Bitch, asshole, cunt. Why do we love these words so much? It isn’t just me who has a love-affair. I self-identify easily as an asshole. Yup, I’m self-absorbed and I’m going to default to thinking my needs are more important than yours. I’m not sorry. Bitch is harder for me. Asshole I view as more passive–not attacking anyone but not doing anything unless motivated by selfish need. Bitch is more aggressive. Bitches attack. Bitches are willing to savage people just because they are having a bad day.

Notice how gendered these assumptions are? When men withdraw and refuse to engage… they are an asshole. When a woman chases cause she’s pissed… she’s a bitch.

Sometimes when I talk about my friends in therapy (because holy crap have I processed about *all* of you in therapy) my therapist says, “Wow. You know a lot of survivors. Do you understand that you are finding the most extreme people in society and these experiences aren’t average, common, or easily understood by most people?”

To that I channel Big Mac and say, “Yup.”

It is hard

I went back through all the reviews of the contracting company I’m working with. Five stars, four stars, very rare three stars. I think they are suppressing negative reviews

Today Shanna announced that it is sometimes appropriate to wear all black. That is a milestone sorta moment.

I’m thinking about the overlap of the movie The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio and failure.

What does failure mean? We are all small pieces in the stories of one another’s lives.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the past. It seems to me that other people believe the past should be over and done. In thinking about the past I understand the present. Through perspective I get why I’m doing what I am doing. Why I will do what I will do.

Connect, connect, that’s what we all want. Whether it is through selling something or through buying big old big-ukkkie yuck well. Or something.

What the fuck was that?

I don’t even know.

White men help white men. White women help… I don’t fucking know.

Sometimes I feel like a race traitor. I don’t type that very often. But I think it. Often. Especially when I watch movies like like “The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio” and watch how white men are supported without ever knowing the price of bearing them.

No one ever says life is easy. This is true.

I think about the past because it helps me figure out why I want to do what I want to do.

I want to forget. I want to stop thinking about pain. I want to stop hurting.

I don’t know how.

I’m told, by asshole men, that the path forward is just to forget. To stop thinking about the things that have happened to me. The things that shaped who and what I am.

I am not a dumb grazing animal standing under a tree. I am a complex being. I am not important. Don’t get me wrong. I’m just not stupid.

To be fair I’m sure there are asshole women with the same opinion. They just feel less need to track down my Twitter feed to tell me how stupid I am.

“That’s not enough”

“It never is”

“How is Dad going to fill the freezer when he can’t even buy the milk?”
“I have no idea honey but at least he has a goal.”

(From the above referenced movie.)

I feel sad. I feel disconnected. I feel like my bills are not the point of life. I pay my bills. Oh fucking well.

I feel happy. I feel connected. I feel like I am unusually well connected with friends.

All along the way we toss out some of the most interesting, most enlightened people.

I think a lot about bravery. Why do we try the things we try? Do we have to see someone else do it first?

Just try. Just try. What the fuck does autocorrect do anyway?

Violence, meanness, write it down. There is just a hole lot of mean in the world.

This is literally just what is pouring out my head as my fingers hurt.

Can’t type enough.

My problems are many and varied and are never that I’m not happy enough

We leave in less than three hours. We’re packed.

I don’t post things here to talk to people unless I name them and know I talk to them we

Today is pretty rad. We went to the movies. Because that’s what you do when you drive across the country, right? Go to the movies? Well, it was a movie about a kid from Minnesota having to move to San Francisco so it actually made a kind of awesome sense. We have her problem in reverse. The movie was Inside Out and it is the newest Pixar movie. It’s about emotions. I’ll be just mean enough to say that part of the point of the movie is the emotions learn that you need *all* emotions… not just the fun ones.

I cried and cried and cried. The movie gave me some interesting language for talking to the kids and I’m super grateful for that. Well done, Pixar. My kids kind of understand some pieces of me and my issues better because of this movie. That’s hecka useful.

I will be a judgmental bastard and say that the Thai food here in Duluth is more pan-Asian than what I think of as Thai. But who knows if I know what I’m talking about. It tasted fine, just… more of a fusion sorta thing. Very Chinese influenced.

They didn’t have pad see ewe! I had a sad. And no yellow curry!

Well, when we go home we will visit our local Thai restaurant and cry with happiness. Yay!

I slept better last night. Finding out how badly I was misunderstanding layers of stuff with the home school group helped. The anger is gone. I’m just left with sadness. I’m sorry I don’t know how to be what other people need.

I am feeling a little weird about the weather here. It feels like Hawaii to me. Which is totally not what I expected. It’s hot and muggy. It keeps raining. Fierce thunder and lightening storms with almost no warning. I’ve only experienced that in Hawaii before.

I wish Noah was here. This would be a rad place for sex outside in the rain. It’s 80 degrees!

I’m not hitting Iowa nor Missouri. I just can’t. The driving is hurting so much. I’m sad that I’m leaving so many interior states for later. I’ll just have to come back in 10-20 years with an RV.

My tent is breaking. One of the fasteners that attach it to the trailer ripped out. Whoops. And we have a hole in the door. I covered it on both sides with duct tape.

If it weren’t for the tarp I brought as a rain fly we’d be in a world of hurt right now. I’m so glad I was smart enough to think of this.

I am having fun. In between bursts of exhaustion. Ok, just played with the road trip doc. I’m staying in Duluth for 10 days. That’s way better sounding than 5 days.

That way I don’t have to set up camp so often. I’m feeling lazy. Or exhausted. The kids want me to be “fun”. I’m too fucking tired. Know how we still need to eat three meals a day? And I’m the only driver? And your laundry needs to be washed? And…

I’ll stop. I think I’ll enjoy a longer stay in Duluth. Then Chicago for slightly longer than originally intended then on to Michfest. Duluth, three-in-transit-days meandering through Wisconsin on the way south to Chicago. Then straight to the music fest. That describes the schedule up through the 9th of August. Which sounds great right now. Less travel, more play.

We are going to be so water logged when we leave here. Part of the reason I want to stay here longer is because it is so cheap. We went through a few import stores today. I couldn’t believe how cheap everything was. I made a surprised comment and the woman asked me where I was from. Her lip curled up, she said, “Rent. Everything costs so much there because of the rent.”

I wasn’t trying to say that I thought the people in my area were trying to gouge people or anything. I understand some pieces of economics…

It will give us more time here to fix the broken things on the trailer and get all the bedding cleaned (I’m tired of smelling like pee) and get the oil changed and and. Lots of little things piling up.

I can’t tell from the Michfest website, but it sounds like they won’t let me keep my van with my pop up even though moving things out of the van would be a *nightmare*. I mean, I *can*. But it will mean hours and hours and hours of work because I tied everything together so it wouldn’t fall while I’m driving. Everything is *very* secure. I’m sorta wondering if I should try to find some wood for putting under the eaves of the trailer so I can put the drawer units outside under the protection. Otherwise 100% would have to come into the tent. Uhm. I suppose I *could*. But it would make being in the tent very unpleasant. We use the sides and stand up there to dress and such. Losing all of that room to storage would be sad.

Still feeling sad about the plug in cooler. It is just not doing what I wish it would do. Too much rain to leave windows open so it can be plugged in.

Youngest asked me to get steak and broccoli for dinner. I hope I have enough for all six folks in the house. Not sure! We’ll find out!

I have no idea how much my friend’s kids eat. Children are variable and all. I expect oldest will eat a lot and youngest will eat little. Based on the fact that oldest is a very tall, very heavy (muscular) kid and youngest is very short for age and extremely thin. There is less than a two year spread and older kid is literally more than twice as heavy. That’s a big difference in body type.

But who knows! You can’t look at people and guess how much they’ll eat.

So far I think this place is neat. It’s fun to wander around downtown and ask my kids, “What do you think this springy pole is for on the fire hydrant?” They have no idea. That’s how they measure snow.

The kids eyes bugged out as they looked at this pole that is taller than them. They get THAT MUCH SNOW?! Sometimes.

I’m really enjoying all the conversations the kids and I are having. Ok, I’ll spoiler the movie just a teeny bit. In it, there is a reference to the “core memories” that make up who you are and decide a lot of your personality. For this kid, all of the core memories were fueled by joy.

I told the kids, “Know how I talk about how I have a hard time feeling positive emotions sometimes?” They said, “Yeah” “Well, my core memories are angry or sad or afraid.”

They both hugged me and said that we’ll just make new memories to replace those.

I love you so much.

I said, “Notice how it isn’t that easy? Your core memories are there. No matter what. But notice how as the kid gets older the kid learns how to mix feelings more? Things don’t have to be just joy, they can be joyful and sad. They can be joy and fear. I won’t be able to replace the memories I have. Brains don’t work that way. But I can make new memories and learn how to have those memories be more of a mixed thing. As I get older I have a lot of thoughts about my mother and I realize that there are times when I was scared or sad or angry… that I could have felt a little joy. Now, I can be grateful for some of the things my mom did even though I couldn’t be at the time.”

They looked thoughtful.

My friend that we are staying with is a single mom. That has lead to a lot of questions. I was actually asked if we are on this trip because I’m leaving their dad. I said, “Know how I talk to your dad basically every day and I talk to you about him and I miss him and I tell him that I love him over and over? Yeah. I’m not leaving your dad. I’m just having an adventure.”

Then they asked if I ever dumped him. I laughed and said I did. I said he wasn’t the kind of boyfriend I wanted to have but it turns out he is an excellent husband. They found that fascinating.

I told them, “See why it is so wonderful for me to be hanging out with you two all the time making all these joyful memories? Imagine my long-term memory storage. (They show something in the film.) Now I have rows and rows and rows of joy with your names on it.”

They skipped.

Sometimes I wonder what fucked me up the most. The rapes, being an unwanted baby, moving and not having stable support, all the beatings, the screaming that I’m a worthless cunt/bitch/whore/word of the day.

Was it worse having people tell me, regularly, to kill myself? “Why don’t you go play with the cars on the freeway.”

Hilarious to say given that my brother was hit by a car on the highway. Hilarious.

I should be brain damaged too. Sometimes I wonder if I am. Sometimes I reflect that PTSD is a sort of brain damage. It alters your brain. I haven’t read a medical textbook on brain injuries in a while and I know there is interesting new research. Most of my reading happened in the 80’s and 90’s so I’m terribly out of date.

What is damage? What is change? What is abnormal? What is problematic?

Because even if something causes damage… that doesn’t make it problematic. Lots of people with brain damage adapt and are basically fine. Even if they are on the edge of “normal” they are doing fine and they are happy.

So how much of it matters? Well, if you ask zero tolerance drug enforcement policy people any amount of change to the brain is problematic and unacceptable.

I’ve done more than my share of recreational drugs. I don’t think I’ve hit “addict” because other than something ordered by a doctor I never did anything that many times and I’m not real driven to seek drugs out. If they are convenient and I’m set up for doing them I’ll do them. But if I don’t have the right parameters I abstain.

Childcare is #1 at this point and I don’t really have that in a way that would allow drug usage. So I don’t really do much.

I don’t abstain because I’m worried about altering my brain. Frankly if I get stupider and my memory works less well in the future… I will probably be grateful. I remember too well right now. Too much. I want to forget.

But I can’t drink alcohol because I shit fire. Well, rare drinks I can sorta tolerate if I’m otherwise low stress. But it’s awful.

Other drugs aren’t hard on my body in the same way. Different ways. They make me tired and unable to care about anyone outside of myself.

I can’t do that and be a parent. So I don’t do drugs.

I’m tired and frustrated and my arms hurt. I’ve been spending time on Twitter because that way I limit my character strokes. It is somewhat effective.

I love my children and I can tell that they are trying hard.

Eldest child and I have played checkers and spent a long time talking about fashion choices for her dolls. (I got them a cheap-as-heck set of Disney Princess dolls in the after-Christmas sales and threw it in storage. I plan ahead.) It was perfect to bring them out after we had been here for a week. The kids kind of exploded with excitement.

Playing with the dolls is a lot of what they did yesterday on our rest day. I’m so smart.

When I like peopl

The kids have two more hours with the babysitter. I talked to my shrink. Now I’m masturbating and watching Jane the Virgin which seems totally messed up. Dude.

I feel very conflicted about pretty much everything. I spend a lot of time reading writing from women of color. I want to be less of a douche and I’m not going to learn that if I only read white people.

Have you noticed how brutal our culture is? I don’t honestly know if we are the most brutal ever, that seems like a stupid thing to worry about. We are brutal. Are we more brutal than other cultures?

I honestly can’t judge. I don’t live in those cultures. I know my culture is brutal.

A woman I respect is from a Native tribe and she tells me about what it is like for her to have her culture with her all the time. I… I try to imagine that. I try to imagine what it would be like to have a culture you can pull around you like a blanket of safety.

There are white people who feel safe. I don’t.

There are people who believe that being white is a glorious thing. I think of the mass murders. I think of the atrocities we commit. I think of our tendency towards committing the same crimes as everyone else but only non-white people have to be punished.

I read an article today on pushing back on privilege. One thing she recommended was never going to spaces that are exclusionary. Ever. Because you are hurting marginalized people.

In light of going to Michfest…

You know what? I met transwomyn there. So it is billed as an exclusive event… but it only sorta was. But that’s complicated. I thought it would be and I went. I was delighted to find the cracks.

Years ago I was part of a community. I don’t want to get into specifics about what kind of community because the point of this essay isn’t to shame anyone. It was an alternative lifestyle-sexuality-drug using community although it was not centered around bdsm. I’ll give that much context. There was some bdsm that happened, because we freaks are everywhere, but we had to be kinda on the down low to not squick the vanillas. That was an acceptable set of rules for the community.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how little I know about what other people need. I can’t feel inside their bodies. I can’t tell what is going on for them physically, mentally, or emotionally. Most especially I can’t tell other mothers how to raise their children. I’m not in that dynamic. I don’t know.

I’m feeling incredibly insecure. Insecure up one side, down the other and up yet another damn side.

Noah is hawt. Like, ridiculously meltingly hot. I say this because he woke up when I came back from my middle of the night pause and we started talking and then of course we had to have sex cause that’s pretty much how we work when we are alone in a room talking.

Sigh.

This was an unusually good conversation. Noah was very brave telling me about things he is interested in. Most of the sex was narrated by how he would hunt this person in his life. (Whoa. That man has words.) We would giggle at moments when “Oh that would totally work” and strategize “what if x happened at y juncture?”

Not many lovers of mine have been happy to do this. Usually it creeps people out.

I’m all, tell me tell me tell me how you bang other people. Pleeeeeeeeeeease.

But no. Sigh. What is up with you bastards not wanting to kiss and tell? That shit’s lame.

It is nice when Noah feels comfortable telling me stuff because I know he is insecure. I know he’s really scared. I know this, as he tells me, because he thinks that the way to manage his insecurity about me leaving is to ensure that I have a deal so good I won’t leave. This is a situation where his insecurity is very much to my benefit. Which is mixed.

I need to not take it for granted that he is more insecure than me so it is ok to be an asshole. He has limits too.

We talked about the ups and downs of my sex drive and managing it. Breeding has been rough. We talked about what we want and need.

It is kind of tricky that I fill most of Noah’s needs. But I have a lot of needs he… really isn’t up for. It makes sense. No one should ever be hit unless they want to be hit. No one should ever allow themselves to be degraded unless they choose it.

And frankly, it is sometimes hard that Noah wants to transition from bdsm to sex so fast. My body doesn’t process the separate experiences as one very well. I get really overwhelmed and freak out and have to stop everything.

I like rough sex. I like bdsm. I like doing a scene and then having sex. I don’t like doing scene-level-playing in the middle of fucking as much. That’s hard for me. Being hit involves a lot of bracing. Fucking is a lot of taking in. I can’t do both at once.

I can fuck someone else and beat the shit out of them, so I get the appeal of that. But if I’m getting fucked and beaten, no.

I keep having this thought bubble up in my consciousness every so often… two people are having blood testing done this week so we can do blood play. You really don’t know how hot that is to me. I haven’t actually done that much blood play. I’m kinda shocked that it is coming up so fast in these ways. But thrilled! It’s been a long time!

My previous lifetime hardest biting experience was when I was young and stupid. I didn’t understand how much power a jaw had. I was fifteen. I was going to Rocky Horror Picture Show and doing my best to do the whole cast. (I totally failed. Most were wise enough to not fuck minors.) One of the cast members liked to walk the line pre-show and bite the necks of virgins. I told him that he had to let me bite him back.

Oh. Apparently you have to be careful. Whoops.

I have only made one other person drop to their knees that fast in my life and it was on purpose the second time.

A bloodcurdling scream of fear and pain combined with iron in my mouth. I got very little blood, but I nicked him. He was a guy in his 30’s? I think he was uhm, not expecting that. When I pulled back he looked at me like I might be a rabid dog. Then he shook everywhere and said, “hot.”

I have not since bit someone hard enough to draw blood. I felt super weird and bad. At this point I am looking forward to biting someone until they bleed. Things change.

And he’s self conscious about his bruises in the locker room. Well isn’t that sweet. You might want to get some bike tights honey so you can put your regular pants on over them to not show off the marks. You may be colorful for a whole long time to come.

I have a whole lot of want-to-hurt built up in me.

I’m really looking forward to playing with Sarah again. As she points out, we haven’t played since before the bad house-break-up. That time was a bit strained. It’s going to be really nice to make more good memories about how much fun we have playing together. We giggle and laugh and tell the stupidest jokes you can imagine in between me pounding her. It is joyous.

Every masochist is different. I am not like Sarah. I do not giggle and wiggle and laugh when I’m hit. I go for catharsis. I go for suffering. I go to sob like a snot nosed little kid. I go to get out the internal pain I can’t get out other ways.

Sarah can play darker too, but it isn’t our style together.

Together we are kinda like when Pippi Longstocking and Lyra Silvertongue grow up and have really rough sex. Over the top lies and silly stories and but but… you’ve just gotta.

It’s so much fun.

I’m feeling really guilty about the amount of complaining I did about my female friends yesterday. I feel like I’m being ungrateful.

You all give me what you have going spare. It really isn’t your fault that I am a bottomless pit.

I really like talking to the same people many many many days in a row. Months if I can swing it. Not many women have space like that for me in their lives. I know a number of men who do. I have a fairly isolated life, but I am a deeply communal person. I just have issues living communally because I’m a highly traumatized person with all kinds of baggage.

I am so fucking annoying.

Sarah, Pam, K, & J are the women who have gone through intense periods of contact with me over the last few years. They are all busy. They can’t center their lives around me. I’m not mad. I’m just lonely.

I don’t think these guys are going to center their lives around me. But they have more bandwidth for talking to me right now.

I’m at this point where I recognize that I just literally can never resume the driving schedule I had. It is too hard on my body. I know some people handle it fine–great for you. We have different bodies.

My closest friends are totally GU (Geographically Undesirable) but I love them anyway.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what love means. I love a lot of people. I love messily and chaotically and devotedly and absentmindedly. I tend to love forever. It’s a lot of why I’m not always graceful after breakups. I still want you. Even if I broke up with you because of 3,562 incompatibilities, I still want you.

I wish I never had to give anyone up. But I’m usually the one who ends relationships because I’m ready to change some aspect of myself and other than Noah I have never experienced other people to be all that supportive of change. People don’t want to change how they treat you or think of you. In order to get them to do so you have to go off and change while they aren’t looking and come back so demonstrably different and demanding about it that they have to change.

This is why I can’t move to Portland. Too many people I met at 19. This last visit was extraordinary in that they are finally recognizing that I have changed… but shit dude it has been 15 years and I’ve been different in stages all the time. They are just now being dragged into not being able to avoid seeing that I am different.

Ugh.

This one dude… at a munch when I was 19… he tried to pull my top off. In his defense my shirt said something horrible like, “If I’m still wearing this shirt you aren’t doing your job” but still! We were in a coffee shop!

He finally knows not to touch me without permission. 15 fucking years later.

I have to believe that consent is the beginning and the end of “what is ok”. If people can agree to doing something it is ok. By definition. Doesn’t matter how other people feel about it.

If I want to ask the Professor to find all the darkest stuff he’s been hoarding up for a long time and use it up on me, and my husband is ok with it and the Professor says yes… it is ok.

Even if I feel squishy and weird and a little weird and guilty/ashamed about flipping the

After writing a post the answer was no. And I don’t genuinely want this on the internet so I deleted it.

I