LQ Entry -- First of multiple entries...

I haven't posted in a while, and I've got so much on my mind that I don't know where to start. However, considering the usual length of my posts, I decided it might be better to separate out topics. In this case, Laser Quest, which all of 3 people on my friends list care about.

This year was supposed to be my year -- my best shot to make the Hoffman Estates "A" team. The Top Ten. The First String, so to speak. With psychomerrell not being able to try out this year, there was an open slot. Also, certain members performance has been lagging and it theoretically would be possible to actually beat out some of them.

Alas, 'twas not to be. Admittedly, most of the team is at least 5-10 years younger than me, with only a couple of guys as old or older. Now, if I hadn't made the team due to lack of skill, I could accept that. I could accept that the younger kids are faster than I am, considering they're not pushing close to 30 and overweight.

However, that's not the case -- the team that started out as the melting pot of surrounding teams that had gotten fed up with the politics and the BS has become what it hates the most. The A team, or at least half of it, has become a "good 'ol boys club." Making the team depends on being accepted by them. If you're not wanted, they send people at tryouts to gang up on you and make sure that you cannot score enough to make the team. They help those that they want on the team, and they ensure that those they don't want don't make it.

It's not about skill anymore. It's not about who's the best, it's not about family or this common thread of being the "underdogs" against Rockford and Westland and Madison Heights. It's a popularity contest. At least 2-3 people on the team this year don't deserve their spots, because they cheat, and they conspire when it's supposed to be completely individual. At least one person on our "B" team should've been on the A team this year because he has the skill, except they hounded him (and his mentally challenged brother) the second night of tryouts.

This disappoints me greatly. One, for the fact that I have given this team 4 years of my life. I've been there 4 years on the B team, and my goal has always been to make A team -- just once, before I stop playing. I just want that acceptance that I started as nothing in Rockford and worked my way up to a decent player who has some earned respect.

I can live with not making A team. Not if it means resorting to cheating or other crap. As a friend said, "Do you really want to be with them like that?"
So what does it mean for this year?

I ranked 14th. I think this is an improvement over last year. I surprised everyone with my skill and improvement and it shows. I'm still B team like always. I wasn't made Captain this year. I -am- Co-Captain, but it feels wierd not to be in charge; On one hand, I don't have to deal with LQ Drama anymore, I'm definitely liking that and not having the stress that goes with it, but it feels wierd not having that little bit of "power" and "respect" that I used to have. But I'm okay with this, 'cos it's more important to me to not be stressed out -- that and the fact that the person who -is- captain this year is just as good/competent at it as I am. I tend to take control out of a fear/knowledge that I'm the only one who can do the job or, more frequently, do the job right.

But still.. I wish I could've made A team. Looks like I'll have to go back one more year.

The Sucktastic Week that is.. (I hate my Job post)

My head wants to explode.

Two weekends ago I spent the entire weekend putting a new water pump on Rachel's car.
Last weekend I spent Saturday at the old house packing shit up and hauling shit over here. Fully exhausted myself.
Sunday I drove 2 hours to the East Side of Chicago to go to the SWRAP meeting because I'd missed the last couple.

Monday I skived off work. I woke up feeling like crap and decided I needed a mental health day. I slept 'til noon
and played video games the rest of the day.

I have to make up for it now all the rest of the week.

I truly hate and despise and resent my job right now. First of all, I despise being in a production based job where I have to make a quota every single day -- if I don't make quota, eventually I will be let go. Here's the rub -- whether or not I make quota is directly dependent on what accounts we have and what's currently appearing in the papers to find. Neither of which I can control.

I started September 4, 2001. A week later, while I was still in training, the newspapers became nothing but news about the World Trade Center collapse. Right now, everything in the papers is about two things: Pope John Paul II and Terri Schiavo.

I read nothing but newspapers from North and South Carolina. I have to read the letters to the editor. Every crackpot, every bible-thumper, ever Nat Hentoff, Charles Krauthammer, Molly Ivins, Ann Counter, all of them. Conservative and Liberal alike. I read them all. I read Dear Abby, Annie's Mailbox, and Heloise. I read the financial columns and Click and Clack and On the House.

Sometimes I want to rip my eyes out. Sometimes I feel like my head will literally explode from information overload.
That's why I seldom discuss "big" issues here in my livejournal because I just can't stand to rehash everything I see swimming in front of my face, all the hatred, all the fighting and disagreement, all the people so passionate and ready to kill and die.. people who have lost sight of the issues that they believe in that they fight simply to oppose those that disagree. It's amazing to watch things like the debate about abortion or gay marriage and watch people and hear what they say and realize that they don't even care about the issue one way or the other, it's just about hurting and opposing the "enemy."

And while the odds are good that almost everyone who reads my journal may agree with me, there's guaranteed to be a few that won't --

Sometimes I feel like reading everything I do grants me the ability to see the "Big picture." both sides. Like looking down from Heaven. And sometimes I think I happen to see one miniscule little piece of data that makes everything fall into place, everything clicks. But no one but me sees it because everyone else is so caught up in being X or Y or Left or Right or Right or Wrong that they ignore everything else.

I saw a letter from a medical student about Terri Schiavo. She didn't take a stand either way, but posed some information and asked some questions that made me think --

It's a stated fact that Terri's brain damage occurred as a result of a potassium imbalance caused by an eating disorder. The medical student states that as part of their studies, eating disorders can be caused by problems in the child-parent relationship, especially when dealing with very controlling parents.

* Family factors

Some people with eating disorders say they feel smothered in overprotective families. Others feel abandoned, misunderstood, and alone. Parents who overvalue physical appearance can unwittingly contribute to an eating disorder. So can those who make critical comments, even in jest, about their children's bodies.

These families tend to be overprotective, rigid, and ineffective at resolving conflict. Sometimes mothers are emotionally cool while fathers are physically or emotionally absent. At the same time, there are high expectations of achievement and success. Children learn not to disclose doubts, fears, anxieties, and imperfections. Instead they try to solve their problems by manipulating weight and food. (From Anred.com)

Terri's parents: overprotective? Rigid? Ineffective at resolving conflict? Makes you wonder.
But how many people would make that connection between the eating disorder and the parental connection? I wouldn't have, had it not been for the letter I saw in the papers, I wouldn't have made that connection either. Except it doesn't matter, and it hasn't mattered for 15 years. Except now everyone will make it matter, and everyone will make it mean something, and everyone will make it mean whatever they want it to mean, to fit their own personal cause celebres'..

My head still feels like it'll explode.