Update: The issue seems to be fixed now...
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If you're trying to comment and it's just hanging there for eons or sending you error messages, it's not you. Apparently some spam commenter assholes have been fucking with the Moronosphere servers and overloading them. Sounds like Brandon and Karl are trying to sort it out.

Sorry for any frustration that may have happened as a result.

I can't count the number of times in my adult life I've had the following exchange (including just an hour ago):

Some person: "So, are you/have you ever been married?"

Me: "No."

Person (w/quizzical or smug facial expression): "Why not?"

Once and for all, someone tell me,what the fuck kind of question is this? What kind of answer are these people expecting can be given?

My entire life I've been mystified by this.

There's really no answer one can give that doesn't make one come off either bitchy, didactic, critical of the asking person's marriage, or somehow socially impaired, none of which I am.

Have any of you every encountered this line of questioning? How do you answer?

I've lost a significant amount of weight lately. The kind of amount that makes people widen their eyes in disbelief.

Anyway, it's hit a point where I had to acknowledge I couldn't go on hiding in my old clothing anymore, as it was getting to the point of clown-suit ridiculousness. Everything in my closet hung off me like loose elephant skin.

For those of you who have never been plus-sized and a woman, let me enlighten you: people generally don't go out of their way to make nice clothes for those of us who are. Your selection, if you have any sense of style and don't prefer mumus or "mother-of-the-bride"/retiree wear are very limited. When I was plus-sized, I shopped in pretty much exactly three places. They were all I had if I wanted to look halfway decent.

Now, I'm no longer plus-sized. This means that I can now shop pretty much anywhere. I can walk through any mall and enter pretty much any shop and try anything on. My choices are now limitless.

This should be a good thing, but all I seem to be able to find it to be is overwhelming. And unsatisfying.

I go in, sort through racks. And nothing looks interesting. Nothing feels like ME. Occasionally, I'll come across something that halfway pleases me. I'll try it on. I'll experience delight that it fits, and I'll feel good for a few minutes. I'll put it in the pile to buy. I'll build that pile up in an orgy of excitement that my body works with so many different kinds of clothes.

And then, slowly, I'll re-try on all the clothes I've laid aside one more time. And I'll reject each one. I'll realize it doesn't make my body look that good after all. Maybe it doesn't really fit, I tell myself. Maybe you'll look ridiculous, like a sausage trying to stuff itself into a skin. Or, that's not you, I'll say to myself. That's just the closest thing you can find to not boring that only sort of approximates you. You'll be sending out the wrong message. No one will get who you are.

And I reject item after item until I walk out of huge shopping centers completely and utterly empty handed.

Nothing, either actually or psychologically, seems to fit. Nothing is right. I have a world of selection open to me, and nothing is what I want. I'm looking for something, but I can't find it. And nothing I try feels good, feels right, feels like I can walk around with it and be ME.

And I am realizing now this phenomenon is becoming a larger metaphor for everything in my life right now.

I have to go back to my job today, after more than a week off. I am dreading it with all my being. Not because my job is so horrible. It's actually a good place to work, on paper. But it just doesn't FIT anymore.

Nothing fits. Not jobs, not lifestyle, not relationships, not friendships. I find myself screaming in my mind constantly, "I want OUT. I want OUT."

And yet, I have no idea OUT TO WHERE. I want to ball up my life like a piece of paper and start a fresh page. But I have no fucking idea what to put on that page, and I'm so afraid to mar it with bad prose that was the wrong choice that I feel paralyzed. I am walking around, the world a wide open market of choice, and I can't choose anything. I have no idea what fits. No one makes anything I want.

I hate this. I want something new. I want to understand what I want. And I don't. I just don't.

I want to move, I want to start. I want my new clothes. But I'm stuck.

The anger and frustration I feel right now, I can't even describe to you.

I want OUT.

I want OUT.

Sometimes the thought of blogging can be a pain in the ass, but it does have one fucking amazingly positive aspect to it. And that's it's just ME, raw and uncensored. Always. No one can tell me to refine it or make it better or that I should do it a different way. Or to not talk. People can read or not, and it doesn't mean much; I can keep writing or not, as I please. No one can try strongarming me with threats of firing, financial loss, audience need, or witholding of affection to change the way I express myself or what I choose to say or do on this blog. It's all my choice, and I've deliberately made choices to this point about how to operate on this blog that would protect me from any such influences ruining my ability to speak and act on here exactly how I feel like.

Because sometimes it can feel like my whole life has been a series of situations where I'm being evaluated, and then being told I've done it wrong, or could have done it better. No matter how good I am, someone has to tweak it, or ask me why I didn't do it some other way that they think is better. I grew up with that shit, and then I ironically chose a career that's full of that shit. I've chosen relationships that were all about that shit. I've chosen a life full of my first effort never being fucking enough, never just fucking being appreciated for what's there.

I'm sick of always being evaluated for how close everything I do comes up to par. I'm sick of the sense that there even IS a fucking par. I'm a good person. I'm fucking TRYING. ALL. THE. TIME. Goddammit! Isn't that what's important? The effort, not the execution?

Well, I'm tired. And I'm not your fucking frilly boardwalk prize doll. Stop picking everything I do apart. Just fucking love me, accept me, or get the fuck out. And that declaration is addressed to myself as well.

On days like today, I look back at all the choices and steps I've made in my life and have to fight off a feeling of despair. Why would I have chosen some of the things I did, back when I did? And now, it's so hard to change some of it. For instance, let's say I suddenly realize I've chosen a career that reinforces the worst patterns in my life. The ones that revolve around fueling my negativity about myself. Well. A whole new career? What the fuck will I do and how can I afford THAT? And how about my friends? My relationships?

It's all so much fucking work. A whole life overhaul? Jesus. I've been working fucking hard enough as it is.

I just feel so angry at myself. I feel as if, if I'd been able to make better, smarter choices; if I'd been more impenetrable or more conscious of the forces around me, I wouldn't be in this place.

And there. There's the editorial shit again. As you see, it never stops. "Why the fuck did you choose that? Wipe that; make it better." If I don't choose someone else who will say it to me, I'll say it to myself.

Well, even if I do, at least here, no one can tell me I said it wrong. Or, I suppose they could, in comments. But no one can *make* me change what I wrote because they want me to give them something else. A better, more improved me...who isn't me at all. On here, you get whatever I'm giving out, no more, no less. It is what it is. And that's all it has to be.

"Syl, I'm...concerned..."

Saw this interview with the unflappable GOP (God of Parson's) shortly after writing last night's post--proving that the Spirit of Tim comes to all those who are staring at a mess of disconnected materials and trying to figure out what the hell they're going to be able to put together to show the world the next day.

On his famous catch phrase:

"It came from teaching...it came from one of my classes at Parsons. I've used it for years and years and years...

"It's all about students...when they are frustrated and feel defeated and are troubled by a project they want to start all over again. And I say, 'Don't do that. We're going to take what we have here, make it work. And by working through the issues at hand, you'll learn infinitely more than to start from scratch. And that's something that works out."

Of course he's right. But I still feel like I'm staring at a bunch of disjointed material. At a fucking mess. But I suppose the hallmark of a good teacher is that you never give the students the answers; you let them find their own. Which, right now, feels both appropriate AND annoying.

Would someone please take my annoying cat away?

Far, far away.

Tony Soprano far away.

Thank you.