I'm out of Jam. Metaphorical Jam. We'll get there.

I promise no ranting. Like, actually. It's frightening, but hold fast; we'll get through.

So I've been losing some weight lately because I am a gym person. By which I mean I started going to the gym and regularly working out ~4 months ago and I have not stopped. Now I can't go to the gym anymore, because I'm not at college and there isn't free gym access (the real world is kind of crappy), but I'm still working out SO IT COUNTS. And I've started counting calories, in a really easy using an app kind of way. And it's been working! I'm down ~10 pounds (wow I'm really into the squiggly approximation mark today), which is fantastic. I've also passed a particular milestone that I don't care to share, but WOO MILESTONES.

The only problem with all of this is my parents and my sister. I mean, working out is great; I feel better and sleep better and think better and blabity blah everything they tell you about working out is actually true. But I'm a little late on my family's weight-loss bandwagon.

I'll set the scene:  My mother is now approximately 40 pounds lighter than me, and my dad is something similar.  I like to think it doesn't show that much, but look at that number. It's huge. It's like, the size of a small child. I'm slightly taller than her, so maybe it sits well on my frame or something, but seriously. There is no denying that number.  And I didn't notice how much she was widening the gap until it was far too late, because I was at college eating literal tons of dorm food because I swiped for it dammit and I'm going to get my money's worth. Long story short, I came home from school to find that my mother was drastically thinner than me.

Okay. Let that sink in. My mother is a middle-aged woman. I am in college, so deduce my age (too slow, I'm 19).  Nineteen. Not. Yet. Twenty. And my middle-aged mother is much thinner than me.

Let me describe to you how that feels:
Imagine your self-esteem as a bunch of cute little glass jars filled with self-esteem jam. They have cute checkered lid-cloths in fun colors! They have ribbons! It's adorable! You have a jar and some jam for each thing you like about yourself; you're funny, you're smart, you're pretty, you're good at drawing, you remember everyone's birthday, etc. Maybe the jars aren't full, but boy howdy it's nice to look have jam in them.
Sometimes things take a spoonful out of the jam.  Could be failure. Could be insults.  Could be other people's success. And you can see the dent in the jam from where the spoon dug in. It's upsetting. But it's only one jam-jar at a time, so you live with it and you keep on making jam (out of positive-thinking-berries?) and you move on.
My mother being almost 40 pounds lighter than me feels like she's taken a civil war cannon and blasted it straight through every single goddamn jam jar I have ever known.  The contents are spilling all over. It's soaking into the ground. My jars are broken. People are bleeding. It's chaos.

Now I like to think of myself as a person who doesn't place too much emphasis on looks. I'm not totally shallow, I don't only like pretty people, my entire self-worth isn't my appearance, I pay my taxes.  But when your own mother is that much skinnier than you and you have literally always disliked your weight it's hard to keep the jam in the jars, fellas. It's hard.

(Now I'm wondering if you maybe put the self-esteem jam onto life fulfillment toast and it makes it taste better or something, but let's stop before this metaphor really gets away from me.)

And that's not including my sister. (My dad doesn't count; sure, he's super thin, but he wears baggy shirts and cargo shorts and he's a man and it just doesn't count for some reason okay stop hounding me.) She's also skinnier than me, but heaven only knows how much. She's lived way out west for the past 9 months and I haven't stood side-by-side with her since around Christmas. We'll see when she gets here, but it's possible she will pick up the spilled jam I have been collecting and attempting to sort and smash it directly into my face.

We'll see.

The ultimate point (I got distracted by jam) is that even though I'm pretty consistently losing weight, I don't feel like it's good enough.  I'm always downplaying my achievement. I don't have enough positive-thinking-berries to make any jam out of my weight loss. (See, it came back around.) I'm always thinking, yeah, whatever, I'm still not thin so what does it matter?

And that's bad for my jam. Or what's left of it.

In totally unrelated news, remember my fifth-wheel-related five-stage jealousy?
Almost completely gone.
THANK GOD FOR DISTANCE.
As they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend; and since the enemy of relationships is lack of contact, it has been kind to me. Not being around all my friends and their girlfriends and in particular one of those girlfriends has lightened my jealousy so much that I almost feel like a real person again.

IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL. I recommend it.

Okay. One long fruit-spread-based metaphor and some capital-letter happiness is enough for a post, I think.
Tell me about your self-esteem jam. Tell me about your lack thereof. Tell me about something. Prove you're alive.

Not Rubbing it In

Not a rant!

I was thinking of something I wanted to say and it didn't seem appropriate for any other form of social media, and then I remembered blogging. AKA you guys are my last resort.
Sorry.
If there were any of you reading, I would feel guilty.
Allons-y.


So I don't believe in posting on facebook about things you just did with people and how fun they are.
Reason 1) The people you were with KNOW they were with you. They know if they had a good time. You know if you had a good time. They don't need to see it on a public facebook message. If it was too good not to marvel at, that's what texting is for.

The real reason, though, and this is Reason 2, is actually really personal to me. I just don't think other people need to know exactly how much fun you've been having without them. When I was breaking up with my ex-best friend (and yeah, it was breaking up) she would sometimes post on facebook about having a great time with other friends -- sometimes mutual friends -- and tag them and they'd like it. And it broke my heart, to be honest. Wanting to spend time with someone who won't return your calls and then seeing them posting about going out with other people? It's devastating.

And obviously most of us don't ignore our friends before we flaunt on facebook, but I just couldn't stand doing that to someone. And maybe it's because I've been saddled with some trust issues, but even when I read statuses like that from friends that I KNOW I am on good terms with it still stings. No one likes to hear that other people had a good time without them. And as per Reason 1, there's really no reason to do it. Unless you are using facebook as like an electronic diary, in which case, stop.

A lot of things from that breakup still scar me, and that's one of them.

WHOOO that was a quick little post about quick little pet peeves. How are you?
What's your favorite color? What's your favorite way to prepare an egg?

THE END

Sometimes, It Isn't About You

This is the intro part. It's where I ease you back into my rant that's about to happen with something funny or relevant or a promise we all know I won't keep about how I won't do it again. 

Phew, now that that's done. 

UGHHHHHHHHH. 

So I know I said I didn't want to talk to you about Christianity anymore because you can't touch me, but then I saw this thing and it made me too mad. TOO MAD. 

So here's the thing. Haha, Ricky Gervais, you're hilarious, and thousands of people think so too. Good on you, have a cookie. Except don't, because you're doing that thing that people do where they hate on people of faith for literally no reason.

You want to hate on Christians for all of the SHIT that they actually do? Be my frakking guest.  (I'm probably going to say "Christians" a couple of times when I really mean "religious people" because I am a Christian and it's more personal to me and yada yada, but don't think I think Christians are better or more deserving or what-have-you than Jews, Muslims, etc. because that is like the OPPOSITE of my point) We do some shitty stuff. We kill people in the name of a God who expressly forbids killing. We badger people who don't want us to talk to them because we believe it's our divine duty. We hate people who are different. We use outdated, out-of-context scripture to try and force people to abide by rules TODAY that fit our ancient moral code. We do some shitty, shitty stuff. I'm not saying we don't. And I'm using "we" because even though I try my damnedest not to do any of this, I realize that I don't get to call myself a Christian and pretend like I'm completely separate from all of that crap. 

So if you want to hate on us for that stuff, or call us out for that stuff, or disagree with us for that stuff, whatever. I've already discussed how I don't want to talk about it personally because I'm sick of it, but that doesn't mean you can't bring it up. Doesn't mean you can't judge us, because some of us certainly "judge" you based on the rules of our God.  Say you hate organized religion and think the church is corrupt and does more harm than good. Fine. Say you think Christians are self-righteous, deluded assholes who read old fiction as truth so they can sleep at night still discriminating against people who make them uncomfortable. Sure. You are at perfect liberty to do these things, and in fact you would have valid points most of the time. 

But us praying for you? THAT IS NOT ONE OF THOSE THINGS. THAT'S NOT ONE OF THE THINGS YOU CAN HATE US FOR WITHOUT BEING A PRICK.

When someone says they're going to pray for you, it's not to earn your goddamned recognition. It's to frakking help you, because they care about you. It is not something we throw around for brownie points. You think there's a part in the Bible where it says if you pray for more people you get a special heated seat in heaven? Do you HONESTLY think that we only say that so that we don't have to "do anything that takes any effort"?

The only time I have EVER heard ANYONE say those words in seriousness was in a situation where not much could be done. That is, illness, death in the family, extreme misfortune. If you go up to someone on the street bleeding and ask them to call 911 they're not going to say I'll pray for you. That would be stupid. We turn to God when hope is fleeting and we don't know what to do anymore. News flash: That has nothing to do with trying to manipulate how you feel about us. 

Here's another kicker: Christians do not exist to annoy you.  We don't actually do everything we do to bother you or give you something to complain about with your atheist friends. Sometimes, we do things because were are FUCKING PEOPLE. Sometimes we do things because we believe in God. It's not a hoax, or a scam, or some conspiracy to trick you. It's what we BELIEVE. 

And so you know, praying is an intensely personal and intimate experience. We don't sit at night and pray for all the suffering in the world; there just isn't time. We pray for things that matter to US, because we need to bring them to God because earthly methods have failed to comfort us. We pray about things that are deeply emotional and utterly OUR OWN, because God is where we turn when we feel most lost and in need of guidance. I'm not asking you to be honored, or comforted, or grateful, or even pleased that we decided to pray for you. I'm asking you to acknowledge that to us, it means something, and writing it off as attention-seeking is one of the shittiest ways to respond.

Maybe you don't want to be prayed for. Fine. But don't go around saying we're lazy assholes for offering.

Envy, parts 1-29

Hey again. 'Sbeen a while. Sorry to keep you rocking yourself to sleep at night in my absence. (HA)

So remember that thing where all my friends were in relationships?

Still are. Hasn't changed. Now they're just further into all their relationships, which is, y'know, awesome.

I'm really happy for them, of course. I'm like so pleased because they all seem really happy to be with each other and in general and I love my friends to be happy. (You sly devil, you know complaints follow when I start with "I'm happy for them...")

It's been rough on me. Remember how I'm an attention whore? Well it's been even less attention lately for me, which I can handle. Didn't say I could handle it well, though. So I've come up with a theory.

The fact is that I used to be really frustrated about it. Like tear-down-the-walls frustrated, on-the-brink-of-insanity frustrated. Constantly fuming in my own frustration. I wanted to take each of them by the lips and just shake them and make them all be mine instead of each other's or something. Lately, I've moved on to sadness. This is actually pretty recent. Now I'm just sad all the time. I keep feeling all mopey and I've been crying a lot.

I've decided that there are stages of Jealousy, like stages of grief. That's the theory.

JEALOUSY:
Stage 1: The Pangs
This is where classic "jealousy" as you're used to it sets in. It hurts. It feels sour in your throat, it hurts in your stomach. You're a green monster. You want to steal everyone for your own.

Stage 2: Frustration
You can't stand it anymore. Any time any of them demonstrates the tinest bit of unhappiness/inconvenience/mild-annoyance/anything-besides-perfect-bliss you lose it. You want to (or do) throw your hands in the air and storm out, and scream. Your stomach is boiling. Your throat is hoarse.

Stage 3:  Sadness
It's a different sadness from normal sadness; it feels halfway between being actually upset and being upset because of like a tv commercial (is that only me?). You cry a lot. Constantly. You look at them and think, "Why isn't that me?" and you're torn between being happy for them and wanting it to end really REALLY badly.


I imagine there are stages after that, but I've yet to get there. I think it might be like "delusion" and then "compensation" and then "acceptance," but if we even get to "acceptance" without going through like "group murder" and "court of law" and "lifetime conviction" then I will be PLEASANTLY SURPRISED, FELLAS.


It may not be as bad as I make it seem. Obviously I still hang out with them, so it's not big enough of a deal to change my habits. But I am still pretty...disgruntled about it. You know how it is.

Next time, lighthearted tales of adventures in Narnia or some shit. Promise.

Stop Wasting Time

Fellas, let's be real. 

We need to stop hating on good people because they once or twice did a shitty thing. Here's some news: People are human. Humans make mistakes. So by the Transitive Property of Equality, yes, math, people make mistakes. 

That doesn't mean that you should just let mistakes slide. It's perfectly reasonable to call people out on their mistakes so they can hope not to reproduce them, particularly if those mistakes upset you in some way. That's okay. In fact, do that. 

But don't hate a person because of it. Just don't. Plenty of really good people to bad things sometimes. And I'm talking here about being offensive -- people saying something that can be described as anything-ist. 

Because it does happen. Good people say bad things. 

The thing is, you're wasting your time hating them. If you decide you can't support a person because they've said one or two or even several bad things over the course of a long, generally well-intentioned and open-minded career of saying decent things, you're being unreasonable. And more importantly, you're pulling focus from where it belongs. 

As my friend Charlie says, plenty of people work really hard to be assholes. So when you spend your time tearing down the good people -- or even just the okay people -- because they said this thing once, you're making it okay for the Professional Assholes to keep being assholes. You're saying that only good people need to be held accountable. 

The truth is everyone needs to be held accountable. But once you hold them accountable, you can stop. There's no need to boycott an entire person. 

I just...why?

You Need Five Wheels, Right?

SNAPPY INTRO.

So I like to think of myself as a strong independent woman who don't need no man and all, and usually that's pretty true. But lately? God I've been lonely.

I've never really had a bunch of friends who were dating. In fact I've never really had friends who were dating. One of them kinda went out with this guy freshman year of high school, but she's so secret about everything that I didn't even know till it was over. And then my best friend has been in this relationship for a year, but I've never actually seen them interact because it's long distance. Sometimes I forget she has a boyfriend.

And then college happened. Suddenly, everyone's dating. And I didn't expect that to happen at all, because at first they were all very casual fun-times whee-college let's-make-out-with-strangers sort of stuff. Which wasn't really my cup of tea (because what is flirting? and romance? and people?), but I was fine with it.  But nowadays....

They're just all suddenly dating.  Each other. So I'm hanging out with my friends, in just our normal group of friends, and BAM everyone's kissing. Except me in the corner.

I hate it. More than I want to admit, really, I just hate it. I want to be all happy for them, and I am. I want not to care, and I don't. But all of the time there's just this burning rage in my stomach because they have something I don't and I don't see why I shouldn't.

It's not so much the lack of boyfriend, really. I've never had a boyfriend, and I was never really that shook up about it. All through high school it didn't really keep me up at night. But now that my friends are all dating each other, they spend more time with their significant others than their friends, which is all fine and good and appropriate. Except when each of my four friends, dating one of each of my four friends, spends more time with their significant other than with me, that equals zero people left with me to fill the gap.

Not that I only have four, those are just the ones I see most. Stay with me.

I just don't like losing them to each other, to be honest. I'm an attention junkie, I know this about myself. I feel best when people pay me a lot of attention. When they're too busy with romance, there's less time for that, and my mood drops.

And of course this sounds whiny and immature, because it is.  I'm not even looking for a relationship right now because I don't think I would have the time, but I'm just such an outsider. It's driving me insane. And there's no one really to complain to because all of my confidantes are sort of the source of the problem, and they are all beyond sick of hearing me talk about it. And look, I'm whiny and self-absorbed, but I'm not a terrible person. I don't want to poison my friends' happiness. I do want them to be happy.

It's just hard when i want more than anything for all of them to save each other for the bedroom and notice me.

You Will Lose This Battle Every Time

Every now and then, I get a spike of pageviews, and I swear to God they're all from Russia.
So, hi Russia.

Anyway here's the thing. I'm not gonna talk to you about my personal feelings like TOO much because this is the internet and the internet is forever and blah blah blah. But let's do something small and uncomplicated and if you try to make it big or complicated I will hurt you (but not really, because I have no way to get to Russia).

I'm a Christian. That's a thing. I don't want to talk to you about it, really, because I'm the kind of Christian who's all "it's between me and the big guy" and "if you're nice I don't see why you shouldn't go to heaven" and  "I totally get why you're an atheist sometimes I wish I were an atheist" and "no judgment, bro." So it's all very personal for me and also NOT A BIG DEAL.

Like, is it important in my life? Of course. But that doesn't mean you should judge me about it. I probably spend as much time dreaming up sexual fantasies as I do thinking about God, and if you want me to explain all of those to you you have another thing coming.

The point is, you can still be my friend, they won't take away your atheist card. And you don't have to insult me about it. This part, I say for you. Because

I DON'T GIVE ONE SINGLE SHIT.

Honestly, you can't touch this. Maybe you have logic on your side, but I have an omnipotent being who can literally turn you into a pillar of salt if he feels like it. There's no fighting that.  And I believe in that. So why are you trying to convert me or insult me or tell me I'm small-minded?  Why on earth would that bother me?

SPOILER ALERT: IT DOESN'T.

So you're only really succeeding in making yourself look like a dick, which I guess is kind of a public service because now we all know to avoid you. But bashing religion-people just isn't gonna help anyone. Bashing atheists isn't gonna help anyone either. THERE'S NO POINT.

Just stop. Stop with the "religious people are stupid" and the "God is illogical" and the "but science!" I don't care. You're only wasting breath.

The end.