apples and fuck-yous

I feel fat.

"You're not fat! You look great." -every woman I know.

Thanks. I still feel fat.

And I know I'm not "fat" technically. Not obese or grossly overweight. I know women who weigh more than I do and they look fantastic. But I have something these women don't.

I have a stomach. A belly that hangs over the band of my low-waisted jeans or pooches out under the band of my high-waisted jeans. A-line dresses skim my belly and then contour under it. Clingy fabrics give me an unappealing sausage shape. I'm not even trying to look at bodycon.

I'm an "apple" if we are boiling women down to pieces of fruit.

The butt is in. Hips are shaken with relish. Boobs have long since been revered. Even thighs are no longer mocked for being thunderous: they are strong if they're full of muscle, or part of a "real woman" if they're soft. A woman's body can now carry several extra pounds and still be considered acceptable to society...as long as it looks like a woman's body. A curvy, shapely, dainty-shouldered body that carries its weight in the lower half. Hips and thighs and butts are all fine. Everyone [with a big butt or wide hips/thighs] is beautiful. What about a woman with broad shoulders and huge tits and a bit of a paunch, yet an inexplicably flat butt and spindly chicken legs? Is she beautiful? Where does this woman fit into the new world of #noangels?

She doesn't.

I don't.

I don't feel beautiful most days. This is not a pity party. This is just a fact. My belly expands if I have a large meal, ballooning its way forward and obscuring my feet. Even if I starve, my upper half is still big and my lower half is little. I've been asked how far along I am in pregnancy.I have been told by ex-boyfriends that sometimes I am attractive, and sometimes I am not, depending on the amount of food I have consumed that day. I've been advised not to wear rompers or overalls because they're "all middle." I've been told by a male friend that "some women can gain weight and still look great, and some women, well even an extra five pounds is noticeable." This statement was not explicitly directed at me but the implication was clear: A woman can be as fat as she can get away with as long as the stomach is flat, and yours isn't.

My legs are toned and smooth. My flat butt is cellulite free. Yet I won't be flaunting a bikini this summer. Men ooh and ahh over curvy ladies and pat themselves on the back for being into "real" looking women. These men are not fawning over us apples. They do not want that type of realness. Where do we fit into this new body revolution, where all sizes of women are supposed to be accepted, but no one is modeling plus-sized lingerie over their stomach pooch?

a passive-aggressive public service announcement

I don't want your fucking dick pic.
Someone might want your dick pic, but that person is not me.
I don't want your dick pic.

I don't want your dick pic if you're sober.
I don't want your dick pic if you're drunk.
I don't want your dick pic if I'm drunk.
I don't want your dick pic if you have a girlfriend but you think I'm hot.
I don't want your dick pic if you have a girlfriend but you think cheating on her is hot.
I don't want your dick pic if you're single and you think I'm hot.
I don't want your dick pic if you think you have a big dick.
I don't want your dick pic if you think you have a "nice" dick.
I don't want your dick pic if you want to have sex with me.
If I want to have sex with you, I still don't want your dick pic.
If we've been exchanging flirty texts, I still don't want your dick pic.
If I've already touched your dick, I still don't want your dick pic.
If we've already had sex, I still don't want your dick pic.
I don't want your dick pic if you're wearing boxers.
I don't want your dick pic if you're wearing briefs.
I don't want your dick pic if you're going commando.
I don't want your dick pic if you're wearing a hilariously patterned man thong.
I don't want your dick pic if you've got a boner.
I don't want your dick pic if you've got a semi.
If for some weird reason you've taken a photo of your flaccid dick, I don't want that dick pic.

I don't want your fucking dick pic.

I am not a fucking mascot

It's football season and you know what that means: Dan Snyder's shitty sports team and its racist mascot are in everyone's face again. Even though The Washington Post and even  NFL commentators have decided to stop referring to the team by its offensive name, the organization refuses to budge. Let's deconstruct the arguments against changing his offensive team name!

Before we start, if your first question is going to be "Well how much Indian are you?" let me stop you right there. I'm not going to defend myself against your blood quantum requirements; I get plenty of that from the federal government. I will just say: enough. I am enough.

Argument 1: But it's about honoring their strength/spirit etc...

The historical context of the slur is debatable. The fact that it is a slur is not. One theory is that the term originated from scalping. Baxter Holmes writes about the call for the brutal scalping of Penobscot Indians, in a chilling piece for Esquire:

     "Spencer Phips, a British politician and then Lieutenant Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Province, issued the call ... for, 'His Majesty’s subjects to Embrace all opportunities of pursuing, captivating, killing and Destroying all and every of the aforesaid Indians.' They paid well – 50 pounds for adult male scalps; 25 for adult female scalps; and 20 for scalps of boys and girls under age 12.

These bloody scalps were known as 'redskins.'

The mascot of the Washington Redskins, if the team desired accuracy, would be a gory, bloodied crown from the head of a butchered Native American."

Fucking terrible, right? This is not about the strength and power of a native person, this is about the strength and power of the white person who killed them.

Another theory is that the term refers to the reddish (I guess?) tone of native peoples' skin, or the red paint some tribes used on their faces. Native people may have coined the term to differentiate themselves from their white murderers or their white murderers may have started calling native people redskins first. Regardless, the imagery of Indians with red skin made it's way into popular culture and never in a positive way (Peter Pan, anyone?) You are not talking about the accuracy of a native warrior's arrow or the strength of an elder's spirit; you are talking about skin tone, as in, "not white."

         Why is the red man red? Because Walt Disney was at his racist best.
                                 

Any way you slice it, the racial slur "redskin" was meant to be derogatory and Redskins or Redmen or any other incarnation of the term used by white people is paying homage to the white men who called them that and nothing else. Even if you did have the purest of intentions in wanting to honor native tribes, it's not working. So stop.

Argument 2: But there are Native schools that call their team "Redskins" ...

This argument is as old as the reappropriation of slurs itself. Oh, are you the type of white person who thinks that because black people can use the n-word you should be able to as well? The type of straight person who thinks that gay men calling each other the f-word gives you license to?  If you think marginalized groups taking back negative terms, stripping them of their power to hurt, and incorporating those terms into their own culture's vernacular should give you free reign on those terms yourself, fuck off please reevaluate your philosophies and get back to me.

Oh also maybe watch this:

Argument 3: Why haven't native people cared about the team name before?

Because it's really difficult for the poor and disenfranchised to find the time for "luxury causes" such as this one, that's why. Reservations are dealing with a poverty rate six times the national average. The land is crap. Tribes that were disbanded by the government are fighting for recognition. Tribes have been dealing with high suicide rates and a predisposition to alcoholism. This shouldn't be news to you, but things have been pretty shitty for Native Americans. Matt Calkins breaks this down further here.

Recently, things have been looking up for tribes. With casino money, reservations are slowly digging themselves out from below the poverty line. Native American scholarships are providing better access to education for young Indians. Native people are finally at a point where they can do more than just try to survive. It's not that they never cared before, it's that they didn't have the luxury to care before.

Argument 4: Why haven't YOU cared before, Marcia, hmmmm?

To be honest, I didn't really care about football at all. It was easy to ignore. It was always sort of an abstract thing: sports teams were sometimes racist. Now that I actually take an interest in my local sportball team, all of those racist mascots and logos are staring me in the face. And it pisses me off. Also I've been thinking a lot about my cultural identity (or lack thereof) since my dad died. Also, the world has been falling apart, I don't know if you noticed. I was busy dealing with that--

--oh wait, are you trying to attack me personally to distract from the validity of the cause?  Yeah, I thought so. Moving on.

Argument 5: Well then we'd have to change the Braves, the Indians, the Chiefs ...

YES. We would. Change them all. Fucking change all of them.*

The Washington Racists are just the most prominent and offensive in a long line of offensive team names.

Fucking change them all and stop holding onto your bullshit white privilege, the same white privilege that allowed rich white men to caricaturize several hundred races of people, AFTER other white men murdered them and stole their land. Oh poor sports fans, you'll to buy new overpriced officially licensed sportball gear and you wont be able to wear that feathered headdress anymore. I don't fucking care. Stop being a racist asshole.

*I'm also tired of running into "sexy Pocahontas" and "Chief Sits-on-Dicks" at Halloween parties, but that's a subject for another blog.

I want to be a catch, not a catch and release

Hello again, dear imaginary readers. I'm not exactly sure that what I want to talk about has a concrete introduction, or even body and conclusion, so I think I'm just going to blather on for awhile. A shocking development, I know.

I want to go home. Problem: I don't know where that is. I don't think it's in Monroe, or Bothell, although I'm pretty sure that neither of those places are inherently bad, just too full of terrible memories.

I've been running for so long. I started to realize, as I was staring thirty in the face, that I was exhausted. And now that I've officially kissed my twenties goodbye, I'm antsy. I'm terrified, I'm lonely, and I feel exactly as lost as I did at seventeen when I thought all I wanted was to disappear to California. This city feels at once warm and loving but cold and dreadfully standoffish. There are so many wonderful people who love me everywhere I look, but none of them can help me.

 My thirty-first birthday is tomorrow, and I'm officially upset about it. Hurray, I've reached that age where impending birthdays result in a depression spiral during which I contemplate my own mortality and palpable lack of suitors. Thanks, societal conditioning.

I am afraid that I will be alone for the rest of my life.

So many of my friends tell me that "Of course you wont be alone forever, you're so pretty and smart and awesome!" These sorts of statements, while probably true, are basically worthless. Because yes, if there were a bell curve grading people on how much other people like to look at them,  I'd probably fall somewhere right of the middle. Yes, I am intelligent. Yes, other people seem to enjoy my company.

None of this matters.

Finding that "special someone" is basically a combination of proximity and dumb luck.

It's one hundred percent about finding someone you connect with before someone else, who they can establish a similar connection with, stumbles upon them first.

I'm being characteristically hyperbolic of course. My being attractive/intelligent/enjoyable company may make the pool of people who will desire me slightly larger that say, an orc, but really when you factor in all the people I meet in a day who rule me out because they would rather be with someone with different qualities it all comes out in the wash. Peter Bakus, while an economics grad student at Warwick University, used the Drake equation to calculate his odds of finding a girlfriend. For those of you who don't know, the Drake equation was used to estimate the number of "us" like civilizations that might exist in this galaxy, using variables like rate of formation of stars capable of supporting life, fraction of Earth-like planets, etc.  Bakus tweaked this equation for things like the number of women in the UK  and the fraction of those who might find him attractive.

 His odds of finding a potential mate on a given night in London were 0.00034%. That is a 1 in 285,000 chance.

Peter Bakus is an attractive, intelligent and (I imagine if he's writing papers like this one) awesome. And alone.

"What about dating sites?"

I'm not talking about dating sites, because I hate dating sites. Nevertheless, since you brought it up: yes. Same rules of firstsies applies here, only more aggressively, and with greater success. You are choosing specifically from a pool of individuals who are available but you still have to navigate to the person you click with before someone else does.

Here is a list of Things I Want:

1) Someone to love, and to be loved by, who believes that they can love only me until I'm dead and reincarnated/rotting/in hell/whatever.

2) A cabin in the forest, near the forest, or at least in some podunk little neighborhood close to a forest, where I can grow vegetables and where a big floppy golden retriever and a smushy-faced english bulldog can run around together. The kind of place where teenagers (like me, circa 1998) dream of breaking out of, except for different reasons than I had. I was (am?) running from my small town because it was full of ghosts that I wanted to be rid of. This place will be full of love and beauty and simplicity, and those teenagers will be like the amish on rumspringa.

3) To keep experiencing things.

A good friend of mine told me that I am "hyper-monogamous." Because I don't date around, I don't play the field. If I have one date, I don't want another one with someone else. I fall fast and hard. I give everything to one person, and then I find out if they deserve it. This has gotten me into trouble because, well, usually they don't deserve it.

I don't have a clever way to end this blog.

Another fun blog about the patriarchy!

I was having a chat with someone the other day and he informed me that we don't live in a patriarchal society. That patriarchy is a choice, not a systemic social problem. I say he informed me because I quickly became aware that what we were engaging in was not a spirited debate or even a conversation but rather him telling me what was right (his opinion) and what was wrong (mine). I was told I was getting angry and emotional, which is a classic debate tactic (and is also arguably patriarchal: the poor woman is too emotional to think correctly). I did not want to engage in that situation, but it definitely got me thinking.

Feminism defines patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. There are blog posts on blog posts about blog posts on whether or not we, as a society, are past patriarchy. This might be my favorite. Even though I have nothing new to bring to the conversation, I find the conversation is still necessary.

The aforementioned male's main argument is this:

"[a female close to him] will routinely state how she thinks men should be chivalrous and pay for things and also will routinely state how she deserves to be treated equally"

This is one of the very consequences of living in a patriarchal society that is embroiled in a debate about whether or not it is a patriarchal society. Women today (most straight women in middle class America), grow up with the notion that they can be anything they want to be and that they are equal to any man. They are also told repeatedly that a real man will pay for dinner, hold her door open, and take care of her. Society is telling women this at every turn. We are given a disharmonious set of values from a very young age: Be a strong, independent woman. You are just as good as any man at whatever it is you want to pursue. But make sure to let your man feel like the man. When young women are told that they are and should be equal to men, but are then given a set of rules to govern their interactions with those men, these women are going to be understandably confused. I know I am.

Nora Caplan-Bricker at the New Republic writes: 

        "Patriarchy isn't just the ratio of men to women in Congress or on Fortune 500 lists. It’s also a set of societal norms, invented by men but internalized and imparted by everyone, that says women shouldn't be too big or too loud or with hair in the wrong places—that determines women should be one way and not any other."

Yes, some men choose to be stay-at-home dads. Yes, there are women in powerful positions across the corporate ladder. Yes, there is a really good chance that our next president will be female. But one woman president does not mean we are past feminism. One woman successfully navigating male-dominated systems does not erase the fact that they are male-dominated systems.

I asked this man to check his privilege before making sweeping claims about the end of oppression in our society. This was met with a lot of anger at how a) I had no idea where he came from and b) how just because he is a straight white American male does not mean his opinion is invalid. The former is an honest misunderstanding of the concept of privilege, and I did not feel like getting that far into the weeds about sociological terms so his continued confusion on that point is understandable. To the latter: Sorry but yes, as a straight white male in America you are NOT the best person to judge whether or not we live in a patriarchal society. I'm sorry, I know it's not fair and you feel like you have the right for your opinion to ring louder and truer than all of the rest but that is not how voices on oppression work. You may not be oppressing anyone currently (not all men!) but you are a part of the oppressing party and you just don't get to make the call on this one. I know you will be angry at me and at how wrong you think I am; tough fucking shit. Oh btw, you were oppressing me when you belittled my opinion, told me to go away and come back when I was less emotional and could back up my indignation with facts. Not "grassroots campaigns," mind you. I tried to direct this man to the Yes All Women movement but he would have none of those types of facts.

I'm now going to tell you a story:
(trigger warning: unwanted sexual advances)

A few months ago, I was very intoxicated at the end of a long night out at a neighborhood bar. My phone was dying and I was worried about my ability to walk home safely in the state I was in so I called an uber. Since my phone was nearly dead, when the car was arriving I left the bar and hopped in the first uber I saw. We were halfway to my apartment before the driver realized that I was not his intended fare. Someone else had apparently called a car to the same bar at the same time, and I had gotten in the wrong one. After a lot of confusion, driving back to the bar, and dealing with the other customer, the driver offered to take me home for free since I was already in his car and my phone was about to die. It was a short ride. When we pulled up to my apartment, this man did not want me to get out of the car. He stated repeatedly that we should "go somewhere and have fun," tried to kiss me multiple times, and tried to put my hand on his body.

I gave this man my phone number because he asked for it and I could not think of a fake one. I told him we could "go somewhere and have fun" later because I just wanted out of his car and thought that this was the easiest way to make that happen. I was frightened. I was an unregistered passenger, I was drunk, and I was afraid that "no" was not enough to get me out of the situation.

Men who look at a drunk woman alone and see an opportunity are assholes; they are also a product of patriarchy.

Street harassment is patriarchy.

The men's rights movement is patriarchy.

When someone tells you to "be a man about it," that is patriarchy.

When someone says "don't be a pussy," that is patriarchy.

When a woman is told to "smile, sweetheart," that is patriarchy.

When "I have a boyfriend" is the only way to get someone to stop hitting on you (not "I'm just out with my friends, "I'm really not looking for anyone right now" or any other perfectly legitimate reason you wish to be left alone, but only that you "belong" to another man), that is patriarchy.

The people saying these things are not making a choice to participate in the patriarchy; they are probably not even thinking about re-enforcing patriarchal social norms, and that is exactly what makes them patriarchal social norms. 

If you don't see the patriarchy in our society, take a look at yourself. You'll probably find it there.

don't read this if you hate sad things

How do you miss someone who you're supposed to miss, but who was never really there?

Sometimes I will be doing something perfectly normal, like driving down I-5 after work, and I'll just burst into tears. A tiny, random thing will remind me of my now-deceased father; in this case, a sign for a completely unrelated tribe's casino.

He wasn't a very good father. He spent almost all of my childhood addicted to drugs and eventually succumbed to the unfortunate native stereotype of homeless drunkard. All the same, he was my dad; his genes are my genes: my dark hair is his dark hair, my brown eyes are his brown eyes, my skin that tans so deeply if I let it is his own dark, leathery skin. My borderline-unreasonable love of salmon and inherent connection to the earth and all living things, his ancestors gave me those.

I do have some good memories of him, of visiting the reservation, and that one time when I missed my stop coming home on the bus from kindergarden and he came out to look for me. Most of the memories, though, are unpleasant ones: loud parties in the middle of the night when I was trying to sleep, him going to jail, when he was gone and then again, when he was gone for good.

When he came back into my life a few years ago, he was a stranger to me. An awkward, lonely stranger looking for a daughter. Trouble was, I didn't need a father anymore; I'd already grown up and away from one absent one and one horrible replacement. I was an adult woman who really didn't know what to do with this apologetic vagrant at my doorstep. So we had a few visits, he gave me a few trinkets, and he would call me every once in awhile. I made my roommate listen to and delete the messages when they got to piling up so that I didn't have to deal with them. And then...he died. A little over a year ago, he just died alone on the side of the road. Although I knew that he was never going to live into old age, not with how he had destroyed his body, I wasn't expecting this. I wasn't really ready to be friends with the guy but I certainly wasn't ready for him to die.

So now I don't know what to do with any of this.

Sometimes I like to think that he was an anime father. You know (if you're a giant nerd) how in a storyline, the main character (an aspiring pirate or Hunter or other adventurous profession), his father is often absent and off on some quest, and the son respects and is proud of him because he knows that his father is following his dreams. But I don't feel like that. My dad made selfish choices and then he developed addictions that drove him apart from his children. I know that he felt deep sadness about this and that he regretted his choices but I don't want that either. I didn't want him to be sad; I'm not sad about it anymore and it breaks my heart a little to think about how despondent he could have been when he died.

I don't know what to do with his memory. I don't really feel like I lost my father but I don't know how to grieve for this strange person I met a few years ago. I guess I am doing things slowly; I fall apart randomly at bars, on the couch at home, and in the car on I-5 on the way home from work. I guess that's okay for now.

Butterface

This is a blog about the objectification of women. Or maybe it's not. It might be a rant, it might be a list of questions, it might be a little from column A and a little from column B.

 I love women's bodies. I love all sorts of lady shapes and types: thin, curvy, small tits, big tits, tan, pale, big feet, whatever. I care more about the clothes covering the lady body more than the shape of it. I could take or leave any type of man body. Some people are only interested in one type of body though. I dated a boy for two years who was very clear about the body type he preferred: not mine. He wanted me to be thinner, always thinner. J is a tiny Asian boy who has the body of Megan Fox minus the T&A. He hated how thin he was and couldn't stand to be with someone with a higher BMI. And so I tried to be thinner. I tried so damn hard to be the tiny girl that this boy wanted because he would tell me that sometimes he was attracted to me. Sometimes, I was the girl that he desired. But most of the time I was just too fat. I would hide from food all day and then eat the world at dinner. After these world-eating times, when I was complainy and too full to move from binging, this tiny boy would chastise me and wonder why, why couldn't I just control myself? Why did I have to eat so much food, couldn't I see that it was bad for me and it was bad for us? Because when I ate too much food I wasn't attractive to him. And if I didn't want to be attractive to him, then he just didn't know what he was doing with me. I would cry about how fat I was, literally cry, because I couldn't control my desire to eat a third slice of pizza and I knew that that third slice was destroying my relationship. He would still have sex with me of course, because a fuck's a fuck, but he'd be damned if he'd enjoy it as much as he would enjoy touching a thin girl's body.

I look back on photos of myself from this time and I want to slap both of us in the face. I was not tiny, but I was not fat by any stretch of any rational human being's expectations of a woman. I'm certainly fatter these days and have had several people look at and touch my naked body and tell me how beautiful I am. Yet, I don't feel it. I feel like a giant, like I STILL have to get to the impossibly tiny size that this insecure little man demanded of me two years ago. I think, these people who are touching me must be lying. How could this body be beautiful, when even the smaller version wasn't?

J could only appreciate one type of body: super thin. I can appreciate many more. Does this make me less of an asshole, or just less choosy? I certainly care more about what's under a person's skin, but let's be real here: if there's no physical attraction, it's not happening. This guy valued me as a human, I suppose, but not as a paramour and certainly not as an appropriate girlfriend for him. The girl he left me for was a runner of some sort. He told me that she was a better partner for him because her chances of surviving an apocalyptic situation were much higher than mine. Because she could run faster, I suppose? This was probably the most offensive thing (in a laundry list of offensive things) he's ever said to me. When I was a kid I used to catch, skin and roast fish on a homemade brick stove, just for fun. I am well acquainted with most edible and poisonous plants in this area. I studied animal tracking. I am getting my degree in BEING OUTDOORS. I'm a scrappy motherfucker, and I will survive a motherfucking apocalypse. This kid thought I'd be the first one to go because I was lugging around an extra ten pounds?

Why am I going off on this rant now, when we've been broken up for over two years? Recently, J referred to his newest girlfriend as a "butterface." For those of you who aren't familiar with this delightful American idiom, it means that a girl has a hot body and an ugly face. Everything "but her face" is hot. Clearly, this is a terrible thing to say about any person, especially a person you are supposed to be romantically involved with. Is this even worse? Should I be happy that I got off with merely a skewed body image and a mild eating disorder? This poor girl can't do anything about her butterface; I could at least, in theory, diet.  I have no doubts, however, that he is more pleased with this situation. I am one hundred percent sure that J would rather have a "hot body/ugly face" combo than me. This makes me angry, and I can't exactly pinpoint why.

This relationship was, in hindsight, mind-bogglingly unhealthy for me. J fucked with my brain in ways that I'm still trying to sort out. Am I just as much to blame for pestering this boy into dating me, even though he was pretty clear about his preferences? Is this guy a dick for wanting to sleep with thin girls, or is he just a dick for trying to turn me into one of those thin girls? Or is he a dick for telling me that I wasn't what he wanted but sleeping with me anyway? The douchebaggery is not up for debate but the root of it is; where does the douchebaggery start? Are people who care less about what a person's body looks like better people, or just people with a wider preference set?

Running in the wrong circles, and I don't even like running

I am an awful straight girl. I mean, just like the worst. Terrible straight girl though I may be, I am an even worse lesbian. I'm hopeless with gay women: flirting with them or taking them out or being interested in their culture. And I'm not keen on doing anything about it. Lesbian culture confuses and scares me, and doesn't feel like where I belong. But I know I don't fit into straight (read: dick-loving ladies) culture.

So why does everyone I would maybe like to date want to stick me in one box or the other? [insert vagina joke here]. Why do most of the people I know need to put me in the straight box, just because I lust after women but only date men? I say "need" because that's what it feels like. I fret about how R-74 might affect me and hear "you don't have to worry about that." When my one short-lived relationship with a girl petered out, I heard "Well, maybe ladies are not for you." I run away from girls at clubs because they shimmy up to me, looking for a dance; this is seen as confirmation of my straightness. The only thing it is confirmation of is my cowardice. Gay women see this scenario differently: they are sure that if I could only get up the courage to dance with that woman, I would realize my gayness and never look back. I'm welcome in both clubs, as long as I'm willing to give up my membership in the other.

Sometimes I feel like my reluctance to date women stems from my failed relationships with men. More specifically, from a desire to not let those men win. I somehow feel that if I were to manage a happy relationship with a woman, those men who dumped me will think "Oh, well see that's why it didn't work out. She was a lesbian the whole time." This is, of course, not true. I was a bisexual/queer woman who happened to be dating a man at the time. But I fear that these men will release themselves from culpability for ending the relationship and I don't want that to happen. Something that is perfectly clear to the imaginary readers of this blog (and to people who know me well) but will likely remain a mystery to those of you who stumble upon this whenandif I publicize it: I have a difficult time getting over people. My fall-hard-and-fast dating style is a subject for another blog entirely, but it's still a thing. A nagging thing, and I have to wonder if it's the reason that, when I find myself setting up okCupid dates with cute girls, I also find myself Facebook stalking old male lovers and canceling said dates.

Regardless of the reasons for the lack of "bi" in my bisexuality, I'm still allowed to identify as such. I've recently started identifying myself as queer because I think that suits me much better, but it still doesn't quiet the naysayers.

I have fallen in love with men. I have fallen for women. I am, goddammit, capable and willing to love either. I'm just dreadfully bored with one and terrified of the other. So right now I am dating nobody. This doesn't mean I am asexual. I'm just...sexual. A person. Who likes to feel close to other people. Is that so bad?

ch-ch-ch-changes! aka Avatar TLA break

Oh hello there blog. I always come at this writing thing with a purpose (I'm gonna write about a thing and use these specific sentences!) but when I craft this idea I am usually comically far away from my computer, e.g., in the shower, and when I finally manage to put fingers to keys most of the thing and all of those specific sentences are gone. But I will TRY. Or at least I am going to ramble on anyway.

I have a difficult time relating to normal people. Not normal in an angsty sense, like no one will ever understand me. Normal as in 95% of people have a life experience that is 2 standard deviations from a given mean life experience. And I am somewhere between -5 and -6 on the distribution curve. I'm not trying to whine and it might be slash probably is all in my head but it does not seem to want to go away and is worsening with age.

small examples: when people discuss the music/ballet/sports lessons and camps they went to as children. when people talk about the cartoons and movies they watched as children. in general, over half the time when someone is talking about their childhood, it involves experiences that I never had. I try to chime in when I can but most of the time I am left feeling empty and cheated.

large example: when I meet a charming, lovely boy who ignites little Butterfrees in my belly, who makes me so nervous that I either clam up or say stupid shit and probably sound like a huge jerk but who for some reason likes me anyway. and this boy has probably never even seen a food stamp. this boy's parent's house is ticky tacky and oozing with too much class. I am awkward and don't know how to act. I never relax. I don't want to share the bits of my life because they are shameful. and I either run or scare them off somehow.

These things wouldn't even matter anymore if I didn't spend the first four years of my life after breaking out of whatever just fucking trashing said life.


UPDATE like a million years later (around Sept 2012):
...Oh man. I don't even know what to say here. Embarrassingly, it took me a few minutes to even figure out who the eff I was talking about. Then I remembered M2, who I was momentarily enamored with. He turned out to be asshole. Okay, not an asshole per se, but a lost soul without his shit together. Which leads me to the reason I am revisiting this blog: I do not date people with their shit together. Case in point: my newest paramour, the delightfully hobbitesque C. Seriously, he looks exactly like a 6'3" Pippin, and it's awesome. However, the boy's life is in shambles. Shambles. I am not even using hyperbole; this kid is a mess. So of course I had to have him. Just like M2, and P, and M1, J, T...I have not since my very first love dated a boy who was happy in the direction his life was going. Well, with the exception of T but he was nuts and his boat-apartment didn't even have a bathroom. I wasn't happy with the direction his life was going. aaaaaanyway. What does this say about me? Nice guys, successful guys, guys working on their master's degree or who are enjoying a career seem to be in encased in glass; I can look but I can't touch.

2012/10/16
This is my third try at this particular blog, and I really want to get out whatever I've been trying to say. I should tell you that C ran off with some girl he's batshit crazy for and we don't talk now. Why can't I connect with people who's lives aren't on a downward trajectory? Is it a barrier that I put up? A vibe I give off? I'm kind of concerned with this. It might be different once I graduate and feel less like I'm trying to play catch up with my life. Maybe not. I hope so.

Beverages

Maybe I am an alcoholic. I prefer to think that I am just drowning my sorrows. But I am sitting at the convention center, not doing homework and dicking around on the internet, some fucking horrible harp rendition of Hey Jude is assaulting my ears, and all I can think is how this scene would be soooooo much less dull if I had beer. Like, I really want to drink beer right now. So much so that I might leave and go drink beer, even though I am supposed to be filming some OS meeting. But P will be at the meeting and it will probably suck and maybe no one will show up or they will talk about incredibly dull things and see how many excuses I can come up with to not film this meeting and instead go drink beer?

I need to stop this. I'm annoying everyone. Plus, I am so angry all of the time, at everything. Well, except...

I don't know what I was going to say there. I just trailed off and left this post dangling here for months. So I am going to post it now even though its relevance is lost completely (OS is mostly gone, P's fences have been mended although dontevengetmestarted)...well maybe not completely. I'd still like a beer.

My (somewhat coherent) thoughts on violent revolution

I have been thinking about this for some time now, and I can kind of see both sides. I hate the knot tightening in my chest every four years as I watch aspiring leaders of this country spout seemingly insane talk about putting poor children to work doing menial labor as young as age nine because otherwise they will never learn to have a work ethic (because of their obviously drug-addled parents), or that they do not worry about poor people because of the government safety net, and then I watch the same guys just get even more popular.  Newt Gingrich is MEAN. Mitt Romney is nuts. And Obama is, well…ineffectual. Our system is broken if these are our only choices.

But like it or not, we are a nation of first world problems. We are not Egypt. We are not Moscow. We are not violently oppressed. There are many things wrong with this country: Our healthcare system allows people to die if they do not have the (often incredibly large sums of) money required for uninsured medical treatment. We have a flawed “two party” political system where we are forced to choose between a rich dick and an even richer asshole, neither of which embody a fitting representation of the American populace.  Our judiciary allows corporations-as-people the right to funnel unlimited sums of cash into political campaigns and fails to see how this compromises the integrity of our already precarious party system. The one percent is allowed to bend rules and regulations, using the power of money, to keep themselves on the richer side of the fence.

But we have freedom. We have the freedom to peaceably assemble. We have the freedom to write our legislators. We have the freedom to info bomb. We have the freedom to Occupy. We have the freedom to MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD.

Money talks in this country. And power corrupts.  But do we require a violent overthrowing of our social and political system in order to enact the kind of change we NEED to see?

I don’t think so. But I am not sure. Because those aforementioned dicks and assholes are advancing politically.  The republican party is ping-ponging between the two richest and most insane of the candidates. Is this just, in effect, rich people voting for whomever they believe will keep them richest? Or is this a byproduct of ignorance voting for whomever has the most television ads?

I am not an anarchist. I believe that people require governance, especially in the modern world.  But the middle class is disappearing and this country is dividing into two sides: rich and not rich. I like to think that Marx’s proletariat is forming.  Can we change this country through our voices?

slap out of it

It's the middle of the night and once again I am not even close to sleep. I have a wicked hangover that is still lingering from vodka I drank twenty four hours ago and I am depressed and feeling foolish. Let me take a few steps back: I have recently made some bad decisions. And I recently learned some information that makes my previous decisions, the ones that I was complaining about last blog post, also seem pretty bad. Decisions involving P, and my ridiculous affection for him. Decisions regarding most men that I have met on this planet and my interactions with them, really. But let's try to take it one step at a time.

Let's recap this so far: I can't sleep. I am sad. I make bad decisions.

Bad decision number 1) meeting a cute boy with great ideas. no wait, that was a good decision. where does this decision go awry? going out with aforementioned boy for drinks: still all right there. going back to boy's house: eh, that's fine. almost crying at boy's house when he inadvertently delivers some upsetting news about your previous paramour: we-ell that probably makes the list but it wasn't so much a decision as an emotional reaction (a stupid emotional reaction). sleeping with boy an hour or so later even though the pit of your belly was twisted with nagging melancholy: oh look there it is. probably shouldn't have done that.

The upsetting news was genuinely upsetting. I think. I might just be creating dramatic mountains out of molehills. I do that. Anyway, the upsetting news was that essentially P was having the same sort of adventure that he had with me, an adventure that I thought was unique to us, and he was acting in much the same way he had in our adventure. So it was upsetting, right? I can be upset? I mean, it kind of shows me that the specialness that I attributed to our relationship was false. in my head only. He may have been a rare person for me to encounter, but I am one of a plethora. And I don't even think he was genuinely that person. I think I was played. I think it was all his game.

So now what? I don't like this new boy, because my brain is mush. I would really enjoy my brain getting back to normal. Is it possible to just decide to be happy again? Make an executive decision to stop caring about P? Just man up and slap out of it? I'm going to try.

Melissa Etheridge Radio

I can't sleep. And I think I'm sad? Although it is the vague, maybe-kinda sad, to which I can't exactly assign a specific blame, but can identify four or five things that *should* make me feel pretty crappy. The thing is, I'm pretty sure I'm sad about a boy, a boy I should have been over oh so long ago. And I have REAL problems! I have a mother who is getting divorced in two days, divorced from The Monster (yes, that Monster), and I have been playing at being her lawyer without knowing what the hell I'm doing, and in two days I have to be in court facing off against The Monster, unable to help my mom as she inevitably crumbles under his madness. But I want nothing more than for this magical tea to quell the awkward pounding of my heart so that I may slip off into the sleep that I keep chasing, night after night, because I can't stop thinking about that silly, stupid miniature romance.

I am getting ahead of myself. Sorry, fake internet followers. Let me explain. This boy and I dated for like a minute. No, really. Basically zero time at all in the grand scheme of things. Ten days. Ten days. Not even two weeks! But in those ten days (and the preceding month of getting to know him), he seeped into my bones like something out of a bad John Cusack movie. I didn't want to like him. I really, really didn't. Because he wore awful clothes (elastic jogging pants with hiking boots!), listened to terrible music (favorite band: Third Eye Blind!), and legitimately wasn't that physically attractive to me (sorry P, if you ever read this). Yet, I fell. I fell insanely. I fell like a teenaged girl falls, throwing all of those emotions right up in there, right at the beginning, despite all the warning signs. And then, almost immediately but not before I had fallen hard like an idiot (still with me?), I decided that those warning signs were too much, ended it, wanted it back, grovelled, was rejected. All in a fortnight.

Now, the time that has passed since we dated equals about 150 percent of the actual time we dated. And yet I'm still all stupid. I lay in this bed and remember how much better it was when he was laying in it with me, even though that only happened like six times. How did this happen? Why am I listening to weepy nineties woman ballads (The First Cut is The Deepest? Come to My Window?? I Can't Make You Love Me???), sipping my heartbreak tea (I love you, Kava), and sleeping until noon (er, one pm). His number in my phone is listed as "Face of Dicks" and I have deleted it and all attached messages several times so that I don't drunk text him something retrospectively embarrassing.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME.

Is it because I came crawling back and was cruelly rejected? Or because I agreed to be friends after a period of away-time and, now that said away-time has long since ended, he has yet to even try to make any friend-plans (even though those friend-plans probably would be merely a cover so that I could charm my way back into his heart/pants)?

Is it because I am clinging to this temporary heartache drama so that I don't have to focus on the aforementioned Real Problems?

Or because I lowered my (admittedly too high) standards for physical appearance in order to take a chance on someone with whom I connected deeply on an intellectual level, and yet I STILL ended up alone?

I think it is because he is actually a rare and wonderful person, someone who I felt an instant and inconceivably amazing connection with, who I was comfortable around almost immediately, a person who I sorely miss. And I kinda thought I was the same to him, but I'm beginning to believe otherwise.

(Foolish Games is on my Melissa Etheridge Pandora station right now, and I am thumbing it up. If that gives you any indication of my ridiculous mental state.)

long time apology slash occupier guilt

Sorry imaginary readers. I've been busy. Busy as hell, as a matter of fact. You see dears, not only have a gotten two (two!!) college-y job-ish things loosely related to those trees I love so much, I have also taken up with Occupy Seattle. For those of you who have been living under a rock, or (like most of you) don't exist, Occupy Seattle is a social movement standing in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and standing up for the long-ignored basic human rights of the people of this country. The people of this country are finally, FINALLY, fed up with the way they are being treated. Minimum wage stagnation in the face of steep rises in the cost of living. Skyrocketing profit margins for corporate executives. Corporate cash funneled directly into the campaign purses of the richest and whitest, pricing out worthy candidates. In Washington, a state budget proposal that slashes programs for food assistance, Medicaid, fucking elementary SCHOOL BUSES yet refuses to look at eliminating corporate tax breaks. People have finally tired of living in a system where human beings pay four times the taxes, dollar for dollar, than corporations. Where the CEOs of financial powerhouses make risky investment decisions that should, in a true capitalist economy, bankrupt them, and our government bails them out. And then those CEOs use this money to further their own extravagant lifestyles. Etc.

I sort of accidentally joined this movement. I was watching it in a mildly dispassionate fashion from my couch because I had pretty much given up on this country. My plan was to learn about forest ecosystems and how to develop economically without destroying them and then peace out to some country that still had forests to save. This country, my country, was beyond my help, I thought. But as I watched I saw something extraordinary: Passion. The opposite of the traditional American apathy. People standing up to their government and saying: This is wrong, the way you are treating your citizens is wrong. And we will not take it any more. It was beautiful. It gave me hope. And I wanted to be a part of it.

...

I feel I should confess something here, dear imaginary friends. I started this post a few days ago and then got distracted by some shiny internet thing and never finished it. That is not all. Today, I bought two denim jackets.

Yes, two. denim jackets. two of basically the same jacket.


And as I sat down to finish this post, I couldn't help but feel like an asshole. Because here I was a few days prior being all "oh I love Occupy and everything it stands for" and what was I doing today, while my protesting brethren were out marching and climbing bridges and (possibly) getting pepper sprayed? I was buying two of the same jacket. To be fair, I am sick and shouldn't be out in the cold, I was on my way home from school, it was Goodwill, they are different washes and one has pockets while the other has more room for layers...blah blah blah excuses excuses. All I can see right now when I look at the reflection in my wine glass (oh I am also drinking wine, in my nice warm apartment) is a fraud. Why am I here, instead of there? How can I love them so very much and yet stay so separate from them?

I think part of the reason is because I originally jumped on this trolley as a livestream reporter. I was objective, I did not have a voice in the movement. But I cannot claim that anymore. I have a voice in this movement. This past weekend I traveled to Portland to stand with their occupation as it faced eviction. I stared into the eyes of a police officer in full riot gear, tear gas launcher in hand...and I only wavered a little bit. I was scared. I thought of my laptop, held high over my head so that the viewers at home could get a better view, and I thought: if it falls, so be it. I will get another one. Of course I haven't the spare thousand dollars to actually purchase another one but that is neither here nor there. My point is: where is that girl today?

Out buying two of basically the same denim jacket, that's where. Why? Why is it so difficult to throw my entire heart and soul into this movement?

Portland took a hell of a lot out of me. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally. I was sore and covered in mud. I slept for an entire day after and came down with a vicious cold. And on Monday I had to go to school and then work and then to a meeting with lawyers for my mother's divorce and then to work some more. And then the week of work/school/homework/family started up again, and I have kept away from Occupy because if I went back then I would get exactly zero of those things done.

I don't know exactly where I am going with this. I started off trying to explain how this movement has given me hope for what I thought were a hopeless people, and ended up trying to rationalize my guilt for not being there enough. Or something. aaaaaaaaanyway, I suppose I will conclude with this: I love this movement and everyone in it. But I also love denim jackets.

just gonna preface this with: I'm crying like a foolish child

aaaand I'm watching cartoons. Yes, cartoons are making me cry. Avatar: The Last Airbender is making me cry, to be specific. I probably should not be telling you this, imaginary readers, but by now I kinda feel like this blog should be titled "embarrassing things Marcia does and says that for some reason she feels the need to share with the internet." Anyway, I feel embroiled in conflict and turmoil about my life at the moment, and actually have been for quite some time. And cartoons are currently making me cry because one of the characters has just had a heartwarming reunion with his dad and I'm feeling sorry for myself because I want a different childhood. Yeah. Welcome to my pity party.

I feel like I should apologize to every person I meet for being older than they think I am, or for not being at the correct point on the General Map of Life that I apparently should be for my age. I should preface every meeting with: Hi nice to meet you, by the way since you will inevitably ask and then be shocked, I am twenty-seven, yes I know I am an undergraduate no I don't have a credit card oh yes I'm still a barista no I'm not married yet and I have roommates no I haven't been out of the country and no you cannot meet my parents because one lives in a tent in the woods and the other one is well I am just not going there.

I thought I was processing things pretty well up until now. I knew where I came from (abject American poverty slash other shitty things), I knew I handled my situation poorly (fucked around for far too long and spend every penny I earned on shoes), and I knew I was doing everything I could to fix things for myself (it's kind of a slow process) and I thought I was okay with that. But I am not so sure anymore. I wish I could join in conversations when people talk about the instruments they played and the camps they went to as kids. Even the television shows they watched. I KNOW I am being fucking ridiculous and millions out there had and have it far worse than I did but you know what millions had it better also. And I deal with those millions every day. They are my friends. My classmates. They are the boys and girls I attempt to date. And I will never relate to them. I can tell them my hopes and ambitions but unless I pretend my life began at nineteen years old they will never fully understand me. And I will squirm around and away from them. I hate this. How did my brothers and sister manage to form solid connections with other human beings? Is it because they managed to get real jobs, keep the wind at their backs and the sun on their faces? I don't want that but at the same time I very much do. Because it would be easier. To have a faceless, normal career. a mortgage. decent car. health insurance. ticky fucking tacky. They can toss aside their nightmares of poverty because they have pulled themselves up and out of it. It only cost them their dreams, right?

Do I even have dreams anymore? I was going to be a writer. I was going to put down on paper those nineteen years, ride those volumes to fortune, vindication and victory. and break free from my madness. Then I realized I was a fool, standing on the shoulders of those who dealt with real suffering and trying to call myself tall. Now I'm trying to change the world (ha ha) but it's been so long I am exhausted and so very tired of pretending I fit in society. And I don't even think I am making sense anymore, am I?

 I'm sorry. It's just, when I close my eyes I want to see darkness instead of these memories.

"we're all scum. good luck climbing out of the gutter."

I still remember those words so clearly. Six years later and they're still bouncing around in my brain. I wonder if you even knew the can of worms you were throwing at me with those words. You were angry and snarky and feeling bad about your own self because I was trying to cut the strings from our group of burnt out pals. But those words cut into a different part of me; they dove like a retrovirus into my blood and spliced into my DNA. Those words are a part of me, did you know that? Because I was born in the gutter. I've been trying to climb out for twenty seven years. You knew that.

Oh man you know I am doing that same thing I do in my emo blog on the lj!! I am talking in fucking metaphors to someone who will never read this damn thing yet is the only person who would ever understand it. MUST. PUT. END. TO.


Sorry, imaginary pals. I was talking to my first love, long after we ended. He was angry at me for some reason or another having to do with my live-improvement efforts (I think I was enrolling in school) and so spat those words out at me in an attempt to bring me down. We ran around with a pretty ridiculous crowd at the time. We grew up in a small town and then moved to a shitty city. Didn't go to college out of high school and spent most of our time using various recreational drugs and talking empty static about making the world a better place. Working shitty jobs and raving on the weekends. Drunk most of the time. It was a good life for awhile, away from my ridiculous family and avoiding the other, more serious issues that accompanied them. I didn't like to think about my parents or my brother or the monster, and I didn't have to. But when he said those words I felt like nothing more true could ever be said about me. I am scum. I was born from scum and I'd lived as scum and I was doing fuck all to make my story any different from the rest of them. And I still can't get away from that feeling! I am ~22 credits from a Bachelor of Science. I am going to Peru. I have been working on realizing all that talk for five years now. and I have ran so far away from Monroe and the dirt and grime of my old life but I feel like it is all following me. I don't feel like I deserve to be here in this apartment with polished little J, who is studying for the GREs and checking her credit score. I am never quite comfortable around people with their shit together, responsible people with responsible parents. And you know what is so fucking infuriating about the whole thing? That boy who said that to me, that comic little drunk, he now has a pretty damn lucrative job with Disney and lives in a nice apartment on Eastlake. with his girlfriend and cat. He probably doesn't have any recollection of saying those infuriating and tenacious words. And yet they stick so strongly to every cell in my body.

/rant end

dream on

I just had the most disturbing lucid dream and am now afraid to go back to sleep. Not even sure if I'm awake now. Everything is weird. I tried to wake up several times in the dream, straining and forcing my eyes. I would see my room, but would be pulled back into the dream before I could fully wake up. I thought I woke up once but I tried a light switch like in that movie but it didn't turn on. I kept making things I didn't want to have happen occur by thinking about them. I had no control, but I had control, if that makes sense. I was aware that I was making the things happen but I didn't know how to control them, or make what I wanted to have happen occur. Only at the very end did I establish some sort of control. I would leave my bag on a bus and then I say "oh I left my bag on the bus oh wait I didn't" and it would be in my hand. Or, we went roller skating (jon and I, to calm me down) and it was closed. I said "no it's not" and it was open. and things like that. But I kept making terrible things happen at first, I fell through glass, got lost in a ravine, kept sort of flying away from my friends, who all knew I was dreaming and were trying to get me to calm down. Jon did this trick that I knew about (maybe from drugs?) where I would be feeling bad and he would say "no you're not, you're fine" or having fun or something. and then I would say yeah I am and my mindset and mood would instantly change. but it wouldn't last long, because I was desperate to get out of the dream. The whole thing lasted maybe an hour and felt like weeks or months. And the roller rink was full of kids; I might have been trying to change that when I woke up. I awoke super abruptly too! had been trying so hard and then it was effortless. Was so scared that I would drift back into the dream. Jane was there also kind of trying to help, as were others. We were eating, and I think I may have hurt someone? But everyone knew it was bc I couldn't control it. I remember blood. Everyone knew that whatever happened wasn't real, and that if I hurt someone they would still be fine in real life. People were annoyed at me though, like a friend on a bad trip.  Oh and one of my professors was there asking me questions (I think it was my bio prof asking non bio questions) that I didn't know the answer to but then I *knew*  so I could answer. He was larger than normal. Jon was looking on, and knew that I was just willing myself to know the answers, and not actually pulling them from my brain storage. It was almost like "this is what you're gonna use this power for?" haha. I think this was at the roller rink, and I was in the process of trying to sound really smart when I woke up. Is it because I established control that I let go of it and awoke? I was trying so hard and was so scared up til that point!! It was the worst dream ever in the dream. I thought I woke up once and it was a false alarm. as I was drifting off I could see all these unpleasant images and was afraid of just letting the sleep take me, because I thought it would incorporate the unpleasantness. and it did. I need something to think of when I go to sleep because I do not trust my mind to give me anything good. maybe just music to focus on? so afraid to sleep but so effing tired. still afraid this is still the dream, but pretty sure it's real life. why, once it started being okay, could I finally wake up? I was like literally forcing myself to wake up in front of people and it wasn't working. I would leave their dimension for a min and come back. why could I only make things I didn't like happen? and why could I not control them, but knew I was controlling them? It was like I was aware and lucid in the dream, but I still couldn't control the happenings.

I wrote this in a frenzy before the details left me and now I have to attempt to normal sleep so sorry if it hell of sucks

This is what my life has been reduced to

the truth can't hurt you it's just like the dark?

See, the problem with this is I'm afraid of the dark Always have been. The dark was put there as a hiding place for werewolves to strategize their attack moves on innocent and unsuspecting sleeping/walking girls. Um, not sleepwalking girls. That is a separate concern, although no less valid than werewolf attacks on those who are conscious. The fear of werewolves has always been in my head ever since I can remember. I *still* sometimes have to sleep with a nightlight. At twenty-seven years old, this is understandably embarrassing. So don't tell anyone, imaginary blog fans. k? k. It wasn't until I had another person in my bed for an extended period of time that I learned to get comfortable without the sleeping light, mostly out of necessity. Because the boyfriend was not exactly cool with leaving the hall light on and the door ajar and I couldn't bring myself to admit that I actually owned a legit nightlight. But now that I am sleeping alone again I have to whip it out on particularly shadowy evenings. You know, when the trees are knocking on the windows and the wind is rattling the doorknob? All right I live in a basement so the only part of a tree capable of rattling my windows would be the root system and as far as I know root systems don't do much rattling.

I think I have arrived at a destination so far away from the point of this entry that I am tempted to just wrap it up right here and call this one Crazy Werewolf-fearing Lady Blog. But I wont. I wanted to address a somewhat serious topic that I learned a valuable lesson about today. A lesson about trust and honesty. So I'm a little  sorry for leading with the I'm a crazy lady who fears mythical creatures bit. My bad. I will allow you this moment to switch gears. Serious business time people. Ready? Good.

I have, previous to tonight, been ridiculously dishonest to pretty much everyone close to me. I was lying to my roommate, ex boyfriend, old roommate, childhood pal; all of whom I considered to be very close friends. The one person I was actually honest with was crafting a web of lies along side mine. I thought our webs were supposed to be identical because we wanted to protect each other. I was spinning and spinning and my tangled mess of deception kept getting bigger and bigger until it was all I could see. I was suffocating in my web but I kept spinning, desperate to save myself and my partner in crime. I thought it I could just find a way to tuck the ends of my hirsute creation into itself then I could stop spinning, stop lying, and cozy up inside with my dishonest pal. This, of course, was fantasy. The reality of the situation was that everyone of the aforementioned close friends could see through my frantic attempts at deceiving them. And they were pissed.

What was my pal up to during all of this? My flocculent mass of dishonesty had grown so large that I could no longer see what he was doing. Turns out, he had a very different strategy. The iniquitous motherfucker was slicing off bits of his crooked labyrinth and doling it out, piece by piece, to anyone who mattered. And his version read like a smear campaign against me. I was lying to everyone except a liar, who I foolishly trusted. And he did what liars do: continued to lie. Threw me under a bus. So there I was, pancake flat and covered in bus tracks. I knew I had reached the end of the line. And I came clean. I poured out my story, laid every terrible thing I did out on the table and apologized profusely. It was an incredible experience to unravel that mass of deceit and throw it away from myself. Not to pretend it didn't exist or that I wasn't the creator, but to acknowledge my monster and declare out loud that I would no longer be feeding it. I knew I was potentially losing everyone I cared about but that feeling of complete and total honesty is something I wish I could bottle up and carry with me everywhere. Metaphors aside, that is exactly what I am trying to do. I am starting over with everyone I know, and, even though we may never be where we once were with each other, I am a better person for it.


EDIT: I just realized you fuckers probably have no clue what I am talking about, and I promised to stop doing that. So, here's the situation: I slept with my best guy friend, who also happened to be my best girl friend's ex boyfriend, and who I had secretly been coveting since long before the two of them even met. And he turned out the be a bit of a dick bag. And she is still one of my favorite people.

informative title

I don't want to do my biology homework and I've already read the oatmeal so hello again blog. I don't even really have anything terribly interesting to say but I suppose that is becoming a theme now so you're very likely used to it.

You know what I have started doing? I have started reading the bible, that is what I have started doing. I know right. The reason I have started reading the bible is this: Most of the time my only job is to stand behind a podium and tear in half tiny pieces of paper with barcodes and numbers on them. I give the numbered half away and keep the barcoded half and stick it in a tiny-piece-of-paper sized opening on my podium that for some reason everyone always thinks is trash, like I would for some reason be standing in front of the worlds smallest garbage can where you dispose of your items two inches at a time. I think I am getting away from the point. What was the point? Oh yes, the holy book of god. Well, sometimes I have very few tiny pieces of paper to tear in half and my life gets really boring really fast. The only activities I can partake in are ones I can sneak to my podium in my pocket and since I don't have a tamagotchi I had to settle for tiny books. I have exactly two tiny books: the new testament and a dictionary, and I've already burned through the dictionary.

I feel sort of like I'm trying to dive into Twilight during Breaking Dawn or something though. I didn't read the old testament so I don't know why everyone hates the Pharisees or even what a Pharisee is and why everyone on Earth deserves to die and why does a lamb get to order everyone around.

I should get a tomagotchi.