Guilty Pleasures... but mostly guilty

Cross-posted from Google+. RL sex-related stuff follows. Nothing blatantly explicit but reader discretion is advised.

I have had a bit of a realization when it comes to my sex life: I end up feeling guilty about enjoying myself in ways that might not be "approved of" by a wider audience. Perhaps, to generalize even further, I feel guilty when I'm happy. There have been a few times where I've declined something I would have enjoyed for absolutely no obvious reason, such as offers for RP by several people over the weekend or even just playful teasing by text message.

I rather wish I had a solution to that problem, as I'd like to be able to actually go enjoy sex without giving a damn what others might think if they knew what I enjoyed.


Edit: Perhaps I should elaborate further on this, as it's been bugging me enough that it deserves more than one paragraph. I've basically been told I "shouldn't" think of people mostly for sex. And despite my occasionally fickle and usually-stuck-in-high-gear sex drive, I actually do have interests in doing things other than simply getting laid in whatever form is appropriate with a given partner. That said, I seem to have no idea where the line falls in which it is appropriate to inquire regarding sexual activity, nor do I seem to be able to get my superego to shut up long enough to actually let me "take advantage" of an offer from a willing partner.


I don't even know how to best approach someone to say "You're kinky, I'm kinky, let's go." Asking something like that makes me feel incredibly awkward, usually to the point that I just freeze up and don't say anything at all. This might have something to do with the fact I've had some exceptionally flaky "friends" with benefits - both past and present - sch that I end up getting turned down the overwhelming majority of the time. A friend recommended an adult site to me which might possibly lead to some more pleasant encounters, but I haven't even gotten up the nerve to set up my profile a week after signing up.


It seems particularly frustrating because part of my mind knows that I'm quite capable at social interactions when they're aided by a computer. If I could be half as successful at socializing offline as I am online - or at least convincingly fake being that competent for a while - I have no doubt that I'd resolve a lot of issues, sexual and otherwise. The problem is that I seem to be at a loss as to how to overcome that first hurdle.

On Google+ and names

As posted to Google+ this morning


An open letter to Google, and specifically :

Hi, I'm Shira Frozenmoon. That's *not* my legal name but it is who I am.

Yep, that's right, I don't have a single government-issued shred of evidence to back up that statement. However, I've been using that name on the web since at least October 2004 (or was it 2003?), well before I even got an invite to Gmail in April 2005. It's who I identify as on every other site I've used within the last decade, including Twitter, Steam, and countless other sites. I've even had mail addressed to Shira when friends have sent Christmas cards or gifts. Of the 159 people who currently have me in their circles, fewer than ten would recognize my legal name.

Looking at Google Dashboard, you already have - through various services - more than six years of e-mail (27000+ messages), 16001 recorded web searches, 947 photos, and 347 voicemails. More importantly, you have my full legal name, my present and previous addresses, my birthday, my phone number, four credit cards, my job history, a GPS-accurate history of everywhere I've been for the last two years, and (for tax reasons with AdSense) my social security number. That's more information than any other institution has, including my bank and my employer. Why? Because, until now, I trusted Google's "don't be evil" policy.

In exchange for this mountain of data, I've simply asked for Google to keep it private. I honestly don't care if it's processed by various algorithms to customize my experience on Google sites, such as by ranking news stories, search results, or providing more interesting advertisements. I do, however, care to keep that information from being shown to the public. Your own help pages advise parents to tell their children to never use real names online. Why do you expect adults to ignore that very sage advice? I don't want the things I get up to on the Internet with friends to be easily and readily linked to my professional life. I want to freely be able to discuss things, including work and my sex life, that would not necessarily be things I want permanently linked to my name.

The name policy has me fuming because, up until Google+ launched, it was implicit that I could use whatever name I wanted without it ever being questioned. Even now, I would fully support a name policy that prohibits people from using offensive nonsense or impersonating others. However, that's as far as any such policy should go. Google - nor anyone - should dictate what people can and cannot be known by. Even now, I can still use the name Shira Frozenmoon within other sites without it becoming an issue. I could use that name to sign up for another e-mail service, another blog, or pretty much anything less significant than signing an apartment lease. So if it's not an issue there, why is it an issue here?
At one point I had nearly seventy active users in my circles, possibly as many as 80. I've forgotten, but just 45 of those accounts remain as of right now. *As a result of the name policy - and that policy alone - you have removed at least a third of my friends from a service that I'd like to use with them.* You have told a third of the people I know personally that they would have to sacrifice their privacy _and_ the names they're commonly known by if they wanted to continue using Google+. What's the point of remaining on a social networking site where nobody knows your name? Quite simply, there isn't one.

Of those users who have been removed, none will even consider publicly displaying their legal names. Of those who are still here, I know several who are considering deleting their accounts before they get suspended just to make a statement about who they are. I also know several people who have decided not to sign up for Google+ because of concerns that they won't have an account for long before their names, too, get them banned from the service.

So why, in light of all this, am I making a public post to say that I, too, am willfully ignoring the name policy? Because the policy is, quite simply, somewhere between absurd and unconscionable. It actually prevents me from feeling safe using the name I'm most commonly known by. It diminishes the value of your service by making it harder to find people by the name I know them. It infringes upon the basic human right to have anonymous (or pseudonymous) communication. Notably, it has nothing to do with advertising; you already have an enormous collection of data that could be shared with advertisers in a private way. There is no compelling argument to force people to use their legal names just to communicate with their friends on the Internet.

The name policy needs to change, and it needs to change quickly. This is not a fight Google should even be trying to win. Please, don't be evil.

Sincerely,

(Not) Shira Frozenmoon

Live Blog from Unemployment Hearing

I've replaced my former boss's name with his first initial.

1:55 PM - Hearing begins. Judge confirmed my info and the company's info. They provided a PO Box in St. Louis. They also will be providing a witness: P.

1:57 PM - P will be the only person testifying for Schneider. Other person on line only served the call.

1:59 PM - Judge explained rules and right to appeal.

2:00 PM - Judge opens case, explains what is being discussed. Enters information to record for hearing purposes.

2:01 PM - Gave oath. Began testimony.

2:18 PM - Completed testiomony. Other side began.

2:21 PM - P claims I had four customer complaints and four service failures.

2:21 PM - P admitted to downsizing account.

2:22 PM - P claims to have offered me an OTR position. He did not.

2:22 PM - P claims I filed Fair & Equitable on Jan 2 and quit on Jan 9 despite work being available. [Reality: Both happened on January 7]

2:23 PM - P testimony ended.

2:24 PM - Late on 6/25, 7/2, 12/16, and...? 12/28 for customer compaint? Contradiction in testimoy

2:28 PM - Call disconnected?

2:29 PM - Call reconnected, but employer no longer on line. Judge will attempt reconnecting everyone.

2:33 PM - Judge still unable to reconnect with Schneider.

2:39 PM - Judge called back to try reconnect one more time. Connection successful.

2:42 PM - P says I was offered an OTR position and refused it.

2:43 PM - I object, stating such a thing was never offered nor investigated.

2:45 PM - Hearing adjourned. Written decision will be mailed within two weeks.

Everything Sucks

Yeah, I know, first world problems and all that. But right now, things just kind of suck. I had a lousy weekend for several reasons, have gotten stuck in a horrendous "job" situation, and cannot seem to find any redeeming quality in things right now.

I'm not going to elaborate excessively on the weekend as I don't want to offend most of the people involved. Suffice to say that there was a very, very wide gap between things that I thought were going to happen and things that actually did happen. Lunch plans for Saturday turned into plans for Sunday. People were very difficult to get a hold of and even more difficult to get to commit to plans. Even when things did end up happening it wasn't even close to what I'd hoped for, turning into the sort of disappointment that makes me wonder why I'd tried in the first place. At least if I stayed home I'd have saved on gas money.

Then there's this "job" thing. For those of you who tried to tell me it was a scam, please save your "I told you so comments" as they're not constructive. Several of the things I'd been told about it have proven to be entirely false. We were told that appointments would be made for us; I ended up having to knock on every door on the block several times. We were told that if we met certain criteria we'd be guaranteed a minimum amount of money; my experience today strongly suggests that those numbers are not attainable unless the stars align. I've also confirmed my suspicion that the average person is a lying bastard, something that fits entirely well with my misanthropic view of the world. While I did take a phone interview for a driving position, I'm lacking one of the required qualifications and am pessimistic about my odds even of hearing back.

So what can I do about it? Good question. Unless that job somehow turns on its head tomorrow, I can't even see a way that I can make my car payment next month. That's not even taking into account my car insurance or other bills. For that matter, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to afford to restock the fridge. As such things are just going to become increasingly stressful until I have a stable job and at least a grand in the bank again. It's hard to enjoy much of anything when you're not sure if you can even eat next week, let alone afford to keep living. In two weeks I might end up missing a car payment. In four weeks I won't be able to pay rent. In six weeks I'll probably have starved to death. That's how bad things are right now.

For those of you who intend well: don't tell me things are going to get better unless you can actually offer a serious solution to one or more of my problems. I can't afford to get rid of my car because I need it to get to work. I can't afford to ditch my cell phone as I need a way for other employers to attempt contacting me. I can't avoid paying my car insurance but could hypothetically put it on my one credit card (with a $500 limit). I can't avoid eating for reasons that should be obvious, though I have been putting an increasing emphasis on groceries as opposed to eating out.

All of that said... help?

How do you love someone who's too busy to love you back?

I've only been trying for the better part of a year and a half to get Timanth to visit. First we had tried for spring break last year before he got tied up with family obligations. Then we settled on the Independence Day holiday; I ended up having to go out there after Timanth proved to be more concerned about what his mother would think of him coming over than anything else. Winter break was out due to family obligations again, but he quite explicitly said that come this spring break he would be free to finally come and visit. And if that were true, I probably wouldn't be so physically weakened by depression that even lifting my arms to the keyboard hurts.

We've spent at least the last six months discussing it and I've spent the last three trying to get him to finally pin down a date and time for plane tickets. Now, just ten days before his break starts, he's saying that he's going to be busy doing school work even during his break and that those obligations are such that he can't leave town for any meaningful length of time at all. He's said that I could come visit again and, hey, plane tickets are certainly cheap enough. But if he's so busy trying to make up a late final, deal with extracurricular activities, and handle various work in the lab, how would me being out there somehow magically solve all the time management problems? 

Yes, I know that he's an overachieving student. Yes, I know that if he pulls off even two-thirds of what he's trying to accomplish he could get himself a comfortable job with a $100,000 salary straight out of school. Yes, I know that it takes a lot of time to juggle several classes and lots of off-campus work; I've actually tried that one myself with far less success than he's managed. Despite all that, I just want a week of his time. A week in which he shouldn't be swamped with other obligations. A week where we actually - finally - get to do some of the things we've been discussing for so long. A week where Timanth doesn't have to worry about his stress at school and I can enjoy the company of somebody I care deeply about. Instead, once again I feel like I've been strung along for ages just so it'd hurt that much more when I finally find out that I can't actually get what I want.

As I'm currently unemployed there's really nothing stopping me from just going out there for two weeks or so. Hell, a better person would probably be thrilled by the prospect of getting away from here (and my own set of crap) for two weeks and at least getting some minimal amount of attention for a little while. But I'm not a good person. I can't focus on those positive things for very long. For one, the very principle of the fact I've been trying to have Timanth visit this long and that this isn't the first time he's said "I can't" at the last reasonable moment is going to continue to bother me until we somehow break that trend. For another, even if I go out there I "know" that he'll be busy most of the time and thus I'll barely get to enjoy his company. Maybe someone else would be able to take comfort in that little time here and there and perhaps the occasional day he would be free... I'm not someone else and, even though I know it's selfish, I don't see the point in going through all the trouble to visit just to spend a couple hours here and there and many more hours wondering what the hell I've done wrong with my life.

So why am I writing this as a blog post and not bringing this up with Timanth directly? Good question. For one, he's too busy to talk about it, just like so many other times he's been busy. Even if he does get a break later there's little hope he'll have long enough to let me talk about it at length like this. For another, I - we - could probably use the outside input from anyone who has actually bothered to read this rambling mess. And finally, it's probably in part because I completely lack the ability to do anything more than passively-aggressively complain about every single thing that I perceive as wrong without even being able to formulate a reasonable solution to the problem.

tl;dr: I'm a worthless attention whore and my boyfriend isn't giving me enough attention.

Exit strategy

For those who aren't following me on Twitter, allow me to summarize events from earlier this evening: Kali and I asked Kaiser to poke a guest who had promised to order pizza in exchange for his housing. He apparently told the guy he had time to play one more (30+ minute) game before coming down to discuss dinner. Kaiser then came down about 10-15 minutes later to ask why pizza hadn't been ordered yet. I called him out on it, and after a rather sudden and sharp escalation in exchange, he went into rather exacting detail about how he intended to assault me and that if I dared provoke him further he would be tried for manslaughter. So, I did the only thing I could do.

I left.

Over an hour later, after a few fragmented discussions with people via Twitter, I came inside, grabbed the dinner I'd cooked earlier, and went to my room. I'm still there, with a chair firmly lodged in front of the door to prevent anyone from entering. I have the TV on, mostly for sake of having noise to drown out anything else going on in the house and to have a distraction from the things going on. I don't want to be here. I don't know where I want to be, who I want to be with, nor how to make anything even remotely positive happen. It seems like the only thing recent weeks have proven is that everything I attempt to do just ends up making things worse and worse.

So I'm seriously considering turning the clock back about a year. I'm planning on calling my former employer back and asking to resume over-the-road truck driving. I want to get off the lease here, put things in storage once again, and basically disappear for weeks at a time. It seems almost painfully obvious that I'm not wanted here and that everywhere I go I just end up making things worse, so I may as well just go away entirely. I could just call them up, take whatever drug/aptitude tests are required for a rehire, and probably be back to work in a matter of days. Once out on the road, I would deliberately be hard to get a hold of. I want to get away from virtually everyone right now. Timanth is perhaps the only person I'd even attempt to retain regular contact with and, even then, I suspect that he would be happier not having to deal with the continual crap that has been going on in my life lately.

The only other thing I could consider doing is going on an extended, unorganized road trip. I've had a couple people offer to let me visit for a while so far. I don't know how long I could sustain that and, honestly, with the way things have gone with people I would inevitably feel like I'm just bringing other people down to my shattered mental state. I'm sure at least a few of you are going to insist that the preceding is not true, but I'm still going to feel that way, whether or not it's warranted, the moment anything goes even slightly wrong. That and there's really no telling how long such a thing could be sustained, assuming it's practical to do so in the first place; it probably isn't.

Though there might be other options, the above is really all I've been able to seriously consider so far. I have no marketable job skills other than my trucking experience; I have a two-year degree in general studies and no experience in any sort of professional work environment. I could try going back to school - maybe I could do accounting - but I would still need a substantial sum of money to support myself while going through with that and I don't think student loans are a viable option.

So, in short, I'm basically helpless to do anything to improve my life and disappearing for at least a few months seems like a really good idea right now. If there are any other ideas, I'd like to hear them. I would like to have a plan by Friday. 

Procrastination and job searching

A blog post? HOLY CRAP.

So as I posted on my other blog, thanks to some bullshit at work involving a made up customer complaint and a manager who refused to even consider that the bitch may have been lying, I was given the choice to either go over the road (and thus give up anything even vaguely resembling a social life) or to quit. I chose the latter and resigned effective January 7. The job hunt so far has been almost nonexistent. I put in a resume at one place, under the suggestion of one of my roommates; I finally received a rejection letter earlier this week. I don't even know where else to put my name in, honestly.

Perhaps the biggest problem is one that goes beyond merely not wanting to take the time to do applications. I don't see myself as having nearly any marketable job skills. Sure, I can type 80+ words per minute easily and have a pretty decent handle on multi-tasking, but I don't have any formal certifications in anything that isn't related to driving. Even then, the only good thing my previous job will likely say about me is that I'm eligible for rehire; I have no professional references, aside from claiming a friend who worked for the same company and whose path I almost never crossed as a co-worker. I don't really even know where to begin, as this is the first time I've seriously wanted to get something at least resembling a professional desk job.

I'm not in any massive hurry to get things done in part because I have a fair amount of savings I can draw down from. In reality I know I probably should be searching high and low for anything in this market, but... I just lack the motivation. If I managed to get forced out of a job when I was actually doing it right, why bother dealing with the work force at all? Because we're all "supposed to" do that crap? We're supposed to go to some place we don't want to be, earn just enough money to keep some minimal shelter and a few shiny things for amusement, then repeat until we're too old and get dumped into a hole somewhere? I unfortunately realize that the alternatives are all either incredibly improbable or illegal - such as winning the lottery or robbing a bank - but I still find the entire situation to be disgusting.

Despite all this, on Monday, I'm going to try my luck with a local temp agency and see if they can at least find something that's a match for my skills, whatever they may be. I'd like to think that I'll be ushered into something rather quickly, but considering how shitty the job market is right now, I may be stuck for a while.