Bastions of maleness

I know this is probably going to offend males. If you're offended, then I'm not talking about you.

In all my years of being in the world, working in places, I have never seen so much stereotypical male behavior as I have in this office.

Maybe I just haven't been working in traditional places.

Maybe I haven't spent much time working in the Midwest. (Yes, Pittsburgh is the Midwest.) Except I have worked in offices in this city before.

Maybe I just didn't notice it.

I'm talking about
the cursing
the need to talk loudly
the need to talk all the time
the yelling into the speaker phone when there is a door that could be closed
the need to talk over people
the need to tell other people every single thing you know and be the authority on every single subject
the need to have an opinion about everything


At first I thought it was just one person, but the more people are added to our area, the more people I notice doing this. It's not all of them, not by any means. Probably not even half. But it's starting to wear on me, this need to be on the top of the heap, this need to "win" conversations and top each other and be an authority on every subject.




I don't want to be part of this world, but when I don't participate, my opinion doesn't get heard. I get stuffed in a corner. I am not going to shout someone down, so whenever I talk and someone else starts talking, I stop. Even though they should not be talking over me.

I know I do this too when I'm excited to share my knowledge about something. But I don't do it all the time. And I really try to be aware of it.

I'm supposed to be myself and value my own opinions enough to share them. But it's so discouraging to be around people who don't even want to allow me to have opinions. Who don't want women to be strong. Who want us to clean house and bear children and be seen and not heard. At least that's what it feels like, when I start out trying to say something to someone, and the whole conversation gets sidetracked into what he wants to say.

The therapist says maybe it's time I stop letting others lead, and do the leading myself. To go ahead and call people on it when they're feeding me bullshit. Still. I've also witnessed people straight up ignoring me when I did call them on it. I guess that's down the road? Maybe it's not waiting for them to listen, but saying it anyway.

30 lbs

I don't really know quite when I started losing the weight.

Guess Your Weight by marmal8

When I started West Coast Swing, in April 2011, I had one pair of jeans that fit. They were my favorite jeans, the ones I found for $30 that usually retail for $100 or more, fancy Parasucos unlike any jeans I have purchased before or since. So unique they required a special belt.

In June, at my "I've lost my job; let's run all the tests" physical, my physician remarked that I'd lost weight since my previous visit, which was probably in January since I go every 6 months to monitor my medication. Or I was going. I should go.

Sometime in the summer I started cinching the belt closer and closer to the actual ring that was supposed to be used to close it, holding up the Parasucos by sheer force of my affection for them. I dug out a pair of Luckys that had been in the back of my closet and hadn't fit on my thinnest days.

By Adains [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

Around September I had to admit I'd lost weight and bought a new pair of jeans. Size 8.

Then it got cold, I got awesome boots, and I needed skinny jeans. I could actually wear skinny jeans. Size 6.

It got warmer, and the 8s were looking ridiculous. My size medium belts didn't have enough holes to hold them up. Size 4.

And then last week, the 4s were feeling baggy. I hoped they just needed a good washing, but then I actually weighed myself (I don't own a scale, but I was at J's house and she has one so I figured why not) and saw another 9 pounds were gone. I thought I'd stopped. I thought I was done.

Not for a moment do I recommend my weight loss plan, which was something like

1. Lose job
2. Sleep 12 hours a day
3. As a result, only have time to eat 2 meals
4. Not really care about food anyway
5. Dance at least once a week
6. Yoga twice a week

Actually, numbers 5 and 6 I do whole-heartedly recommend.

This is all coming to a point, I promise.

In preparation for my Great Floor Adventure, I am packing, packing, packing. There are many clothes in many sizes that include "Large" and "10." These clothes do not fit me, but I cannot bring myself to put them on my body and prove that they do not fit so that I can let go of them.

I can't let go of the body I used to have and the clothes that used to fit it.

I can't let go of the idea that I might fit into them again.

I've got a whole basement where I can store these clothes, these past skins that no longer serve me, but that's just carrying baggage around, isn't it?

I never know what's going to happen.

Holding on has to do with fear. Fear has to do with not being able to trust. Not being able to trust has to do, maybe, with the world not being solid. With the world changing all the time. With people changing. All the time. With myself, and my relationship to myself. Changing. All the time.

On some days that change is beautiful. It is what is exciting about being alive. It is looking around the corner, the first flowers of spring, hearing from a friend who has been silent, unexpected opportunities.

Somehow my body has gotten caught up in both fear of change, and expectation that there will be change. That the weight will come back as mysteriously and effortlessly as it left. That the annoyance of having to buy new, smaller clothes will be replaced by the annoyance of having to buy new, larger clothes, along with the realization that I had those larger clothes and gave them away.

My body doesn't let me down. It stays healthy. Its bones don't break. Its muscles, though sore after a weekend of yoga, continue to move it in amazing and new ways. It rarely gets sick; it has no chronic diseases. But it does like to change size and shape.

When the floors are done, when I've moved into my bedroom, when I unpack: that is when I need to start letting this part go.

Hell yeah you can do yoga!

Cool thing about getting to know someone: I am now an expert on something.

All of a sudden I'm an expert on yoga (which I'm not) but to him I am, because it's totally outside his experience. I'm sure he's an expert on something too. We all are.

So I'm trying to explain what yoga is.

When I teach I start with breathing and the physical practice. That's what they signed up for (maybe). I start explaining here, with posture and alignment, things that make sense because everyone has a body.

Because he does want to get to know me, and because anytime the question is "What did you do today?" the answer is going to include "yoga," we return to this again and again.

He says, "I don't think I would be good at yoga."

 Source: fridgedoor.com via Katherine on Pinterest

Can you breathe with awareness? Can you be here, now? Can you pay attention to what your body and your life are telling you? Hell yeah, you can do yoga. You've probably done it a hundred times already. You just thought you were dancing or playing or fixing something or falling in love.

9 probable fallacies

1. If he knew my secrets, he would find me too complex.
2. If only one person is interested, that means I'm settling for the only thing I'm being offered.
3. Similar education, politics, and religion are indicators of compatibility. (Extra bonus example of fallaciousness: Whether these things are similar or different is unknown.)
4. Once something is started, it can't be stopped without bitterness apparent for all to see.
5. Having a large group of strange-quaintances know about my personal life is bad.
6. My friends will think he's not good enough.
7. He won't be able to relate to my friends.
8. He won't be able to relate to me.
9. Letting someone care gives him the power to destroy me.

Here I am: jumping the gun.

A box I don't fit into

I drive a truck. I've driven this truck for eleven years. This is the first vehicle I chose on my own.

I think I wanted a truck because I almost got one when I was a teenager. We were going to buy the neighbor's pickup, but then they realized the pickup was more reliable than the other car they had, and kept that one.

People's reactions to a city girl driving a truck are varied.

Female reactions include

• I like it when women drive trucks.
• You are the best parallel parker! That was awesome when you pulled into that space, after that tiny little car gave up.
• Can you help me move some bookshelves?

Some boxes are too big.

Male reactions include

• You're going to have trouble driving that in the snow.
• I'd expect you to drive something compact and smart. (!!!)
  
• I always think, "Katherine's here" when I see that truck. (Well, duh, that's the point!)
• Can you help me move 30 bags of rocks? 

Some boxes are too small.

After eleven years, I'm still not over having a truck.

I don't fit some guys' idea of a demure, feminine woman with a practical if bland vehicle. I drive a truck, I own power tools and a shovel, and these days I probably can hold side plank longer than they can, too. That's just the kind of girl I am. The best guy, the guy I'm looking for, will appreciate me for all that, rather than question my choices and expect me to be someone who fits a mold.

Some boxes are just right, but that doesn't mean we belong in boxes.

Monday I was driving home and found a set of chairs by the side of the road. Free chairs! I couldn't have freed those chairs with a clown car. I can't wait to see what I end up doing to them.

They will probably end up purple.

Bits of identity

Inevitably when I start clearing out the house, I run across things that I'm not ready to let go of. Here is a short list:

• Pants that fit me last year, but are now three sizes too big
• Books from my classroom library
• Other teaching supplies from my classroom
• Picture frames that are perhaps broken and perhaps salvageable for alternate purposes
• Paint cans
• A massive collection of cassette tapes

Honestly the vast majority of things I find fall into one of two categories: Things I Need to Find the Proper Way to Dispose of and Things I Am Going to Do Something with Someday.

The teacher things and the pants, though, they are different.

They are bits of identity. I once was this. I might be this again. 

Do I want to gain back those 20 pounds? No, of course not. Not that I was by any means, needing to lose 20 pounds, but it did take me from the high end of my healthy weight range to just below the middle of it. But my weight has been known to creep upwards in a slow but steady manner. I might fit into those pants again in a year's time, and who knows if I will be able to afford new things then. Right now I'm certainly struggling to find things I like and can afford.

Did I want to lose my teaching job? Not really. But I'd been struggling to teach for years. For two and a half years I looked for and despaired of looking for a position. The one I had lasted a year and a half, and was a far cry from what I'd been doing in my New York City classroom. I felt like my hands were tied, like no one cared, and like we were purposely isolated from one another. Five years now, I've been holding on to classroom supplies and books, wondering if I'm ever going to use them again. I've moved this stuff twice. Every time I clear out, I let a little more of it go. I put the pens, staples, and other general office supplies into use. I donate books to the library. It's not all gone yet, but I'm starting to feel like the desire to use it, is.