The One with the End of an Era

I was going to call this one either "The One with a Fall From Grace" or "The One with the End of a Love Affair" or "The One Where I Lose the Love," and then I realized that both of those would make it sound like I was on either side of some kind of extramarital affair or getting a divorce or something, which I'm not.

When I wrote this post, I meant everything I said.  Everything about the love I've always had for everything in the Jane Pratt universe, and how Jane magazine was the raison d'être for most of my adolesence and childhood.  How I looked up to Jane, and how it was my absolute biggest dream to be able to work for her.

You know how, at some point, you realize your parents aren't perfect?  You realize they're not perfect, and it's so effing disappointing?

The last two days have been like that for me.

You might accuse me of being melodramatic, and that's cool, but the xoJane community was like. . .my people.  Smart, snarky people with opinions beyond "OMG, I totes need the new Marc Jacobs bag or I'll, like, LITERALLY DIE."  It is the damn hardest thing in the world for me to make friends, so when I find a community, whether online or in the 3-D world, that I can connect with, it's huge.  And I had that.  But I don't think I do anymore.

Without getting into the logistics of all of it, I think it all boils down to the fact that I've realized that Jane herself. . .doesn't really care.  She cares about the money, and she cares about the clicks, but she doesn't much care about the community of people that, for the most part, were brought together because of the common interest of Jane or Jane's big sister, Sassy. 

She has always been known for her celebrity name-dropping (Did you know she's former lovers/ currentBFF with Michael Stipe?  And that she slept with Drew Barrymore?  And that she's also BFF with Courteney Cox?  We all know.  Because she talks about it ad nauseum.)  but apparently, that also bleeds over into the not-so-celebrity people, the chosen few that are part of the in-crowd.  The ones that get fawned over and acknowledged like they were real-life best friends.

Am I jealous?  That this woman I've looked up to for literally more than half my life won't respond to my (obviously hilarious) life observations and (thoughtful) questions?  A little, yeah.  But it's so much more than that.

I can't have respect for someone who looks the other way while her beauty director and "health critic" gets herself so wasted on drugs every night she writes long, rambling diatribes about her "rock and roll" lifestyle (with a beauty product recommendation thrown in for good measure at the end) and who, after the aforementioned BD/HC quits (Yeah, quits.  Wasn't fired.  Quits to write for the Vice website.) hires a new Beauty Editor that her readers and commenters literally, literally BEGGED her to not hire, for a miriad of very valid reasons.  And when she hired her instead, just basically said, "I love her and you need to be nice!" without addressing any of the reason why the readers, the REASON for such a site, were so against it.

I'm tired of the constant tearing-down in the comments section and the authors' own Twitter feeds.    I'm tired of being a part of a community where, a year ago, I felt like I was an active part of and that I was being heard as a person, and now, I'm just not.  It doesn't help that Disqus has added a "downvote" option and that it's anonymous.  People are just mean.  I think facebook has been correct in not adding the "Dislike" option.  That would get really ugly really fast.

So I'm quitting.  I'm throwing in the towel.  At the very least, I'm taking a hiatus.  Maybe I'll be back.  If I see Daisy Barringer tweet that she's written something, I'll probably read it, but avoid the comments section.  There's enough negativity in the world, and I'm working hard enough to keep it out of my own life.  It's hard, you guys.  I'm not naturally a glass-half-full kind of gal, but I've legitimately been trying harder to not. . .drink the Haterade.

Maybe you're reading this and thinking, "Damn, Sarah.  You're too sensitive.  You're making a big deal out of nothing."  Maybe that's your opinion, and that's cool.  For me, it's like I've just lost my best elementary school friend.  It's just not fun anymore.

I guess this means I'm going to need to find real-life people to talk to now.  God help us all.

The One with the Crazy Dreams

I was reading a post on a website I frequent about dreams, specifically anxiety dreams, and reading the comments was just fascinating.  I didn't realize that some of the dreams I have pretty frequently (monthly, bi-monthly, sometimes weekly) were so common, and I never would have thought to call them anxiety dreams.  Seeing as to how they make me feel anxious, though, I guess that would make sense.  And they all involve school, which I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with.

One that I have pretty often is that I'll dream I'm still in high school (Dream?  Or nightmare?), but the high school is actually a variation of the middle school I went to.  It's almost always after hours, and I'm running around, trying to find my locker.  I almost never find it, and I know I need to get books out of it, but for the life of me, I can't track the thing down.  A couple of times, I've found the locker, but I've forgotten the combination.  I never end up getting to my books, and rarely do I even find the locker.

The first of my two college dreams is a bi-monthly dream during which I get to school (the actually university where I went) and discover that I have no dorm room.  All my stuff is sitting outside in a U-Haul, and I have nowhere to live.  I run around campus, looking for someone to help me find somewhere to live, but most people have usually already gone home.  Sometimes, I go into a dorm that appears to be unfinished, they're still building it, and I look for someone that might let me live with them.  I can't right this second remember a time when I've eventually gotten somewhere to live.  I guess I just live out of the U-Haul.

My last dream is another college dream, and it's that I wake up one day and glance at my schedule to realize that I'm supposed to be in class, it's the end of the semester. . .and I've never one attended that class.  I've completely forgotten it was on my schedule, so I never went.  Then I go running to find the class, and I can't track it down.  It seems to always take place during senior year, and it's a class I need to graduate, so I guess it's implied that I'm not going to graduate because of this one class I've forgotten to go to.

Any dream interpreters out there want to take a crack at these?  Will I be stuck in high school/college for the rest of my life?

What about you?  What are the weird, recurring dreams you have?

The One With the Yearbooks

K brought her Nintendo Wii along with her for her two-week visit, and I am quite pleased and satisfied to say that it's still tucked away in the bag she brought it in. She's been playing, basically non-stop, my old circa 1993 Super Nintendo. It makes me proud.

One of the games she especially loves is Mario Paint. You can't play it with the controllers -- you have to use the mouse that came with the game. It also has a mousepad that goes with it, but I've misplaced that somewhere back at my dad's house. I still have it, but I haven't made the effort to track it down. As such, when you play the game, you have to have some kind of flat surface to put the mouse on. A couple of nights ago, I noticed that K had pulled one of my old yearbooks off the shelf to use as the mousepad.

When she'd finished playing, I picked up the yearbook and told her that it was my 2nd grade yearbook. She's going into 2nd grade this year, so that piqued her interest. She looked up my picture and told me how cute I was.

Then she proceeded to through all my yearbooks, looking for my picture, and making commentary on and asking things about stuff I'd written in the books.

"Why does this girl have her face colored in?"
"Because she was mean to me."
"I have a friend that's mean to me."
"If she's mean to you, why is she your friend?"
"Well, she used to do this every time I looked at her." (Rolls her eyes and puts on bitchface.)
"Does she still do it?"
"No. We're friends now."

The politics of 1st graders.

"Why did you put checkmarks beside these people?"
"Those were my friends."
"I have lots of friends."

Then I showed her my elementary school boyfriend (my longest-term relationship to date, lasting from kindergarten until 4th grade, when I left to go to a different school). He just got married, incidentally.

"Cute," K said.

She shuffled through the yearbooks for a while longer until she got to high school.

"Why do three of these say 'high school' on them?"
"Because I was at that high school for three years. I was at a different school for 9th grade."
"Four years?"
"Yeah. High school lasts four years."
"No it doesn't."
"Yeah it does."
"I won't be in high school for four years."
"I bet you will."

She told me I was pretty in all of my high school pictures. (Why can't EVERYONE look at people like kids do?)

Then I said, "Hey, I'll show you my boyfriend from 11th grade." I paged through the Junior class until I came to his picture. I pointed it out to her.

She didn't say anything. She just laughed. I'm not sure why, but she just laughed.

And that's why we get along.