Quick, before the Boy gets home!

Don't know how long I can go for because I am BEAT to SHIT.

Not enough sleep 2 nights in a row. FOUR FUCKING HOUR LONG meeting in Jersey this afternoon, with nary a break for a smoke or a pee. Christ. And I have assloads of work to do tonight.

Puma has deleted my last name from her diary. I am mulling linking. I'm still not really okay with having my first name out there either. Hey, if you're going to have a Secret Double Life, no point in disclosure, now is there?

Bot, who I think has broken up with me, was saying something in her diary tonight that got me going. About trying to be humble, patient, and kind.

Now, not that humility, patience, and kindness do not have their place. In general I am reasonably kind (to people I give a fair shit about), humble in a way that I personally like, meaning, I kick ass and all, but I know that I don't know a lot, and that I suck at a lot, and am more than ready to admit that. But I am also more than happy to explain that I kick ass. When I do, anyway. I guess I try to be honest more than I try to be humble. Patience was always hard for me to learn and practice, but more important than learning patience has been to learn *when* to be patient. There are times when patience is important, especially to one's sanity. However, there are times when you just seriously need to kick the world's ass a little bit and get shit moving.

But, and this is where the griping comes in, you know...the world doesn't expect MEN to be patient, humble, and kind. Not in the least. In fact, quite the opposite. We (the race, not we, like me and my friends) reward arrogant, mean, hard-charging bastards, in fact. The pushy broads of the male race get the fancy cars and the cheap women.

See where I'm going with this?

Now, I personally am lucky to be young and in a young industry, and as such I encounter a lot less of the old-world reactions than I might, although I do encounter them. I have to be careful, and respectful. However, put me in a Dilbert corporation and I'm sure I'd be immediately labelled along the lines of pushy broad. But fuck them! AND the horses they rode in on!

I don't buy into any of that bull. There are certainly women who feel that in order to be powerful they have to be masculinely powerful. They tend to be remarkably hard to be around. There are, of course, also many wussy men. But to shape our attitudes around any of that or the opposite is absurd.

Mostly, I think, as women we are taught to be uncomfortable being self-confident. To be outwardly self-confident, to ourselves and often to our female friends and colleagues, is to appear arrogant, or to be concealing something. Again I say, fuck that shit.

I have my moments, oh, lord yes I do. And I still have remnants of a depressive personality. But when I'm myself, I exude confidence. I know what I am good at. I have confidence in my opinions and in my rightful place in stating them. I don't care much whether people like me or not, in most circumstances.

This is NOT bad. Nor is it even abnormal. This is normal. Dammit, I don't care what the rest of the world says. THIS is plain simple and normal. To deny myself this is to deny everything that is right about me.

Maybe this all just sounds like so much pablum but I don't think so. I am NOT okay, you are NOT okay, but that's okay. If that makes sense. There's a lot of bullshit in this world, and I am not going to sacrifice myself to pretend that it's not bullshit. There's also a lot of wonderful things in this world, and some of them are me, and I'm not going to sacrifice myself to pretend that that is not so.

I think I just won the prize for using words related to "bullshit" the most times in one entry.

I have more to say, I think. This one also goes to the Puma and to MG.

I have ZERO taught skills. Meaning, like, from school. None. Nada. I showed up at sixteen (eight, if you really want to go back) with some basic typing skills and 2 skirts I borrowed from my mother so I could look moderately decent in an interview.

My first REAL job I got by LYING. Through my TEETH. I told them I knew all kinds of software I didn't at ALL, mostly because I figured I could learn it quick enough to get by. And I did. I worked my fucking ASS off, but I did, dammit.

And from there on out I talked myself in and out of everything. Certainly not by being patient or humble or kind. Well, some patience was required. But not as much as one might think. Or maybe less, given that I'm all of frigging 25.

Along the way I learned that I am really not a very good web designer. I'm all right. I don't suck. But I'm sure not brilliant. I am also a terrible project manager, and I have many other faults work-wise as well. But I AM a good business person. I am good at helping people understand technology and appropriate solutions. I'm mostly good at managing people, though I have my shortcomings there as well.

My point? Oh, yes. The POINT is that I read around and I see all these brilliant, amazing, wonderful women -- Cerebrate, Puma, Bot, MG, Vanity (though vanity seems to have accepted her ass-kicking of late) -- milling about and chastising themselves and wanting more but not believing in their abilities or their brilliance or the fact that any ONE of them could likely kick any old white CEO or art school student or professional writer or any guy's ASS around the block and back. They have wit and charm and big hearts and big brains.

So what are we so fucking afraid of? I know that personally it took me years to conquer the Smart Child's Plague of the Evil Evil Evil Word POTENTIAL. If I DID something I might reach the END of that oh-so-useless Potential.

But fuck that too! We've got what we've got. We are what we are. This is it. This is all there is. Not, of course, that we can't learn, or get better at things, or any of that, but the material is all there. I hate this stupid world for turning godknowshowmany strong, beautiful, amazing women into Humble Patient Kind.

Grrrr.

- onehanded