True.

Stop yelling!

Ok, the truth. 

It’s Friday night, and I am beyond exhausted.  Last weekend was the project presentation followed by the closing ceremony, complete with out of town motherly visitor.  So, all of this would stress some mortals, but add on the fact that I worked my a$$ off last week and have not had a day off and will NOT have one off until Christmas day…

Well…

You can see how a person might want to kill someone/something FREAK OUT!!!

I am a complete stress monkey (shocker!) but do have one good thing to report.  Today my charming, inspiring, fabulous dickhead (erm, sorry Mom) boss, decided to chew my head off about something that is not only my job, but something that I DO.NOT.HAVE.TIME.TO.DO!  Seeing as he has sent the most senior member of our team to the warehouse to help them dig out of the huge hole they are in (too few workers), my crew is left with too much work to do (too few workers) and DHB (the boss-guy) calls asking why I didn’t do something he asked me to do.  I’ll spare the particulars but I stood up to him!!  I told him that I didn’t have access to what he was asking me to keep track of (he told me I was speaking fallacies) and that I did not know how I who was working short staffed would find time to do something that was NOT.MY.JOB.  I informed him that I was not his [insert job title here] and he very quickly backed off. 

I know this is not the end of it.  He and I have been squaring off for some time to butt heads very seriously but I think I am ready.   So many people in my office have told me how much they hate him and have cried at my desk because he’s yelled, belittled, picked on them.  I know that he needs me right now more than I need him! 

This is not to say that I am going to quit, but it is a way of holding my stance and vowing to you, dear internets, and to myself that I will stick up for myself.  He is  a bully, a meanie and a pathetic little dictator and at this point I DARE him to start something with me!  (she says while her palms sweat, her tummy flips and she prays he falls ill).

Ok.

Back to finishing the assignments that were do last weekend.

STOP yelling!

I know.

I am ON it.

UGH.

On the records I had written some of the words, names and accusations that have been used against me in my life.  Some of them were the negative things I say about myself in my head and some were things that my ex used to say about me and a few were names I have been called by complete strangers.  They are words, names and ideas that run over and over in my head and I wanted to exorcise the demon of these thoughts.  Names and ideas I hope to rid myself of forever.  The ex used to use some (a few very vulgar) names for me and over time, I came to hate the words themselves as well as how he said them. 

Soft-butch

Built

Rump-a-licious

Reubanesque

Big Girl

Momma 

ALLL that Ass  

And many others that I would prefer not to write or share with this interwebby thing-a-ma-jig.  Mainly because I would be embarrassed to admit (sorta openly) that I EVER permitted someone to use in reference to me!

Anyway, I wrote with paint pen all over the records and wrote as many of these words as I could.  These records have been laying around my apartment for about a week and every time I looked at them, I looked forward to destroying them!

At work, I had a horrible day and was very angry at some things that had happened.  It was perfect!  I could get out some of my frustrations on those damn records!

I rushed in the apartment, grabbed the records, my camera, and the largest hammer in my tool drawer and headed out the door.  The kitties were very confused…  As well they should have been– I am sure that I looked like a crazy woman!

On the sidewalk in front of my building I set up and took a few pictures of the records in all their intact glory.  Several neighbors walked by and looked at me strangely… LOVE it!

I started by snapping them into as many pieces as I could with my hands.  It felt good and I giggled a bit as I did it.  One of the records was a Disney Winnie the Pooh record, that one is particular was fun to break apart.   I felt like I was getting away with something forbidden or naughty.  I was a bit exhilarated when people stared as they walked by.  

I then, started using the hammer!  WOW!  What a punch it had!  There were shards flying everywhere.  The sound of the hammer on the concrete was very rewarding along with the jolt of the impact up my arm.  I used my frustration about work, school, life, everything to hammer those records to bits. 

Get out of my HEAD!!! Get out of my LIFE!

For some reason I felt that I needed to try to collect all of the pieces, so I searched up to 20 feet away looking for the chunks that had flown every which way.  I then put them all in a paper sack and used the hammer to break them up further.  I really wanted them to be a small as possible—or at least part of it to be. 

One of the older men that live in my building walked by and saw me.  He looked at me strangely and I felt sort of silly, but then giggled to myself that I was creating a pretty typical San Francisco tableau.  Strange girl, dressed in black, doing something strange on the street in the name of “Art”.  Ha!

One of the ones that was really striking was that one of the shards still revealed THE WORD very prominently.  Well…

 The C word 

Obviously, I do not need to elaborate.  The word itself has so much weight to it.  It is charged on so many levels, I’ll let you deal on your own terms…

But I’ll take the word back!  Proudly!  I have ONE, what’s it to you???

After sifting through the particulate matter to find the smallest bits, I decided to put the dust and shards in some glass vials that were given to me by a classmate.  I have been wanting to use them for something mainly because they have this scientific/medical quality about them and I think they are cool.

Anyway, I filled a few with the Broken Record Dust for posterity and am feeling pretty proud of the whole experience.

 Vials of BRD 

I had some hits and misses trying to capture this experience for this inter-webby-blog-o-sphere-thing-y but I hope you get the gist.

Yeah.

Onward toward new technology.  Out with 45’s and onto optic-memory, dammit.

A young woman, late 20′s (if I had to guess), was arriving to her apartment along a very busy street during rush hour.  She pulled up on her bicycle when some men yelled something at her.  She immediately flipped the finger at them.  They retorted and she yelled, “hey, go FUCK yourself!”.

As I walked by, I said “Awesome!” to her.  I couldn’t help myself.

Why did this seemingly common (or not??) urban interaction strike me so?  I think it was her bravery, her willingness to just put it out there.  She didn’t think about it, she just reacted.  She did not think, “should I? should I not? what if? what if I don’t?”.  She just SAID what she thought in the moment. 

As I have discovered in working on this project and talking with other women about their own struggles with standing up for themselves, many have told me about how they panic in the moment and then think about the event for the next hours/days/weeks/years thinking about what they SHOULD have said.  

I know that I am not particularly quick on the draw with retorts if someone attacks or insults me.  When I am in the defensive mode, I don’t know how to speak my mind.

On the other hand, when I am comfortable, or at least in a non-aggressive environment, I can be very quick to respond with humor.  Additionally, I know that I use this “funny girl” ability in situations when I am uncomfortable.  Rarely, however, is this when a run-of-the-mill “fuck you” would do.  I make jokes often to ease tension between other people or to diffuse a situation that I have created that is making others uncomfortable.  Maybe it’s the textbook ‘fatgirl/guy’ as “class clown” act…

Anyway…

I say BRAVO to the girl on the bike.  The girl that speaks her mind.  The one that doesn’t think twice in the dangerous urban jungle to stand up for herself, speak her mind  and tell some obnoxious guy to Eff-the Fuck OFF!

Awesome!