Rosalie wore neither: her dresses were made for her, and they fit her perfectly, as her hats did, as her gloves did.

Now, we girls try to fit ourselves into 'one-shape-fits-all' dresses, and either suffer the embarrassment of bursting out of them, or the embarrassment of them falling off our nothing-to-cling-to figures.

I don't wear off-the-shoulder numbers, if you didn't guess by now. Partially because of modesty ... what if a guy stared at my collar bone and had licentious thoughts?!?! ... and mostly because of practicality ... I don't have 'milk jugs,' or put another way: my 'happy fun bags' aren't bags, and all they have is happiness and fun, because they've got nothing else to grab or to hold onto ... just ask my dresses.

But the dress I wore today was Shame.

There we were at Mass, bb and I and my nieces up in the choir loft, singing sweetly, like birds, but it wasn't a sweet moment.

bb was getting angrier and angrier. I could see it in his stance. I could see it in the set of his jaw. And I was like: what did I do? I mean, what did I do more?

I am an utter and complete disappointment to my family.

But I didn't see anything I was doing wrongly, so I almost turned on him and smacked him, right there at the beginning of Mass.

And then he ... left.

I was like, what the FUCK!

He left the pew, walked right over to the priest, and handed the priest the laminated placard of the revised responses that the Church just did for the English translation.

And I was like, lightbulb! bb had seen that the priest hadn't had that, and I guess he got angry that everybody else didn't help the priest, so bb goes right up to him, right in the middle of Mass and hands him the sheet.

He came back. He sat next to me. He didn't say one word. He didn't look at me reprovingly.

But I knew what he was thinking. 'Why didn't you notice the priest looking lost up there? Why didn't you help him? You were on the aisle seat. Why did I have to get up, go around you, make a scene when you could have opened your eyes and helped.'

But as if I could. I mean: really! Me, go up in front of all those people, and me, a girl, hand the priest something to continue the Mass?

I mean: I'm getting sick just thinking of it.

But that's just it. It's all me, me, me, and how I think I look, and that paralyzes me into inaction.

Or paralyzes me to wrong action. Stupid action.

And so I do nothing, or I do everything wrong, and bb has to pick up the pieces, and, in Mass, in front of all those people, he goes right up there, fearlessly, I mean, he doesn't even care! and helps the Mass continue, whereas everybody else is just stuck in their pews, not even noticing, like me, or not brave enough, to do something about it.

And that's what he was thinking about me: self-absorbed. Useless. A waste.

And knowing he thought that of me.

You want to know the color of the dress I wore to church today? It was red. Bright red. The color of my cheeks as I burned in embarrassment at what a ...

What a burden I am ... what a burden I am to my family. How useless I am.

Because you don't know the second half of the story. The part of the story of how I moved down to Washington D.C. from nowhere Connecticut.

Because I didn't move.

bb came and picked me up.

From the hospital.

There's the whole precursor of how I ended up there, with my mom screaming and dialing 911 at the same time, and me just looking up at her stupidly from the kitchen floor, but I couldn't say it would be all right, because my mouth was full of cotton and how I couldn't seem to move my arms because they were so heavy, but everything felt ... funny, you know? heavy, and it felt ... I felt tired, but something felt very, very wrong.

Getting your stomach pumped ... it's not something you forget easily.

Mom has to work, she can't watch me 24/7, so what's she going to do? Hand me over to the State?

So bb drove all the way to Connecticut and picked me up from the hospital.

So you think I have my own apartment, with that ... history? histories?

What are multiple suicide attempts called? I mean, besides stupid?

Those steps I fell down, those were the steps from the kitchen to my bedroom they built for me, downstairs.

You think I participate in family activities because they like me so much? Or so they can make sure I don't confuse my diet coke with the kitchen cleaner?

You really have to wonder, considering me, why people try to keep people alive who are so determined to die. I mean, it'd be better for everyone if they just let people like me just ... go away. No fuss, no blame, and no ...

And no more waste of space and effort watching me like a hawk to make sure I don't off myself so that what? so that what? I can face another useless day in my useless job, ... 'and would you like mocha sprinkles on your latte, sir?' ... or my new useless job where, instead of staring at the suits come and go to work, serving them coffee, now I'm one of them, or one of their doormats, staring at a spreadsheet all day, filling in numbers, and getting shouted at when I get something wrong, and getting shouted at when I get something right (yes, you read that correctly), when I do the payroll in half a day where it took a staff of three to do it over a weekend, and yes, they worked over the weekend to get the payroll in Monday morning's mail, and yes, I do what they did in half a day with my spreadsheet, but because it's Excel, everybody thinks they can put their fingers all over it, screwing up the formulæ, and then blaming me when they screw it up saying nobody can understand it and I have to make it simpler.

So here I am, all grown up, with all the other grown ups riding that metro train to their daily grind with their iPhones and droids out to make sure it all gets blotted out so they can make it to 'happy' hour so they can blot it out some more so they can do that again tomorrow, for ... what?

Or I could be a kid again. I could sneak ... no, I don't even need to do that: I could just walk right onto Annadale High School grounds or Edgar Allen Poe, but not TJ, Thomas Jefferson because you need to be somebody with a proven track record for them to look, scornfully, at your grades and deign to allow you to enter, I could have Mrs. A_ drag me in there by the arm and register me in 10th grade, and start that shit all over again and live through, okay, hell, okay? Hell! with me becoming this thing pushed around by everybody else's opinion until I end up on the floor again, either in the classroom, screaming, or on the kitchen, more than half dead, because somebody said, 'Are you really in 10th grade, because it looks like you skipped some grades,' and then look down at my chest, and smirk, and leave me in the girls' bathroom, looking in the mirror reflecting the tears that will, or that I will not allow to fall from my eyes.

The irony of it ... don't you just get the irony of it? Instead of being ratted out for being too old for my grade, I'd be the subject of an exquisite vivisection on posing as 10th grader instead of going back my 6th-grade classes. Now imagine Rosalie going to Forks High School and fitting right in in 10th grade, and now wonder, truly wonder, how she stopped herself, every day, and in every class, from ripping off those vain, self-righteous idiots' heads, and then showing the teachers their own livers for their arrogant presumptive attitudes.

You see, I'm not a woman. A woman is a person who can hold her baby in her arms. My baby didn't come that far to where I could hold her before she died.

Yes, I've had lots of casual sex. Lots of randy college boys on campus, too, if you didn't know that fact.

I'm not a girl anymore, either. I'm trapped in a girl's body, but I've lived too much death to be a girl anymore, and to continue to play the game of being a girl.

I'm neither a girl nor a woman, I'm a girl-not-woman. I'm a child who's seen too much, but instead of allowing me to close my eyes, they keep pumping my stomach. And those hospital bills are another burden I can never repay, another reminder of what a failure I am.

...Writing.

Writing is good therapy. I mean, take this post, for example. Probably very therapeutic for Saga to read and to revel in the fact that she got away from this no-life jailbait loser.

And I can always review this post, and say, "Wow! Look at how far I've come!" and marvel at my amazing ability to claw my way through life, because I'm so gifted and talented at survival.

"Hey, baby," is called out to me, "how's it going?" And instead of answering with the truthful answer of, "You are more right that you know," I answer with the expected answer: "Fine."

I'm doing just 'fine.'

I'm a good student. And I learn from the best. Whenever anybody ever asks Mom how she's doing, she answers, 'Fine,' and says no more, nothing about her just scraping by after her husband left her, her cancer, or her drinking, or smoking, or the one and only failure in her life, a daughter of a college professor who couldn't even succeed in dropping out of life.

Mom and I are on good terms. She came to visit me once, to see how I was doing, because whenever she called and asked how I was doing, I said I was doing 'fine.' Just like Dad, dear old Dad; he came with Mom and wasn't that just a lovely, awkward, family reunion.

But I can tell people I majored in Ancient Greek lit. I have that going for me.

Funny how nobody ever asked to see my degree. They just say, 'Oh, ... impressive!' and give me a job that has a skill level of pouring coffee in a cup, one cup at a time, or putting numbers in columns and making sure they add up ... you know: third-grade math. It's all about style. And I have plenty of that: style and attitude will get you anywhere, baby.

Heh: 'baby.'

So now what? I suppose I could go back to work Monday morning. I got paid this last weekend. I got paid a lot of money. A lot more money than if I were in High school, even selling drugs, which I don't do by the way. ... Sell drugs, that is.

In the supply-and-demand economy, I'm on the demand side ... you know, a 'user,' or as Ayn Rand like to call me, a 'moocher.'

'Guns or dollars!' That was Ayn Rand's lens, that is: how she saw the world. She missed out on high school and college today. Although drugs are all about guns AND dollars, so maybe her lens isn't all that distorted...

But back to the here and now, ... I mean, I have a job and everything!

Just little `phfina, a good little Catholic girl, sharing her opinions with her dear diary. Just a few words on paper, meaning and signifying nothing.

I think I'll have that diet coke now.

Fangirl

Okay.

SQUEEE!

That's not very informative, but have you ever met a fangirl who is?

Well, now you have, 'cause you just met me, biatch!

Like, for example, I squee like a fangirl over the Avengers, but I tell you why I'm squeeing. And it makes (reasonable) sense. So there.

So, a bit of squeeing first:

Cortana-angry/(nekkid)-babe ... what you didn't see in that clip was the (start of the?) campaign mission, with spiffy new, neato self-constructing weapons (ooh, techi-nerdy girl squeals), and bad-ass robotic alien enemies (eh *shrugs* ... I'm not into monster-closet-boo-scared-you cheap thrills).

Okay, more squeeing: Imma gonna save the galaxy!

Imma gonna act like a ... BOY! ... Not! SO Not!

Imma gonna kill me some nasty space bugs!

So, yeah, I'm all tingly and squee-y and saving up my quarters. But you notice something? (besides boyz being boyz, but that's like a non-news item) ... I mean and sure the hero is a (craggy old) boy, but you notice how much more present the female role is? And more than just a 'Imma here to give you the next waypoint and make you a sammich' role?

Check this.

Yes, it's fictional, but there are more girls on that team, and kicking ass, too, than there are boys.

Yes, I'm a fangirl, and an idealist, that I believe that girls can ... well, you know, be out there with the boys, on equal footing, kicking ass, and getting respect, not because they are girls only, but because they are, you know, real, contributing members of the team.

Yeah, I'm stupid that way, but that's one of the reasons why I'm squeeing. I'm seeing girls, I'm seeing me, out there, in Halo 4, kicking ass, taking names, smiling, a part of the team, respected.

And that's one of the reasons why I'm saving my quarters for Halo 4.

... oh, and do I get a steamy hot-smex shower scene with Cortana as an unlockable? I'd kneel down in front of her and make her scream, all right, but she won't be wearing her angry face, oh, no ... ;) *snicker*

Carried

Okay...this.

So, it's just a bunch of numbers to you the outsider, so, as a gracious favor to you, little `phfina in her black shawl (and black eye, again, don't ask) will provide interpretation for you.

Okay, so I go into the hopper, ready to drive a vehicle, so somebody will gun for me, so I can get a shiny new driver assist ribbon, but here we go into condemned ... no vehicles. Great.

*sigh*

Well, just tough it out.

And what transpired before my eyes? Two of my teammates were around my rank, so I thought, finally I wouldn't have to carry the whole damn team (which I rarely do, ... my friends, who are boyz, are killahs to da Max). But no, I see boyz being boyz, rushing right in, and dying. All the time. We were behind, by like, 10 points at one point in the game, and I was leading my team in score, in fact: twice that of the second player.

At the end of the game, well, in the last minute, we pull ahead and win.

I look at the leaderboard, and saw what you see.

What do you see?

Well, kills are kills, right? Wrong. K-D is actually important. It tells you how many times you killed, but also how many times you died. My k-d was higher than anybody elses...friend, or foe.

But when you add up the k-d's... my k-d was higher than my team. My whole team. My k-d was higher, in fact, than both teams combined!

Why?

Boyz being boyz.

"YARRRRG! I'm a boy! So I'm going to rush straight in and punch the other guy, 'cause I'm a boy!"

The kill distance for all my teammates were all averaging less than 10 meters. Their death distance were all at least double that.

My kill distance, contra-whateverly, was at least double my death distance.

And the weapons they used? My teammates? Every single one of them?

Their fists.

They have all these beautiful ranged weapons where they can like, shoot from a distance? Or shoot mid-ranged? No. It's like they put all these things aside. "I don't need no stinking rifle! I'm a BOY! CHAARRRRRGGGEEE!!!"

And got shot full of holes, the final hole being in their cranium.

Me, I'm a girl. I watch. From a distance. I watch boyz charging at each other, I pick up my scoped rifle, and I shoot them. I shoot them all. The enemies, that is.

When a boy charges toward me? What's my instinctive reaction? "CHHHAARRRRGGEEE!!!!"?

No, it's back-up, shoot, back-up, shoot, back-up, shoot, back-up, shoot, kill.

I'm a girl. I'm smaller. Only an idiot would charge in and go toe-to-toe with "HULK SMASH!"

I was, unfortunately, matched up with five idiots.

And I carried their asses to the win.

What did I get for that? Gratitude? "Oh, `phfina, thank you for carrying our sorry n00b asses to the win!"?

Nah. I waited. And I waited. And I checked the stats, ... and I told them, exactly, what idiots they all were, and how.

I did get some feedback. "You on the rag?"

"Just off, thanks," was my reply, "But what's your excuse for that piss-poor performance? None! Learn to fight like a girl!"

Now, I don't want to leave you the impression that I'm all anti-boy. ... I'm MOSTLY anti-boy.

But some boys make being boyz ... work. Take Grim or Max or Gulch for example. They are boyz. They are really boyz. They charge right in there.

But the thing is, they don't do it stupidly. They have mad skilz, yo! They come in with better weapons, or with surprise, or under cover, or after the fire fight has already started, so they walk away from a three-dog fight the winners, time after time.

Fine. Works for them, and great, glad they are on my team.

Me? I'm a girl. So I'll just hide in my little hidey hole and snipe and get headshot after headshot, game after game. ONE day Imma gonna get an unfriggenbelievable. I already have two perfections. Two. Boyz? With you charging in there, how many perfections do you have? More importantly: are you helping the team? Yes? Keep doing that. But are you hurting the team. Stop it. Stop what you're doing, and do something different, something better.

You know: assess, evaluate, learn! Is that too much to ask of you boyz? No, it's not. You just have to set aside your manly pride and admit what you're doing isn't working and watch other players and see what's working for them, then learn, try that, fail, try again, and help the team, right?

Is that so hard?