TedxBoulder

For a long time now, I have wanted to be one of the lecturers selected for the TedxBoulder talks. I was told that they tend to pick people who are part of the in crowd, so to speak. As everyone who has watched these talks knows, the lecturers are generally well-spoken, smart and interesting. It's somewhat intimidating to even go through the selection process.

One thing that's written on the submission form is that it might be beneficial if you have attended lectures in the past, so, for the second year in a row, I bought myself a ticket after being rejected as a speaker. The lecture is going on right now. Obviously, I didn't attend, but I had every intention of going and actually got as far as the check in process.

First let me say that this week, I have been feeling very emotional and sensitive. A lot of stuff is going on, and I also had a bad encounter with a nasty woman who yelled at me. Granted, I was volunteering for something, and got lost on the way there, pretty much missing out on the event. Still, nobody died or was left hanging, and I apologized and even offered several ways I could make up for it. This woman's reaction was so disgusting, I could hardly believe it. How the fuck do people end up so fucking full of themselves? I don't get it. I get anger, but I will never understand why people think it's OK to take that anger out on someone else who is doing the best she can.

During the week, too, some supposed good 'ole Christian boy was a dick after he sent me a private message asking about my religious upbringing. I wouldn't answer him. Later, I and a few others commented on a public post relating to abortions on his facebook page. He is someone who has mocked Caitlyn Jenner, supported defunding Planned Parenthood and is adamantly against gay marriage, which is his right to do but comes off as unkind at minimum.

Initially, I was trying to be nice and thoughtful in my responses, but when he started to act like a condescending ass, I was less nice. He ended up blocking me, because that's the civil, mature Christian thing to do, I guess. Actually, that's not at all true. I shouldn't even be sarcastic about that, because I have many tolerant Christian friends who would never act like that, even if they don't share my beliefs.

By the time today rolled around, I was feeling better, but then some jerk on a bike swerved around me while I was out jogging, squeezing in front of me just as I was going through a small opening in a gate on the sidewalk. I surprised myself by the string of choice words that came out of my mouth. But, really? What the hell? You couldn't wait the entire two seconds for me to go through and just had to whip around, cut me off and zoom through? God, people can be real shits.

This evening, when I showed up at the doors for the lecture, I was early, so I waited until a minute after the doors opened and got in line. I noticed that one of the volunteers was about as unkind as possible to the lady in front of me. She was perturbed, because, even though the email stating that anyone who was attending need not worry about bringing a printed ticket, the volunteer didn't want to bother looking up the lady's name. Fortunately, the lady had her phone and could access her email and also her ticket for the volunteer to scan. I saw that transaction and scouted out someone who appeared to be a hell of a lot nicer.

Score! The young lady who helped me was very sweet. I mentioned that I didn't have my ticket, and she immediately reassured me that she could simply look up my name and allow me inside. She found it right away and ushered me toward the door. Just as I was stepping over the threshold, people who had already gone in were being shooed outside by an angry lady yelling at them. "It's not about the door time," she shouted, "It's about what's going on on the stage!" as if the people who had been instructed to go in were at fault.

At that moment, staring at the woman's contorted face as she shut the door in a grand gesture and twirled around to stomp back into the building, I decided I had had enough of people's bullshit. I turned around and left. I do not want to be a speaker anymore. I don't want to be associated with people who treat other's so badly and appear to think they are better than everyone. No thank you.

I'm fortunate that I have my little platform here to discuss recovery, body image and mental health. I feel very lucky about that.

I was writing a post about Suzy Hamilton's new book, "Fast Girl", but I had to vent about all this first. That post will come later.