Jerkstore

Someone drew two eyes and a toothy grin on the transformer at the Newton Highlands station so it looks like a friendly robot.

I'm still having fun at work, which is pretty amazing, considering my job satisfaction track record. Sometimes it's actually a really great confidence boost, because you wouldn't believe the sorts of stupid mistakes I see people make on a daily basis. Truthfully, I am having a lot of fun, and I love 99.9% of the people I come into contact with. That 0.1% is comprised of people who still call me by the wrong name despite seeing it in writing, and people who hang up on me while I'm saying "thank you" or otherwise saying goodbye.

My newest pet peeve (and everyone knows I have many, many peeves) is people who review a memoir but don't know what a memoir is. "I kept reading but the plot never got interesting!" "I sincerely doubt that the then five-year-old author remembered this accurately." Maybe I should buy a book about how to improve your golf game and then review it with a complaint about how I don't like golf.

In other news, What Claudia Wore is my new favorite blog. You need to check this out if you've ever read a book by Ann M. Martin.

Best. Resignation. Ever.

If I have learned anything from the first half of Frontline's 2-part documentary: Bush's War it is that Donald Rumsfeld is a senile old man that thinks little Arab devils are out to get him. Can we throw a party when this guy dies?

edit: Y'know, "senile" implies that he isn't deliberately being a malicious asshole. So uh.. let's just change that to "a malicious asshole of an old man," shall we?

Re: Medusa

"Did that hurt?"

I had a needle pushed through my skin. You figure it out.

Disappointing:

Did not see the Jersey Devil on my business trip.

Good news: I freakin' love my job and my coworkers. Um, except for the part that they're all in Jersey and I'm all by my lonesome in Boston.

There are many reasons why I'm registered Green.

Regarding right intention, I think anger about injustice probably fits within those boundaries. Upon reading a recent interview with Hillary Clinton, I burst into tears because my worries about the Democratic party have been confirmed. No one wants to fight for the little guy, they just want the little guy to believe long enough to cast a vote.

(With apologies to Phoebe, if she's reading. I kept the word "bitch" out, I think.)

From Newsweek:

Newsweek: A colleague of mine writes in an essay for the magazine this week, "[Clinton] and I are about the same age, an age when most women have become invisible to the rest of society, and there she is, energetic … and feisty and capturing the world's attention." Is this what's fueling support for you?

Hillary Clinton: I think there is a sense of identity and a common experience. You know, I know it's hard for young women to really feel the emotional connection because they didn't live through what we lived through. When I was a young woman, there were colleges I couldn't go to, jobs that I couldn't have ever had, a set of expectations that were pretty much imposed—and so women my age, we have gone through this extraordinary movement … But the true beneficiaries are our daughters and our granddaughters.

Dear Hillary,

Women my age don't support you not because we don't have a "sisterly connection," it's because you're so condescending to us sometimes. When you speak to people younger than yourself, you are condescending. It's like you're looking at our collective finger painting and making a noncommittal noise, putting it up on the refrigerator, and then throwing it in the trash when we leave the room. You don't run a positive campaign - you just insult and tear down people who don't support you. After reading this interview, I can only come to the conclusion that you are a misogynist masquerading as a feminist.

(The reason Obama's campaign is so novel is because he so rarely talks smack about other people. More flies with honey, etc. I disagree with a lot of what Obama has to say, and yet he still seems to appeal to me. Even if it is complete and utter bullshit, and he's lying through his teeth, the fact that he answers questions directly and respectfully is a breath of fresh air for a party stuck in the doldrums. Disclaimer: I am not voting Democratic in a presidential election period.)

You act like you're the queen of women's rights; girls today don't know how good they have it! Do you know how hard it is to be a feminist these days? Especially if you have declared yourself to be a feminist? The vitriolic bullshit that's spewed in my direction when I drop the f-bomb would make you think that a hell of a lot of people (I say "people" because some women are anti-feminist too, which confounds me to no end), if given the option on a ballot, would overwhelmingly approve revocation of the nineteenth amendment.

You wanna talk about invisible women? Try Jamie Leigh Jones. 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. College-aged women are 4 times more likely to be assaulted. Girls aged 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. What are you doing for my generation's women, if you're such a feminist? Stop trying to tell me that you're representing what women want in this country; you were never a suffragette. No male candidates talk about representing all males in the United States. How can you be so out-of-touch when you, yourself are a woman?

Please, someone rip my argument to shreds. I'm tired of not having faith in the future of this country.

Help me help myself.

Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. The Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions:
1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire,
2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and
3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.

"Right Intention" has been called upon as my mantra for the past few days, as I can feel the anger rising in me. Earlier today while I was vomiting in the bathroom at work (antibiotics + influx of hormones from a new Ring), this woman would not stop pounding on the door to use the ladies room (it's a single room - a walk in closet with a toilet and sink, basically). As I coughed and sputtered, she continued to slam on the door and jiggle the handle. She waited outside the door for at least 10 minutes while I finished up and regained my composure.

I came out and she was still lingering right next to the door. The mens room was right next door and completely unoccupied. If she was that desperate to use the restroom, why didn't she just use the room next door? Or go upstairs to a different bathroom, if she was uncomfortable using a toilet that had a urinal right next to it?

I gave her the dirtiest look I could muster. I feel pretty guilty about it right now, especially when I think about what I wanted to say to that woman. I'm telling myself that she was deaf or otherwise hard of hearing so I can feel compassionate towards her instead of angry.

The fact that she still exists arises in my head every now and then, and it always makes my blood boil. It's a collection of betrayal, frustration and feeling sorry for myself. It's comforting to know that I live in Cambridge now, so I'm not sharing My City with her. I know I should be feeling compassion towards all living things, because every life deserves to be treated with respect, but it is very, very difficult to banish the negative thoughts from my mind. I have more compassion for the guy who pulled a knife on the train, or the guy who deliberately tried to scare me while I crossed the street. I have more compassion for people who could have killed me than I do for her, years later.

I know it's counter-productive to be writing this, because really I should just give up and know nothing good will ever come from this situation ever, and just be done with it. I would like to do this, but I cannot banish these thoughts, as hard as I try. They never go away, they just lie dormant for a couple of weeks at a time, tops. Honestly, I don't think I ever will stop being angry about this. I'm still holding a grudge from almost a dozen years ago. Forgiving and forgetting has never been my strong suit. How does anyone get over anything? It just seems so much easier to hate people with whom you previously had some sort of connection, rather than some random inconsiderate guy in a Toyota Corolla.

A love letter of sorts.

Dear guy who waved me through the crosswalk and then gunned it the second I stepped into the street,

You are going to hell. I don't even believe in hell, but you are going to hell. I guess I must commend you, because I didn't think Corollas from 1990 could speed up so quickly; you must have taken very good care of your car.

I tried to give it 30 minutes to see if I'd cool off, but no, I'm still pretty angry. Maybe if you walked somewhere other than to the refrigerator and back to the couch you'd have some sympathy for pedestrians that have to walk a a mile to work every day. Or, at the very least, lose that fat ass of yours.

I really appreciate your obeying of Massachusetts state law. After all, the law says you have to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. There's no law about letting them cross. I can see how that would be confusing. But if you have short-term amnesia, where you don't remember the action you did just moments beforehand, maybe you shouldn't be driving - just a helpful suggestion.

Fortunately, I know my quality of life is significantly better than yours (I'm not 200 pounds overweight and middle-aged), otherwise I probably would've chased you down the street to the next stop light and smashed your windshield with my backpack.

Here's hoping that heart attack comes sooner rather than later. Preferably in a McDonald's bathroom.

-Erin

Just a small part of my 90 minute commute.

Yesterday on my way home, between Haymarket and North Station, some kids started yelling and one of them pulled a knife. At least, I thought it was a knife. This older guy and I discreetly stepped off the train and walked up to the operator at the front of the car. I dropped the description, "black and red hoodie." I got back on, next to the driver, which was probably a bad call on my part, especially since the older guy wandered off.

The doors closed in our car and the driver radioed for help. The first fourth of the car could hear the discussion, definitely. She told the rest of the train that there was a disabled train ahead of us, and that was the cause for the delay. I have to give her credit for lying convincingly to keep the passengers calm.

People kept running into the second car of the train; those doors were still open. I was terrified that the knife-wielder would make the connection. We waited maybe five minutes for MBTA police to arrive. I haven't had a bad five minutes like that in years now. I tried to rationalize that there are not many "innocent bystander" stories involved in a knife fight, but then it occurred to me that if someone brought a knife on the train, any person could also bring a gun onto the train.

So I was locked into this moderately full train car, there was a potentially violent situation going on, and I was breathing poorly-recirculated air. Air that came out of other people. I haven't been sicked like this on the train since my senior year when some guy projectile vomited into a stairwell; there had been a very loud splashing sound. The air was sticking to the inside of my lungs. I tried to not have a panic attack.

Police swarmed in and dragged five or six kids off the train. I remember the whole thing being very quiet with fluid motions. This one officer wearing a helmet came up to the driver's door and said there hadn't been a knife.

I felt my stomach sink. I felt foolish; I'd been sitting on a delayed train earlier in the evening because of a track issue - maybe I was just tired and frustrated. I felt so ashamed of myself because I'd caused such a huge inconvenience to a train's worth of passengers, and I reinforced a stereotype that thuggish-looking kids are actually up to no good. I felt like one of those old ladies that calls the police when she sees more than two teenagers gathered on her block.

Another officer called out from the back. He had a moustache. They'd found the knife. "Sometimes, knives like to hide under seats," he said; he was smiling a bit.