How to get along with me, should you want to.

Once Again, a Quiz Nails Me.

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Marilyn!

You are a Marilyn -- "I am affectionate and skeptical."

Marilyns are responsible, trustworthy, and value loyalty to family, friends, groups, and causes. Their personalities range broadly from reserved and timid to outspoken and confrontative.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Be direct and clear


• * Listen to me carefully


• * Don't judge me for my anxiety


• * Work things through with me


• * Reassure me that everything is OK between us


• * Laugh and make jokes with me


• * Gently push me toward new experiences


• * Try not to overreact to my overreacting.

What I Like About Being a Marilyn

• * being committed and faithful to family and friends


• * being responsible and hardworking


• * being compassionate toward others


• * having intellect and wit


• * being a nonconformist


• * confronting danger bravely


• * being direct and assertive

What's Hard About Being a Marilyn

• * the constant push and pull involved in trying to make up my mind


• * procrastinating because of fear of failure; having little confidence in myself


• * fearing being abandoned or taken advantage of


• * exhausting myself by worrying and scanning for danger


• * wishing I had a rule book at work so I could do everything right


• * being too critical of myself when I haven't lived up to my expectations

Marilyns as Children Often

• * are friendly, likable, and dependable, and/or sarcastic, bossy, and stubborn


• * are anxious and hypervigilant; anticipate danger


• * form a team of "us against them" with a best friend or parent


• * look to groups or authorities to protect them and/or question authority and rebel


• * are neglected or abused, come from unpredictable or alcoholic families, and/or take on the fearfulness of an overly anxious parent

Marilyns as Parents

• * are often loving, nurturing, and have a strong sense of duty


• * are sometimes reluctant to give their children independence


• * worry more than most that their children will get hurt


• * sometimes have trouble saying no and setting boundaries

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Ok, here's my favorite part of all that:

How to Get Along with Me

• * Be direct and clear

Yes.


• * Listen to me carefully

YES.


• * Don't judge me for my anxiety

You don't have to fix it, you don't even have to understand it, just don't make me feel like a pussy if I cry or worry or freak out when you don't see any reason to.


• * Work things through with me

I like having a say in the solution.


• * Reassure me that everything is OK between us

I know this part drains people, but if I mean something to you, I want to feel it, and I want to know that you're not going anywhere.


• * Laugh and make jokes with me

That's easy. And fun. I'm a hoot.


• * Gently push me toward new experiences

I like to do stuff but I want to feel safe when I'm doing it.


• * Try not to overreact to my overreacting.

I do this ALL the time. I actually think it has a lot to do with my upbringing and my history of relationships with people who don't speak the same Love Language as mine. I want you to react too, so I feel like you understand and care. Don't get mad at me if I'm trying to tell you that you're short on communicating your affection (friendly or otherwise) to me.


And this was insightful too:

What's Hard About Being a Marilyn



• * the constant push and pull involved in trying to make up my mind

I'm extremely indecisive. I think. Or maybe not.


• * procrastinating because of fear of failure; having little confidence in myself

Yes. An emphatic YES.


• * fearing being abandoned or taken advantage of

The latter, really.


• * exhausting myself by worrying and scanning for danger

I'm constantly doing this, not only for myself, but for the people I care about.


• * wishing I had a rule book at work so I could do everything right

That is SO completely me.


• * being too critical of myself when I haven't lived up to my expectations

And so's that.

Trillian, who is my hero in countless ways, recently blogged about her experience with SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Right there with ya, sistah. I fucking hate this time of year. I'm so paralyzed by all the shit I need to do, I can't do anything. Pressures, obligations, etc., and just everyday shit like this shit that went down yesterday (copy/pasted from another blog I write - which isn't a secret, it's just more introspective/depressing and far less entertaining than this one) affects me far worse than usual.

I got off to a bad start before 8am this morning, and by 9 all I wanted to do was curl up and cry. I walked into the living room (where I found Halloween candy wrappers strewn about) and saw two Wii remotes on the floor, missing their battery covers. Missing battery covers drive me CRAZY. How hard is it to keep the back on whatever it is that requires batteries? Presumably, it's right there in your hand when you take it off; just snap it back on! I want to threaten not to replace the remote if they can't find it, but the reality is that I will give right in and buy new ones.

Next, I had to make Pie's school lunch, and while I was unloading and reloading the dishwasher so as to have a clean knife with which to make his peanut butter sandwich, I discovered that apparently someone spilled milk on the kitchen counter and didn't clean it up, leaving a loaf of bread and a baking pan stuck to the counter. When I peeled them off, the smell of old milk nearly knocked me out. It wasn't even so much that somebody didn't clean up after himself. I'm used to that, and I'll clean it up if I know about it. But something about uncovering an unexpected mess (particularly if I uncover it while cleaning up after everyone else) just infuriates me.

Next, Pie went outside to wait for the school bus only to come right back in and inform me that he was freezing. So I had to find my sons' winter coats, which required me to open the coat closet in the hall which hasn't been opened since approximately February. The kids are short and unable to reach the hangers, so they've stuffed their coats into the bottom of the closet. Great. I pulled everything out of the closet and was still only able to find a coat for one of the boys. At this point my skull was about to split in two.


I sent Tito to the basement to look for his coat, which, miraculously, he found. He came back up to wait outside for the bus with his brother and me, and after a minute or so, I saw him take his glasses off. I asked him to hand them to me so I could clean them, and when he did, I realized that the tiny screw had fallen out and one of the lenses was missing.

I started out calm. Honey, did it fall out just now? I dunno... Did it fall out inside or outside? I dunno... Did it happen TODAY? I don't remember... I just wanted to shake him. WHO ELSE WOULD KNOW??? How do you not notice when you can see one minute, and the next, you can't?? I don't have the time, the energy, or the money to deal with this. I just don't.

Eventually, he found the lens on the living room floor. I can't believe I didn't step on it while I was looking for the stupid battery cover. And get this - when I told thim to get his shoes on because we need to go to WalMart to get his glasses fixed, the child had the outright nerve to ask, "Can we look at the toys??"

I'll make a deal with you, son... We'll skip the toys AND we'll skip the sharp objects. Fair enough?

So I've reached maximum emotional capacity. Not because of just this, per se, but cumulative additional stuff that's not worth mentioning. And I never just keep to my own drama; I take on other people's too. Two of my closest friends are dealing with extremely intense emotional situations, and I'm trying to "be there" for them, which sometimes just involves them dumping a whole lot of emotionally-charged information on me as part of their catharsis. I'm happy to be that for someone I care about, when it's what they need from me, but I want someone to be that for me too when I need it. Like today.

Today, I just want to purge it all. I want to think of the saddest things I can possibly think of and make myself cry. And I want be held while I cry it all out until I can't cry anymore. That's the only thing I can think of that will make me feel better.


See, this blog's way more fun. Anyway, what I was going to say was that shit like all that totally affects me more during this time of year.

So today I did two things:

1) I bought myself one of those fancy schmancy full-spectrum lights like many folks suggested to Trillian, and that she herself recommended to me.

And 2) I swallowed my pride and sent the following email to the librarian (not the Dragon Lady)

"Hello again, it's Penny Karma, your Tuesday afternoon volunteer. Last week I honestly forgot to come in, but I wanted to let you know that I don't think I'm going to be able to continue with this commitment. Quite honestly, I have some major depression issues (that I don't really like to talk about, so I appreciate your discretion) that increase exponentially this time of the year. I'm taking medication and getting help, but some days I just can't make myself leave the house. Believe me, I feel absolutely terrible about backing out on you, but I hope you can understand. I'm extremely sorry."

I HATED writing that email. I know I said I'd stick it out for your entertainment because you don't even know I love entertaining you bitches. But on my Mental Health Days (when it's only 9am and I'm already wanting it to hurry up and be tomorrow already), I just can't have any expectations put on me other than to breathe and not kill myself or anyone else. And I think those days would be horrifically incompatable with The Dragon Lady.

As much as I'd love to throw myself at her on the days that I least want to be fucked with, I figured the only possible outcome on a day like that would be a bloody duel in front of a bunch of 3rd graders. And in the event that I lost, this blog would not continue. And you'd miss me, right?

See, I kinda did it for you, my vast readership.

And for the 3rd graders who'd be scarred for life after seeing me reach into the Dragon Lady's mouth, rip out her spine and beat her with it; splattering the Junie B. Jones books with her innards.

Yeah, y'all would miss me. :)