Glittering Prizes For Me

I gave 2 weeks' notice at my job today. You might see more of me around here. I'll no doubt be spending more time writing, trying to get more people to read my writing, and working on my ukulele cover of "The Glittering Prizes". Oh yeah, and looking for a better job, too. It was after I quit that I realized how much my job really was like a relationship. Just change the pronouns:

"But he loves me!"
"But he's so nice!" Corollary: "He's so nice to me, I don't deserve him."
"We've been together for such a long time."
"I should have tried harder to make it work."
"Anything's better than being alone."
"What if he's the best I can do?" Corollary: "What if I never find anyone else?"

All those doubts and excuses, when the truth is: It was exciting at first, but now the thrill is gone. I'm not in love, and I want to be. Some people do love their jobs, and I wish we could all be included in this number.

In other news, I finished Gender Trouble. What prize do I get? My favorite quote was at the very end:

The loss of "the normal", however, can be its own occasion for laughter, especially when "the normal", "the original" is revealed to be a copy, and an inevitably failed one, an ideal that no one can embody. In this sense, laughter emerges in the realization that all along the original was derived. (pg. 176)

I don't know about you, but rarefied ideals of "normal" have plagued me for much too long. It's only recently that I've begun to separate "normal" from "common". Being asexual is not abnormal; it only might seem that way because it is uncommon. "Normal" will always be a value judgment and an exalted state. "Normal" is always relative, and changes with the whims of our culture. If I could remove one word from the English language, I'd do away with "normal". And we'd live. There's barely anything that rhymes with it, anyway.