What's Your Fucking Problem was founded on December 16, 2003 by former Daily Kos frontpager Theoria as a place for Kossacks to come and complain about what's bothering them. Theoria has long since passed on to the Great Pixellated Beyond, and the torch was eventually passed to pastordan, then to Elizabeth D (who has also vanished into the Bloggy Deep), and finally to you, the Daily Kos Community. It's our place to cuddle up on a Saturday night and commiserate about the week that was, or at least give us a good explanation as to why you're home blogging on a Saturday evening.
WYFP is also the only community diary series other than Mojo Friday where it's considered above board to beg for recommends. As Elizabeth D would say, won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending? It's also considered good form to sprinkle recommends (or 4s, as we called them back in the Good Ole Days) on your fellow Kossacks, so don't be stingy with the mojo.
A week ago Friday, I clocked out of work at 8:00PM as usual and proceeded to drive home. Now, I'm a Michigander and I've been one all my life, so I'm not generally scared by things like snow and ice. I'm just...used to it at this point. I also have a bit of a lead foot. I made the first 20 miles of my commute just fine, but I got to within 5 miles of my house, and as I was casually minding my own business, doing about 40 mph, my car said "HA! U no can haz saef ride hoem!"and proceeded to put itself into a ditch.
Long story short, I survived unscathed (okay, I was a little freaked out, and I came home to an empty house, but that's not the point.) I didn't even get a ticket from the state cop that showed up. I did, however, break a bracket on my muffler when my car ended up back-end-first in the aforementioned ditch.
So on Saturday I made my way to the local muffler shop to get it fixed. As I was sitting in their skeevy waiting room waiting for my car to be done, I couldn't help but be sucked in to a little mindless television (Timmeh interviewing David Brooks, if you must know.) After Timmeh stopped bloviating, MSNBC began to show a documentary called 16, wherein they gave handheld video cameras to four sixteen-year-old boys and told them to record their daily lives and emotions for six months.
Most of the documentary was fairly forgettable. One kid lived in the ghettos of South Central LA and wanted to grow up to be a rap star. Another kid was a semi-professional tennis player who was too busy hooking up with random girls to actually focus on tennis. But I was immediately taken in by the story of Ben.
Ben is a fairly typical "nerdy" teenager, not unlike the nerdy teenager I was not so long ago. Ben's story is that he's caving under the pressure of academics and athletics. His family expects him to be successful, and to do so he's convinced that he needs to get into an Ivy League school to study business. He's also a member of his school's crew team, and thinks he can get a good scholarship if he can combine good grades with great rowing.
The documentary showed Ben as he crammed for his SATs, and as he did a rowing time trial for some college recruiters. Ben's goal for his SATs was a 1300, and his goal for his rowing trial was to finish in under 22 minutes.
Ben got a 1290 on his SAT, and finished his rowing trial at 22:04. Close, but no cigar.
That got me thinking about all the times in my life where I've been good, but not good enough. I was born fairly smart (isn't it obvious?), but I got dealt a pretty crappy hand genetically. I'm overweight, I've got a fairly mild case of spina bifida myelomeningocele, I'm not even remotely attractive, and oh yeah, I'm gay. The deck has been stacked against me from day one. In school, I was always pretty good, but not good enough to get into a "good" school. I graduated with a 3.78 GPA, 27th in my class of 280, and didn't even bother applying to the University of Michigan or any of the Ivies...I don't like rejection. I now have 95% of a Bachelor of Arts in English, but I spent three years dealing with fallout from my mom's death from cancer, and I just...never finished my degree.
Socially I'm all kinds of awkward. I just don't fit into groups well. I was never popular with any of the cliques in school, even the geeks. I just did my own thing and didn't try to impress anybody, because I knew I'd fail. How I ended up with the few amazing friends I do have is totally beyond me. (Actually, several of my really good friends that I'm really close with have been people that I've met on dKos. So when you're hanging around here, be nice to people. You never know who you're going to meet.) I spent Valentine's Day consciously ignoring the fact that it was Valentine's Day, the most depressing holiday of the year.
Ben's segment ended with Ben entering his senior year of high school with a new outlook. He set a new goal for the new year: "I have a new goal to only break down in tears once a month. I think it's a good goal." I do too, Ben.
So that's my fucking problem this week. I'm just not good enough. What's yours?
ONE FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Since Elizabeth D stepped down from her post as WYFP Maven Extraordinaire, we have been keeping a roster of rotating guest hosts, and anyone is welcome to volunteer to host WYFP. The Keeper of the Schedule is the lovely and talented musing85, who will undoubtedly make an appearance in the comments with the upcoming schedule of guest hosts. If I remember correctly from last week, the schedule is getting kind of thin. If you're the adventurous type and wish to volunteer to host WYFP, just drop in a reply to musing85's inevitable scheduling comment. If you're a first-time diarist, it's a good way to get your feet wet. And be sure to join us next week as blueyedace2 steps up to the plate (and thanks to Acey for reminding me that it was my turn this week!).