Sophianotloren

I have to be up and awake and running in about 7 hours. I don’t know how much sleep I’m going to get before then. Have to be somewhere at 10am, because Tuesday at 10 is the only time that this particular housing resource thing is available, and it’s about the only resource available to me at the moment beyond my own feeble attempts at finding a place to live on a sub-poverty-level income, and I need housing.

No. I need a home. I don’t bother thinking about that very often anymore, because it’s such a vague, distant, uncertain concept that I don’t even know how to picture it. I have been wandering fo so long that I don’t know what it is to be still, though I would love to find out. I need stability in ANY aspect of my life, and I lack that. It hurts.

picnic barbecue celebration
full of friends, family, loved ones
music laughter joy fun

what about the one
looking in from outside?
what about the one
without friends
without family
without loved ones
crying sad alone?

you wave your flag
and tie your yellow ribbon
and grab your gun
and swing your crotch
but none of those
makes you more of a man
or a better citizen

what do you hold in your memory?
what will remain when you have gone?
what memorial are you building?
will it be forgotten in a day?

All the constant stupid interactions with men. All the little stuff that I keep trying to shrug off because if I gave each one the thought it merits, I’d be so weighed down I couldn’t move.

The unavoidable heteronormativity, assumed monogamy, and adherence to stereotypical gender roles in everything around me. From the cute girly shirts and panties and whatnot that say “I <3 my boyfriend" to the "every girl doubts she's beautiful until that one man shows her she is" motivational images, to lockets with flowing script that say "only one man has the key to my heart." Plot lines that revolve around The Guy cheating on The Girl with The Other Girl and that's the source of all the rest of the story. Pop-culture BDSM references that mention "Daddy" and "his girl" but only in that configuration, especially in the form of "that moment when…" memes supposedly describing a universally-understood experience.

Depression and how it fucks with my brain, my ability to perceive the world… or doesn't.

Sex, wanting sex, needing sex, going without. Sadness at what was almost a really wonderful relationship ending before it even got going. Knowing how long it's been since I had some particular needs addressed (3 and a half years for some things… as long or more for others) and how my current situation makes it more difficult to get out and get laid, keeps me isolated instead of out and about and potentially meeting people.

Home, what home is, what I want it to be, whether I should bother wanting it to be anything, whether I'll ever have it. Whether I could handle having that stability.

Why people insist that I should be proving that I have a right to live by toiling at a job, to "earn a living." What makes people think that being a full-time student or a full-time employee are the only two things that qualify one as a Real Adult. How people don't seem willing to acknowledge that "no overnight guests" is the same thing as "you should not be having sex" and that direct communication can work wonders for keeping things running smooth between roommates without preemptively banning entire categories of behavior or activity.

And so much more. Any of those could be an entire blog post on its own, and there's always more fighting to get out of my head and onto the page, but I'm usually stuck in a hellish environment and trying to hang onto sanity instead of doing the writing that I need to do.

I hate it.

I have frequently found it amusing
and also somewhat confusing
that so many people would ooh and ahh
over what they saw as my

constant
consistent
compersion

(or “frubble” depending on who you ask; same thing.)

I can’t count the times
I heard from someone close
that they were amazed at how
I’m apparently never

jealous
bitter
pissed off

about relationships, about who has or who doesn’t
never passive-aggressive, manipulating,
cold and calculating

it’s funny that they offer such high praise
and bizarre that they don’t ever gaze
at even the surface of what they see
and certainly never beyond it

I’m an incredibly jealous and bitchy woman
I’m angry at what I lack when everyone around me
has in unappreciated excess
I throw verbal daggers with precision
meant to wound
but not fatally
just enough to leave a lasting scar
an old ache that will linger
years later

don’t tell me how much you admire in me
something I never have possessed

A 12-inch frying pan, half filled with refried beans, half with ground beef. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts fried up before and added back at the end to heat before serving.

Spaghetti noodles with “vodka sauce” (which I was disappointed to learn had no alcohol) and plenty of chorizo mixed in.

Egg flour soup — ordered from the local Chinese food delivery — spiced with paprika, cayenne, cumin, cinnamon, chili powder, chili paste, Sriracha, sambal, and black pepper just for good measure, with toast on the side.

These are foods that have been the tastes of home with different lovers, in different times. Tonight I find myself craving any of them, all of them, hungry for more than food alone.

And I find myself wondering what home tastes like when it’s just me, or if I’ll ever have the chance to discover…

I’m homesick for a home I’ve never had, and hungry for food and comfort and companionship.

I have been taught to fear anger.  Anger is unsafe. Anger is unstable. Anger means maybe shouting at someone, and shouting is violence, and violence is never acceptable. Anger means maybe saying something unkind, and unkindness is sinful, and sin leads to misery, and my existence is supposed to be joyful and peaceful — if not now, then after I’m dead. But not if I get angry.

“Anger is a secondary emotion,” says my dad. He explains that its only purpose is to cover up the primary emotion, the real one, the one that actually matters. Anger isn’t useful or legitimate, only the emotion underneath. “A kind word turneth away wrath,” he reminds me, quoting from the bible. Outdated psychology and conservative Christianity go hand in hand.

Anger means feeling anything when the other option is feeling nothing. I’m good at getting angry all through my teens, when the depression is so bad that I’m sleeping at least 17 hours a day. When I’m awake, I eat a little bit, I empty my bowels and my bladder, and I get angry. I get everyone else in my family angry. Being pinned down on the floor by both my parents so I can’t hit or kick anyone or anything, while I scream every profanity I know — just an average weekday night. My sister off in her room crying would have to wait until someone finished dealing with me, until I was all worn out and only able to bawl my eyes out about how horrible the world was.

I’ve been called a “human tape recorder;” my ability to parrot back pieces of conversation nearly verbatim has been extremely useful throughout my life. When I get angry, I feel like that “tape recorder” gets switched off — if I’m in a situation where I’m angry and interacting with someone, I may be able to talk about the general idea of what happened, but I won’t have the exact words that were used.

“If everyone carried tape recorders, the world would be a safer place!” That was me at the family dinner table one night, and for years afterwards that was my family quoting it back with a laugh. My naive little mind thought that if it were simple to prove “yes, that’s exactly what I said, you can’t lie about it,” then there would be less anger, less yelling, less violence. A safer place.

It makes me angry to know that I’ve been lied to throughout my life. Getting angry is not only acceptable, it’s even expected in certain situations. What’s my response to betrayal? What’s my response to physical assault? What’s my response to a verbal attack? I was taught that the “right” answers were forgiveness, offering myself for further assault, and a quiet smile with an expression of gratitude and an apology. Lies — all fucking lies. The answers are anger, anger, anger.

I rarely say what I really feel when someone hurts me. I’m too good at burying my response until I no longer feel the same way, and then offering something sweet and palatable in my answer, and finding a way to smooth things over. Instead of “What the fuck?! Just yesterday I spent  almost 15 minutes pleading with you to keep me in the loop with scheduling, because being isolated and trapped and dependent on you to escape is a really scary position to be in, and you’re making it worse by leaving me with even less control!” — my response is more like “Hey, it was frustrating to not know what your plans were today; it would really be useful to know what’s going on, if you could… please? That’d be great. Thanks.” Instead of “Get your fucking hands off of me — that’s the third time I’ve told you, and I’m not buying your ‘I forgot, and I didn’t mean it as disrespect’ bullshit excuse this time. Touch me again and lose a finger, motherfucker.” — my response is “Um, if you could do me a favor? Please don’t touch me without asking first. Yes, I know you’re just a touchy-feely kind of guy. Yeah, I get it, you’re being polite, you’re a hands-on kind of person, okay, but please don’t do that with me. Yes, I’ll remind you if you slip up, no worries.”

There’s plenty to be angry about. The world is fucked in so many ways. Racism, sexism, violence, destruction, war, murder, poverty, institutionalized injustice. Everywhere you look, there’s something to make your blood boil. “If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention,” says the bumper-sticker wisdom. Anger can motivate you, get you DOING something, get you Making A Difference! What happens when anger is the only thing you feel? What happens when anger is your default state? Don’t you get exhausted under the weight of all that anger? Maybe you’ve been lied to, also. Maybe you’ve been told that if you stop being angry, it means you’ve stopped caring. That it means you’re not doing any good. That you’re letting down the people who still do care. Well, maybe I’m letting somebody down, but I can’t run on all anger, all the time. I’ve learned how to get angry about lots of things, but none of them have been things that benefit me in the short term. Yeah, maybe all that anger will someday make the world a better place, and I can still tap into that anger when I need to, still use it for motivation, but I can’t — I won’t — stay that way, live my life that way.

Fuck you. I’m glad you saved me the hassle of cutting you out of my life; I was wringing my hands over how to proceed when things got bad enough, knowing I’d have to reluctantly do away with a source of income along with gladly ridding myself of someone I had grown to hate. I was miserable, trying to pretend to be someone entirely different from myself in order to smile and have lunch.  Starting at least 24, sometimes 48 hours before your scheduled arrival, I overhauled my personal space, made it into a hollow shell and a mockery of what it would be if it were kept for my own comfort, because it was easier than dealing with the same complaints and the same lectures full of disapproval all over again. You had plenty to say about how I was wrong, what I needed to change, the things that made you angry about me.  You always had plenty of anger about plenty of things. I prepared myself mentally and emotionally for the minimum of one verbal fight during each brief time we spent together, and made sure to have a friend available for aftercare, someone who didn’t make me want to scream, someone who didn’t leave me angry. You saw very little of my anger. You saw even less of some beautiful things about me — things I had to hide from you. And there are some things you never saw, never knew, never will. There are things that you would hate me for, and I’m glad I don’t have to worry about hiding them from you anymore.

You’re an idiot. I’m glad I got the chance to see just how clueless you are before I invested any more of my wasted energy on you. How many times can you repeat a backhanded compliment before you hear the insult you’re delivering? You haven’t seemed to pick up on it yet, and I’m not holding my breath. There are things you’ll never know about me, either, and in fact they’re some of the same things as #8. There’s not a chance in hell that I’d tell you some of my most wonderful secrets, not when you take every opportunity to steer — and by “steer” I often mean “hijack” because you lack the capacity for anything resembling subtlety or planning — any conversation to loud condemnation of everything to do with those very things which I hold most dear to my heart.  You would see me dead if you knew who I really am, and I can’t claim that’s hyperbole.

10.

I’m continuing to realize just how angry I am with you. Just how deeply you wounded me, just how much I opened myself to you to be crushed even more. A relationship built not only on the inability to trust, but on the inability to even talk about trust, isn’t much of a relationship.  You found every reason for why it couldn’t work, from the most sensible to the most ridiculously far-fetched fantasy fiction scenarios. I should have listened instead of pouring myself into you. I don’t have enough confidence and self-worth and motivation and hope to fill a bottomless pit, not even enough to fill the deep tub that you’re continually opening the drain under. I lost myself in you, so much so that I was shocked to find myself the moment that I walked away.

11.

Anger is a tool, and like any other tool it can help and it can harm, depending on how it is used. Sometimes it can do both with the same use. Keeping in mind my goal of seeking pleasure first, and constantly evaluating the harm or good that results as second to that, I will use anger as I need to — I’m still working on getting better at doing that, but it’s most of a lifetime of learning to undo. Some of the things I’ve written in this post are things I should have said long before now, things that I no longer have the chance to say because I’m not as good at using anger as I would like to be. That will slowly change, I hope, with time and with effort.

Growing up in a religious household, there were many rules about many things.  Since there was an emphasis on “purity,” and keeping “clean thoughts” in one’s head, there were rules about which books and music and art and food were “good” and which were “bad.”

These rules, though, often seemed to my young mind to be quite arbitrary, and more about resulting in compliance than purity.  Being told to read “the best books,” and to “seek out learning” from them — well, that seemed like a fantastic idea, until those books left me asking uncomfortable questions about the power structures of the church, or finding approved messages conveyed with unapproved language.  Music was much the same — being told to listen to “uplifting” music was no problem, except when my choice of music ran counter to someone else’s idea of what should be considered “uplifting.”

I remember finding an mp3 of the old gospel hymn “Wade In The Water” when I was in my teens, and that recording moved me — it moved me in exactly the way that I had been taught that all good music, especially religious music, should move me.  I went to share my joy with my dad, from whom I learned much of my lifelong love for music, and he asked who had performed this particular version.  When I told him it was Chanticleer, he frowned and told me, “Well, you might not want to listen to that. I won’t tell you to delete the file, but… they’re gay.” I deleted the mp3, and all the other recordings of that song that I had. Oh, sure, he offered to play me some tracks by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, as an example of what good religious music ought to sound like, but I had heard them plenty of times before, and while they did have some stuff I enjoyed, their performances didn’t really do much for me.

Or there was Steppenwolf — which I was cautioned “might have some small treasures of knowledge” but that to find those required a metaphorical “trudge through miles of raw sewage” to find, and then an equal or greater trudge to get back out with those few pearls, and that I was better off avoiding the piece entirely.  Or a number of visual artists whose work I knew very little about, because even though it fell within the larger categories of “kinds of art that are worthwhile and beautiful,” some artists “dared” to show the human figure without being fully covered in clothing. The horror! There were plenty of books by church scholars, or by authors who promoted a specific message, made available to me, as well as pointers towards “tasteful” art… but I kept going back to the fold-out cover on an issue of Smithsonian magazine with The Garden Of Earthly Delights which was in the massive stack of back-issues in the bookcase — because it had naked women, and I found the whole thing both fascinating and arousing… both of which I thought were very good things!

So, along with many other things I intentionally left behind when I walked away from my parents and moved out on my own, I rejected their idea that some things must always be forbidden, no matter what good might be gleaned from them, as well as the notion that anyone else could tell me what I stood to gain or lose from an experience.  I began actively seeking out many kinds of art and music and books and philosophies, trying on each thing I encountered and seeing what fit, and what didn’t.  I spent a fair bit of time with a small group of misogynist, atheist (in the “let’s get together so we can sit and talk about how we’re so much better that those stupid fools who don’t think the same way we do!” meaning of the word), gamer dudebros — and I learned a lot about myself in that time.  I hung out briefly with a lot of different people with different approaches to the world. Every time I found places that I didn’t belong, and every time I learned more about myself.

Then I ended up finding the concept of feminism, and wrote a whole blog post about that discovery. Aha! This is it, I thought. Here’s where people make sense, where “my body, my choice — your body your choice” was an obvious thing, where (at least in the circles I found myself) being able to choose to wear high heels and lipstick was as critical as being able to choose to forgo shaving body hair and to avoid all penetrative sex, where eliminating the oppressive power structures that prevent women and men and people of every other gender from being able to choose was the goal!  And because so much of the talking, and much of the acting, was (on its face, at least) in service of that goal, it took me a long time to see that I had simply found myself back in the same situation I had walked away from several years before.

I listen to Lady Gaga, and enjoy much of her music.  I have my own issues with some of her songs and lyrics, but those are my issues.  Then… I started hearing shouting by people who claimed to be all about personal choice, “Don’t listen to her! She did that whole disgusting, offensive, appropriative thing with traditional Islamic dress, she’s just exploiting oppressed populations for her own profit and public image!” At the same time, I was told that I should be listening to Beyoncé, because her music was “really great” and “so perfectly feminist” and way better than all the other people “pretending” to get it.

Or being screamed at for recommending one of my childhood favorite novels, The Secret Garden, to MFP, because I was a horrible person to enjoy a book that was so obviously racist and championed Colonialism as a wonderful thing, and the fact that it was written in 1911 was irrelevant because I was mentioning it as something positive in the current day… although there were plenty of other books that she would gladly suggest if I wanted to do “better.”

See, I don’t think that anything in this world is beyond questioning, beyond examining for what benefit it brings, what harm it does, what it supports, and what can be learned from it.  I also know that, as Benjamin Franklin said, “If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.” I know that the music I listen to, the books I read, the other things I take in on a regular basis — they’re going to offend somebody. They’re also going to please other folks very much! And I don’t worry nearly so much about what others feel about the things I enjoy, because I know that I continue to do what works consistently: seek pleasure first and foremost. Within that, maintain a constant re-evaluation of myself and my surroundings, constantly adjust as I find things which no longer benefit me (and leave them behind) and likewise adjust as I find things which serve me well (and embrace them.)

And I’ll keep doing that until I find that it no longer works, and then I’ll do something that does. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it feels good. And though I’m the only one involved in making those decisions, I know that others are positively affected by it, which is just further motivation to stick with it!

I miss singing.  I love singing, it’s as natural and essential a part of life for me as breathing and sex, but much like the latter I do far too little of it.

I grew up surrounded by music, was seldom without. Weekly church services always included singing, hymns for four parts — soprano, alto, tenor, bass. I often sang specially arranged choir numbers, practicing near-endlessly my parts.  I would participate in each year’s “Sing-Along Messiah” in December, as one of the people who knew what they were doing who could help the other less sure voices.  My family would frequently gather together around the piano and sing, flipping through various bits of sheet music, much of it religious tunes.

And I miss the music.  I hate the dogma and doctrine and disgusting deity tied up in all of that, because that was the package deal.

But it is possible to have the beauty of the song without the bullshit of the sermon — I’ve certainly appreciated stage musicals for much of my life, and there’s some good stuff out there that fits what I need. It’s just that… I don’t want to dedicate a chunk of my life to rehearsal for performance, and I don’t want to perform at all! I don’t want to sing to anyone, or sing for anyone but myself. I want to be able to enjoy the synergy that comes from voices raised in harmony, to feel the thrill electrify my body as the room swells with a chorus of voices.  I don’t know where to find that.

I want to sing like this, with others, for nothing more than the entertainment and joy it brings:

Someday the world will see our love as such
And understand the beauty that we share
No whispering (afraid to speak too much!)
No more denying what is plainly there
We know the feelings deep within our hearts
And seek out other hearts who beat the same
Such agony, such doubt! When first we start
Alone, we dare not even use love’s name.
We reach out — only subtle hints we leave.
We speak in riddles, deftly-chosen words
Which give a sign to those who would receive
Then echo back, with recognition heard.
Such little choice: to love in secrecy,
Or brand ourselves as monsters openly…

It’s really great that the internet can connect people like never before.  How a queer kid in the rural Midwest, for example, can have the World Wide Web in their hands on a mobile device, and find other queer folks online, can chat and discuss and interact.

It’s also really shitty how the internet can only do that much, as far as connecting goes. Sure, you can find people who are like you, and get that validation that you’re not alone, that there are others like you… but this is a very large world for as close as technology brings us.

Lots of people in far-flung places across the globe who I would love to spend some face-to-face time with — or more likely body-to-body time, in many of those cases. But without lots of money and access to other resources on my part or theirs (for any particular “them” involved, and there are dozens) there’s not much beyond longing, and the disconnect of the distant connections.

I wonder if anyone will ever fall for me who isn’t weighed down by major self-esteem issues? That seems to be the kind of woman I attract.

From my “first love” whose control freak tendencies were only outdone by her verbal and then physical abuse, she was so desperate to make everyone around her small and ordinary so that she could seem brilliant by comparison… to the most recent ex who could not hear her praises being sung by so many for what they were, whose consistent expressions of inadequacy could not be balanced out by my efforts alone, nor by those of so many I enlisted to join me in countering them… or the one boyfriend I’ve had, who began publicly posting suicide threats when I attempted to set and maintain boundaries, who spent much of the time we were together telling me what a bad man he was… or the psycho ex who needed so much to matter that she couldn’t simply be herself — she was Connor Quentin McLeod, an Immortal, a Highlander; she nearly broke my jaw and used me to get herself pregnant… the friend who has been so much to me, but who also consistently martyrs herself so that she can “let me be happy,” as if her happiness and mine were mutually exclusive, that mine comes at the cost of her own…

And the ones who don’t get attached, the ones who are friends-with-benefits but never “girlfriend” — Lime, Plush, Again, SoCal, and others — sometimes more “together,” sometimes not, but it doesn’t matter so much when none of them are the ones who share my life. I may be significant — the “friend” part of “FWB” — but not significant in that way.  And I don’t want to be that kind of significant with most of them, and that’s okay — but I do want to find someone who is that kind of significant, and who wants me to be the same.

And I want that to be a woman who knows how fucking bad-ass she is, and for us both to build each other up in our bad-assery instead of collapsing in on each other like a house of cards outside in a thunderstorm.

Today I found a hard-copy of a blog post I wrote almost 4 years ago, one that I never published or made public.

And it was astounding to realize that it could just as easily been a month old.  Or one year. Or two.

The same rants about the same stuff.  The same frustrations, the same needs, the same worries, the same.

I need more sex, then and now. It was interesting to see that of the particular needs I have in that regard, the same things I needed most then are the same few things I’ve never gotten much of; while the kinds of sex I’ve had and my discovered interests have been much more varied, the same few things I’ve needed throughout are the ones I’ve consistently gone without.

I was dealing with way too much noise, then and now.  Back then I wasn’t aware just how “good” my hearing is (if you’re “normal,” then my hearing is “really good.” If you’re clued in, you know my hearing is “hellishly sensitive,” which is not an unmitigated blessing.) Now I know that what passes for “a nice quiet neighborhood” to a lot of people is a neighborhood so full of non-stop noise that I’ll guarantee my lack of sanity and sleep there.

I was frustrated with the people I was living with at the time.  Granted, I was living with some pretty shitty people.  The woman I was renting from had flat-out lied to me about the circumstances that led to the previous tenant leaving with short notice, and when I was on the way out myself, she spent almost an hour screaming at the top of her lungs through a floor-to-ceiling barricade to me and the couple of friends who were helping me haul my stuff out about how I was such a “self-centered bitch” and how she was glad I was “getting the fuck out of her life.”  She’s the same woman who wrote in an email to me that “If I can just avoid renting to folks on SSI, I’ll be fine — because y’all are fucking crazy!”  Now I’ve lived with much worse people, and less obnoxious ones as well… and I have pretty solidly figured out that even with people I really like, I don’t do well sharing a space with others.  I don’t know how I’m going to manage, because I can’t afford to have a roof over my head.

I was worried about money.  Didn’t have enough back then, although at the time I had internalized the messages that told me I was a worthless piece of shit because I couldn’t afford the same things as others around me, and it must be my own fault because I clearly couldn’t handle my finances right.  I was stressing over dollar amounts — trying to justify each meal’s cost to myself, trying to find ways for others to pay for things as much as I could manage.  These days it’s not much different, except that I have slightly more predictable support from several directions.  Back then it was hoping I could talk the sugar daddy I had at the time into making something happen, which usually meant ending ending up with something A. different than what I asked for, B. inferior to what I asked for, and C. nearly guaranteed to be secondhand.  Oh, and it also meant sucking off an old guy who pushed for sex every time he was around, even when I’d made it clear that it wasn’t going to happen that particular time, and he had a really difficult time with my particular genital configuration.  As Hedwig exclaimed, I often felt: “Love the front of me!” Hey, at least I ended up with several pairs of good boots out of it…

I was struggling with depression.  The lies I repeat to myself haven’t fundamentally changed, though in some ways they have gotten less vicious, and I’m often much better now at seeing the lies for what they are, and working to respond to them differently.

And I’m still occasionally writing long rants, either here or on Facebook.  I just dug back to my post from December last year so that I could share the picture at the bottom on my Facebook page — the sentiment is the same, then and now. “Just fuck me for Christmas” is written in gel-pen on strips of duct tape across a door.  Well, here’s hoping.

I broke up with MFP about a month ago.

It was a difficult decision to make, but ultimately the only one that I could… and so I handed her back what few of her things had still been at my place, and told her goodbye.  It was not a conversation.  It was not sitting down to discuss what was going on, and there was no room for figuring out how to keep things going.

MFP had moved out a few months back.  She started looking for a new place after the last time we were ready to call off our relationship; living under the same room together had left us ready to rip out each other’s throats on a regular basis, and back in July it was a matter of one of us leaving this apartment or both of us leaving, period.  It was a cycle, though — reaching a point where we were falling apart, sitting down to talk about it (sometimes with the help of a couples’ therapist) and things going a little bit better for a while… until they continued downhill and we were falling apart again. Trying to keep doing that wasn’t going to work for me.  “Sitting down to talk” would have been about the most foolish thing I could do. You know how people talk about the “definition of insanity” as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? It would have been insane to keep repeating that cycle, especially knowing that’s what I would have been doing. Put another way, “beating off a dead horse won’t make it cum any faster.” Sometimes it’s important to recognize when your actions are futile, and when the only thing — not the “right thing,” not the “good thing” or the “kindest thing” or the “painless thing” or the “best thing” — the only thing you can do that’s going to work is to walk away.

She has more resources, financially and otherwise, and back then she was able to snag a studio within a month and a half or so, where she’s been living since. The lease we signed together for this apartment was for one year, November 2012 through November 2013.  After she moved, The Rabbit — who co-signed for me, which made this place possible — paid the portion of the rent that MFP had been. That lease is up, now, and since my $860/month from the government isn’t enough to even find a room in an apartment, let alone my own place, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  (The studio MFP found was an absolute steal at under $1000 — even in a run-down neighborhood that’s not connected to public transit or much of anything else, for reference.  A cheap room in an apartment with several other people in the most dangerous parts of town, like where I lived with my Psycho Ex, might go for $600 plus the cost of shared utilities.) For the next month, I’m going to be staying put; the property management company has confirmed that as stated in the lease terms, this converts to a month-to-month agreement, and so long as I give 30 days’ notice before leaving, I’ll be okay.  I’m working on getting everything I own packed and into a storage locker as quickly as I can… and then I’ll likely be staying on couches and in guest rooms to start the new year, unless some miracle comes my way.  It’s possible that The Rabbit can put me up like she did last fall, between the time I escaped from hell with Stoner Dude, Girl-Child, and Boy-Toy, and the time I ended up here — but it’s not permanent, and it’s far away from everything (2 miles up a steep hill from the nearest bus stop, and that bus takes 20 minutes minimum to get to BART — if I get there on time. If I miss the bus it can be 45 minutes or more before the next.)

Anyway, through the breakup and after I’ve been grateful beyond words for the support of Again — who has been an understanding ear and occasional (though far less than either of us would like) sexual release.  I’ve been amazed again and again at how completely she “gets” the situation, at how completely she “gets” me.  If she were available to build a  significant long-term romantic and emotional relationship, I’d gladly have her; she’s already got more than a full plate with Crowbar locally and long-distance with Pout. (New name alert! Pretty cool guy, actually — met him while he was visiting a bit ago. His name here has nothing to do with any sour expression I’ve seen on his face!)

I also finally managed to get The Rabbit into the hat the sack recently.  It only took a year and a half or more… both of us wanting, both of us trying, both of us running into one obstacle after another, but both holding on and hoping. I’m still trying to find a chance to get me and Again and The Rabbit together at the same time for some fun, or even just to arrange for the two of them to have some time alone.  It always makes me happy when I can see those I love, sharing love.  It was heartwarming magic to share a few nights with Lime when she was here to visit early in October, but even more magical to have Again joining us one of those nights!

Oh!  And I have my first-ever OkCupid success story! I found SoCal in my list of “people you should check out,” and… I was completely blown away by her profile — the writing in her profile, first, and as if that weren’t enough to intimidate me, then I saw her photos.  “Stunning” and “gorgeous” and “jaw-dropping” and “panty-soaking” are all true, but they don’t begin to describe what I saw and felt.  I kept checking out her profile, trying to work up the nerve to write her… and then I got a message from her! “I must say you’re quite lovely,” it read in part.  Cue the guitar opening from “She’s So High” — I was floored that this seeming “Cleopatra/Joan of Arc/or Aphrodite” had called me “quite lovely.” Wrote back. Made plans to meet which were sadly derailed by anaphylactic shock (she’s okay.) Rescheduled and kept plans, and… WOW. Hoping for another opening in her ever-busy schedule soon!

It’s been tough, though, after breaking up with MFP… knowing that I almost left the country for the first time — she was going to take me halfway across the world to spend Christmas with her family. I even finally got my passport.  Knowing that in less than 24 hours from the time I told her goodbye, she’d called many of our mutual friends to talk all about the situation from her side, and over the next week I heard from a couple of my close friends that she’d repeatedly called them and that they were uncomfortable with her trying to come to them to support her against me.  I’ve heard from a number of friends since when I get the chance to see them that “just so you know, I have talked with her a little bit about your breakup. I mean,  it’s not like I’ve passed along anything important or private or anything… but yeah, just wanted to let you know I’ve been support for her.”  I’m basically unsurprised by these little confessions, now, which is somewhat frustrating when I know that I’ve had too little in the way of opportunity to process this difficult situation with anyone… and I can figure that anybody I know even moderately well will have already heard MFP talk about things. It feels like I’m not entitled to have a friend to listen without judgement or preconceived ideas about the situation, not when most of those have already been claimed by her.

I’ll get through all of this.  I know I will.  The uncertainty with where I’ll live, the pain of a relationship ending, the difficulties with all sorts of other stuff.  And I know that I’ll be stronger and better and a more “refined” version of the woman I am now — it’s the process of tumbling away, burning away, scraping and filtering away the bits that are less pure, less relevant, less needed, and gathering together the essence of myself in concentrate.  It’s life.

Also.Also.Also. If you have any leads on housing in the San Francisco Bay Area (preferably East Bay,) queer-friendly, women-only, under $700/month… let me know! I can pass along more details.

Today has been… weird.

Weird, like, I feel like I’ve stepped outside of reality momentarily, like I’m only half-here.

Weird, like, I’ve had the odd taste in my throat and unease in my belly that often signal oncoming cold symptoms, but they’ve been fading and out, and the other things I usually query as self-diagnostics for “you’re getting a cold!” haven’t been there.

Weird, like, I’ve only once in my life had something that fit what others described as a migraine, but tonight I was noticing bits of the things that I felt then… in diminished form, like echoes.  I’m sure my severely disrupted sleep/wake cycle the last few days hasn’t been easy on my body/mind/self, but… this doesn’t make sense.

Weird, like, I remember looking at the clock about 6:30pm and thinking I should make sure to get out of the house… and I started getting clothes on, cleaning myself up to leave — and I remember looking at the clock again just before 10pm and being certain that much time could not have passed, and I had only put on underwear and cleaned up my face.

Weird, like, I don’t know what temperature feels comfortable in here.  I’ve had the heat on several times today, to higher than I would almost ever turn it — and then I’ve turned it off and opened things up to cool it way down.  Then repeat the process with a few temperature changes on both ends of things… not quite as warm heater, colder cooldown, less cool next cycle or even colder still.

I know I’ve been really itching for, hungry for, needing a huge dose of surreality in my life for a while.  I know I’ve been calling for fire and ocean and seeking out art that tears at the cloud of mundane corporeal existence, visuals and visions that pull me beyond.  I know I’ve had that need for too long… I wonder if it was my recent call seeking Discord that finally opened the gates?

The laptop computer I’m currently using to type this is just barely — in the last couple of days — up and functional again (minus the audio output, which may not ever be working.)  I hadn’t realized for some time that when I first got WinXP installed on here, I’d broken something about its ability to update itself, to apply security patches and such, and it ended up being a simpler process to wipe and start over… though the process of getting things working took several more wipe/reinstall cycles, each with a fair bit of research and experimentation and hair-pulling (and not the sexy kind.)

The last time I was installing Windows on here, and it asked me for the computer’s name, I started to type “ThinkPad” as I had done several times before.  It would have still been the only system I own whose name does not begin with my own, then a hyphen, then a single word identifier (-laptop, -desktop, -win7desk, -dlbox, etc.)  But I stopped.  And I thought.  And I named her.

Eris-Spawn.

How d’ya like them apples, huh? Seems golden to me!

I have fun on Facebook, usually.  I post fun stuff on my own Wall/Timeline/Whatever-the-fuck-they-call-it-this-week, I hang out in fun groups which are invitation-only where like-minded people create small communities and share conversation and pictures that might not be acceptable in the greater “Facebook Community” but are certainly within the guidelines of our groups.

I also “Like” a lot of pages, especially now that I’ve started from scratch after having a previous account deleted within the last month or so; I’m trying to get back to where I once was… I lost so much when that account got nuked.

A few minutes ago, I posted something fun in one of the groups I mentioned above.  Then I found myself faced with the very clear sign that something was wrong: “You are not logged in,” Facebook warns me, which means that they’ve logged me out to scold me.  Sure enough, I was faced with a statement that one of my pictures had been removed for “violating community standards,” and had to click a box that says “yeah, I know, I know, Facebook is a place for sunshine and bunnies and cute things that are safe for every single child everywhere, and I solemnly swear I will be a completely boring prude forever and ever more.”  Something like that, anyway — that’s the general idea at least.

Then I got the following screen:

We don’t believe you’re human. Prove it!

After clicking “Continue,” I was presented with tagged photos of my Facebook friends, and required to correctly identify enough of them to prove I’m a really-real person instead of an automated script.  Thing is, I don’t know every last one of the people I’m connected to on Facebook!  I know that statement is nearly blasphemy, because the only sanctioned use for the service is to rate the attractiveness of the girls on your college campus keep in touch with people you already know from someplace besides Facebook (sorry, I forgot for a moment that I’m not Zuckerberg…) and I failed the test the first time around.  The second time I tried, I accidentally clicked “Skip” instead of “Next” on a set of photos I could identify, which counted as a strike against me, and the next set of photos wasn’t even of a person… just various pictures they or their friends had tagged themselves in, as people do with that.  Except, of course, that can’t possibly happen, because the only sanctioned use of “tagging” a photo is to expand the database of facial recognition data to hand over to the NSA identify your friends in the photos you share, not to play “tagging games.”

Sometime after an hour or so has passed, I may be allowed to try again.  I’d love to use my cellphone to verify my identity, but I never could get Facebook’s system to communicate with my mobile number, no matter how many times I told it to “resend code.”  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get my account back, and I really don’t know if I can deal with attempting to start over again.  I need the support and the coping tools and the connection, but if this is the constant cost of that — being fucked over again and again unless I become someone entirely different than myself, unless I front for everyone I care about most — then I don’t think I can do it.

I just got back last week from summer camp. I’d never been off to camp before; it wasn’t something my family ever really did, and it was pretty fucking awesome to have the experience.

Even more awesome was the fact that this wasn’t just any old summer camp — this was A-Camp… summer camp for queer women, put together by Autostraddle! Spending half a week on a mountaintop surrounded by about 300 women, none of whom were “straight,” was a wonderful and moving and awesome (in the sense of “instilling or inspiring awe”) thing. And that’s about as close as I can get to making the understatement of the century.

I came into this at the bottom of several months of working hard to convince myself that there wasn’t something fundamentally wrong with me, wondering how long I could keep from believing that I’m just unlovable, unfuckable, undesirable… and beginning to lose the battle. That all changed.

On the way to camp, MFP and I rode with a couple of women that she knew for the nearly 10-hour drive, with a stop overnight at a nice little campground. It was Again‘s car that took us there, although her friend helped out too, switching out when one of them was too tired. Again and I had been making eyes at each other, and I was flirty like I am with any beautiful woman. As we made our way up the mountain, the last stretch of road before camp, I was in the back seat across from her, and we spent those 20 minutes or more looking into each others’ eyes, smiling shyly, and finally daring to hold hands. It was sweet and beautiful, and especially nice when Again was planning to drive back home after droppig the rest of us off. She ended up staying overnight, and we promised to be in touch after I came home again.

At camp, I met Lime face-to-face for the first time. We had been chatting online before camp, and it was notjust slightly obvious that she had a crush on me; even MFP had picked up on it! Of course, it was very much mutual, and we shared more than one intimate moment. I’m sure whoever the guy was that whizzed down the hiking trail on his mountain bike enjoyed the view he got while Lime and I were out “for a hike” — I know I was a bit distracted by the view of her! The note she slipped into my hand the next day made my heart sing (and by “heart” and “sing” I mean something slightly different as well)… I have often felt the kind of lust expressed by “I want you to fuck me until I can’t remember my own name,” and was more than happy to indulge that lust. I know what it’s like to need, and to go without. While I wasn’t entirely successful on the name-forgetting front, I certainly gave it my best shot… and heard my own name screamed out countless times for that effort! It was amazing.

Then there was Poco. I think there’s only once when someone has told me that a compliment I’ve given them was, without question, genuinely the best one they’re ever received — and that was her. All I told her was that she had beautiful breasts; in a cabin of bunk beds full of queer women, many of us changed clothes without much thought to who was looking or not, and on the first night as Poco was getting into her pajamas and climbing into her bunk (right above mine) I caught a glimpse of her lovely tits, and it made me smile. Considering the last two days had been pretty rough, and I’d had almost no sleep, so her body (and her chest in particular) was a very pleasant close to my evening. Then when the first night ended up being one disaster after another, and I had even less sleep than the previous few, startng my morning with the same view was a peaceful moment among a turbulent sea of troubles. When I had the chance, I told her so, and she maintains that it’s the nicest thing anyone has said to her. Over the course of the few days of camp, we spent some time together, and some of that in bed, semi-clothed and gently touching and kissing and pleasuring each other — and we’ll be in touch again!

There was one moment during the week that I keep returning to in memory, a beautiful scene where I sat on the edge of my bunk, Poco was lying to my right with her head in my lap, Lime sat to my left holding my hand as we ran fingers up and down across our thighs, and MFP sat on the floor between my legs and I caressed her shoulders and ran my fingers through her hair. How wonderfully right it felt, to be surrounded by beauty and joy and love like that!

And now that I’ve been home a few days, I’ve had even more fun. I spent last night in bed with Again and her partner Crowbar with plans to have more fun as soon as our schedules allow!

It is our imperfections that make us beautiful.  I firmly believe that, and I say it to those I care about as often as I can.

It is also our imperfections that make us human. I’m quite certain that this is a large part of why I find imperfections beautiful — because they show me the humanity in a person, they reveal someone real and vulnerable and relatable.

The scars and wrinkles and “blemishes” that all-too-often get airbrushed out of images of supposedly beautiful women — the images plastered across magazine covers and advertisements everywhere — taking those away leaves something that feels plastic, unreal, not human.  Skin in so many shades and tones, white-washed and bleached and faded in order to look “pretty” — and all I see is “pretty boring.”  Bodies in so many sizes, so many shapes, so many types and amounts and conditions of ability — many of them simply not displayed, and those that are get changed to appear taller, thinner, less waist, more hip, never a wrinkle or touch of acne or visible body or facial hair.  The result is a nearly uniform display of the same woman, over and over, minor variations on the rubber-stamp design.  I hate it.

I remember when I first figured out what “cellulite” is.  Wasn’t very long ago, actually — less than 6 months — and suddenly it made so much sense; commercials selling ways to get rid of cellulite-and-wrinkles, almost as if it were a single word, were offering a way to match the impossible plastic look of the “ideal.”  My first thought was, “Oh, that! Never knew there was a name for it… I always thought it was beautiful.”

Or the perennial question about pubic hair — almost always phrased as “what’s the best on other people: shaved neatly or completely untouched?” Actually, I don’t have a preference about what other people do with their own bodies.  I try to stay out of deciding what anyone else can/can’t, should/shouldn’t, will/won’t do with their bodies — there’s no way I can yell “MY BODY, MY CHOICE!” and mean it if I’m not willing to shout with equal strength, ‘YOUR BODY, YOUR CHOICE!” and act on both with the determination I feel about them.  I really don’t care how you keep your hair, pubic or otherwise; all I know is what I like for my own body.

I am not perfect.  None of you are perfect.  This “perfect” thing is nonsense, anyway — because perfection is so subjective, anyway.

What I am is beautiful.  You are all beautiful.  We are beautiful, and we are human.  And that is a much more important thing to be!

The human body is an amazing thing.  Our ability to regenerate and renew and repair ourselves really astounds me, when I stop to think about it.  Take, for example, a cut to the arm — deep enough that it bleeds, but shallow enough to avoid hitting any major blood vessels.  The platelets in the blood start to form clots; there’s a system in place to stop the bleeding!  As a scab develops over the top, the body goes to work growing new skin underneath, with the scab in place to protect the tender spots as they harden.  Eventually, the scab falls away, and tougher new skin is in place… a scar.

But what happens if you rip that scab off before it’s ready to go?  I don’t mean just picking at it… most of us have probably done that once or twice.  I mean, if that entire scab gets ripped off in one go?  Or what about cutting right through in the same spot, re-creating the same injury?

Those don’t sound like very pleasant things to me.  Nor do they sound very wise.

I got a message on Facebook earlier this week form someone who I had once loved.  Someone who would have been the first cis* woman to fuck me, and was certainly the first to show any interest in me.  She also wounded me deeply — so much that for a couple years, it was too difficult to reference her by name.  She was simply “DE-B” or sometimes just “that bitch.”

She tells me that her therapist wants her to “correct all evils and wrongs” that she’s done to friends, and I have to wonder at what possible wisdom there could be in that.  To me, it seems rather stupid to stay stuck in the past, trying to change what was, what happened, what is already done.  That advice sounds like telling someone to rip off the scab from a wound they inflicted, to cut into scar tissue, because healing comes from… I dunno, bleeding out?

You can’t “correct” the wrongs you’ve done.  You can’t un-break a heart (no matter what Toni Braxton pleads for you to do) and you can’t make your future by living in your past and holding on to your past mistakes.  For the same reason that some debts of kindness can never be paid back, but can be passed on and “paid forward,” the hurtful actions of the past cannot always be made painless… but others can be spared the same hurt instead.

I’ve been working on letting go of the ugliness and pain in my past.  I take comfort in being able to recognize the good things I can take from even the most horrible people in my life: I remembered how fun it is to play make-believe from my psycho ex, as well as how important a bit of magic is in my life.  The boyfriend I had for a few months taught me how to set and maintain boundaries (although it was by his repeatedly violating them) and how to be firm and direct in communication (when he fell apart to the point that I had to repeat until he finally believed me, “if you do not stop attempting to contact me, I will do everything in my power to protect myself — including, if necessary, involving law enforcement. This is your final warning.”)  I had lessons in learning when — and how — to let go of a toxic person, even when they’re the closest to a friend I’ve got — from “Equal Opportunity Hater.”  He was the one guy at the center of my circles of friends and acquaintances at the time, and I lost touch with a lot of people I wish I could have stayed around.  Being told to go shove myself under a subway train if I didn’t come crawling back on my knees to play his game, his way… well, that was a less desirable option.

So, when I look at the time that I knew DE-B, I figure I ended up with a 2-week cross-country vacation with paid airfare and lodging, even if I didn’t eat much.  I took in some self-guided US History, took a fair few photos, and came home with a handful of trinkets and shiny things (most of which were lost in being mugged twice over the next few months, both with a pistol in my face.)  The original purpose of the trip was completely missed, but I’m claiming my own consolation prize instead — I won’t count it as a failure.

I’m home now, in a safe place with a woman I love and who loves me — MFP and I do what we can to make our lives together work.  Things aren’t perfect, but we’re hanging in there… and I’m looking to the future, not living in the past.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  Decide that for yourself!

It’s been a while since I last posted anything here… and a lot has happened, a lot has changed.

I ran into Smash one last time, at the same bar where we first met. She’d told me before that she hadn’t been feeling well, needed some time to rest up and get better, so it was a big downer to see her not only out and having a great time, but doing so with the guy she’d met the same night we did.  It would have hurt a lot less if she’d just told me directly, “I don’t think I want to continue with you.”  I know that’s not always an easy thing to do, but it felt cheap and dishonest to tell me she was really sick instead, as an “easy out.”

Hands had a baby, and apart from the hour or so conversation we had the first time we met, and a few text messages afterward, she’s not been in touch.  Her last word to me was that she wouldn’t be available anymore.

Soup was a brief encounter at the same little pub that used to be my neighborhood hangout, and she came on to me strong. Both she and a few of her friends invited me to their “intentional community” living space for a weekly dinner they host, and as I was leaving Soup was stepping out for a smoke… she asked if she could kiss me goodnight, which turned into a several-minute makeout session on the sidewalk.  Then she never returned my calls, her friends didn’t answer my messages, I never got any details about the dinner invitation, and the next time I saw Soup at the bar she pretended I didn’t exist.

Then a funny thing happened when I attempted to make it to the Folsom Street Fair this year in San Francisco.  “Attempted,” because through circumstances beyond my control, I arrived several hours later than I’d planned, just as everything was closing down.  Hadn’t even eaten that day, and it was already nearly 7pm!  So I stopped by the Center for Sex and Culture to see what might be going on, and found that I had barely missed a group of authors reading their own work… so I sat around and chatted a bit with the few folks there — got to see some old friends and make a few new ones.  The funny thing is, I thought the day had been a total flop; I missed out on all the cool stuff, and ended up with a little conversation as a crummy consolation prize.  One of the new friends I made was headed the same way as me on mass transit, so we walked back to the subway together and took the same train partway (I had to transfer to get back home.)

Then the next day, I got an invitation from this new friend — we’ll call her MFP — to her birthday party a couple days later.  I’m not one to easily turn down an invitation to watch a burlesque show and sing karaoke with a bunch of queermos, so I went, had a great time, and found myself making eyes at MFP while she performed her last karaoke track of the night — “Queer” by Garbage.  She was eying me back just as much, and towards the end of the song, during an instrumental break, she came over and made out with me.

There’s this joke I’ve heard a few times, something along the lines of “Q: What does a lesbian bring on a second date? A: A moving truck.”  Well, it wasn’t quite that quick, and we both recognized that NRE was in play and we shouldn’t rush together even if we felt like everything was perfect… but we were both already looking for housing, and we did both have limited resources on our own… and as we got to know each other a bit better, we found that we could stand to live with each other and finally after lots of hard work from us both, lots of uncertainty and last-minute gambles, we landed a 2-bedroom apartment in an amazing neighborhood for a great price!  We’re slowly getting settled in our new place, and we’ll be having a housewarming party at the end of the week.

I’m still trying to find folks to be fuckbuddies, but it’s not going so great.  MFP and I have a fair amount of overlap in our sexual interests and preferences, but we have just as much that doesn’t mesh, and although I’ve been grateful and delighted to have so many wonderful sexytimes with her… I still have other aspects of my sexual needs left unfulfilled .  When my options seem to be limited to “hang out at a bar, spend money on booze, hope there’s a chance of meeting a girl” and “hang out on OkCupid and write messages to women who almost never write back” I’m not terribly surprised that I’m not getting any better results.  I did have one chick write to me on OkC, said she’d love to hook up while she was in town for a week.  We exchanged phone numbers, sent a few text messages back and forth, picked a day to meet… and then she cancelled late the day before, and rescheduled tentatively for sometime a few days later — which she also backed out of last minute, just before leaving town.  Says she might be around again in a few months, or if I’m ever a few states away where she lives, to look her up.  Why do I still expect people to have the fucking decency to be able to schedule an date and time to meet, and to follow through with that?  It seems to be a forgotten relic of ancient times, or something.  A mythical lore known only to a few bizarre freaks like me.

Here’s hoping I find someone soon!  Who knows, maybe I’ll have a nice holiday screw?

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I’m horny.  “The Rabbit” (as I’ll call her here) just loaned me a couple of books of photography to look through — one by Sam Haskins, the other by a guy I didn’t know… but the photographer wasn’t the point, the “lesbian” sex was, and it was so perfectly what I’ve wanted (the porn) for so long.  Extensive use of soft lighting, almost to the point of vignette.  Warm colors.  Lots of lace and stockings and outfits-as-props.  Trimmed — but not bald — pubic hair.  I would guess late ’80s, maybe early ’90s.  Just deliciously perfect, and I gave her my thanks and told her so — and why.

And I’m horny, as I mentioned.  Normally I’d masturbate and be done with it; I don’t want to reach my hand down because I’m not horny that way. I know that my hand won’t find what it’s reaching for either, because my pussy isn’t there yet… and I know that, but I want to reach down and finger myself.  I’m really pissed off.  No, that doesn’t express it… I want to rage.  I want to smash and break and scream.  I’m really fucking angry, and I don’t have anywhere to direct that anger out, not even into a productive channel.  I’m way too tired to try to do any cleaning or organizing my stuff out on the back porch, I don’t have any sort of physical work I can do, and I really ought to be going to sleep, even if I don’t really want to.

I guess for now I’m just writing, because there’s nothing else to do.  I may as well tell a bit about The Rabbit — she’s been my good friend/girlfriend for a little while now, helped me get most of the work done with packing up and moving my things out of that old hellhole, driving me around to and from the storage unit I’ve rented for the moment. She’s my place to crash for now, as I mentioned in my last post here that I’ve got a temporary situation — in her guest bedroom. I don’t relish the though of jumping right back into house-hunting again, but I’ve been working as much as I can on that in my down time, while I’m still trying to get the rest of my belongings into storage as quickly as possible.

It would be really nice if I could more easily arrange another meet-up/hook-up with my new friend (yes, the “with benefits” kind) “Smash.”  I’d forgotten how much sex I need, and how much I need sex; going without or with so little for so fucking long must have left me in a bit of a libidinous coma.  Now, just like when I get a great meal after going hungry for ages, my body remembers that appetite and clamors to be filled.  Since Smash can’t host, and I’m not entirely certain of my ability to do so here, I’m really hoping it doesn’t end up being a long time before we have the chance to fuck again. I’m really hoping to take a strap-on for the first time, almost as much as I am to just in general getting pounded hard.  It’s been a long time, and then almost entirely with the psycho ex (and her cock was her own flesh.)  One hook-up and fuck so far with Smash, plus a coffee and lunch date, still leaves my balance in the red… with all the lights the same color: STOP HERE.  I need to go, go, go… and there’s nowhere I can get to!

It’s always interesting for me to get that “fly on the wall” view of a situation — especially when I am both that “fly” and an active participant.  It’s a unique experience to be able to hear a person’s genuine feelings on a topic, the things they won’t generally speak except among friendly ears…

Like the time I’d gone with a friend to check out a 12-step program, to see if it was something that might benefit me, and later I had briefly mentioned something about that type of program in front of my roommates and their friends — and pushed myself to stay through the stomach-turning onslaught of hatred and insults which followed, knowing that they had no idea they were speaking against me with their vitriol.

I’m reminded of this today because of an unpleasant encounter with a couple of friends on Facebook this morning — comments on a link I shared related to sex work and workers’ rights quickly devolved into name-calling and personal attacks, and I barely had time to type a few words in an attempt to moderate the discussion before the bickering had gotten really ugly.  I think at least one of the participants was much like the group of folks ranting about 12-step programs who didn’t know the impact on their audience — so I’d like to potentially help clear things up.

I have, on multiple occasions, knowingly exchanged sex for goods, services, and/or money.I have had more than one relationship which was based primarily around that exchange.  I have no guilt about doing so, and if another opportunity presented itself for a similar relationship, and I felt comfortable with the situation, I would not hesitate to do it all over again.

I have learned essential life skills through these exchanges — I’ve had practice in understanding, defining, and enforcing personal boundaries.  I’ve gotten better at asking for what I want — and more importantly, being able to acknowledge that I have desires, and that my desires are legitimate and worthy of being fulfilled.  I’ve learned how to articulate myself more clearly, how to check in and make sure that I have understood what other people mean and that my own words are interpreted correctly.  I’ve gotten better at handling rejection — whether that’s being told “no, you can’t have that” or “get the hell out of my life, I don’t ever want to see you again,” the skills for coping are much the same, differing only in degree.

I know of easily half a dozen good friends — just off the top of my head– who have supported themselves financially through sex work, both “legal” and “illegal” kinds, though the laws change so often and arbitrarily that those little boxes are rarely useful for anything other than persecuting those who don’t see the world as you do.  Because these are good friends, and because the current laws (and public attitudes) are what they are, I’m not going to rattle off a list of names; to “out” my friends is to endanger their well-being, and possibly even their lives.  Kitty Stryker could tell you a thing or two about that.

So yeah, if I take offense to being told that to “refer to hookers as ‘lady'” is “pushing it,” or that a non-paying client isn’t stupid, or to hear insults to sex workers casually dismissed as “just a viewpoint,” there’s a reason.  I don’t generally respond well when I’m insulted along with many of my friends, colleagues, and respected leaders — and I don’t care whether those insults come from pure ignorance or intentional malevolence… my response will be the same.  Either shut your mouth and leave, or expect to see me gone.  I won’t tolerate that kind of hate.

One of my daily affirmations is a reminder to purge my life of that negative influence: Every moment today is priceless. I will not waste my time with anyone who does not find value in my company. Anyone who cannot respect me for all of who I am, and all of what I choose to do, does not value me or my company, and has no place in my life and deserves not a moment of my time.

Got word a few hours ago, from someone just sharing the latest gossip, that a friend killed himself a week ago.

It always surprises me when someone comes up with that excited tone — “Hey, did you hear?!” — when they have no immediate connection to the subject of their gossip… and this time it was “Did you hear? That one guy committed suicide sometime recently!”

The details followed quickly: a guess at the number of pills swallowed, briefly touching on the difficulties he’d been having before he was gone, a couple other items of little or no consequence to the person delivering the news, and I had to cut her off–

“His name was Phrohawk.”

She hadn’t even been sure who it was that died, had thought it was someone else entirely — just spreading the gossip around.  It took a repetition of his name from me before she even realized whose death she was delivering word of…

I got a couple text messages from him a week ago.  Probably just before he died.  At the time, I thought it sounded like a farewell, but I was deep in my own pain and I didn’t respond — I knew that I would have sent back snark and venom, and I couldn’t do that to a friend who was hurting as well.  Now I can’t send him any message at all… at least not one that I know he’ll see.

What I can do instead, though, is to leave these words and hope somehow, somewhere… that they reach him:

“The angels all are weeping at your feet now, my friend.

I’ll miss you.

Rest well, and may you find the peace which eluded you in this life.

for Phrohawk — poet, artist, inspiration, and friend.”

Do people really, really not understand the concept of a “paper trail”? The fact that there’s evidence to show what happened, and when, and where? That they can’t toss out a whole load of lies without that being thrown back in their faces?

Seriously…

This morning turned into a confrontation between me and Stoner Dude.  I got up to go to the bathroom, partly because I needed to go and partly because the cat was making so much noise, I wanted to see if she was in trouble or injured or something.

As I headed back to my room, she was frantically scrabbling at the closed door of Girl-Child’s bedroom, meowing and wailing with her tail straight up, and I said to her something like, “Oh, you mean you’re not one of those cats you can just ignore and mistreat and neglect? You need someone to take care of you? Well… I’m not the one responsible for you… but then, neither is anybody else here.” Then I walked back into my room and closed my door

He gets up moments later, walks out of his room and says, “What? you’ve got food, you’ve got water, what do you want? Just some attention? Yeah, roommate is a bat-shit fucking crazy lady, huh!”

I called out, “You could at least have the decency to say that to my fucking face!”

“Yeah, well there’s a lot of things you could have said to my face, but you didn’t, did you?” came his retort.

I sat in my room for a few minutes, thinking things over, calming and steadying my nerves… and realized that this would be as good a time as any to attempt to address the issue of his taking my money for phony, exaggerated PG&E bills that he wasn’t even paying.  So I turned on the voice recorder on my cellphone, slipped it into my pocket, and went out to talk things over.

In the process, I got told that I was “full of shit,” that I’m a “paranoid little bitch,” that I’m “acting like a crazy little bitch,” accused of “pulling out mail that wasn’t yours,” and when I tried to challenge him on that as being entirely untrue, he got up in my face screaming that I was “taking it out on the WHOLE! MOTHER! FUCKING! APARTMENT!”

He’s inches from my face, now, and I said flatly, “You step back. You step back, outta my face.”

“No, you started shouting, you start all this shit… Get the fuck out!” he shouts as he turns and starts to walk away.

Dumbstruck, I managed only, “I live here…”

“Yeah, we all lived here, until you decided to be a bitch!”

This went on for several minutes more, being told that I was “trying to drive everyone away,” with my “psychotic behavior — slamming doors, beating up a tree, making it so no one can feel comfortable here!” and that if I wanted to “keep on making up paranoid delusions, you can go fuck yourself.”

I really should have resisted the joke, but with adrenaline flowing, it was too easy: “You’d probably enjoy watching that a little too much,” I sneered.

I’d forgotten that way back when, he’d apparently had a crush on me — that Girl-Child had cited the “obvious and unmistakeable chemistry” between us as “the reason” (which, of course, “the reason” changes with every whim and spontaneous lie, for her) why she had stopped trying to get me in bed with her.  His reply reminded me, as he loftily declared, “Maybe once upon a time,” he huffed, “but — not anymore. Not since you blew up in [Boy-Toy]’s face!”

Shouldn’t really be surprising that the story they all cling to is that I went off on her boy-toy, since nobody else was in the room to witness me trying to confront him rationally before he ended up in my face screaming like a banshee — at which point they all came running. So, “you blew up in his face” is what they say happened, even if it’s complete rubbish.

Stoner Dude walked out finally, and just before slamming the bathroom door behind him, gave a final, “Nobody cares what you have to say.”

As he turned on the water, I yelled after him, taunting him about running away and escaping reality… suggested smoking more pot so he wouldn’t have to deal with reality. I hate verbal fights for precisely that reason — I’m damn good at throwing dagger-words where I think they’ll leave the deepest emotional wounds, and with the anger and fear pumping through my veins, my inhibition lowered, I let loose some really nasty volleys.  When it became obvious that he wasn’t coming back for more, I left the house and (thinking he’d gone into his bedroom, not the bath) I called in at his window, “Grow the fuck up one of these days — pull your head out of your ass!”

Yeah, real clever, I know… or not.  Also very much unnecessary and entirely inappropriate. Again, why I hate getting into fights like this. I lose my higher function, my skill with words, my creativity… and I don’t remember the conversation verbatim, which is something that I often do with other non-confrontational conversations. That’s what the audio recording was for.

I’m back home for the moment, but headed out again in a few minutes to meet with a friend for lunch when she gets off of work.  I could certainly use some friendly company, and I know I need the food!

Sometimes I realize just how far ahead of the crowd my parents have always been on a few things, for as frustratingly out-of-touch as they were on others.

For example, when I was 12 years old, my therapist at the time suggested to them that it was probably time for “The Talk” after I asked her about something I had read in The Diary of Anne Frank — a euphemistic reference to menstruation of having found “seed” in her underwear.  Not long after, my dad and I sat comfortably in his room with the door closed, and he said to me,

“You’ll probably have some questions during our talk, and I want you to know that it’s okay to ask me anything, and it’s okay to use whatever words you feel comfortable using.”

At 12, I understood completely that he was creating a safe space for us to have a conversation about a topic that might otherwise be difficult, and that within the bounds of that space, the outside rules didn’t apply.  I knew that, had I been comfortable using the terms, I could have asked, “So… your prick gets really hard — like a bone — and that’s why it’s called a boner?”  I could have even used “The F-Word” if I felt it was appropriate.  It wasn’t an excited feeling of getting to break all the rules; it was an understanding that those rules were being set aside temporarily, because they worked against the purpose of that safe space.  Now, I also knew that even if the words themselves were allowed, that they were only allowed in context — I couldn’t tell my dad he was a prick, or to go fuck himself, and if I did I’d expect him to call me on it and for there to be consequences.

I learned the word “prick” in second grade. I knew exactly what it was, I knew that either a “D” or a “P-R” could interchangeably begin the word, and I knew easily half a dozen other names for a penis and nearby genitalia.  “Sperm” came in third grade, when I was left so puzzled by the other kids giggling at a certain species of whale that I asked what was funny… and although the concepts and details were lacking as far as how the overall process worked, I quickly picked up “spunk” and “jism” as synonyms.  Singing Oh, Suzannah became harder to do with a straight face after that!  “Pussy” — well, I’m afraid my understanding of the anatomical usage came a few years later, but I certainly knew the word… that was the one yelled as an insult to a boy who was perceived as having failed to perform his societally-assigned gender role!  I don’t recall it being hurled at me in specific, but I knew that it easily could have been.

These and many more “bad words” were in my vocabulary for years before I sat down across from my dad, and he knew I’d been exposed to at least some of them.  He spoke honestly and openly, and tried to give me that same privilege.  I wasn’t comfortable using most of them, but I knew that I could — and that was pretty damn significant.

Now, I find many places, both physical and online, which call themselves “safe spaces” or “support groups.”  These tend to follow the pattern of being organized around a particular topic, and have a standard “speak freely, ask any questions, discuss what you wish (sometimes “what you wish as long as it falls under our organizational topic”) using the language that is comfortable for you.”  In essence, the same things my dad said as he invoked that space for us.  The trouble I’ve run across, though, is that too often those concepts are just words.  “That topic is too deep,” and “this question isn’t okay” — or at least it wasn’t when you asked it yesterday… but when someone else asks, they get lots of information that you were looking for.  “Stop trying to throw your voice into the conversation,” and “those words aren’t allowed here.”

The last one is what pisses me the fuck off.  I have been frustrated to have to leave a few online spaces recently which claimed to be safe, supportive, welcoming areas set aside for discussion, because “those words aren’t allowed here.”  In each case, the posts were deleted, along with the supportive comments made by others, and I got a message from an admin asking me politely to censor myself, “because there are minors here.”  Mind you, these are online services where the minimum age limit is 13 — not little children, but young folks at or near puberty.  If there are minors present, then I as an adult would think it wise to show them the value of safe spaces — to demonstrate in actions that the words we use in creating that space are not hollow lies.  We do these youth a disservice to offer the opportunity to speak freely, only to chastise and censor any speech we don’t like.  We make those spaces unsafe when we dictate the exact manner in which expression is allowed, when it is either explicitly stated or implicitly understood that some subjects may never be discussed and some words will always be silenced.

Any space where I am censored, or asked to censor myself, is not a safe space — and I will not stay there.  Exclaiming “but think of the children!” does nothing to help me feel safe; the same smokescreen has been used to silence discussion of many other topics, and it’s equally bullshit no matter what issue you’re trying to distract attention from.  If you want me to think about the youth, I’ll think about the reason I left home — because I was not free to speak about the things I wished, using words which were comfortable.  If you want me to be mindful of young ears, I’ll keep in mind the sense of shame and guilt I attached to certain vocabulary when I was young, because the adults around only wanted to keep them out of sight and out of mind.  If you politely ask me to refrain from using curse-words, I’ll point at the button on my purse: Fuck Censorship! Then I might just follow that with “…and fuck you, too!” before walking away.

isolation made more poigniant
your “hug” is just dots on this display
it is not arms around me
it is not warmth at my side
it is not breasts pressed tight against my own

you mean well
i know you mean well
but you wound with your well-wishes
good intent betrayed
by the breeze blowing cold across my back
by the pillow clutched in my almost-empty arms
by my heart beating slowly to its sad and solitary song

when you ask if i want to talk to you about it
the answer is yes
but not to the question you really mean

i want to TALK
to YOU

you are not a video screen
you are not a telephone
tapping on computer keys
makes a very different sound from speech
and compressing the vibrations from my throat and lips
to translate into digital bits
beamed out and back again to the little box beside your ear
cannot compare to the full sensory fidelity
of my voice muffled against your tear-wet shoulder

understand, then, if i seem angry
when you offer
yet again
the same shallow substitutes
which cannot
will never
satisfy my needs

understand
that i will not comprimise
that i will have what i need
or nothing at all

understand
and do not scold me
for knowing what i want
standing firm and unwilling
to settle for less

if you cannot offer what i ask
so be it
you certainly have no obligation
to care for me
but if you don’t fulfill those needs
then i will suffer through this

alone

as i so often do

Last Wednesday night I was having a hard time dealing with the typical shit that goes on here, and just before midnight I updated my Facebook status and left the house.  I hadn’t realized how far gone I was until I was outside walking in the still night, and could feel such a contrast to my mind and my emotions — a chaotic swirl.  Trying to decide on a destination, I suddenly remembered a little spot I hadn’t visited in far too long… a small bench under a tree, away from almost everything, and looking out over a bit of water.  It’s incredibly peaceful, and nearly always deserted, so I aimed my feet in that general direction.

There was something else at play though, I realized as I began to take a very different and very indirect path to where I wanted to end up.  Some of that was extra walking while working to slow myself down, my pace and my mind and my heart.  Some of it was mixing routine and familiar (my destination) with new exploration in unfamiliar territory.  Some of it was beyond my understanding or awareness, and I was okay with that.

I could smell something burning in the air, the closest thing my nose could tell me was “it smells like when computer components get overheated and fried,” but it wasn’t exactly that scent; it was a faint smell but distinct to my mind.  When I got to my little bench I let go my purse, keenly aware of how significant a weight it was, and bit back the scolding I almost gave myself for packing so many things inside.  I was sensitive to small things, delighting in the chill of the breeze from off the water as I removed my sweater, uncomfortable with the tightness of the sports bra I was wearing — uncomfortable almost as if it were keeping my lungs from filling — mindful of the weight of my fake tits inside the bra, and how they stuck slightly sweaty to my chest… very much tuned in to my body and everything near me.  I tucked myself back into the sweatshirt for a moment and kept myself covered while I removed the bra and the “falsies” from under my shirt, knowing there was no one near but being modest because it felt right to do so.

When I was free of those, I tucked away my belongings into my pockets and my purse and let myself breathe deeply, filling my lungs and holding… holding… holding… before breathing out as much as I could and repeating again.  I looked up at the stars and laughed, I listened to the wind blowing, I probably sang aloud though I don’t now recall what words or tune.  Then I got a text message.

Very odd, actually, because this message appeared to be an accidental re-send of one from early this month from a gentleman I’d only briefly met and had promised to contact again but had forgotten to do so.  I needed to be reminded of him, and when I had finally been able to let go of so much of the shit in my psyche, there he was.  Sure, I could probably find a sound scientific argument for it… I could find something about the cellular carriers and their equipment, or point to flaky technology and unreliable electronics.  I don’t need to right now, because what I needed was right there; sometimes you make a call to the universe and leave a message with your needs at the tone… and the universe sends you back a txt!

On my walk back home I made myself move pretty — swishing my hips, stepping deliberately but daintily and enjoying the recognition that I was much more whole, much more at peace than I had been in quite some time.  I took a different route back home than I had on my way out, and different still to the direct route I normally would have traveled.  Doing so allowed me to discover that there are lots of daffodils and lilies near my home, and some beautiful landscaping and gardens that I’ll have to see while the sun is out.  As I walked, I sang:

Petit bateau sur l’eau,
(Little boat on the water,)
Vogue…
(Carry on…)
Vogue…
(Carry on…)
Petit bateau sur l’eau,
(Little boat on the water,)
Vogue mon âme vers le Très-Haut!
(Carry my soul unto the Most-High!)

I stopped mid-step as I noticed that the wind had changed, fresh and clean from off the water; the burning smell was gone.  Several times as I walked, I heard moving, flowing water — a few from fountains in people’s yards, once from the pipes beneath the street, but the sound of water moving, and the change in the air all called out to me to do the same: move, flow, change.  Let the old flow away, the pain move through me, change and progress and look forward.

When I got back home, I knew I was walking into the same shit as always, but I also knew that I could handle it.  I also recognized at some point that although I had been very much awake, that walk was a dream unto itself… and I’m grateful to have had it!

Need. Need and crave and want so very, very much…

It’s been nearly a year since I’ve been fucked. Late January last year was when I went in to fake a “let’s kiss and make up” with my ex, and this after having been without since early November before that. Yeah, the make-up sex was hot, but it was a desperate (and dangerous) move.  I had the option then, though — now I’m alone.

This lust hits me hard in the late night hours, when I’m in bed and drowsy but not yet exhausted.  The time when I’d be at the peak of my “afternoon” if I were keeping to my natural sleep cycle, when my body and mind want to be full-on and engaged, but more often are left strained and weary… but either way, I’m sitting here horny as all fuck with nothing I can do about it.

Sometimes, if I remember, I pick up single-use lube packets and condoms from the folks who run the weekly needle exchange, HIV test, and safe sex supplies deal down the block, but more often I forget.  I recently found out that I can stop by their main office to pick up the same supplies, but that means fighting the same “business hours” bullshit as everything else, and remembering to try heading out there when I’m figuring out what I’m doing on any given day.  Considering that much of my day is spent on “fuckfuckfuck gotta keep it together through this major panic attack long enough to get myself dressed, cleaned up and out the goddamned door right fucking now!” it’s honestly surprising that I accomplish as much as I do.

Sure, I meet girls somewhat often.  Many are interested in being friends — and I won’t deny that having good people in my life as friends is a huge thing that I haven’t had in a long time.  None of them are interested in being “girlfriends,” though.  None of them are interested in a relationship that involves hanging out now and then, going out for drinks and conversation, and also fucking sometimes.  I don’t necessarily need a primary romantic partner right now — a “girlfriend” — though I do eventually hope to find someone to fit that role with me (and I for her.)  What I really need now is sex — sex and cuddles and good physical pain, but mostly the sex.

When I have all the supplies on hand, I have a few toys I can put in my ass, but I don’t have the ability to fuck myself with any of them.  It’s just not something I can do.  Things go in, they feel good in certain ways, and then they come out at some point afterwards. What I need is someone else to control the process, to be the one who fucks me, so that I can let go of all the thinking and planning and deciding how and what to do and just lie there enjoying being fucked.

I can’t pleasure myself in many of the ways that my body demands it.  Even if I had the technical means, I don’t think I could get any enjoyment from giving myself pain, or filling and fucking my own ass with a toy, or running my own fingers and hands across my skin.  Much of the joy in those things comes from knowing that the pain is given by someone who finds joy in doing so, that I’m being fucked by someone who wants to fuck me because it feels good for them too, that a gentle caress is shared to show affection for another beautiful human.

When I’m trying to balance all of that on top of the stresses and anxiety triggers at home, and struggling to find somewhere else to live, and working towards (but still often failing to accomplish) eating enough, sleeping enough, keeping my personal hygiene in order and masturbating regularly (definitely not taking care of that one, see “no lube” above) I feel overwhelmed and discouraged about even the smallest things — and less likely to get the small stuff done next time around, which piles up into a huge wad of “small stuff” bogging me down to the point of near-insurmountability.

The advice that should fit this situation just sounds hollow — be patient, good things take time, love will find you, look at what you do have not what you don’t, life’s a bitch sometimes, other people have it bad/have it worse… none of that changes the fact that I need to be fucked tonight, that I’m not being fucked tonight, and that I don’t know when I will be fucked again.  Yes, I laugh about my ability to be patient; my ability to wait is not a wonderful skill that fills me with great pride, it’s a coping mechanism which I loathe because it is so well-developed from regular and frequent use.  I’m good at waiting forever for something to go right because if I couldn’t handle that, I’d have completely lost myself by now.

I’m not lost, but I am damned tired of waiting.

I realized a few days ago that I’ve never written publicly about this.  I’ve shared the story in person with many people, sometimes even to a group, but I’ve never written, and knowing my mind the way I do, writing this down and putting it visibly out there will help me immensely in letting it go.

I’ve been in love twice in my life.  The first time I fell, it was a whirlwind 3 weeks  from before Thanksgiving to just shy of Christmas, and I walked when she got physically abusive — and suddenly could see the verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse she’d been doling out since day one.

The second girl I met mid-August last year, when I moved into an apartment in East Oakland after being homeless for 2 weeks — she and her primary partner already lived there.  By the beginning of September we’d both realized we had feelings for each other, and one week later we’d fucked for the first time, with her partner’s blessing.  I should mention that when I got there she was a few weeks pregnant — I’m not certain how long, but she’d just started showing.  By the time we had sex, she’d miscarried, and I later learned that this was not her only recent pregnancy and miscarriage — in fact, this was either her second or third in a short period of time.

Well, we had lots of sex, discovered that we had a number of common interests and fetishes, several that (she claims) she’d not had a chance to explore, and all of it new to me in practice (as opposed to “in porn.”)  In the instances where our preferences differed in the particulars, we did what she wanted — often with the promise that we’d try things my way “next time,” or lots of talk and work to convince me that it would be okay to try something I didn’t like, didn’t want, shouldn’t do.  I did many things that, without her consistent wearing me down, I’d have said “not on your life!”

She slowly worked to gain my trust, to let me grow comfortable with her, until finally she felt she could share what she considered to be the ultimately important secret with me… she lives in another reality.  She’s delusional and hears voices talking to her.

Or, in her way of putting things — she’s thousands of years old, comes from outer space, is immortal, and best of all, she’s a fictional character from a Hollywood film: She tells me that she is, in very true fact, Connor Quentin Macleod!  Yep, that’s right: the Highlander movies weren’t just box-office hits, works of fiction.  They were embellished (naturally! Bigger tales make bigger sales!) versions of the tales, but at their core, they were a documenting of Real History™.

She was, so she claimed, the last one to have had The Quickening — and so, in her fantasy, the voices she constantly heard whispering to her were all the thoughts great minds of the world, telling her their fantastic secrets and discoveries and imparting knowledge.  Much of it was in languages she couldn’t understand, but I guess that’s what happens when these visionaries are foreigners…

Apparently her partner and their mutual friend were not only “in the know,” they actively participated in supporting her in this fantasy world.  They all fed me plenty of conspiracy theories, tales about the end of the world — which, although it was coming at the end of 2012, wasn’t what “all those other people predict it’s going to be.”  They told me all sorts of things about what chaos there would be, and that we would need to work together to, essentially, be the saviors of humanity.  She outlined what my role might be in this doomsday scenario, and then after being given my part, I was pressured by all three to answer — “Will you join us in our fight? Will you commit now to do all that needs doing — to hack these government satellites to free the people in Area 51 even if the dead bodies are piling up around you and exploding?” That kind of nonsense was typical for their prophecies of The End Of Civilization As We Know It.  But I was asked to commit, swear, promise absolutely to join them and follow through; sometimes it was a matter of pledging myself before I could be “trusted enough” to learn more of the important things, the things that would keep me alive when everything went to shit.

I say these things now, and it’s so striking to see the manipulation, to recognize the mind games.  I wanted to believe, though, and these action-movie plots were — at least at first — a welcome escape from the reality of life.  I hadn’t played make-believe in so long… I had forgotten the wonder of using my imagination, the thrill of knowing that anything was possible, the magic I could find in the world if I wanted it to be there.  So I played along.  I listened with excitement as she told me the latest tidbits about her good buddy James (That’s Mister Hetfield to the rest of you folks) or talked about making sure she got her important info to Alex (you’d know him as Alex Jones) since she was one of his primary sources.  I walked with her and enjoyed “storytime,” hearing her histories of Highlander lore with the details that couldn’t be shared with the rest of the world, or tales of her time in Japan, studying under a master swordsman and hermit, of the gift to her of his lovely daughter and the incredibly hot sex they had together — and still could, any time she felt like hopping back to Japan.  I took notes when she gave me dates and names and locations of certain books, things that would show me proof of glowing technologically “magical” cities in Antarctica, secret government programs designed to control and subdue everyone at will, aliens walking among us, and much more.

We also fucked.  Lots.  And it wasn’t long at all before she was pregnant again.  She wouldn’t stop smoking her cigarettes, because she reasoned that in her previous attempts to find out what caused her to repeatedly miscarry, she’d eliminated that as a factor — and besides, the smoke masked her natural scent, so when she went camping the bears wouldn’t eat her.  She refused to get any sort of prenatal care, because the doctors wouldn’t be able to deal with the test results from an immortal Highlander — she’d become a lab rat.  Instead, her “medical care” was someone she had telepathic conversations with, or answered her phone which hadn’t rung and talked with her “doctor” and friend Mythos, or came in and told us what he had said regarding her medical concerns (although he goes by Marty these days, and apparently installs flooring and carpets.  It’s a decent day job, right?)

And on December 12, 2010, somewhere between 14 and 16 weeks along in her pregnancy, when the rest of us had gone out to a party she stayed home — not feeling well.  I had a blast — and came home to find her crying.  She’d lost the baby while we were out, knew it was going to happen and sent me off to have fun.  I shouldn’t have helped create that potential life.  I don’t want children, I don’t like children, and I know myself well enough to know I’d be a horrible parent… but she got what she wanted from people, and she got pregnant by me.

A couple weeks later, on New Years’ Day, she was watching the Star Wars films — something she did to cheer herself up.  She invited me to join her, and I figured I could use the cheer myself!  She turned on A New Hope, and then set the picture to stretch the aspect ratio and remove those “stupid black bars” that “didn’t belong, and distract you from watching.”  I couldn’t get into the movie, though, because I was distracted by Luke Skywalker looking like Mr. Fantastic, and she wouldn’t hear my complaints, just wanted to “compromise” by doing things her way, as always.  We got angry, started arguing, and I left the room because I knew I was too angry to keep trying to talk.  I spent some time alone in my room, and later came out to kiss up, apologize for being wrong, and watch the last half of the show cuddled up next to her.

When the credits had finished rolling, she wanted to talk about what went wrong before — or rather, wanted to convince me that she was right, and help me understand why I should change.  Things quickly escalated again, and grew into a much larger fight about much more than that one incident — and somewhere in there, I had my hands on her sides, and I remember shouting as I looked her in the eye, “I don’t want to hurt you! Can’t you see that?”

The next few moments are a blank.  Next thing I do recall, I was pinned against the arm of the couch next to the wall, her above kneeling to keep me there.  She’d completely snapped.  But when she lost it, so did I — and it had been a very long time since I let go that way.  I had long, sharp fingernails then, and I remember clawing at her, trying to push her off of me and drawing blood from her chest in the process.  Didn’t last long, because she repositioned me so she could pin my arms and legs with her body and keep her hands free.  Five open-handed blows across my right cheek left me laughing, taunting — “What, is that all you got? Puh-leeze.  You think I can’t handle pain? Hel-loooo! Masochist here!”  Nobody else at was that end of the house, the other two were closed away in the back room.  Two punches to the jaw, closed fist, came right after — through the adrenaline and the pain-joy I kept smiling and taunting, before she sprang up, screaming for the others to come.  Soon as I was free, I got up and headed towards my room, hearing her accuse me to the others of having viciously attacked her, with no provocation.  Closed my door and sat rocking in fetal position for… I don’t know how long.  I was dimly aware that the others had gone back to the rear bedroom, and then I heard a loud crash from the front of the house.  I’d long since trained myself out of responding to anything that sounded like a major emergency — it was usually just one of them losing their temper, shouting and smashing things.  Someone else wandered in a few minutes later and found her having one of her frequent grand mal seizures — and after they helped her come to and lay on the couch to “sleep it off” they mentioned that it was the worst seizure they’d ever seen her have, and they’d both known her a few years.

When she woke up later, she’d forgotten the entire night of events.  In fact, she’d forgotten the entire two weeks prior, and thought I was avoiding her because I was angry at her for having lost our baby.  She dropped back to the day she miscarried, and seemed to truly not remember anything afterwards.  Nobody dared to try telling her what had happened, but we all walked on eggshells hoping that she wouldn’t freak out if it all came flooding back.

My jaw was incredibly sore, swollen, hard to move — it was tough going down on her, but I did as much as I could when she told me she wanted it, and couldn’t mention the pain for fear she’d remember everything.  The swelling had finally started to subside when I was mugged for the second time in under 6 months living there, on January 22, 2011 — and then got pistol-whipped three times.  My jaw had certainly still been sore, but I was silently grateful to the punk with the pistol in my face, because he gave me an “out” — I got my jaw checked out and made certain it wasn’t seriously injured from either the gun or her fist.

The last time we fucked, it was the very end of January.  I’d gone without since sometime before the baby died, and I needed some.  I swallowed my pride, put on an act of sorrow and contrition, and went in to offer her sex, because “It’s probably been so long for you, and I’m sorry I haven’t been looking after your needs like I should, and I still love you so much, dear… I bet you’d like to fuck me after I take care of getting you off, right?”  After we finished, something in our conversation led to a question — and I couldn’t keep holding it in.  She’d asked why I seemed nervous, why everyone was so jumpy, what was wrong… and I told her.  Gave her all the details of the night she turned into a monster, transformed into something frightening and surreal.  She listened, shrugged, and still swore she didn’t remember.

We were all in the process of trying to escape from the slumlord bitch who’d been tormenting us from the day we moved in, and I was fortunate to find another place to live much sooner than they did.  Of course, it turned out to be this shit situation I’m in now, but I figured “Hey, it can’t be all that bad compared to this!”  I got away from them, cut all ties and haven’t heard from any of them since.

I loved her.  We were a fucked-up couple, but I really did love her.  Of course, I also hate the bitch for all the suffering she caused me — and I don’t ever want to see her again.  But that time in January when I went in to her was the last time I’ve been good and screwed, and I’m seriously missing that.  I’ve had many more of my other basic needs cared for, and so it’s often easier to distract myself from the fact that I don’t have the sex to keep me going when I’ve got regular food and frequent positive social interaction and exercise and such, but… I’m still trying to find a woman who’ll take her cock to me, and not get hung up on how I’m hung or act like a boob because I don’t have any.  It sucks sometimes, being happily queer in a frustratingly straight society!

This spilled out of me a couple nights ago after 3 pints of Guinness on an empty stomach.  I figured I may as well post it to share with everyone!

Oh, why must it so often happen thus?
Libido pegged, yet lacking even means
To masturbate, and such frustrating fuss
My body makes when gazing at these screens!
Computers filled with pornographic bliss
To mock my appetite again denied
For want of lubricant, and only this
Prevents my lust from being satisfied.
But doubt ye not that choosing at my will
I’d trade away my manual company
For sweet delightful cunnilingual thrill
Or — joy of joys! — a woman pegging me!
Tonight my head on cotton gently rests
I dream instead a pair of pillow’d breasts.