Category Archives: Cross-Country-Trip

Maybe we dodged a bullet.

When I was pregnant with Shanna Noah and I seriously considered moving to Pittsburgh. We flew out here in January to visit snow and see if I could maybe stand it because it is so much cheaper. Right now I feel like we dodged a bullet. I don’t think I would have done well here. I’m not sure what all it is, but I think I would wither here.

For one thing, driving around the city is panic attack central. I haven’t had panic attacks in months and months (I can’t remember the last one–but I wrote about it so it was a while ago) and I’ve had two here while driving. That sucks. The roads are super narrow. Sometimes intersections are absolutely terrifying and I’m convinced I’m going to kill everyone. That’s not even an interpersonal thing–that’s just about the lay out of the city.

It is so dark. It is summer time and it is uncomfortably warm… and it is still dark. The buildings obscure the sun.

I have met some nice people. I met an awesome woman I know from Twitter. I know I could find people I would like. It’s not just that the folks I wanted to stay with didn’t work out.

It’s complicated.

I’m glad we get to move on to New York now.

I feel guilty that I haven’t already written long thank you notes to everyone who participated in my birthday present. My mind is blown. 44 letters submitted by people who like/love me. That is very intense. I love you all so much. Thank you. I will be writing to everyone individually.

Holy tomato thank you. Thank you for loving me. I will spend my birthday reading and rereading your letters.

Yes, I choose you. I choose being in your life and I hope I can invite you into mine.

So tired.

So far Pittsburgh is the roughest stop on our trip. Lots of little interpersonal bumps. As I told Eldest Child today, “Hey making mistakes is part of life. At least you won’t have to see these people much in the future.”

It’ll be good to move on.

Whine.

I’m having big feelings. Pittsburgh is not my favorite city so far. Driving here is nerve wracking and scary. The folks we are staying with (camping in their driveway) are not folks I actually know well. I don’t feel comfortable. I don’t like being called stupid.

There is a very big part of me that says that tomorrow when Noah is here he needs to help me pack up camp because I don’t want to be stuck here doing it alone after he is gone because I feel so very uncomfortable.

It isn’t the wife or the kids. They are fine. I’m just… not feeling ok about being on the property of a guy who feels free to tell me I’m stupid this often. It feels like setting myself up to be in another situation where I am going to end up screaming at someone and then I’m the mean nasty bitch.

Literally he called me stupid in the first two minutes of conversing. Then he repeated it again about a different topic in less than two hours.

I’m fucking flipping out.

Offline notes from Michfest–that crummy day

Off-line notes from Michfest

Today is that big feelings day of the month. I’m on day 25 of my cycle. I have approximately 31-ish day cycles. For PMDD they say that the last 5-10 days of your cycle are the worst. Today is hard.

I’m not sure why today is so hard. I dropped the kids off at childcare around 1:30 pm and haven’t been able to stop crying for the last hour. Not sure entirely what I’m sad about. I tried to go hide in the woods to cry until I was done. Then the ants started biting me. Fine. I’ll go back to my tent and type on my computer away from you little assholes. You can have your fucking woods.

So let me say that anything and everything I say about Michfest right this minute is shaped by the fact that I’m already crying and I’m not sure why. I’m a bad mother. I’m a bad person. I should kill myself. I don’t know why.

I think if I had come here 15 years ago when I first heard of it I would have had a very different adult life. I’m not sure what would have happened, but I think it would have been different. I think there would have been a much higher chance that I would not have ended up marrying a man.

I’m not saying that I’m sorry I’m married to Noah. I’m not. I like him very much and I don’t plan to leave him–not even for political lebianism.  But I think if I had come here 15 years ago instead of listening to my friends who said “It isn’t trans-inclusive and going means you hate trans people” I would have had a different life path.

For the record, there is a big camp of people here rallying for trans-inclusion. Yes, there are some TERFs. (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) There are *so many kinds of womyn here*.

I actually had a great conversation this morning with a 72 year old retired school teacher. We talked about the profession and how it has shifted over the past 50 years. She thinks it is smart to keep my kids away from Common Core. Her words: “I haven’t seen such state sanctioned mass abuse of children in all my life.”

To that I say: you obviously don’t live in areas where there are mostly children of color. (She doesn’t. I asked.)

But Common Core even hurts the white kids! Oh man. I feel like that is where it has to get in the conversation before people really see how fucked the topic is. No really, most of public education has been state sanctioned mass abuse of children of color for years. Look at the rates of suspensions and detentions based on race. Look at how teachers discipline *preschool* children of color. We’ve always had state sanctioned mass abuse.

I see a lot of white women here. There is a noticeable section of non-white women, but of course it is nearly 90% white. I have a hard time with how many of the white women “go native” and pick sacred regalia as “cool ethnic” clothes. I know just enough about other cultures to know that if something is meant to be worn by high status people of a certain group to signal their years of training…. it isn’t for me.

I read a neat thing comparing “new age” stuff with Native American spirituality. It certainly had nothing nice to say about folks who want to be called shamans outside of one Native tradition. That’s complicated for me because I had a relationship for a very long time with a white man who really wanted to be a shaman.

I’m having so many feelings.

I’m having tons of conversations with people about trans inclusion and exclusive spaces and race. One person said a couple of gems and I asked for permission to quote her words (she preferred without her name which is totally cool) she said that Michfest is not a utopia–it’s an agreement. It isn’t safe space, it is safe enough space.

Those two sentences have been sitting hard in my belly.

(For one thing… utopias aren’t good things. Go read the book. It’s Not Good Stuff.)

I like the idea of safe enough space. I appreciate that the womyn here have been sharing their experiences through years of coming.

I’m having a hard time with my feelings today. Oh man. I’m cranky that all of the interesting workshops happened first thing this morning and my kids wouldn’t get their shit together so I could go. So I get a day of just kind of sitting here. Woo.

I have to work a night shift in the child care tonight. That makes me want to lose my shit all over people. I am not a good night person. This is going to be horrible. I have to be there till midnight. I didn’t register for shifts early enough and everyone who uses daycare has to work in the daycare. The fact that I normally go to sleep one hour into the only available shift really doesn’t matter. Suck it, bitch.

I’m really feeling nasty towards me today. As I was walking a long a couple of womyn asked me if I was ok. (I’m not that subtle when I’m bawling and I can’t stop.) I just tried to get away from them as fast as possible. Which feels mean too.

The whole time I just kept saying to myself that being a crazy bitch isn’t anyone else’s problem. I am no one’s problem. Just mine. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Crazy. Bitch.

Several womyn who were walking past me took the time to tell me that it isn’t ok for me to say shit in front of my children. Thanks for your feedback.

Meanwhile this other vibrant, wonderful woman is screaming mother fucker from the stage. Hallelujah.

There is a decided old dyke vibe. My kids regularly jerk on my arm and whisper to me, “I thought there were only womyn here and I see a man.”

No honey. You see a womyn. Womyn come in an amazing variety of shapes and sizes. They dress in a lot of ways. Womyn aren’t just one kind of creature. All these people you see? They’re womyn.

And yes, there are transwomyn on The Land. Apparently for 15 years now. Rock. Fuckin’ On.

I hear that this community has had major growing pains over the past 40 years. Apparently in the early years black womyn were regularly harassed for possibly being men. The organizers grew to understand that WOC deserved a separate safe area. Then the BDSM folks caused a big uproar. They have their own space now. I uhhh accidentally walked through it on the first day when I had the kids. Whoops. Luckily we were there during the day and folks hadn’t really gotten going yet.

There are over 300 kids here this year. I hear that before there were so many children it was an all chick all the time orgy. I’m sad I missed that.

I can’t help but think, as I listen to all the beautiful old lesbians share their tales, that the problem isn’t trans-inclusion. The problem is: how much can a particular human being adapt/evolve?

I get the impression that Lisa Vogel, the woman who runs this event (Disclaimer: haven’t met her) is just tired. She can’t up and reinvent herself anew anymore. She’s getting older and she’s tired. Maybe it is time for someone else to start something else.

I’m sad that this event is just ending. The first few days we were here were pretty magical for me. I don’t usually feel like I belong places. I had a little of that for a few days.

No really, they want *all* womyn here who were born with a cunt. They don’t care if you are hetero, queer, or lesbian. They don’t care if you are femme or butch. They have safe space for all kinds of marginalized demographics (recovery, Deaf, disabled women) but… not a separate safe space for trans-folk. There are quite a few transmen joyfully welcomed because they’ve been coming since before transition.

I honestly have squiggly feelings about that. Transwomyn aren’t fully welcomed but people who have eschewed being a woman to become a man are allowed? WTF?

That’s a kind of biological essentialism that I just can’t cope with. My pussy is not the defining part of my life.

But you know what? There are a very high number of very butch womyn there. I bet they hesitate to put a cap on that end of the spectrum of acceptability. If you were born with a pussy you count.

We spent last night introducing a nice Australian family to s’mores. That was awesome.

I’m not still weeping. I don’t know why I was weeping beyond the usual: I suck and I don’t deserve to steal oxygen from worthy people. Whatever.

Today is warm. We had a brief sprinkling of rain. It is very grey and I bet it will rain more later.

Last night taking a shower was cool. They have outdoor showers. Six heads on a frame that looks like a swing set. Lots of nekkid womyn just hanging out doing what they need to do for their bodies.

I am so glad my kids are getting to see this diversity. Several older womyn have asked me if the nudity is troublesome for my kids. Nope. We think it is great.

One nekkid womyn saw us bundled up and she said, “Oh no! Am I wearing too few clothes?” I said, “You’re perfect.” Eldest child said, “Oh no! It’s totally legal for you to be naked at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Rock on!”

The womyn laughed. Turns out she lives much more rurally than this in somewhere colder than this and she spends most of her life naked. I said, “We are from a mediterranean climate. This feels brutal.”

Last night when we were showering we found the Santa Cruz crowd (of course) and it was funny that I was the least cold person. I’ve rarely had that experience.

I find it fascinating that very few womyn wear makeup but the ones who do wear FULL FACE. It’s a costume not about looking natural. I love that most of the womyn wear brightly colored saggy, baggy, not stylish clothes. That is so awesome. My people!

Oh no!

I lost the contact information for one of the womyn I met at Michfest, which is a huge bummer because I’ve already lined up several people who want to hear from her. I sure hope she emails me soon. Eeek.

I have emailed everyone else who gave me their contact information. I feel super guilty about the data I lost. Crumbs.

I am so tired. Tonight the computer goes off at 9pm. I have to sleep. I’m catching up on laundry because the kids don’t have a single pair of pants or dress left. They can’t go about their day in underwear and a shirt so I guess I need to do laundry.

So. So. So. So. So. tired.

Community, family, and support

I was blessed to meet a family who had three generations of womyn at Michfest. The currently grandmother has been coming since before the current mother was born. Then her daughter grew up there. Now the granddaughter has been growing up there. The mother and grandmother both expressed profound grief that the young girl will not get to be shaped by the experience of being on The Land every year.

I feel cheated sometimes. I’m not even sure who or what cheated me. But I feel cheated. I feel like there is love and support and family out there… just not for me. I mean, I sound like an ungrateful bastard. It isn’t true any more that I lack love or support or family. It’s a non-rational feeling.

I miss my mother so much I physically ache.

When you walk The Land all of the womyn call one another “Sister” with no irony or sarcasm or sense of intrusion. You are my Sister in the struggle. We are all fighting to find our place in the world.

I have always had a difficult relationship with the idea of referring to other womyn as “Sister”. It feels like it belongs to womyn of color and it isn’t for me. I don’t want to appropriate. But I really want to feel like I am connected to people.

One of the workshops I attended talked about the struggle of aging gracefully as a lesbian. The underlying assumption of this was the physical degradation that happens to everyone as they age… but lesbians don’t have children to care for them most of the time. I watched the 60-something and 70-something year old womyn cry about how hard it is to be alone.

I looked at my daughters really hard through this whole week. I thought really hard about my friend Pam, who is more or less putting her life on hold to hang out with her aging and failing grandmother because when you are Chinese that is just how it works.

I will not have that. I don’t think. I don’t think my children or grandchildren will care for me the way that Pam’s grandmother is being cared for. I’m more likely to get shoved into a home where I can be “not a problem” to anyone.

I feel so bad that I deserted my mother. She did her best in horrifying circumstances. I understand that more and more as I get older. She really didn’t have better choices available to her than the choices she made. She really did her best. Given every terrible thing that happened to her… her best wasn’t that bad.

It wasn’t good enough. But that isn’t her fault. I’m no longer sure it is anyone’s fault. Life is just hard.

I bought a Valentine’s card for my mother over 10 years ago. It is sitting in a box in my garage. It says, “Every year I recognize that I’m getting more and more like you. I like it.” Every.Fucking.Year I think about sending it. For the past few years I have thought about writing, “I forgive you. I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you.” I wouldn’t sign it. She would know.

I spent today visiting with a friend from California who happened to be in Michigan visiting family. Turns out I walked in on the best family for me to talk to. Lots of mental health issues resulting from terrible poverty and abuse. Radically anti the prison industrial complex because of personal experiences. Educated and feisty even though they have issues. Still fighting to learn new skills and grow. Even a stunted tree reaches for the light.

When I was at Michfest listening to the womyn talk about the strain of growing old while being alone–they rushed to assure themselves and everyone around them that it is ok to be alone. There have always been men who were alone. They die early. They tend to be stunted emotionally. How different is it for womyn who know what community support feels like to be alone for 51 weeks a year?

My mom isn’t alone. I don’t think. I think she is with my sister. I’m pretty sure my niece and nephew live with them because of poverty. Heck, my nephew is married now. I wonder if he has a child. My mom has one baby left out of four. That has to hurt unbearably badly. I continue to check every couple of months for obituaries.

I’m afraid I won’t apologize before she dies. I’m afraid that I will be too afraid of what cracking the door might mean.

Whiplash

I was up till 2am watching what is happening in Ferguson… again. I am entirely overwhelmed by the enormity of what is happening in my country. Then I went to get a waffle this morning because I was starving while the kids were asleep and I had a chatty conversation with a woman about baby carriers and their various functionalities. She asked me about my travel plans then proceeded to tell me at great length that she would never abandon her husband.

Between Michfest, police officers killing black citizens, and white women feeling the need to tell me constantly that I’m abandoning my husband by traveling… I feel like my life is fucking surreal. I feel like I can’t begin to say what I feel about any given topic because there are so many topics going on.

I am really tired. Today is going to be festive. We are supposed to visit with a friend from California who is in this area visiting family. I’m supposed to be all upbeat and cheerful and shit because that’s polite.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

We have to make it to Pittsburgh by the 12th so we can pick Noah up. Today and the next two days are driving days because we have to cover over 600 miles. Noah wants to go to a birthday party that is happening in Pittsburgh and that is why he is coming out this time. It was just luck that we are in Pittsburgh when he wants to be there.

Not sure if I will be able to be coherent this morning. I’m all over the place. I worry that I will need caffeine later.

The kids were up until 11 and 12, respectively. WHY COULDN’T YOU DO THAT AT MICHFEST INSTEAD OF WANTING TO BE IN BED AT 9?! I really wanted to go to the shows and the kids just couldn’t do it. Maybe it is because at Michfest we had to walk 3-9 miles a day. (3 miles roundtrip from our campsite to the main festival area. We camped too bloody far away. I didn’t realize we were in the very farthest spot from everything when we set up. Whoops.)

Youngest child is the one who made it to midnight. I blame the damn nap in the car.

The friend we see today has a kid in the same age range as my kids. They like playing together a lot so this should be fun. Tomorrow we are going to stop and see another fellow I met in the bay area who has since moved full time to Michigan. The next day we get to Pittsburgh to camp in the driveway of one of Noah’s college friends–they unschool their two kids who are barely older than my kids.

Lots going on. A lot of things to think about and remember and rehearse in my head. How to be polite. How to be accommodating. Don’t walk around screaming, “Fuck the police” all the time or it may be problematic.

But you know what? Fuck the police.

I got 15 ant bites in my last hour of striking camp. I don’t god damn know why. I think they were even falling out of the tree because they were landing on my back and biting me really high up–not just my feet. By the last one I was screaming and freaking out because it hurt and then I felt really guilty because I freaked out some neighbors. I’m sorry. That is a lot of bites in a short period.

I didn’t get bit at all by ants any other day.

Between the ants, mosquitos, and lesbians it feels like half of Michigan wanted to eat me. (I thought that line was funny. I didn’t actually get directly hit on at all by any lesbians. They were friendly and not flirtatious.)

Ok, kids are up. Breakfast is had. Must get moving.

Michfest was kinda a big deal.

I am entirely certain that this will turn into a whole series of essays. They may vary in coherence because I had such BIG feelings over the week I was there. I’m having a hard time unpacking my feelings into easily digestible bits.

You know how I never feel like I belong anywhere? Know how I leave every community after a relatively short involvement because I feel like I am poison and I am going to hurt the people there?

Well, I had one rough day during the week but it was one of those days that my period tracker app on my phone says will suck. So I don’t think that is about Michfest. I think that is me being able to have a bad day no matter how awesome things are.

I feel like I ripped my heart out and left it in the woods in Michigan. I will never be fully whole again because I can never return to those womyn and that hurts so much. I got contact information for many and I intend to send them emails tonight after I blog. I want to maintain relationships with these womyn so so so so much.

I’m not normally big on the “womyn” spelling, but it is so integral to the experience of Michfest that I will attempt to use it when I’m writing about the festival. In a weird way it is like saying Deaf culture or Black culture. I want to respect how they think of themselves. It matters how people are represented.

I barely know how to start addressing this. Why was it so intense? I don’t even fucking know. It just was.

I talked to Noah on the phone earlier and he said that it sounds like I have been longing my whole life for a community I didn’t think existed and now I found it in time to lose it. Yeah, that’s kinda it.

Every time I felt panic because, “Ack I need help. Shit.” Someone appeared like magic. Every time I was about to scream at my kids because I was just fucking done some woman yelled from a little distance away, “Hey kiddo! Wanna play?” Then my kids were distracted and I had time to do whatever it was I needed to do.

I felt seen and important.

I have been to many events that try hard to be like this event. They always feel like they fail in some substantial way. I’m not saying Michfest is perfect and all womyn who go are perfect. I’m saying it scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had.

I spent the last day walking around crying because I wish my mom had been able to meet these womyn. I wish she had been able to meet strong, independent, caring womyn. Youngest child kept asking me all week, “What was it like when you came here with your mama when you were a little girl?” No matter how many times I reminded her that I had never been before… (s)he just couldn’t grasp the idea that my mother did not take me to Michfest. It was just unthinkable.

Youngest kiddo was thrilled to “be a girl” all week so I may just use female pronouns for her in this writing because gender neutral is so difficult.

The penultimate day there was a parade from the older girls day care place. I can’t express what it was like watching hundreds of dressed up, having fun little girls marching along yelling at the top of their lungs, “Who runs the world?! GAIA GIRLS!!!!”

I went to workshops. I’m sure I write more about them separately in the future but for now one of them was run by a woman with a psychiatric history not that different from mine. She took those horrifying experiences of being traumatized by institutionalization and became a lawyer and has spent over a decade working on a UN International Treaty for the rights of users and survivors of psychiatric care.

Basically she is fighting to ensure that my government no longer has the right to tie me to a table and inject me with drugs just because they don’t like how I’m behaving.

I don’t think she’ll win in this country. But other countries have ratified the treaty and other people are having better lives because of her work. I feel humbled by her efforts. She is really and truly helping to change the world for the better so that people like me have the right to be treated humanely.

I feel completely staggered by that. Thank you.

I met an awesome homeschooling mom from LA. She is on the last few laps of that journey. Her youngest child is 17. We exchanged emails and I told her I really want to pick her brain in the future about how she has handled issues. She says she really wants to keep talking about these things and she is glad to talk to me.

I went to many workshops that promoted the idea of transwomyn being womyn and they belong on The Land as much as every other womyn. I feel like my point of view was absolutely respected. Yes. There were Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) and we had some spirited conversations.

I got into it with one womyn who was ranting about how angry she is that anti-rape propaganda mentions womyn because “Men are the rapists and they are the ones with the problem. Stop acting like this is a womyn problem.” I said that I know for a fact that womyn rape. She said, “I know. I was raped by a womyn.” I am sure my facial expression spoke volumes. I thought for a minute and said, “I believe that anti-rape propaganda does not necessarily need to mention the gender of perpetrators at all. We need to address the problematic behaviors. Saying that the propaganda should only be aimed at men ignores valuable demographics. If every victim matters, we need to find a way to speak to all predators.”

She didn’t say that much after that. She looked like she was thinking hard.

I didn’t say that I know for a fact that womyn rape because I have done so but I thought it real loud. I had to learn what behaviors were problematic and change them. That required education, training, and effort on my part. Most predators aren’t in my position to chase that education the way I did. I wanted it more than most predators. We need to change our whole society so that the problematic behaviors are recognized earlier and people get the feedback they need to change.

Kind of like how the problem isn’t a kid kicking me in the throat. The problem is the mom saying it is all my fault.

I could barely drag the kids out of the childcare. They were there until closing every time. (Closing for dinner. We didn’t stay out till midnight. I can’t hack that. Even if it is only 9pm California time. We were great at staying on California time when we were two hours ahead. As soon as we hit three hours ahead we adjusted and had to start going to bed at 9pm because we were waking up so fucking early.) We only made it to childcare three days of the week. You had to sign up at 8am the day before and we didn’t always manage. The slots for the littlest area filled up fast.

I don’t think it was all the nekkid womyn although I will admit that I probably checked people out a bit more than was strictly polite. Oh. My. Gawd. So. Much. Hotness.

And yet… there was a fuckton of womyn who were not remotely conventionally “beautiful”. My kids spent a lot of time whispering in my ear, “I thought men weren’t allowed on The Land.” I said, “They aren’t.” “Then why is that man standing there?” “That’s a womyn, honey.” “………………..oh.”

Yup women are fucking diverse and it is awesome. They had a whole parade for bearded womyn. Rock fucking on.

Womyn walked around topless with their mastectomy scars showing. They were beautiful.

I saw womyn of every weight and possible weight distribution they were all beautiful.

I felt so grateful to be near womyn who were so comfortable in their own skins. I felt so grateful to be near womyn who feel they have the right to advocate for themselves and their issues. I felt so grateful to be near so many womyn who are not fucking doing what they are told.

It was funny how many of the older lesbians told me not to swear. Ha. Ha. Ha. No. I’m ignoring you now.

I loved getting to the opening ceremony and hearing a womyn stand up and yell that we NEED TO BE FUCKING PISSED. Rock on, sister.

That is probably enough for the first dump. So many more feelings to sort. In the trans-inclusion workshop the leader said, “This is not a utopia. It’s not safe space–it’s safe enough space. We have an agreement.”

I swear to goodness that blew my mind.

Why can’t spaces work like this when men are present? Why do they feel different?

I have so many feelings about exclusionary space and safe space and…

I need to stop. Arms are hurting. Thank you Michfest. Thank you for everything you have given me. I will try to be worthy.

I’ll catch y’all up

Noah is here! I am much less interested in writing. Instead I am petting him and asking him to rub my back.

The trailer is fixed! This is very exciting.

Uhm… stuff. Chicago pizza is good. I like it best with more meat. However much meat you want to put on it, add some more.

My diarrhea is improving since I wised up on the corn syrup. I’m not pooping like a normal person (I compare my poop to my children and feel so much envy.) but things are improving.

We had a five minute long thunder and lightning storm with hail. Yay Chicago?

Noah flies out tomorrow. I’m glad we get to see him so much in August. We won’t see him in September.

I have some good specific points for revising Outrunning Suicide to be distinctly more inclusive. I’m excited about that.

Oh, I need to go make another post. I’ll do that. On Tuesday we drive out of here early and head to MichFest. After all these years I’m finally going.

 

Catch y’all up

Yesterday was exciting. By exciting I mean shitty. By shitty I mean full of vomiting. Oh it was fun. And violent diarrhea. The kind of sick where you have to sit on the toilet and puke in the bath tub because everything is letting go at once no matter how you feel about it.

I’m sure you all wanted to hear that.

And apparently in Illinois they don’t sell make-you-stop-puking medicine over the counter. You have to go see a doctor. With my out of state insurance and two small children when I can barely stand up. Right. Pedialyte and prayer it is.

It did stop. *phew*

And while I was sick and sick our room key stopped working. Apparently if they give you two keys, using the second key makes the first key not work and then neither works. Why in the fuck did you give me two then?!

While fixing that I discovered that the person who said we could be in this room for eight nights… lied. Saturday night we have to get out. But the front desk people tried to convince me to go somewhere else for one night and come back.

Uhm, probably not.

I’ll go somewhere more expensive with a better bath tub and a door between me and the kids. So I can have sex. Cause after two months of abstinence I’m kinda tapping the floor.

But only for three nights. Whoa we are hemorrhaging money. I’ll come clean at the end of the year when I do my accounting. For now I’m watching the balance and wincing.

I mean, it’s not like we are getting low on money. Noah is better at earning money than I am at spending it. But I want to throw it all at my mortgage, not this trip. Which makes it a matter of priorities not safety.

That’s completely fucking crazy to me. I talked to a woman who likes to travel like me. But she has been stranded several times and she had to ask family to wire her money because she had literally $300 for the trip and that didn’t go far enough.

That’s why I traveled less when I was poor. It’s terrifying. I did it. But not like this. Travel means you run into so many situations where you just simply have to have money.

The god damn axel fell off my trailer. That’s going to cost some money. But I want to camp on it for at least another 9 weeks. Minimum of 9 more weeks. (Lots of time in hotels at Disney World and we get to stay with friends a fair bit.)

I feel like I’m going to have to get a better handle on managing my pain levels before I can do the around the world trip. I may have to devote serious work to healing my body so that I can do that labor. Right now it would be wicked hard.

I’m really enjoying traveling with the kids. They make everything fun and exciting. We spend so much time laughing.

The nice man who offered to tow our trailer has been texting me lists of things to do with the kids while we are here. Today we are going to the county fair. Because that sounds fun.

I will walk slowly. It’s going to be awfully hot.

Talked to my shrink yesterday. She asked how I can work more travel into my life on a smaller scale more frequent basis because this is very energizing for me. I love meeting new people. It is easier for me to emotionally self regulate in new environments. I always feel like I’m on a timer for when people will get sick of me. My anxiety increases as time passes instead of me feeling more comfortable and secure.

This is super annoying.

I’m really hard on my friends. I’m sorry.

When I am mostly only meeting new people it’s easier to keep up a “front” of personality. I may need assistance and I know that the only way I’m going to get it is if I am pleasing. So I keep it up when I’m going from new person to new person.

It’s hard to keep that mask up though. I’m a bitter, angry person. I wish that people didn’t need me to pretend to be happy and energetic in order to deserve being treated decently. It’s like a job.

A job I will never get paid for.

But I am finding that having *no* space for letting myself relax and be more natural is causing me to do better with the kids. I don’t like that. I mean, I’m taking out most points of stress too and that makes it easier to do better with the kids. Hard to tell what causes what. All I know is I’ve been doing remarkably little screaming for me. In two months, much of which has been stressful for one reason or another… I’ve barely screamed. Only a few times. Not even weekly.

That’s doing pretty good for me. Oh my poor children. Well, I say that because it sucks to have someone scream at you at all.

At least my kids get told, “When I scream at you it is because I am angry, frustrated, and I’m out of patience. It isn’t because you deserve being screamed at. That’s me messing up and I’m sorry. You never deserve being screamed at.”

I wasn’t told that as a child. It’s at least something.

I feel really bad that sometimes Eldest Child will say, “Generationally our family is doing much better. Your mom had it bad, you had it bad, I have it pretty darn good and my kids will have it even better!”

It feels weird and awkward.

I mean… I’m glad she thinks she has it pretty darn good. That’s nice to hear. My children assure me regularly that I am nice to them.

I really really really like traveling with my kids. It is a pleasure, joy, and full of laughter. I feel so loved.

The completely non-helpful streak in Duluth is over too. *phew* I think they need breaks from responsibility. Which totally makes sense because they are four and seven.

I just need to learn how to ride the waves better without freaking out about every up and down motion. This is hard.

I learn more and get better with every year.

I love watching the kids sleep together in a puppy pile. Melts my heart.

Clear the head

My arms hurt because I’ve been typing too much. That’s kinda funny. Tonight I went out and bought a bottle of champagne and a bunch of orange juice because holy shit it has been a rough few days.

I’m not looking forward to the diarrhea. But I’m looking forward to a few hours of feeling mellow. I ain’t felt mellow in a while. This is my second alcohol since the trip started so I’m averaging 2 drinks a month on the trip. That’s pretty normal. If I have more of this bottle it’ll up my average.

We’ll see. The kids are watching the Power Puff Girls. I’m tired.

Tonight we had a caramel apple for dinner. It was covered in nuts and white chocolate and milk chocolate. I’m telling you, it’s been a fucking day.

Ok, later we had cornbread and butter. We didn’t *only* have the caramel apple.

And we had jerky. What more could you want from life?! We have blueberries and bananas. That’s some healthy shit.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. I’m trying not to curse with the kids. Mostly because my eldest child told me, “I don’t want to be the kind of person who swears a lot. It sounds angry and I’m really not an angry person.”

So I don’t want to model swearing just the now.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Shit and motherfucker and piss and cocksucker and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

All the fucking shit-tastic motherfucking shit I’m not supposed to say.

You have no idea how hard it is for me to not curse. But I’m doing well. I asked the kids and they said I’ve been doing surprisingly well.

I heard that “surprisingly” you little shit. I love you.

I am doing really well at not cursing in front of them. The words swirl around in my brain and I don’t say them out loud.

Hell, the kids have me working on “shut up”. I’m not even allowed to say that any more! I taught fucking high school BECAUSE I was allowed to say shut up! That was the reason! OH MY FUCKING GOD. REALLY. I CAN’T SAY FUCKING SHUT UP ANY MORE BECAUSE IT IS A BAD WORD?! OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This sucks so much. I’ve been motherfucking resisting this change SINCE I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD. I’M NOT GOING TO GOD DAMN CHANGE FOR YOU!!!!

Ok yes I will. God damnit. I will. I will only fucking curse in my god damn blog and that will be motherfucking it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This doesn’t feel fair. I’ll tell you.

I love you so much. I’ll move mountains for you. I’ll even stop saying shut up if it bothers you.

Because you are that important to me. You and you alone are worth this kind of effort.

But I’ll bitch about you on my blog!

I think it is hilarious (and perhaps problematic) that my kids now say, “I’m not bitching I’m just saying” because they don’t know that “bitching” is a bad word. If they knew they would yell at me to expunge it from vocabulary.

Picture me rolling around on the floor with glee because I got away with something.

Seriously, when I think about it I laugh uproariously. It’s hilarious to me. I’m an asshole.

I’m a potty mouth. I’m a potty mouth. Neiner neiner fucking neiner.

This place will be the last hold out. Here, in my blog, I get to be as motherfucking profane as I GOD DAMN WANT TO BE.

I NEED ONE PLACE.

Don’t bug me about this. If ever someone tells me that I should tone down the cursing on my blog I might literally explode.

I’M DOING SO GOD DAMN WELL IN REAL LIFE. FUCK YOU ALL EVEN IF YOU NEVER THOUGHT THE THING THAT I WANT TO SAY FUCK YOU FOR.

It’s that kind of day.

I’m torn between freaking out about the broken axel and thinking positive things like, “Thank goodness it completely snapped in a parking lot!” and “Thank goodness these nice folks can make me a new axel in a week when I already planned to be here for a week!”

It’s like the universe said, “I know…. Krissy needs a cockup RIGHT NOW since she ain’t going nowhere noways. Muahahahahaha.”

FUCK YOU UNIVERSE.

But not very hard since you were so sweet as to let the axel completely go in the parking lot and not the freeway. That was awful kind of you.

I need to call the old dude! Oh shit. It’s too late at night now. I’ll call tomorrow.

Illinois is so awesome. I need to write this down before I forget.

So we were sitting in the vestibule of a Staples store trying to talk to AAA on the phone. I was on hold a lot. But outside I couldn’t hear the phone over the stupid diesel trucks that wanted to idle RIGHT NEXT TO ME and inside the store seemed a bit rude cause I was practically yelling.

Anyway, we were sitting in the vestibule, and this lady walks by. She said, “Are you all stranded? Do you need a ride home? I can help if you just need a ride.”

Whoa. I’m sitting there with my two kids and you …. just offer a ride. Wow. Thank you. That’s so kind.

I told her we were on the phone with AAA and we were not actually stranded and thank you so much for offering. That’s really kind.

Then we went out to the van to get stuff for the kids to do because we were going to have a wait in front of us. The guy sitting in a truck next to our van was real chatty. He got to talking to us. It started with, “Wow that’s a bright shirt. What does it say?” We talked for a while then the kids and I went into Starbucks to sit a spell.

After a few minutes a gentleman I didn’t recognize walked up and said, “Are you the lady with the problem?” My eyes got big and I nodded and he plopped down on the chair across from me. “Tell me about your problem. I like solving problems.”

I told him, at great length, about what was happening with the trailer. He asked me many questions. At the end he gave me his name and phone number and said if AAA couldn’t tow my trailer he and his brother (the guy in the truck) could handle moving me from point a to point b.

I almost cried. He was so nice.

Then another man stood up and waved me over to his table. When I got there he said, “This is kind of awkward but… are your kids hungry? You’ve had a really hard day and I have five grandkids and I got lucky today with a $200 repair being done for free and I told myself God doesn’t do these things by accident and I heard your story and…. Are your kids hungry?”

I told him that we weren’t hungry, we have a whole van full of food and you are the nicest thing ever.

Holy moly. I’m not sure I’ve ever had four strangers offer that much support in such a short period of time before.

I fucking love Illinois. I’m so glad we broke down here. This place is wonderful. At every hotel they’ve been really nice and sweet and offered us random bonus things because it sucks we are having so much trouble and…

I feel completely overwhelmed. Bad things happen, ok, life is like that. People can be so kind. People sometimes see you struggling and say, “Can I help?”

I’m so glad we are on this journey. Even the hard parts teach me things I want to know.

I am so grateful that mostly I can just solve problems. Throw money at the problem and it will evaporate. That’s awesome.

Thank you, Noah. This is because of you. Not because of me.

It makes me more and more and more and more passionately devoted to the idea of a basic income for all citizens. If having money can provide this much dignity and security we are pieces of shit for not giving it to all citizens as a matter of course.

I’m bringing this idea up over and over and over as I travel. Basic income. Dignity. All citizens are worthy of support.

It is kind of funny to me how many people say they have never heard of this concept before. Really?!

I miss Noah. I miss Noah so much I physically ache. I’m kinda pissed we can’t camp because I had totally figured a way to get private time for fucking and now we are in a hotel room. NOT FAIR!

There was a part of me that thought about getting two rooms right next to each other just for the secks. I decided that was a bit expensive.

I want sex. Whoa I want to get off. Like whoa. I’m getting off when Noah is here. Period.

Funny how I’m not masturbating. I tried the other day for like a minute and then stopped because it was pointless. Not happening.

I’m tired. But the kids are staying on California time. Have I mentioned how much this sucks for me? I’m letting it happen so we can maybe see fireworks at Disney World. We won’t see them without the time change advantage. My kids will stay up until “midnight” and I’ll feel like they are impressively night owls and then we’ll go home.

Yay home. I miss Wonderland.

Almost August. I miss my home. Don’t go home till the end of November. Suck it up, wench. You did this to yourself. Crazy to think I have almost four months until this journey is over. Why crazy? Because I want Noah so bad.

He’s coming in three more days! Less than that!

It’ll be ok. We don’t have another 7 week stretch without him. Yay! I want Noah. I miss Noah.

Noah helps me feel like it is ok for me to exist even though I’m problematic. I do something positive for him.

That’s a lot of why I’m confused about how rapists should be treated by society. They might do something positive for someone. How much of that matters?

I don’t know.

Life is so complicated. I feel so incompetent.

I can swear here.

I posted something on the kid blog to reflect the adventure we’re having. Then I come over here where I can say FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCKING FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Can’t say that on the kid blog. Not kosher.

So, for those who haven’t gotten frantic texts and for those who don’t read Twitter, let me catch you up on today’s excitement.

We were driving from Milwaukee to Kankakee, which is near Chicago. We pulled off the highway into a Home Depot parking lot because I wanted some scrap lumber for a thing. Turns out they had no scrap lumber. What the fuck?

Anyway. As we are pulling into the parking lot I hear a horrifying noise and I stop and jump out and look…

The wheels are not under the bed where they are supposed to be. One is where it belongs. The other is… kind of trailing behind. Oh shit.

That’s bad. I pulled the trailer out of the main part of the road and blocked a bunch of parking spaces. That maneuver shredded my tire.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Ok. I called AAA. It took them four hours to come get us.

The kids played on the grass like the delightful wonderful children they are. I am so fucking lucky my kids are so awesome.

The tow truck driver didn’t really know what he was doing. That was… hilarious. And it’s Sunday so almost everything is closed anyway. Eventually after driving around to several shops some were closed, some turned us away cause they don’t do that kind of repair, we found a place and dropped the trailer off. It’ll be fixed in the morning. I hope.

But the bikes are locked to a post in the Home Depot parking lot because they won’t tow a trailer with anything on it. 100% of the other stuff is in the van. Which makes it kind of hard to get at anything. I’m frustrated.

I don’t know if they will be able to fix the axel. There is the distinct possibility that trailer is just dead. I do not have separate insurance on it. I do not know what I’m going to do.

I will wait till the morning and find out what my options are. I can’t make a decision right now. But I’m taking a fuck ton of medication right now. I’m wired for sound.

The first several hotels only had smoking rooms available.

When we got here, 12 hours after we left Milwaukee I looked so fucking fried the nice lady at the registration desk gave me a discount on the room because she feels bad that anyone has a day like this. Thanks. That’s really sweet of you.

On one hand… it was a stressful day. On the other hand… at worst I’m out a few thousand dollars.

And I’m not in a position where that will cripple me. And I kind of want to cry about that.

I’m not sure why I’m feeling so upset that none of these financial problems are a problem but I’m really upset. I feel like a shitty person because my problem will just slow down the rate I will pay off my house. I really want it paid off in two years. Might take three if I hemorrhage money.

That feels really bad right now and I don’t know why. I’m really tired.

My body hates me.

This one will be all gross and stuff. Like I do.

I stayed in Duluth long enough to get back to solid poop. That was very exciting after weeks of diarrhea. It wasn’t like, “normal poop” but it was formed and I was satisfied with that. Well, today it is back to full on liquid. I hurt. My belly is clenching and churning and HURTS.

This on top of my neck, arms, and back hurting like a motherfucker. I’m driving along crying because it hurts. Which is not so fun.

Headache. I’ve had a headache for days. I kind of want to just chop it off.

Right now I’m guessing that part of this is the heat cycling. My body is flipping the fuck out. I hurt and hurt and hurt.

But the AirBnB hosts have WiFi that the iPad can pick up (haven’t been able to use Netflix since Grandpa’s house) so the kids think this place is dandy.

Ugh. I feel like I should go do something fun. But I want to puke.

*thud*

This weekend was active. I don’t know how my friend can do that on the weekend then go work all day. I’m crispy fried tired.

Maybe this is related to my shrink telling me that in her opinion I will never be able to hold a full time job again?

I have stock going. We are having soup for dinner. Buddhist vegetarian soup. Which is to say, made with meat stock but with no meat in it because that is the level of “vegetarian” the house keeps to.

Everyone gets to be different. No, they aren’t Buddhist. But I first heard about “meat products are fine but not the flesh” from a friend who was describing her parents, who are Buddhist.

In my head this is now a thing. There’s vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, Buddhist vegetarians, and omnivores.

And I’m totally cool with going with people to where they are. I just need to be told. So I’m making Buddhist vegetarian soup.

I’m not sure why I feel so flattened. I feel like I got hit with a brick. Being in the sun too much? We did go out three separate times this weekend. We were outside playing in the water/hanging out near the park for at least 10 hours split up over two days and three outings.

Break!

The feelings, they burn in my belly.

I am really struggling with the fact that I can’t wake up and medicate because I’m never sure when or if I’m driving. That’s feeling really overwhelming right now. I’m crispy fried because of the emotional bouncing. It’s getting really hard. At home I create more of a baseline. On the road I don’t have a baseline. I’m taking medication to make sure I sleep every night (or else we would be aborting and going home) but the days are hard.

I’ve been diagnosed with multiple anxiety disorders. It is entirely reasonable that I feel so anxious I want to puke most of the time. It sucks, but it makes sense.

I feel like, if I lived in Duluth and could invite these folks over to my house so they could see my rules in action… we could get along like a house on fire and spend lots of time together. I think if the kids could experience the different sets of rules as a comparison, things would get easier.

I’m a bombastic person. When I am constantly, only, trying to meld into someone else’s rules (when I don’t really know what they are and I’m guessing and trying to not be too offensive) it’s hard. I am hard to deal with when I’m trying to gentle down to other people fast without really knowing the parameters of what is ok.

Different people have different boundaries. It’s hard figuring out. Some people don’t mind the fact that we suddenly shriek loudly in the middle of a game. Other people flip out and act like we are monsters who just burned their house down. Some people don’t care that I swear, some people spend their entire time near me giving me dirty looks and letting me know that they don’t approve.

It’s hard to guess what people will be like.

So we’ve been doing a lot of adapting and that’s super stressful and hard. We’re doing pretty darn well, I think, but my central nervous system is acting like I’ve been dancing on a telephone wire for a few days. I’m getting those bbbzzzzzzt jolts in my chest and I feel jumpy and twitchy and discombobulated.

I am grateful beyond the ability of words to convey that I am being given this opportunity. My wonderful friends are opening their homes and their kind hearts to me. It is stressful because I believe everyone in the world should hate me and want me to die. My friends are being wonderful to me. I am not complaining about my friends.

(I am complaining a little about my friend’s kids screaming “Go away” so many times. But they are kids. I have a “kids are being kids and that’s annoying” complaint about the kids. We’re negotiating and it’s going way better.)

Frankly, after I had some chats with the boys about, “If you want to get what you want to get… let’s find some different words and tactics. I can help you actually get what you want instead of just screaming and pissing everyone off.”

Kids like it when you teach them how to manipulate. Muahahaha.

I told my friend that I didn’t think her kids would like me if I stayed around here long term because they are very impatient and demanding when they talk to her and if I heard it a lot I would start working on them. “That’s not how you talk to your mother. She is not your employee. Try again.” She laughed and said she would love it and she thinks that they would long-term benefit and learn to see the value in me.

Heh.

I told her that lots of kids have strong feelings about me. I’m a polarizing figure. They can love or hate me. Sometimes both at the same time. It’s funny when kids can’t stay away from me because they are so drawn to me but most of what they want to do is hit me or slam things into my shins. Little bastards. We work it out.

Sometimes I wonder if those kids like that I will sit there and discuss boundaries with them verbally in great detail. “If you smack me this hard it feels like a love tap. If you smack me as hard as you did the first time it feels like you are saying you don’t like me and I’m going to get up and leave the room. Don’t do that to me again.” Kid goes back to give me 34,721 love taps.

Whatever.

I don’t know about other people but I’ve always had a bitch of a time figuring out how hard I should or shouldn’t touch people. Folks vary so much. Some people if you touch them gently they don’t notice. They will ignore you and go on with their day. You need to Get Their Attention with a firmness that would be a major boundary violation for someone else. It’s fucking complicated. The line between “Getting your attention” and “assault” is razor thin and you have to dance on top of it sometimes.

I think it is a lot of the reason I needed to hit people so much when I was a kid. I needed to have the experience of finding out that some people barely flinch when punched and some people are on the floor sobbing when you flick them with your finger.

We all get to be different. We all get to have our own experiences of living in our bodies. But I get why it is hard to talk about concepts like assault and rape. There isn’t a standard WAY TO KNOW about these issues because people vary.

If I were kicked in the course of a martial arts class… I would not feel assaulted. If I am kicked in the middle of what is supposed to be not-that-rough-play… it feels like assault.

Context is important.

So many of these things are about individual viewer judgment. I cannot count how many people have presumed to tell me that I haven’t been raped I just made bad decisions.

I’m the one who knows I *did not want* that to happen to me. You thinking that I should have magically found a way to fight harder in order to make it “count” as rape is… irrelevant.

Learning how to fight people off of your body is not an instinct everyone is born with. I’ve had to fight and struggle to learn very hard over many years to defend myself. I didn’t when I was a little kid. I just went limp and let it happen.

I don’t want to be that any more and I want my kids to never be like that.

So it’s my fault I just let it happen. It’s my fault I didn’t risk greater injury so that someone else would feel ok about calling what happened to me rape. I didn’t earn their regard.

I didn’t earn the right to call being kicked in the throat an assault. I would have had to be a perfect victim. I am not. I’m a complicated bitch. I would have had to… I don’t know… been kicked by someone who wasn’t white before people would have been willing to listen.

When I hear white women tell me they are afraid of men of color I snort in derision. I’ve never had a man who was not white touch me nor insult me nor assault me. I mean, I’ve been verbally approached but when I said no with a torrent of swear words they turned away with their hands thrown up. I don’t look like a target to them.

Just to white men.

My kids and the kids who had been screaming “go away” actually got along very well yesterday. I think this is mostly because I was a fascist and I managed to talk my friend into telling her kids to stay off the screens. We play nicely when folks aren’t screaming “Go AWAY” while playing a violent video game where they don’t want to be distracted. If we can’t game together in a friendly way then stop gaming. Go play instead.

I’m going to have to get to a point where I let my kids deal with the fact that if they want to be gamers they are going to have to learn how to deal with hundreds, nay thousands of fucking men and boys who are going to scream at them to go away. This is the softball early version.

This is why I don’t play fucking video games. Too many boys and men have screamed at me like this. It’s not a fucking fun sounding hobby any more. Sounds like a nightmare. I can get to the point of liking something only to have people of a different gender scream hysterically that I have to just GET OUT NOW.

I have huge triggers around this. I wish my fucking daughter didn’t want to be a fucking gamer. UGHGUGHGHGHFGHGHADfoihaweifkjhds;gfh;eovwaekln

AND I’M UN-FUCKING-MEDICATED AS I DEAL WITH THIS GAMER ASS HOLE BULLSHIT

Some day I will have to get over my brothers. Hopefully before my friend’s mother in law does. Holy crap.

In one place we visited we had tacos for dinner. Mother in law *shoved* everyone out of the way to fix a huge heaping plate of taco fillings, then she grabbed a big stack of taco shells and retreated into a corner. There was enough on her plate to feed my family of four at home. “When I was a kid I learned to eat tacos this way because otherwise my brothers didn’t let me have any.”

Aren’t you in your late 60’s? You know how you literally never leave the house because you are agoraphobic? There is some possibility you don’t need to eat like you are doing physical exercise in the Alaskan wilderness any more. You live in a big city and you never leave your house. You probably don’t need to rush to take four peoples worth of food and then eat it as fast as you can swallow.

Hopefully I will get to a healthier relative place than that with video games. I’m not nasty about my kids playing. I’m nasty about it turning into a nasty fight. If there is a lot of “go away” screaming I’m going to get really nasty.

Why are people so damn nasty to everyone? Why in the hell can’t we ask for things without being a complete asshole?

Oh man. Oh shit. The kids nailed me on something. I was talking to the two boys here about tone and shut up and what it means and how it is demeaning and “shut up” is something that is only supposed to be said by someone with power to someone they have power over and that’s a lot of why it is demeaning–it isn’t supposed to be used between equals. It doesn’t work. My darling children turned to me and said, “If it is demeaning you have to stop saying that to us. That’s not ok.”

Shit. I need to stop defining things for them.

First: I WISH I HADN’T PROPERLY EXPLAINED DEMEANING. Then I wish they would let me demean them just a little bit with the odd shut up. Kids say no. We are breaking up with that term.

THIS IS THE CONFORMITY I HAVE REFUSED FOR THIRTY FUCKING YEARS OF PEOPLE TRYING TO CLEAN UP MY POTTY MOUTH. YOU PEOPLE ANNOY THE CRAP OUT OF ME.

But I said I’d try. Eldest said she would be calling me on every slip and reminding me that it is not ok to demean them.

I love that child so much my heart soars. I look forward to knowing you as an adult my precious.

My kids have my fierce requirement to be respected… without all the breakage that makes me brittle underneath. It’s really nice to be around.

Eldest child told me she thought she was “bad” for coming and misrepresenting what the other grown up meant about leaving soon. I said, “Well–I wouldn’t call it bad. I would say it was annoying or irritating or selfish. I wouldn’t say bad. Let’s talk about “bad”. How about if you tell me a few things you think are bad then I’ll tell you a few things I think are bad.”

Every single example she gave me I told her, “Nope that’s annoying. Nope, that’s irritating. Nope, that’s selfish.” She finally said, “If being bad doesn’t mean being annoying or irritating or selfish, what does it mean?”

I said, “Remember how we were at the lake earlier and everyone was having fun throwing rocks?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember how once or twice you threw a little bit to close to someone and M and I both freaked out and said THROW AWAY FROM PEOPLE!?!”

“Yeah.”

Ok, let’s say… oldest boy from that family was being a jerk-face. People do that some time. Let’s say he did something you really didn’t like. If you picked up a rock and threw it at his head… THAT WOULD BE BAD. It could cause a concussion. It could cause him to drown and die. You don’t get to make choices that risk other peoples lives. THAT’S BAD. If I asked you to get out of the swimming hole and wait on the side while I went to the bathroom and instead of waiting you took off and went down the river because you want to see where the river meets with Lake Superior… that would be BAD right now because you are too little. Your body could easily be swept into the current and you could die. We wouldn’t be able to find you and save you. That would be BAD. If you did that when you were 16 and you had more body mass and more awareness of how to keep yourself safe… I’d be annoyed if you didn’t tell me in advance. It wouldn’t be bad.”

“Bad is about risking your life or someone else’s life because you just don’t care enough to treat life like it matters. Bad is not about being a little irritating or a little selfish or a little annoying. Those things are part of being human and people learning how to live with one another’s differences.”

“Many of the things that annoy me now, I will get used to and in the future I won’t feel annoyed. I feel annoyed now because I’m adjusting to a new person–I have to adjust to you every day because you change so fast–and that’s work. More work feels annoying. That doesn’t mean you should stop changing! It means I get to feel annoyed for a while and that’s ok.”

“I love you. I love that you have so much agency and strength and you want to go out and have impact on the world. Sometimes you are going to frustrate the shit out of me because you doing what you know to be right will not be the most convenient thing for me. That doesn’t mean you should change! It means I need to adjust. Adjusting can be a messy process.”

“I’m trying to have patience with you and sometimes I fail. That’s what me being impatient and fussy is about. It’s about me failing to have something I need to have. It’s not your fault and I’m not mad at you for being more than I can handle sometimes. I *want* you to be more than I can handle. But that means sometimes I’ll feel annoyed.”

“Me having feelings does NOT mean that you all of a sudden “are” something because of my fleeting feelings. You are who and what you are. You are not about me. My feelings are about me, not you. Your feelings are about you and not me. You want me to approve of you 100% of the time, so you feel kind of bad when I don’t. Sweet pea, you have to adjust to that too. You need to stop needing to have anyone approve of you 100%. It’s not going to happen in life. You still need to do what is right for you. Haters gonna hate. You need to be you.”

“And we’ve talked a lot about being selfish, right? You have to be a certain level of selfish or you will die. If you are too selfish then people don’t want to be around you. Selfish isn’t bad. Selfish is mandatory for survival. But sometimes you forget that an issue isn’t truly about survival and you are a little more selfish than strictly required and that’s annoying. It’s not BAD. It’s annoying. We all have to calibrate honey. Better to occasionally be a little too selfish because that’s annoying than to be not selfish enough… cause then your body and soul will get sick. It needs balance baby.”

Kiddo snuggled up to me with the biggest, warmest eyes and said, “I love you so much. I’m really glad I get you as my mom.”

I am so glad I get you as my child. Your kindness and generosity of spirit blow me away day by day.

Youngest child wanted to take care of me yesterday. This meant sitting in my lap and singing to me until I didn’t feel angry any more. It worked. I’m not sure I’ve had many times in my entire life when I have calmed down from feeling angry so fast. It was loving and sweet and wonderful and I am so grateful I get to know these people. I feel so loved and blessed. I don’t deserve them but I have them anyway and no one is going to take them from me. Mine.

I’m having feelings about push/pull. But you know what? People are worth figuring it out. The four kids watched All Dogs Go To Heaven together last night (on VHS–a first for my kids) and my friend and I had a wonderful grown up conversation. I really enjoy her company. She’s a delightful, well educated, insightful woman.

And it helps that she is hawt, hawt, hawt. It’s always kind of my friends to be so very easy on the eyes. Sigh.

Ahem. Not that I’m looking.

Ahem.

I’m being good.

I miss you Noah. Abstinence sucks. I can’t even masturbate. I don’t have enough privacy. THIS SUCKS. Eleven more days until I see Noah. And even when I see Noah I have no idea how we are going to make this happen.

Maybe I should go to a hardware store and get some lumber pieces so I can take everything out of the back of the van and put it on little risers under the side of the tent. Hmmmmm. Then I could have SOME horizontal space with a modicum of privacy. Won’t be fancy but I’ve fucked in smaller cars.

I’m thinking about you Noah. I’ll find a way. I’m climbing the walls.

This is the kind of problem I like solving.

Totally want a power strip. If I had a power strip I could put the plug in fridge under the awning and in places where I have an extension cord I could run my computer and the fridge. Like fancy.

I’m not sure what we are doing today. Probably more swimming. Even though everyone but me and my youngest burned a little yesterday. (We were napping in the shade. Like smart people.)

Maybe we’ll wait until a little later in the day and I’ll unload the back of the van and we can go to the farther sandy beach where you can have a bonfire and we can go/stay late enough for dinner. That might be fun. Apparently her family is into fire. I told her that if she and her kids are willing to build a fire my kids would be ecstatic because… I don’t do fires. We’ve been mostly camping for almost six weeks and not one fire to date. She looked shocked. She asked me why not. I said, “My brother self immolated. I’m just not real into fire.”

She agreed that it made sense. Oh good. But I don’t refuse to let my kids near fire…. I just want a responsible adult who is comfortable nearby.

Ha, yesterday at one point my eldest came in and said, “Her eldest (kid said name I’m not doing so) just hit me and I’m not sure why.”

“Well, was it an attempt to be playful?”

“I’m not sure. But it hurt.”

“Maybe you should go ask him, “Did you mean that whack to be playful? Because it didn’t feel playful–it hurt.”

So she did. Verbatim.

He said, “It didn’t hurt. I only did this.” and he did it again. And again my eldest said “OW!”

He looked surprised.

I said, “Well, different people are differently sensitive. My eldest has always had an extremely tender head. Brushing involves crying. She hates having people gently stroke her hair because it feels too intense… it may be that you were trying to be gentle and you didn’t know that you have to be even more gentle than that with her head. She really doesn’t like pressure.”

He looked a bit surprised. But then said, “Oh. Ok I can adjust to that.”

I said, “Yay!” My eldest hugged him. He looked… perplexed.

We are so funny.

Things improved after I got my head out of my ass. I’m telling you, ALL OF THIS WOULD BE EASIER IF I WAS STONED.

I am having a lot of fun here. My children continue to be the center of my world and I am so grateful for them. They make me feel so much joy and love. I feel appreciated. I feel valued.

I don’t feel like my kids are biologically dependent on me so ok fine we are together. I feel like my kids like me.

That doesn’t always happen. I’m very lucky.

Said to kiddo.

Oh! Last night youngest child stayed up to talk to me because he’s been having big feelings. He’s very sad about all the “shut up” screaming. He cried a lot as we talked about it. So we lay in bed and strategized how to handle it. Kiddo wants to initiate a conversation at breakfast today.

“I would really like it if you would play with us instead of your computer while we are here. We are leaving very soon and we fight a lot when you focus on the computer. Will you please play with me? I really like Lego’s and I notice you have a lot of them.”

We worked for a while before kiddo found phrasing he liked. I didn’t come up with most of it. I just gave feedback on bossiness vs asking. “Well if you say he HAS to do this… he might get his back up. How can we phrase it so it sounds like a polite request.” Kid says, “Good point. Let me try again.”

I love my kids. I love my kids. I love my kids.

Ok, now we are all up.

I’m happy about this.

Ok, so I need to stop doing the “all the rage I feel towards men is focused on a particular little boy” thing. Which means I need to find a way of personalizing each kid… one at a time. Oh god.

So I asked the eldest son to come downstairs while I moved laundry around. I said, “I’m having a real problem with your tone of voice and it seems like maybe you aren’t enjoying mine either. Can we negotiate?”

We had a great chat. He expressed extreme frustration with my kids and I gave him several paths for dealing with us without ever screaming, “Shut up or get out” at us. I said, “We are all contrary assholes. Have you noticed how when you tell us to shut up we get louder?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. We’re like that. Would you like tips on a way to quiet us down that will actually work?”

“Yeah. That would be nice.”

“I can do that!”

So we talked about how to talk to us. We talked about when and how to ask for interventions. I expressed extreme desire to help him defend his space when that is appropriate. I said, “If you come and get me before you are pissed off and frustrated then you never have to get frustrated or pissed off. My kids can be very rude. If they are in your space in a way that doesn’t work for you, come get me and we’ll work it out. You don’t have to put up with people violating your boundaries… but this isn’t how to communicate your boundaries. Let’s talk about stuff.”

He said that sounded really great. He’d like help defending his boundaries. He tried to tell me, “That’s just how people talk to each other here. Everyone is like that.”

I said, “Well then you get to have the wonderful, magical experience of having people visit you from far away who have different boundaries and you get to adapt and learn how to treat us. It’s good for your character.”

He kind of stammered a bit and looked confused. When we walked back upstairs mom was doing that, “Uh huh you got told and I’m going to pretend I wasn’t listening to every word” thing.It was cute.

Then I stayed awake way too long strategizing how I want to talk to a few people about a few other things. I’ll need to initiate a conversation about closure when I get back to the bay area. That’s going to be festive and fun.

I am glad I don’t have to do it soon.

The kids continue to make me feel like I’m doing something worthy with my life and time. I love them so much.

Think I’m good.

After three phone calls, an hour on their website, and a password reset… I think we are good for Disney World. Turns out I was dumb and I missed a night in between Orlando and Vero Beach. Hm. Not sure how I’m going to handle that. Also, I hadn’t double booked things… I just went back and forth with my original reservations and I have too many emails in my inbox. Oh. That’s better than I thought I did.

I have so many awesome options.

You know what fucking rocks? My life. I’m an emotional, hysterical whiner… but I can throw money at problems and have fun. I am so ridiculously lucky.

 

Can’t sleep (crud)

Hoo boy. I’m tired. I’m having big feelings. I’m not able to sleep because of racing thoughts. Maybe a dump will help. I am not happy about the fact that I have adjusted to waking up at 4am Minnesota time given that we didn’t go to sleep till 10pm.

Last night I had lots of big feelings. My friend invited us to go with her to a craft night. I’m sorry we didn’t just stay in our tent. The four kids (my two and my friend’s two) were the only ones there and they had to stay in the basement because it was raining heavily and the kids were too whiny to stay outside.

The problem was the 10 year old got in front of a tv and started uhm… well he spent the whole time yelling at the other kids to shut up or leave the room because he wanted to “watch his show”. That was not appropriate for my 4 year old because it was scaring the crap out of my kid.

I was pretty pissy. I was so pissy that when the other kids started being even snottier I got my kids together and left and we went and had fucking ice cream. Even after we ate pie because you know what? If a ten year old spends that much god damn time telling me to shut up so he can watch tv I want ice cream to help keep me from screaming at him.

It worked.

I did spend a lot of time intervening. “This is not your house and you do not get to make the rules. Stop telling the other kids to leave. It is not your place to tell them to leave the only room they are allowed to be in.”

But I couldn’t leave the room or join in adult conversation because I had to mediate the ten year old yelling at every one. I said, “This is not your house. Stop it” dozens of times. I told the kid he had to put the remote control down on the table because it is not his and he does not get to have a death grip on it the whole time because other people get to have choices.

He absolutely refused to compromise so the other kids could watch what they wanted. He just threw a tantrum that he wanted to watch the one show he has been wanting to watch.

I was uhm, not impressed.

I went and got mom when the younger boy kept jumping on the other adult in the room and would not stop when he was told no over and over. The other adult kept turning to the 10 year old brother and saying, “Handle this.” Uhm, no. There is only an 18 month difference in their ages. That’s not appropriate. I went and got mom and said the kid wouldn’t stop throwing his whole body on someones neck when they say no. She dealt with it. Yay!

The tv thing wasn’t a problem but I won’t be working hard to make sure my kids can stay in contact with these kids. If they do the work, whatever, but I’m not going to push continued contact.

I don’t feel like this is going so swimmingly well that I need to try hard for a permanent relationship. It’s fine for a week. Then we can move on.

I’m going to keep contact with my friend. I like her as much as I thought I would. She’s really sweet and wonderful. I hope I get to see her again someday.

But by the time I do her kids will probably be grown and that’ll be fine. They will move on with their lives. They will move on to people who don’t mind them acting entitled to full control and silence around the tv. Psh.

I got sick of that shit when I was in elementary school.

It’s not like it was a big deal. But I’m thinking about it and I’d rather be sleeping. We have to manage to get along with these kids for another five or so days. I find that I like monitoring conversations between the kids because I’m intervening more than I usually do with my kids interactions. These boys have a very strong reality distortion field and their reality does not match mine. So I’m arguing hard and firmly and immediately when they tell my kids how it is.

“That’s one point of view all right. There are lots of people who think that is absolutely wrong though.”

I get the impression these boys are not at all used to be challenged, let alone by a woman. I’m getting some looks that would set me on fire if I weren’t 75% water.

Helps me deal with the cold.

I wasn’t that sad about missing the adult discussion last night. I listened in for the first 15 minutes before I went downstairs to moderate. The whole group got to listen to one woman discussing the convoluted route by which a rooster is being passed around her family. Ok. Obviously it was a fascinating story to the others because they asked a lot of follow up questions. This story went on and on. Ok. I can go moderate children instead.

It’s not that I’m anti-chicken. I just… don’t care that much about the migratory path of specific birds through other peoples families. I’m shallow.

Apparently folks are getting salmonella because they are spending too much time hugging their backyard chickens. I find this… kind of hilarious. It’s mostly white people getting it. The comments I read were, “That’s because black people barely hug their dogs and aren’t going to be dumb enough to hug backyard chickens.” I laughed at that. Yeah, I know a lot of people who hug their chickens. I don’t get it. They are barnyard animals who carry diseases humans don’t want to get. Where is your sense of self-preservation?!

People confuse me.

I tell my kids not to touch birds in general because many birds carry diseases humans don’t want to get. Not because they are doing anything wrong, just because cross contamination is a real problem.

I guess other people don’t worry about such things. Fair enough.

You know? I don’t worry about a lot of things that other people worry about. Like walking around barefoot. I shouldn’t judge people hugging their chickens. But they are getting salmonella. It’s kind of a problem.

Ok, I’m going to judge. Sorry.

But I grew up hating chickens because I had some fly at me when I was little. I’m used to backyard chickens being mean little bastards who need to be kicked away from you. I don’t do this when I visit my friends houses, of course. But that’s what I grew up seeing. It is odd to me sometimes when I see just how humane my friends are to their backyard chickens. I’ve seen some chickens recently who live better than I did for most of my childhood.

It’s kind of intense.

Lots of feelings.

I was talking to a woman born and raised in Alaska. A white woman. It came up over the course of conversation that I am interested in research about sexual assault. I mentioned that I read that rape is at a 100% rate in Alaska and the woman shook her head furiously. I amended and said, “I apologize. The research I was reading was specifically aimed at Native women.” “Oh of course. White women don’t get even looked at wrong or whoever does the looking will get shot. Native women get raped all the time because that’s just their culture and you can’t change the men.”

I felt violently ill. I mean, I know that such situations exist and have for most of history. White women will be protected at all costs and non-white women just… well… what are they here for anyway, right?

I felt so ill.

I know that people behave that way. I don’t often end up in spaces where people are willing to just flat say it out loud. I’ve been feeling awful since this conversation happened. I am so angry that white women will present this as being “just how it is” as if it is ok. It’s fine to rape brown women but white women are sacrosanct.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck you.

I’m white trash. I’m the rape-able kind of white girl. So I’m not real ok with the idea that it’s ok to throw some women under the bus as long as the good kind of white girls are protected. FUCK YOU.

It’s not that all white girls would be protected. It’s that they will protect the girls who have families who are willing to go shoot people in defense of them.

You know what? I’d be protected if I said a brown man raped me. I’ve only been raped by white men. That’s not worth making a fuss over.

That makes me sick and angry and I hate the whole fucking universe. Because that is how it works. I would be worth defending against brown men. Just not white men. THAT’S NOT GOD DAMN OK.

I am in my feelings.

I am so tired of seeing evidence that if white men are involved the other people involved in a problem are just not that important. The way Dylan Roof (the piece of shit terrorist who shot nine people in a church) was arrested and taken to Burger King in a bullet proof vest on his way to prison makes me fucking sick.

It makes me wish I believed in just bombing the fuck out of every police station in America. But I don’t and I won’t be doing so. (I’m not threatening anyone here.) I kind of wish I had the resolve to do it but I really don’t.

I know innocent people would be hurt and I have enough bad karma, thanks.

The police arrested Sandra Bland for not signaling a turn properly. Then they beat her head on concrete. Then they claim she committed suicide instead of going back to her life and her brand new dream job.

I am very angry at the police in my country. Fine, this was a Texas police force that is already known to be racist and problematic… WHY IS THIS OK IN MY FUCKING COUNTRY?

This is not the home of the free or the brave. This is the home of racist pieces of shit who like to think white people are superior. We aren’t.

And then there are some other people who live here too, of course.

If black women cannot go about their daily lives without assault or harassment this isn’t a free country.

As long as we tell every Muslim in existence that must personally work against Muslim extremists or all Muslims are evil…. where are the white Christians showing up to prove that Dylan Roof does not represent them?

Where?

Ok, there are white people protesting. There are white people working for justice. But not nearly as many as are working to perpetuate a racist, unequal system. And that blows.

I don’t want the status quo. I want things to change.

“That’s just the way it is.”

Well, that’s just the way people like you have made it and you want it to stay that way. It’s not exactly like that in all places through all points in history. So that doesn’t mean it must stay this way. It can change. It was made this way. We can make it another way.

I was reading something written about the perception of race. A woman did some research, small scale, asking people about their racial experiences. Apparently the white people involved just… didn’t really answer some of the questions because they couldn’t understand the question. White people usually do not become aware of their race, they become aware that other people are different from them. White people become aware there are non-white people. They don’t become aware that they are white. Whereas for people of other races, they have a process of discovering that they are “different”.

Because white isn’t different it’s just “normal”, right?

For me, I spent many of my formative years in neighborhoods where I was… the only white child. I grew up having people tell me that I wasn’t welcome to share the food that was being freely passed back and forth in the cafeteria because, “White people can’t handle spice.” I knew I was different and wrong very young. Being white wasn’t good.

I think I knew that I was white and that it was a bad thing before I moved to Oklahoma so that means I figured it out before I was seven. I knew that people like me weren’t good. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do wrong, but I knew.

I was always very aware of the kids in the back of the classroom muttering about all the dead white men and how “they weren’t so great”. I heard that more than I heard the teachers telling me how great the Founding Fathers were.

I’ve never believed in white superiority to the best of my knowledge. I found out about slavery in America hand in hand with, “The white people couldn’t get the work done so they had to steal people who *could* do the work.” White people aren’t necessarily that good at getting shit done, but we are real good at subjugating people who can get work done. And the whole time the white overseer is sitting on his lazy ass screaming about how people aren’t working hard enough. Yeah, I know how it works.

When I got into third grade I became obsessed with books about social justice. I wouldn’t have described them that way when I was a kid. I would have said, “I like reading about people who have suffered terribly.” Mildred D. Taylor was one of my saving graces. Her books were wildly influential on me. I read a lot of Holocaust survivor stories.

I needed to hear that there were people who had it worse than me. I feel guilty for that now. But I was being beaten and raped periodically by a variety of men. I needed to believe that someone had survived worse than me so that I could keep getting up.

I’m still here so I’m not that mad at myself.

I am perfectly aware that there are bigger problems in the world than one kid being snotty about having control of a remote control. But when that is the problem right in front of you, well, you have to start somewhere. If you want the world to be different you don’t walk past problems and leave them for someone else. You know that no one else cares enough to solve the problem. You do it or it won’t get done.

I didn’t change the kid. But I did present one solid brick wall of boundaries so he can know that such things do exist. No, you don’t get to bully everyone out of the room. No.

I’m also having big, explodey, bouncing feelings because someone I love very much and I feel very codependent with is having problems with someone else in their life. I know a lot of people who are complicated and layered. They have special needs. People with special needs are willing to tolerate my long list of special needs. I feel big feelings when folks start trying to say my folks with special needs have to start Behaving How I Want Right Now.

We can’t just jump through that hoop you put in front of us. Nope. That won’t work. We can’t. Notice the label we came with that says, “Hi, I’ve learned some areas where I struggle and they are _______ and _____ and _____ so that thing you just decided I MUST DO…. I can’t. No, really.”

And sometimes people are snotty about it. And decide we must jump through that hoop or else.

I pick “or else”, mother fucker.

You know what? The pizza for dinner wasn’t worth the aggravation of fighting over the tv last night. I wish we had stayed in the tent. After a marathon day at the children’s museum… Oy.

I want to go along and do what other people want. Then I come against glitches and then I really don’t want to do what other people want. Like, I’m not going to keep my kids silent so you can watch a show that is too scary for them. Uhm, no. There are literally hundreds of options you are discarding because you want ONE THING and everyone else is suggesting lots of things and you are being the sticky wicket here.

It’s not a big deal. But it’s the thing that happened less than 12 hours ago and I’m thinking about it. It’s a microcosm of a macro problem.

I am not giving in.

If you act entitled my answer is no you can’t have your way. I really don’t give a flying fucking shit that you don’t get to watch Netflix every day and you feel bitter about that. Waa waa fucking waaaaaaaa.

It’s not the kid and it’s not this event. I’m feeling… I don’t know.

I need to get off Twitter for a few days. I’m making myself crazy.

I am irritable as fuck. That’s what is going on. And the worst thing to happen to me in days was a ten year old having a God complex about a remote control.

I really don’t get to bitch about my current life. I’m in a great damn spot.

Heck, outside of the internet stuff I’m getting along ok with my friend’s kids. But I’m fierce about the way they are being snotty about some things. Nope. Holding the line.

I don’t care that I’m a guest. You don’t get to walk on my four year old.

If my kid isn’t allowed to leave the room. You aren’t allowed to scare my child.

Mama Bear. Rawr.

It’s becoming a real problem that the kid is so tall. The kid is taller than most six year olds we deal with… at four.

I guess this kid is getting height from my father’s family. They told me I’m a midget the one time I was in a large group of women from the family.

Folks don’t treat people how they need to be treated based on age, they treat them how tall they are. It’s awful.

Just like people treat people based on their race not their personality.

Just like people treat people based on their perceived gender not on the basis of their experienced gender.

I’m outside my bubble. I’m not in a place where people think like me. I’m noticing over and over.

I’m feeling awkward about how much shit I’m posting on Twitter. Pieces of it are because I want to tell Noah and I’m weird about not sending him hundreds of emails. I will litter the internet with things I want him to read but he has to chase him down. Flooding his inbox is… I don’t know…. rude?

I’m annoying as fuck.

Oh man. I’ve been outbursting on Twitter again. Like I do.

I think I know why I’m as emotionally flooded as I am and I need to chill the fuck out. I’m acting like this little boy is my current proxy for The Man.

Whoa.

Knock it the fuck off there, lady. He’s just a little boy. Who is acting… just like his father. (According to mom.) He’s doing what he is being taught. He’s still just a little boy.

If you want to change people being a man hating feminazi won’t get you very far.

And the other thing that is bothering me is something weird and stupid. I’m having feelings about hair and other peoples feelings and I need to get the fuck over that one. Good grief.

Oy. I’m being kinda dumb right now. But hopefully I can get my dumb over before 7am.

And now I figured out that I was kind of an idiot about some reservation stuff with Disney and I’ve messed up the log in. I have to wait until 8am this time zone to call them. Ok. I’ll get that sorted.

Man I make a lot of mistakes. Once I talk to someone on the phone and get the account stuff all situated then I can do all the other fixing online by myself without bothering someone. I think. I hope.

Oh good grief.

Blathering

Today on Twitter folks are going to be mourning yet another black woman killed by police. This time her name is Sandra Bland and she was killed in Texas. So I’m not going to be over there being neurotic and self involved. So I’ll blather here instead.

Apparently we should go swimming tomorrow and Monday. Those are going to be the only two days that the weather is above 80 and I want it above 80 before I go swimming. I don’t go swimming when it is 70 or I end up with so much pain I can barely move. My joints are *not doing well* with the weather. The nights are only dropping down to 60 and I wake up feeling stiff and painful and I can barely move.

I walked into the house this morning and my friend giggled about my warm footie pajamas. I said, “What you don’t know is I have a full set of long johns on under this.” Her eyes bugged out. Yeah. I’m from California. I don’t do cold.

The longer I’m out of California the more I appreciate the weather. My friend keeps talking about how sometimes it feels really nice and balmy to have the weather creep up to 0. Shoot me now.

In South Dakota, apparently it doesn’t snow that much and when it does it melts within a day or two. I’m telling you, Noah, South Dakota sounds better by the minute. What with that whole west coast falling off into the ocean or getting buried under a tsunami thing.

You didn’t see that cheerful article? You should. Ok, in this article the bay area isn’t going to be hit that bad. BUT THEN YOU GET DOWN TO THE OTHER FAULTS. I’m sorry, if the Seattle area fault flips out that bad, I don’t think California’s faults will be all “This is a great time to be chill.” No! This is terrifying!

Then I read an article about Black Twitter. It was fascinating and sad to me. The part that makes me sad is, am I destined to poison things if I touch them? Is that what being white means? If I look at something that other people who are not like do or like or whatever… am I making it less good by standing near it?

Like over the last few days there has been some kerfluffle over how white girls shouldn’t style baby hairs around their face because supposedly white girls have to cut hairs to make them look like that and that’s just dumb. Uhm… I have constant new hair starting. I have those damn baby hairs. I can’t put my hair up without a halo of the fuckers. But apparently if I put gel on my hair to make them do something other than puff into a halo… I’m appropriating.

This is why I identify as white trash. Most of the things white culture does or recommends doesn’t work for me (yeah, straight hair styles don’t work) but if I do things like people who have hair more like mine, I’m an appropriating bitch.

Maybe eventually I’ll just keep my head shaved full time. I’m sure that would offend someone else.

When white people sit around and talk about their childhoods I rarely have much to compare unless someone came from deep poverty. Even then I usually have more in common with black people who talk about deep poverty. But that’s a problem for everyone. No one wants me in their group. Which is why I consider myself trash. Pretty much everyone thinks the way to deal with square pegs like me is to just throw them away because they don’t fit.

But yup, I’ve got a shit ton of white privilege. And I know it.

It’s complicated. My white privilege functions only as long as I can keep my fucking mouth shut. As soon as I start talking peoples opinion of me steadily drops…

Which is my own damn fault. I know. Culture is a funny thing. Behavior is a funny thing. There is a video on youtube I like, it talks about code switching for culture and language.  

On one hand my life would be easier if I stopped talking about my history of violence and poverty. But then, if I stopped talking about who I am and the experiences I’ve actually had, people would start to assume I was *like them* when I’m not. Then they start having expectations I can’t meet.

Kind of like people thinking I could have a civilized negotiation in email about something highly emotional. Uhm, yeah, no. I can’t. Doesn’t mean I think that no one should. I think it is a skill I should Probably Work On. But quite frankly managing my moods with the kids is more important and that’s where I put my energy.

Today is a storm day. We aren’t doing much. We’ve been doing chores every day since we got to Duluth. It’s ok that I’m not rushing around doing shit. We have five more days here. A rest day will do us some good. Now my eldest is back to sitting next to me pressuring me to give up my computer.

Oh man. This part sucks.