faux Christianity

Since they are mentioning stuff I blog about, I may as well blog to my coworkers. They mentioned the law today. (re: my entry titled “All is well?”) so here is an open rant to you all.

Where do I begin? The faux Christianity? How calling someone crazy at work is harassment (LOOK IT UP!)?

How can someone call themselves a Christian when they do things daily to irritate people? I know America is full of faux Christians but these people are evangelical Christians. They go to church and preach to others. That isn’t “my parents are Christian so uh, I guess I am but I don’t pray or go to church or know much about Jesus Christ or the bible”. Oops, did I go there? I sorta get those people because they don’t preach and they are everywhere.  I don’t judge them because they don’t go on about how others need Christ. Blah blah.

I just don’t understand how someone can publicly preach at work and then intentionally try to piss a person off? How is that Christian? It is faux Christianity. It is the height of hypocrisy. And then they say, “God knows my heart.” Well I’m not god (gasp!) and I can know part of your heart enjoys pissing people off. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRFFFHHHHHHHHHHHHH. God knows your intentions. That we can agree on.

At work one of the evangelical Christians said, “It is easy to NOT be Christian.” ROFL. Are they fucking serious? Christianity to me seems like the easiest religion ever. All you have to do is get baptized and ask for forgiveness every time you shit on someone. Oh, that is sooooooooooo hard. And you have to choose which part of the bible you believe. (Being gay is wrong, nothing is wrong with gossiping. Hmm, is slavery okay? Etc.)

She was trying to say by not being Christian, you can do drugs etc without thinking about it. I’m not a Christian. I don’t have pre-martial sex (lol), drink alcohol, do drugs or intentionally piss people off. When I do something wrong, I don’t ask a God forgiveness I feel horrible and ashamed.  I have no problems with people being Christian but now I understand why some have such a negative view of it. Before these two, I thought who cares if someone wants to believe in Jesus. It has nothing to do with me. But hearing this lame crap every day, UGH. I now am leery of Christianity . I understand why some atheists get so pissed at them. I’m only mad at these two at work. Lol. Otherwise I don’t care. Well I don’t like the mix of church and state.

This isn’t a bash Christianity post. If you think so, read it again. j/k. I had to get this out. I’m so frustrated by stuff going on at work.

PS.

Did I mention that repeatedly calling someone crazy and psycho can get your ass fired?! Ask a lawyer. Or read your ethics manual. Now I wish I had reported them. But they know, they no longer do it out loud after doing it daily. So someone got to them or they read the harassment rules. Too bad someone has to tell these Christians, not to call someone crazy. I wanna be Christian. It would make my life so much easier.

self-proclaimed thrift queen

I hung up all my visible clean clothes. But I still have other clean (fresh from the washer) clothes to hang up. The problem with cleaning is:

I hate it. It never ends. You clean a room (kitchen, bathroom) and it gets messy again. Cleaning is boring.

For some reason organization feels like something I can do. I like throwing stuff away. In fact sometimes I will throw away anything over a year old without even going through it. I love that. But I’m never going to be clean…not if I have to do it. One day I will hire a housekeeper but I’m not a clean freak so once a month is all I would do. (I have hired housekeepers for one time cleanings. That’s so worth it. I haven’t done it since I’ve moved here almost 3 years ago.)

How about this? I will throw more stuff away while snowed in (grr) this weekend. Three weeks ago, I threw away 5 big hefty bags! go me.

—————-

I went thrifting yesterday. I brought 11 pieces of clothing for $44. Normally I could get 11 pieces for under $25…but I went to The Goodwill. Their stuff always costs more, probably because they are a charitable organization. They help people with disabilities…which is a cause I 100% support.  The one I used to visit had hideous clothes with  ‘high’ prices so I never shopped there for clothes. I’d buy books from there. However, this Goodwill was filled with  high quality clothing. Name brand. I know branded clothes aren’t everything. I saw a ton of skimpy Bebe tops which made me smile after my last Bebe  experience.

Anyhow, it is nice to buy for a cause. I used to shop at a LGBT thrift shop but they are either closed or there isn’t parking. I can’t remember what happened. lol.

I digress…I went there to get some pants for a yoga class*. I found some Reebok sweats and green velour pants. I vow to only wear them to the gym or any exercise class. I have a bad habit of sleeping in comfortable pants. I also brought some Gap peace cargo pants. Yes they have peace & love written on them. IOW, they are hippie pants. I never find anything @ The Gap store but I do have a few Gap pieces from thrift stores.

The rest was mostly spring/summer tops from The Limited, Ann Taylor (Loft) and Express. Nothing expensive, just normal clothes most people pay full price for but I refuse. I’m too lazy to take/upload pics but I’m in love with my fuchsia (hippie-ish) Express top. I’m wearing that on Monday if I get around to hand washing it. Yes, I’m a lil’ bit hippie. Can you tell?

The key to the Goodwill is to only visit ones in business or upper middle class neighborhoods. I guess that is where they drop off their clothing. Thanks!

———–

*The yoga class. Everything is so complicated. The one place I want to go to is $15 per class which is normal I think. The problem is they don’t have many beginners’ classes. The few they’ve had, has been canceled probably because they can’t find enough new people. That is shocking to me. Can’t find new people to do yoga?? Weird. There is a yoga class @ work. It isn’t free. I have to get a note from my doctor to go to that class…or ANY class. Guess what? I don’t have a doctor (no, I’m not bringing in a form from the shrink I see 4-6 times a year).

I’m doing yoga or going to the Zen group. I’ve got to do one. The zen Buddhist group is scary because most of their evening classes involves discussion (of a book etc.) after the meditation.  Well, I don’t want that. Do I get up at 5Am on Thursdays to take the early class? Surely they don’t expect people to speak that early in the morning. I should consider it….

I have a feeling I will do yoga before zen. I’m less intimidated by yoga.

All is well?

The  power went out @ 2am. There was a car accident two blocks away.  It was and still is freezing in my house. I think the power came back on around 10am (the power company left me a voicemail). I assumed that my heater would come back on when the power did. I thought I would be coming back to a somewhat warm house. NO. I was so worried about my kitty. She felt as cold as the house this morning.  My mom is not impressed with this little story. She went without heat for 5-6 days a couple of weeks ago. Who can blame me for being concerned about my cat? Even though she bit me Sunday night….grrr!

It is sleeting right now. I hope people won’t be driving tonight. I’ve lived in Virginia for quite a while. And we have never had this much snow. And it isn’t over. A woman from Jersey said “In New Jersey, these would have been clean and in much better shape.” See, that is the difference between snow up north and here. They expect it and prepare. We don’t. Sue me, I hate driving on ice. What a concept!

I have to do an hour or maybe 30 minutes (ha) of cleaning. Due to the weather, I haven’t had a chance to go to any stores. It is probably better this way. The last thing I need to do is buy random storage.

At work I got a good review. I’m self motivated (yep!) and dedicated (yep!) but I wanted a ‘works well unsupervised’. Did not get that. I’m used to getting that one because I do! Honestly, I wasn’t expecting her to say anything as good as she said.  Those compliments have no effort on the actual review. But even then, I did better than last year. The only reason why I got a higher than average review, is due to lack of my mistakes being caught. Where I work mistakes happen so I know I made some but I was lucky not to get caught.

I just have to keep it up. Oh, the ‘bad’ stuff. “Build relationships with coworkers”. ROFL. #1 Do I have a relationsip with anyone? #2  Um, these people have called me crazy since day one. I sat crying at my desk on the first day. It was brutal. It was K’s last day so she was happy go lucky. She held nothing back. They had obviously been talking about me prior to my first day. (I transferred from another department). I get that but to talk about me like that when I was sitting right there. LOL. That is not a good memory.

“I would talk to them but they have been calling me crazy since day one so….” I really wanted to say that. Btw, that is harassment and in some cases discrimination. I’ll just settle for harassment. It lasted for a year. Within the past 3 months, they have gotten word somehow that calling some crazy can lose your job….Otherwise why would they stop on their own. I was about to contact HR last week but without them using the “C” word out loud, what do I have? So unless something else happens the reporting it thing is done. I should have done it when it was happening daily. According to a lawyer, they probably would have gotten fired…

WHICH WAS NOT MY GOAL. I JUST WANTED THE HARRASSMENT TO STOP! So now they do subtle things. Things that can’t be reported. I missed my chance. What does this mean? Was this meant to be? I had a chance to stand up for myself but I didn’t. I’m not a tattle-tale. I hate tattle-tales. If it weren’t for the subtle shit they do, I would say “All is well that ends well” but things are not well….

I have to do unclutter my life. What fun!

don’t be nice to me

I posted most of the following from my “frustration journal”. I mostly post there by email from work. If I didn’t I would go insane. Now that wordpress has the email feature, I could email to this blog but I’m obsessed with tags…and I really don’t want to “junk” this journal up with multiple posts in one day. That only happens when I’m really ticked off.

Just wanted to set the scene. Typed from work 4 hours ago:

6:01 PM

so I’m still at work and not getting paid. I know salaried people do this all the time. I do feel bad for them sometimes especially in an economy like this. They probably add at least 10-20 hours due to layoffs. But they do get perks: (maybe higher pay, more vacation time and big bonuses). If I were salaried, I would be the person working 70 hours while the average was 55 hours. 10% to fill a void and 90% because I feel inadequate. How else can I keep a job if I don’t work 10x harder?

anyway, I’m only here because it is supposed to snow tonight and I may not be able to do more free work, um, I mean research tomorrow. I really hope it doesn’t snow. I want to go to The Container Store…I could probably go tonight but I don’t know when the snow will start. But driving on new snow isn’t a big deal. (edit: Just found out the nearest Container Store is 3 hours away and  they don’t have the big glass containers I wanted.)

In fact, I shouldn’t be typing this but I had to take a break. I’ve been here for since 8AM and I’m not done. I just had to get a little something off my chest:

I really can’t say what it is (lol) here or in my main journal. Let me just say that I can’t take people being nice to me even if they have ulterior motives (how paranoid!). I can’t take it. This is why people who are used to being abused/treated poorly keep going back for more. Once you are used to something, well it is comfortable b/c it is what you know.

well back to work. It better not be snowing now. I’m trying to leave by 6:30.

I ended up leaving at 7pm. No snow. So many surprises happened @ work today. Just when I was talking about ’staying the same’, everything is changing. I will blog about it later. My cat wants me off the computer.

Hell sucks

Often, he felt completely unproductive. He sat, numb, panicking, but unable to take action. His behavior reminded him of a quote he once heard: “Hell is when things freeze.” He lived that hell often until a deadline was close, and he would galvanized to act. But the pain he felt was enormous.

from It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys: The Seven-Step Path to Becoming Truly Organized

Yes I’m reading multiple books like I did in the old days. This book is by Marilyn Paul. I’ve had it on my bookshelf for about a year.  What is up with the 7 steps thing? I’m 100% (lol) committed to getting organized…even though I still can’t stand going into some rooms. I’m actually excited about one idea from Lowell’s book. I must get big glass containers for the cat food. One for the strays and one for my kitty. (Yes, they eat different food. My cat likes the stray cat food and thinks it is a treat but it makes her vomit – TMI).

I’m excited about that. That is the only thing I know I need – big glass containers oh, & a filing system. It is supposed to snow (as in stores will be closed) this weekend so I doubt I go shopping. I hope I get motivated to throw more stuff away and maybe clear a room.

I don’t wanna be snowed in. It was 60 degrees on Monday. wah. Speaking of snow……

It reminds me of hell. Seriously,, .”Hell is when things freeze”. I can relate but you must have faith, right? I have to go do stuff so I can find my keys in the morning.

unclutter my life

I hate when I work so hard and it doesn’t show…at work, at home. etc.

I’m in the midst of organizing. Really organizing. I got some decent ideas from Christopher Lowell’s organization book – Christopher Lowell’s Seven Layers of Organization: Unclutter Your Home, Unclutter Your Life. But my problems are

• clothes. It’s not like I have a lot of clothes but I have about ZERO closest space.
• my cat has taken over the house (vague, I know)
• no space. my house is smaller than my last apartment. I never had a space problem until I moved here.
• I need a better filing system. It’s so funny, when I was growing up I always had a real file cabinet. But now all I have is a file box. I could throw bills from 08 away but that still wouldn’t be enough. I guess I need another $12 box.

I guess it is about not having a place to put stuff. I’m going to get a recycle bin soon so that is where my junk mail will go. That is helpful because my mail doesn’t always make it to the trash in a timely matter.

I want to go to the container store (if we have one) but SCREAM the problem is that I don’t know what to put in the containers. lol. I have made a promise to not decorate my house until it is completely organized.

I’m going to the flea market before mother’s day. I found a few things while cleaning up, that I know will sale. It would be nice to have 50% Avon, 20% my old stuff that-is-like-new, & 30% of a new hobby. We’ll see. In the meantime, I have to find the best flea market in the area.

Whataya Want from Me

1 in 100 people have schizophrenia. That seems high, doesn’t it?

You were a Marshall scholar at Oxford University in England. You write that your life began to unravel there. What happened?

I became very depressed. I totally lost my appetite and lost a huge amount of weight. I thought that I wasn’t supposed to speak, because speaking would spread my evil around. Obviously, it’s hard to make friends if you can’t talk with people, so I was very socially isolated, which was extremely painful. And I had mild paranoid ideas that people were talking about me and laughing at me behind my back, which may have been true, because I looked kind of bizarre walking down the street gesticulating and talking to myself.

Read the rest of Elyn Saks Time interview.

Saks also wrote a memoir The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness. (on my to read list).

Speaking of books, I just checked out an absurd amount from the library on Saturday.

raw

If you are human, you will find this entry offensive.

Today was supposed to be internet free day but that’s all fucked up. If I were on a diet today would be the day I eat a whole cake…or a bunch of doughnuts.

They took my money. IT WAS INTEREST FREE UNTIL AUGUST yet chase credit card took my money. If it wasn’t interest free, I’d be relieved to get rid of any debt but I was making payments so I could be done by August. IT WAS FREE money, now it’s all gone. fuck you. (I turned off automatic payments last month, I didn’t see any indication I would have to do this every month.

I wish that were my only problem. lol. I wish.

And seeing the devastation of Haiti doesn’t change my perceptions of my problems. I gave $$ within 48 hours of the earthquake so stop asking for it. (offended yet?) I’ve read books about the poorest nations and I’ve wished I was born there. Life is simple. I probably wouldn’t have social anxiety & if I did would it even matter?

Living there now, probably wouldn’t have the same effect. Once you’ve been Americanized….If I didn’t have a mortgage nearly impossible to get rid of, I’d considered going to a ‘poor’ country. If that didn’t work out, I would have to kill myself. but I’ve tried & that didn’t work. too much of a coward.

Those people have a lot more than I do. If you have/had social society/depression, you may know what I’m talking about. Otherwise your appalled. DOESN’T SHE KNOW WHAT SHE HAS?

tell me, tell me what the fuck I have??????????????

What people (including me), don’t get is that if you don’t have human relationships, you have nothing. Nothing. So yes the people in any other country has more than me. They have the ability to give love, respect, friendship etc. All I can give is $$

Those people are richer than me.

this entry came out of me asking for help & not receiving shit. lol. I never ask for anything because I’m scared of rejection and when I do ask I get………..weird responses. Responses from a person who doesn’t get it. A person who would never understand why I would want to live in a poorer nation.

long shot

I need 2 internet free days a week. Definitely Sunday and Wednesday. I was doing fine w/just Sunday internet free until I started Avon. Everything I do with Avon is online.

so that’s done. who knew the internet could be so depressing. it confirms that no one cares.

was very productive at work. a lil productive @ home. I should have gotten more done. At least my garbage can will be filled tomorrow. I have a long way to go.

way of life

To study the buddha way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.

-Dogen Zenji

Sometimes I wish I could believe in the Christianity thing. There is one Buddhist ‘place’ around here…but only ONE. It seems excellent. In the back of my mind I can’t help but think, “what if this fails?” I won’t have another option. This is the place for the study of Buddhism. I don’t believe one must go to a church/temple to practice a religion. However, I really want to get the meditation thing down. I do meditate…or I’ve tried and I don’t get the same results as people who are dedicated to it. So I think going to the Buddhist group may help.

BUT BUT BUT BUT

I don’t feel comfortable around strangers, or in small groups….etc

I can talk myself into well, try at least one time. I can do that but the perfectionist in me wants to go twice a month and I will feel like I’ve failed if I can’t go back. To be honest, if I felt the need to go to a Christian church, if it didn’t work out once, I probably wouldn’t try another church. And if I were a Christian, I probably wouldn’t feel the need to go to a church. I can read the bible and watch Joyce Meyer at home…the thing with Buddhism is meditation. Hmmm

Anyhow, they have few groups. I’m trying to figure which one is best. I’m definitely not going to one that involves discussion on the first time I go. That would be too much. I would runaway. Too much. Too much.

I’ve studied Buddhism for years. It is the only ‘religion’* that rings true for me. There isn’t a god. It is all about what you think & do. I practiced all day at work on Friday and it went well. But when I left work, I was my normal easily irritated self. We got some semi-bad news @ work, I was able to let go. But as soon as I was driving in my car, it hit me. What I really wanted to happen is not happening. I dunno…I just feel let down.

*I don’t consider Buddhism a  religion at all. It is a way of life. The only way for me.

I have to get going. Laundry, dishes etc.

Here is my one hotel picture from NYE. It is simple but I would love to have a set up like that in my house….minus the carpet.

best nye ever