free Robot Roulette

Aside from the obvious blurry/bad facial expressions/not the person in the profile, I have seen these:

1. Selfie taken from what appears to be under the dash of your car. Your seatbelt is still done up.

2. Your car/motorcycle/quad, but not you.

3. Your child/pet, but not you.

4. Only your abs.

5. You doing yoga in the wilderness.

6. You giving the finger to the camera (?!)

7. You with a northern pike/white tail deer.

8.You wearing shiny sunglasses.

9. You with a bride (hopefully not yours?)

10. You holding a musical instrument (surprisingly??unsexy!).

I was invited to produce a piece of writing for this event! I talked about it here. I think I sound pretty smart; thanks to Fawnda for making it so!

This is what I came up with. Let me know if the link works. What you see is the front and back of a folded document. It was pretty cute.

ACTUAL EVENTS DEPICTED:

Me: Hi! It’s Mari! The address is XXXXX XX Street!

Shorty after, I get a phone call and I explain to the dude that sorry, I texted the wrong number. A few minutes later, he starts texting me back.

Dude: Are you available

Me: How so?

Dude: To go out

Me: Uh, with a complete stranger? Why would you want that? I might be really horrible.

Dude: Do you work

Me: Of course I do.

Dude: Are you working now

Me: I’m not interested, if that’s what you’re getting at. I don’t even know you!

Dude: Me neither but someone else had my phone and wondering how you got this number

Me: By typing in the wrong number! I wasn’t looking for you!

DUDES ARE CONFUSING.

TRIGGER WARNING: corny moment of self-reflection

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about conflict and how to deal with aggression. Part of it is just reflecting on my behaviour in past relationships and what I’ve learned through that. But I also recently wrote an It Happened to Me for xoJane that hit a nerve with some commenters. I thought it was important to??respond to them (and also I am contractually required to).

These comments were only borderline snarky and not really looking for a fight, but it still stung to be criticized, whether I deserved it or not. But I went through each comment and clarified what they didn’t understand, or gently suggest that they read the entire article (because COME ON).

It was really validating to read the (many more! Thank you!) positive responses to my writing — nice for the ego! — ??but what really??moved??me were the comments that mentioned how impressed they were of how I was conducting myself in the conversation. I guess I’m pretty good at keeping the peace. Middle child thing, maybe?

I’ve??figured out that the best way to handle??anger/hostility/aggression is in a way that allows both parties to walk away unscathed, with dignities intact. It’s sort of like emotional aikido. I’m not counting physical aggression — I haven’t had to deal with that ever, and I hope I never have to. But when someone comes after me verbally with rage or aggression, I want??to stop it. It’s not good if I just do whatever it takes to appease someone (LIFE LESSON), but I’ve learned to redirect those feelings towards the??problem, not a??person (and especially not me. Unless it’s my fault. Then sorry.). It’s usually anger masking fear or hurt. Dig for the real reasons and deal with those needs.

I’m also pretty lucky that I’ve been able to create a life for myself that gives me room for a lot of self-care so I can have the energy to cope with stress. When I’m stressed (like when I was teaching), I’m a disaster. It’s way easier to deal with conflict calmly and patiently if you’re actually calm and patient. Life is hard, and everyone struggles. We need to ask the question: how do we find the strength and generosity to let each other co-exist?

And you know what? I need to do this for my??self-loathing??— I can be??so cruel to myself. For a few years now I’ve been living in reaction to my feelings instead of listening to what they really have to say and figuring out what I actually need. So instead of risking angering someone, I diminished myself and became a boiling volcano of resentment. I’ve been so scared of opening up discussions because I knew that the??outcome might/will hurt a little in the short term, but would be wise in the long term.

AND IT FUCKING SUCKS.

Doing the right thing feels like shit. Tell me I’m going to be OK.

So it’s been a while and this year has been crazy like whoa. Long story short: broke up with BF over the summer (gentlemen: the line forms to the left — get at me before my looks go!) and worked at a totally bonkers TV job, then quit it.

I’m now working with a clean slate and after feeling terrible for several months, I am now feeling surprisingly not-lost.

As some of you may know, I’ve really been struggling with my identity as a writer for the past several years. I had a really good beginning to my career (which I kinda just stumbled into, really). It was really fun and challenging to write for ed magazine (rest in peace, you sweet young thing). It fed my soul, to use a totally gross cliche.

I think a lot of mid-career people??in creative fields who are not unstoppable robots hit a plateau or slump. I hit it, hard. Tried a few things, succeeded and failed, but never really felt like I had the same kind of home that I used to. There was nothing to post here because nothing was really happening.

But since returning to full-time freelancing, I’ve had some tremendous support from my writing colleagues and have slowly been making some effort into pitching the kind of writing I actually want to do. Money be damned! (and damn, it’s terrible)

I’ve had two pieces published on XOJane and one in the pipes. Honestly, I don’t know why I was so scared to approach them before. Maybe because JANE PRATT OMG, right? And I’ve started pitching at other places too. But this feels like home. The Toast and The Butter and The Frisky and all the other places beginning with “the” are other places I’m looking at. If I can do a few a month, I will be happy.

I’ll be posting links to the articles I’ve written here (I made a little “writing” tab up there), and even if I get no traffic, I’ll be content??because my blog is on my business cards and someone might actually look at it once in a while.

Thank you, anonymous universe! I will be worthy of your treasures!

Sorry I haven’t blogged! I promise I will soon!