Self-pity

I'm having a really rough time of it right now.

This has been a shitty year.  And it is almost my birthday and it just feels like it is a year of mistakes and sadness.

I survived.  But that's about all I can say for it.

I didn't realize how pathetic my life had gotten until Dotty came to visit.  We went to "our" bakery, which we go to whenever she is in town.  I also go there on my birthday and at the end of a real crunch season at work (provided I've stuck to my rules for eating sweets at work).  

My favorite bakery has stopped making my favorite treat.  And on one level, that is kind of not a big deal, right.  It's a fucking cupcake, chocolate with mint frosting.  What's the big deal?  And yet, my world has been a little shattered by the realization that I can't have this cupcake on my birthday.  And what is far worse is realizing how important this stupid cupcake has become in my life, because there just isn't a lot of good stuff in my life right now.  

On one level, I live a life or privilege and ease that so many people would envy.  I have enough money to buy anything I really want (but not everything I really want, but who needs that?)  I have autonomy, security and safety.  I own a beautiful home overlooking the water. I'm relatively healthy. What do I have to complain about?

But when did the highlight of my life become a god damn cupcake that I look forward to for months at a time?  What am I going to do on my birthday?  Last year, I took myself shopping at Macys and bought my fucking cupcake.  And that cupcake was lovely.  But I also had a lovely conversation with MaxEarnest.  But he stopped being interested in cyber-sex and he was in Europe and I was alone and I was so tired of being alone.  But now I'm even more alone. No MaxEarnest to look forward to; I don't even have a stupid cupcake.  I seem to have exactly what Obama conceded to the Republicans.

I walk along the water and I see so many people who have so little and I am in awe of how much I take for granted.  I know how silly it is that I feel sorry for myself. But the hole in my life keeps getting bigger.  It is a John-Dotty-MaxEarnest-cupcake-optimism shaped chasm.  And the tears come more easily.  

I think all I have left to look forward to for my birthday is taking a xanax that day.  That's probably how I'll celebrate. And that is maybe the saddest thing I've ever said.

Thin Skin

Life is sort of unerotic right now.  Philip disappeared and I let him go.  I'm pretty sure I could have easily gotten him to string me along for a few more months.  I think he liked me, but that isn't enough.  But the truth is, on our third date, back in May, he and I had a very kinky night in a bar (with our clothes on, but it was a lovely domination as he asked questions to find out more about me) and it reoriented my sense of eroticism and it is always hard to get that back.  Once I click on a guy, even orgasms on my own are much more boring and it takes time to unclick.  I'm totally emotionally open to meeting someone else now, but I haven't found my sense of sex for a bit.

But the rest of my life is kicking my butt; one of my jobs--a little one (should be 10 hours a month but has turned into 10 hours a week) is getting really abusive.  A woman on the project yells and bullies me in ways that I just cannot handle and I'm having such flashbacks to being bullied growing up.  It seems to be a xanax night most nights I have to deal with her.  I cannot believe how she is behaving.  She is insane (wants to fire a contractor because he is killing the trees--and her only proof is that we're losing a lot of leaves.  In October. In fact, he's such a bad contractors that trees all over the northern hemisphere are losing leaves and some people call this time of year "fall").  So I am standing up for people that she would like to fire so she yells at me.  And I fake it while she's yelling and then have obsessive crying fits until the xanax works.  Not the way I want to live.

I know that "normal" people would get so hysterical from someone yelling at them, but I have such thin skin. I don't know if I can ever get over the bullying I faced as a child.  The team leader on this project made it clear that if we're being productive he doesn't mind if I'm getting yelled at--what is the big deal (crazy lady yells at me and not at him).  So I don't know what to do.

It seems unfair that the only parts of me that are thin are my skin and hair.  But there it is!