asocial INTJ tries to plan get together… lols

a self-serving recitation of self-deprecating vanity.

INTJ on the extreme end of introvert. check your myers-briggs six. i have to force anything even remotely extroverted. as a matter of fact, i wish that all customer service cockroaches and cashiers could just read my mind. it would save me a whole lot of verbal change.i don’t mind being the boisterous rabblerouser even when it means i seem over eager or desperate. truth is, i’m one of the most asocial, indifferent, socially apathetic people you will be privileged to never know. my take on social anythings is that if people gather to make idle chit chat and witty banter, i prefer to observe rather than partake. of course i get the irresistible urge to chime in and guffaw with others. and of course i occasionally revel in the energy of a good crowd, but it’s cuz i’m easily amused. i don’t need to feel and smell the hot breath of others to keep warm and sated. you will NEVER hear me refer to myself as a “social butterfly”.  it’s why i love being a little brown recluse on the fringe of the interwebs. it’s cold and distant and doesn’t feign connection. lovely cold hard detachment.

so what better way to be a nuisance than to try to coordinate others for a gathering. my obsessive organizational, compulsive coordination,  and irrational need to reach 100% completion on non-essential tasks make me prone to getting into a frenzy of activity when planning anything ever.

usually i get paid to do it. i’ve honed a start-up career out of a nesting instinct. i get paid to do what comes naturally to me. but on occasion i find myself involved in something outside work. rare but certain. it’s cool, i keep track of where people and things get off to. if someone in the department needs some obscure office tool or random scrap of data, i’m the go-to wench.  i’m the hub of this office for a reason. i collect and store information. it’s what i do to pay for my right to exist in this world so, of course, it’s a habit, too.  the talents come in handy and sometimes they result in kickass birthday parties for my kids and family. but sometimes things end in exasperated sighs from other apathetic folks who don’t even care to fake it for the sake of posterity.

but once in awhile, once in a very blue moon kind of while, i get that itch to be around other people. and as i’m filing through my mental catalogue of friends i keep at a distance, i realize i’d  rather continue the extensive affair that i began with my dvd player than take a shower and drive anywhere.  so then i turn to electronic means of keeping track of people. it saves me gas and cheekaches resulting from a persistent friendly smile (when you’re cheeks are as…prominent as mine, you don’t want to hold them up for extended periods of time). you think i’m kidding. please be so kind as to look at exhibit A: on none of my “social networking” sites will you see pictures of me with anyone but my own kids and occasionally, family members. please note the subtle absence of pictures of me anywhere but in my office or at the park. exhibit B: when’s the last time you actually saw me in public or, as a matter of fact, even heard my voice? i can all but guarantee you have not accidentally run into me frolicking on 6th street or lurking in the warehouse district in the past 4 or so years. exhibit C (which i can’t prove): 98% of my texts/phonecalls are to my bf.

yeah, i get it. you don’t care. me neither, truly. but what i’m talking about here is the unspoken RSVP request. a simple “can’t make it” would help my poor mind let it go. don’t think that i don’t call and/or email the superintendent’s office until i get a yes or no answer from his secretary for our department meetings. damn right. and he’s the 2008 austinite of the year. believe that.

if it’s a bust, then i can at least say i tried. if you’re asocial, hit me up (electronically, of course) and let’s not hang out sometime.

these are your options

after 9 hours of work with no food or water, i went to an information session presented by william eaton. bill, the new ambassador in residence at UT, was the former ambassador to panama. which i’m sure most people already knew. but recall, i live under a rock and work in an office with no windows.

most of his presentation was anecdotal. he shared stories about his years working for the foreign services in the department of state. my eyes started to droop after an hour, but out of respect, i stayed to listen and watch. carefully.

while interesting to listen to, and clearly enthusiastic about his chosen career, i am hesitant to listen to a man that chuckles at his own audacity, having provoked the kgb while on assignment in russia. i suppose every man is granted his irreverent younger years. but there’s defiant, and then there’s stupid arrogance. i assume he’s now a seasoned veteran with all the usual trappings of a mature middle-aged white man who has acquired decades of socialization and training from the government. mmm, my favorite american demographic. i’m sure he’s done a lot of positive things in his life, but while ambassadors out of the country are concerned with the opinions of foreign interests, they have failed to properly prepare most of my generation. the so-called generation y, highly intelligent and capable, yet coddled and mysteriously quiet. we are most delicate. we are dangerous because we are next in line to grab the ropes of this wayward raft. and i assure you that we are just as capable, and even more likely than our boomers, to run this shit straight into the rocks. big expensive bright yellow SUVs that wreck things and ponder on the smoldering ashes. juggernauts of idiocy. and i’m talking about the smart, reasonably-educated ones. the rest are almost harmless.

i’m from the generation whose parents forbade red ink to be used to grade our work because of its harmful impact on our self-esteem…   ?!… for ritalin’s sake, people. i hardly know anyone within a ten year radius of me that can cope with high stress and conflict without pharmaceutical or chemical assistance. hell, make it a twenty year radius with the imperious rise of the laboratory-created superdrugs that prevent normal feeling and thinking.

i threw my flag when mr. eaton explained that there is no minimum educational requirement to work in his field. but you have to be an actively attending student to qualify for the internship. and it’s highly competitive. but one of his colleagues is working three steps down from the top with a GED. i don’t even have sarcastic remarks for that shit. inconsistent messages to college students and the american public. obviously, education isn’t the best or only estimate of capability, but why make students jump through scholastic hoops to compete for positions to which individuals with no credentials have equal access?

sitting there in one of the old, poorly lit, unattractively designed conference rooms on the campus where i work and study, i had second thoughts about my aspirations to work in politics, policy, diplomacy, government.

in order to effect change, you have to play the game of politics; no matter how strong your aversion to the games of clever diplomacy and strategically applied language, id est, talking too much. saying the same thing in a hundred different ways. saying it until just the right syntax strikes the intended chord. there are too many complicated webs to navigate to stay completely pure of intent. i’m sure every rookie idealist learns quickly in his/her first months in washington or any other entity of heavy momentum and influence. all enter with ideas but partisan politics don’t correllate with our impressions of what it is to be american. we greatly value our individuality but don’t realize it only extends to the outer perimeters of our ability to control our immediate surroundings. beyond that, the highways make you conform to the rules or you wreck. period. otherwise you’re just standing on the medians, yelling at passing traffic. those lines can haul the bleedingest heart along and teach them to bite. and i’m certainly not going to turn into some grassroots activist (a term i despise), flapping and squawking about injustices and corruption while the albatross hangs dead around my neck. i’m sitting here with my tow hook waiting for the right vehicle to pass.

isn’t there a place for an disenchanted, introverted, highly analytical, naked mole rat who likes to collect and harvest information? i could work in the bowels of any department, government or otherwise, happily collecting, extracting, and processing data. much like a bowel. i could do that. the little microflora that could.

burro

i don’t have a word or analogy or metaphor or any other clever way of describing anything today. i’m blank and my mind is a solid mass. my thoughts aren’t streaming. they’re heavy and hum low. everytime i try to focus, i see my brain going through a meat grinder expelling ground flesh.

i didn’t care about anything today. i woke up late for work. didn’t care. noticed that i forgot to charge my phone. didn’t care. haven’t really gotten much done today at work. my kid was late for school. didn’t care. i just don’t seem to care. i’m pretty sure i haven’t even paid the rent. as a matter of fact, i know i haven’t. that’s not to say that i don’t have the money. i just haven’t done it. the nice lady in the leasing office said as long i pay the fees, i can pay it when i get to it. if she didn’t know i was good for it, she would have kicked my ass out a long time ago. she’s making more money by being patient, anyway. what i pay in late fees would upgrade me to the next size apartment. but guess what. i don’t care.

in a way, i guess i want someone to cheer me up. but then i feel one of two things:

1. guilty for distressing someone so much that they go out of their way for me.

2. annoyed because it sometimes the only way to get the attention i seek otherwise.

– the end.

echo boom this

sometimes i am speechless with disgust at my generation, the generation that preceded mine, and the one that follows. we are pampered, so sated and pacified by our material comforts that we fester in our own lush shells. domesticated pigs greedily feeding on our own crap.

our flight from our given places on simmer. what are our obligations when the social contract is no longer honored in spirit?

what i see disappoints me. i include myself in my assessment. i am fortunate to possess comforts that my predecessors did not and my contemporaries in other countries do not. yes. i am fat, lazy, and apathetic. the zeitgeist hovers just above the surface of our awareness, but never quite settles. it’s difficult to sense and synchronicity is stunted.

we all seem to be suffering from something like synaptal fatigue, psychic numbing. i call it sissified bullshit. i call it whiny baby learned helplessness. i call it spoiled-ass generation XYZmyfoot-the-grownups-willdealwithit crap. even a whipped dog or beaten child will eventually lash out. people condition themselves to ignore. cleave it out, wuss.

all this disgust in me for inaction but i recognize we possess a potential as yet untapped…quiet militancy. respectfully belligerent. weapons of the weak. willfully suppressed, but it’s there.

your fat, lazy, apathetic ass has too many rainbows and ice cream cones to focus on. i don’t mean to say that each doesn’t have his own sorrows. but the truly downtrodden have a greater capacity for joy and a less cynical sense of the sacred. they are not so padded by the comforts of the flesh as to reject the the eternal. your doubt and over-analysis of the meaning of life mean precisely dick.

the oppressed are women. the oppressed are men. the oppressed are children. the oppressed are the elderly. the oppressed are the white. the oppressed are the non-white. the oppressed are those aware of their opression and those who are oblivious. they are the starving and the overfed.

raise your sons as you raise your daughters. to feel and fear and love. raise your daughters as you raise your sons. to fight and move and shout.

i sporadically bring up these topics with peers. i rarely have the opportunity to breech the topic of the big picture and how one’s thread fits into the tapestry. i’m sick of talking about my job and my money. i don’t know where to start. where the fuck is everyone else? i feel like i showed up at a meeting in the wrong office.

little brown cat

little brown fuzzy cat

went to her chair and sat

there she hissed and she spat

because she’s pissed at a brat

someone’s scruffed her fur

makes her want to yell ‘GRR’

it ruins the end of her day

and she has plenty to say

she’ll rant and she’ll chide

and she’ll scratch out your eye

if you leave her hanging with no ride home and she’s hungry.

yeah.

mah mama said

my mom said “you better be careful what you put in your blog, especially in the line of work you want to go into. people can use what you say against you.”

i say fuck the political engine. isn’t it better that my thoughts and actions be public before some scuzbag gopher digs into me for my opponents? i got nothin to hide people. there ain’t nothin here i wouldn’t say in public. i’m free. i’m not going to make you guess. there it is, black and white. it’s the smoothtalkers that can’t be trusted, not the loudmouths.