I’m scared.

I’m scared that I am not going to be good to the kids on the road trip. I was a bitch when we walked in the door tonight. I don’t think I started before we got home, just when we walked in the door.

Calli was dragging a sweater on the ground and I started ranting about how she doesn’t need to get it nasty. I don’t know why I felt the need to be so vehement and pissy.

Then she wanted to hand me the sweater when I was still trying to set down the nine things I was carrying. I ranted. I was a dick. I mean, I ranted for maybe two minutes. But Calli looked crushed.

I stopped. Said, “Wow. I got mean as soon as we got home, huh?” She nodded and said yes in a small voice. I apologized. She accepted my apology and hugged me. I decided that maybe I should go to the garage for a little while.

I depend on Noah a lot. He is an extremely involved parent. I depend a lot on our babysitter. I depend a lot on K, even though she only watches them for ~ 2.5 hours/month. What am I going to do when I am genuinely alone with them for 24 hours a day? Oh god. I’m scared.

I am going to have periods in every day where I wear ear plugs and write in my journal. I need time every.single.day. where I do not have to listen to your voice. Only my voice needs to be in my ears. My voice is fucking loud enough, thanks.

State of the body.

I’ll give a state of the body. Because I’ve been telling myself “record symptoms!” for two weeks or so and I haven’t.

I woke up this morning and experienced no pain in my right shoulder. This is monumental. I have to write this shit down. This is the first time I have woken up without shoulder pain in more than six years. Shanna is about to turn seven and I earned a knot in my shoulder during pregnancy and her first year of life from sleeping on my side. It has been a gnarly addition to my life. And It Is Gone!!!!!!!!!! I want to do cartwheels! Only I’m not that limber.

Otherwise, I’ve been having a lot of headaches. They are minor, only like a 2-3 but they are slightly distracting. My neck has been enormously painful. My neck has been feeling shitty for a while now. The chiropractor says it will hurt as my body attempts to pull up things that have been slack. I bloody hope it stops some day. Supposedly I’m healing. We’ll fucking see. I am a mixture of hope and pessimism. But he fixed my shoulder! That deserves positive reviews all over the place.

The headaches are in multiple places. I’ve had a slight throbbing behind my temples but mostly it is just the base of the skull pain I always have. I assume it is from too many years of looking down at books.

I’m taking breaks every 500 words to stretch and flex. Let’s see if that helps. My right shoulder is better! My left shoulder has the same level of stiffness it has had. Meaning it has limited rotation, I have a few weird notches, but mostly it is acceptably moving and limited in pain. My right shoulder is still crunchy and grinding and not very comfy, but I don’t have the knot of doom! This is exciting! Take what you can get.

My upper back is feeling pretty darn good. My lower back is not so good. Today it is better than it has been for a bit, which is nice. I’m stiff, achey, and sore. I have periodic spasms. I’m fucking terrified my back will give out on the road trip. We’ll fucking see, won’t we?

My hips are sore, stiff, and aching. I blame the seven mile walk with no real warm up. Oh gosh. My left hip is worse than my right. If you do the cross your ankle onto your knee and pretend to sit thing my left hip will pop and pop and pop over and over as many times as I want to “sit down”. That’s probably not good. I’ll stop.

My thighs hurt. Probably also walking related. Strangely, this is a delightful kind of hurt.

However my knees being sore is not delightful. That is awful. It isn’t the knee joint (on the left leg) it is the exterior of the knee. It feels like a horrifying bruise but nothing is visible. It is super tender right above the knee on the outside of the leg. Some year I will stop hurting myself in phantom ways.

My shins and calves hurt in a sore, I’ve been used kind of way, so once again… not a bad thing.

Now my ankles suck. They are ouchy and yucky and no fun. All kinds of movements hurt them. And I’m at a standing desk so I get to wiggle back and forth and remind myself thousands of times. Really, every part of my feet hurt. The toes, the tops, the bottoms. Ouch and ow and suck. In no good ways.

Ok, I did my state of the body.

Other thing I’m obsessed about lately: push and pull things with relationships.

A friend told me that I am the most relationship focused person that they know. I had feelings about that. Really? The most? That sounds decisive. I’m not sure what that means.

I think about myself in relationship to other people. I act like I don’t exist except as I relate to other people. I am not real focused on the wife and mother part of it, I worry more about my relationships out in the world. I am tentatively connected with hundreds or thousands of people and I maintain those connections through extreme effort and time. I don’t need to have everyone like me. But holy fucking shit I want there to be thousands of people who say “It’s ok that you exist.” I don’t need them to like me. I want them to know I am in the world and for them to think that it is a positive thing. Even if they don’t personally like me.

Like that girl in the teaching credential program who asked me to critique her papers by saying that she knew I would tell her what I really thought. Oh yes. I will tell you what I really think. But not all of it. I’m old and I have a super-ego and I’m afraid of punishment in ways I didn’t used to be afraid.

(Now that I think of it… I was doomed with that chick in the teaching credential program even before she asked to copy my homework. She had long blonde hair and I’m an asshole. I usually don’t like blondes. At least not blondes who do a lot of tossing their hair and implying that they should get their way. Fuck.Right.Off.)

This is coming up because my shrink asked me if I am getting “go away” signals from people in the home schooling group. Uhm, no. Not if I’m honest. I told her, “I don’t think so but I’m probably not the best person to judge.” Which is fairly honest.

Today I had my first time in the presence of the kid who kicked me in the throat back in February. That was… a social anxiety dissociative nightmare. Otherwise known as I “turned on” and talked to people when I felt there would be consequences if I didn’t and otherwise I stood/sat as far away from people as I could manage without causing people to question my behavior.

When I was holding the rope for the piñata I looked at the ground and pretended I was a tree when the boy who kicked me did the hitting. I spent most of the event feeling like his mother was glaring daggers at me. I tried not to cry.

I have turned into the piñata person for the group. Is this because I am the native Californian? Who knows. I didn’t actually do them much as a kid. Maybe a handful of times? Mostly… I’ve learned from movies.

Yes, I think a lot about my relationships.

I wouldn’t bother to exist without them. I had no particular desire to end up married to a man. I mean, I like having things shoved in my cunt but my experience is that women and people who do not identify as any where in particular along the gender binary are equally good at shoving things in there.

I have never been all that good at making money. But I’m pretty good at fucking people who can earn a lot of money. I have semi-lucratively turned this into a good deal with one person. He happens to have a penis.

This comes up partially because Netflix recommended a movie about a lesbian housewife who turns first to sex workers and then to sex work. Oh Netflix, you know me.

I care really a lot about what people want from me. I wanted a partnership with someone who would expect me to educate children reared out of my body. From fairly early in my life I have viewed myself as a breeder. That doesn’t mean that everyone born with a cunt needs to do so. I do.

Last night I told Noah that I wanted him to suck my clit. I think I have only said that a few times in my whole life. I’m not really that into oral. I have requested oral many more times than I have said, “I want you to suck my clit”.

Ok, I’m annoyed with this housewife who is getting into sex work. Don’t go through a pimp. You don’t need a guy to set it up. There are totally women who would fuck you. Don’t go through him. He’s stealing your money.

See, this is why I don’t think I needed to marry a man. I mean, I like Noah and all. But I like him as much for his breakfast making skills. I like him as much because he tells the fucking stupidest jokes, ever. I don’t like him because of his penis. Even though sometimes it is awfully nice when he puts it in me.

This movie is called Concussion. And now she is hearing the repressed issues of women who want to be clients. Yeah, this is why I considered sex work. Because of all these wonderful, fabulous, lonely people who have not figured out how to get someone else to touch their genitals. It is a service I have offered. Never for money. Just because I think it sucks that so many people have not gotten to have positive feelings inside their bodies.

God I love people. And by “God” do not think I mean the G-d of the Jews. I mean, emphatically I love beings that exist in the vague meat-shape of people.

I really fucking hate people. I hate people so much because I want to please them and often… I don’t. I don’t know how. I don’t know how to be what they want.

I have learned how to be good at sex. It is a physical act. But all those other things people want? I don’t know. I talk about sex. Incest. Randomly. I care a lot about relationships. Perhaps more than I should. I care more about the distance between you and me than I should. You. You. You. You. And me. Who am I? WHO AM I??????

Sometimes I don’t know. I am not a wife and mother. Fuck you with a two by four. If, in my obituary, they describe me first as a wife and mother then I have done everything wrong.

I am not cool because I am Noah’s wife.

I really fucking like Noah. I’m not dissing Noah. But if a certain woman from Noah’s past were not past the point of being able to press charges, I would not stop her. Because she has the right. I would visit him in prison and send him nice packages and all, but she has the fucking right. I am not on his side against other people. He gets to stand alone. Which makes me feel really fucking bad sometimes. Am I or am I not part of a larger unit? I am. And I’m not.

There is a me that isn’t about Noah. That isn’t about defending him nor his actions. Life is very complicated. I like Noah. Please don’t get me wrong. But I need to exist outside of him. Outside of relationship to him. I was not waiting to exist until I met him.

My great grand-mother was a sex worker. That doesn’t make me a sex worker. But it probably explains why I am completely obsessed with the topic. What are you if you aren’t what you come from? Maybe my great grandmother was smarter than me. She at least knew to extract a price from her labor. I have the damn mink stole she earned.

Depending on how you look at it, I have used sex to inspire Noah to new heights of earning potential. It has worked.

I have a really strong need to have things shoved in my cunt. But I don’t care if it is a penis. What I care about is the trade.

I hate this song. I love this song. In the first he wants the girl to be there in the back seat so he can look cool. In the second he wants to provide her a nice meal then have sex. That’s an offer I like. Not because I think that everyone who buys me dinner owes me sex. That’s not my point.

We bought dinner for friends tonight. I don’t think they should put out even though they are super cute. 

That sounds creepier than I mean it. We went to dinner with a nice family. Dad, pregnant mom, little girl. They are not sexy cute. Just cute. Like baby ducks. Ok, clearly mom and dad think one another are sexy and that’s fine… they aren’t for me.

I worry a lot about my relationships with people. And I learned as a three year old that my primary way of relating to people should be my cunt. I’m going to be weird forever.

But maybe if I start doing my typing at a standing desk so I take dance breaks I will be in less pain some day.

I think my ability to see myself in relationship to the people around me is why I am still alive. I see the obligations I have to people. I can’t die yet. I have to ____. Shit, I didn’t die when I was 15 because I got up and tried to get ready for school instead of telling my mom to leave me alone.

She would have. If I had said it once.

I didn’t.

I dragged my sorry ass into her bedroom and started narrating my hallucinations. Because I want to matter enough to stay alive. Because I want to be seen and matter. Because I want someone else to decide no. You don’t get to die. Not yet.

I mean, everyone dies some day. Everyone. That is the most inevitable thing in all of history. We all die.

Not today.

Who am I? I’m Krissy fucking Gibbs. Because I’m the Krissy who fucks the Gibbs not because I’m like Amanda Palmer. She is cool and all, but I’m not musically talented.

Because being Krissy fucking Archer sucked. Fucking my father wasn’t fun. Not for anyone. He was mean.

I talk about rape because I want to help men like my father understand how to be less of a fucking bastard so maybe you can get sex that will be good for you and you won’t have to rape your wife and your babies to get the love that you so desperately need. Because there has to be sex that is good for both sides of the equation. Or it isn’t sex. It is rape.

What I like about the idea of sex work is the idea that you only have x number of hours during which you have to interact with people and during those specific hours you have to behave exactly how they want. That is pretty much how my M/s relationship worked. It was rad.

It was precisely, exactly what I wanted. He didn’t want that much from me. He wanted specific things. I like a good negotiator.

I really love the idea of being able to say “Send #5 to someone else.” It isn’t that #5 is bad or wrong. But someone else is better suited to serving their needs.

I will never, ever in my whole life promise that I will not be a problem. Even if I will work hard to not distress people. That doesn’t mean I won’t be a problem.

I’m hard. I will always be hard. That will sometimes be a problem. I don’t know if I will ever go back to the home school group. After how I felt today… I don’t know. It isn’t anyone who was there’s fault. I am not blaming anyone. I am not saying that it is so and so’s fault. I am not saying “If only so-and-so had ____” I am truly not. I could list the name of every person there (but for privacy reasons I shall refrain). It isn’t them. This feeling is in me.

Ok, in this movie Concussion the housewife turned sex worker didn’t show up to pick her kids up at school. She decided she would rather see a client. See, that is why I will probably not do anything to pursue actual work until my kids are grown. It doesn’t matter what the work is. Not sex work, not any other kind of work. I wanted kids so fucking bad. I wanted to find out what it was like to know people who had parents who showed up. And that is why I will ensure that my behavior towards them is what they need for the duration of the time they need me. I made that commitment. To them and to Noah.

I want to pour everything I know into them. Not my experiences. Different. I want them to benefit from my knowledge.

Which should mean that I know who I am. Who am I? I don’t know. But I need to be chased. I need to be sought after. I need to be defined in stories of “When I was a child” told by other people so that I can understand how different I am.

Please, tell me more. I want to hear more. Tell me about you. Maybe I will understand me. And while you tell me all about you, fuck me really, really, really hard.

Life is really complicated.

When I cross my right leg over my leg it hurts a lot–because of that spot above my knee. Shit. I am really fucking scared that my body will give out on the trip. And there is a big part of me that says, “Fuck it. When it comes to crunch time I deliver. Stop whining.” I’m thinking about bringing a corset for back support.

I feel lucky as fuck that I get to take my kids across the country and show them historical sights and talk about why people have done the things they have done. And I feel glad that I can make two people come into the world who will know that they need to apologize when they hurt someone on accident. And you try not to make the same mistake again. Sometimes you will. And the person you are fucking up with gets to decide how much of that they are willing to put up with. Life is really complicated. I only exist in relationship to the people I love.

Who am I? I’m going to go fuck my husband. He’s been really good at that lately.