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gwynIt's been over a month since I posted anything. I haven't really felt like being around, and most of the time, what I really only feel like doing is commenting. I'm trying to deal with some... stuff. Yeah, you know, that kind of thing -- stuff that gets inside your head, kind of eely and squirmy and you don't really want to deal with it but you have to.
After I got back from Escapade, I kind of went into retreat mode, but at the same time found myself suddenly busier than I have been in a long time, not with work but with social things and getting ready for my class, and trying to market myself as a freelancer, and deal with all kinds of other stuff that's related to work but isn't buying me food. And normally I get sad at being alone so much of the time, always watching my shows and movies by myself, but I haven't really minded, because I've just been very hatey lately, except for a few people who are wonderful and good and remind me that people don't just consistently suck across the board.
I mean, I have just been filled with a kind of anger and hate that would comical if it weren't so poisonous. The kind of thing Noah Baumbach could make a movie about. And for the most part I think the hate is justified, but it kind of grinds down your soul, so even if you're all righteously indignant, it's not the healthiest of things. So I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it, how to acknowledge it all and put it away, and move on, but sometimes that's not easy.
A few weeks ago, I went to talk to one of my co-instructor's classes to give the rundown to her students about the practicum course I start teaching next week (which, btw, OMG 15 students. Arg.), and her TA is a mutual friend, and so after class we all went out for drinks, and it was just so fun. I was incredibly tired and yet we stayed till closing, and I realized I had completely forgotten what it was like to be around people who valued me as a human being and who thought I was fun and interesting and treated me well.
And seriously, WTF? Why should that be such a huge revelation to me? Most people don't have, and no one should have to have, some kind of experience where they realize that sometimes you can be around people and it doesn't involve them treating you like shit and you being the one who has to rise above and ignore it or make excuses for their behavior and rationalize to yourself that that's just how they are. I mean, grownups don't have to act like Mean Girls, and I don't have to accept that all I deserve in life is to be treated badly by people I have thought of as "friends."
But how pathetic is it that this comes as a major epiphany? I spent a long three hours or so being psychoanalyzed by black_bird_777 and X at Escapade, which was funny and horrible, but I remember blackbird saying that she suddenly understood a lot about me when I said that really, my whole life, it's been pretty much just coping with people treating me like crap and never giving me any reason to believe I deserve better -- it was my parents when I was young, girl friends and boy friends as I got older, my partners when I started being involved in relationships, and my adult friends, especially in fandom. Jobs, too -- for the most part, a lot of my bosses have wanted me to be more like them because they believed I'm crap as a person (but my work was always good!). None of this has ever done anything to boost my confidence -- and blackbird was asking me why I would let someone treat me the way others have treated me, and all I could really say in answer was that it was what I expected. I didn't and don't believe I have any right to expect better.
And I wish I could change that -- I'm trying, but... it's a lifetime, 50 years' worth, of ingrained belief and behavior, not something you can just go, hey! I don't deserve to be treated like that! about. It is who I am. I can't just suddenly decide that I'm not a crap excuse for a human and start being all confident and stuff. If brains worked that way, there would be no therapists. A number of years ago, blackbird and I were in a bar talking about this sort of thing, and therapy, and how you fix what's broken, and I said, "I think some people are just too broken to be fixed." I still believe that most of the time, because I haven't really figured out how to fix all these things that are broken in me, or that got more broken after sis_r died.
The other night I went to my first Passover seder and it was charming and fun, and I was talking to a couple people, mrs_laugh_track and belmanoir among them, and I made a comment about trying to focus my attention on people and situations I feel comfortable with and ignore the ones I don't, and how that probably made me passive-aggressive, but whatever. And mrs_laugh_track and bel said something that really stuck with me -- that it wasn't passive aggressive at all to focus on the people and situations you are comfortable in, it's taking care of yourself. Which, you know, yeah. That's what I don't do enough of -- take care of myself, focus in on people and situations that aren't toxic to me.
Most of the time, I'm surrounded by people and situations that are toxic. You can't choose your family, so I have to exclude that poisonous background for the most part, but over and over I have picked people to be in my life who end up doing damage to me, I put myself in situations (including jobs) that grind me down, and at my age, that's pretty dangerous. At lunch with sdwolfpup the other day, we talked about how it can be hard, especially in fandom, to be positive and try to be happy. She's kind of my nice person on LJ role model. I want to be like SDW when I grow up!
When I first discovered email and Usenet, I felt so liberated -- for the first time in my life, I could say and do whatever I wanted and no one could hit me in the face for it or emotionally abuse me. I got into so many online fights and had enough of a reputation that quite a few people told me they were afraid to meet me in person. That shocked me so much, hearing I could have that effect on people, that I embarked on a "kinder, gentler Gwyneth" program, and for the most part, that sort of worked -- so many people I met subsequently as I got into LJ land told me they couldn't imagine me being that way. But it's hard. I still want to get worked up over stuff, but then I try to step back and look at it through someone else's eyes, and that helps. Not always, but a lot of the time.
Fandom as a general rule doesn't encourage good behavior. I've seen so many people I met in the early days getting worse and worse over time, because they are encouraged by how poorly socialized most of us are. The problem is, most people I know are fans, and most of the stuff I love to do revolves around fandom, so the mental anguish I get from this environment won't really go away. I don't know how, exactly, to resolve this. I can't stop being a fan. It's just who I am. But so much of what I see in fandom kind of eggs on toxic behavior: the toadying and sycophantism (possibly the thing I hate most of all) that prevents someone from ever hearing the truth about personality issues they may exhibit; the confrontational approach to differing views and opinions about our interests (think of how many times you've seen a person spit in rage about how someone's not watching the same show, or how another person's view of someone's BSO personally offends them); the belief that we can just say anything we want, no matter how nasty, anytime we want, because as fans we don't follow the regular rules of the rest of the world ("if they don't like it, then they can get the hell out of fandom"), and on and on.
A lot of people equate being mean with being cool, tough, iconoclastic, eccentric, and so on. Which is just sad. And it's something I'm really, really over. I'm so old that I just kind of want to be happy now, but I don't really know how to do that. If I try to focus on other things that don't end up making me feel like shit, I have a lot less fannish interaction in my life. Hell, I have almost no interaction with people at all. But I'm trying to think of ways to fix that -- I'm back to regular attendance at the writing group critique sessions, even if I don't really love what I'm reading there; I'm going to take some jewelry classes later this spring (I have no idea where this sudden interest in jewelry came from, but I think it might be fun); I want to try to force myself to write more, even if it's just my blog about my sister's death, and to that end, I'm attempting to cut down and possibly stop taking the antidepressants that have made me unable to focus on writing and reading; I have the class in spring, and they've scheduled me for another class on proofreading next year, and I'm going to try to create a class that I might take to a community college and see if they are interested... and I want to try to explore other areas of my creativity. I need to garden more, and get involved in that too. This is one reason I'd love a dog -- to go places and meet other dog owners.
I feel really lonely when I think of cutting back on fandom things, because this is such a huge part of my life. But what a lot of recent really bad events have pointed out to me is I let people treat me like crap. No, they shouldn't think they have a right to behave that way, but I've never believed I deserved any better, and can't stop this unless I, you know, stop looking at it all that way. It's how life has always been, and I can't see it not being like this forever. (Example: I lost someone I thought was my BF when she actually said to me that I wasn't worth the 15-minute drive to visit; I had to come to her if I wanted to hang out. So, ended that "friendship", but that was a rare time I took action myself.) But I guess I want to try. See what it's like to not be insulted, or lied to, or laughed at, on a constant basis. To not be talked over or shouted down or excoriated for having my own point of view if it's different from someone else's. To not be having a casual, fun conversation with someone, like I was the other day, and have them suddenly laughingly insult me about some character flaw of mine as if I should just expect that in the middle of a pleasant dialog.
I'm so far from being perfect, and I know I have tons of flaws and issues and all that. We all do, and god knows, people love to tell me about mine. But I frequently have had people in my life who are more than happy to dump on me about my flaws, and never ever look at their own or examine how they can do something better. They seem to be satisfied with being miserable and mean, and I've gone along with it. So I want to be the person who tries to figure out ways I can change, what I should change and what I don't necessarily have to because it's someone else's problem, not mine, and then learn to be a different person in the world. I've done a little of it before, but I've still got a long way to go. I doubt I'll ever have anything approaching self-esteem, but I have to teach myself that I don't necessarily deserve to be treated like shit all the time, either. It's just hard to see this all right now. I wish more than anything sis_r was here, to commiserate with, to give me a shoulder to cry on, but I have to figure out how to do that on my own, as well.
Yet what I really want to talk about is Justified!
I feel like someone made this show just for me. They said, "what would Gwyneth like?" and they made a list:
God, it's just SO GOOD. I think... well, I think I may like it even more than White Collar. See, WC is a show about wonderful characters I adore, but the plots are beyond stupid. Not as stupid as Leverage's or Castle's, but pretty close. But Justified isn't stupid and you don't have to handwave the plots. It has far more complex single-story episodes, within an arc about Raylan learning to accept being home again, and because he is a grown-up and smart enough to know what his issues are and how he wants to deal with them, we don't have to waste a bunch time waiting for him to grow up. He's a brilliant character, with so much depth, and he's simply perfect for Timothy Olyphant.
I can't imagine an actor more suited to this role -- his soft brown eyes that alternately squint in smirky consideration or soften in friendly openness, the way he kind of talks through a clenched jaw when he's showing strength, how he never moves his arms when he walks and slinks those hips around, which is so odd and so uniquely endearing at the same time. I love that his hair is showing a bit of grey, as is his stubble, and he has a kind of calm wisdom that one only gets from age. It's hard to believe that Timothy Olyphant the person isn't exactly like Raylan Givens the person, just as it was when he played Seth Bullock on Deadwood. He's simply that perfect for it. And did I mention how unbelievably hot he is? I went on a Timothy spree on my Netflix queue for the things I don't already have with him in them, and in all of his performances, psycho or good guy, there's this ineffable Timothyness about all of them. I wish I could define it, but I'm unable. Guh.
I love that Raylan takes everything in around him, without necessarily passing judgment on it. He has such a sarcastic wit and charm, yet he's never glib or smug, even when he's dealing with complete cretins. At first I wasn't sure about Ava, but I'm growing to like her more and more, and I like her practical approach to fooling around with him -- she doesn't have a lot of illusions about her future and his, but she's willing to accept what's there right now. And it will be interesting to watch his relationship with Winona unfold -- I loved his line to her when she said that he got jumped by an "old convict" and he asked, "Does 55 still seem old to you?" He knows how to push her buttons, but she knows what he's really on about, and she isn't going to put up with his shit for too long. And his boss! Ah, I love a good fatherly boss who has a sense of humor and isn't taken in my anyone's bullshit.
Tuesday nights have suddenly become my favorite night, I'll tell you what. If it keeps going this way, I may have a heart attack from too much show happiness.
After I got back from Escapade, I kind of went into retreat mode, but at the same time found myself suddenly busier than I have been in a long time, not with work but with social things and getting ready for my class, and trying to market myself as a freelancer, and deal with all kinds of other stuff that's related to work but isn't buying me food. And normally I get sad at being alone so much of the time, always watching my shows and movies by myself, but I haven't really minded, because I've just been very hatey lately, except for a few people who are wonderful and good and remind me that people don't just consistently suck across the board.
I mean, I have just been filled with a kind of anger and hate that would comical if it weren't so poisonous. The kind of thing Noah Baumbach could make a movie about. And for the most part I think the hate is justified, but it kind of grinds down your soul, so even if you're all righteously indignant, it's not the healthiest of things. So I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it, how to acknowledge it all and put it away, and move on, but sometimes that's not easy.
A few weeks ago, I went to talk to one of my co-instructor's classes to give the rundown to her students about the practicum course I start teaching next week (which, btw, OMG 15 students. Arg.), and her TA is a mutual friend, and so after class we all went out for drinks, and it was just so fun. I was incredibly tired and yet we stayed till closing, and I realized I had completely forgotten what it was like to be around people who valued me as a human being and who thought I was fun and interesting and treated me well.
And seriously, WTF? Why should that be such a huge revelation to me? Most people don't have, and no one should have to have, some kind of experience where they realize that sometimes you can be around people and it doesn't involve them treating you like shit and you being the one who has to rise above and ignore it or make excuses for their behavior and rationalize to yourself that that's just how they are. I mean, grownups don't have to act like Mean Girls, and I don't have to accept that all I deserve in life is to be treated badly by people I have thought of as "friends."
But how pathetic is it that this comes as a major epiphany? I spent a long three hours or so being psychoanalyzed by black_bird_777 and X at Escapade, which was funny and horrible, but I remember blackbird saying that she suddenly understood a lot about me when I said that really, my whole life, it's been pretty much just coping with people treating me like crap and never giving me any reason to believe I deserve better -- it was my parents when I was young, girl friends and boy friends as I got older, my partners when I started being involved in relationships, and my adult friends, especially in fandom. Jobs, too -- for the most part, a lot of my bosses have wanted me to be more like them because they believed I'm crap as a person (but my work was always good!). None of this has ever done anything to boost my confidence -- and blackbird was asking me why I would let someone treat me the way others have treated me, and all I could really say in answer was that it was what I expected. I didn't and don't believe I have any right to expect better.
And I wish I could change that -- I'm trying, but... it's a lifetime, 50 years' worth, of ingrained belief and behavior, not something you can just go, hey! I don't deserve to be treated like that! about. It is who I am. I can't just suddenly decide that I'm not a crap excuse for a human and start being all confident and stuff. If brains worked that way, there would be no therapists. A number of years ago, blackbird and I were in a bar talking about this sort of thing, and therapy, and how you fix what's broken, and I said, "I think some people are just too broken to be fixed." I still believe that most of the time, because I haven't really figured out how to fix all these things that are broken in me, or that got more broken after sis_r died.
The other night I went to my first Passover seder and it was charming and fun, and I was talking to a couple people, mrs_laugh_track and belmanoir among them, and I made a comment about trying to focus my attention on people and situations I feel comfortable with and ignore the ones I don't, and how that probably made me passive-aggressive, but whatever. And mrs_laugh_track and bel said something that really stuck with me -- that it wasn't passive aggressive at all to focus on the people and situations you are comfortable in, it's taking care of yourself. Which, you know, yeah. That's what I don't do enough of -- take care of myself, focus in on people and situations that aren't toxic to me.
Most of the time, I'm surrounded by people and situations that are toxic. You can't choose your family, so I have to exclude that poisonous background for the most part, but over and over I have picked people to be in my life who end up doing damage to me, I put myself in situations (including jobs) that grind me down, and at my age, that's pretty dangerous. At lunch with sdwolfpup the other day, we talked about how it can be hard, especially in fandom, to be positive and try to be happy. She's kind of my nice person on LJ role model. I want to be like SDW when I grow up!
When I first discovered email and Usenet, I felt so liberated -- for the first time in my life, I could say and do whatever I wanted and no one could hit me in the face for it or emotionally abuse me. I got into so many online fights and had enough of a reputation that quite a few people told me they were afraid to meet me in person. That shocked me so much, hearing I could have that effect on people, that I embarked on a "kinder, gentler Gwyneth" program, and for the most part, that sort of worked -- so many people I met subsequently as I got into LJ land told me they couldn't imagine me being that way. But it's hard. I still want to get worked up over stuff, but then I try to step back and look at it through someone else's eyes, and that helps. Not always, but a lot of the time.
Fandom as a general rule doesn't encourage good behavior. I've seen so many people I met in the early days getting worse and worse over time, because they are encouraged by how poorly socialized most of us are. The problem is, most people I know are fans, and most of the stuff I love to do revolves around fandom, so the mental anguish I get from this environment won't really go away. I don't know how, exactly, to resolve this. I can't stop being a fan. It's just who I am. But so much of what I see in fandom kind of eggs on toxic behavior: the toadying and sycophantism (possibly the thing I hate most of all) that prevents someone from ever hearing the truth about personality issues they may exhibit; the confrontational approach to differing views and opinions about our interests (think of how many times you've seen a person spit in rage about how someone's not watching the same show, or how another person's view of someone's BSO personally offends them); the belief that we can just say anything we want, no matter how nasty, anytime we want, because as fans we don't follow the regular rules of the rest of the world ("if they don't like it, then they can get the hell out of fandom"), and on and on.
A lot of people equate being mean with being cool, tough, iconoclastic, eccentric, and so on. Which is just sad. And it's something I'm really, really over. I'm so old that I just kind of want to be happy now, but I don't really know how to do that. If I try to focus on other things that don't end up making me feel like shit, I have a lot less fannish interaction in my life. Hell, I have almost no interaction with people at all. But I'm trying to think of ways to fix that -- I'm back to regular attendance at the writing group critique sessions, even if I don't really love what I'm reading there; I'm going to take some jewelry classes later this spring (I have no idea where this sudden interest in jewelry came from, but I think it might be fun); I want to try to force myself to write more, even if it's just my blog about my sister's death, and to that end, I'm attempting to cut down and possibly stop taking the antidepressants that have made me unable to focus on writing and reading; I have the class in spring, and they've scheduled me for another class on proofreading next year, and I'm going to try to create a class that I might take to a community college and see if they are interested... and I want to try to explore other areas of my creativity. I need to garden more, and get involved in that too. This is one reason I'd love a dog -- to go places and meet other dog owners.
I feel really lonely when I think of cutting back on fandom things, because this is such a huge part of my life. But what a lot of recent really bad events have pointed out to me is I let people treat me like crap. No, they shouldn't think they have a right to behave that way, but I've never believed I deserved any better, and can't stop this unless I, you know, stop looking at it all that way. It's how life has always been, and I can't see it not being like this forever. (Example: I lost someone I thought was my BF when she actually said to me that I wasn't worth the 15-minute drive to visit; I had to come to her if I wanted to hang out. So, ended that "friendship", but that was a rare time I took action myself.) But I guess I want to try. See what it's like to not be insulted, or lied to, or laughed at, on a constant basis. To not be talked over or shouted down or excoriated for having my own point of view if it's different from someone else's. To not be having a casual, fun conversation with someone, like I was the other day, and have them suddenly laughingly insult me about some character flaw of mine as if I should just expect that in the middle of a pleasant dialog.
I'm so far from being perfect, and I know I have tons of flaws and issues and all that. We all do, and god knows, people love to tell me about mine. But I frequently have had people in my life who are more than happy to dump on me about my flaws, and never ever look at their own or examine how they can do something better. They seem to be satisfied with being miserable and mean, and I've gone along with it. So I want to be the person who tries to figure out ways I can change, what I should change and what I don't necessarily have to because it's someone else's problem, not mine, and then learn to be a different person in the world. I've done a little of it before, but I've still got a long way to go. I doubt I'll ever have anything approaching self-esteem, but I have to teach myself that I don't necessarily deserve to be treated like shit all the time, either. It's just hard to see this all right now. I wish more than anything sis_r was here, to commiserate with, to give me a shoulder to cry on, but I have to figure out how to do that on my own, as well.
Yet what I really want to talk about is Justified!
I feel like someone made this show just for me. They said, "what would Gwyneth like?" and they made a list:
- COMPETENCE KINK to the 10th power
- Elmore Leonard story-based, with Elmore Leonardy dialog and characters even in new storylines
- Sexy tall drink of water Timothy Olyphant playing a lawman again and wearing a hat, with a gun on his slinky hip
- Wonderful supporting cast, including a guy who was a military sniper as the one most likely to be slashed with Timothy
- A modern update of a very Western-style story
- Lots of local color in the local characters with hilarious, unexpected behavior
- Guns, guns, more guns, and did I mention guns?
- Laconic, easygoing hero who has all kinds of issues roiling under the skin
- Adults, behaving like actual adults behave, in all their stupid, funny, smart, miserable, hilarious glory
God, it's just SO GOOD. I think... well, I think I may like it even more than White Collar. See, WC is a show about wonderful characters I adore, but the plots are beyond stupid. Not as stupid as Leverage's or Castle's, but pretty close. But Justified isn't stupid and you don't have to handwave the plots. It has far more complex single-story episodes, within an arc about Raylan learning to accept being home again, and because he is a grown-up and smart enough to know what his issues are and how he wants to deal with them, we don't have to waste a bunch time waiting for him to grow up. He's a brilliant character, with so much depth, and he's simply perfect for Timothy Olyphant.
I can't imagine an actor more suited to this role -- his soft brown eyes that alternately squint in smirky consideration or soften in friendly openness, the way he kind of talks through a clenched jaw when he's showing strength, how he never moves his arms when he walks and slinks those hips around, which is so odd and so uniquely endearing at the same time. I love that his hair is showing a bit of grey, as is his stubble, and he has a kind of calm wisdom that one only gets from age. It's hard to believe that Timothy Olyphant the person isn't exactly like Raylan Givens the person, just as it was when he played Seth Bullock on Deadwood. He's simply that perfect for it. And did I mention how unbelievably hot he is? I went on a Timothy spree on my Netflix queue for the things I don't already have with him in them, and in all of his performances, psycho or good guy, there's this ineffable Timothyness about all of them. I wish I could define it, but I'm unable. Guh.
I love that Raylan takes everything in around him, without necessarily passing judgment on it. He has such a sarcastic wit and charm, yet he's never glib or smug, even when he's dealing with complete cretins. At first I wasn't sure about Ava, but I'm growing to like her more and more, and I like her practical approach to fooling around with him -- she doesn't have a lot of illusions about her future and his, but she's willing to accept what's there right now. And it will be interesting to watch his relationship with Winona unfold -- I loved his line to her when she said that he got jumped by an "old convict" and he asked, "Does 55 still seem old to you?" He knows how to push her buttons, but she knows what he's really on about, and she isn't going to put up with his shit for too long. And his boss! Ah, I love a good fatherly boss who has a sense of humor and isn't taken in my anyone's bullshit.
Tuesday nights have suddenly become my favorite night, I'll tell you what. If it keeps going this way, I may have a heart attack from too much show happiness.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-06 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-06 11:02 pm (UTC)