it’s just you and me

Another awesome weekend, come and gone. There was one glaring blemish, though:

Over the many, many years that I’ve had to put up with this person, I’ve learned to mostly ignore her. Yes, occasionally, when I’m feeling short-tempered for whatever reason and she starts her bullshit, I’ll get pissed. I’m generally more pissed at myself for giving her the reaction she wants than I actually am at her, since it’s her nature to be a bitch, and she can’t really be blamed for that. You are who you are, and most people don’t have the ability, desire or motivation to change themselves.

This weekend, however, she went a little too far.

Saturday was my mom’s birthday. I brought Jenn to meet everyone. Two days prior, Crystal made it clear that she was going to be extra bitchy for just that reason. I tried to prepare myself and Jenn for this, but no one ever believes me when I tell them how she can be.

I did my best to ignore her. I didn’t make eye contact. I ignored her when she tried to get my attention so she could do whatever she could to irritate me. I tried not to react. But she just kept going.

Eventually I decided to fire back. I’ve found that lately, the quickest way to shut her up is to highlight how much of a mooching deadbeat she is. She’ll get defensive and foul-mouthed when I do this, but then she just gets pissed off and retreats to her cellphone, presumably to txt one of her friends and complain about how much of an asshole I am, desperate for someone to agree with her and reassure her that she’s a decent person.

That’s more or less what happened Saturday, but to a greater degree, with much fouler language, and in front of Jenn, who felt awkward the rest of the night because of it. And I’m more than a little upset because of that.

She does this on purpose. There’s no doubt about that. She intentionally and blatantly does whatever she knows will get on my nerves. I’m not really sure why she does it. Maybe she’s stuck in some kind of self-perpetuating cycle of believing I’m a dick, which justifies her offensive behavior towards me, which in turn sometimes prompts me to be a dick to her. Maybe she honestly believes that her little comments are funny, and everyone thinks she’s really clever and witty, and I’m just mad that I have to bear the brunt of her oh-so-entertaining routine. Maybe she acts out to cover up her insecurities over how her life is progressing, and since I’m arguably the more successful of her siblings, I get to be the target of those outbursts. Maybe she’s just a fucking sadist who can dish it out, but can’t take it. I have no idea, and I have no interest in finding out, because it isn’t worth the effort. She’s so over-the-top defensive that any and every bit of constructive criticism is met with sarcasm, denial, foul language and a temper tantrum. You can’t talk to her. There’s no discussion to be had here.

So, I’ve decided to boycott Crystal.

I will not be attending any family function that includes her. I won’t be going to dinner if she’s invited. I won’t be coming to the house if she’s home. Of course, certain types of events can’t be avoided, like birthdays or Christmas, and I’d rather not miss out on those things. Time spent there will be at an absolute minimum. I’ll be dropping off presents, eating a little food, and gone before she has time to open her hateful mouth.

This is a painful thing for me to do. In recent years, I’ve realized how important it is to spend time with family. It’s become a pretty big part of my life. I just don’t see any other way to open her eyes to how much of a bitch she can be.

…they’ll eat a working girl like her alive.

Today is Virginia’s presidential primary. On all sides, I am bombarded by exhortations to “Get out and vote!” since “Change is coming!” and “It actually matters this time!”

It amazes me how far people will go to delude themselves into believing they have control over their own fates.

Putting aside the questionable veracity of results produced by Diebold electronic voting machines, and the highly suspect practices being used at some polling places, and who knows how many other crooked, sketchy, or just plain idiotic things that have been happening during these primaries, the system itself should be enough to make you lose faith.

When you vote in a primary, you are not voting for a candidate. You are voting for a delegate. Your state has a certain number of delegates, which may or may not even be counted in their entirety when the time comes. In most states, those delegates are not even bound by the results of the primary. They can decide to cast their vote for whoever they want. The actual election works much the same way. Consider the disparity between the popular vote and the electoral vote in the last couple of presidential elections. Look up some information on the electoral college sometime.

In this country, when you vote, even under the best of circumstances, you’re really saying “I’d like it if this happened, but really, you guys should do what you think is best.” That doesn’t sit well with me.

What about your options? Even if the election process was flawless, look at who you get to choose from: insane Christian fundamentalists, cantankerous old men who want to be at war for hundreds of years, and a career politician who will do and say anything to stay in power and bursts into tears in the middle of Starbucks, probably just for the media attention. Then there’s Barack, who’s vaguely non-threatening, yet charismatic, and who seems to sit right in the middle on not only every issue, but also every demographic, so that he appeals to pretty much everyone. Not too young, not too old, not too aggressive, not too compassionate, not too black, not too white, not too masculine, not too feminine. Intelligent, but not so intelligent as to alienate the idiots that populate this country.

I will not be voting today. I’ll most likely never vote. I understand that people feel a need to at least pretend like they’re making a difference, but I’d appreciate it if you kept your rhetoric to yourself. I’m tired of hearing it.