I'd Be A Much Nicer Person If I Wasn't Such A Nice Person

Values just suck. I've decided.

If it weren't for values, with which I find myself incomprehensibly burdened, I would be able to seize the benefits of not being a nice person.

I would be able, for instance, to listen to Terrence rambling on for two hours about how his beautiful, hateful, evil-hearted bitch of a girlfriend may or may not be cheating on him, how he's going to dump her any day now because it's really only a "business" relationship (he pays her bills and she fucks him once a week, and I think I know the name of THAT "business") but he's still in love with her anyway, and even though he'd fuck me to pieces if I gave him a chance, he's still telling me all this because he wants my "intelligent" advice ("You're like a guy, except...not a guy," he told me...and isn't that just what EVERY woman longs to hear?)

And if it weren't for my values I might be able, while listening to this, to see this as an opportunity. If it weren't for values I might be able to think to myself Hey, it might be nice to have a sugar-daddy, not to have to worry about money and bills for a change; it might be nice to have someone who actually cares about fucking, instead of having it be a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. (My life is a fucking case study for irony: finally I embraced my sexual side after twenty-some years of Catholic guilt, I get eighteen months to enjoy it, and then as celestial revenge I am given, in rapid succession, one guy who used sex to belittle me, one guy who wasn't very good at it, and one guy who just doesn't care one way or the other about it. Woohoo God! Good job, big guy! And hey--thanks for throwing in that job that makes sure I'm exhausted and broken-down enough not to expect better for myself. That was a nice bonus. For THIS I gave up heroin?) And Terrance is bankrolling this evil, might-be-cheating bitch and buying her Manolo Blahniks for dispensing one fuck and a torrent of emotional abuse per week, while I--you know, the one who keeps everything together and pays all the bills and cooks and cleans and takes care of her man and doesn't nag or bitch or anything--I've been wearing the same sneakers since Valentine's Day. Of 2004. Yeah, THAT shit's fair.

I don't want what she's got. (I wouldn't know what to do with a pair of Manolos. Sell them on eBay for grocery money, maybe.) I certainly don't want to be anyone's kept woman--especially not Terrance, who (despite some of the...erm, talents he has) just doesn't interest me like that. And no, I don't want the will or even the ability to manipulate people into doing things for me.

I just don't understand why hateful people get so much, and those of us who make a conscious effort NOT to be hateful get screwed at every turn.

"Oh, but you have happiness and internal peace that she will never have..." Yeah, that's great. And I'll sure be grateful for that when People's Energy starts accepting happiness in exchange for a winter's worth of heating fuel, or Food-4-Less puts an "internal peace" button on the debit-card reader. Even then I still wouldn't have enough for a sack of groceries. Internal peace, my ass--you know what I've got internally?? A sudden feeling that I'm actually just a biiiiig fucking sucker, that's what.

Yeah, I'm pissed. Twenty minutes from now I will convince myself that it's not worth it to be pissed. That's how I am. That's what I do. Even when there's an OUTSTANDING fucking reason to be pissed, I convince myself not to be. "What good will it do?" I tell myself. "What will it change?" I mouth a billion platitudes about "forgiveness" and "being the bigger person" and "just letting it go". There's no point to being angry, I tell myself. It won't make the situation any better.

Small problem, though: "Forgiving", "letting it go", "being the bigger person"--there's no satisfaction in it for me. Not even the satisfaction that those things are supposed to give you. I don't want revenge; I want an acknowledgement that I was fucked-over and that I didn't deserve it. I think of CR, sending me an e-mail throwing himself on my mercy, telling me what a horrible person he was. And all I could think when I read it was "Yeah, fine--what do you WANT, though??" And when I finally articulated that question, he got all indignant and told me I was reading him wrong. Poor, poor CR. Always misinterpreted; such a heart of gold he had. He always said he knew he was fucking me over. But he never STOPPED. And he never said I didn't deserve it. It was sort of implied that I did--that if I'd been prettier or sexier or freakier or whatever-the-fuck it was he wanted, that he wouldn't have had to do those things to me.

And then I think: he's not worth that kind of anger. And there I am again--"what good will it do?" "Be the bigger person."

You know what? FUCK the bigger person. And--while I'm on this particular tear--fuck all those bitches at work who lie about things they've said, or things I've done, or "forget" when I've done something right, and who have the fucking TEMERITY, when I bring it up or even just change my facial expression in a way that lets them know I'm on to their bullshit, to tell me: "Just let it go, Gladys." And fuck all the people who assume, when something goes wrong, that it's due to carelessness on my part and never-no-NEVER is there a chance that THEY did something wrong. Or that something went wrong AFTER it left my hands. (Hey Noreen. Guess what? It's entirely possible that the "missing" print job went missing AFTER I ran it. I know--give yourself a second to take it in--but has it occurred to you that there has been a lapse of over a week, and a chain of custody including several DOZEN people, since that print job was run? So if 63 pages are missing?? It...are you sitting down here?...MIGHT NOT BE MY FAULT. Also, the pole up your ass is blocking my desk, so could you turn a little to the left? Thanks.)

Here's a paradox, boys and girls: I really, really, REALLY need a vacation. But I really, really, REALLY REALLY need to leave this job. And when I leave this job, guess what I get? Pay for my accumulated three weeks of vacation. And guess what ELSE I need? Three weeks worth of extra money. So here I am: vacation I need to take but I also need to get paid for, when I leave this job which I can't stand anymore because--among other things--they make it insanely hard for me to take vacation. ("I don't remember ever telling you you couldn't take vacation time," Amy once told me. "I just want to make sure that everything is done before you DO take it." And that--she did not say--will happen sometime between the appearance of the First Horseman and the Fourth.)

Goddammit, I'm a good worker. And I'm a great girlfriend. And I'm not a bad person. I deserve better.

But could someone tell me--which way is "better"? 'Cuz I'm lost--and this map I've got? Ain't helpin'.