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Traditions suck
21:00:00 on 2000-02-11
Feeling:
I left fifteen minutes early for work. I was going to bypass all the ugly Houston traffic on the west loop and show up and sit and smile that yes, I was actually early rather than late for once in my life.
And then horses happened.
You see, there's this horrible Houston tradition of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. It used to actually be for things like selling livestock and something of a trade convention for the livestock industry. Now it's country and western concerts in the Astrodome, a lame carnival and a place for the regional 4H kids to show what they raised.
The rodeo is a real high point in culture in Houston. Yes, I know that's sad, but there you have it.
Anyway, part of this really sad tradition is that a bunch of people dress up as cowboys and have trail rides to recreate the old cattle drives into Houston for the rodeo, sans cattle. They ride their horses and pull their covered wagons into Houston and then all camp in Memorial Park making life Hell for people who just want to live their normal lives.
I'm one of those people. They have Memorial Drive blocked with a trail ride coming into town, so I can't get to work. People are getting in park and sitting on their hoods or roofs of their cars watching the riders go by extremely slowly, backing up traffic who knows how far?
Where are the police while this is going on? They're the ones stopping traffic. This is ridiculous.
So I'm fifteen minutes late. Great. At least I didn't drive through any piles of crap when I went through the intersection.
Today is a lot of the techs' last day. They were having fun doing their Cartman impressions: "screw you guys, I'm going home!" Of course, I secretly held out some hope that maybe it was my last day and nobody had done me the dignity of telling me yet.
"Oh, no, you'll still be here," one of the head techs said. "Their contract is up, that's all, so they're not going to keep them on."
Lucky me! More hours spent with my eyes glazing over because I have nothing to do.
Now, I don't really want to lose the job, truly. I am just miffed about the lack of respect of privacy, other than that, it's okay. I just know myself, too - while I have a job, I have trouble motivating myself to look for another sometimes.
So here I am, updating from work again, because it's extremely slow. I guess they'll read again, but I just don't care. I seriously wonder why I freaked out so; if they want to read and return to the holes in the walls like rats, then who am I to object?
I discussed something like this with someone by email, but with regards to family. We put our journals on the web where it's accessible by anybody with even a mediocre internet connection, but we don't want certain people to read even if it's in a public forum. Why do we get so uptight?
Sure, I want people to read what I write, but there are certain people I'm trying to maintain a certain level of distance from, namely my family and my employers. We have a somewhat formalized relationship, and I feel like if they start reading what I write, it steps over the bounds of that relationship. It gives them an edge over me in some way.
I just want to maintain control.
Does that make me a control freak? Secretive? Paranoid (I already know I'm a paranoid)? Perhaps. But I don't think it's unusual to want to be secure in that, the same way I hate for someone to use Gillian (she is a functional, externalized portion of my mind, so I want to control the accessibility to it; people reading my journal have access to my thoughts and feelings, and people I don't want to have access to that shouldn't have access to it).
I was trying to be conscientious. I was trying to be responsible.
Day 8 (on Celexa), 36 (on antidepressants) 
Ancient history:2013-03-01 "You'll be stone dead in a moment!" 2007-08-07 I covet fuck you money 2007-07-16 My own long, dark tea-time of the soul 2007-07-11 My internet experience is lacking 2007-07-10 Coincidence
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