beef jerky in a ball gown

I don’t really post here anymore but I wanted to let anyone who might still be out there know that I lost Elvis today at age one year, seven months. We don’t really know what happened. I was on vacation and the boarding facility noticed he was sick this morning and brought him to the ER. He declined rapidly and I had to make the call to let him go while I was stuck in traffic on the GWB. I will love him always.

I got two Christmas cards yesterday.  One was from my cousin, who I’m fairly certain has not sent a greeting card in his entire life, so I literally “awwwwwed” with delight when I opened it.  The other was from an old friend I’ve faded from my life for being a generally shitty person and I literally said “go fuck yourself” when I opened it.  It’s now on the top of the garbage.

That being said, I was thinking I wouldn’t bother sending out cards this year, but I was so touched by my cousin sending one out, especially since this is his first year without his mom (who died of pancreatic cancer shortly after last Christmas), that I am now inspired to go through this total pain in the ass process this weekend.

My senator wrote this about a town I grew up next door to. I found out about the shooting through the fucking Patch because that’s how local it was. Then over the course of a few hours, it became state news, then national news, then international news. I remember when I got that Patch alert on my phone, I figured it was someone’s shitty estranged spouse attacking them at work or something. Early reports indicated someone had been shot in the leg. My coworker’s daughter was in lockdown at Newtown High before getting sent home for the day. We drove past so many stuffed animal shrines to the lost children on Christmas Eve 2012 because we always pass through Newtown to get from my parents’ house to my cousin’s house. It’s still so sad, so painful, especially considering how much of the country collectively shrugged its shoulders at the cost of freedom.

WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD, JACKASS.

Actually, it makes me sad that I immediately think “oh honey, no” because so much of my career in the corporate world has been shaped by sexism.  And yes, I’ve been sexually harassed, but it’s treated differently (aka not seriously) when it’s a peer.

I’ve personally experienced being told I had to leave the company to reach salary parity with my male colleagues because I started my career as a secretary, a traditionally feminine role that pays significantly less than many other entry level jobs (I took them up on that offer).  I’ve been told my merit increase would be better if I just smiled more, though the quality of my work itself is excellent.  On a business trip, I had a coworker repeatedly call my room begging me to sleep with him, even though I had already clearly said no in the elevator before we parted ways.  That same coworker also paid for me to do a body shot off of another woman on that same trip (I declined).  And also on that trip, after-hours mingling (not exactly an option when you’re trying to make connections with your coworkers) meant a trip to Hooters.  With my BOSS.  I can’t say I think Hooters is an appropriate location for a business event, but who is going to want to look like a spoil sport, especially when you’re the only woman?  On another trip, I  had my ass grabbed.  I never felt 100% safe when I went to sales meetings.

My favorite story is not my own.  A former colleague, roughly my age, told me she was turned down for a promotion because, and she was told this point blank, she hadn’t had babies yet and no one wanted to deal with covering for her maternity leave.  And at my current company, the woman who reported sexual harassment by her manager was fired after a long legal battle against the company.  The man she accused is still there, and though it all went down before I started, I noticed the other women tend to avoid him.  As do I.

I have never formally complained about sexism or sexual harassment, because the last thing you want to be seen as in the corporate world is a complainer, or as someone who doesn’t go along with the norm.  And the one woman I know of who did?  Fucking fired.  I have a mortgage to pay; I’m not going to risk it.  And that’s why nothing ever fucking changes.