Sunday, August 23, 2015

Prehistoric Monster Syndrome

Eve was told she would forever bear children in sorrow.By sorrow did they mean HULK?
Some women suffer from PMS more than others and I'm afraid that mine is bad enough that I can personify these moods. What's worse, is a few poor guys have had the misfortune of going out with me during these hazardous two week mood mutations.

I'm a huge fan of movies; my favorite parts of movies is a well made villain. The more terrifying or daunting a villain, the more impressive the hero that defeats them.

But, in the back of my mind, I frequently find that I can compare my involuntary mood swings to these theatrical villains. The aforementioned personifying of moods. Then, put these villains on a date with some poor unsuspecting guy and, well....

PMS can completely alter a woman's personality and even appearances just with that wicked chemistry. It's a literal Miss. Jekyll and Miss. Hyde. When I'm hit with these moods of nastiness, sometimes I try to use the more logical side of my brain to at least be cordial but it probably comes across as cold and calculated.
I often despair because I feel like a ticking bomb that nature made.
Ever been in a car wreck? The sickening dread and anxiety that feels like a lead brick dropped in your chest? Then soak a heavy mattress and carry it around, then imagine it in your chest. Then add a general disgust for planet earth and a hair trigger temper followed by agonizing stabbing pains in your abs, back, and general pelvic area. Then do that for two weeks out of every month.
See if you can resist responding to people with death ray.

I have diligently tried to treat this chemical warfare. Sometimes large doses of Vitamin D andCalcium then Magnesium, Potassium, iron, chromium and evening primrose help but results are inconsistent. So until I can master PMS I simply cannot date when the HULK is loose.

WARNING: Gaming is NOT Impressive

I met a nice guy at church who told me his life ambition was to become a professional gamer.
I've heard every argument to the benefits of gaming. I'm still not convinced. Because basically what it really all boils down to is gaming is a life substitute, an escape. And not a very healthy one in any respect.

I show interest in it for the sake of friends and family because they enjoy it and I care about their interests. But I don't want to marry someone invested in it and here is why:

If you compare generations that never had video games to the ones that do. There is a very distinct difference between initiative, work ethic, life style, spirituality, and character.
I've watched the long term negative effects unfold in the lives of friends and family and I have yet to witness a positive effect. This is a twenty-five year observation.

I don't know the opinions of other women on gaming but when I look at a guy and he says his past time is gaming, I imagine what a marriage with that would be like:
Variations of this pop into my head every time.
In the same duration of life that my friends and I lived, while they gamed I learned how to play violin, piano, bind hand made books, sew, read countless books, create countless pieces of art, compose music, served others, went to college, put money in savings, learned how to maintain a vehicle, had consistent jobs, and many other things. My friends and I suffer from variations of depression and anxiety. Before I was medicated, depression for me has been so severe I suffered brief periods where I couldn't function. But I still lived a productive life without resorting to gaming to escape. Often artwork was my escape, its side effect was entertaining others.

I am certainly not naive to gaming. I played plenty of Mario Cart, Super Mario, Super Smash Bros, Star Fox, Halo, Zelda, and Star Craft, with friends and family as a kid. But I eventually stopped completely.
Because of what family and friends have shown and told me about it since, I've had entire in depth conversations with people on games that I have never seen nor played and yet people are shocked when they learn I have never seen nor played any of the games we had just spoken of. I know what is in these games, how they are produced, the stories, the goals, I have even participated a tiny bit in making a student made video game. I am well educated on them.

So my total disgust with gaming is no secret when I see what its done to people. So why would I want a husband who's dedicated significant portions of his life to a GAME and gained nothing?
To me its a show of lack of prioritization, discipline, and lost potential.
It is not a life skill, you can't put it on a resume, its not attractive, and it has little value in real life.

If I'm going to weather tough times with a man in matrimony, I can be choosy on this.


Saturday, August 22, 2015

Guilty of Being Tough

Being single is tough.
And being a single girl, at least from my perspective, is tougher.
Growing up I had the devoted attention of bullies at school and then was uncontested sport for siblings at home. So to survive I had to find a defense system.
I began with the discipline of unresponsiveness to physical and verbal attack, or "boot camp". Human beings, like predators in the wild, are stimulated by prey that runs or shrieks. But if prey is boring, like a possum, the predators lose interest.


This was only partially effective so I had to begin adding armor. First was the cloaking device.
The actual art of social invisibility where one learns how to not attract attention from their peers. But this also meant you didn't exist either. So in Jr. High I had no name so I was dubbed: "Hey you" or addressed "Nerd." This method is easier in high school when kids' craving for blood has ebbed with their desensitization to nature's hormone overload.

The next set of armor is accumulated over time and better known as "batman's belt."

In elementary all my friends were on different vacation tracks than me so I spent most recesses alone. My friends were also never in the same classes so when it came to group projects I was always whittled off to the dysfunctional groups. These are those fabulous kids that have severe apathy and have the initiative of a wet sock so I was the one that had to carry the group to save my grade.
So over the years I had to accumulate skills, tricks, and facts that allowed me to survive alone what was meant to be done with several people.

My crowning example of this is one day my very bored teacher up and decided we were going to have a snowball competition. He took our class out back to some freshly fallen pristine packing snow in the field. Right off about eight boys grouped up and began rolling up a whopper of a snow ball.
The other groups were at least 3 to 4 strong. Once again, being deprived of my friends I set off by myself and began rolling one on my own. Two girls noticed that I was doing surprisingly well so they rather suddenly became friendly and asked to join me. They walked along side as I continued rolling and sweating behind the growing ball alone. When the competition ended I had the second largest snowball next to the group of eight dudes. *Nods* I had something on my belt for that.
This has essentially been my life story from kindergarten to my college degree. Not by choice but by necessity.

Along with batman's belt I needed heavy artillery to survive. Not the kind that has US ARMY stenciled on it but the kind that has DeWalt branded on the side.

Once I had a car I began to learn really fast that mechanics shops are hives of dishonesty and its way easy to take advantage of people who don't know diddly-squat about cars.
"*Tsk Tsk* "Man, tie rods? Those are a doozy that's gonna cost $400 to replace those."
Half hour later with my older brother and his tie rod remover we had them replaced for $60.
So the heavy artillery is street smarts and life skills. The more you can do on your own, the less chances you'll have of getting screwed by retail services.
I suddenly made a hobby of accumulating skills. I found having skills very reassuring and I slept better at night because I wasn't at the mercy of strangers.

The next set of armor is shielding. Toughness to endure discomfort, threats, and trials. The giant mech-suit of invulnerability.


1 in 5 women have been raped in the U.S. I always imagined that if someone tried to do that to me...well, I plan on sending them to a hospital or a morgue. In no small way do I feel vulnerable. I'm haunted by the frequent news stories of women on their morning walks getting assaulted and psychos breaking into single girls housing. I had a past co worker who was armed with pepper spray and had security officers nearby and still got sexually assaulted at a train station and didn't get rescued and couldn't get to her spray.

So while my friends were orienting their life trajectory I was going to college alone riding the 3 hour round trip on the bus until the train opened then it was about a 2 hour round trip. But if there's one thing cheep transportation attracts its weirdos.
Since I was young I've loved jackets and as I've grown up I've somewhat suspected jackets are my security blanket. Because once I started taking those long rides and encountering scary people I got me a big tough pilot looking jacket with the furry flip up collars and loud zippers. It made my arms look far less stick like and made me look just a bit more intimidating. I don't know how well it worked but I felt safer in it.

Now that I'm getting nearer age thirty I've had to continue accumulating these belt gizmos, artillery, and shields so that I can survive life alone as well as possible. But I worry that, with my already macho upbringing, that my toughness has made me coarse and intimidating to men.
Tenderness is something that is more needed in the world and I forget that tenderness is good. I don't want to be tougher than my man, I'd like to have a rescuer for once. I don't know if there is a man that can either help me lower my shields or see through the UV protective glass and see that there's a big eyed tender girl inside that can let go the joy stick and let the dude show me how its done.