Undone

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

Scott and I watched a clip for a Bronies documentary. Scott was like “MAN ARE THOSE PEOPLE NUTS” (Maybe without the internet all caps shouting) and I was like “These people are my homeboys!” Not because I”m necessarily a brony (or a pegasister as some of them like to be called) I think Ponies are neat, and the show is well written and thought out for a kids show. It’s quality.

(If you want to watch the trailer: http://youtu.be/EGMIABmH__8 )

One of the guys says something about how he used to be sad (he’s a kid) and My little Ponies has made his life better, he feels like waking up. To you, or anyone else who hasn’t experienced this type of feeling you might go “that’s stupid” and that’s what Scott said too.

Until you experience it. Some people probably go their whole life without being a fangirl/fanboy.  I do it a lot (as Sukie pointed out a few months ago) get into shows. Some people are passionate about lots of things. I’m into Doctor Who. As I told Scott today, it did pull me out of a depressive experience. It got me to see I needed to be on medication again. It got me back into writing, and dreaming a future for myself that wasn’t the same thing day after day. I started to want something for myself that wasn’t … just the same ole same ole.

I respect that people think my fangirling is weird. I don’t expect anyone to understand, and that’s ok. Just know that if something affects a life in a good way, why be down on it?

Derringer Meryl [I’m a Fangirl] Out

I haven’t posted here in a while for SEVERAL reasons:

1) Doctor Who Obsession. which largely is now on tumblr because I know family and friends are sick of it. So i relegate that to annoying other fangirls/boys … It’s better that way.

2) Work. Work has been overwhelming me a bit. I am pretty much in a “go to work, come home, eat, get Katie’s homework done, do one thing that MUST be done, and go to bed, start over.” cycle and its a  bit… draining on me. Even when Scott and I put a huge effort into ONE room being cleaned, the girls come through at rampage speed and undo it. I’m just tired of it.

3)Nanowrimo: I’m nto ashamed of this one as much honestly, because I achieved it. Nanowrimo is 30 days to write a novel, or (alternatively) 50,000 words. The average Scifi book is 100k. So you probably won’t see much of me on here (again) as of January, because I”m giving myself 31 days to replicate it again. I’m going to hop back in and write the second half of my novel. I also will mix this in with some reading.  So I may not reach my goal this time, but I figured it’s worth investing some time in myself and my skills and talents.

Because of this investment I have had some problems iwth my hands lately. I also havent’ been feeling so great (low vitamin D, not consistently taking my Zoloft) so I’m going to work on this. and I’m going to work on my book.

I may never be a famous author, but I will improve and work towards being published (even just on Kindle) because I love writing, and I want someone to love what I’ve wrote. I’m being very careful to write for the story, not the audience. I hope it all works out.

Derringer Meryl [Poppin’ Tags] Out

First and foremost is that I have to interact with people, obviously not everyone in the world likes what I like, and honestly that’s the mother flippin’ spice of life. Right? Everyone can’t be the same, that’d be DULL and bothersome.

What was I saying… Oh Yes I have to interact with people and they are often DONE with me and my blathering on about things far before I am.  Which is unfortunate. I am not just obsessive about TV shows, when I was a teenager I obsessed about boys … and not in general, i would latch on to a boy and turn my hooks in until he couldn’t stand me, and then I would become OBSESSED (usually lasting months) about WTF went wrong. Someone finally got the balls to tell me it was me, and I was able to work some stuff out in my brain. I learned to hold back.

When I find something that I think is BRILLIANT for me personally I tend to gush. With boys I could hold back after a while because I learned I was damaging my relationships by obsessing. But when it comes to things I”m trying to absorb and work out, I need to rake over it like 40 million times, In my head in a day. What was that thing in the background, did I see something in the mirror? What did those symbols mean? That kind of thing. But also lesser things. Little things about why I love specific characters so much. Why did the writing there make me cry, why do I love the characters so much? I like knowing little facts and passing them on. They make me feel smarter.

{As an aside I have a “I am dumb” complex from growing up with four older brothers, some of which were very insistent on how stupid I was. Because I was a girl, because I was young. THe thing is, I”m still fairly young (I’m no spring chicken, but Most people on the east coast my age don’t even have kids, they’re partying So… whatever) and I have always carried this “I can’t do that” feeling with me. So 5 seconds of reciting some smart fact about a tv show provides cheap and needed thrills}

I finished series 4 of the reboot of doctor who, and cried. I’m sure we’ll never see Rose again. I know things have changed on the show now, and I”m just not sure how to feel about it. David Tennant’s 10th Doctor was angst incorporeal form, I need that sometimes. it was angst with a sugar coating of humor. It gave you the feeling that you could be that Shop girl and be rescued/taken away like Rose Tyler, or a Temp at an Agency working day to day 9-5, no one ever telling you that you were pretty or smart, just doing what it took to get by. And someone could step into your life and it wasn’t so much that the Doctor tells them they’re brilliant, or wonderful, or amazing, he’s just holding a mirror up and showing them how wonderful, brilliant, amazing, fantastic (etc) they can be, and letting them be that way.

I feel like I need to find that outlet. Not in a person. I don’t need a person to validate me, I need to validate me. I need to look into the mirror and see how lovely, amazing, worthwhile, incredible, strong, beautiful and sweet I am. I still have a problem with mirrors, after all these years (for those who dont’ know, I have been terrified of mirrors since I was 5 thanks to someone telling me a super awesome ghost story!) and I think it transitioned at some point from scared to look because of the monster/ghosts/whatever might be there, to just being terrified of me.

I started a story I’ll probably never finish, and in it the character stares at herself in the mirror, and the thoughts in her head, they build until the person that she sees is ugly, and reprehensible. She cannot bear to look any more and so she shatters the mirror, and slices her hands up in the process. It’s a magnifying glass on how I feel.

It’s massively unhealthy, the way I am right now. I don’t lack the capability of being healthy. I simply need to put more positivity into my life. I need to infuse myself with less angst. Sure, angst is great for teenagers, and television characters; but I wallow, because of my obsessiveness. I drown myself in it. I roll around in the sadness and the misery until I can find my way back to where i”m happy again. It can take months, It has taken me years this time. Over three. I may never find the answer as to why I am sad. I may never be able to see clearly what’s going on, even in my head. But I need to learn to rise above it, and grasp for something better.  I think I’m going to try publishing something I write, even just a little drabble… On here once a week. I want to get back to where I was. I don’t want to laugh at high school me who wanted to write. I can never succeed if I never try. I may never be famous, or celebrated, but I can be happy. I can be happy.

Derringer Meryl [Just try] Out

In case you didn’t catch on, I’m stuck on Doctor Who.

The thing is, when you have a universe… or is it an universe, that sounds odd… whatever. When you have a universe with so few rules, it opens your mind up. I feel like I’m getting inspired, and I’m not inspired to write fanfiction, it’s more of a “what if there was a universe where this could happen?” or “maybe a person could travel like this?” and I feel like the stories are small now, But I feel like I could make it more.
It gives me hope. I think that’s part of my depression. It’s my realism fighting against me dreaming. I would love to write, a book, a story, a universe, a movie, anything, that could capture the world’s attention. I’d love to write something. I’ll have to start writing all of these things down.

Derringer Meryl [Who?] Out