Jul
23
2013
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Two Sides to Feminist me

Growing up a geek girl, a girl who worked at gamestop for 7 years and trust me has heard all of the elitist crap in the world. (that video makes me cry) i am divided.

I have four older brothers. They are good people. They are good brothers. They shaped me to be the person I am today. More than they know. More than I have words to say. I dare say probably even more so than my parents. (no offense Mom and Dad) Because I was an awkward kid. I liked spending time with adults better than kids,because  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Kids are dicks usually! My peers were mean to me, and I didn’t really know how to fit in. I wanted to (I’ve always wanted to) but lacked the capabilities. So to me, growing up my brothers were, quite often, my only friends. They were my best friends. They were the popular kids (in my mind) that I desperately wanted approval from. Now, being that they were varying ages older than me from 4 years older up to 12 years older, they didn’t’ want to hang out with me. Who wants to hang out with their little sister (ask yourself that question, and you’ll get the same answer I did) no one. I got a lot of “Girls don’t like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “no one wants to play with a girl”, and “You’re no good at this” “girls can’t do that” (This and that being whatever I wanted to do….) I on occasion wonder if I ever legitimately WANTED to do the things they did (Video games, Boys toys, etc) or if I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to wear their hand me downs. Being the only girl, I didn’t want to be (excuse the irony) the odd man out.

Eventually I stopped listening to their stupid opinions. I would probably say they were just repeating what they heard at school, or were (in earnest) trying to get me to leave them alone. Not the smartest way, but whatever, who was smart at 9? Not me. I dug my heels in. I learned to play Magic: The Gathering. I stunk at it, but I played. They let me. We made up Table Top role playing games on our own, because my Dad thought D&D was for Satan worshipers. The first game I ever finished on my own was Final Fantasy 9. I got my very first job at Gamestop, after my first interview.

Before I continue about Gamestop, i’d like to say it wasn’t (and still isn’t) the shittiest place I’ve worked. Bear in mind the following stories are true, and are (slightly) embarrassing. A little to me, but mostly to Gamestop. The employees pretty much all have been sacked, and if not, I feel more sad for them because they Still work at Gamestop (Formerly Software ETC).

I was super excited to work there. I felt legit. Like I had finally proven my geekiness. I soon learned that I was hired because I had a Uterus. I mean that literally. My manager yelled “We have a Uterus now!” and it went down hill from there. Male customers would ask for a man to serve them, because I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was a 16 year old girl, but — didn’t that mean I was cooler than the other girls? Let me tell you, men did not see it that way. It wasn’t just the men either. Women who didn’t know what they were looking for in a gamestore, would also ask to speak to a man. Someone who knew more. I knew plenty. I had a damn good pedigree from playing games with my brothers. I played games from work, I read magazines, talked to everyone I knew about what they thought was best. Also Gamestop was turning more into sales instead of just being helpful. My stats weren’t great. I am frankly not a sales person. But at that point, 17 year old me could fix that. I was thin, I was a girl, I was RARE and FINE in a sea of desperate nerds, I had a commodity. I had a rockin’ figure. I wore skirts (not mini skirts, they were all relatively modest) I wore heels, I wore low cut shirts. My stats improved. I was never the best, but I stopped being the worst. I felt like I sold out. I enjoyed my co-workers. They were kind (usually, my manager was a beast) to me, these people were my friends. Not because they had to be, because they wanted to be. Through out my time at Gamestop, i worked with 21 different managers. That’s a lot in case you didn’t know. I worked there for 7 years and was promised no less than 15 times that I would be promoted. There was space. They hired from the outside. I trained my managers, and managers for new stores in our area. I worked in 8 different stores. I helped open new stores, i worked to cover shifts for employees in other stores. When people wanted shit to get done, I was there.

Looking back, i wish ( a lot) that I had turned my manager (several managers) in for sexual harassment. When i was 19, I had a manager refuse to let me go home while I was miscarrying. yeah he was a horrible person. I called every employee at that store. Every last one. No one could help me. That manager wanted to fire me. I felt really fortunate that a manager from another store took me under her wing. 28 year old me is a little ashamed that I sunk to shilling my body to get people to pay attention to me– I wouldn’t let my daughter do that when she was 17, so she better not even think it’s ok. People should appreciate you know what you’re talking about, and that if you don’t, you’ll get back up!

Now I have two little girls. I play MMO’s on the weekend. I have finished Borderlands 2. I made my husband a super cute crafty Yoshi Quilt. We met because we were both internet nerds, and he sent me an email. I have a wardrobe that consists largely of Doctor Who tee shirts. I dressed as InuYasha for Halloween one year. I still own the jacket. My kids are named after Anime characters (SHHHHHHH). I teach my kids that baseball isn’t just for boys, and boys can like My little pony just like they do.  My Gender doesn’t tell me what I like and what I don’t. Bugs aren’t scary because I’m a girl. They’re scary because I hate things touching me. That includes people. (people usually ask though, bugs don’t so much.) I like to create with sewing and knitting because those are mediums that I know how to use. My brothers can draw (amazingly, like they should be comic book artists, the lot of them) I can tell an amazing story. None of these things are because of our gender. Our differences come because we’re people. If we could just have some basic human decency towards each other, the world would be so much better! But instead we going around devaluing and comparing things and people. “they aren’t good people because they aren’t Christian enough” What the heck, really? And as Kevin Smith says, only a nerd would stand in a Star Trek Costume and point at someone who is dressed like a Wookie and say “What a fuckin’ moron.” Seriously. I prefer Star Trek. That doesn’t mean That I think Star Wars geeks aren’t REAL geeks. And I don’t know  EVERYTHING about Star Trek, but that doesn’t mean I don’t (and haven’t) enjoyed watching it. It may mean that I am not as into it as you are, because trust me, those costumes would look terrible on me. *shakes head* anyway. Don’t take something that should bring you together with another human being, and use it as a wedge to separate you. Find your commonality. Find your humanity.

And Don’t be a Dick.

Derringer Meryl [I like Anime too] Out

Mar
13
2009
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At the risk

of gushing and mushing and this becoming a full on Mommy blog, can I say it’s an amazing thing to watch a child grow? Not only little Audrey (whom I realize at this point I’m not really WATCHING grow so much as I’m feeling her grow) but Katie who I look at her birthay pictures and think “WHOA! WTH!?” My little girl is getting so big, so fast. She can put her own shoes on now, and told Scott yesterday (after dragging her baby gate into our bedroom) “THIS WAS IN MY ROOM!” (She was mad that we gated her in) she still has a lot of room to grow, and while I think she’s absolutely amazing, i am not really a gushy mom who wells up in tears because her daughter is so beautiful, blah blah blah.
Mostly I well up in tears when she won’t go to bed and I hurt my back and I just want to sleep myself but I sleep like someone who has drank like 50 gallons of dr pepper.

Anyway, I suppose I should stray from my traditional topics (Twilight and babies) to say that I appreciate the person I am. I was watching Star Trek IV (warning, this is a story that Scott will roll his eyes at because I tell it so often) and I was asking him why they were on a Klingon Bird of Prey. I see the Geek glass half full and was really proud I knew what the hell a Klingon Bird of Prey is. I think I’m a special and unique person. I’m varied, and have multiple faucets. I wouldn’t really compare myself to a diamond, but I think i’m something shiney and neat. 🙂 I like learning about RANDOMLY stupid stuff (as Scott can attest I was learning about Azaria Chamberlain who is the baby in the phrase “A dingo ate my baby” where an Australian woman was not only wrongly imprisoned for the death of her child, she was said to have killed it in a most brutal manner. I oddly like learning about stuff like that. LIke the Chicken Coop Murders that The Changeling was based on. Yeah I’m weird.

Did you know that the little boy who helped kill those kids went on to be a mail man in Canada, got married and had two kids (both boys) Yeah. I do.

Also, I’m like… the biggest twilight geek ever. like… EVAR.

I also found an awesome Yoshi gamer quilt the other day. I’m trying to think of something to treat myself as a present because I never get a Birthday present because it’s so near Christmas … Not that the necklace that scott got me for V-day wasn’t awesome (cause SNAP it is!) but at the same time I never buy stuff for myself.. I dont’ think about myself ever! When i force myself to think about myself, it’s TOUGH. I did go to FYE (with a B-day Gift Certificate) and got myself some SWEET Anime that I was so looking forward to watching, but haven’t been able to yet because when I turn it on katie just says “NO NO NO!” until I turn it off. Blah. I’d love to own all of CCS (card captor sakura!! WHOO!) as it is the namesake of our next daughter (well not all of it, but I already own the Audrey Hepburn collection ;)) and not to mention I love LOVE LOVE myself some Cardcaptor Sakura. Seriously.

I also really want my books from shutterfly (beauty) printed off.. I love them. I have two I need to do. LOL I need to do a bunch of stuff. I want to have a collection of Katie pictures printed off and such too (scott did a bunch of them up to V-day last year! I need to do it again)

Ahh life. I feel good.

Derringer Meryl [happy day] Out

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Nov
12
2008
1

The Weirdest Sensation

To know you’re pregnant, but not feel it. Other than a few bouts of “MAN i wish I could throw up” and my need to pee like 20 times a day, nothing has really changed at all. It’s weird. Oh well.

Katie read a book in bed this morning (in our bed, she went to sleep at 9pm and slept most of the night in her own bed, but around 5 woke up and came into mine. I don’t mind too much. I know that once she’s in the basement in a big girl bed, she will probably roll out of bed, and fall asleep somewhere  along the way. She’s done it before … only rolling out of Scott and I’s bed. LOL. I’m trying to write down all the things Katie is going to need, and the new baby will need when the time comes. I think we’ll be better prepared this time (duh) but we will need LOTS of clothes if we have a boy, as currently we HAVE no boy clothes. Though I think we have a few pieces that could go either way.

Scott made Chicken Enchilada’s (YEAH! I KNOW!) on Monday and we had them as left overs last night. They were so awesome. Then I ran Katie to the store to pick up a few things we need to last us the week. (Bread Milk, eggs… cookies. You know stuff like that)  and she zoned out in the car. It was less than five minutes in the car, and she was DONE. I watched a few episodes of FMA last night, as I would rank it as one of the TOP five Anime Ever. Why? The story is complex, but not impossible to follow, they explain it, but they dont’ spell it out. There is a small einsy smidgeon of romance for those who have enough of an imagination to see it — and lots of laughs and hilarity you expect in an Anime. It’s re-watchable, which is desirable in an anime, and if you watch the movie too, it has a pretty good ending. I realized that even though i wasn’t tired I probably better go to bed (and thusly did) as Katie would probably be rising early. She didn’t really. She’s a cuddle bug though, and wants to cuddle you when sleeping. I don’t mind having someone next to me when sleeping, however I do not enjoy being burrowed into while sleeping. So I ended up sleeping upsidedown on the bed as Katie chased me (in a sleepy state) trying to nuzzle next to me. Scott brought home donuts, which make me say yay!

I’m excited about my Brother’s impending marriage… is impending the right word? That makes it sound forboding I think.  Impending… Upcoming would be better. Let’s just go with that. Upcoming wedding! Much better. I still haven’t met his fiancee, however I’m not often in Salt Lake. The majority of my day occurs looking otuside at some beautiful foliage/scenery, wishing I were anywhere but here (No offense to my co-workers, but i think if people were paid to live life, we’d all go for that job instead of the one we have.) They’ve opened new positions at work for “Customer Advocacy” However I won’t be applying. Mostly because I hate angry customers. Really. Sorry angry customers, you should work with someone who will be calm in dealing with you, and won’t need an antacid prescribed just to work with you.

Anyway– Off to work!
Derringer Meryl [Hiho Hiho, it’s off to work I go] Out

Jul
17
2004
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My little GTO

here i am, eating m&m’s in my basement apartment type thing, alone (again) waiting for it to be time to go to work. I’ll probably end up watching some live action GTO (i heard it’s better than the anime) which is my newwest addiction. I”ve been bittorrent crazy lately.

I’ve finished off Haibane Renmai (something i’ve been wanting to see since it was released in america.) and could start on Witch Hunter Robin, but I’m lazy and so I don’t want to read the subtitles quite yet. 🙂

Apparently GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka) is a rather long (about fourty episodes) anime. Which I think is cool. It goes in arcs of three for each student he helps. Cool eh?

I hope he gets the girl. That other guy is creepy with his stalker kinds of ways. Creep.

Scott and I have saved our pennies this week so we can go to Chilis tonight. IT’s for our one month anniversary (which technically was last week, but we was poor…. not that we aren’t now, we were just more poor then) I’m excited for the southwestern egg rolls. Those things are like freaking ambrosia. Seriously. I could eat them for the rest of my life and be so very happy. (With a side of M&Ms of course)

I’m a chocolate fiend. I should take some asprin to work– since everyone there seems to get headaches and we have no medicine there to kill the pain with.

Derringer Meryl [Gonna watch me some GTO] Out

Jun
24
2004
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kookie crazy

I have this wonderful idea for house cleaning. I’d be freaking fantastic. I know it’s not an original idea, but MAN, would it be great.

I know it’s not original cause I just saw it on an Anime today… but it’d be freaking fantastic if I could just find someone to produce it. I wish I had it right now. *sighs*

I’d tell you, but the internet is an open thing, and then someone else’d have access to it, and blah blah blah.

I think I”m going to email 3M about it though. They’ll love the idea. I’m positive.

Derringer Meryl [Oh I wish I was a millionare] Out

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