A Prayer For Queen Vee

*Warning. Conservative devout followers of any religion might find the following offensive. So don't read it if you are. No one is holding your eyeballs.*

I haven't really had a conversation with anyone about God in long time. Not in terms of religion or child rearing or of politics like 'what are those God-fearing republicans doing to ruin my life as an independent single woman' conversations, but in terms of existence. Though lately, it's one I've been having with myself. A lot.

A few years ago, the last God conversation I can remember having actually, I found out my best friend didn't believe in God but followed almost every tradition in her religion (or is it culture?) to the T. (I still have trouble understanding that, though it does kind of make me a hypocrite...I need to ask her again.) I tried to form my own opinion about it and came up with my own need to believe in God, not in the traditional sense, but in some kind of higher power. I thought, something has to be responsible for all this...all this existence. Life is too beautiful despite the ugly to think otherwise. I needed to believe something was hearing me. But all the while I also believed somewhere in my consciousness that God was the collective belief of humans to find meaning in life and to give it rules to follow.

I don't need the threat or reward of a promised afterlife to live my life well. (Well is of course a relative term, but you know what I mean.) Logic based in religion makes no sense to me...I'm not going to murder, steal from, cheat or hurt anyone because I might end up in some kind of Dante's Inferno? How about I won't do these things because they are bad and I wouldn't want them done to me? Why is there no inherent value in people's behavior? Can't say I've never done wrong but how can taking the lord's name in vain and killing someone land me in the same place? Better yet, both be absolved with a simple confession and a few Hail Marys? I've been a goody goody my whole life, aside from the cursing, a few hurt feelings and a lot of inner snarky thoughts, but if I don't ask forgiveness will I not get into heaven? Will not believing get me a free pass to hell? But isn't God supposed to be forgiving?

I suppose it's time for me to admit that I've lost my faith. Any lapsed Roman Catholic due to a disagreement with the Church can probably relate. I have come to consider myself an Agnostic, but I feel like a cheater. I can't commit fully to either belief. I've never even come close to saying out loud that I don't believe in God...my father would be crushed. One of the few things he has ever asked of me was to attend Church, which I did dutifully until I became an adult and could not stand to go. He has never told me how sad it makes him that none of his children attend services but I know he is disappointed. The last time we touched on the subject I made him understand that I did not agree with the Church but I did believe in God, praying every night for things like the safety of my family, the health of my sick aunt and a job promotion. At the time I did.

It breaks my heart to break his so I will never tell him that my faith has changed. I still pray to God every night, but I don't know why. Habit maybe. I want to believe so badly that there is something up there watching over, but I know it's ridiculous to think that of the billions of people on this earth, my prayers for a new job or a man to hold my heart are the ones that are not only going to be heard, but granted as I ask for them. Especially if I'm just thinking them. But then again, maybe I'm limiting my image of God. Maybe Almighty means hearing billions and billions of voiced and internal prayers for both selfish and selfless things. I don’t know. I just have a hard time believing there's someone/thing at the controls now. Maybe there was at the very beginning, but not anymore.

The more history I learn the more I realize how politically charged religion is and always has been, and how those in power manipulate the rules to keep those who toil in line. How can you believe killing in God's name is something God would want? I know there are those who do because it's what they've been taught, but I also know there are others who know it's simply an ideal strong enough to limit human free will. From the Crusades to modern times. This is why it makes sense to me that God is man made...it is a tool one can use to manipulate another to further his own desires. Even the purest idea of God as simply the creator of all things favors man above all else.

Maybe the big bang is God and we are all praying to a scientific event that has no human-type ability to think or free will to control the elements it made. Or maybe evolution is something God set up to watch as a movie. Time moves differently for the omnipotent.

All this to say I don't know. The days I believe in something greater are becoming less I think, but as a result it makes me want to live my life better, sooner. At least in theory. This is all I know I have. I'm not saying anyone should change their beliefs; everyone has to do what they have to in order to survive this reality. I'm just saying don't rely on an afterlife for fulfillment ( or punishment.) I do believe in Karma though the passing of it to different lifetimes is questionable. Maybe that is a silly belief of mine. Like a cloudy bed or seven subservient virgins after death. But like you to yours me to mine. And I'll probably never stop praying. Whether I'm being heard or not, oddly enough I think it helps reminds me of the limitless as well as the limitations of my life.

So Queen, take your own damn advice and get out there. Stop praying about it and actually open your heart fer godssakes. Because if God's watching she's only shaking her head at how boring you are.

Meanie Virgeenie

I have never intentionally been mean to anyone (with the exception of E and A when I was a pre-teen and crumbled under peer pressure) at least I like to think so. At the very least, I try not to be mean. The pointed, I'm-doing-this-to-hurt-you mean, I mean. I would never recover from the guilt. I lose sleep replaying something I've said over in my head if I think I may have possibly, maybe, slightly hurt someone. It kind of sucks.

I'm not saying I'm Nicey McNicerson all the time, far from it. If thought bubbles were an actuality people would probably spit at me as I walked by...course their thought bubbles would be visible too so they shouldn't be throwing stones. But anyway when and if I do do something mean it's most likely unrealized and by accident.

Case in point: I went to a work party recently and my now ex-boss showed up. I had already had 2 drinks by the time I saw her so my mind was already wandering. You know how people gather around into small circles to shout at each other over the music at those things? Well, she was in a circle that consisted of me, someone we had both just met, someone else's back who was part of another circle and me. It didn't hit me until after the party that I didn't even make an effort to speak to her. Although, this also means she didn't make an effort either, I felt kind of bad for not really acknowledging her. I don't know why really because I don't like her. Why should I feel bad for not chatting up someone I dislike and felt mistreated by when I worked for her?

It's also not the first time I've done that...to her. (I'm coming to the realization that avoidance can equal being mean given the right circumstance.) At other work functions I did my best to avoid her and I'm pretty sure she always attributed it to the fact that she was my boss. (I'm not a big fan of small talk in general, but to have to do it with someone I hated at the time? See I'm growing! Hate has diminished into dislike. It's all about time.) My co-workers also did some avoiding, but not to the degree I did. At any rate, I think she may now finally realize that it wasn't because she was my boss. See, even now it makes me feel bad to think she finally knows that I don't like her because it might hurt her feelings. Why do I care about her feelings? After all the shit she pulled?

I don't think she's a bad person. I just don't like her. And it took a long time for me to admit that. I've probably said this before so forgive me if I'm repeating myself...but there aren't that many people who I take an active disliking to- I mean, yes there are a lot of people I probably don't like but I don't think about them enough for it to consume any energy. And once she passes out of my consciousness it won't be an active dislike anymore either, but she'll never regain any kind of footing in my eyes. Man, she just rubs me the wrong way.

But then I found out something that made me feel even worse for a little while, until I realized it didn't change the way I felt about her. Apparently she had some marital problems and just got a divorce. She was married for less than three years. It explains a little about her work ethic and her general attitude over the past few months but I'm not going to forgive her treatment of her workers just because of it. I am wiling to give people a lot of rope, god knows I need it at times, but I just can't with her. Maybe because her ridiculousness with me began way before any of her general bad attitudes began. I don't know. I just don't need to be around someone who makes me feel mean for not liking her. You know?

Backtracking...new boss has the potential to mean less crappy time at work, no? No. Not when new boss doesn't have the right experience and gives me a hard time about taking vacation days. In her defense, she's new and doesn't want to make waves, and she didn't really give me that hard a time but she questioned me when she didn't need to, mostly because she read the email wrong. Because I had to deal with that on a daily basis with the old boss, it does not bode well for new boss to start with that. And not that I'm some old timer that knows the HR handbook backward and forward, but I've been there long enough to deserve certain allowances. I've been screwed out of a lot of things at this company, I will not allow vacation time to be one of them.

I also heard that good things were being said about me among the top layer and while that is a great thing that I am excited about, I will not allow my hopes to raise because someone has to quit or die for me to be promoted. And even if that does happen, they'd probably put me through the ringer and then hire someone else anyway. That's the way it works.

So in conclusion, old boss out, new boss gathering strikes, I'm finally getting a little recognition for my work but I'm not holding my breath for an actual reward and um....Oh...I guess I can be unintentionally mean if I don't like you.

Virgins can be mean, who knew?

For The Love Of Vacation

"The trouble is not that we are never happy-it is that happiness is so episodical. All I really care about...can almost frighten me with happiness. But then it's gone and I cannot see what holds it all together."
-Ruth Benedict

I need to get out of here, and by here I mean the daily grind which for me takes place in NYC. One upon a time a few years ago I saved up, quit my job and jetted off to Europe for a couple months with the intent to revive my spirits. It worked...for a while anyway. The daily grind has a way of robbing life's color after awhile if you let it. Apparently I have. (A work update is needed and will be provided...eventually.) Though I don't feel the same way I did when I upped and quit a few years ago, I am at the point where if I don't get a little time off to explore new things and meet new people I might go mad.

Realistically that just means a boring kind of depression, one that doesn't require medication or therapy because it really doesn't register on the needing actual help scale. It's just a general melancholy that surrounds me...kind of like pigpen's dirt. Basically, I let the happy episodes occur further and further apart with nothing to connect them. I need a reminder (a memory can only get me so far) of how absolutely amazing life can be when you're not chained to 40 hour work week. Or should I say 50.

In Holland their starting vacation time is 4 weeks. I really do believe I would be a happier person if I had more time off. This 2 week corporate bullshit is harming its workforce, not increasing production. And with the turn-over of jobs so high, who sticks around one company long enough to get to that 4 week allowance?

There is so much to do and see and so little time to do and see it.

I do have a small vacation to a tropical island coming up, which is much needed. The thought of sitting half naked on a beach with daiquiri in hand makes me want to melt with relief. I haven't had a real vacation in two years. That's not to say I haven't had time off, it's just that I didn't go anywhere relaxing or new and interesting to explore. Mom and Dad's house doesn't count as vacation.


Though I think Ms. Benedict was speaking more in terms of love being the great connector, here is my offering of how to potentially connect episodes...vacation. (sigh)

Involuntary Virginity

Salon.com has finally found a label. Though I am not excusing my status as something happening to me instead of a kind of choice to not make sex a priority, I do believe much of this article speaks directly to me. Or rather, to non-virgins curious about how someone in their late 20s could still be a virgin and not totally f'ed up.

"The phenomenon of involuntary virgins, on the other hand, exists underground in liberal America, where sophisticated career women are supposed to have active sex lives and gyms offer pole dancing and stripping classes as a kind of aerobics."

I'm an underground phenomenon. Go me!

Involuntary virgins, on the other hand, may have missed that dating phase in high school (perhaps they were buried in their books) and probably missed it in college too, so once they enter the real world, one with more adults, they start to feel left behind...

Really could not have said this better. They also talk about performance anxiety which though I don't want to admit, plays into the situation.

"I remember thinking when I was in high school, 'Yeah if I had a boyfriend I would sleep with him,'" says Katie, a journalist in New York, who didn't lose her virginity until she was 28. "I thought when I got to college I would have this garden of eligible candidates to choose from. But people didn't really date. It was a hookup scene I was never really comfortable with."

Oh Katie. We would probably be good friends if we knew each other. My problem with the 'hookup scene' is that I didn't go out to get drunk and find lots of random frat boys cute enough to make out with. I wanted to, believe me, but being a) allergic to alcohol and b) uninterested in trying to fend off the cute, drunk frat boy when he wanted more than I was willing to give kind of put a damper on things. (*Note- the one time I did get enough alcohol in me to actually lessen the inhibitions, Jean pulled me away and we went home. On the one hand, in retrospect he was an asshole so it's one less asshole that I've made out with, but on the other hand, WTF? She denied me the chance to make out with an asshole. And it was just the beginning of what would be a disasterous friendship anyway. Uh.)

I'm pretty sure that the kind of guy I'm interested in won't be bothered by the fact though I still don't plan to tell him until afterwards. Not that he won't be able to guess...there are some things I'm pretty good at hiding, but I am not a good liar and if he's smart/sensitive enough he'll probably figure it out himself anyway.

So cheers to the new phenomenom!...or the once traditional prize-wife (ech) gone obsolete. Let's make a comeback girls! Though I do not recommend having your hymen replaced with plastic surgery partly because that's just not a healthy way to deal with your sexuality, but mostly because, well ew.

A Letter Of Contempt

Dear people who say, "he'll show up when you least expect it" or "you'll find him when you're not looking":

F U
I've been actively least expecting, not looking for him for a good 28 years. Where is he?

Love,
Queen Vee

What Part Of Sleep With Don't I Get?

For all the people I've not slept with there are people I've slept next to, a fact that in practice probably adds to my overall anxiety. Learning about the things you do in your sleep from someone else is discomforting. This probably reveals more than I'd like it to about my control issues. I can't control what I do in my sleep and it freaks me out. I've been told that I laugh and also that I grind my teeth. Nothing that embarrassing there. I know from waking up with a wet face that I also cry in my sleep. Also not bad. But what about the big Os I think I occasionally experience while sleeping? The fear of that happening while asleep next to someone is enough to keep me awake all night just to avoid it.

But then there's also just having someone next to me period that throws me off. I've been sleeping alone now for so long, it's strange to have someone else in the room let alone in the bed. If there is such a thing as psychic energy I'm pretty sure that just because their brain works my sleep is disturbed by whoever is next to me. (Though in all likelihood I wouldn't be able to sleep next to a dead person either. But I digress.) No matter how tired I am, how good a friend it is, how many times I've slept next to them or what is on my mind, it always takes me forever to fall asleep with someone else around. In any case, they always fall asleep first.

As long as they aren't snoring, the steady soft breathing of a sleeping person does hold a kind of comfort. That is, once I get past being annoyed that I'm not asleep yet and have to listen to them happily sleep breathing.

I would like to believe that it's something that will go away once I've begun sleeping with someone on a regular basis (the virgin said without a hint of irony.) Of course, I've got to take into account my light sleeper status and obvious habit of over analyzing my every interaction with the world and its with me.

Who else would analyze the actual sleep part of sleeping with someone? You can count on me.

And Yes...

I need to stop reading other people's comments about their older virgin friends and how weird it is. Or worse, how disturbed they must be to still be a virgin after 30. Just because you don't do something everyone else does doesn't mean you are totally f**ked in the head. Ok yes, obviously I have some issues, thus the reason for starting this blog...I'd rather be an anonymous therapy patient than an actual one, but I'm not frigid nor a prude nor that messed up (I think. I'm not trying to make my issues bigger than they really are. I'm pretty sure they can be overcome.) And yes on the flip side of that, there are older virgins out there who are some or all of these things, but blanketing us all with the stigma is doing nothing for my insecurity about it.

I don't really see my virginity as something I'm hanging onto, because I'd gladly lose it if I could find someone I wanted to lose it to. And yes I hope it'll be someone I'm in love with, but at this point, I'll settle for someone I have chemistry with and who makes me feel comfortable (which I have to say again is odd that I haven't come across someone like this. I'd say I was comfortable with myself and my body, so I don't think that's the issue. Am I mixing up comfort with safety? If so, why am I so obsessed with feeling safe?) I'm only afraid of sex so far as I've never done it so I don't want to look like a total ass when I do do it (and of course the whole getting pregnant thing. And yes I have heard there's no really right way to do things, it just kind of happens. It's of no consolation to someone who's never been even close to it almost kind of sort of happening.)

Older men seem to flock to me (perhaps because I don't view them as threatening in any way and am myself and comfortable around them) but the ones my age are either scared of me or assume I already have a boyfriend or I don't know what. But all of these things combined have left me in an inexperienced state both mentally and physically when it comes to men. And YES I'm going to blame my mother yet again for all her anti-men type messages growing up which lead to my eventual avoidance of the whole relationship situation. The situation that everyone and their uncle seems to not only have experienced, but experienced many times with many people in many ways.

All I know is, if you met me on the street you'd probably think I was just another NYC chick with a string of broken hearts (not a self-description) behind her. If after getting to know me a little better, outside of romantic relationship revelations, would you suddenly think I was mental if you somehow found out I was a virgin? Everyone has issues. This is just mine.

I don't know why I'm trying to justify my normalness. It only enables the stereo-typers to raise their eyebrows and nod their heads. Considering this blog is pretty much a one sided conversation, maybe I'm just trying to convince myself I'm not a lost cause.

Maybe one day I'll even figure out how to help me help myself.

Still Undecided

I still really can't decide how I feel about this. Clearly I'm bothered by it, but why? Am I just jealous that she's able to date all these guys without having to do any work? Or does it absolutely irk me that both she and the magazine are making a huge deal out of her virginity? Why does it have to be so weird that a 29 year old hasn't had sex? Ok, the fact that this blog is solely dedicated to my own virginity aside, it is not the most pressing thing in my life. Nor is it it a priority to find the 'one' to lose it to, though truth be told it is on the list. It just has a written next to 'one' instead of the. At least for the moment. I know guys who may not end up being for me can be good (as in genuine). I just have to relax enough to find one.

I somehow got into another conversation with my mother about having babies. She said you have to find someone soon I want a grandchild. I said, well what if I got pregnant but didn't have a man? I don't think that would be very responsible. What would I do? She said, well you could still do it. You could come live with me.

I think I'm going to vomit.