Remembrance

Remember that girl who said she was hot in her last post.

Well, it's true. I'm hot.

Hot pink now.

Oh, goodness, am I going to pay for today.

Okay, I ask you: how is it legal that the sun gets to turn me into pink lemonade served at red lobster when I had gobs of sunblock on AND I wore not spaghetti-straps, not a halter top but a pretty little flowery number that covers shoulders and arms (well, upper arms ... well, the top half of upper arms). I even wore a large-brimmed white sun hat, getting into the spirit of the thing, but did it preserve me from getting these red-raccoon eyes and ... oh, God, I'm a stereotype: red neck?

Noooooooo!

And, yes, if you've noticed the trend in the dresses I wear: I like flowers. Like Alice, who likes arranging them (although arrangements're not my specialty) and seeing them and holding them very delicately and breathing them into my being when I pass by them. Problems? Talk to the elbow, 'cause the hand's tired of listening and is now out to lunch!

Hm. I don't think I can defend me being a lipstick lesbian. Oh, well; there goes that career path!

But look at me: talking about myself, when I sat in the bleachers, along with eleven thousand other spectators melting in the sun, even as we wore a black tee that said "New American; Old Irish: One and Inseparable" with short-short jean shorts.

[God, did I want to scream, "THANK YOU!" to that girl, SUCH a cutie! Then I would've kissed her hard, and threw her right on to the ground and fucked her brains out, regardless of what her husband/boyfriend/brother would have had thought about the situation. It was hot outside ... she was hotter! ... and Irish-American!]

But here everybody was, in various states of undress, watching all those manly men and boys march right into battle carrying not just their canteens and muskets and pill-box hats (stuffed with ice cubes! Smart!). But they were also wearing worsted-wool OVERCOATS?!?! ... and BOOTS?!? and layers and layers and layers of clothes, to march right out to face the better armed and overwhelming Union troops, less than 100 yards away so they could stand face to face and get the Hell blasted out of each other?

And the shocking thing, besides the carnage (boys were falling to the ground like flies), was that they would amiably turn to us, ask after our day, hope that we were enjoying ourselves, and be concerned about how we were taking the heat and 'make sure you drink plenty of water!'

I mean, like, they cared more for us than they cared for themselves.

Luckily for me, I didn't get lucky. I mean, how could I? They were all packed together like sardines in these sweltering little pup tents when they were amongst themselves, and when they weren't they were swarmed by hordes of fans, taking pictures, asking questions, and being told how hot it was today.

And in the heat, I was concentrating more on staying hydrated than anything else, and putting one foot in front of the other. We had to walk miles! to get to the battleground, in the sweltering sun (obscured by cooling clouds, thank God!), and ...

And that's exactly what they did, 150 years ago. They marched for miles, and then at 6 am, a little fight broke out between the opposing sides, and then, at the end of that weekend there were hundreds dead. Hundreds.

I watched a corpsman run out to aid a wounded soldier, screaming in pain, and then I watched that corpsman running, and then suddenly drop, hard, onto the ground, ... and not move anymore, and not get up.

... and that happened 150 years ago: angry Americans, again, too fiery tempered to talk over things and settle things amicably, like how Canada mutually declared independence from British Rule, no, we had to piss on their representatives, literally, who happened to be our neighbors, literally, and then rattle swords and watch our boys and their boys kill each other.

And then we had to do it to ourselves.

And now we remember that. Our dead.

Ours are not the only dead.

In today's paper, there's Norway.

And one 'Christian extremist' bombed the capital and then when on a shooting rampage that left more than 80 dead on a labor party retreat ... most of the dead were school children in their teens.

And I glanced at that headline as I was getting my espresso, and read the article, and I thought: Saga could have been there.

And she was.

Somewhere in that multitude of people who will never surface from the water they dived into to escape a 'Christian Fundamentalist' who apparently opposed 'multiculturalism' was a girl or a boy that loved and was loved. Leaving a bereaved family behind.

And the take-away from this?

I'm scared.

I'm scared that people will start thinking about Christianity, in general, like people over here started thinking about Islam after 9/11, and they'll start enacting laws, and you ...

You'll think, 'Oh, Christianity breeds that sort of person.' Like him.

Like me.

`phfina, the little extremist Christian fundamentalist.

Put an AK-47 in my hands, and I'll tear through my high school, all whacked out on drugs and my idealism, and I pull the trigger but trip over my own feet and shoot myself up, fully automatic, so there'd be more lead than little fundamentalist, and everybody would laugh at me as my lungs filled with liquid and my vision grayed out to nothing, and their laughter would be the last thing I heard before oblivion overtook me.

But the thing of it is ...

I am a little Christian Fundamentalist.

Because, beside Columbine, there was a man who went on a shooting rampage right here in Virginia.

In an Amish school.

And you know what happened?

One girl broke line, and approached the man, holding them all hostage, and said 'Shoot me first.'

And you know what happened?

He shot, and killed, her first.

And you know what else happened?

Her sister, her only sibling, went up to him next and said, 'Shoot me next.'

And he shot her next. And she died.

They gave their lives so that he would use his bullets on them, so that the other girls in the classroom would have a shot at living.

And you know what? If he came to my high school, you know what I would do?

I would march right up to him, barely able to speak, because I'd be so terrified, and I'd say...

I'd say, "Shoot me first."

Why?

Because, one time, God offered me a shot. He showed me something, and I ran.

And if I was confronted with this? Or if I were on a plane, and a guy pulled a gun and screamed, 'You're all gonna die, you corrupt generation' of whatever twisted belief he holds, be it Christian or Muslim or something else that he believes is telling him to go out in a blaze of glory and to take as many sinners/infidels with him ...

I would say, scared out of my mind, 'thank you, God! Thank you, God, for giving me this chance to accept martyrdom this time, to stay and to stand, and to spare anybody, everybody else from this lunatic,' and I'm not talking about the lunatic holding the gun.

I'm talking about the lunatic facing the gunman.

Selfish, isn't it?

I mean: besides insane, of course.

But who am I thinking of the whole time? Me. Me, and how I can make reparation with God for my earlier cop-out, like I could possibly redeem me, and my wretched life with my glorious blaze-out.

And what was I thinking about on the battleground? Me and how I'm just wilting under the sun, and how the bed sheets are going to feel like razor blades on my skin tonight, and how this walk is just murderous to whom? To me.

And in my last post I put up my petty little concerns that affect nobody but me, and today more than 80 people died, and what are my whinings to that? A daughter/lover/friend is dead today, and she'll never get the chance to say one last, 'Mum, I'm sorry. Mum, I love you.' All she got to do was dive into that stormy cold water, feel the lead hammer into her back and breathe in salt and die, scared, screaming, helpless, and I worry about what?

But what can I do?

Really, what can I do?

I'm not asking this as 'oh, one person makes no difference,' no, I'm saying: this happened. This didn't happen to me.

God is giving me a gift of being alive, right now, today.

What am I going to do with this gift?

Because this gift? It was earned. Not by me. It was earned by two little Amish girls and their parents, now childless, who went to the guy and forgave him! It was earned by those brave, idealistic, stupid boys marching off for Country or Freedom or both and gave me this country today. It was earned by those boys and girls in Norway, who each gave their lives for me, who each died for me, and are telling me, right now, that now is all I have, so am I just going to sit here at my keyboard and cry for them, and is that a way to honor them?

Or will I honor them by being? Or by writing that next chapter? And saving one more life, letting one more person know that she (or he) is not alone, that there is this crazy little nut-case that feels exactly as she does, and has this magical ability to express these thoughts and feelings in words as she could not, and that there is beauty and hope in this world.

Even in this world of cruelty, randomness and despair.

And it starts, this hope, with me, and how I carry on, and how I ...

Shit. Life, living is so, so hard. It's just so hard sometimes to go on being into tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow as it creeps out its petty pace. And going out in a blaze of glory in front of a suicider's gun is just so terrifying, ...

and so tempting: "Boom!" goes the gun, and "HAHA! I WIN!" crows the `phfina, for the game is over.

Like I said, a cop-out. Because little me? There's another game, and it's called winning this next minute. NOT taking a drink from the bottle. Instead, picking up the figurative pen, looking hard and long into the mirror, into my soul, and writing something for someone who needs these words right now. And hearing her say to me, again, 'I'm alive now because your words gave me hope.'

And the swelling in my throat as I read what you do with your life because of something I wrote inspired you?

God, that hurts. It hurts so much, and that hurt is so good. I did nothing. I wrote something, and then you took on something and did something with your life.

And I remember that. I remember you, and honor you.

Skirts

Time for a happy (happier) post from me.

So let's start it off right by stating a plain fact:

I'm hot.

I am so fucking hot, just by looking at a girl, with my hot, sultry, sexy, wanton look, I can make her cu...

Um, that's not the 'hot' I mean, but thank you for thinking that.

*blush*

Anyway, I went to the Marine Corps Pass in Review last night ...

... Oh, for the love of everything, why did you do that, `phfina?

Research. Yeah, research!

*ahem*

And I wore my hair back in a pony tail, 'cause wearing it down in this 100°F heat?

But do you know what? If you were nibbling on the nape of my neck last night ...

... `phfina! KEEP IT CLEAN!

Just sayin' that if you were, you would not have gone thirsty, even after wandering the Sahara for a month!

AND I wore a dress.

Yes! I know! Now pick yourself up off of the floor.

I mean, what the heck! I'm young; I'm hot (see above), so, you know, I can wear a dress if I want to. It was a spaghetti-strap cotton little number that was just above the knee. You know the kind, right? A summer dress, white, with bold blue flowers that said to every and all, 'I'm such a sweet little fem, that will coo so prettily, when, you know, you do to me exactly what you're thinking, you strong-looking virile young man in uniform from Indianapolis, Indiana!'

Yes, I was thinking that they were thinking that, but God! Those marines, all built in V-shapes in their picture-purrfect uniforms, standing ramrod straight, offering their arms to all ladies to escort them to their seats, saluting all the fathers, calling all the girls 'ma'am' with a very polite, professional smile on their face that just screamed 'gentlemanly manly man!'

I mean, they could beat the straight right into this crooked little gaie girl, I'm telling you!

I mean, that's why we all love Emmett ... even Rosalie, who doesn't love anybody, loves and cleaves to Emmett ... and Thor, btw ... it's because I mean, men have been unmanned. They always have been, right, if you look at history. I mean, heros are heros because they actually stand up for something, like their families (their poor, defenseless wives and children against the oppressive British tyrants (which describes about half the Mel Gibson movies out there, I just realize)), and we so love our heros because when you ask them, 'Honey, what do you want for supper?' They don't say, 'Oh, I dunno, whatever you want,' and you're like GRRR! I've just darned socks and fed and taught the children and stoked the fire and swept the (dirt ground) floor and I. WANT. YOU. TO. GIVE. MY. POOR. TIRED. BRAIN. A. BREAK. FOR. TWO. SECONDS and tell me WHAT YOU WANT FOR SUPPER SO I CAN COOK THE G.D. THING SO YOU WON'T GIVE ME THE STINK-EYE BECAUSE you're not getting your fav that you've had the last three days in a row.

No, manly men aren't like that mealy-mouthed types who say 'Oh, whatever you want,' no, they say: "Supper, I want YOU for supper, NOW!" and throw you over their shoulder, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE KIDS! take you into the bedroom, lick you until you're good and ready and making you change your murmured protestations of 'But, dear, the kids!' to 'Oh, fuck me now, fuck me hard, you beast!' And he does, he rams right into you long, and hard, and now!

And then, afterwards, he strokes your hair, and you say, gasping, 'get off me, you lug,' *gasp-gasp* 'can't breathe!' and he laughs and gets you a cup of water, and helps the kids make pancakes or whatever he and they can make for you to eat (and even, o.m.g. does the dishes ... keeper!) and brings you just one chocolate truffle afterwards and plops down in bed right besides you and starts snoring away without a care in his head!

Men!

Um ... um ... um ... yeah.

Actually, I have a few dresses in my closet now. I have this little yellow number, pale yellow prints on white, halter top ... I got complimented on it and my demur little white shawl I wore (the office's air conditioning is good!), and I blushed as hard as any little fem would blush.

GAWD! SO embarrassing! Me blushing up a storm 'cause somebody sez I look 'nice' and that I should wear dresses more often ... and I look pretty!

EEeeEEeeEEeeK!

So I've been wearing dresses more. I went for modest at first (okay, don't go there, let me explain 'at first' before you picture me, a pole, and a skin-tight athletic suit that seems to shed pieces as I twirl around the pole, inverted, ... for easy inspection)

(I can't believe I just wrote that!)

But the problem with ankle length skirts is that, okay, have you ever had to sprint down stairs to catch a train? And then, deboarding the train, have you ever had to sprint upstairs to catch the bus? And then, so you've got work papers in your hand, right, so grasping the helm to lift it an inch so you don't trip over yourself? So it's either you or your work papers that are going to fly all over the metro station, drawing a crowd around the stupid girl who fell on her face asking if she's okay and boy you really took a spill, didn't you?

I'm fine, thanks, can you guide me to the tracks, I'm looking for the third rail for a quick end to this embarrassment.

I must be known as the 'Olympic Sprinter' at the metro stations, for the amount of sprinting I do.

Rule number one at group: there are no excuses. There is only you and how you honor your word.

Rule number one at group: You are late, then you are late, and we will never, ever forgive you.

Actually that second rule number one really isn't a rule, but you try being late, just once, at group where I work.

Won't happen a second time. I guarantee it.

So I've gone more toward just-below-the-knee to, now, just above the knee.

*blush*

What? I'm young and it's summer, and I do have the world track record for getting into the bus just as it's closing its doors. To the applause and laughter OF THE ENTIRE BUS! (no joke).

So I have those two numbers, AND I have this indigo cocktail number with these small tropical purple flowers.

So that brings on a whole new world of problems, right girls? You know what I'm talking about.

Accessories.

Okay, how in the world can people afford to be women for fuck-me-up-the-ass-boss secretary pay (even though, as a girl who cooks the books, I'm not a secretary, I'm a glorified secretary)? And then there's the infinite diversity in infinite combinations that comes with.

We have this Dr. at work, her name's Faye, and she has a business of selling smex-me-hard shoes on the side. She wears a different pair into work every day. I haven't yet got the courage yet to ask her if the shoes work, but from the conversations she has with 'invited guests' to her shoe parties where the wine flows as easily as the tongues (for talking, you pervs!), I'm given to understand that the shoes do work.

And how.

But me, wearing heels?

I'd pull a Bella Swan in a heartbeat, end up in the hospital with a broken femur and telling the doctor before he cuts me open to call Cindy at work to tell her I'll be late and then wait in dreadful anticipation after I wake up in the recovery room to see the great dame Cindy looking at me and her watch.

Okay, that last one was uncalled for, but heels? No.

So what then to go with the dresses? Keens?

Sigh!

You know what I feel when I'm wearing a dress?

I was so, SO! scared that I'd get all femmy and ...

... okay, don't get me wrong. Me? A butch? No way! I'm a top, that doesn't mean I'm 280 pounds and have a buzz cut, that you see with their fems strapped in behind them riding their Harleys going to the Memorial Day parade.

Not that there's anything wrong with that for some people, that's who they are, and they are damn proud to be the people they are, but me? I'm a wee Irish-Italian lass and, well, yeah, okay, I'm proud of that, dammit!

Hey. Wow. I'm proud of that.

Um. ... wow. Um.

Why am I crying now?

But, as I was saying, I was afraid I'd get all femmy and sweet, and pretty, and worry about my hair and blush alot, and "that's so not me!"

Context.

But what if it was. Is. Not only 'what if' but ... it is, sometimes, and I ... like it. I like feeling pretty, and wearing a nice dress, and feeling the wind whip through my hair and between my legs and see the eyes of everybody, the mass of commuters watching me as I run against the tide to get to my little eighth floor cubby hole in a large corporate office building so I can run numbers to see if we broke even this month, and I don't even get to see that figure, all I do is process travel claims and expense reports and invoices. I don't get to see the income reports.

Looking back on this post, the image that sticks in my mind, and perhaps yours, is little housewifey me, being escorted by a proud, strong, ... boy from Indiana and I could cop out and say I don't know how to handle that or what I feel about that. But I know exactly what I'm feeling.

And that scares me.

And there's a love-making scene coming up between Alice and Jazz in Christmas Surprises ... do you think Jasper is not possessive of his little Alice? Do you think all those raw emotions running through her as she sees the future-as-present attaching her teeth to her mother Esme's neck doesn't ...

Well, and so there he is, in all his manly, powerful glory, intercepting Alice and Esme on a recovery hunt, and there are no preliminaries, and Jasper, so full of manly virility, just throws Alice down on the forest floor and turns into a ravenous, rutting animal.

And Alice loves it.

And, thinking about that scene ... it scares me. Not the scene itself, writing that scene, I will ... ooh! ... the 'creative' juices are gonna flow, girls.

And that's what scares me.

Am I ... am I 'turning' straight?

I'm going to a civil war battle reenactment tomorrow. Again, for 'research.'

I might do some more research. All I have to do is look at one of those boys, all hot and manly from the battlefield, and ... well, that's all I need to do. Boys, playing sports, need to satiate their victory, don't you know. And all a wee pretty girl has to do is bat her eyelashes and whisper some awed platitudes, and ...

And that.

And I'm like, GOD! I wear a dress and I want a man in me ... on top of me?!? and have babies and cook supper and ... and all that? Or is this a questioning phase where I'm looking toward my future, and what future do I have alone? What future do I have with a girl?

What future do I have with a strong, virile Marine?

Besides none? Do you know the divorce rates? Infidelity rates of wives, and husbands, when those brave young men and women go overseas?

And come back shellshocked? Or don't come back at all? Except in a box?

I've seen it happen.

Or they come back, and lay down the law, and what the hell do you think you're doing, running the house like you have for the past year and a half that I've been away, unable to help with finances or the furnace or disciplining the kids? I'll beat that presumption out of you right now!

Yeah, domestic violence, too.

You know what I am? I'm a skirt. I'm a receptacle to be used and abused by a warrior man, then filled up with his seed to make babies to have more men rule the world.

And I want that?

But what's the alternative?

The second question is an avoidance question, it's a question to divert your attention away from the first question, of do I want an Emmett or Thor or Marine from Indiana on top of me, pounding into me, hard and manly, as only men can do?

And I'm terrified as I write: God, yes. God, I so want to be taken and filled, and held, and protected from the whole world.

But what is the cost of that? To me? To my identity? To the ones I love? To my future, where I'm supposed to be some church lady shepherding my kids to soccer practice and ballet and take care of the house and spread my legs whenever he wants me to and be happy and satisfied even though I'm horny as hell, but he's out with his buds at the bar or playing XBox, and I'm supposed to be okay with that, 'cause I'm a woman and that's my role?

And okay, now I'm thinking about girl-girl love, and ... whew! Fireworks!

You know why?

Yes, you do.

Because it's not wham, blam, thank you, ma'am sex (in 30 seconds or less), it's a slower build, sometimes, but that build just keeps going up and up and up and you get hysterically terrified that you may actually scream your head off, cumming so hard, and you don't know when you are going to come down, because she's nowhere finished nor done with you, not for a long time, baby. And then there's a woman's kiss, softer. And the way a woman holds you in her arms. And lets you suckle at her breast. And the way she looks at you, it can be across the room, but, oopsie, I have to change my panties now, ... again! Just from her look and her shy smile, and the way her fingers caress the stem of her wine glass.

And it's okay for you to wear a dress around her, AND it's okay that she likes looking pretty in a dress, too, ...

... and for you, too.

Or she may go with the leather corset option; girls aren't limited in what they wear, like guys are: jeans or suits. We have tons of options.

We aren't limited.

So I can wear a dress. And I can feel pretty in a dress. And I can run, full bore, right up to my bus and smile at the driver as he kindly reopens the door for me that he's just closed as he's started to pull away from the stop (this happens too many times to be coincidence. God has a special secret plan going on with bus drivers, I just know it!)

And when I'm home, I can wear my white cotton pjs ... or take them off to walk around in the flat with just panties on, 'cause it's so damn HOT! and the air conditioning is set to like, 300°F before it kicks on and the repair guy won't be in the building for another two days, to reset a stupid dial.

Or ... I can pull off those panties and whisper, 'here, kitty, kitty, kitty!' and pat my kitty, and feel her start to purr, and get that warm, fuzzy feeling throughout my body as I hold my kitty close to me, stroking her with long, slow, luxurious strokes.

Um.

Um.

I think I have to end this post now. Good night.