Delusions For Everybody!

So, here are two things you can know about me right now- I have not posted anything about my personal self on the internet in a few years for the same reason I have actually been avoiding the crap out of any dude that I feel may not promptly disappear after a few weeks. As previously mentioned, I had a stalking incident involving this very blog, and even thought it wasn't that bad, I never fully recovered. I didn't realize that I'd been seriously avoiding men until last night when I got a message from Rick Astley and felt sick to my stomach.

Get it? Rick Astley? Never Gonna Give You Up?

Rick Astley was not my stalker. He's just this sort of clueless dude that stuff happened with a few times by accident SEVERAL YEARS AGO who does not seem to realize (despite my ignoring him for three years) that I am not interested in him. It's not a big deal, he's not a jerk, I should not feel "threatened" in anyway. Of course, I feel completely threatened because I always have that lingering fear that a dude is going to go all Glenn Close on me again. 


However, I need to get the fuck over all of this. Now that I have come to terms with what my crazy is, I can just go ahead and stop it. 


Now that THAT'S dealt with, let me tell you about last night.


I work at a fancy ass restaurant. Last night, at said fancy ass restaurant, a lady came in wearing only a bra, a cardigan, tights and a sheer lace skirt. Not a fancy bra, mind you, but like, the same sort of t-shirt bra that I was wearing UNDERNEATH MY CLOTHES. Like a sucker. Or an Amish person. One of those things. She was all kinds of nonchalant about the fact that she was out at a fancy restaurant, on a Wednesday, in her underwear. Because why shouldn't she be? 


I was a little jealous, honestly. I've had no less than fifty seven panic attacks this week over the fact that I am obviously a hideous monster and the fact that everyone secretly hates my guts and all of my friends are just humoring me out of pity. Every time I leave the house, I want to die/ just run back to the bell tower and sob and pet my cat and eat Nutella out of the jar as the good lord intended. Before you get all "OH NO GIRL, YOU ARE LOVELY AND EVERYONE LOVES YOU AND YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY JUST FISHING FOR COMPLIMENTS" on me, I should tell you that I am cognitively aware that these things are not true and also that I am totally uncomfortable with compliments and would therefore never fish for them. It's just that I've got this wacky pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder thing that makes me feel like they're true for a few days each month. It's fucking horrible. 


But something about the naked lady caused me to snap out of it. So, you know, thanks, naked lady!


So anyway, AFTER work I go to the bar next door to my apartment because obviously I need a goddamned drink, and I need to tell people about the naked lady. Obviously. And obviously, I end up in a conversation with some random dude about privilege systems, because that is just apparently how I roll. That's my comfort zone, I guess. 


It came up because he was talking about how he was homeless at one point and, um, was mad because a random black person yelled something out of a car at him one time? I don't know, it sounded like he made it up. Anyway, the gist of his story was the fact that said black person didn't realize that he wasn't white. 


"I am pretty sure you're white." I said, being that he was a white guy and all.


"I'm not white and neither are you", he tells me. I stare at my pasty ass arm. 


"Huh".


He then goes on some diatribe about how we're Italian and thus descended from Moors and thus not white. Which is actually not even true (sorry, you can't believe everything you hear in Quentin Tarantino movies...), and even if it were, it would not matter because no one is sitting around contemplating our ancestral history before deciding whether or not we get to benefit from white privilege. That is not how it works. That is just not how anything works. 


Because I have poor judgement, don't realize when I'm talking to a dumb person, and also probably just like to hear myself talk, I think I went on for about five minutes trying to explain Sociology 101 to this idiot. I am pretty sure that at one point I yelled "Race is a social construction!" into the night.


This whole "Italians are not white" thing is only something I've heard since moving to Chicago. Maybe because there are fewer of us here? I don't know. I mean, sure, some people here totally think that any relative I mention with a vaguely ethnic sounding name is DEFINITELY in the mob, and will give me knowing looks to that effect, but that is merely hilarious. That is not systemic oppression of any kind. 


So what fantastic moral lesson did I learn last night? I learned that everyone is fucking delusional in their own special way. If I am going to be delusional, I want to be delusional like the underwear girl was. I want to be that kind of delusional. Because I bet she's really happy and feels great about herself always. We should all be so lucky to be that kind of crazy.