Category Archives: race

Control

I’ve been thinking a lot about behavioral modification and control. I mean, these are frequent topics for me but they’ve been using a lot of bandwidth lately.

What do I want to be? Who do I want to be when I grow up? Am I allowed to be that person while I am fulfilling the same roles I have always filled for people who will not meet my needs?

I have some friends, at least a few, and many of them are guys. Not all of them. I’m not one of those women who “can’t get along with women”. Which I always hear as “it is easier to manipulate men so I stick with them”. I like and hate everyone equally. At least in terms of group identifiers. I like Christians as much as I dislike some of the dogma associated with the religion. I like guys as much as I hate them. Individuals of course all get their own readings.

“When women say “all men” they hurt the feelings of the nice guys.”

Maybe the nice guys need to learn that when people are writing something they aren’t always writing to and for you. If you can’t handle reading something unless it was specifically written to coax you then you have bigger problems than anyone else can solve for you.

I read a lot of very anti-white writing. I read a lot of people of color who have tremendous chips on their shoulders. They just fucking hate white people. I’m white. Do I feel like I should get defensive and try to get them to prove that they don’t hate *me* because I’m *special*.

Or would that make me a self-involved asshole? Think hard here.

I know more men who are not rapists than I know rapists. By a large margin. That does not mean I should give strangers the benefit of the doubt. Sorry. Even if it hurts your widdle feewings.

I don’t figure out who the predators are by looking at them. I do default to assuming that the less physically attractive someone is the lower the chances they are a successful predator. I am more relaxed around men who seem non-sexual enough.

Which is probably something that causes those men enormous pain in their lives. See how I can’t fucking win? The signals that do signal safety are things that are offensive to really judge.

But even that isn’t full proof. I know better. So I’m paranoid.

I don’t think that most of the men in my life would have the balls to attack me at this stage. I have done my best to develop a somewhat scary reputation and those things spread. Folks who know me are fairly safe. But a lot of my male friends are what I’d call Alpha. They are bossy motherfuckers and by and large that works for them. They don’t get called on it much. They have carved out little lives where they are tyrants and everyone around them does what they say and falls in line and things work out. They aren’t violent or “abusive”. But they will grind on you till you verbally give them what they want. I know a lot of men like this. Only a few women.

These men take a lot out of me. They take as much out of me emotionally and mentally as managing a large group of children. For one person. Seriously–I can manage six kids on a day trip by myself far more easily than I can have a friendly chat with many of my male friends individually.

I’m starting to see that as a problem.

As I get older the needs in my life are becoming more predictable. I have more of a schedule. I’m not always moving. I’m not always adjusting to an entirely new cast of characters. I have added in the home school crowd in the last three years and then a running buddy after that. Otherwise I haven’t been picking up new relationships lately. That’s weird. I have been dusting off older friendships. I have been spreading myself out differently.

Sustainability is more of an issue now. I can’t drop many balls in order to completely adapt to a new environment. That’s a privilege I have lost. I didn’t know it was a privilege when I had it. Now “normal” people make more sense to me. Why they say “I can’t” to so many of the things I propose.

Life is different now. I have to have a very different amount and kind of control. Now it’s a marathon, not a series of sprints.

My running buddy and I have decided that it is more sane (given our life constraints) for us to do a 10k at the beginning of October and a half marathon at the end of November. She thinks we will be walking. I don’t think so. I think our first 10k time was pretty fast. I think we will be able to train up to having my third official half marathon be as fast or faster than the second. We’ll see.

Running with her is fun. She and I have a lot in common. If our lives were more similar I think we would conflict like oil and water. Luckily our life constructs are so entirely different that we don’t have to worry about our (ridiculously firm) opinions getting clashed with. We are both very encouraging of taking up space and what that means. We are both also working on control in a variety of parts in our lives. But very differently so we can talk without feeling judged for how we do it. Our circumstances are entirely different. We need different tactics.

A lady I like and respect says she is thinking of starting a discussion group for women once a month. I would drive to Redwood City for that. I would feel comfortable and safe talking to people that woman would invite. I would be different from most of the people she invites. I may or may not be the emotionally explosive (we’ll see) but I will be able to blurt something, then apologize for tone and rephrase and they will try to hear me. The stakes will be low.

When I get too tired from the emotional labor of translating from my brain into “difficult self-centered man language” (obviously not all men or I wouldn’t be bothering to specify a sub-group) I get really testy and pissy. I take it out on everyone who walks by. I feel brittle and made of glass. Like the slightest lean of an arm on my boundaries might shatter them. Then I withdraw and spend a lot of time crying.

I probably need to pay more attention to who makes me react that way and pull back from all of those relationships. I’m starting to see how the cost is becoming higher than I can pay. I don’t have enough spoons to have to process someone that much. And the only way to get them to stop hammering on you is to keep arguing until you win or meekly say they are right a few times so they will back off.

I’m not fucking letting them win their bullshit arguments. I could start using some variation of “You are being an asshole. Shut the fuck up.” But I don’t think that would go over that well.

My other option is to drop the friendships. Which will result in its own bitterness and trauma. Because life works that way.

Knowing you and being your friend is very hard work. Sometimes I can do it and sometimes I can’t. Being friends with me is very similar, so clearly it isn’t an “only men” thing. But aping this form of masculine behavior (because clearly what the people who object to my attitude are really objecting to is that I am a woman with this attitude–from a man it’s ok) causes me other problems.

Men don’t like losing dominance challenges to women (unless they really like it and that’s a whole different ball of string). Although many men are just flat used to losing dominance challenges and they sort of sigh with resignation and get on with it. The fight has long-since gone out of them.

Then there’s Noah. He neither likes it nor has a desire to deal with it much. We try to solve this by not challenging one another because neither of us appreciate losing dick contests. We have different strengths. Cool. You go be awesome over there and I’ll be awesome over here and we can wave. Both of us are grudging losers. But we don’t hold grudges. And we are willing to be convinced when someone has good data. So it works out.

So clearly not all men suck. Yeah, I get it. But some really do.

I have control over very few things in this life. I sorta have control of my mind and body. I mean, I’m not crazy effective with my body but I’m relatively fit. Not mentally. Oh man. But I get by. My deficiencies exist in ways that I can work around and develop counter-balancing strengths that balance things out. Life works that way.

We aren’t all cookie cutters. Trying to develop the control to just do what others tell you is antithetical to developing the control that allows you really define yourself.

You must pick one or the other. If you want to be obedient, you give up the ability to really judge what you are. Your very essence and priorities and impulses have to be secondary to what someone else wants.

I am not a secondary character.

I have been. I was because I wanted to fully embody what that meant. I wanted to understand it.

Apparently I decided I don’t want to be it. That’s been an interesting process.

I don’t know what my very-argumentative-men friends get from knowing me. I think I need to stop caring. They take so much from me that I don’t have enough left to do what I need to do. That’s not fair to me.

I don’t really care if cut-off culture is “mean”. It is mean of you to come to my house and argue with me for hours such that I spend hours crying. For years.

Why do I accept every friendship on offer?

Because I do. Because I always have. I let people come until they don’t want to come any more. But sometimes they have to put up with me being explosive while they are here because I am just fucking out of cope. Lots of people take that as a sign and never come back.

I drive people away. I don’t do it on purpose. I do it when I lose control. When I can no longer choke down how bitter and angry and violent and hateful I feel.

It doesn’t have to be at the person in the room. Maybe I’m just having a day where I’m heavily processing stuff about my biological family. If I’ve done a lot of very hostile writing that morning the whole day might be off. Then I’ll lose the reins on my tongue. Something that is highly tinged by my ambient hostility will come out. Whoops. I didn’t really mean it. No really, I didn’t mean it. I said it because I’m feeling spiteful and that was twisting the way I think about you. I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry.

Is isolation really the best solution? Just work on cutting people out of my life until I get to the point where I can always control my mouth when I am with people?

When I hear people complain that someone requires them to “walk on egg shells” I hear “I don’t want to have to care about who is listening before I speak”.

Yeah, some people personalize everything they hear and decide that the speaker must be talking about them personally and therefore the speaker hates them and is a Mean Evil Person. Yup, I know.

I read a lot of rabidly anti-white writers. They are fully unapologetic as they rant about how evil they perceive white people to be, yes, all white people.

I read this and I try to understand why they believe what they believe. Why it has come to be unavoidably, undeniably true for them.

Everyone has a story. Their story makes sense for them whether you like it or not.

What kind of control a person has decides a lot about what kind of life they have. How do you teach self-control? Financial control? Work ethic? The ability to be adaptable and able to just make something work with whatever it is you have in front of you? These things are all experiential. You have to do them and make mistakes and learn how to do it right. The younger you start the better.

I confess that I feel a little growing anxiety around Shanna not reading yet. I’m reading dyslexia information with dismay. Most of the markers for a diagnosis of dyslexia involve social problems caused by the social stigma of being slow. I am choosing to just read the development books that say “It’s normal for many children to transpose letters till seven or eight.” I notice. But I’m not “doing anything” to correct her.

Everything I have read says that some children are just not physically ready to read until seven or eight. Their brains are too busy doing other things and when you try to force it, you lose a lot of self-confidence that can’t be gotten back.

I’d rather have Shanna deciding what she should be doing with her time right now. She wants her parents to read to her. She isn’t ready to start reading. Ok. I didn’t start reading until the end of first grade. I didn’t really expect her to be required to start reading before I did even though so many of her little friends read. We know a high number of hyperlexic children.

I need to not look at hyperlexia and think my kid is slow. That’s not rational. Good grief.

Shanna’s comprehension skills are several grade levels higher than her physical ability. Lots of research says that will equalize if she’s given the time and space to live and be and learn what she needs to be learning right now instead of worrying about that.

I read the nay-sayers too. I know the con arguments favor conscription into the systematic learning enclave for the sake of party unity.

I don’t think everyone is the same. And I don’t think that everyone has the same ability to be able to conform. I know what the standards are. My kids are always going to be above and below their peers in varying metrics. People are like that. The hope is that they will come away without the bullying and belittling that exists in public schools for any variation.

I’ve been to a lot of public schools. They are all brutal. Some people get lucky and they are in the middle or they are high in the pack so they do ok by the system.

I don’t think my kids will be in the middle.

I don’t think they will always be high across the board. Ha. Shanna isn’t that coordinated. She makes up for it with tenacity and endurance. She’ll try again. And again. And again.

Sometimes watching her fail at things fills me with awe. She knows it is possible for someone to do this. So even though this hurts (and occasionally out will pop “shit”–I ignore it) she keeps trying. I’ve seen her whack her head dozens of times trying to do something. She did get it right eventually. Stubborn fucker. My kid.

Calli, by contrast, is slightly less persistent but much more initally successful. I’m in trouble. I think Calli stands and watches Shanna’s fuck-ups and learns. She is much more able to figure out how to do something right after Shanna has figured it out. Ha.

School is almost out. We are going to be riding the bikes in the parking lot every day. Side walk learning was just a non-starter. She kept falling into driveways. Lots of scrapes. Lots of not-willing-to-keep-doing-that.

She sees no upside. “But I can already run to all the places you want to ride bikes to. It’ll be fine. I’ll just run along side you.”

Only then I have to go at the speed of your running compared to the speed of bikes. NO.

Calli can outdistance her with a balance bike. It’s pretty impressive to me.

In the last month I’ve had a whole bunch of people ask me “Is Calli tall?” Uhh, I don’t know? For the comparative age she is much taller than Shanna was. She’s wearing size five clothes and she turns four at the end of the summer. I think they are only 5″ apart in height. I don’t know what the average gap is between siblings who are two years apart in age. And I don’t know if Shanna is tall. I haven’t been paying attention to such metrics. I could go look it up. I mean, I am on a forking computer. Shanna is in the 88% and the 24% for weight. Calli is in the 96% for height and 57% for weight.

Holy shit. I guess they are tall. And I was right for perceiving that Calli was on a faster growth curve than Shanna. I think Calli will be the taller adult. That’s my current crystal prediction.

On the last few pediatrician visits we haven’t talked percentiles. I didn’t ask and it didn’t come up. I suppose he isn’t worried so he doesn’t say? He just says, “They are growing well. Good job.” and does a no-touch pat on the head.

Wow. I haven’t looked at percentiles in years. I’m writing it down mostly because this is the only way I will have later record.

Since Calli is by far the more coordinated one we should put her in basketball. Ha. I play more catch with Calli. Shanna has never liked it much. I’ve always tried. She likes “fetch” more than catch. It’s kind of hilarious. She’s happy for the interaction. She’s happy to be met where she is. She doesn’t like having balls thrown at her. But she’s happy to chase one for the fun of it.

I can understand that.

 

Identity stuff

I had the night off. So I went for a run (about 3.5 miles), took a shower, then headed off to see one of my Daddy’s. We went to a gay bar for kinky queers night. I spent a lot of the night reminiscing about the good old days.

On the drive down I rolled all the windows down in the car and I played my sluttiest collection of songs and I took a trip down memory lane.

Sometimes, when I stop to go through the mental rolodex, I feel very grateful for the life I have lived. I have touched (metaphorically and literally) an awfully high number of really interesting people. First love songs are kind of funny because I get to pick and choose between which early partner I kind of miss.

My life is so different than it was. That was a lot of the theme of conversation. “Wow. Things are different now.”

In August of this year it will be ten years since I left my Owner. Lots of changes. Basically every single individual piece of my life is different.

I think hard about why I’m making the choices I’m making in contrast with the other choices available. I am doing with my life exactly what I set out to do. But I didn’t know it would work out the way it has. I didn’t go into parenting expecting mostly vanilla monogamy. But it is what is working for us right now.

I have feels about that. About how I have changed. I don’t know if it good or not so good. It just is. This is just another thing I’m doing for a while. I don’t know how long it will last.

Slutty songs in my world are always interspersed with sad songs because I listen to a lot of sad music. That means I alternate thinking about those who are no longer in my life with Those Who Are No Longer With Us. I usually spend a while in such moments crying about the fact that Noah will die some day. I ponder how I would handle it.

It’s funny how my mood changes. On some days I ponder celibacy as a widow because man, no one can measure up to Noah. On other days I think about a fuck-buddy relationship with the dear friend who is kinda in the #2 slot as far as the Top 5 go. Then I think, “Nahh. I’d go to a queer leather con and find 5-10 women. Oh hell yes.” I miss girls in a way I just don’t miss boys given that I fuck one quite regularly.

It was very nice last night to be in a space at an event where ogling the hot women was not only ok it would have been a little rude to completely not observe how much effort they put into their hotness.

Oh man. The nice girl in the legging pants with the flirty ruffled short tunic that completely didn’t cover her loverly ass? She had nice shoes and nice legs and an ass that can make a grown woman cry for joy. It was so nice of her to stand so near my line of sight for extended periods of time.

I kinda miss fucking women. It’s just different. I am different when it happens.

I’m feeling stress, so I took a trip down memory lane. Dylan Thomas says you can never go home. I feel like I can visit home, but I can’t live there any more. And that’s ok too.

Mostly it was just lovely having a night where I could bounce from topic to topic to topic and I didn’t have to worry about offending or scaring anyone. These are some of my wonderful old friends and play partners. They’ve known me for more than 1/3 of my life. (They are older than me so the percentage is lower in the other direction.) They are blog readers (at least occasionally) and have been for most of a decade or longer.

It is so nice to sometimes be able to jump around talking about widely disparate parts of my life and identity. I could talk about the stuff that I’m feeling weird about and why I’m choosing it even though it feels weird. They could listen and understand why I would make the choices I’m making. Oh how I live for validation.

Sometimes you can’t go to the home school mommys and ask for validation. They don’t have any idea (not really) of what I gave up to become a parent. They have no idea what the contrast is like between me now and what I was like before. Their evaluation of me is… kinda limited. They can judge what they see today, not progress.

I feel so lucky for my old friends. I feel so lucky that these hot, fascinating people say “You ever decide to break the Big M give me a call.”

Hawt.

Not that I’m breaking my monogamy. I was a good girl and all. But I got to talk about why I am doing this.

Of course it would be lovely fun to have you beat the shit out of my while I scream “Monkey Fucker” again. That was a really good time.

When I’m talking to people who had reasonably good childhoods who went into Leather later in life… it’s weird talking about how I am doing this partially so I can step back and understand why other people react to me the way they do. This is as close as I can get to experiencing “childhood” as other people know it.

Sometimes I sort of think of my approach to parenting as being similar to people who go into monasteries and take vows of silence to really test themselves. My life is hard. It requires a tremendous amount of focus, concentration, and effort to do what I am trying to do. Because my standards are so high with regards to my behavior… it’s a fully time job just managing my emotions. This is my boot camp. These are the only judges I will ever fucking care about and the way I judge is to watch our interactions. A high percentage of our negative interactions are clearly my fault and I work on minimizing the damage I do in presenting negative behaviors.

I never punish my kids for doing something I model. No punishments for swearing. You learned those words from my mouth. Why would I hurt you for listening to me?

The hitting is a thing though. “I’ve never hit you?! Where in the world do you come up with the idea that it is acceptable to solve your problems with your fists? I never taught you that!” That sort of indignation. Sometimes, if they are in the back yard alone… I let them fight it out. I feel guilty but I know that kids who go to school have so many more fights than my kids that I’m maybe doing them a disservice if I never let them practice and learn… I feel deeply conflicted.

And last night I could talk about it and not feel scared that I was going to offend the shit out of people till they will no longer talk to me. I feel scared in the home school group. Best behavior, Krissy!

Relaxing is so nice. It’s nice knowing that I have already changed dramatically on every access and these people still like me and respect me and are glad they know me.

I can’t be doing everything wrong.

Oh, and because I was too chicken shit to say anything about this last night with a stranger: yes, some white people do occasionally get confused for one another. True, that happens. But when that happens it is usually two white people who have some major overall similarities.

When two Asian women who look nothing alike and who are widely diverse in age are treated as interchangeable in a community because all of the six Asian people in the bdsm community are treated like they are interchangeable… maybe white people don’t need to talk about how it’s no big deal. It is alienating and othering. Sorry, white people don’t get put into a little pod and treated like they are all interchangeable. The #knowyournegro and #knowyourasian campaigns were started by small very specific groups of people who are widely treated like they are more or less the same person by a HUGE NUMBER of clueless white people. It’s just kind of different.

If people who are not white are complaining about the fact that they are not recognized as an individual person with their own personality… if you are white… just shut up. Seriously. Don’t try to one up this. It makes you look like an asshat.

Sensitivity

I don’t think that I am “responsible” for how other people feel. I don’t think I can “make” them feel comfortable or uncomfortable all by myself. This is a collaborative sort of dance.

That said, I take it very seriously when friends point out areas where I am making them feel uncomfortable. “I was just joking” brush offs are an easy way for conflict-avoidant people to state their issues without having to get into a full scale conflict. I get that people don’t want conflict with me. I’m annoying as fuck. Not only do I fight like the devil but I am incredibly defensive and prone to act like people are attacking me when they aren’t. Not an awesome situation.

So I try hard to pay attention to the fact that people who love me a lot are generally people who have worked hard at avoiding conflict with me. I only have one or two pro-conflict close friends. Mostly my closest friends are people who are willing to learn how to deal with what a special-fucking-snowflake I am. Noah says I take an unusual amount of energy to get to know. I believe him.

I worry. If you’ve read more than 100 words I’ve written you already know that. I worry about just about everything. I *really* worry about whether or not I am behaving in a way that is sensitive and respectful of the people around me. It may not seem that way to other people, because when I fail I fail big-time, but I swear I am working hard at tact and being kind to people who have different boundaries.

I wish that I just got to declare that my behavior was awesome and that everyone who interacts with me should feel comfortable and safe.

I don’t get to decide that. As a white person for me to *ever* declare that someone who is not white must accept my behavior… yeah no. That’s just not on. If I were a male I would think that was an additional strike against me. It may not be fair but life rarely is.

Do I get to decide that white people must accept my behavior? Oh heck no. But I think I have slightly more familiarity with the ways in which a white person is likely to take offense. I guess correctly slightly more often. Not usually and not most of the time but slightly more.

The older I get the more I appreciate that religion plays a big part in how people perceive my behavior. I didn’t understand that as a kid. Some religions are ok with people being obnoxious and questioning. Some religions not so much.

I can’t control what other people believe or think or feel. But I try really hard to examine what I am doing when they give me clues into what they are feeling or thinking. I’m trying to detect patterns that I can influence. Influence is very different from control.

I live in a time and a place in history where being sensitive to the needs of people who are not-your-race is important for everyone. I believe with all of my soul that it is most important for people who have privilege to struggle with understanding people who have less privilege. I think it is not always the responsibility of people on the bottom to be sensitive to those poor rich people. Or white people. Or whatever.

Privilege is a multi-faceted and complicated beast. I think that privilege comes in a kaliedoscope of colors. There is racial privilege, socio-econommic privilege, the privilege of having social connections, being neurotypical or not, ableism, sex privilege (which both genders have their own kinds of privilege) and I think the intersection matters a lot.

I can sit there and draw out diagrams for where I think I have privilege and where my friends have privilege. I’ve thought about it obsessively for years. Partially I’ve been trying to figure out why some things are easier for me and some things are easier for them. Partially I’ve been trying to figure out which behaviors are linked to which life experiences so that I can better plan out how to treat my kids and my friends.

I’m trying to fake how to be someone who has always had privileges I’ve never had. That’s really complicated sometimes.

For me, paying attention to how I make people of other races feel is absolutely vital and part of my learning-to-not-be-a-schmuck process. But talking about it makes people feel uncomfortable. Welcome to my catch 22. (Which I’ve never read.)

I’m deeply grateful that my friend felt comfortable enough to tell me that discomfort was experienced. That’s brave and hard. Then I go and write about it and make it all difficult and uncomfortable. Because I’m awesome.

If I want my house to be safe I need to figure out what that means. For one thing some people are ok being written about and some people not so much. I am crossing my fingers that this one doesn’t blow up in my face.

I don’t think I want to try to have a party in December again. I think that in the future I will shoot for January after people have caught up on sleep.

Part of that is honestly so I can shape the guest list more carefully. Lots of people were traveling.

There is this careful balance to walk. I can’t pressure POC to come to my parties because that is creepy, weird, and not so cool. But I feel like it would be smart to try and plan in advance around the schedules of people I want to have at the parties. And if I want my non-white friends to feel comfortable that means asking some point blank scheduling questions of only my POC friends. Which makes me feel weird and racist and like I am courting them as exotic pets.

I would not consciously schedule a party so I could have more white people present so it feels rather uncomfortable to schedule a party so I can have more POC present. But that may be the only way to tip the attendance balance so that people don’t feel like tokens.

I’m not sure what the right answer is. I’m afraid that when it comes to dealing with issues around race I am going to lose no matter what I do. “Hey can you make sure you come to my party so my friends can see that I know more than one person who looks like you.” Wow. That’s an asshole move on every level.

But just inviting people and hoping for the best is questionable too. Sometimes that will mean that my events are more than 90% white.

I suppose it matters what my goals really are. Is my goal to be able to show off once a year that I know a diverse group of people? Not really. Who am I showing off to? The other people at the party? My white friends aren’t impressed and if that was my goal my friends who aren’t white aren’t impressed with me either. Because man that’s a shitty goal to have.

On a specific level I have the goal that my children will grow up having long-term intimate relationships with people of widely divergent cultures and races. That is a goal I feel more comfortable having. That’s less about impressing anyone and more about teaching my kids that people have more similarities than differences so look to anyone standing near you for relationships. Just love people. That I feel very much like I am accomplishing. My kids spend a large percentage of their time with other people around people who don’t look just like them. They see a lot of adults of various races on a regular basis. They interact with a lot of families of various religions and creeds. I feel good about teaching them to respect a lot of kinds of people.

I feel like I am walking my talk with my children. I am not doing a perfect job of teaching them about people of diverse lineage but I’m doing ok and they walk up to every kid at the playground and ask to play. They reach out to people whenever they get the chance no matter how that person looks. Ok. That’s a specific parenting goal met.

It is hard to figure out what being sensitive to my friends means. I am literally not capable of making everyone comfortable at the same time because people have conflicting needs.

But you pick your priority list and you go with it. You do the best you can. If I am making this particular person feel anything other than welcome and like (s)he belongs then I need to change something.

And at the same time I don’t want to start inviting people to my parties or not based on race. But what if inviting more people who are not white and *not* inviting so many white people is the only way to make some people comfortable.

It’s true and valid. Just like some women will never be comfortable interacting with some of my male friends and I have to decide who to invite because I can have one person or the other.

First I will eventually stop pontificating and I will ask my friend for feedback after these blog entries have been read. I’m sure this person will come up with something to say. That’s usually something I can count on. Lots of opinions from that one.

I think that as a white person it is never ok for me to just default to “I’m ok and you have the problem”. That is just not an acceptable starting position. Beyond that I really struggle with knowing what the next right step is.

I have a limited amount of control over who shows up at my parties and I have even less control over the feelings of the people who come.

But I want to be sensitive to the idea that I could do something better. I could make people feel more comfortable if I tweaked ______.

Yes, my dear blacksheep, part of it is learning to care less and be more like a honey badger. I’m not sure that I am that kind of girl, you know? I’ve been taking apathy enhancement drugs for years now. I still care too much. I still care so much I can barely breathe sometimes.

I want the people I love to feel loved and supported and like I think the world (and this room) is a better place when they are in it. If I am communicating something else then I need to work on that.

It is hard to nudge people in the direction of feeling loved when you are as basically hostile as I am. I cause people to feel unsafe and nervous. I get it.

It’s kind of like my continued fondness for a man who has been blacklisted from all of the local events. He’s a predator. I still like him. I understand him and have compassion for him and I know how to play his game like a pro. The other women I know just want to pretend he doesn’t exist because his game doesn’t work for them. He means well.

It doesn’t matter what you feel it matters how you make other people feel. The best predators know how to induce feelings of calm and safety in their prey. Sometimes I feel tremendous guilt for the attitude that just about everyone in the world is prey and I’m a mean and nasty predator.

Only there isn’t much I want from people these days. I’m not hunting for anything other than positive regard. I don’t want to be anyone’s favorite (well, other than Noah) but I want people to think I am basically a net positive for the world.

I want people to think that talking to me makes them feel good about themselves. I want to help people to feel brave about making choices. I want to help people feel like they can stand up for themselves.

If I’m making you feel like a token, tell me so. If I make you feel like you are just something on a checklist “Make a friend who is brown” then I am not making you feel like you are important. I’m failing to do the stuff that is so important to me.

I need that feedback. Without being told that my current approach is failing it is hard for me to know.

It is hard hearing criticism. I won’t lie. I’m obviously very defensive.

(I still had a wonderful party and I don’t feel like this is a depressing/bad train of thoughts. I’m nervous and a little sad but I still have a lot of happy endorphins from seeing so many people. I talked to a lot of people and didn’t freak out so I’m proud of myself.)

But if you want to be consciously anti-racist you have to look at what that means. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the precipitate.

Don’t quit. Don’t decide you are obviously a worthless bad person because someone had enough feelings to make a joke. But think about what you will do differently next time to encourage more people to feel more comfortable.

Progress. Not perfection. Keep trying. That’s the whole point of life.

Friendship, race, and tokenism.

One of my dearest friends made a few comments post-party. Later she said, “Oh I was kidding.” You don’t say something four times unless it hit a nerve. So let’s get into this.

First and foremost: I’ve had over 24 hours to go through a long list of defensive postures. You notice how I didn’t write about this yesterday? I don’t want to be defensive. I don’t want to list how many non-white people I invited and it’s not my fault they didn’t come. I invited them. Many were traveling. I really want to get into specifics. As if proving that I invited X number of non-white people means anything.

It doesn’t. How many particular individuals I invited of what race is beside the point.

If someone I like and respect feels like a token then I am probably doing something wrong in how I talk to them and treat them.

I treat almost everyone I know as a token representation of Y group. It’s not one of my best traits. But for me a white person from the mid-west is about as foreign as a friend from Israel (who is maybe white maybe not white depending on who you ask).

Even my friends who grew up poor still grew up in radically different cultures from me. It is unusual for someone to go through as many communities where you are the minority as I did. I was frequently the only white kid in a room. When I exchange stories about being homeless with people it was different for me than it was for other people I have talked to. There are lots of reasons for all the differences. I drip with privilege whether I like it or not.

If I make someone I respect and admire feel like they are just a token then I need to take a serious look at my behavior. I am doing something wrong. I am not adequately conveying what is going on in my brain.

I am not a big fan of the idea that “X person represents what it is like to be Y race” because I don’t find that it bears out in the main. I am really bad about classifying people as “close with their family vs. not close with their family”. I am much more likely to put up with people who are close with their family so I can hear the secrets about how that works. I don’t really care what race they are–I have friends of a whole rainbow of colors who have close families quite on purpose.

I want to hear what it is like. I do treat people like ambassadors. You come from a culture I don’t understand. I wish I did understand it. I want to move in that general direction even though I will never arrive at being just like you.

I think that what country you came from is far less interesting to me than how you get along with your parents.

That said, I corner every single person I meet who has lived outside this country and ask them their opinion about what they have seen in life. I get some fascinating breakdowns of Eastern Europe sometimes. Oh man.

I really want to get defensive. I want to point out that depending on how you “define” white (some people think Jewish people count as white and some people are violently opposed to such a classification) there were at least 40 people invited to the party who were non-white. Yes, I invited more like 80 white people.

I don’t think I invited people based on trying to get a mixed bag of races though. I invited just about everyone I know that I could get an email address for. I invited people from every community I dip my toes into. Many of those communities are primarily white.

Like the bdsm community. Holy moly is that a white community. Whereas there is the occasional random non-white person it is remarkable and weird. (And I invited every single non-white person from the scene that I know. Not because I wanted non-white people. But because I invited everyone I know and like. I’m sorry more didn’t come.)

Then I feel like a giant asshole. What in the fuck is wrong with me that I wish specific people had come so that I look more “multicultural”. Now that’s treating people like tokens.

If you try too hard to have a racially/religiously balanced group then you do get into tokenism.

I try to invite people and be ok with whoever comes. I can’t feel too much self-worth from who comes and who doesn’t. People were busy. Lots of people were traveling. Other people were sick. Who chooses to come on a random party one random day does not decide whether or not I am treating my friends well or not. It doesn’t decide if my friendships are real or just tokens.

It is my belief that as a white person in America I should probably never feel fully comfortable with my behavior towards people of other races. I should always be willing to be called on the carpet and be told that my behavior sucks. Often that kind of thing is extremely educational and if you resist the correction you resist the ability to grow. It is hard to know what you don’t know. It is very hard to see beyond your white privilege. It is hard to understand what other people don’t have.

am bad about asking people to be ambassadors from their culture. But I think that culture isn’t just about your ethnicity/race. Whatever my motivation and desire I don’t get to decide how I impact other people. White people react with shock when I ask them to tell me about their culture. They think their culture is my culture. People of other races get to be annoyed at the stupid white girl treating them in a way they don’t like. That is totally fair.

I appreciate it when people think about themselves and then explain what they see to me. That doesn’t mean that other people want to do that for me. I can ask and they can think I’m a fucking asshole. That’s how the exchange works.

Sometimes I feel awkward when I love people intensely who don’t look much like me. I don’t want to express my love and affection in a way that feels alien and alienating. I’m afraid I do. I’m always afraid I am alienating people. I am always afraid I am treating people like just a doll in a set.

I collect people in my life. I do. I want people to love me like I want to breathe. I am much more ok with people choking me than with them not loving me.

How someone looks is generally one of the very least impressive parts for me and in my head mostly that is the difference race makes. I care more about other categories. Do you get along with your parents? Have you always been middle class? What has “middle class” meant in your life? What kinds of deprivation have you dealt with? Do you learn best by sitting very still and listening or do you learn best by moving around? How promiscuous have you been? Do you like hitting people or being hit?

These questions are far more indicative to me of compatibility than race. I care more about these answers.

But as a white person I understand that is a cop-out, bullshit answer. No I’m not fucking color blind. I see race. I just don’t think it is likely to be the reason someone wants to be my friend or not. People are going to want to be my friend or not based on very different factors. I am white so ostensibly that shafts me off to the white people section only lots of white people don’t like me so much. So I branch out.

I feel really bad about the fact that I deal best with fairly Americanized people regardless of race. I have less than perfect hearing and I struggle with accents. I don’t like a lot of regional US accents either. I have to ask people to repeat themselves a lot. I feel really stupid the whole time. Why in the hell can’t I just understand?

So I suppose that in the end I get why some of my friends could walk into a party and feel like a token. (I will defensively point out that there were three other people of your general continent-level ethnicity in the house before you arrived so no you can’t be my “only friend from that continent”.) It was certainly mostly a white crowd.

But I hope that you have known me long enough to know how much I value you as an individual. Our relationship is not primarily about me showing you off at parties as my token non-white friend. Our relationship is primarily about you telling me about your wonderful family and us exchanging raunchy sex stories and you being a wonderful influence on my children. Yes, you do language stuff with my kids. I really appreciate it. I do listen and try to learn. Not because you are a token but because I appreciate that you come to my house and share yourself with us. I try to honor that.

If I am failing at showing my friends how much they matter to me then I should pay attention to that. I should be aware of it and I should work on my behavior. That’s what you do when you love and respect someone. You try to work on your behavior so you can make them feel loved and respected.

If my current set of behaviors isn’t impacting someone the way I want then that is my fault. Communication is complicated. If my message isn’t arriving then that is a failure on the sending end. Sure, there are some people who can misunderstand anything (often seemingly on purpose) but I have to give my friends the benefit of the doubt.

Why do I care so much about people being other cultures from me? Why do I focus on it? Why does it come up? Because most manners, expectations, and attitudes are largely unconscious. You know what was drilled into you as a child.

Why do you think I am inclined to say “fuck” every third word? That’s what my childhood was like.

I ask because the difference between a poor person from the south and a rich person from the south is ocean sized in my perception. Even if Noah’s great-aunt thinks that everyone in Huntsville Texas “is just the same kind of people”. Whatever. You’re wrong. It’s easy to think that when you are the rich lady living in the fucking mansion.

Poor people know better. Poor people know that there are differences and either you acknowledge that and deal with it or you are fucked.

Sometimes people tell me that I am their token “poor” friend. A large number of people have expressed shock and horror that they know someone who was once homeless. Get the fuck over it. At this point I pass into the middle class so stop acting like I count as you knowing a poor person. You don’t get credit for me.

I think that treating everyone like they are from a different culture is largely about acknowledging that we will always make one another uncomfortable in some way. That’s what a poor fit between cultures does. It makes you aware of where you have expectations and the other person fails to meet them. It is hard to not treat those expectations like entitlements.

I love you and I love you and I love you. I have known you for more than half my life. You are anything but a token to me. You are integral to my happiness and feeling of wholeness. You have given me so much approval and reason to keep trying that I can’t possibly write about the impact you have had on my life. It’s too big for me.

If I make you feel like you are just a token then I am doing something drastically wrong and I need to knock it the fuck off. I will try harder.

I love you.

Merry Christmas.

I’m not very good at being polite while effectively communicating.

I’m having a hard time being nice to people. Specifically men who like to clear up “what I really mean”. I don’t mean that men should do something about rape. I mean that men AND women should do something about rape. If those lazy chicks would start doing something, maybe we could get somewhere one of these years.

That’s not what he meant. Of course.

When I say, “I think that men should actively slap down this kind of language” I don’t mean “Wouldn’t it be nice if men and women constantly paroled one another and gave out friendly little advice about tone and language.”

Women disapproving of rape centric language isn’t exactly news. It hasn’t accomplished much. Chicks are on the other side of the Embargo refusing to dole out sex rather these guys talk right or not, why should the rapetastic guys give a shit that women who won’t put out dislike what they say? Women have nothing to offer that the men consider worth curtailing their behavior for.

When men censure other men for using inappropriate language it is either ignored because it is from a stranger (reasonable to ignore strangers) or it is coming from a buddy. Your buddies help create your world view.

I occasionally hear guys say things like, “Why won’t you give me a blowjob? Why are you being mean like that?” If there was a handy buddy nearby to say, “Dude she doesn’t owe you a fucking blowjob shove off.” He’d be a lot less likely to harass women in front of his buddy. Maybe less willing in general. That’s the best I’ve got.

The police and outraged women cannot create an environment where a problematic behavior goes away. Shall we look to Prohibition? Rape centric language works the same way.

I’m going to pick an internet cultural point just for fun. How about Reddit. If ALL THE WOMENZ downvote something inappropriate it will hardly be a dent. Guys need to stop ignoring things they disapprove of. Instead of saying, “Well it’s not my thing but I’m not going to lecture them” say “Yo, posting pictures you surreptitiously take of some chick’s panties isn’t cool” and there are tens of thousands of similar comments? Well, it would be much harder for the assholes to have the day. There is no hope for websites like Fetlife. That’s just a rapist party ground. 

When you put men and women in a room together you get a different culture than when men are alone. Women are trying to change the communal space and being slapped down hard. A lot of the problem is that we have no access to trying to change the culture where men go off by themselves. That’s pretty entrenched. I can’t do anything about it.

And if one more man that I know sanctimoniously tells me he doesn’t know anyone who supports rape I will vomit. I could start listing your friends you asshole. I could tell you stories that would make you shiver.

Sometimes I feel a little weird about how many women come to me with their rape stories. They will never prosecute. So I walk around feeling like a one-woman Megan’s List. I know who has been arrested for rape. I know who chases the 16 year old girls and pushes them too hard. I know who says, “I’ll just touch it with my fingers” before pushing a cock in. I feel bound by the seal of the confessional. I can’t tell who these people are.

I give subtle warnings but frankly I’m not sure anyone should listen to my timid “He’s not a good person” when I can’t give any details. Sometimes I start crying because I am so overwhelmed by what I know but I can’t share it. I wasn’t given permission. I know about a lot of rapists in the bdsm community and in the dance community. I know who raped their sister. I know who has a habit of “slipping the condom off” after a few minutes of sex.

And I can’t do anything with this body of knowledge.

Noah says people will be more offended and not less if I explain why I talk about white men the way I do. I have had very few ongoing interpersonal relationships with men of other races. I don’t feel like I understand the cultural bias enough to speak about them as a group.

I suppose that technically when I am generalizing I should go all the way to saying “white American men” because Europeans act differently.

These are the men who make up the vast majority of my life experiences. I have had a lot of terrible experiences. I have yet to meet a black man and have someone tell me he is a rapist. I know it happens but it is invisible to me. So I don’t flinch when black men walk by.

When I look at white men I see all the potential power they have in my society. Not that each man is actually loaded with privilege and ease. I understand that they have a distribution too. But I have known rich monsters and poor monsters. They aren’t very different.

I generalize about that group because I have had highly negative and highly positive experiences with men in all socio-economic groups and different social communities. And I like to travel. I meet people all over the place. I have been to 27 states so far and I will see all of them.

I asked Noah today if it was hard being married to someone as angry as I am at his demographic. He said it is much like living with any random person because everyone hates white men. I feel sad when Noah talks about his experience of living in the world. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun being him.

I suppose it would be fair to say that I have a lot of neutral interactions with white men–although honestly those are more rare for me. In all the random social contexts when I interact with people briefly it’s likely to be a woman or a non-white man. Like checkout clerks. Those are the most neutral interactions in my life.

Otherwise I find myself loving or hating individual white men. It’s rare for me to feel ‘meh’. And I usually know within a few minutes if I hate someone. It is rare for me to change my mind.

When I love someone and I am very angry with them sometimes it feels kind of like loving them and hating them at the same time. I can tell that the danger zone for me is when I lose respect for someone. I don’t really know how to handle this like a grown up. Luckily it seems to involve people fading completely out of my life whether I like it or not. I am just riding the waves of people coming and going. Don’t get attached to anyone.

I’m doing better with the kids. It helps that Calli has picked up like 20 new words and it is making it easier to talk to her. We had a rocky couple of weeks. I’m glad things are settling down.

I feel worried that I won’t allow my children authentic emotion. Then I talk to them and I stop worrying. I’m kidding. Calli doesn’t want to ever identify herself as sad. She thinks she will be punished and sent away from me if she is sad. I am working on teaching her that there is a difference between “sad” and “ear splitting shrieks that will shatter my ear drums and cause a week long headache”. Being sad isn’t a problem. Hurting my head a lot is. It’s a journey.

I think it is interesting how when I look around at the world I see people trying to get by. That’s life. It’s a constant struggle to get what you need and what you want. I see people using modern conveniences as if they will provide happiness. How is that working out for y’all? It’s pretty shitty for me. I like my new washer and dryer and all but they haven’t improved my mental health.

When I think about generations past most of what I think about is how they spent a lot more time having to deal with being alone in a way that I cannot imagine. I have books. I have a computer and an internet connection. I am never completely alone. I always have a way of distracting my mind. I can’t help but think this is bad for me. Am I so anxious because I kill a lot of time distracting myself and I am not accomplishing much with my life? I have a hard time adding things on to parenting. Often that is all I can do. I feel pathetic about that.

Once upon a time people raised their children and their food. We would starve.

I think that part of the reason things are going better lately is Shanna is catching on to this housework thing. I guess we needed a week of being stuck at home for her to be bored enough to figure it out. Of course this involves me doing a lot of baseline work to keep the house clean. Anyway, for the past few days she has been coming to me and saying, “If I clean up the living room can I do a craft?” Then she cleans up the living room. I am so ecstatic I could swoon. Calli helps. They both try to sing the cleaning up song Kira taught them. “Look at Mommy do her share” always comes attached with this very doting smile and a hug. Sometimes Shanna feels patronizing in a good way.

I feel incredibly volatile. Happy then angry. I am having an interesting time emotionally handling the kind of disclosure going on in therapy. I really need to talk about these things. And I feel guilty talking to Noah about all of it at this point. I’m sure he’s bored. I’m bored. I feel very ashamed of being someone who has to talk about incest a lot. I need to talk about what I saw and experienced and how it changed me. I fucking have to and I don’t have many good places. But it’s hard going from that level of discourse back to biting my tongue and praying I have the ability to stay silent. Because everything in my brain is poison and I don’t want it to seep into the world.

My cheeks are raw. I have been biting the hell out of them. That seems to be the next thing I am doing. I do it completely unconsciously and I don’t notice till too late. I want to be in pain. I feel pretty disgusting and it seems somehow a moral wrong that I am in so little pain.

Last night sex was hurting. I told Noah to stop. He did immediately and was very supportive. I feel like I failed in my duties. I don’t get a checkmark towards my quota if I’m a loser and I can’t finish. Noah doesn’t feel that way. He was really nice. It wasn’t his fault it was hurting. Bodies are tricky. We both did everything “right”.  I still feel wrong. I still feel bad.

I feel this horrible sense of foreboding. I am not fulfilling my function. My role. There is this whole Embargo thing that protects other women. I am not fulfilling my function as the one who has to make up for all those asshole, selfish girls. I am saying no. That’s not something I am supposed to do. I feel braced for someone to hit me. I feel terrified. When I go out into groups of white men I have to be tense all the time and prepared to deal with someone who is going to be mad that I am joining the Embargo. I can’t relax. It could happen at any point.

But men of color don’t harass me in the same ways. They will express general appreciation for me but there is no attempt to move towards me (they usually back away while calling a compliment so as to appear less threatening, in fact). That’s not how white men work.

At the dance community I don’t have anyone suggesting that I am mean for not giving out blowjobs. Instead I have men sneer while they look me up and down and tell me they don’t want to dance with me. It’s not better.

I’m the only woman I know who went to Renaissance Faire for the sole purpose of picking up men and I slept alone. Even my normal fuckbuddies went off chasing other people. There are some groups that find me attractive and then there is the rest of the world. Where I am apparently far less cute than I think. And they sneer at me for wanting to touch their hands.

I know that there are other communities out there. Well, I hear. Sort of. Occasionally. After the fact. But things start too late at night or they are far away or they are not even vaguely kid friendly. Maybe I’ll find a community some day. Right now I am sticking with the home schooling group.

It’s weird. I am not going to be a person who really immerses herself in that world. I’m not going to chase fame for being a parent. It kind of bugs me. And I don’t think that one reads my blog and thinks, “Yeah, another Mommy Blogger.” That makes me curious. Would anyone describe me that way? I find the term hilarious. I write about incest and rape and violent sex. Oh, and I have kids.

Is my gender or my relation with those two people enough to change everything I am and have been online for ten years? (I read a blog. In case you are wondering what this random tangent is about.)

I have been feeling weirdly guilty about how disjointed my blogging is. I keep forgetting why I do it. I do it because otherwise these words get backed up in my head. When I get them out I can stop rehearsing. It doesn’t matter if other people are annoyed by how repetitive I am. It doesn’t matter if it is comprehensible to everyone. This isn’t a book. This isn’t a self-contained essay. It’s a journal entry. I miss that aspect of “livejournal”. It’s my personal journal. I just post it on the internet because otherwise I stop writing. I won’t do it just for me.

I feel like I specifically use blogging as a hack to get through my defense mechanisms. I am willing to write things in weird disjointed ways over long periods of time to a semi-anonymous audience. I will explain some things and not others with no rhyme or reason. I can handle that level of commitment. I can’t commit to always being coherent. I reference a lot of random things very quickly. After the fact it doesn’t always make sense to me either. This is stream of conscioiusness.

But I find patterns in the gush. I see in glaring detail the omission of the word contempt for the slow fade of love. I don’t stop loving people because I am mad at them. I stop loving people when I feel contempt for them. It’s not a pretty thing to say. That’s a lot of why I work hard to not criticize Noah overly. I don’t want to walk down that road.

I picked this life. I want to stay in it. That involves maintaining respect for Noah. He mentioned last night that he is going on 40. Yup. He pointed out how he is aging. Yup. When I met him he was  28. I think he has improved substantially. I think he has turned into a man. I appreciate the sacrifices he makes for me and for us–they are many.

Noah says that I am alienating my audience (white males) in my rhetoric. Yet years ago he went from saying, “I don’t think there is any sexism in my company” to being able to point out specific things people say that suck. And sometimes he even calls them on it. I like hearing about his day so I get a lot of details.

He has changed. I take a lot of responsibility. I’m not an easy pill to swallow. I can be quite bitter. But there is good to be found.

I wish I felt like I was good. I mean–I know I’m an asshole. I’m not a bitch. How about that for my anti-women shit. Assholes are self absorbed and unwilling to bend for someone else’s convenience or preference. Bitches actively want to hurt people and will go out of their way to punish people. How do you like that difference in gendered expectations?

I think men are damaging because they are apathetic about the harm that happens near them. It isn’t their problem, Jack. They don’t even notice it because it is so normalized for them. And when you slap them in the face repeatedly with the fact that it is happening they resist. Until they say, “Hey maybe you are right.”

Subtle polite messages are ignored. I’m not trying to hurt you, my darling white men. I’m just trying to slap you out of apathy. I understand that this approach is not for everyone. I am Not Everyone’s Thing. I knew that.

I’m tired of having men tell me they don’t know anyone who supports rape when they know a number of rapists. I just am not allowed to say out loud who they are. In fact they support rapists with ongoing friendship and love. Yeah. Stop telling me you don’t support rape. Fuck you.

Why don’t women report more to the police? Because it’s he said/she said unless a woman has the presence of mind to go directly to a hospital for a rape kit. It is pretty standard trauma reaction for women to not think clearly after being raped. Lets humiliate them for that as much as possible and see how many try to stand up for themselves. At this point I don’t think I could successfully prosecute any of the men who have assaulted me as an adult. I don’t have any options unless I had a very successful lawyer and my odds would still be miniscule. I don’t have money to burn on wasted attempts at vengeance. Give me a break.

No, I didn’t mean that men AND women have to work harder to end rape. I think women are already working about as hard as they can. Where are the god-dam men? Those supposed “allies” who “don’t support rape”. Yeah. Stop hanging out with rapists and I might believe you for more than a millisecond.

I am so tired of being lied to. I think I am glad we didn’t get the car back yesterday. I can use another day of being trapped in the house. I’m not feeling sociable.

I think that part of where women come into this is that every little girl should be told that when someone penetrates their genitals without consent that is rape. Let’s get this word force out of it. Because it means different things to different people and emotional coercion counts. If someone puts something in your genitals in a way you have not consented to that is rape. Or in your mouth. You can be raped with oral sex.

I feel like we don’t have a group consensus on what good touch/bad touch even means. So how can we have a discussion?

This is why I don’t have friends.

So someone decided to tell me that I am “too smart” to believe a fairly extreme interpretation of the opinion of the laws of my country. Specifically, that lawmakers who push through anti-abortion laws have more interest in preserving the parental rights of rapists than in protecting me.

I feel so much rage. I would like to punch that man in the face. I don’t think I should be in a room with him for a while. I’m fucking tired of the condescension. This is why I don’t have more friends. I have a hard time suffering fools.

When I was eighteen years old I met a guy online and brought him to a party. He drugged me and raped me. I called the police the next day and told them that I would like to press charges. I had physical evidence. It was soon enough that I probably could have gone to the hospital for a rape kit and to be tested for the drugs he gave me. But I was stupid and I didn’t think of it. I called the police and asked them to help me.

I was told “What did you expect?” The officer refused to press charges. It might harm my rapist’s career in the Coast Guard. There is no doubt in my mind that the Sheriff who told me that I got what I deserved would be on the side of that guy getting to know his kid. I’m really grateful that most of my rapists decided to wear condoms. That bit of magnanimous action is probably the only reason I have not had to have an abortion or be a severely abusive mother. I promise you that if I had a child because someone raped me I wouldn’t be a good mother. It’s not the kid’s fault–of course. But shit rolls down hill.

“Too smart” how condescending, rude, and arrogant. Ah, so I must be smart enough to agree with a man. I see. Well I suppose that means you are giving me undue credit.

I live in a world that goes back and forth between how it treats me. On one hand women should be pure and innocent until they meet the right man. On the other hand men have needs and there should be trashy women they don’t have to care about who are required to meet those needs whenever desired. Try to tell me I am wrong.

I have been the whore no one had to give a shit about for most of my life. I am self-sufficient. My needs are my problem and no one else’s. That has been made very clear to me.

Noah is different. The only reason I understand that not everyone is treated as a hole who is required to serve whom ever when ever is because I read books and I finally found someone who is nice to me. I am so grateful that he is nice to me. He really is. He’s gentle. He tries to be considerate. When he is self-absorbed for a while and I break down crying he doesn’t get mad at me. He apologizes for ignoring me and loves on me. (Not sex.) It’s so weird. Someone cares about me. Someone thinks that me feeling good and safe and loved is important. How very different from the rest of the world.

People are happy to say that they think I should feel good, even that I deserve to feel good and safe and loved. But they won’t do anything about their behavior to help me feel that way. I’m just supposed to magically start feeling that way. I don’t know about other people, but it doesn’t work that way for me.

In order for me to feel safe I have to avoid people who are going to denigrate my intelligence if I have the audacity to have different life experiences. When a man is arguing with me about rape rhetoric it’s not exactly a level playing field. They are trying to argue the ideals and the best possible case scenario so they can look reasonable and logical. I’m telling you what has happened to me. Fuck you. Don’t fucking tell me how our system should work and look down on me because it doesn’t fucking work that way.

The last guy who raped me before Noah showed up to rescue me didn’t use a condom. He got me so drunk I passed out and had unprotected sex with me. I would have been thrilled to have sex with him–with a condom. He didn’t want that so he stacked the deck and had the kind of sex he wanted to have. It’s a good thing I was on birth control. How do you think the Dickens Fair community would have reacted if I had shown up pregnant claiming that one of the popular actors raped me? No one would believe it. I got what I was asking for anyway. And I would have had to share custody.

Don’t fucking tell me I am “too smart” to believe that politicians want to actively hurt me. Life has taught me that slowly and painfully. I think I should do some unfriending. It’s really not worth the aggravation.

I think every so often about the fact that if I hadn’t been white I don’t think there is any chance in the world I would be where I am. I would not be safe. I would still be suffering. It feels wildly unfair. I have a lot of survivors guilt.

If I wasn’t white then the lawyer who defended me when I was five wouldn’t have allowed his daughter to be friends with me. I doubt he would have worked for me for cheap. That annuity changed my life. If I wasn’t white I wouldn’t have been interesting to someone like Tom. He helped support me for years and gave me a safe, stable place to attend college from. I doubt I would have finished college without his help. Noah probably wouldn’t have recognized me as being like him if I wasn’t white.

It all feels like an accident. I feel like I got lucky over and over. I only got the help I needed because my outside appearance was pleasing enough. Because men with money want to fuck me and in this country the men with money are mainly white.

I’m not supposed to say that, right?

In this country you have rights if you have enough power and money to fight for them. Poor women of color are rarely in that category. When white men tell me that I am being melodramatic when I interpret laws in the ways that I do I feel so much rage and anger I want to physically attack them. How god damn dare you try to interpret the experiences of people who will never have your advantages. Never have your opportunities. Never have the protection you enjoy under the law.

And when my “friends” start lecturing about how taxes are theft and the government is stealing their money to give it away to unfit people I want to go on a shooting spree. I’m not sure I qualify as a Libertarian any more.

You have enough. You have so much that you have a lot of needless fluff in your life. You have extra money and food and everything else. Why are you such a selfish piece of shit that you think that other people should suffer because you don’t want to share? Welcome to America. If you can get it for yourself then you can have it, no matter how many people you have to step on and hurt in the way. If you want to live a reasonably decent life with dignity you had got damn better pick the right kind of white family to be born into.

I am so angry.

I am angry with myself that I don’t have more energy to work in social justice now. But I can’t. I would do a lot of damage to my kids if I tried. That feels humiliating. I can’t do much to change the world right now. All I can do is talk about how fucked up it is. I can talk about how it has hurt me. Often when I talk about how it has hurt me other women will come talk to me about their stories. They feel less alone. If that is the only gift I have to give at this point then I had better start curling ribbon to put on top.

I don’t hate all white men. Noah doesn’t condescend to me. He doesn’t denigrate my intelligence. He doesn’t insult me. He is fairly unusual among the white men of my experience. He doesn’t act like it takes an act of Congress to force him to apologize when he is accidentally a douche. I didn’t know that men like him existed.

Noah is my first experience with a man who treats me like an equal. The other men I deal with act like I should look up to them and their experience, their wisdom, and respect them. I’d rather eat worms.

I don’t respect people more or less based on their job or their money. I respect people for how they exist in the world. I know a lot of people who are actively working to make the world better. They do it in a wide variety of ways. No one is perfect. One of the most important things you can do to make the world a better place is to stop treating women like they are less than men. A lot of people do. This is not a guy thing. Misogyny is alive and well among women.

I’m also going to take a moment to say that I hate everyone who says, “Pregnancy is not a disability” whether they are men or women. I’m glad you have had that experience. I was enormously sick and incapable. I guess that makes me inferior, pathetic, and bad. I was disabled. I was on bed rest. I had to not walk around or I puked all over the place. I lost 18 pounds by the end of my second trimester because I was so sick.

But I was supposed to shake it off and “act normal” because men don’t go through this period where an alien parasite invades their bodies so obviously I shouldn’t be effected by the experience. If I have issues it is all my mind. I could function if I just wasn’t so lazy.

I really hate people. Yes, I could have kept teaching. Even though it was technically illegal for me to leave the classroom unsupervised to go vomit several times a day. I guess I should have been puking in the trash can. Geez, these lazy women wanting special treatment while they vomit uncontrollably. What the fuck is their problem.

This is all wrapped up for me. When a man tells me I am “too smart” to believe that lawmakers might push things through in a way that is severely problematic and dangerous to me I reference back to my life experience.

I’m always told things will be easy. That I shouldn’t complain. It’s easy for every one else, why am I whining.

I’m sorry I’m not you. And yet, fuck you. No I’m not. You are a fucking asshole and I don’t want to be like you.

I react the way I react based on a life of experiences. Do not insult me. Do not talk down to me. Those are not the only rapes in my life. When I am trying to decide how I feel about rape I have a wide variety of emotions available to me based on a wide variety of circumstances and occasions. I’m sure they are all my fault. What else did I expect?

I expect that people think I am a worthless piece of shit. I am a hole with no value of my own. The only reason to keep me or people like me around is if you want a hole. I should not get much say so about who goes in or who comes out. It’s not my place. I’m just the hole.

More on anger.

Right now I’m having internet connectivity issues. I read comments on my phone but the interface on blogger and lj mobile suck. I’m not going to type responses with my thumbs. Especially because my thumb bloody hurts. In the past week I have cut it more than once and I have a nasty thorn or splinter or something I can’t get out. I’m not going to write elaborately on my phone. On the computer I am composing in Word and then when I get five minutes of being connected I hit post. Which is a long winded way of saying this post will hopefully include the things I would say to people individually and I like comments.
I think that class things play in as well as gender things, yes. Men and women talk down to me differently. Men treat me like I am stupid. Women treat me like I am not important. Men know that I have some use at least.
I grew up in a very female dominated environment. Men came and went and weren’t big influences. I lived with my mom and my sister and Auntie and my cousin and her daughter. The boys were Uncle Bob, my nephew Denny (who is eight years younger than me), and my male cousins would rarely show up for dinner. The avoided the hen house. Uncle Bob thrived in an environment where he was the only cock. It allowed him to strut and act like he did the important male jobs and we were all weak and stupid. The important jobs like sitting in his chair and waiting to be served. Awesome.
Over and over my experience of men is that they talk down to me and expect me to be grateful that they are imparting wisdom. It’s not just an engineer thing. I get the same kind of condescension from the maintenance guys at the local elementary school (That’s what Uncle Bob did for the last ten or fifteen years he worked).  I am more surrounded by engineers these days than I used to be and the feeling has intensified. I feel like being an engineer takes male bravado from seven to eight. They are just slightly more full of themselves. Either way I’d like to walk around with a baseball bat taking out kneecaps. Maybe they would stop fucking looking down on me.
Not really. I’m kidding. Mostly. The thing is, I like men. I find them comfortable to be around. Men think I’m not as smart as them so they don’t expect much from me. When I do things they are surprised and complimentary. Wow! You can do that? Why always the tone of surprise? Oh yes. Because it is a shock that I’m not sitting at home waiting for a man to deliver. Right.
I used to work technical theatre. I had two bosses. The technical director is a sweetheart and I adore him still. He is equally insulting to everyone who walks through his door. He does not treat women as less competent. I thought it was beautiful to watch him interrogate boys the way I normally only see women be questioned. “Have you ever used a drill?” He assumes everyone who walks through the door is completely unskilled because otherwise his liability lawsuits would be enormous. I can respect that. He works with large saws all day long. The other boss was in charge of more hand-wavey shit like lighting design and painting and directing. He is a piece of shit misogynist. He openly made nasty comments about women and he and the “boys” would sit around laughing. He was constantly rude to me because I was doing a “man’s” job.
I was one of two people trained to work the rail. The rail is the system used to hang the large backdrop pieces. It is a very carefully balanced pulley system that involves a lot of loading 10-50 lb bricks onto the device from a platform 50’ in the air. It’s not for sissies. The boss I liked thought I was one of the most attentive people there and it was safest for me to be in the air. The other boss would do things to make it harder for me. Like stop in the middle of the ladder right in front of me in order to have a conversation with someone. I just had to hang out on the ladder indefinitely. He would hear I was up at the rail and make loud comments about how we should evacuate the building before I kill someone. To be fair, before I figured out a way to attach the wrench to my belt loop I dropped it once. That was a dangerous mistake. He didn’t attack any of the men the same way. Even if it was their first time walking into the building and they didn’t know an Allen wrench from a Philips head screwdriver.
It’s not just about sex. It’s about the meeting point of class and gender. That’s where I feel stuck and angry today. Men and women manifest the ways they look down on people differently. I have different kinds of anger at them. Women are more subtle and horrible. Men talk to you like you are a piece of shit. Women will smile prettily and spew poison behind your back. Women are afraid of direct confrontation so you have no idea what to expect from them, ever. Women will lie and use relationships to manipulate people. Women get people to “take sides”.  I do it too. I’m not going to lie.
My experience of the difference is that men charge through life just asserting that they are better whether it has any reflection on what they have actually done or not. Women go through making sure other people can’t buck the system. They impose order. Once you are at the bottom of the barrel women don’t tolerate social climbing. You are bad and they won’t let you forget it.
I say these things and wonder how defensive my friends feel. Obviously I don’t want to set the whole world on fire with a torch or I probably would have. I’m expeditious. There are people of both genders who are not terrible people. Most people are not terrible people. Most people are self-obsessed and just don’t bother to notice how they are treating other people. I think that is part of what makes me so god damn mad. They aren’t trying to be mean. They just don’t bother to think about how they are acting. People really don’t put any thought into their tone of voice by and large. And the ones who say they do? They are often the worst. God save me from men who consider themselves feminists. It can go strongly one way or another. Either they are genuinely willing to consider me an equal human being (rare) or they like to tell me how evolved they are and that means that sex with them will be better. To this I say: Bitch, please. The sex is better with raging misogynists and I know it. Why are we lying here?
I think that is a lot of the problem. I do think the sex is better with misogynists. That is a lot of why I have kept my mouth shut in the ways I have. Men who carefully treat me like I am breakable don’t hit my radar. There is an assumption of basic competence when someone drags you through an experience because that is what they want to do right now. There isn’t a lot of room for, “But I have this weird little quirk”—they don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to hear about how easily my vaginal tissue tears. They don’t want to hear about the various health issues I have as a result of violent sex. They just want to get off. There is this assumption that my body is going to handle whatever they feel like doing whether I enjoy it or not.
What? Not everyone has their father train them that all sexual contact is supposed to hurt and you are supposed to learn how to keep a straight face the whole time? That’s not what toddlerhood is like for most people?
I’m broken. I’m broken because I like people who want to hurt me. In a deep animal way I can respect them. In an animal way I don’t have a lot of respect for the people who use kid gloves even though I desperately need the kid gloves at this point in my life. I am so terribly wounded. I don’t think I can continue to just get up and moving on while people hurt me. At some point you lose the will to live. I need to stop accepting what I am used to accepting.
I feel deeply confused by how other people manage these things. For the life of me I don’t understand why I have the friends I have. I have quite a few really intense relationships. They enjoy my company for no reason I can fathom. I’m trying to just show up. I’m trying to trust them.
I hate how much dissociation I still have from my body. I am not interested in soft gentle bunny sex because I can’t feel it. My body doesn’t pay attention, mostly, until pain is applied. I feel very broken.
I have trouble with women, I perceive, in large part because of the Embargo. I’m hoping that fades as I am no longer competition. I can’t count how many women have told me, “I hated you when I first met you but then I started to kind of respect you.” Oh thanks. I’ll try not to let my head expand from that praise. People really don’t give a shit what they say to you. I’m so glad I have earned some grudging respect. That makes me feel better. I earn respect, near as I can tell, from trying to very seriously to do what I say. It’s unusual. I don’t stop doing things because they become annoying or difficult or unpleasant. That is when I feel a rush of adrenaline. I fucking said I would do this and I am not going to god damn fail. I don’t very often. It’s why I don’t casually say I will do things.
Men and women are different kinds of liars. There is overlap, of course. Men are more likely to trash talk you while giving you a chance to do it anyway. Women will gently put their hands over yours to prevent you trying because you don’t want to be humiliated when you fail, right? They are just trying to be kind and save you from your own failure.
The flavor of the condescension changes a lot as social status changes. Low class men talk down to women differently than very educated men. It’s easy to argue with low class men. I suppose I should say that it isn’t hard for me to convince a low status man that I am higher status than him. I can get them to back the fuck off. I am smart and extremely well educated on an unusual arrangement of topics. Low status men can be convinced that I am useful. Once they see that I have skills they specifically respect (no shit, I can build things) then they mellow in tone.
This is where my anger and rage at the engineers come in. They have no respect for all those low status skills I have. They really don’t care that I can do a wide variety of low status low paid jobs. It’s just more proof that I am not as good as them. If I can’t sit there and pretentiously spend my life talking about some minute thing they learned in college I am not as good as them.
And as much as I like all the people in my life who went to CMU or Stanford or whatever Ivy League school I’m really pretty tired of them spending parties talking on and on and on about their teachers. Isn’t college over? Can you move on? Yes, we are all aware that you went to this bad ass school. That’s nice dear. Have you done anything since? Get over college. Seriously. If it was more than ten years ago it is probably a good thing to talk about something more recent. Those of us who are not in the clique are heartily sick of it. We talk about you behind your backs. We are sick of hearing about your college experiences.
Why? Because my college experience was kind of shitty. I went to CSU Hayward before it gave up its place identity. I knew the names of three fellow students when I graduated because those were the ones who talked to me during classes. I lived with Tom. I was a 24/7 slave during college. I went to class, sure. But I went because there were hoops I had to jump through on my way to having the life I wanted. Not because college was so awesome. I went there after junior college. I certainly have stories about the college period of my life but the fact that I was in college wasn’t really the point.
When I deal with people who had transformative college experiences I have trouble being patient. They tend to overinflate the importance of that experience. Like you can’t truly grow up unless you go through an experience like that. But I didn’t have an even remotely similar experience. I read my books and wrote my papers and argued more in class than the teachers liked but it wasn’t my life. It was background noise to my life. It feels like one more way there is something wrong with me.
I didn’t have the same kind of experience other people had. I can’t talk about that period in the same way. It feels alienating. It feels like once again I did it wrong. I’m kind of tired of having to hear people over and over and over describe how awesome college was! Really? Uhm, whatever.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that people have good experiences. I’m glad that other people have transformative experiences. I’m just tired of having to listen to the same ones over and over while knowing that my transformative life experiences are ones that I should keep my fucking mouth shut about otherwise people will be appalled and horrified. My life experiences are disgusting and inferior. Can’t I shut up about them already? I would harp on that less if I was told to shut up less. I am told to shut up and give everyone equal time to talk. So I can listen to forty people tell me the stories of their college experience and they can all tell me the same stories about the same professors and the same papers they had to write. But sweet Jesus no one wants to hear about my shit. It’s just too hard.
In graduate school I wrote about some of my early life experiences. I was told it wasn’t realistic and I should try to write about things people will believe. I really can’t get over that. I can’t get over being told that I should make up a life story that won’t offend people so that I can participate in the vapid cocktail chat. Fuck no.
Men and women talk down to me differently and I hate them differently for it. I suppose that part of the problem is a big part of me accepts that men will always look down on me. When women do the same thing I can’t contain my rage and violence. It feels more visceral, more offensive, more shocking. When I say, “Can’t contain” what I mean is I say very mean things in my head, silently.
When a man talks down to me I can roll my eyes and shrug it off. When a woman talks down to me I want to punch her in the face because doesn’t she fucking know better than to act like that? What is her fucking problem!? I think there is a part of me that is just as big of a misogynist as anyone else. I hold men and women to different standards. I expect women to have a better idea of how to talk to me and they really don’t. It’s not fair or appropriate.
I suppose I expect women to give me the same tolerance I give men. Ignore my attitude and tone of voice and we will do fine. But I don’t give them the same tolerance. I think it is because they do it differently. If a woman is the same kind of angry-tetchy I am we can normally figure out how to get alone. There is a lot of bluntness available and we can muddle through how to relate. It’s the ones who have a high idea of protocol in their head that I will never measure up to that I have trouble with.
I deal well with other wild animals. I can respect that. It seems to be a harshness of spirit that I can recognize from a ways away. Very wounded people all seem to move or smell the same. It transcends gender in a variety of ways. There are two kinds of wounded people, in my experience. There are victims and there are wild animals. Victims think that they are wounded because they were terribly treated. Wild animals think that life is hard and sometimes you don’t get out of the way fast enough. There is a basic acceptance of brutality that I can work with. I don’t have a lot of patience for victims. Victims seem to think that the world is basically a just place so why were they treated badly—it’s not fair!
 I have never had someone who was black hear about my life and tell me, “You should be dead.” That has only come from white people. Only white people seem to think that the indignity of what I experienced is such that I simply should not keep going. People of other races nod and say that shit happens. Now what am I going to do?
It’s a very complicated intersection of race and gender and social class that drives my anger. I’m tired of being treated like a delicate wilting flower. I’m tired of being told that I should not survive what happened to me. I should lay down and die. I should shut up. I shouldn’t offend people. I should accept my place in the pecking order and stop being angry about it. There isn’t a point. Actually there is a lot of point. I’m glad I have enough anger to walk away from tense interactions more determined that these fuckwads are not going to kill me. They don’t get to win.
Sometimes I’m angry with people I don’t need to be angry with. That is unfortunate. But it’s life. Sorry. I apologize a lot. I think I’m quite the sorry individual. And that is why I am so angry. I believe I am low status. Despite all kinds of markers in my life that might indicate otherwise. I am completely convinced that there isn’t a lot of point in me continuing to waste oxygen. Ok, at this point someone has to raise my children but wouldn’t they be better off with someone who was less disgusting? Someone who was more appropriate?
I think a lot of this anger is all self-directed. Why can’t I be what I see in my head? Why can’t I be just a good upstanding citizen? Why do I have to fight all the damn time? Why do I have to argue? Why do I have to deal with men telling me that I am willfully blind if I do not see the world exactly as they do? I don’t think I am the blind one. But I seem to have bought into the idea that I am less than them. And I hate them for it.

Men and women and mirrors

Today begins a Godmamas weekend for Shanna. I feel bad admitting I’m looking forward to the quiet and the one on one time with Calli. It makes me feel ungrateful towards Shanna. I’m so glad she is in my life that it doesn’t feel nice that I want breaks so much. I figure that I spend significantly more time with my kids than the average American so I’m probably not evil for wanting a break. Not because other people care less about their kids—nothing of the sort. I’m just in the house with my kids 24/7. My “off time” is in the garage still listening to them scream. That’s why I wake up at 4:30 in the morning so I can find out what this mythical “quiet” sounds like.
It’s weird going back and forth between feeling trapped and feeling like I have more flexibility and freedom than almost anyone I know. I am in the wealthiest 1% of people throughout all of history. I’m not part of the “1%” in America. I’m not super-rich. Noah isn’t approaching $250k/year. Like half that. It feels obscene.
I spend a lot of time looking at our budget lately. Mint.com is the best website ever. I’m glad I was told it existed. I check it just about every day. I register every freakin dollar spent. I want to reach financial goals. It would be so easy to not pay attention and slip. Between things like property taxes, home owners insurance, health insurance, mortgage, etc. we spend more than a full pay check every month on fixed expenses. We have just over half of a pay check for all of our other expenses. The amount we have flexibility with is more than I used to live on every month—but I wasn’t supporting four people. It isn’t four times what I lived on. It’s about twice what I lived on.
So far Shanna only seems interested in spending her allowance on flowers. Once a week she buys some from the farmers market. It’s really sweet. That is what she thinks will make her life better and happier. She has plenty of toys—that is what she told me. But she doesn’t have enough flowers. We are trying to grow more but that takes patience and time. She’s four. She wants her flowers today. I think at some point she will finally recognize that she can buy ice creamwith her money and then things will change. I can’t wait to see how her priorities change over the years. She fascinates me endlessly.
Yesterday was long and hard. Shanna had a screaming fit in a grocery store for maybe the second time in her life. It was embarrassing until all the adults started laughing with me and rolling their eyes and loudly agreeing with what a mean mom I was. Then it felt more like a right of passage and ok. I’m glad that is how the employees reacted. It felt really nice. She was angry because I wouldn’t buy her candy after she refused to follow anyof our in-store rules. What I told her was, “I need you to believe what I say. If I tell you I am putting the candy back if you continue to be rude and you continue to be rude then I have to put the candy back. Next time you will remember that I am serious.” By last night she was telling an elaborate story about how she won’t ever be rude again because she wants her damn candy. Great. Works for me.
I feel deeply conflicted about the fact that I truly have to enforce boundaries with my kids. If I don’t they will never learn them. I have no one else to blame. It’s quite comforting, really. I don’t get to give excuses about how they will learn a lesson later. No. They will learn it right now. No time like the present! I feel guilty for how hostile my tone of voice was yesterday. We talked about it. I told both kids that I shouldn’t have sounded so nasty. I wonder how many more times I can ask them to forgive me for that.
I’ve had a lot of anxiety for the past couple of days. My stomach is hurting terribly and I’m not sure why. I feel triggered but I don’t know why or by what. I hate this. I hate how little control I have over this. This is not factory standard. This is broken. I’m trying to just ride it out and bite my tongue. I’m glad that Shanna gets to go hang out with folks who have more patience for a few days. I don’t actually feel like I am being nasty over all, but it is nice for her to find out what it is like to be around people who aren’t as simmeringly hostile as I am.
Yesterday’s run was funny. I did the first mile and a half easy enough. Then I discovered that wolfing a cupcake right before you run is a bad idea. I won’t do that again no matter how tasty the cupcake is. Ugh. I had to do a lot of walking. I was thinking about how I feel more at ease with thinking about myself as a runner fairly suddenly. I went and did a race with people. People honest-to-dawg saw that I am a runner. I ran three fucking miles without pausing at all. That’s fucking cool. I did it with my friends. Women who were able to remind me that actually we started running together eight years ago. They know how long I have been talking about running a marathon. They were there. They listened. They remembered.
Ever since I have been trying to turn off the “looking for sex” part of my brain I have been latching on to my feelings of attachment towards women a lot harder again. It’s interesting how the switch goes for me. When I am looking for NSA sex I look for men. I just don’t scope women for that. Women are all complicated and emotional and shit. The only good way I’ve found for having one night stands with women is bicurious chicks on craigslist. They generally feel kind of ashamed and never call again and then I’m free. Woo.
I have different categories of attachment in my head. It’s dangerous and completely normal. I’m struggling with what the different layers mean to me at this point in my life. The reason I think about this is because I need to manage my expectations. When I was out running and I realized just how big a part of my life these women have been even though I don’t spend much time with them I started crying so hard I almost tripped and I had to stand still until the first wave past.
I can’t think about them being important. If I think about them being important then I want more contact. I want to feel more important to them. They have so many people in their lives who are more important and get their time and energy. I feel scared that my needs don’t matter. That I won’t get the support I need because the people I am emotionally closest to and with whom I have the most history with are not the people whom I feel I can ask anything of. 
When I find out how much someone has absorbed of me, when I see myself in their mirror I feel better about myself. I start to be able to understand why they want to know me. It is a wonderful feeling. It is so hard for me to feel like a worthwhile human being. I desperately want to stand close to mirrors that show me good things as much as I can. I start wanting and expecting and then I feel disappointed. It’s hard to hold this need in check.
When I stop chasing truly casual sex I look around and suddenly feel a massive upsurge in interest in being close to women. Women are far safer when sex isn’t on the table.  I haven’t felt safe having a really intimate sexual relationship with a woman since J. It wasn’t her fault.
Men never see as much of me. Men, in general, are kept out at arms-length. A big part of this is because I am attracted to men who are confident and certain and cocky. That means they are usually assholes. I get tired of dealing with assholes.  I just don’t bother to talk to them as much. If I am prepared for a hostile argument in my head I won’t bother to open my mouth a large chunk of the time. I am not always willing to outshout a man. They will all emphatically tell me that such a thing is neither necessary nor required, I should have a civilized conversation. It’s lying bullshit. If I don’t want to be stomped on verbally I have to shout them the fuck down. Often I just don’t open my mouth. I half-heartedly smile and nod and pretend to listen.
I can’t do that with women. Women are different. Women are more perceptive. My experience while going through life is that men who were severely abused are as perceptive as the slightly more perceptive than average woman. But lots of women are head and shoulders more perceptive than that. I just can’t hide things from women in the same way. I don’t have the same nooks and crannies of my brain to hide in. Women are hard. So if I’m not looking for easy sex I don’t look for men. I desperately want to be with people. Gulp
It’s weird because I have very intense male friendships. It’s different. I have to explain more. Maybe I just expect women to get things I shouldn’t expect them to get? I give them the chance to understand things I won’t bother to explain to men. I’m fucking sick of men trying to control what I say and how I say it. I have a hard time with how much I hate men as a group sometimes. It doesn’t feel productive. I do have men I cull from the herd and exclude from my loathing, but they are in the minority. That doesn’t feel healthy. I figure I have as much use for them as they have for me. And as much contempt.
That is part of my problem. I assume that men have contempt for me. They talk down to me. They treat me like I am barely smarter than a dog. If I don’t have their god damn technical specialty memorized then obviously I’m on the low end of the IQ scale and I have to have basic every day things explained to me in insulting ways.  Telling them, “I’ve got it” doesn’t slow down the lecture. They have to show off how smart they are, don’t you know.
I don’t feel like many men talk to me as if I have worth. (Taylor for the love of Christ I don’t mean you. You are fine.) I think that is what makes it so intense when they dotalk to me as if they think I am an intelligent, reasonable human being. I am on the intensely emotional end even for a woman. It’s easy for men to be dismissive. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they stop and actually look at me. It feels like a gift. It feels like an honor. It happens so rarely. I am so grateful.
That is a lot of the difference between men and women for me. I expect that women won’t bother having anything to do with me unless they are honest-to-dawg getting something from the experience. I know what men want to get. Either I’m willing to offer it or I don’t have much to say to them. With women I don’t understand their motivation. What could they possibly be getting from the experience? When I’m willing to offer sex I treat like the only thing I have to give. When I’m not I have to retrench and deal with how bad I feel about myself because I don’t feel like I have anything else of value to give.
Who would want me? Noah. I know what he wants from me, kind of. Sex is high on the list but it really isn’t why he married me. I see him and I invite him to look at me in a way that makes other people uncomfortable. He wants this intensity too. He wants to be my mirror. Noah wants to feel as important as I make him feel. It’s really nice. I have the hero worship thing down. Usually you only get the kind of hero worship I offer from people who are fairly dumb. Smart people generally don’t want to humble themselves before someone else in quite this way. I act like a low status person who gets to be with a high status person. I’m grateful. I do a lot for Noah. Things he doesn’t even have to acknowledge exist. It’s a good life. That’s still not why he wanted me so much.
I told my girlfriends on facebook that in two years we should run a half marathon together in Portland, where one of them lives. I’m not going to start beating the drum yet. But I think that is going to hit my personal checklist of things to do. After ten years of running together we will accomplish something big. It means my friend who lives here will have to up her training a lot. Maybe I can help with that.
I’m glad my friends go about their lives not worrying about whether I approve of every decision. I’m aware that I don’t have to live any one else’s life and they don’t have to live mine. You do what you can live with. I’m glad they don’t avoid me because I have instantly strong reactions to things. My reactions are about what Ican live with. Feel free to live with whatever you can live with. I’m trying to figure out where is the line between being able to talk about things without shouting vs. just keeping my mouth shut. It’s different with women. It’s harder. It’s harder because I am willing to try at all. Unless a man goes very far out of his way to prove otherwise I am going to assume he isn’t worth the effort. That sucks.
Once in a while I reflect on the fact that this attitude mostly only extends to white men. If I find out a white man has advanced degrees I’m generally ready to turn and walk away without even saying hello. He’s probably an asshole and full of himself. That’s not a good approach to life. I haven’t ever had a black man pursue a friendship with me. Or a Hispanic man. I don’t live my life standing near very many men of other races. My casual public interactions with men of other races are significantly more civil and polite than my casual public interactions with men of my race. Sometimes I feel weird about that. Are men of other races being more polite to me as a reflection of my perceived status because of my skin color? I can’t know. Men of my race feel free to let me know they think I am low status. It’s all relative.
I think about this because I feel like I shouldn’t just pass on my biases to my kids. It’s probably not a good idea to pass on the idea that 95%+ of white men are pieces of shit and you shouldn’t waste your time talking to them. After a lifetime of being discounted and dismissed and lectured and condescended to… I’m pretty hostile. You learn to hate people who look like your oppressors. Thing is, anyone who is under about 35 has not had a chance to oppress me. They should be value neutral in my mind. They aren’t. They are a potential threat.
I feel like I go through my life waiting for pitchforks. If I am willing to fuck lots of random men I feel safe because guys will protect their source of sex. True fact. If I am not willing to have sex I have to depend on the safety of blending into the herd of women. That is so scary. I don’t blend well. I have to depend on them accepting me and tolerating me. That is so scary. I get ousted pretty regularly. And I have to nod and accept it and move on. I need to have no expectations that people will actually consistently continue to be my friends as the years pass by. I need to be glad of it if it happens and not look for it. If I look for it too hard I will be crushed if it doesn’t happen. I’m the only one worrying about my feelings on this topic. I’m the only one who can. Every one else is busy worrying about their own priorities. I can’t expect to be a priority to anyone, ever. The days of that being a possibility are over. I will always be a peripheral friend from here on out. That has to be enough. There isn’t any more. I still drown in this need. It doesn’t go away. I don’t know how to fill it.
I feel like I move through my life looking for mirrors. I want to know people who can look at me without flinching. Who know who and what I am and don’t despise me. I don’t trust men at all. Either they flinch or they judge or they lecture me on what I should have done. If you have not walked a mile in my shoes you do not know what I should have done.
For the past few days for no explicable reason I keep chanting in my head, “I prosecuted.” Despite all the times I didn’t have the courage to prosecute (fuck you Dan, and you too Paul) as an adult I had the courage when I was a teenager. I had the courage to pull the whole house of cards down. To effectively end my family. That was harder than anything else I will ever do in my life. Even divorcing my family last year wasn’t really as hard. I can bear it.
I’m glad I didn’t have a son in some way. I’m glad I don’t have to work through my loathing of white men while living with a little white boy. It’s a roll of the dice and I think I got lucky. It’s funny because my brother told me flat out he can’t live with a little girl and that is why God only gave him boys. But what do I want to teach my girls?
I suppose one of the main lessons will be, “Sometimes Mommy gets ranty. Mostly you can ignore that. It’s not about you.” Hopefully I will back this up with being fully supportive of her doing what she needs to do and not making everything about me. It’s not. I know that. I know that other people have different life experiences and they can bear different things.
I was talking to a mom at the home school group on Tuesday. I mentioned that I was kind of counting down the years until my kids are adults. I have just about fifteen years left. She said she couldn’t imagine thinking about it that way. That’s how much longer I have until I can really take a deep breath. That is when I will know if I have broken the cycle or not. That is when I will turn my kids loose on the world and how they do is up to them. What I have taught them will be more or less settled. I don’t believe I have a guarantee of any control or even a relationship once they hit that age. I have to earn it. I have fifteen years to earn it. Now that fifteen years is half of my lifetime it doesn’t feel very long. I can certainly tread water that long and longer. I waited longer than that to prosecute. I prosecuted fourteen years ago.
Another mother was talking about how there is a Vietnamese custom of celebrating death anniversaries. You get together to talk about the people who have gone. They still matter. In seventeen days Tommy will have been dead for fourteen years. I don’t have anyone to talk to who knew him. I know that his suicide wasn’t really my fault. I still feel guilty. I don’t know if it will ever go away. Jimmy’s birthday is in two days. He will turn 38.
I’m glad that Shanna is going to go spend the weekend with people who love and adore her and want to shower attention on her. I’m going to spend the next day or so licking my wounds. Right now they feel like they are festering. Maybe if I lick them for a while they will feel better.

Words have power.

In the current landscape of my life people talk about the various -isms. Racism, sexism, ableism, etc all have problematic words. You are supposed to just not use those problematic words any more. I can’t sleep at night for wondering when someone is going to call me on my inappropriate words and tell me that I am bad for using them.

One of these days a sex worker is going to be angry with me for referring to myself as a whore because I have never actually been paid. Just wait, it will happen. I will make them feel marginalized. I will be co-opting their language of oppression. At least, this is what I sigh deeply and expect. A long time ago I decided that whereas sex work is a perfectly valid form of employment it would not be healthy for me. I already have issues internally with figuring out where my consent actually is.

When I try to picture in my head what it will be like to talk about the book in public, once I get up the nerve and all, I think of what I might say to scathing people who are upset that I use the expression, “white trash.” I expect to be called a racist at some point. It has happened repeatedly. These days I just start singing, “Everyone is a little bit racist sometimes” and I try to respond to any actual substance. Am I racist because I believe that my cultural background is white trash? I think it depends on who you ask. Given the brutality of my childhood most people I talk to cede that it deserves harsh labeling. I really and truly do not know a better way to describe it.

I am trying to not be white trash any more. I do associate it with racism. And sexism. And homophobia. And and and and. Part of needing that phrase is my overwhelming shame that I would not have gotten help at important times if I was not white. Part of needing to identify myself by that bit of race privilege is to acknowledge that no matter how bad I think it was for me… I still was given a pass in ways I don’t even understand. There are still brutalities that are not mine to endure. I don’t speak for the “trash” experience because people who are not white get an entirely different reception. I don’t know from personal experience what it looks like but I hear it is pretty bad.

Who the fuck am I to think I can speak for a neutered carefully non-racial experience of poverty? I think that would be a far graver sin than acknowledging that my poverty and brutality carried with it an air of people who didn’t believe they were at the bottom of the barrel even though in every measurable way they were?

My nephew used to work at a movie theater. I think he worked there for about two years. He quit because they wouldn’t promote him so he didn’t feel adequately “respected.”  Then he went on to just not work for years. The hilarious thing is, he has a bunch of stories about breaking expensive equipment at the theater. He thinks these stories are great. He tells them with pride. Then he honestly can’t understand why they don’t promote him and he thinks it is more dignified for him to sit at home asking for money from his sister–the one who was working fast food while a high school student.

Oh man. There is such a warped perception of the world there. It’s not unique to being white, no. It’s not one story. It’s the whole fabric. My uncle believed he was superior. That was what I grew up hearing. It is subtle. I don’t feel like it is a stretch to say that their culture was actually bad.  The funny thing is, not everyone in the family monolithically believes the ad-copy. Auntie is a rather dignified and respectful soul. She treats everyone decently regardless of any part of their “identity.” She just doesn’t care what someones race or sexuality or religion is. She’s doing her thing and she’ll smile at you and ask you about your day regardless of how you differ from her. She doesn’t see it as relevant. Why couldn’t she be the one to create my culture?

That’s the thing, she did. She created a household where she adamantly believed differently from the prevailing loud noise in the house and she kept her mouth shut. Silence is consent. The only reason I know she believes differently from the common speech I heard every is because I have quietly watched her actions for decades. When you are bringing up children that kind of dichotomy doesn’t work. I have her in my head as a contrast to all the hostility and hatred, yes. But I feel like she is also just a random piece of flotsom in the river of that family. She gets pushed back and forth between the currents and she goes along with whatever happens without raising a fuss. She doesn’t see it as her place. That means that when children are repeatedly victimized she isn’t willing to see it or deal with it. She wouldn’t even know how.

I know that my family being white trash is offensive on its face. I know how charged that phrase is. I use it because it is true. I don’t think that carefully avoiding it because it bothers people is the right approach. The right approach is talking about it and figuring out how to stop being that. Silence just enables the ongoing problems.

White trash believe that they are being unfairly persecuted by all the people of other races who want welfare or support even if they have been on the doll for generations. That is my experience of my family. That is why I include that in my personal definition. I was taught hostility with my Pepsi and Snickers. We didn’t do mothers milk.

If I am hopeful I say that I don’t think I am currently white trash. The problem is I don’t know who or what I am. I don’t know who I am becoming. I don’t know what I will be like. I feel like I am at a crossroads. I’m kind of hard to describe.

I had lunch with a friend. She said that she feels like she spends a lot of time with her kids. My eyes kind of went wide–she has a job! She is away from her kids for at least forty hours a week! How is it possible to spend a lot of time with your kids if you have such a commitment! I have been thinking since about why it is so important to me to be not-separate from my kids right now. (It’s not for any moral superiority.) In having two daughters I got to once again experience that feeling of one-ness that exists between mothers and children. I did not get to have the standard slow separation from my mother. The more I read about attachment disorders the more I cry. The idea of being away from Shanna and Calli for consistently more than about twenty hours a week makes me want to cry. I hurt inside thinking about not seeing them for that much time.

I stay with them and I spend my whole life with them right now because this is the only time I will have to repair the damage I have from my mother not being with me. I have one twenty year period to fix these holes in myself. Out of the whole of my eighty-something + year life that means I had twenty years to fuck it up then I get twenty years to fix it before I enter into the next stage of actually being an independent adult. I need every minute I can get now because the wounds are so deep and they are festering and they need a lot of care. I need the feeling of one day at a time separating. I will need that long to be ready for it.

My daughters are not mine. They are on loan for a brief time. It is so complicated to think about the fact that I do not own them. I can’t control them. Once they are adults I have no guarantee of ever seeing them again. I have this time and that is all I am promised. If I miss even one minute of it I will hate myself for losing the most precious time I will have this lifetime. This is the only time when I will be able to keep them safe and build them up to be as strong as I can. It’s hard for me to do. I’m having to figure out how to do it for myself at the same time. I’m not starting from a place of feeling strong and capable and worthy.

My children will not be white trash. It’s not about the poverty. It’s not about the violence. My children will not grow up in an environment of bitterness because they feel the world owes them for some undisclosed worth they just have. For me acknowledging that I am white trash is partially about feeling the overwhelming shame that comes from knowing that as bad as things were it was mitigated by so much racial privilege. It is all tied together.

Calling myself a whore is a similar kind of acknowledgment for me. I was diminished to the point where I was convinced that I should never accept money for sex–I just gave it away for free. I couldn’t even see any value in what I was doing. I was not good enough. I was not pretty enough. I was not stable enough. But I still would go out and have compulsive sex with large numbers of people. I have had six month periods where I slept with nearly fifty people. But I wasn’t ever paid. It’s a false feeling of security. Do I actually know what it is like to sell my body for coin? No. So why do I feel like I get to use the word whore? When you are taught by your family of origin that you are a whore and that your eventual livelihood will come from being used for sex… Maybe I am co-opting. Maybe I don’t deserve to sully the word for actual prostitutes. They aren’t necessarily compulsive sexually. I shouldn’t conflate my psychological issues with a real-world profession. But I do and I always have. Since I was a young child I have believed that it is an accurate word to describe me. Slut just isn’t the same.

Sluts have sex because they want to. Whores have sex because they have to. Sometimes because they need the money. Sometimes because, well, they just have to. Not all whores are adequately paid for their work. Pimps are a common problem. This is not a well run free market economy.

I try really hard to imagine what kind of mother I want to be. I want to show my kids an awesome example of parenting. It’s the most important thing in the world to me. I don’t care about a job or vocation or hobby very much. I care about the people in my life. I care about what kind of person I am going to teach them to be.

I don’t want to present my culture of origin as de facto. I don’t want to teach them compulsive behavior about sexuality. What does it mean to be actively not racist? Does it mean giving up the phrase white trash? But it has so much utility. It has so much purpose. It is so effective at provoking conversations and anger about the layers of filth involved. How can that be used in a productive way rather than just being one more way that another white woman is an asshole?

I don’t know. I know that every time I talk to someone in person about why it is important to me they agree that it is “ok” for me to use it as a self-label. I do talk to people who are not white. I don’t like this feeling of seeking approval from “Representatives From the People of Color” in order to talk about my experience of race. I cringe when I bring up this topic. I feel like the only way for me to talk about race is to sit back and shut up. My experience isn’t important. Only it is to me. How in the world can I create a different experience for my kids if I don’t figure this out? I know that if I try to just not talk or not think about these things that I will never have the ability to really change my behavior. I won’t know what behavior is important to change or why. If I stop using the phrase in writing or in speech I won’t take it out of my head. I will just be censoring myself for select audiences. Silence is consent. I don’t think I can agree with the idea that I shouldn’t talk about my experiences.

I wish I understood more about what knowledge I am really searching for right now. I’m not even sure. There is a conversation I long to have. I am not so good with the almost-there-but-not-quite things I know of. It’s time to run off.

It’s an interesting week

This has been a freakishly social week.  I’m thrilled.  It’s like I’m not a parent again, only people are coming to my house because I’m a parent.  It works.

I’m recovering from bronchitis. I didn’t appreciate it when the urgent care doctor told me I would have been better off with pneumonia because that would have healed quicker before the half marathon I am running in four days.
I’ve been thinking really hard about the ways in which I feel alone and unconnected, which is slightly ridiculous given that I’m fueling these thoughts with stuff people tell me when they come to my house because they like me. Last night my friends were telling me about their marathon experience. They ran with Team in Training to raise money for cancer research. They both have experiences in their backgrounds that made it a very poignant, specifically relevant thing for them to do. My grandmother, the one I am named after, died of cancer. I don’t know what kind.
I wouldn’t be able to train for the marathon as part of a group. It’s not really just the timing issues. It’s because I’m not running a marathon for anyone but me. I feel like a selfish piece of shit. I know a lot of people who are very outward focused in the “why” behind them doing things. I can’t be. I feel so very self involved. I want to run a marathon to prove to myself that I can. I want to run a marathon because I want to show my brother that I can even though I don’t particularly want to speak to him at the event. I’m actually terrified of running into him and I hope the crowd of 5,000 people will be enough to hide in.
I want to run a marathon for the same reason I wanted to be hanged by the neck. To prove that I can survive doing things that are too hard for most people. I feel like I shouldn’t admit that out loud. I don’t want to be part of something bigger than me because I never will. I will always feel like I am there on a temporary pass and I’m not really part of it. I don’t know how to feel connected to people.
Yesterday someone told me that for a very young child to be overly affectionate with people they don’t know is a sign of an attachment disorder. I did that. I went to anyone who was even vaguely affectionate towards me. The problem is that most people don’t keep coming around and the result is that I have learned to be bitter and not try to join anything. 
I have been trying to let my lungs heal this week so I have not been smoking pot. It is remarkable what that does to my mood. I’ve had a lot of suicidal thoughts. I’ve had a lot of intense feelings of worthlessness. I will never actually be good. I will never be someone who contributes in positive ways. I will always be a drain. I will always be unfit and unworthy. I’m not even sure what I am unworthy of.
A friend said something to me this week that I have always felt but not had the nerve to say out loud: my story is mostly remarkable because it happened to a white girl.  There are many tales of horrific incest and abuse from women of color. White girls either don’t experience it or don’t talk about it. I’ve never known how to feel about that. I’m very aware of my privilege. I’m very aware of the fact that I would not have gotten the help I have gotten if I hadn’t been white. I don’t know how to feel about that. I never have known. It’s not like I think I understand the black experience, I’m not that stupid. But I am often only willing to accept advice from people who aren’t white. Advice from white people often feels irrelevant to me. Either they didn’t ever live in the gutter so what the fuck do they know or they didn’t really crawl out.
My experience of advice from black women has been intense. They aren’t going to give me a pass for suffering. Everyone suffers. Black women have to live every day with the fear that their son might be murdered for having the audacity to walk home from a convenience store with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea. That is honest to god fucking fear. That is real. 
I told Noah this morning that the current debate about abortion in this country scares the shit out of me. It scares me in a visceral, personal way. The reason it scares me so much is because Noah has had a vasectomy. My intention is to be monogamous. If I ever get pregnant again it will probably be the result of being raped. I don’t have the hubris to think that won’t happen to me. Instead I have the life history where I feel like I should never leave my house again if I want to avoid that possibility. I should only see people I carefully prescreen and invite to my house. That is the only way I won’t have to deal with the potential consequences of a child I would not be able to raise with love.
I have had a transvaginal ultrasound. It wasn’t pleasant. The doctor was a stupid bitch and I didn’t want to do it and she insisted and I was stupid and didn’t feel like I could really say no. It was when I was pregnant with Calli. I got pregnant the cycle after a miscarriage. There was the potential that the previous miscarriage was a twin loss and I needed to know that information. That could have been determined by blood tests. She insisted up one side and down the other that I allow her to check with an ultrasound. I knew I was less than a month pregnant and she wouldn’t be able to see anything any other way. Even with the transvaginal ultrasound she couldn’t see much of anything because Calli was still about the size of a pea. I left the building crying because I hadn’t wanted that woman to penetrate me. Unfortunately I’m not very good at saying no when people want access to my crotch. I don’t ever feel like I really get to.
I know that right now I am feeling unstable. I know that this is why I am “mentally ill”. Because even though I have a great life and I “should” feel safe I don’t. Is this really mental illness or is this simple pattern recognition? I don’t feel like I even know.
I’m working on part two. I’m thinking about who were the important pivot people in my life. I’m thinking about where I learned different ideas. Where did I learn that I was supposed to exist for other peoples entertainment, not my own fulfillment. I’m thinking hard about how I was shaped. And this time I want it to sound like a story not a bare recitation of facts. I’m scared shitless of writing dialogue. How do I characterize these relationships? Oh god.
I’m really glad people are coming to visit me this week. That’s why I argue with myself about my “value”. Obviously people do see value in me. Obviously they think I am worth putting in some effort–they have already done so. But why? What value could they possibly get from knowing me? That’s what is interesting about writing part two. It’s not just thinking about what people have done to/for me. I have to acknowledge what I have actually done. How I have been a person that others want a relationship with. Unfortunately being sober means I feel like I should just write over and over and over about how all people want is access to the hole between my legs.

It’s not what you know it’s who you know

I used to have a coworker, Christina.  We were hired for the same department the same year.  I think in our first semester of being teachers together I subbed for her one period.  That is a common thing for teachers to do.  For things like doctors appointments, it’s easier than finding someone outside the school.  You generally don’t get extra pay for it, but the goodwill is huge.

We were both still learning how to put together curriculum and we had very different styles.  She was going from the textbook.  I never checked the textbook out of the book room.  I ran my classroom as close to a college class as I could get away with.  I followed the state standards for educational guidelines, here let’s look at one set as an example (these are the official standards for the state of California):

WRITING (Grades 11 & 12)
1.0  Writing Strategies
Students write coherent and focused texts that convey a well-defined perspective
and tightly reasoned argument. The writing demonstrates students’ awareness of the
audience and purpose and progression through the stages of the writing process.
Organization and Focus
1.1  Demonstrate an understanding of the elements of discourse (e.g., purpose, speaker,
audience, form) when completing narrative, expository, persuasive, or descriptive
writing assignments.
1.2  Use point of view, characterization, style (e.g., use of irony), and related elements for specific rhetorical and aesthetic purposes.
1.3  Structure ideas and arguments in a sustained, persuasive, and sophisticated way and support them with precise and relevant examples.
1.4  Enhance meaning by employing rhetorical devices, including the extended use of paral­lelism, repetition, and analogy; the incorporation of visual aids (e.g., graphs, tables, pictures); and the issuance of a call for action.
1.5  Use language in natural, fresh, and vivid ways to establish a specific tone.
Research and Technology
1.6  Develop presentations by using clear research questions and creative and critical research strategies (e.g., field studies, oral histories, interviews, experiments, electronic sources).
1.7  Use systematic strategies to organize and record information (e.g., anecdotal scripting,
annotated bibliographies).
1.8  Integrate databases, graphics, and spreadsheets into word-processed documents.
Evaluation and Revision
1.9  Revise text to highlight the individual voice, improve sentence variety and style, and
enhance subtlety of meaning and tone in ways that are consistent with the purpose, audience, and genre.

To me there is no part of that needs to include dead white guys or boring work sheets.  I want to talk about controversial books, stories, songs, news articles.  Ok, some of the dead white guys are ok.  I am a big fan of Mark Twain.  I really enjoyed teaching Huckleberry Finn even though I’m sure I wasn’t PC.  I made ever white kid in the class read aloud until they could stop stuttering when they said nigger.  It’s just a word.  Then the black kids spontaneously decided to talk about how it felt.  There were fewer jokes after that day.

Anyway, Christina.  When I subbed for her I made fun of the poem we were reading from the textbook. I did it reflexively.  I did it because I had an instinctive hatred of the textbook.  Of course word got back to Christina.  She was cold to me for years rather than tell me that what I did was unprofessional.  In the week or two before I quit I came into the break room.  She was sitting there alone.  I sat across the table from her and I said, “I feel that I must have wronged you.  I’m not sure what I did.  But you’ve been very angry with me for a long time and I was hoping you would tell me why.”  She tried to deflect me.  Naw, she’s got no problem.  Then I told her the story I just wrote.  I got to the end and I said I was sorry that I poisoned the well when I was an insecure new teacher.  I did it because I was trying to bolster my sense of myself and in the process I damaged hers and that makes me a bully.  I’m sorry.  She cried.

She told me it was hard to keep hating me because I said things that were so funny and then she got mad at herself for laughing because she was supposed to dislike me.  I told her I understand.  People often feel that way about me.

Like they are supposed to dislike me, but they don’t and they aren’t sure why.  I’ve been told that more times than I care to recall.

Yesterday we had our first visit from a housekeeper/babysitter person.  She’s young and in college.  She’s not white.  The things she has mentioned so far make my heart beat faster.  She was turned out at 13.  She has been homeless for most of the time since.  She made it through DeVry under extremely suboptimal conditions because she wants to be a Systems Administrator.

Some of the things she said remind me strongly of Christina, who was also not white and from a less than privileged background.  It’s a specific quality.  If I follow the textbook I will be doing it right.  I have to do what the textbook says.  They are both climbing the ladder by doing things right.  I have always known that there must be an easier way.  And because I was white and I lived in Los Gatos and I was invited into the homes of very rich people and I got to listen to the way they just randomly talk around the house…

Yeah, it’s different.  My family taught me I had to conform and be like other people.  A very firm caste system, if you will.  I had to be who I was born to be.  My circumstances of birth should have dictated my actions.  But you see, I have always been able to find the ability to ‘pass’ around people of higher social class for at least a little while.  I can’t maintain it for long and it feels like incredible strain.  But all those bits and pieces and glimpses have shown me that the people who make it really far are people who believe that their circumstance of birth are irrelevant to their potential.  They simply have a larger hunger than that.

Christina and the housekeeper and me are all hungry in that way.  We want something more.  This is very common.  I’m hitting writers block because I feel like I want to say something that sounds bad or mean, but it’s still true.  I’m paralyzed with fear.

Ok.  I think that Christina and D (chick from yesterday) are afraid to go off book because otherwise they would have to start making up their own path.  They have never been encouraged to do so.  Everything in their lives has pushed them into a fairly narrow walkway for “success” but neither is going to actually reach success that way.

This is my big judgmental mouth here.  This is hard to admit out loud that I think.  Ok.  I feel like they both need to go off book.  If you are always afraid of failing you never commit yourself foolhardily to the most important decisions.

I called the Sheriff’s department and reported my father and had everything set, done, rolling before my mother got home from work.  I knew that if I talked to her she would try to talk me out of making waves.  I was just imagining things.  According to my mother nothing was that bad; there was nothing to report.

I think that Christina needs to learn to stick up for herself and tell coworkers, “What you did was unprofessional and rude” because she needs to learn that she’s worth that.  It will make her a better teacher.  I think D should find a way to live and breathe Sys Admin shit for a few months in someones garage and not bother with DeVry.  She needs to go talk to real live people who do this shit.

In both cases I am struck by their unwillingness to assert themselves with power.  They both wait to be told what they should be doing and how they should do it.  I don’t do that.  I don’t think it is because I am white.  I think it is because I was shown that rich people are assholes and they do whatever the fuck they want whenever the fuck they want.  They can get away with it.  I wanted to learn how.

In Los Gatos High School the kids all got away with murder.  It was eery.  I watched kids be disrespectful in ways that made my eyes bug out.  But the teachers were powerless in terms of discipline.  It was really obvious to me that the teachers were only going to be effective if they form a personal bond.  And you can’t do that with everyone.

Christina isn’t a bad teacher and she doesn’t need to do anything different from what she’s doing.  Her kids will learn just fine.  But she’s not the right teacher for people who are hostile to working from a textbook.  Early on when I was teaching it made me angry that she followed the textbook because it felt like a personal injustice that she was perpetuating the lie that people need to know the stupid shit inside that book.  No one ever needs to read a god damn textbook ever in their lives in order to be educated.

This is my dirty street kid talking.  I didn’t ever read the textbooks.  I didn’t do homework.  I was socially progressed through elementary and junior high because I did no work.  Looking around the room I always felt like the other kids must be smarter or better or… something than me.  For whatever reason I was never willing to do what I was told.  Ever.  I have had several teachers (in public schools) beat me trying to get me to change my behavior.  It only ever made me more stubborn.

It’s scary to stand near people who take up a lot of space.  It feels like they encroach on me and try to make me more like them.  It’s scary to stand next to people who invite boundary incursion.  I don’t want to push anyone to be more like me, either.  I’m pretty fucked up.  Why in the hell would anyone want to be like me.

But I went from the bottom 10% to the top 5% in a time when my generation is crying out against the injustice of lack of social mobility.  It’s hard to not feel like a whore.  I am this rich because Noah fell in love with me.  He wanted a wife who was sufficiently slutty and fun.  He encourages me in doing every transgressive thing I want to do.  Because he thinks there isn’t actually anything wrong with anything that I’m doing.

I think it was easier to go find other groups that would encourage healthier behaviors because I looked enough like the groups that I wanted to be part of.  When I was in neighborhoods where I was the only white kid, I wasn’t invited into the homes of nice families.  I never had the experience of nice families in a multi-cultural setting.  In Los Gatos it took a while for people to notice that I didn’t fit in and then they would stop inviting me.  So in the poor, non-white (the specific concentration depended on where we were living) areas I spent all my time alone.  Occasionally I wandered out for a sexual assault.  When I was in white areas I was surrounded by very affluent, quirky people.

It’s had an effect on me.  So yesterday when this nice girl was helping me clean my house we sat and talked a lot about her school experience and how she feels quite sure that they aren’t teaching her what she needs to know.

You know, I can’t foster children in a house this small.  But I sure as shit can have a long string of people who need money work for me and I can help them network.  You want to be a Sys Admin, honey?  Let me introduce you to some nice girls I know.