Monthly Archives: November 2011

Occupy your heart.

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When I wandered around the Strike on Wednesday my favorite sign was the one that said Occupy Your Heart.  I think a few different people made them.  That one appealed to me because it seems at the root of what needs to happen, in my opinion.  Occupy Wall Street/etc is about being upset about financial stuff.  That’s true.  But it’s also about our country’s desperate need for hope.  We thought Obama would fix everything.  Unfortunately he’s just one man.

What I saw on Wednesday changed my life because even though everyone didn’t understand exactly what they were doing, they were motivated to action.  What can we accomplish with this much emotion?  That many people showed up for the General Strike because they want hope for a better tomorrow.  They feel like their needs are not being heard nor met.

And this all started with some anarchists, near as I can tell.  Or at least people with different ideals than me. I don’t mind.  I’m grateful that the punk kids have had the balls to get this started while I hide at home.  I absolutely respect the fact that they have more courage than me.  I owe them a large debt of gratitude.  They have more nerve, and more anger.  I’m not sure if they have more vision.  I don’t understand much about the end goal of the destructive parts of the Occupy movement.  I’m waiting.

I’m more interested in the building side.  I don’t think I am the enemy of the anarchists.  I think I am the other side of their revolution.  They have things to say.  They have things they can accomplish.  I don’t agree with all of their methods, but I accept that revolutions have unintended consequences.  That is why I originally thought to just repair the damage.  Not because I want to shame the anarchists.  But because I accept a few broken windows as the cost of business and I want to be on the business end.

I am frankly terrified of what is going to happen in Oakland over the next couple of years as the city recoils in horror from the shock of the financial impact of the Occupy movement.  Millions already diverted.  This is going to hurt the city.  I’m sure that services will be cut.  I don’t know which and that scares me.  I worry about who is going to bear the brunt of the unintended consequences of this movement.  I wonder which innocent children will be affected.

I wonder and I feel deep guilt.  Because it won’t be my kids.  I’m not in the 1%, but I’m in the 5%.  My kids will be safe.  That isn’t true of everyone’s kids.  I feel so bad that some other woman’s children may suffer because I was one more freakin body at the General Strike.  Money is not an infinite resource.  The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of someone else’s money.

I believe in the principles of democracy in a small group setting.  I believe that my voice should be able to be matter.  Not more than other peoples, but just as much.  I was told that offering this money to the movement is a way of trying to gain power, and I guess it kind of is.  But a freaking small amount of power in exchange for me feeling like I did the best thing I could do.  Other people have time, energy, and manpower to spend on bettering the city.  I don’t.  I think those things are more valuable than the money I have, quite frankly.  That is what will get the work done.  The people who care.  Not the money.  But the money helps.  The money can make or break the movement because money appearing at the right time means that the right strategic things can happen.

I want someone to be building.  I don’t care who.  If you want to build, please come talk to me.  I believe in you Occupy Oakland.  You Occupied my heart.  You showed me how much power you have.  You showed me that you are mighty and influential.  How can we do things to help other women’s children be as safe as mine?  It’s not fair that so many children are unsafe.  Please, I want this Occupation to make the world a better place.  Not a place with less money to spread farther.

We have to build.

Every sperm is sacred.

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So Noah slipped into the middle of his conversation about play that he didn’t orgasm.  All of a sudden a switch flipped and I was just fine with it.  Did you have a nice game of racquetball with your friend?  Sure I can have sex with you.  That seems kind of passive aggressive and controlling, doesn’t it?  If Noah is having a lot of sex (and we’re doing well right now) he doesn’t orgasm easily.  There is a much larger piece of me than I should cop to that feels smug that I can do it.

Ok, of all my hang ups, I think I’m going to forgive myself for wanting to be better at getting my husband off than other women.  It’s not excessive.  It’s silly.  But it’s not destructive or bad or mean.  It’s ok.  It means that Noah can have sex with someone else and then come home to porn star sex because I’m very interested in proving that *I* can get you off.  Damnit.  I’m an idiot.  But I’m an idiot who is not chanting in my head that people hate me.

I’m going to have a hard time with the hostility I incur due to the money.  It’s going to shake me hard.  I keep saying over and over, “Always be sure you are right, then go ahead.”  I think that even though it is hard for me in the moment, I want to work on being more ok with Noah being nonmonogamous.  Even if I do always have this squeeing and jumping up and down internally if he doesn’t orgasm with other people.  That’s ok to be happy about.  I’m not hurting anyone.  But I need to not make it a thing.  I need to not tell him that he should can’t do that with other people.  I need to not go to bed in armor when he has sex with other people.  In my defense, I was freakin cold earlier and the footey jammies are warm.  They do make sex impossible though.  Luckily Noah is a large, warm, smelly primate and I often do not need clothing in his vicinity.

Err, I need to stop whining and go do NaNoWriMo.

non-monogamy has down sides

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I’m feeling highly avoidant.  The funny thing is, I wrote that sentence down and went.  Hmmm.  Am I?  Yes, yes I am.  This non monogamy stuff is complicated.  I feel extreme jealousy.  Mostly I try to keep my tone civil and ask for my needs to be met and just deal with the fact that I have strong emotions.

Gah.  This is mom stuff.  This is her picking kids and liking one at a time.  But it’s not just that.  Noah has a lot of need for space from me.  It’s kind of hard for me that part of why I want to be non monogamous is because I spend a lot of time alone and sad.  Because Noah is busy.  Noah’s response is to take some of that time that was previously mine and want to go fuck other people.  It’s kind of hard not to take it personally.  I feel always like I don’t see him enough.  Yes, I choose to go out.  I choose to go out because I’m going to lose my fucking mind if I don’t.  But meeting my needs elsewhere means that he takes away from me.  I can never tell if it is a net gain or not in terms of energy.

Why am I doing this?  Why is this important to me?  I got very emotionally invested in my muse very quickly.  Now I’m starting to feel like I should shove him away from me as hard as possible.  I hate that I have this constant niggling fear that he won’t really want the month.  I’m too much trouble.  I’m too annoying.  I’m too hateful.  I’m too… bad.

I’m pretty sure that’s not his thought process.  And I don’t think Noah wants to hurt me by using his rare possible time to play with other people.  It’s not like I maximize my time with him.  But I’m feeling avoidant.  It’s really annoying.  I dislike the fluctuations between feeling good about myself and loathing myself.  This month is going to be intense.  I need to get a better handle on this.  I’m having a hard time keeping perspective.  Ok.  hackhackhack

Noah wants to go off and sleep with someone else because he has been feeling invisible too.  He hasn’t gotten to go hunting on his own like that in years.  Go him.  He’s going to come back and try not to look too happy because he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.  I hate that I do that to him.  I don’t like that I have this emotional response.  It feels like it is actively nasty to him.  But it’s not.  It’s just a lot of acid in my stomach.  It’s ok that I feel insecure.  I don’t need to.  I have no reason to.  But it is actually ok.  Noah is the only person in my life that I can actually count on.  Of course it scares me to think of him not wanting me.

But he doesn’t sleep with other people because he doesn’t want me.  He sleeps with other people because it lets him feel like he’s impressive again.  He’s a show off.  It’s not the same with the same person year after year, I know.  I want him to have that feeling.  I just kinda wish one of his other hobbies supplied it.  I’m a lot less dramatic than I used to be.  I feel bad saying that.  Because I was dramatic.  Do you know why I try to deal with it?  Because if this is so important to Noah that he is willing to deal with year after year of me being kind of an asshole about it… he can have it.  Really.  He lets me go off and do my thing and have my tantrum.  I come back and apologize.  He pats me on the head and we move on.  I think he’s earned the right to prove, once again, that he’s coming back.

It wasn’t as intense with muse, but it was there.  Mostly I was just freaking out about the Occupy stuff, but I felt kind of weird.  I didn’t want to do the cuddly make out thing right before he went off on a date with someone else.  I can see the appeal of getting more of that touch at any moment possible.  I can.  I feel really raw right now though.  Our sex feels really personal.  A quickie before you go to work is great.  A quickie before you go fuck someone else… makes me feel like just one more hole.  I want to be special, damnit.  I don’t even know what that means.

One of the guys I dated a long time ago had a habit of picking a girl up when we were out on a date.  We only dated for three months.  That means if this happened a lot… uhh… it was a high percentage of our dates.  It’s not that I minded the sex.  It’s that I didn’t feel like I was much of a focus any more.  I was an accessory to the experience.  Hm.  That’s about the objectification line.  How and where am I willing to lay back and be someone else’s fantasy without complaining about my needs.  That’s an important thing to think about.  That’s a boundary line I’ve never been good at defining.  That’s the difference between doing this in a healthy way and an unhealthy way.

I can’t do spur of the moment objectification all the time.  I have to be in the right mood.  It’s a sometimes food.  I should just go to bed and stop whining.  See, avoidant.  I probably will feel better tomorrow.  It’s hard to be present with the fact that I have these intense emotional states… and they don’t mean much.  I don’t think other people should change their behavior based on my moods.  I may need to change my behaviors based on my moods though.

So tonight I left the party way earlier than necessary.  And I left Noah there.  I went home alone because I knew I would rant and rave and cry the whole way home whether anyone was with me or not.  I put on my awesome footey pajamas.  I made ramen.  Now I’m eating ice cream.  Comfort foods = awesome.  I do feel better.  Less intensely self-loathing.  Less like, obviously Noah wanted to go have sex with the nice, pretty lady because I’m a terrible person.  Right.  Heck, I’m even glad that muse had to get off line and go get ready for his date.  It means I stopped the whiiiiiiiiiiiine at him as well.  I feel less guilty about whining in my blog.

Part of that is I feel like whining in my blog has a higher chance of making me feel like I’ve reached a conclusion.  I control the flow of the conversation.  I don’t have to stop and listen to someone else talk.  I am so terrible awesome.  I feel like I have too many things I want to say stored up in my voice box.  I feel like I don’t get to speak enough.  Sometimes it is hard for me to say the important stuff when someone else is around deflecting the conversation because I never get down to the deeper layers of stuff.

The thing is, I feel just as bad when Noah stays out all night programming.  It’s really and truly not about the sex.  It’s the time.  When people want to see other people it means they don’t want to spend that time with me.  I feel like the only way for me to get through Noah having dates is to stay home alone.  Because I’m not great company on those nights.  Cranky.  Hopefully the morning will be better.

I hate nonmonogamy because it proves there is no glitter in my hooha.

The money

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I was attacked by a pit bull when I was 5.  I’m not going to tell the whole story because it’s going in the book.  But suffice to say, I spent my entire life knowing that money was coming.  I dreamed about it.  I thought about what to do with it.  I wanted to make sure that I got the absolute maximum usefulness about it.  I preplanned how to pay for college, a house… I had financial planning till I was 30 done by about 12.

Then I married Noah.  And the whole game changed.  The monthly stipend was my money through our marriage.  I never felt bad about buying the random shit I wanted because it was my money any way.  Then I got the $35,000 and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it.  I haven’t been able to bring myself to just pay off the time share.  It feels like an insult to who I was and what that money meant to me.  That settlement changed my life.  It was a gift from the universe.  I didn’t earn it.  It’s not like it’s proof that I deserve to be where I am financially.

I feel like the only reason I survived was because I benefit from enormous privilege.  I have enormous survivors guilt.  Whenever someone tells me that I should have died I think about all the girls who did.  Did they die because they didn’t have the hope at 18 of getting out for sure no take backs?  Did I only have the strength to fight every day because I knew that no one could take my freedom away from me.  I was god damn financially independent with $1200 every month.  That was more than my mother often made throughout my life.  I knew how to be poor.  That was easy.  If I was poor for a reason because I had a goal post in sight of when it was no longer true… that’s easier.  If you have no hope of things improving, why should you bother having self restraint when you see something small you want?

This is a big part of my issues with my mother.  She has been robbing Peter to pay Paul for so long that she is incapable of managing money.  Poverty will do that to you.  I don’t even think it’s her fault.  But I can stand back and look at how she cycles and know it’s a bad idea.

At this point in time I have no plans to go make money.  Indefinitely I am dependent on Noah entirely.  Noah makes such an obscene amount of money that I feel staggered by it.  We could survive easily on less than half of it.  And it’s going to go up.  All of a sudden my money seems… so small.  Cheapened?  In the scheme of my life all of a sudden $20,000 isn’t very much money.  In three years we won’t be able to tell a difference in our life because of it being spent.  That’s kind of disgusting.

I feel kind of disgusting.  And yet, this is the American Dream, right?  Whenever people express bitterness that everyone can’t be in the same position as me I feel kind of bewildered.  I don’t think I’m happier at this income than I would be at half this income.  I do more stuff.  I travel.  I fund a very comfortable retirement.  But I’m not happier.  I don’t feel this magical I’ve arrived that I expected to feel.  I feel like a trespasser.  I feel guilty.  I feel like I have done something shameful.

I’ll say frankly that a lot of the reason I feel so ashamed is the response of disgust when I say that I want to donate $20,000 people look at me like I just took a shit on the sidewalk.  Yes.  I have that to give.  This is the very last money in the world that is mine and I want to do something with it I can feel proud of.

I feel really guilty when I admit out loud that I keep having the parable, “If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day.  If you teach a man to fish he will eat for a lifetime.”  Err, or some phrasing like that.  I think it would be wrong and short sighted of me to give the Occupy movement this money for things like blankets and food.  Local people with very little money to give are supplying those things.  It would improve the quality of the food and I honestly believe that’s not something I should be funding.  I am not going to feel like I have made the world a better place because I spent $20,000 on high price snacks for stoners in the park, sorry.

No really.  What the fuck is Occupy Oakland doing?  I want to know what concrete things people want to get started in the community.  What outreach?  What types of demands are being made of the city?  What do people want to have happen?  I can’t be one of the people out doing the work in the street and I know that.  That’s not something I have to give right now.  I would have another messy nervous breakdown and that’s fucking stupid.

But I’m really good at thinking through long-range planning.  And I have a very good idea of how money is most effective.  Ok.  I think I’m ready to write some emails now.  You were right, Noah.  I had to write about it.

I really hope Noah manages to hit the 1% like he thinks he will.  I will make a fucking good philanthropist.  Other people won’t agree with me, and that will be ok.  This is the hard part.  That people are going to disagree.  But people disagree with every powerful person.  You have to stick to your guns. I have a vision in my head of what it means to make the world a better place with money.  It doesn’t matter if other people agree with the specifics of it.  What matters is that I take action on making the world a better place.  That is what matters from everyone.

If I dilly dally and take too much advice I will never get the satisfaction of really attaining self-actualization.  If I want to take up the most space in the world I can, I can’t worry about the fact that other people occasionally have to bend for me.  That has to be ok.  The balance is in finding out how much space I can take up without pushing people too far.  I don’t want to shove people away.  But I do want to take up as much room as I can.  When I feel like I can’t take as much room as I want to, I feel small inside.  Like I’m stepping on all the dreams I had as a child.

Why the fuck can’t I shoot the moon?  I married a rich guy (I swear to fucking god it was on accident) and we are both ambitious people.  Why not?  Why can’t I play a whore for a few years to push Noah up the ladder.  That’s what builds him up the most from me.  I can do that.  Sure I’ll trade sexual favors for performance reviews.  If that makes you smile while you work like mad, why not?  What’s the problem?

And our needs are met.  If Noah never got another raise we would be fully on track to have a perfectly stable and comfortable life forever if he can work for another 10 years.  He’s 35.  I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen.  That means that everything from now on is extra.  We don’t need it.  Noah likes to say, “And what do we call things we don’t need?  A luxury!”  My entire life is about luxury.  I will be honest and say that I feel kind of embarrassed about the amount of luxury in my life.  But I’m trying to own it and be up front about it.  It’s complex.

I don’t know how to explain what I feel right now.  Watching the crowds stream into the port felt like a religious experience.  All those people cared so much.  And they pulled that off with very little money.  Actually, now they pulled that off partially with my money.  Because I paid for the buses.  I feel really good about that.  I feel like that is the first victory for this money.

I want this money to make a big impact.  I want it to be part of the big picture, not the stupid small details that will be handled one way or another.  I want to start learning what it means to be a big person.  I’m not there yet and I know it.  But I want it.  And that’s how you start.  I don’t have much influence with $20,000.  But I have enough.  I can decide which parts of Occupy Oakland I think will have the biggest long-term impact.  I can make a choice about something happening that is for the good of other people.  Yes, the argument can be made that absolutely every single part of the operation is Just As Important.  Whatever.  We disagree.  That’s fine.

Now how do I do this without being an obnoxious cunt.  Because it’s not my goal to make people pry this money out of my grasping fingers and that’s totally how I’m making it sound.  I don’t mean to.  Ok, here’s an example:

One person spoke about trying to have the actual dirt removed from the public areas and have it replaced with organic soil for growing food.  That’s an interesting idea.  It will require working with the city though, because if the city ignores that you did that and comes along and does business as usual next week… err… that was wasted fucking money.  Dead serious.  I’m not interested in funding something that make hippies feel good about themselves for a few weeks.  I don’t care if that sounds bitchy.  I want to know what agreements can be reached with the city for continued maintenance.  I want to know how that will be handled going forward.  And then that sounds like the kind of thing I would fucking love to pay for.  That aligns so perfectly with my value system it isn’t funny.

More blankets… not so much.

But the movement is just getting started.  Right now they are still focused on short-term logistics and they feel resentful of me having a different timeline.  I get that.  But it’s my money and I have to feel good about how it is spent.  When I feel good about how it is spent my response is, “Oh you spent your rent money on those buses?  If you walk with me back to my car I can give you a check for that.  I’m sorry I left my check book in my car.  That was kind of stupid of me.”

I don’t want to haggle forever.  I want to haggle until I am satisfied.  I want to feel like *I* receive the maximum joy from spending this.  Too much haggling means it isn’t fun any more.  I want to haggle just enough.  Ok.  That’s awesome.  I think I know what I want to do.  I want to send an email saying that at the next GA I would like someone neutral to say that this crazy lady wants to hear proposals for concrete things Occupy Oakland can start doing in the community in the next couple of weeks with $1,000-$5,000 start up capital on a given idea.  How would the money be spent?  What are the long-term implications of using the money this way?  How would it be maintained after Occupy moves out of the park (if that happens)?  I will accept them via email.  I need to have a form I want filled out.  Hmm.  Ok, what is that going to look like.

What need in the community do you see that you would like to fill:
How many people will be needed to see this through:
How much money do you think you will need?  How will you spend it?  Be specific:
How will this project be able to exist in six months?  A year?  Five years:
Do you believe this project is one that is likely to find funding in other places when I run out of money?  How do you plan to pursue that issue:

And I will decide which ones sound like things I want to fund and which ones are not well thought out.  I won’t be the most popular person there, but oh well.  I don’t want to be popular.  I want to be effective.

You’re up then you’re down

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I’m feeling very emotionally volatile.  Between writing, this affair, and Occupy Oakland I have a lot inside my head that feels too big to be felt and understood.  I’m feeling like there isn’t enough of me to go around. I feel conflicted about what I should be doing and where.  What is actually a good use of my time?  Ugh.  So tired.  Emotionally tired.

I’m having a hard time finding balance.  I wish that I could manage to get the grief struck look off my face. I’m not thrilled with how deep the lines are.

It’s kind of hard to donate money to the Occupy movement.

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This morning I went to the Mayor’s office and I requested an appointment.  The kind gentleman who forcefully told me to go away and someone would read my letter some day was really a sign of things to come.  I then wandered off to my therapist’s office for that appointment.  When I explained to her what I was doing her eyes bugged and she actually said, “Give the money to me!” It was hilarious.  In the end she said she understood why I felt compelled the way I do and if it really isn’t a financial problem… she totally supports me.  That was nice.  She almost choked on her drink when I explained Noah’s salary and why I’m not worried about $20,000.  It is very uncomfortable for people when I talk about money.  It’s a hard thing on pretty much everyone.

I wandered back over towards the encampment.  I spent a while sitting around and feeling awkward.  I’m good at that.  Eventually I found the morning meeting.  When I asked if I could speak the facilitator first tried to tell me no but I interrupted and blurted, “I want to donate $20,000.”  He blinked hard and added my name to the list.  He had me go last.  I did my little blurt thing, not the letter.  I was too chicken shit.  Gah.  But I blurted something that was less than eloquent and I was somewhat surprised to have people muttering about how I should go buy some blankets.  I responded that I’ve already donated multiple tents, sleeping bags, blankets, air mattresses, several food drops, and other items.  No really.  I’m giving.  She looked down and kept muttering.  Ok.

I had an earnest conversation with a few gentlemen who gave me a little bit of their perspective and that was interesting.  The big sticking point seemed to be finding someone on the finance committee to talk to.  I wandered around a bit.  I met JP Massar, who decided to mention me on dailykos, thanks.  Another gentleman thanked me for being so generous.  It was really sweet.  Other than that… folks didn’t talk to me.  I wandered around.  I read.  I typed a bit.  I watched the large group of Muslims praying.  After a while one of their members started uhm, it sounded like preaching.  Am I allowed to use that word for Islam?  I don’t mean to be an asshole.  Anyway.  That was nice.  I liked what he was saying.

After a bit I went and sat in the Tully’s and managed to hook up with a few more people who had heard of someone on the finance committee.  I talked to a woman on the phone even!  It was exciting.  I did not manage to run into her later.  I wussed out on being on site for a bit and had to run away.  I felt lame, but I just had to get my anxiety under wraps.  I was shaking and hurting.  I came back in time for the General Assembly.

I asked around about speaking.  When I finally figured out who the facilitator was and asked him if I could speak he told me that was a bad idea.  It would create a shit storm of controversy.  He’s not wrong.    I did manage to give one check away!  I felt so proud of myself.  One man used his rent money to cover the buses used in the General Strike.  I didn’t think he should have to carry that load.  He has enough of a burden.  The joy on his face was the highlight of my day.  That was a real thing to do.  It’s not what I mostly want to do with the money, but that’s ok.

I haven’t heard back from anyone connected to the city.  I’m less than shocked.  I think that instead I am going to ask Occupy Oakland to think of me as a fairy godmother.  I would like to know what their needs are and I will decide what I want to fund.  It’s my decision.  This is my money.  It probably is going to piss off some people and that’s ok.  I will be giving a high priority to any project that is designed to increase the positive relationship with the city of Oakland.  I think the city is bearing an unduly high cost for this protest.  That’s my opinion and I don’t care if anyone else agrees with me.

By the end of the night I finally met a few people and exchanged contact information.  I hope they will contact me tomorrow because I am a lazy bastard.  But I’d really like to give them some money.

Open letter

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Hello.  My name is Krissy Gibbs.  I was at the General Strike.  I was among the first two hundred people to arrive at the port.  What I saw there changed my life.  I am part of the 99%.  But I am also part of the 5%.  I believe in the Occupy movement.  I think that it needs to continue and grow.  I think it needs to be done through peaceful means only.  I grew up in extreme poverty.  I was homeless.  I stole food to eat.  I am a survivor of incest and rape.  I had a very hard life.  I moved more than 50 times before I was 18.  I went to 25 schools before dropping out of high school at 16.  I went to graduate school and I taught high school for three years before having children.  Now I’m upper class because I married someone who is the son of the 1%.  My life was changed because of an accident.  When I was five years old I was attacked by a pit bull.  The money was wisely invested because my lawyer was the father of my life long best friend.  He knew my mother would have wasted the money.  He put it in trust for me until I was 18.  Then he gave me $1200 every month between the ages of 18 and 30.  I turned 30 this year.  On my 30th birthday I fretted and fretted about what to do with the money.  You see, I got the last check.  $35,000  It’s a lot of money for someone with my childhood.  An insane amount of money.  An amount of money that could have made every dream I had then possible.  Because I was that poor.  My needs were that simple.  Now, I had to try to come up with some ridiculous over the top wasteful way to spend it.  Because all of my needs are met.  I have extra.  I don’t know what to do with it.  I want to spend this money on something that is just for me.  I’ll tell the truth and say that some of it is gone.  My best friend got married in Scotland and that was not an opportunity I could ignore.  I have $20,000 left.  I want to use that money to repair some of the damage done by vandals in my name.  I am Occupy Oakland.  I am the General Strike.  I apparently fucked up and broke something.  I’m really sorry.  I didn’t mean to.  I hope this is enough to cover the damages, and if it isn’t, I’ll ask some of my friends if they have any I can borrow.  I think they can.  They all have enough too.
Krissy Gibbs
PS: I will be emailing this to the Oakland Mayor, Oakland PD, Well’s Fargo, and Chase.  I am not sure to whom I should address the check.

Some notes on the General Strike

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I spent yesterday at Occupy Oakland participating in the General Strike.  I know a lot of people who are dismissive of this protest and I want to write about why I went and what I got out of this experience. 
I spend most of my life feeling like a dirty little street kid who should shut up and disappear.  I feel invalidated and disenfranchised and invisible.  I feel like I am nothing in the grand scheme of things.  I’m not alone.  I have much more concrete reasons for feeling this way than most people.  I can point to a long history of inconsistent housing, poverty, hunger, sexual assault, bullying, etc.  I can say, “See!  I feel this way because of all of these real things.  Most of the people who were at the protest with me felt the same way.  They don’t have the same history though.  I find that curious.
How has our society morphed into this bizarre consortium of unrelated people brushing past one another without dependence? How did we come to a place where people feel like they don’t matter?  People matter. 
I arrived in Oakland around 12:30 and got off at the Lake Merritt Bart station.  I wanted to walk in and see how much of the city was taken over.  It wasn’t much.  Mostly there were people leaving because the first march was ending and people had other things they had to do.  The first thing I was struck by was the fact that everyone looked elated.  Everyone looked like they felt good about themselves and what they were doing.  I don’t see large crowds of people who look happy to be alive very often.  As I approached the main camp area I felt nervous.  I felt like I am such a small person, what do I have to give?
I arrived with a grocery bag full of supplies to help deal with police brutality because I live with a Greenpeace person.  I was elated to discover I only saw a handful of cops in the first several hours.  Most of them looked pensive or they were smiling.  They didn’t look like the enemy.
I wandered around the plaza by myself for about an hour and a half.  I sat down and talked to this really wonderful man.  He is out here from Atlanta because he works with an organization that is promoting alternative discipline models in schools.  They want to work towards restorative justice.  The conversation with him was inspiring.  He has done so much to help so many people.  He is truly an activist.  He is compelling and charming and very well educated.  I felt ashamed to tell him that I stopped teaching because I couldn’t handle being a parent and teaching.  Both jobs take too much of me.  There isn’t enough of me to go around.  He smiled and told me, “You are just working on a different part of education now.  You’ll figure out later what you’re supposed to do next.”  I felt seen.  And valuable.  This person I will never see again told me that if I feel strongly about helping children I am valuable and I should not give up on myself.
I went to the protest at least in part because I object to the police trying to evict the Occupy movement.  As a taxpayer I think that I have some say in how public lands are used.  If people who are very upset want to camp in fairly miserable conditions in order to raise public awareness of serious issues I think they should be allowed to.
I posted continually yesterday about what I was seeing.  One friend was dismissive and catty about how there wasn’t a unified message so he wouldn’t take it seriously.  I feel like that summarizes the problems in our country perfectly.  If you can’t summarize your discontent in a thirty second sound bite it isn’t really important.  Really?  Since when?  This is a complicated issue because there are a lot of people involved and influenced. 
If you go back and read Revolutionary War era public discourse there wasn’t much of a unified message then either.  But we still fought the British off and declared ourselves a separate country.  Even though we didn’t know how that should look.  Even though we didn’t know at the beginning what the unintended consequences were.  I think as a country we made the right choice.
The Occupy movement is fractured because right now there aren’t enough people upset.  In my opinion.  As long as the Occupy movement can be dismissed and ignored then it will be.  I think that the Occupy movement needs to grow until so many people are inconvenienced that even Joe Schmo who “doesn’t understand the movement” wants to give them their reasonable concessions already so we can all move on.  I think this needs to grow. 
Yesterday I was in the first 200 people to arrive at the port.  I wanted to be there.  I stayed at the first gate and held hands with my muse.  We watched the crowds pour in.  We listened to the music.  We watched people be excited about the fact that they were courageous enough to say, “I am allowed to express my anger”.  Because that is what I saw most.  People were angry and upset.  They had a lot of anxiety about being there.  They didn’t know what to expect.  Everyone seemed to be delighted to find that being angry and upset just means you are like all these other thousands of people.  None of us are alone.
I climbed up on a scaffolding and watched thousands of people pour into the Port of Oakland.  I cried.  I was overwhelmed by the strength of my fellow humans.  I was simultaneously part of this movement and separate from it.  I am still the dirty street kid in my heart.  I watched all these people and I gloried in their beauty and I felt like I sullied them because so many of them have strong beliefs that I completely oppose.  And yet, I want them to be allowed to have those opinions.  Whatever they are.  No one has to agree with me.

My opinions are the result of the unique set of circumstances involved in my life.  That is true of every one.  In this way it is nearly impossible to ever understand someone else’s perspective.  But as I watched all of those people I was so glad that they had the courage of their convictions to march to the port and shut it down.  I was so proud of my fellow humans.  We are here.  You cannot ignore us.  Whose streets are these?  Our streets?  Whose port is this?  Our port.  If we want to shut it down to prevent those rich people from processing more commerce, we can.  We can make it so fucking uncomfortable that you can no longer pretend we don’t exist.  None of us are invisible any more.
When I left I was exhausted and drained.  I was emotionally spent.  My body ached.  I felt this simultaneous let down and building up.  I’m not sure where to go from here.  My first step is that when I finish this essay I am going to go work on NaNoWriMo more.  Telling my story is part of my life work.  That is the work I am doing right now in this stage.  I think I am going to be going back to the encampment.  I will be bringing my children over the protests of my co-parents.  I believe it is safe enough. 
I was standing there watching when the anarchist group attacked banks.  There were a few people who had their own agenda.  I do not identify with them or their methods, even though I understand them.  I’m not even angry with them.  I think they are misguided, but not evil.  Not bad.  They are willing to be the far end of the bell curve giving me the illusion of being moderate.  I’m kind of thrilled by that, actually.  That doesn’t happen much in my life.  They were arrested last night after scaring people and giving the news a reason to rant about how of course the protests ended badly because activists are bad people.
100 something people.  Out of at least 7,000 but probably more people.  Really?  That is what people are going to remember?  That says a lot more about the people remembering than the protest.  This was a beautiful peaceful protest.  There were fringe assholes acting on their own agenda at a similar time.  Please do not confuse the two.  And yet, it’s the same thing.  Those anarchists are so fucking angry that they are willing to take the courage of their conviction and say, “You are bad and you should go away.”  I can’t disagree with that sentiment.  I think the huge banks are pretty evil as well.
In my opinion one of the rallying cries of the Occupy movement should be to remove person-status from corporations.  Corporations should become third class citizens.  I’m sure people will say that will drive business away from our country.  To that I laugh.  Have you seen our country?  We are beautiful and wonderful and strong.  Even if our corporations made far less money, we’d be fine.  We have all these wonderful people.  We can do anything.

For the record, I release this into the creative commons.  Please give me attribution: Krissy Gibbs

Life is weird.

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I’m not writing this on my computer.  I’m still at my muse’s house.  I suppose I could go get on bart right now while he is still asleep, but that feels kind of weird.  He is expecting to see me when he wakes up.  I have kind of a weird mixture of anxiety going right now because I feel like I am doing an awful thing to Calli by being here.

I like being here.  It’s hard to like it this much.  It’s hard to be in this place in my head where I know that no matter how much I like him this relationship is in a little box.  I like him a lot.  We are doing the toast phase with great speed.  (For those not in the know, the toast phase is when you are experiencing N(ew) R(elationship) E(nergy) and you walk around comparing stories and everything feels like, “You like toast?  I like toast!”  It’s silly and exuberant and fun.

I got a bit weird and sad last night.  I think it was the fact that the march/protest was really intense and I walked I don’t know how many miles yesterday.  Probably at least seven or eight but I’m not sure.  Maybe more like ten.  I started walking at around noon and I didn’t really stop until after seven.  My hips hurt.

I don’t know what to think about this man.  So far I’m just trying on eleventybillion different ideas and seeing if they fit or not.  Mixed results, but that’s for the best.  He can’t be everything.  But what he is, it’s really nice.

To do!

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– Paperwork so Sarah can take kids to ER if necessary
– Documentation for D so she can get food stamps
– Talk to the company my accountant recommended
– Pay D for the week and set up autopay going forward.
– Acquire foam mats for under the swing
– Post pictures of desk on craigslist
– Disperse shit hiding under desk.
– Go to General Strike
– Fuck my muse. (Left undone because honestly we didn’t fuck.  We did have really nice sex though.)
– Talk to my muse.
– Eat his tasty brain.

Dear internet,

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In the first 24 hours of knowing Torrid Affair we had sex for six hours.  Not straight through.  We took a lot of breaks.  We spent at least five more hours talking.  I like him.  I like him a lot.  It’s not very often that I come across someone who fucks like a porn star and reads Derrida and religious texts for fun.  Twitterpated.  This is going to be a good month.  Ok, book calling.  TTFN

Hunh.

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Noah and I have been doing a lot of that needy clingy “Nooooooo! Don’t Gooooooooooo!!!” lately. We are both insecure. I wonder if part of the transference was simply that it was transference. I’m used to feeling that during sex lately. Hm. Maybe?