sick sick sick...and Uber

I've been so sick the past few days. The flu or something. Nausea and all the related unpleasantness, chills, dizziness. I couldn't be upright for more than a few minutes. Tried twice yesterday to get in the shower but just couldn't stand that long. Or sit. My mother wanted me to go to the ER (a nurse who is not prone to overreacting) but I couldn't drive, and didn't anyone who could take me. I also wouldn't have been able to sit in a chair for hours. Today I feel better, but sort of like a truck hit me. I don't know how anyone can get drunk knowing that they'll likely throw up. It's something I would do just about anything to avoid. Yet another reason not to drink. Then again, I didn't eat for a few days, so...

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In the fall I thought about being an Uber driver. Did the application and sent in all my documents. And then was accepted. Immediately I started getting bombarded with texts and emails telling me to "get (my) phone". Get my phone? Nothing in their documentation says anything about a phone, and I had to write to them 3 times before I got a straight answer - you have to either have an iPhone, or rent one from them for $40/month. Their app does not work on Androids. Come get your phone at our local office, or contact us and we'll send you one, the messages said, over and over. After lots of other bad press and with this realization, I decided not to do it. I ignored all the texts and emails. Then, oddly, I got a message saying, "Thanks for applying to be an Uber driver. We are currently unable to accept your application, but we'll keep you on file". Huh? They'd already accepted me. Out of curiosity, I texted back one of the many texts and asked what that was about. I was told, "oh, that must have been a mistake - you're all set to drive" and then texts and emails began again. I ignored them. Then last week, a package arrives ... with an iPhone in it! And various accessories.

I contacted them again and said I'd never asked for the phone, and wasn't going to drive. "Oh, sorry for the mixup - just fill out this form and we'll send you a pre-paid envelope to send it back in, and we won't charge you for it". Charge me? Pretty sure they don't have credit card info for me, so I'm not sure how they'd charge me, but whatever. I'll send the phone back. And after the message, where I was told my account had been deleted, I got another email telling me that I'd been approved and was set to drive! What?? Clearly their process, aggressive though it is, needs some refinement. They seem to really not have their shit together.

congrats to everyone else

So, today (or yesterday, I'm not sure) N and C got married. I've tried to keep away from all the accolades and have hidden posts as I've seen them, but I'm also on social media today, doing work for various clients. I no longer have feelings for him, and this (marriage) makes sense. Her age, super talented commensurate with his, so outgoing that she's the ultimate social/party planner to his introvertedness. Still, it's been rougher than I expected. While he gets to say how very happy he is and everyone praises them, it's all so very far away for me. And whereas an introverted guy is adorable, an introverted woman is a liability. I'm currently reading a book about how positivity is actually harming us, and it's been a comfort to read, to know that other people recognize (backed up by research) that relentless sunniness should not only not be a goal, but that in denying the whole spectrum of emotion, we miss a lot. It's more complicated than that, of course.

I've lost the ability (or maybe never had it) to describe how this alone-ness wears on me. I try not to think about it, but it does creep in.

time for a nap

Get up, and right into:

- feed kitteh
- gather trash and recycling; put it out; new bags in trash cans
- clean litter box
- clean dishes
- start iced tea machine
- restart this crashed browser twice

Now to start work. 

openly secular

I've been delighted to discover that more of my friends than I knew are humanist/atheist. And also sort of saddened that it has to be approached so gingerly, still. I think many many more are than talk about it, and even some people who are "religious" are but for any of several reasons, won't come out. But I've now mentioned it (gingerly, not trying to coerce, just as part of conversation*) to two friends who've replied with exasperation, like, "ug, you're one of THOSE??", as if I'd said, "oh by the way, I'm an angry militant feminist" (in actuality, I'm a feminist, just not the angry militant type). Last night it was one of my best friends, who I know is not religious, but he insisted that "atheism is just another religion", which I was so disappointed to hear, because it's a thought-less comment. Ridiculous, really. It's not even an organization, even though there ARE lots of organizations about it, none of which I'm part of. But if I said I were devoutly Jewish or Christian, there wouldn't be exasperation. There'd be at least feigning of respect. At best it's a clear misuse of language. "But you BELIEVE in nothing". A belief does not a religion make, and how does one believe. in. nothing? By definition it's not possible. It's a religion like not playing tennis is a sport.

I remember talking to the members of Postyr when they were here performing. It was their first time in the US. And we were on the east coast. They'd just been in New York and were now in Boston and they were really surprised at how religious everyone seemed, so many churches. That's not the case in northern Europe, they said, where religion is, well, not that common anymore. And that's the direction in which we're headed globally. And despite the various actual churches' contentions that this represents the downfall of society, it's actually the opposite. It's enlightenment, it's us collectively realizing that these structures and tenets that we created for various reason, to explain and control when we didn't have the information we now have, are no longer needed. And that's beautiful. In the meantime, I'll still be careful about how I talk while still talking, and careful not to alienate my friends who are religious, because I value those friendships.

*eg last night, this friend said how he loves the ultra-liberal, conservative takedown posts on Facebook, and I said I like the humanist/atheist ones. I was not trying to start a conversation about religion or lack thereof.

2014 book, movie, TV series list

I left out concerts and live shows because that list is incomplete

* = recommended by me, for what it's worth

MOVIES:

Saving Mr. Banks
Her
Bronies* [documentary]
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty*
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska*
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Robot and Frank
Let It Be [documentary]
Blackfish [documentary]
Wolf of Wall Street*
Sick [documentary]
Grand Budapest Hotel*
Unhung Hero [documentary]
Escape from Tomorrow
Mr. Nobody
Life Itself [documentary]
12 Years A Slave
Tammy
Camp (again)*
Secretary
Maidentrip [documentary]
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me* [documentary]
Zardoz
The Unbelievers* [documentary]
Rock and Roll Nerd* [documentary]
I Know That Voice [documentary]
Ordinary Child
Tim’s Vermeer* [documentary]
When Jews Were Funny [documentary]
The Final Member [documentary]
Whitewash*
The King’s Speech
Coherence
St. Vincent
Dallas Buyers Club
The Theory of Everything
Burt’s Buzz [documentary]
Transcendence
Gone Girl
Still Alice
Birdman*
Unbroken
Sunshine
Foxcatcher

TV SERIES OF NOTE:

re-watch some “Louie”s*
Girls season 3*
Portlandia season 4*
Comedy Bang Bang season...2?*
Maron*
Louie*
Derek*
Masters of Sex*
Orange Is the New Black*
Happy Valley*
Lilyhammer, season 3*
Black Mirror, seasons 1 and 2*
re-watch Louie CK “Chewed Up”*

BOOKS:

Girl With The Curious Hair / David Foster Wallace
Downtown Owl / Chuck Klosterman
At the Point of a Cutlass: The Pirate Capture, Bold Escape, and Lonely Exile of Philip Ashton / Greg Flemming*
Tibetan Peach Pie / Tom Robbins*
The Wes Anderson Collection*
Bunker Hill / Nathaniel Philbrick (part of)
Not That Kind Of Girl / Lena Dunham*
Yes, Please / Amy Poehler
Tepper Isn’t Going Out / Calvin Trillin

whirlwind nomance

Happy New Year. No year-end sentimental wrap up for me. That's best left to people who feel hopeful about the year ahead or philosophical/proud about the year just past, but for me it's just been another. Still poor, still single, still struggling, still here. I'm trying to make tiny inroads to change things, and I don't even know if it's worth stating what those things are. Some I don't want to. Some are things like: I've been weeding out stuff, getting rid of books and throwing out (recycling) files for old clients. Getting rid of old paperwork. Donating clothes. Trying to streamline so that when I do move, it might be a little easier, and it might psychically spur me to get going, wherever that may be. A lot of stuff I can't access easily because it's in boxes in closets and hard to get to. Not sure it's time for that big project yet.

I started to watch the movie "Snowpiercer" last night but couldn't take much of it. I actually feel a little sensitized since I also just saw "Unbroken", and despite having read the book, I just couldn't tolerate another movie chock full of violence against individuals, people getting beat to shit, etc. So I then watched "Don Jon", which turned out to be surprisingly sweet. This dude - this guido - who sees and interacts with women like one dimensional characters and thinks porn is better than sex with a person. He burns through a relationship with Scarlett Johanson's character because she's an asshole with an agenda, and so is he. Guffaw to him going to church every week to confess his "sins" of sex and porn and being absolved and told to do such-and-such for that absolution. Ridiculous. Then he meets an older woman (Julianne Moore) who ends up teaching him - and not in a cheesy contrived way - what it means to actually BE with a woman. Because she knows herself and knows what the fuck she's doing. Yay older women!

I've noticed that all versions of observable romance, however, tend to leave me cold now. Everything seems unappealing to me, nothing seems sexy or real or aspirational. Where are the romances for me, or have I just shut down? My last experience was just a trifle, was incredibly disappointing, and was not repeated. I see lots of examples of relationships and couples I can identify as what I don't want, but none that I do. And it worries me. Because now I'm really beginning to feel like I must be broken, there must be noone for me. While others live whole lives in x period of time, I stay single and the same. My sister is now/already dating more than me. She's not yet divorced. It's a sort of numbness. I'm sad, and I'm worried.