Category Archives: direct address

have to unload brain.

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Sleep was very out of whack. I’m out of it. I have little time for writing. I used up most of my time responding to emails. I go through phases of being able to respond quickly and periods where I cry thinking about responding and can’t do it. Today is functional though exhausted.

I babysat for a friend last night. I feel greatly relieved that there is less screaming as time goes by. We are adjusting to one another. It helps that he does genuinely like me–it’s getting easier to bear being away from his mother. It is so hard to be away from your mother. I think it helps our relationship that I get that. I understand him getting upset and I don’t feel mad at him for it. I feel bad that I can’t make it all better.

He does let me hug him and kiss his head and play with him. It’s not that he dislikes me. It’s hard to not take screaming like that personally–but it’s important. He’s not trying to hurt me. He’s not trying to frustrate me. He has no way of coping with these humongous feelings inside his body. I get it. So we can sit together and he can cry and tell me he is sad. I tell him I understand. He has the best mommy in the whole world and she isn’t here right now–that is very sad. Luckily sand storms of blocks chased the tears away last night.

I think last night was the most comforting he has ever accepted from me. That felt really good.

His baby sister is a doll. She is super sweet and cuddly. She’s six months old and just getting mobile and frisky. I don’t have to live with her so her general lack of sleeping isn’t an issue for me. We had a late night dance party together. It was fun.

Being able to care for people and comfort them has value. It is worth doing. I wish I was able to see how that fits into my concept of self. If these are valuable skills then they should convey status of some kind. That is how valuable things work.

I am very good at sitting with people who are hurting and ignoring my own shit. I can just empathize with what they are feeling. I have felt bad a lot. It’s easy for me to project that other people have similar kinds of bad feelings and I try hard to do the things I wish people did for me.

I think I wrote half of a childrens book in my head while I was playing with the kids last night. I should write it down on paper today.

I was asked if I look at these sweet innocent little boys I know and see potential rapists.

Uhm, yes. Don’t you? You don’t? Really? You think your little boy would never? Oh. well then. I should probably stop talking and walk away fast.

I have known a lot of rapists. I have had a lot of explicit conversations with them about where/why/how and as a result I see pretty much every boy and man as a potential rapist. The men I know who have never raped are generally a kind of paranoid I have trouble with (if they are out in the sex communities–I assume a large number of men have two or fewer partners so they have a very different lifetime experience of rape) so I get why men rape. I do.

Because of my life experiences I don’t call something rape unless I have actively said no. In cases where things were squidgy and I didn’t consent but I didn’t say no I don’t use the word rape. I just don’t. That’s my personal line.

That’s uhm, not the life experiences of a lot of women. Because they are trained to not say no to things in general they just don’t deal with the consent issues around sex and they feel raped.

I believe that if you did not actively consent to sex and you don’t want the sex to happen then you are allowed to call it rape. I don’t do that in my life because, quite frankly, even with the much harsher line my life is still hard to believe.

When I was teaching the concept of rape came up a couple of times. An awful lot of the ways I personally talk to teenagers about rape and consent are deliberately manipulative. When I have a group and I am”lecturing” the boys I am really talking to the girls; when I am “lecturing” the girls I am really talking to the boys. This is because, in my experience, people blow off a lot of what they are told to do but they are kind of nosy about what the other side is told to do. They will think about, “Huh- why was I given different advice?” Then I get follow up questions.

It varies by age and my level of closeness so these conversations are kind of weird to generalize about.

I think the way to greatly lessen the number of rapes is to get men/women/boys/girls more towards the ideas that bodies are wonderful fabulous private things you should only share by choice. And you should own that choice loudly. You should say YES! to sex you want. None of this hard-to-get shit. I mean, you don’t have to jump in bed right away or anything. But the more clear you are about what you want the more likely you are to get it. If you aren’t both on the same page… well…

This is where the hard part comes in. If the girls wants a relationship and the boy just wants sex then we run into the Embargo and bitterness and entitlement and rage and just not-noticing those subtle body signals.

I want girls to be more explicit with their no’s and with their yes’s. I want boys to think about the fact that sex often has very different consequences for girls and if you are not a fucking asshole you will behave respectfully.

I encourage girls sharing information about boys being safe or not. I do it blatantly. “If you are raped no one will know but you. If you have problems with a boy who rapes you he is very likely to go on to rape more girls. Tell. Tell someone safe first. Probably tell the police. If you can’t handle prosecuting I won’t hate you and I’ll still support you. That’s a rough road. But you need to talk about it. There need to be consequences for those kinds of actions.

I want boys to have this thing in the back of their head, “Ah. If I act inappropriately I will no longer get the sex I want. Got it.”

I also tell teenagers that mutual masturbation is pretty much all of the fun of intercourse for the first few years with much lower chance of pregnancy or STIs.

I don’t say that to little kids.

What I say to little kids is, “If you don’t like how I am touching you, please tell me. I want to make you feel comfortable.” I give them a lot of feedback about how they touch me. I want that kind of conversation to be casual, comfortable, and instinctive. “Oh gosh. When you touch me like that it hurts. Please stop.”

Most of the violent rapists I know were terribly abused. That’s a lot of why they hunt for me. I see the hurt little boy still. So yes, when I look at sweet little boys–I see what they could become.

I feel very blessed that I am allowed to have relationships with little boys. Whether I am lying to myself or not I feel better about the world knowing there are little boys running around who have started their life journey around body autonomy hearing my message of consent. I’m a good story teller.

My favorite part of teaching (in retrospect) is how many students have come and found me to tell me about their intense memories of me and they credit me with helping them learn how to make decisions.

I did actually influence their lives.

One of the things I like about not having a set and solid place in any specific community is that I have very few expectations to live up to. I’m allowed to reinvent myself every time I show up. If there are many years in between visits then I get to select which stories to tell.

Unless you decide to wade through my blog it is very hard to tell how crazy I am. I mean, there are signs. But not really. People tend to be shocked when they start reading.

I write because otherwise I don’t exist as a whole person. I’m a set of semi-fake semi-forced behaviors that I have somehow weirdly associated with groups of people in specific communities.

When I was a child the normal I learned was that my mom had to go have sex with my father in order to get money for food. Even though the court system said he owed us that money no matter what. “It may be illegal but no one will prosecute.” Yes, I know.

I have to try to pretend I understand other peoples normal. I have to try to blend in. But when you move through communities people are so wildly different. And they all get upset if you are too weird and aggressive. At this point I’m fairly aggressive.

So I’m trying to be better about keeping up with email so that I can have one on one relationships with people since on an individual basis people have very little invested in maintaining that ‘other’ group identity.

Two people sitting in a room together form a ‘we’. There is the desire to probe for similarities and minimize differences. I know how to fish. I know how to let someone else do a lot of the tone setting. I don’t always do it, but I know how.

Yesterday I was talking to a mom from the homeschooling group. She was relaying that a young girl (I was confused about what the relationship was) went on a sleep over and in the morning woke up before everyone else and went to get donuts with the dad. My mom friend felt bothered by this. She won’t let her daughters be alone with men.

I think “floored” is the best word for how I felt. I… I can’t imagine living in a world where I would never allow my daughter to be alone with men.

Don’t I seem like that type though? I can’t. Often men have been the reason I limped along and did better for a while. Like Joey? My brother Tommy’s friend who brought me to the Seventh Day Adventist church for a while. He unquestionably made my life better. I was alone with him a lot. Uhm we prayed a lot. And read the Bible. And he was so very nice-without-touching. Awesome person. I hope his life is going well.

I don’t want to deny my daughters relationships with men. I want them to not look like prey. Different.

I think that boys, girls, men and women are all animals. We are part of the animal kingdom and all. Unless we are specifically domesticated and socialized then we revert to self-serving behavior. Yes, I think pretty much any boy or man is capable of rape.

And then I start to get around in my head to DAs questions. And it’s 10 and I have stuff to do. Tomorrow I will answer his questions.

I’ve been having trouble getting past “Other than you no woman has ever asked for my consent.” I think it is not obvious in my writing that I think women are equally as capable of being predators but their hunting is different and I have never been their prey. It is hard for me to write about. But I definitely have some things to say.

And buddy–I have fucked some 3’s. You aren’t a 3. Knock off the self-denigration. It isn’t helpful.

Evading laundry

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I just had a really good idea. Some day I want to remodel my kitchen. It will happen when I’m in my fifties and THAT’S FINE. There is a wall I plan to tear out. A wall that is constantly spattered with food and grimy and nasty. I hate looking at it because I can’t properly clean it. It makes me feel pretty angry sometimes because I scrub and scrub and it is still scummy and gross.

I can learn how to tile on that wall. I don’t want to keep it permanently so I am completely free to make weird choices and mistakes.

Oh man.

I think my brain just exploded with joy.

I think I’m weird.

I think I am the luckiest person in the whole world because I have stupid intense urges and an indulgent partner who can afford my fairly cheap DIY projects. He doesn’t care what I make the house look like.

In fact, he likes finding out what I want to see in the world. He says, every so often: “I didn’t believe you that _____ change would work the way you said it would but you were right.”

I soar.

I feel like my “art” is my house. And I’m really not normal so I don’t have or want a house that looks particularly normal. It would be false advertising.

Welcome to Wonderland.

You would be amazed how often people try to turn the doorstop in my house so they can walk through a wall. I painted a hobbit hole under a rainbow and used the doorstop as the doorknob. People can’t tell that it’s just a painting. I don’t think it’s that realistic.

My in-laws told me to “buy something for myself”. I think I see an increase in the “home” budget for a little bit. I’m going to eek it out and keep myself busy.

That probably isn’t what they meant. But it is what will make me happy. That’s why I’m glad they sent money.

I’m sure that is a rude thought. Oh well. I’m pretty excited about having a whole bunch of extra money that I can spend on art projects that make my house better for me.

I have to figure out how to involve the kids or it won’t work. This is going to take planning. Luckily that is my favorite part.

This is what me distracting myself from feeling bad looks like. I have an idea! But I can’t sprint right now. I told Noah that I really want his time. That means no sprinting. That means figuring out how to do the projects entirely with the kids in a way that is fair (and educational) to the kids.

This is going to take planning and thought. What projects to do first–well, first I’m waiting to get the logs back so I can finish the playhouse. That will take about a week once I get the wood back. I will be glad to get all the debris up. Finally. Well, most of it. There is still a huge branch in the back that is waiting to be dismantled. The guy who helps me with my yard had problems with his chain saw last week. I think he doesn’t mind how eccentric I am because I actually don’t ask him to do much. Trim the front hedge and clean up my messes. I don’t even ask him to weed. But he faithfully comes twice a month.

I don’t know why I am being evasive on the internet. I’m feeling intensely lonely and yet like I have positive feelings. Not feelings that incline me towards folding the four baskets of laundry at my feet. I’m tired and whiny. I have been doing a lot and we are going out tonight. I am burning a lot of spoons today and this weekend is going to be overwhelming. I will get through it but I may not be talking much by the end because I will be bitchy. I hate that. It feels not fair to the people who see me on the end. But it will be what I have to give.

I will be polite but not chatty. I will make a few awkward positive comments of gratitude about being invited because I am really glad that I am invited. I like them. I am really enjoying watching their life from this distance of rare visits. But I don’t have anything else to give and big events are not a time to talk about any of the shit that I think about all the god damn time.

I get low on ability to remember what “polite” language is like. Noah and I don’t talk like that.

God I love Noah. And he’s in a phase where bugging him at work all day isn’t polite.

Thank you internet. I love you. You are always there for me.

I was thinking about how maligned short stories and novels were in their initial heydays.

Blogging is a terrible horrible low-brow writing form.

I’ve been doing it for what? Ten years.

Where am I going with this?

I’m going to tell you a secret, internet. I really want my whole story to be one that is one that can be picked up and read in its entirety. I think I am interesting. I feel like an asshole right now. That’s kind of awesome. I don’t think you will all like me. I think you will often think I am a fuck up. But I’m an interesting fuck up. I think.

I just don’t have time to tell you the story yet. And that means you get weird snippets. I feel weird that you read this year after year. I know that some of you have been following for a long time (btw–it is now a serious pain in the ass to find comments on livejournal. I won’t be responding or able to read the syndicate comments for much longer so don’t bother leaving them there. Soon-ish I will have an actual website and then I don’t know what will happen. ) and I don’t want to lose you.

I feel weird about that. I’m trying to figure out how to put my entire blog archive together. I have already told a lot of stories and I don’t really have the hand-strength to type them all again.

It would be fun to reread and figure out where the most interesting stories are. Lisa–I will find the story of the Dear Jane lady and re-post it. It is on livejournal.

Now I’m babbling. Ha. Talk to you later internet. You just became too personal.

Maybe if I leave the monsters here I can sleep.

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I can’t sleep. I don’t feel good about keeping Noah awake with my crying. Ok internet, you can keep me company. I have done the best that I can with my ergonomic set up. I hope I don’t regret tonight. My arms hurt.

I can’t sleep because when I lie in bed I acutely notice this spot deep in my belly that has hurt since Calli was born. It hurts when I twist at all from a prone position. I’m kind of worried something is wrong.

I tried seeing a doctor a little over a year ago. I was told by the general doctor that she wouldn’t do anything for me until I dealt with psychiatry. Psychiatry told me they wouldn’t work with me until I stopped nursing and stopped smoking pot and start taking pills that will make my life a living hell.

I need a new doctor.

The problem is that finding a new doctor is kind of a nightmare of humiliation and expense. Doctors like to give me transvaginal ultrasounds despite knowing I am paying out of pocket and don’t want the procedure–I asked to just have a blood test. “Oh I just want to check.”

And I shut down. And I do what I am told. And I have to listen to a nasty lecture about how my previous miscarriage was my fault because I am still nursing Shanna and I will lose the baby I am carrying right now if I don’t stop nursing her immediately.

I didn’t stop nursing Shanna. She didn’t stop nursing until she was three. A full nine months after her sister was born.

Doctors are just people. But they think they are Smarter and Wiser than stupid little me. Even though this is my body.

I was told that my grandmother (father’s mother) died of cancer. It wasn’t found until it was too late for treatment. She was a stubborn woman and even though she was told she would die immediately she held out long enough to gather all of her grandchildren together one last time and then sit down with all of her sisters and do a crossword puzzle. It took a few months to arrange, apparently. Then she died.

I can’t help but wonder if she felt the pain inside her and thought, like me, I hope this kills me. Then at least my kids won’t have to deal with my suicide.

This is not a good approach to health care management. I really hate dealing with doctors. I find the entire process degrading and insulting. I never get adequate treatment and I always end up shutting my stupid mouth and consenting to procedures I initially protest. Not because I am convinced they are necessary–because when a sociopath tells me to shut up I do. I know I am at the bottom of the caste system. I shut up when I am scared. When I get to the point of going to see a doctor I am scared.

I don’t feel I can ask my midwife about it. She badly handled my labor. Really badly. She was burnt out on driving to Fremont. She shouldn’t have taken me on as a client. She didn’t really have the patience for dealing with me. She kept me from dying as I hemorrhaged in my bed so I feel like she fully earned her fee and all. But I don’t trust her any more. I will never ask her for help of any kind again.

I don’t want to keep Noah up as I cry because when you have mental illness you have to be aware of the cost on the people around you. I have to be careful not to overburden him. I can’t be too dependent on him. It’s not his fault that I don’t really have anyone else.

Noah and I are having a lot of hard conversations. And I’m not going to give details about them on the internet. He doesn’t get a lot of privacy in this lifetime but he gets a little.

Hard shit is hard. And tonight I’m having quite a pity party. I want to say that it feels like my whole fucking life has been hard. On one hand I want to berate myself for my hyperbole. On the other hand… can’t I justifiably say that? I mean, I do have easier periods. I’m drowning. And it’s my fucking problem.

And the lady who actually likes me in the home schooling group is telling me she might stop coming. (btw Lisa–don’t bloody tell anyone about the shit I write here.) That makes my throat close with fear. I wish the universe would stop fucking kicking me.

I feel like I must not be fit for human companionship. Otherwise I wouldn’t manage to drive people away so effectively. No one seems to be able to bear very much of me. They only want small pieces.

I had a hard time at the convention for a variety of reasons. I couldn’t be the performative whore. I am not hunting. I am trying to actively discourage people. I had to turn down multiple requests to play (which shocked the fuck out of me–that is not usual) which is kind of awkward. “Sorry but you don’t get to beat me in pay back for me beating on your (wasn’t then) wife many years ago.” Awww. Sad face. But but… I would look so cute bruised.

Yeah. A lot of people have thought that. A lot of people have wanted me to be in pain.

I feel like I am drowning. A nice bus to the head sounds really good right now. And close by. I think the best part of suicide is you don’t have to deal with the consequences of your actions.

I know someone who jumped in front of a train and survived. He lost the bottom part of a leg. He went on to become a minister. I fucked him in the dorm building of his seminary school. He was one of the most brutal people I have ever had sex with. He had an incredibly strong upper body (duh–he had to walk with crutches most of the time and he was a big man) and he really wanted to bruise me.

I was lying on the bed on my side. I was trying to look tempting. He mocked me and asked if I was playing my whore game. I kind of sputtered. Then he slapped his hands down on my side just below my armpit and my upper thigh really hard and picked me up and threw me against the wall.

I lay there and convulsed until he started hitting me again. He really liked slapping my face.

I chanted in my head, “I’m supposed to like this. I’m supposed to like this.”

After a few minutes of alternating between slapping my face and my breasts and my thighs and my belly he spread my legs open. He started hitting my cunt.

I didn’t really keep track of how long that went on but I just about levitated off the bed. It fucking hurt.

Then he put a condom on. Then he picked me up by the hips and flipped me over to my front. He yanked me up onto my knees and he entered me from behind.

It hurt. I wasn’t particularly well lubricated and condoms tear me internally during the best of times. Legacy of a network of scars that line my vagina. I was raped a little too much a little too early. I’ve seen the scars. A gynecologist used a clear speculum and a light and a mirror to show me why sex hurt me so much when I was 22.

I always thought it was just supposed to feel that way.

Being at the con this weekend was hard in a variety of ways. When I think about the things I have done I feel a wide variety of emotions. I don’t know what my core values are. I don’t know what I am most proud of beyond my children. I feel dead inside. I feel like I am nothing. I have nothing to give. I am a bottomless pit of need and that will always be just my problem. I don’t live in West Africa. We don’t consider stupid bitches like me community problems. (Errr–note to new readers: I participated in a grief ritual facilitated by a West African woman who talked about her tribe. It was a life changing experience. Sobonfu Somé is the name of the woman who presented and if you ever get a chance to work with her do it.)

My community is only interested in me if I want to dress like a whore and be beaten so they can watch and beat off. Or at the very least pawn off my kids on babysitters multiple nights of the week so I can “go out and have fun”. No.

I’m not interesting as myself. I have to play their games. I’m busy. I think my children deserve this span of time. They won’t be with me forever. In the long run, this is absolutely worth the sacrifices.

I hope. I pray to a God I would like to spit on. I think I am kind of officially “agnostic” at this point. I am trying to hope that science is right. Otherwise there is some all knowing “benevolent” person who wants me to suffer a really lot.

See Noah–I’m not just crying because of you.

I keep trying to tell myself that mental illness is a liar. This will pass. I will not always feel this way. I objectively know that I have non-depressed periods. It has been a bad three years.

I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of feeling abandoned and unwanted. I’m tired of people telling me how bad I am. I’m tired of being afraid of the next lie. How am I going to be hurt next? I HAVE GOOD FUCKING REASONS FOR BEING PARANOID. GIVE ME A GOD DAMN BREAK. But I hear I need to get over it anyway.

I think the stress is going to eat me alive. There isn’t much of my body that doesn’t hurt.

Noah is about to go through open enrollment at work. Our insurance is probably going to change again. I will probably not see a doctor before that happens.

I don’t think it is serious. But it feels like something pulsing. Like a piece of intestine got stuck between the abdominal muscles when they healed after the pregnancy. It’s a very dull ache. If it was sharp and piercing I would go see a doctor immediately. I tell myself that it could be referred pain. It’s nothing. I’m fine. I’m just a hypochondriac–just like my mama always (and I mean fucking always) said.

I have all the old goodies playing tonight. I hate my mother and I miss my mom so bad I feel like the top of my head is going to explode with pain. I have a blinding headache. I’ve been crying for a long time really hard. I’m probably getting dehydrated. And it’s not like I’m sleeping when I should be sleeping. And I’ve been sleep deprived for years.

Did I mention that the kids are going through a boundary testing phase and it is hard to not scream at them all day every day? I am not doing so. I’m not entirely sure that letting them watch the ipad for many hours a day is a great solution either. I don’t have a better one.

It was really weird being at the con. It’s really weird thinking about the things I have done. I don’t think I regret any of it. I learned from it. I learned what I specifically needed to learn from it.
Today I saw people I have beaten and tied up. People (male, female, other) I have had sex with.

It is so completely removed from my life now. I have done stage performances of bdsm with some of the people I saw this weekend. I didn’t see many classes. I have had contact with the presenters of all of the ones I did see for a decade or so.

In the class on erotic humiliation the presenter asked the audience to insult her core values (her Japanese-Americaness, her worthiness of being loved, her desirability, and her intelligence) in a sentence. After I listened to the audience fumble and lamely half-ass it for a few minutes I yelled, “Who would ever want an ugly, stupid, worthless Chink like you.” Her head whipped over. She told me to stand up and yell it louder. I made my voice get mean. I said it again.

Then I sat down really fast and my face was read and my heart was pounding and I was out of breath. She and I communicated about how much saying that affected me. She talked about how it effected the other people in the audience. Fucking awkward. (She was thrilled. That was exactly what she was fishing for.)

Do I still want to be this person?

I don’t think that getting over my anger is the point.

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“Get busy living or get busy dying.”- Shawshank Redemption.

Sometimes it feels like life is about learning how to come to grips with your wasted potential. I could do _______ if only ___________. It’s a long series of conversations with yourself as you narrow down possibilities in life until the only path you could possibly take is completely obvious. Look, you’ve been working towards this all along. You did ______ and then you did _____ so obviously ______.

But believing that requires some underlying belief in a greater plan. Things are not inevitable. Things are changeable right up until the second they happen. It’s random. It has to be.

It has to be for me because otherwise there would have to be some specific reason I was picked out of a hat to suffer far more than other people. I’m sorry, there is no Kushiel looking out for my well being. I’ve read the Bible. I’ve read big parts of the Book of Mormon. I’ve read books by Martin Buber and St. Thomas (Aquinas, of course) and Sr. Thomas More and and. I did all the classes required for a masters degree in English. I got good grades. I read. I studied. I didn’t know I was supposed to be practicing handwriting. Whoops. Anyway.

I am educated. I have read what the masters think of the world. Sometimes I agree with them but often I don’t. I have had significant personal experience that disagrees with their beliefs.

I have two ways I can handle that. I can decide that they are right or I can decide that I am right.

Now, I like to hedge my bets. I have strong opinions but I’m willing to reconsider them given reason. It’s very rare that I bother to try, I am human after all. But when something challenges my belief structure I have to think about it very hard. I know I am not always right (really, D).

I kind of feel like I should stay off social networking sites for a while. I am feeling too many “shoulds”. I need to do what I am going to do and not worry about whether other people approve or not. Of course there are lots of people who don’t. Will I let that stop me? No. Then why let it bother me?

Because when people I love reject me in harsh ways it bothers me. When people I love tell people they think I am dangerous it bothers me.

Are they right?

I’m told I need to get over my anger. I’m not sure that it is anger I need to get over. I need to get over wanting things from other people. I need to really and truly not give a shit if a given person likes me or not. I know who my friends are.

As the legal next-of-kin I think I feel very reasonable about treating the God-Mamas as family. They take the kids every month. They have a very serious on-going relationship. They are invested and serious about it. That’s the last time I am going to do that to my kids. My family unit is closed. I can care about me. I can care about Noah. I can care about Shanna. I can care about Calli. I should not try to make sure there is stuff left for other people. Maybe there will be and maybe there won’t. My friends understand. They really don’t have high expectations of me–which should be depressing only it isn’t. They like me anyway.

Anger and anxiety are both emotions that are about energy flow. (In my opinion. I’m going to babble even more whacko than usual tonight. Sorry. It’s been a very long and very sober day and I’ve had time to sit with my anger more than I usually do.) I have a lot of energy. I have spent my entire life feeling like I am sitting with a burning wire of energy in the middle of my body. It churns my stomach. It constricts my throat and my lungs.

People are monolithic for me in a way that I don’t think most people understand. My life has always changed a lot. Every so often I up and move either geographically or in social sphere. As I age there is more and more overlap in communities. I’m having a harder and harder time going out. It’s scarier than I like admitting.

If I had been funneling my whole life towards what I am doing now the path would have looked different, don’t you think? It all depends on how you frame it. I’m a stay at home mom. I used to be a high school teacher. I’ve been married for nearly six years (anniversary is in a couple of weeks). I live less than twenty-eight miles away from my elementary school (well, one of them).  My middle and high schools (at least five of them) are slightly closer to me than that. I’m a hippie. I dress very conservatively most of the time. I don’t have a television or watch anything approximating television programming on a computer. I garden a lot. I homeschool. I do building projects.

I am angry. I stay home a lot because I am afraid and I am fucking angry that I am afraid. Today we went to the post office. It went fine. The kids started to get into things but were easily distracted. Nevertheless I spent the whole time feeling very anxious. I was afraid my kids would get yelled at. I was afraid I would get yelled at. I was afraid the woman helping me would be mean. Good freakin grief. It’s ridiculous. I started crying and hyperventilating and the woman helping me told me it would be ok. That’s god damn embarrassing. I’m a fucking adult.

You want to tell me I should just get over it again? Oh fuck off. But the whole episode was under a minute. It’s not like it is a big deal. Only it hurts. It hurts my stomach. It hurts my heart. It hurts my throat. It hurts my head. It hurts my lungs. I feel like I am dying. If I could just stop it I would. There is no magic drug for me. The only thing I can do is dope myself to get the panic to stop. Look at any psych drug on the market. That’s what they do. They do it in different ways, but whatever.

I don’t really see a point in trying to live a long life if I am going to spend a lot of time every day in pain because my brain doesn’t understand that I am not in danger. It’s not like she had the power to prevent me from sending my packages. If she was really bitchy I could have gone to UPS. (But I’ll say: the gruffness from the ladies in the Mountain View USPS is just a front. They are softies.) She had no power to hurt me. Someone feeling irritated by my kids in the fifteen minutes we are in the post office is really not my problem. Why do I care?

Oh wait. That’s called trauma. Sort of. Kind of. I’m not sure. At some point I have to get it through my fool head that there are assholes in the world who are going to be rude to me and mine. It’s not about anything I’ve done. Well, not necessarily. For an awful lot of people I just have to exist. I have to have the god damn audacity to open my white trash mouth. I am offensive.

People like it when you are afraid of them. It makes them feel protective. It makes them feel big. It makes them feel powerful. People like it. I have spent a lot of time afraid and I can see how people react.

I feel like I am searching, always searching, for what I supposed to be doing. How am I wasting my potential? I don’t know. I look for seeds in my life to help me tell the future but unfortunately the future hasn’t been written yet. I have to write it.

It means I’m not looking at right now. It means I’m scared. I’m angry because a lot of people want to tell me things that all boil down to being raped is a womans own fault because the only logical conclusion I can come to is those people believe I deserve to be raped. I cannot put my mind around that. No. I can’t. It’s not possible. No one is born to be raped. Just because I have a cunt that does not decide my destiny.

I am a stay at home mom. I am a stay-at-home-a-lot mom. Well, I like taking BART on outings. Then we can take the bus and I can be stoned all day. I can be calm. I can let the children go at their pace. I don’t feel anxious about being in other peoples way. I don’t feel guilty that I am sitting when obviously this more deserving person (like a guy in his 50’s) should be sitting. No. I have two squirming kids. I should be fucking sitting. Otherwise they will fall and hurt themselves. That’s just stupid.

But I worry. I worry about offending people. I worry about making other people feel annoyed by my physical presence. You’d never guess by how I write, would you? In the privacy of a room by myself I have the biggest cojones of them all. Please join me in a derisive snicker, right?

I have nothing to offer the world to justify the worth of my opinions. I am fairly unlikely to pursue further academic studies. At this moment in time that sounds like hell on earth. Which unfortunately may mean I do it some day. I’m stupid like that. Next time I will practice my handwriting. And it won’t be English. Fuck English.

I don’t think that I need to get over my anger. I need to find a way to use it. I have a lot of energy. When I decide to get going on a project I work like a demon. I get a very large amount done in a short period of time. But I’m a woman. It’s fairly unlikely to ever be noticed. It helps that I pick lame menial jobs because I think that is what someone like me should be doing. I think I never noticed that I stopped working at Boston Market. I still think I am an ignorant fool who cannot be right. Look, all these people tell me I am wrong.

Well, fuck them. I don’t like their system. There is no way for me to win in their system; I was born damned.

Before you tell me to stop being angry let me hit you as many times as I have been hit. Let me rape you as many times as I have been raped. Then I will put you into a culture that tells you it is all your fucking fault that it happened. Then we can talk about anger.

What else did you expect to have happen? Do you know how many people in uniform I’ve had sneer that at me when something inappropriate and illegal happens to me? I can’t really remember. For a while there I was put on drugs against my will when I was a teenager and I can’t remember that period so an exact number is truly beyond me.

I have been told to sit down and shut up and don’t get angry all my life. I don’t think that is a message I should listen to. I think that is a message that seals my doom. I’m not saying that everyone has to be angry with me. I’m saying that once you are marked as prey–once you are truly afraid they smell you. If I am angry enough I can drive them away. I no longer look like easy prey even though they know what I am. I finally got close enough to the herd to not be the weakest link.

And now that I am closer to the herd the mother fuckers around me are going, “Oh shit, who let her show up?” It’s interesting to watch. I just piss people off. I don’t even have to try. I just have to say what I think. I make people angry. Even if I wasn’t angry to start with. It’s interesting.

I make people angry when I speak to them. Maybe I should just stop speaking to them. I don’t mean become selectively mute, that’s a bit extreme. I mean that maybe I should stop setting the bar so god damn low on who I try to become friends with. I should act like I’m worth jumping through some hoops. People do it. They really do. It’s kind of weird.

I think I should stay of social networking sites for a while. Outside of my house there is nothing but bad. Inside my house I live in Wonderland. It’s really nice here. We sing and play games. We dance and should and run around. We paint and cook and garden. We grow up together. We learn how to do things together. We learn how to gently coexist with another human being. When someone slaps you in the face while you are sleeping it is perfectly acceptable to yell, “What the hell are you doing?!” before you are actually awake. (I am very articulate while mostly asleep.) It’s not ok to yell such a thing while fully conscious. We have Rules. No name calling. No hitting. You can’t put anyone down. Everyone deserves to have space but we need to be careful how our space effects other people. Every day involves “I love you” and “I am really glad I know you” and hugs and kisses.

But I know with every day that marches forward that two of these relationships are going to change. They are going to go off into the world. They are not going to stay with me and meet my needs. I have to do that for myself.

Some people can wait until the kids are teenagers to worry about it. My kid is about to turn two. Oh shit. I only have sixteen years to plan. I’m not sure that is long enough. I’m not sure that is long enough for me to finish growing up. I feel guilty because Noah is my provider. Because we have decided that his salary is good for both of. We don’t want another thing pulling from the available energy in our lives–probably ever. I feel like I am wasting my potential. I feel like I am letting down my feminism. I feel like I am setting myself up for a fall. I feel like…

I feel like I am waiting for the inevitable conclusion of the life of a girl like me. What terrible thing will happen next? How will Noah turn on me? Will he wait until a year or two after the kids are gone and say, “I just stayed for the kids.” I don’t think so. I don’t think he could fake that facial expression. He’s a good liar, don’t get me wrong, but not that good. Not with me. I know when that face happens. It isn’t in company. I’ve been watching this man for a while now. I intend to keep watching him. My very survival depends on him.

That’s the bit that is weird and hard to swallow. Basically because it is a crock of shit. Whatever. I wouldn’t necessarily like everything I had to do, but if I had to do it I would.

It’s not that I need to stop being angry. Anger happens. It stops when it stops. But I do really need to stop looking for it. I investigate the candidates before every election and beyond that I need to just live in my little bubble. I feel like we exist outside the modern world with the glaring exception of the glowing box I am staring at. Ok, not really outside the modern world–give me a break. But we do live with a shocking lack of popular culture. Of any kind, really. I suppose we listen to some music but certainly not every day. I would say not every week. Ok, that’s not true for me right now. I listen to music while I run. That’s a new hobby this year. I’m not sure how that will go long term. And my phone battery can’t play music through a whole long run so my phone is now annoying useless on runs. Bummer.

People are going to think I’m a trainwreck. To that I cock my head to the side and say, “Have you ever seen a train wreck?” Things have settled down in my life remarkably over the last few years. Cutting off my family was hard and caused a big bump, yes. I was abused as a child, yes. I haven’t been raped in more than five years? Something like that. That’s the longest stretch of my life. I’m waiting for the next thing that will hurt me. It is very confusing to my brain that I have this nice man in the house.

I would have been fine today if I was able to cut before going to the post office. Because when I start to feel panic I press on the fresh wounds and that keeps me level. It’s more reliable than any drug I’ve ever tried. But people get quite upset with me, so I stopped. I think that really I just don’t want to teach my children to do it. I don’t want them to learn my panic and fear and need for pain.

It’s not that those monolithic “them” are actually all bad. But I have no reason to go fishing to find out. It’s kind of freeing, really. I don’t have to care if people will want to do me ill or not if I don’t give them an opportunity.

What does it feel like to have distant community? I only sort of know. I get it somewhat in the Leather community. I really need some place I can belong with my kids. I’m trying to build places. We are consistent (mostly, barring various events like a washing machine flooding my garage). We have patterns. We have friends. We have relationships.

What is it I am supposed to get over my anger for? What is it that I am supposed to do? Ahhh grasshopper–what I should do is not make people feel uncomfortable. Sorry mate, that ship sailed. I’m going to make you uncomfortable.

I make plans. And I make plans. And I make plans. When you call the suicide hotline one of the first thing they ask you is if you have “a plan”. I laugh. I have plans. I have worked out so many ways to die that I can’t casually list them all. First I do this and then I do that and then I have to look at this and then… I know the dozens of steps involved in any number of ways to die. How accidental can I make it look? Where should I leave the consolidated list of passwords so Noah isn’t screwed? Where… etc.

But the point isn’t to stop being angry. Or really even to stop being afraid. That can’t be the point. If that is the point I will always fail. You can’t decide to stop something. You have to decide to do something else instead. I decide every day over and over. It’s exhausting. It’s hard. I have to sit here all day every day thinking carefully about what I say and what I do. You have read this far in my blog. Surely you think I am a psycho about to fly off the handle any moment now. I’m truly not. I’m pretty quiet. Sometimes I speak unexpectedly sharply. Sometimes my tone of voice is more harsh than seems appropriate to the topic. If I am alone with my family I instantly say, “Oh I’m sorry that came out harsher than I meant it. I’ll try again.” I expect my kids to do the same thing. I say, “Try again.” Shanna says it to me now. It’s interesting to negotiate.

My children are not in charge of me. My children are not responsible for me and they never will be. But they get to have preferences to. How do I sit back and very slowly learn someone like this? I don’t know. I’ve never done very well at close intimate relationships. I just know how to spend a lot of time alone in a room. But I’m trying. I get a couple of hours of sitting alone in a room every day or I feel like I am going to lose my mind.

I didn’t used to be this way. It feels like the anger is the war between my need for people and my terror of them. I don’t want to have any of the feelings I have about people and I can’t make them go away just by wishing and I am fucking angry about it. I hate that I cry over stupid things. I couldn’t figure out a form. It wasn’t a big deal.

The last time it was truly a big deal was when Denise said, “Have you ever had anyone close to you die.” I didn’t let her set the terms of my reality then–she doesn’t get to tell my my father and brother were not close to me–and I don’t think I should let random assholes on the internet. That seems kind of stupid and weak minded, don’t you think?

There is a lot of “you” tonight. I don’t think I do that very often. I don’t even know who I am writing to. I periodically rotate through various people in my head and no one fits. I’m not ranting at anyone. I’m ranting at the unseen you. The one who hurts me. The one whose plan it is. The one I don’t believe in.

I’m very angry at God because I can’t be an atheist. I have known things. I have to believe in my own experiences or I’m fucked. But I don’t think there is a plan. I don’t think it’s the Christian God. I don’t know what it is. But something knows I am here. I’m not sure it cares much one way or another. But it knows something more than me. I don’t know how much more. And it’s probably fallible. Isn’t everything?

I feel like I have no culture to retreat to. I am not Christian. I am currently upper middle class according to my bank balance. In attitude and behavior I am white trash. I don’t know how else to be. I offend people. I have always offended people. I have the audacity to be raped and complain about it. Don’t I know I should shut up?

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I fucking love the stats page.  It shows me that mostly I am just the best Google search return for the phrase “my father raped me” which is kind of problematic.  I’m sure I often get people looking for porn. But I also probably get people who are confused and scared.  Many many people read that story every day.  I sincerely doubt they are all spammers.

There is something about the fact that my family has accused me of lying despite the fact that my father confessed.  It haunts me.  The detective who interrogated my father let me know that he had never heard anything more extreme in his career.  My lovely father set the bell curve on disgusting atrocities to children.  And my family thinks I am lying.  I don’t know what to do with that.  That sort of basic dishonesty is probably the basis for a lot of personality issues right there.  My humanity has been assaulted from babyhood and I’m not allowed to experience it as real.  I am told to forget because I just made it up anyway.  Who wouldn’t go crazy?

Only I’m not really crazy.  I am.  Certifiable.  But I’m not.  I’m complicated and I’m difficult.  I’m not crazy.  I am hurt.  I am sad.  I have terrible anxiety.  I have a hard time perceiving people liking me.  That isn’t crazy that is good plain sense.  I had to grow up disbelieving people who told me they loved me.  People who love you are not a party to child rape.  Sorry.

I think about the people who visit this blog looking for that phrase.  Some of you have stories that would make me cry.  If people say they love you but disbelieve you were raped, that’s dangerous to you.  Don’t let them convince you that you deserve what you got.  You didn’t.  I don’t give a shit who you are.  If your father rapes you, you bear no blame.

You get to decide how you move forward.  Even if you never make waves in your family because you can’t for some reason, never let them define you.  Don’t become their crazy person.  You aren’t.  They are liars and trying to take away your truth.  Your truth lives inside of you.  No one can take it.  I write mine down because I can’t live with it being only inside me.  My family denies my reality.  Well, I picked the scorched earth policy.  You don’t have to follow me.  It hurts a lot.

If you are raped by your father you do not deserve it.  You did not in any way encourage it.  Your father did something terribly wrong.  He took advantage of the most power he can ever have in his life.  He is entirely to blame.  That is a relationship with a one way stream of responsibility for sexual contact.

I’m trying to learn to stop hurting myself because I am the kind of person who deserves terrible things.  I hope you don’t hurt yourself either.  You deserve better than that.  I’m not sure yet what better than that looks like.  If you find out, let me know.

Stats are awesome.

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I have gotten almost as many hits from Sebastian Marshall’s blog this week as from all other sources combined.  The spam percentage is still high, of course.  Uhh, fellas?  I don’t write about geek shit.  I’m probably not going to be that interesting.  I will probably eventually get to the point of talking about blowjobs again.  And I have a date today at 3 with an okcupid person.  So far the plan is to explicitly not have sex.  That will be easy because he lives in Concord and we are meeting in Oakland.

Sometimes I think my life would be easier if I didn’t have it as an explicit goal to fuck a lot of interesting people.  It’s hard to find a lot of interesting people.

I think talking about money is important.

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So after covering the checks I have already written for Occupy I have ~$32,000 sitting in my bank account.  Do you know how much money I have to pay this month for various expenses?  I owe $17,000 on credit cards.  That will be paid off this month.  I still haven’t paid property taxes or the mortgage or the domestic help or my therapy.  That’s another $9,000.  This is an unusually expensive month.  Our income is settling in to about $8,000 per month.  I am waiting to write checks for $17,650.  That means that on the 30th of this month, if I succeed in giving all the money away, I will only have around $6,000 in cash.  We have months that cost $15,000 on a fairly regular basis.  We pay for a lot of things.

People who know me know that having a large financial cushion is kind of a ridiculous driving force for me.  It’s unhealthy.  I grew up in a kind of poverty I honestly don’t like thinking about.  But holy fucking shit is my life different now.

That money was originally earmarked to pay off the Disney timeshare.  I bought the timeshare when I realized it was only took four trips of the kind Sarah likes for her birthday to pay off the investment and we really do want to be at Disneyland every year…  I bought it for Sarah and me.  Noah wasn’t thrilled.  Noah is not interested in spending that much time at Disneyland, thankyouverymuch.  He’ll go.  But not every year.

I have done Disneyland with Sarah enough times that it is worth it to me to buy the time share.  Do you know why?  Mostly because she is disabled.  It is hard for her to expend the energy to travel long distances, sometimes even with motor devices.  If we are in an apartment that is just a few yards away from an entrance she can afford the spoons to rest in the middle of the day and really enjoy evening stuff.  It feels loving to be at Disneyland with Sarah.  She appreciates it the same way my mom does.  Just sitting on a bench with a book while people walk by makes her happy.  Disneyland is a place to just sit and feel joy.

So I bought a fucking Disney time share and I feel like a privileged asshole.  I feel strangely embarrassed that I bought this stupid thing.  What a dumb fuck am I, right?  Only dumb fucks buy time shares.  It’s a racket.  Geez.  What a fucking waste of money.  A number of people have told me off for this.

Do you know how many weeks of joy this has already brought me?  Sarah and I get to dream about future vacations.  They are paid for.  I will have to pay for park tickets and gas to drive there.  Otherwise we can cook in the apartment and it’s not any more expensive than being at home.  Really.

It’s financed at 10% and I’m pissed off with myself for continuing to carry that debt.  I wanted it paid off in a year.  Err, that hasn’t happened.  Other things keep coming up.  Like getting my heart Occupied.  Why is this so fucking important?  Because people matter.  We need a William Wallace.  We need someone to step up.  This is a Revolution.  Hell, we need everyone to step up.  What can you go do, today, tomorrow, and the next day to make the world a better place?  Stop sitting in your house whining about your problems.

Says the whiny blogger who has barely left the house in months.  Cause Jesus Christ, if anyone should stop whining it’s me.  My life is the fantasy.  My life is the mythical American Dream in all of the particulars.  Oh, except that pesky PTSD shit.  How do I fix me so that I can enjoy the American Dream?

Well, I’m writing.  I think good will come from it.  I think that is one of the gifts that was given to me in this lifetime.  I can give people things to think about.  They won’t always agree with me, probably rarely.  But I want them to get to the point where they say, “Ok, I guess I can see why you feel the way you do.”  That’s what I fucking want.  I don’t need to have other people agree with me.  I need them to understand WHY I am different.  Why my opinion is different.  Because maybe that will ripple.  Maybe other people who have different opinions are ok too.  Can we stop beating the shit out of political parties?  What is the fucking point?  Grow up you stupid babies.

People are people.  I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican.  I kind of hate you all equally.  And don’t get me started on how I feel about socialists.  Or the members of my own, Libertarian party.  I feel pretty embarrassed to be associated with them.  Good grief.  But it is the closest to what I believe.

I’m getting away from the point.  When my heart was Occupied my priorities shifted.  Noah is never going to want to stay home with me while working a part time job.  He doesn’t want to.  Ok.  The dramatic need to lower our monthly expenses so that can happen… doesn’t really need to happen.  If it takes longer and I pay more interest in the time share, that will be ok.  Really.  I can deal having to “tighten my belt”.  We are part of the 99%.  In order to maintain all the insurances folks consider necessary we have more than $6,000 of our income promised before it arrives.  It’s $8,000.  We have months where we put $17,000 on the credit card.  You do the math.  No really, that’s going to require some belt tightening.  But I don’t exactly feel like I can complain about that.

And I have the money to spend.  Occupy needs it more than I need to be able to have the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed.  The fact that I can preplan 50 years of vacations means that my life is already as good as it needs to be.

The reason I feel I need to give the money is because people need a spark of hope.  They need to see things being done.  I can’t be the William Wallace for this movement.  I really kind of wish I could.  But that’s not my story.  I’m trying to bait other people.  I’m trying to push them to expand their dreams.  Whoever is going to be the firebrand to lead this Revolution, (s)he will not have much money to start with.  But there will be so much hunger.  So many dreams.  That person will say, “Yes give me your money so I can change the world.”  I hope.  I really hope.

In the meantime I took my family to a park clean up day in Oakland the Occupy folks organized.  I have marched.  I sit in the encampment and eat lunch and talk to the people who live there as I feel I can emotionally.  I think my next clean up day should be in Fremont.  I think that I’m about out of spoons for driving to Oakland.

I think maybe I should just open my front door and walk out it.  I think I should Occupy the space I am in.  Why am I trying so hard to give this money to Oakland?  Why am I beating people over the head asking them to please please please take the money?  Why don’t I start my own fucking occupation.  Hm.  It’s an idea.  What would I do if I occupied Fremont?  Hmm.  I would start putting up notices for neighborhood clean up days.  I’ll be surprised if I’m the only one out there.  This is a small town in the middle of a big urban sprawl.

I’ve been surprised by how many of my neighbors have lived here for more than twenty years and they don’t know any of their neighbors.  There is so much hostility and fear and isolation here.  Why?  I feel sad saying that I sat at the local diner and listened to the waitress be casually racist with the other customers.  Despite the fact that I actually know a fair number of people in Fremont… I don’t see them.  Pretty much ever.  If you live in Fremont and you are “interesting” you spend your life in your car trying to get anywhere but here.

I’m getting tired of this attitude.  Fremont is beneath people.  I’ve done it too.  I spent the first many years of our marriage being fucking pissed off living in this fucking house in fucking Fremont.  This is one of the lowest socio-economic areas.  Not the lowest, by any stretch.  This is more like what I grew up with. My friends keep telling me to move to Alameda.  I really don’t want to.  I’m neither interested in the housing cost increase nor the insularity.  I actually like that my neighborhood is not predominantly white.  But I’m scared here.  This is not really the safe bubble people think of in the bay area.

I’m in the closet.  I can go protest in Oakland and be a radical and a pervert and a queer and whatever.  People here just see me as that nice weird lady.  I’m really polite to people in my neighborhood (uhhh except for the one time I yelled at a guy for wasting water while he was trying to deal with his lawn; long embarrassing story).  I’m getting to know my neighbors very slowly.  Very distantly.  I’m trying to be consistent in my behavior over a long period of time without exposing them to my mood swings.  I can’t afford to piss off my neighbors.  Do you know how much pressure that is for me?

How in the hell can I expect my really diverse neighborhood to be thrilled about having a whore who writes about sex on the internet in their neighborhood?  I’m out with the kids all the time.  Aren’t they going to start looking at me as if I am dirty if they find out?  Don’t I need to hide?

I think it is interesting that my friends think the Occupy movement is about money.  I think it’s about pushing for the right to exist and be different and have a different life.  Whatever the fuck that means.  Our entire culture is set up around streamlining people so they can be more and more similar.  I’m not fucking like the folks who grew up in small town Duluth (love you).  And that’s more than ok.  It’s awesome.  I had different experiences so I got to go off and become a completely different kind of person.  I’m not like the people who grew up in Rotorua, either.  Or London near as I can tell.  I go a lot of places and I meet a lot of people.  I never fit.  Nowhere.

Maybe I need to stop going out into the world trying to find someplace that is right.  I think the Occupy movement is about seeing that something that needs to be changed and doing it.  That will be financial for a lot of people.  But it’s also about recognizing that we have abdicated a lot of responsibility to the system.  Any system.  How’s that going for folks?  Maybe if we want something we have to just go fucking do it.

I want to feel ok in my town.  I have to live here.  But I can’t stay in the closet.  This is horrible.  I’m not much like most of the folks around me.  But I’m not like folks anywhere.  That’s ok.  I may not be the right kind of Fremonter, but I’m the right kind of me.  Yeah, it’s a stupid stupid little thing I say.  I say it because I hope it’s true.  I’m trying to convince myself it is.  It’s very hard to believe that who and what I am is ok.  That feels like a lie.  So so so so so so many people tell me that I’m not ok.  Not directly.  Not to my face.  But in the very air I breathe in this culture.  I am so fucking wrong.

The General Strike showed me that I don’t feel that way because of the incest.  I feel that way because I am an American.  In fact, that seems to be our national culture.  Anything different is wrong and bad.  People, you need to lighten the fuck up.  Maybe instead of sitting in an encampment in solidarity with people in Oakland I should be organizing a neighborhood group to figure out a way to meet the needs of the people within walking distance of me.  That’s a significantly better choice for the planet.


But I will have to do that alone.  I won’t be able to throw money at that problem and walk away.  I will have to find the drive and determination to do that.  I will probably mostly be the one doing that, if I think it should happen.  It makes me tired.  I can’t do that yet.  I feel like I am failing my human beings.  I feel like every day that I allow children to walk past my house on the way to school who are going hungry and I ignore that I am just as bad as the people who didn’t help me.  I have so much rage at all of the people who didn’t help me.


Who the fuck am I helping?  I don’t know.  I hope that the RV comes through.  That would be something.  I wish I knew where my life was going.  I feel like I am littering the path with burning ambitions.  Things that hurt me that I am not focusing on them exclusively.  You can’t focus on a dozen things exclusively.  There isn’t enough me for that.


I really hope this movement spreads.  Please people, you can change the world too.  It doesn’t actually take money.  It takes the desire to do good.  You’ll find a way.  Please? 

Rape Culture

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Often I do not get along with rabid feminists on the topic of rape culture.  The reasons for that are myriad, but mostly revolve around the fact that I think most feminists are too sensitive.  I think a lot of women cry rape when they are stretching.  I think we need another word.  I think that there should be some commonly understood word for coerced or unwanted sex that the woman never actually refuses.  I think there should just be a way for women to talk about it.

“Yeah, last night he totally ______ me.  It was ok.”  I don’t know what this word should be.  There is something missing in our language.

I have a hard time asking my casual sex partners to not choke me.  Do you know why I have a hard time with this?  Because I was brought up in a family where sexual assault was as common as dirt.  Anything short of penis in vagina rape isn’t even worth talking about.  I have had members of my biological family tell me that because my father and brother never had their penis in my vagina that I shouldn’t complain.  Orally raping me with a gun to my head doesn’t count.  The fact that I had to physically fight my brother off of me over and over and over… doesn’t count.

I have a hard time believing that I am allowed to feel good during sex.  I’m going to tell you a secret, oh open internet.  That whole “being trained to orgasm on command” thing?  I actually don’t like that about myself.  I feel pretty disgusting.  But it’s a really good trick for when I am in a lot of pain and I’m not enjoying the sex much.  I can whisper in someones ear that this works.  And it does.  Hypnotic suggestion is awesome.  An orgasm involves vaginal muscle spasms.  It’s more complicated than that.  But the vaginal muscle spasm part can be triggered.  It’s enough to keep the endorphins up in my brain to numb the pain so I can get through the experience.

I’m also going to tell a secret, I mostly only do this with men who are physically too large for me.  I don’t need to resort to this “trick” when I am sleeping with someone who has a smaller dick.  Which is why I prefer sleeping with men who are not that big.  I don’t like having to use over ride tricks to talk my body out of throbbing pain.  It’s not very fun.  It feels like cheating.

It feels like cheating that I can’t depend on my partners to only do nice things to my body.  It is a rape culture adaptation.  I know that men are going to be doing things to me that hurt.  When I was younger I was smart enough to have an overly endowed partner figure out how to make sex with him bearable.  It’s a good trick.  But it’s a trick.  I always know later that my body didn’t want to be there.  My body didn’t want that experience.  It hurt.

I lost my ‘virginity’ when I was 12 and I asked a 25 year old to fuck me.  He did absolutely no foreplay.  He spit on his hand, wiped it on my cunt, and started fucking me.  That is still how I have sex.  These days it is better if he grabs me by the head and has me suck him hard first.  A lot more saliva is deposited that way.

No, sex isn’t about orgasms.  I have learned how to have sex with my husband that feels nice and makes me feel like a whole person instead of a hole.  I rarely orgasm.  If I need to get off, if I physically feel that ache… I need to feel like a hole.

I don’t like that I have become so thoroughly part of rape culture.  I am the byproduct.  If it doesn’t feel kind of like rape it probably isn’t going to get me off.  But I’m honestly only kind of willing.  It hurts.  It makes me feel bad about myself.  That I need to be treated like that.  That I’m not very interested in sex with people unless they hurt me.

If I swear of masochism I swear off orgasms.  I don’t want to say that out loud.  It’s not completely true.  But my days of numbering my orgasms in the hundreds are over.  I can’t do that without someone hurting me.

I get off because someone else is using me to pleasure themselves.  Because they want me that much.  I don’t orgasm because things feel good.  There should be a word for that.  There should be a word for this feeling of needing violent sex but not enjoying, kind of.  Yeah, we mutually got each other off.  It was kind of emotionally uncomfortable.  Yeah, we exchanged a little light-hearted sexual assault.  Yes we totally _____________.

I need a word.

Bad decisions

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In life there are trade offs.  You only have so many resources at any given point in time.  I feel like an awful lot of the problems in life are because of the fact that there are insufficient resources.  And I don’t mean oil–I’m talking about time and attention.  I’m talking about the fact that I don’t keep up with my friends as well as I wish I could because I cannot handle the fact that I am already touched and pawed at all day long.

A friend else-net got very drunk last night.  She’s at a hard spot in her life and she wanted to drink to forget.  Of course she now believes this has destroyed her value as a person.  On the kind of nights where you drink to forget you tend to believe your value was gone before you started.  I make bad decisions.  I don’t want to add an adverb describing when or how often. Because the reality is I probably make bad decisions about as often as average and maybe less.  Do you want to know why I say that?  Because something being a bad decision or not depends on your perspective.

Getting shit faced drunk and passing out seems like a bad decision.  Until you realize that the alternative may very well be ending your life.  When you realize that choosing to get shit faced drunk so that you can make it through the one bad night is actually a good choice.  At the crisis point, get drunk.  That’s ok.  Really.  It’s not a bad decision.  If that is how you are going to still be alive in the morning it is a good decision.  It’s a bad decision to do it every night.  It is a bad decision to make it a lifestyle.  Anesthetics have their place in life.  I believe it is ok to self-medicate.  But be very careful.

Does that mean it is the safest choice?  Of course not.  Drinking until you pass out is dangerous and I don’t really think people should be doing it.  Much like cutting.  It’s not a great thing to do.  I don’t recommend it as a coping strategy for people who are looking for new tools.  Sometimes people do make mistakes while cutting and accidentally die.  It is not beyond the realm of possibility.

A lot of my friends point out that their lives “weren’t that bad” so they shouldn’t be upset.  I honestly don’t know a lot of people who experienced more abuse than me… and I still don’t feel entitled to be upset.  Not really.  To me that means that it doesn’t matter whether I am entitled to the upset or not.  I am upset.  I need to not worry about whether or not I should be.  I need to not focus on how my being upset affects other people.  I need to look at how being upset affects me.  It’s hard because for all that I have been talking constantly about being narcissistic… I’m truly not.  I have a hard time paying adequate attention to myself.  I worry constantly about the happiness of those around me.  I work extensively to build up other people.  That’s just an insecurity.

It’s just as true for everyone else though.  Ok, there are people who are actually narcissistic.  Most people are just existing though.  You get upset.  It’s ok to deal with being upset.  If that upset goes on for weeks, months, years… you use up your resources.  When you are low on resources sometimes you hit the bottom of the barrel.  It’s ok.  That’s why it is there.  It is still a tool.  The bottom exists for a reason.

Why am I babbling about this.  Because I can say this emphatically when I am speaking with my friend in my head.  When I picture my beautiful, wonderful friend who is going through a very hard time and there is nothing I can do to help… that feels like I am failing in my life.  I don’t want my friends to suffer.  I want to take it away and make everything better.  I want to help build my friends up so big and so strong that they cannot be hurt any more.

I’ve been reading more in TCTH (The Courage to Heal–I’m sick of typing it out.)  I think it is funny that every time I read it I get to a few pages past where I feel emotionally that day.  When I come back and catch up I get to read on the page these testimonies from all these women describing their emotional processes and I could have written them.  It feels really hilarious and predictable.  This experience of going through this book is ensuring that I know I am not a special fucking snow flake.  Ha.  It’s nice though.  I now have this invisible group of women who know what I have been through. Healing from incest is a fairly predictable path.  I’m not lost and wandering and doing it wrong.  I am working the steps.  I really and truly am doing something that is worth doing.  As hard as this is sometimes, as bad as some of my mistakes are… I am improving.

My momentary bad decisions do not negate the fact that I am a good person.  That it is worth getting up every single day and continuing for as long as my body will let me because I add good to the world.  Far, far, far more good than bad.  I haven’t been sleeping enough and my emotions are very close to the surface.  I feel very upset when I see my friends self-flagellating in ways I also do.  It hits home for me what I need to start working on doing and that’s hard.  I kind of don’t need more pressure to work, you know?  I’m very tired.  I feel so flawed.  I feel like I will never be good enough.

And TCTH tells me that is part of the process.  It will pass.  This day will end.  Today I will get good and stoned and I will wander around the house puttering and singing and talking with my babies.  If I just putter around absent mindedly all the rest of the cleaning will magically happen.  But I have to be very stoned.  Or I will be a stress monkey and twitch and be unable to complete tasks and cry and probably scream at both kids.  I have a choice, right this minute.  I can continue to distract myself with the internet because I believe smoking marijuana is a bad choice and I am a bad person for doing it, or… I can shut up and do it.  And have a really nice day.  Bye y’all.

Holy crudmonkeys too much caffeine.

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I AM AWAKE!!  Ok.  I’m not taking a Foosh mint at 10pm ever again.  Oh my god.  I thought I would be able to go to sleep by about 2.  Hahaha!  I am vibrating.  Excellent.  I didn’t have this experience from caffeine when I was younger.  I think perhaps I was just so used to drinking copious amounts of it that I was immune?  Is that even the right word?  Acclimated?  Whatever.  I’m feeling downright sprightly.  Not too long ago I was told that it would be ok if I couldn’t get everything unpacked in time for my birthday party in five weeks, we could rent a storage unit.  Today we unloaded the truck in under an hour and returned it a day early.  And I have unpacked about a quarter of the boxes.  I expect to be about 75% done by the end of the weekend.  So I’m waggling my tail in glee.  I think it is kind of sick how much joy I get from working really hard.  Do you see what it is?  I just found a little sprint!  It’s So Freakin Exciting!!!  Whoo hoo!

Some wit might say, “What the heck was Scotland?”  A grueling, nightmarish trudge.  Oh man.  Ok yeah, I had fun and I’m glad we went.  But it was a buttload of dealing with absolutely nothing but the kids.  The only thing I could “get done” was laundry or cleaning up.  It sucked.  Those are not the parts of being home I enjoy at all.  That’s the shit work.  (Uhh… taking care of my kids is not shit work.  I did not mean to imply that.  Carry on.)  But I hate laundry and I hate piddly cleaning up!  I want to make something!  Dangit!  I want to noticeably improve my quality of life for ficks sake!  I felt so stymied.  And we didn’t get in as much sight seeing as one might hope given various anxiety and/or physical issues from being ill and/or me having to deal with Shanna being jet lagged and awful out in public for nightmarishly long stretches at a time so Noah could work.  AHHHHH.  It was, shall we say, not the best month ever for me traveling around a foreign country.  I can’t handle having social engagements on more than three days out of seven or I start to freak out because I can’t keep my company manners in place firmly enough.  You should picture me twitching now.  Go on.  It sucked.  But Scotland was really wonderful.  I’m so glad that Jenny is there permanently so I have a mandatory reason to go back and explore when I’m not in a crisis state!  Yay!  Well, that’s almost true.  I probably would be a lot happier if she moved back here so I could see her all the time.  But that isn’t happening.  I’m trying to say that the glass is half full here.  So go with me.

Anyway.  I have been decompressing from the trip and trying to reconnect socially and I’ve been uhh questionable on that front.  I haven’t been feeling good about much of anything.  Now that Sarah is here so that I can help instead of just having anxiety from far away (yes Noah, I see the reference to the book–what book was that again?)  The only thing I had to do was prep for Sarah to get here and wait.  But she’s here now!  And I helped!  I’ve done things much better and faster than the bar was set to.  Oh man. It’s like I just got a shot of heroin.  And I had CAFFEINE!!  Seriously.  I can’t do that again.

Because you see, when I’m up till 4:00am (and counting) no is posting any interesting links.  Don’t you guys understand that you are my link to anything interesting in the whole wide world?  I read facebook and G+  and that is it.  Unless it is sent to my email I don’t know about it.  I don’t read any news of any kind.  I’ve basically dropped MDC (I’ve had a freakin relapse tonight because people have the audacity to be sleeping) and I don’t go anywhere else.  I don’t even know where to go.  I used to hang out on IRC but that’s long gone.  I don’t really want to read the news.  I’m a creepy shut in and I’m sorry for that, but I just can’t pay attention to the news.  It’s only focused on the most absolutely disgusting parts of humanity and they distort public perception in really creepy ways.  I’m not interested in television.  I prefer reading text.  Yeah.  I can’t follow celebrity gossip because I have no idea who any of them are.  I don’t know of any online communities I would maybe feel like I fit.  And I really don’t have time to add one if I found it.  The last thing I need is another internet time suck.

So y’all posting interesting one-off links, that’s my sole lifeline to the outside world.  So don’t be shy with the links ok?  Some night I just may need them.  Right now I am totally out of tabs and it sucks.  In that silly whiny way.  I wouldn’t be able to find the book I am reading and I’m done packing.  Whinge!  Whinge!