Tiny Feet

I have tiny feet.

I've been contemplating this fact for a while, my tiny feet, but it was never relevant enough to write about.

Until now.

Lucky you.

Yes, my feet are tiny. They are like, almost, you know the bound feet that made all those pretty little chinese girls so beautiful? So they would have this done to themselves, they would bind their feet, sometime breaking them, to make sure their little, little feet would fit in their little, little shoes, to look so beautiful and delicate.

Oh, the things we women do to ourselves to look beautiful to others.

My feet weren't bound, they are just naturally tiny, to go with my tiny titties and slit.

My hands are small, but not tiny. Small, but not small enough for fisting.

You really don't need to ask me how I know this.

I hate hurting other people. I really, really do. I think, when I hurt somebody else, it actually physically hurts me more than it hurts them.

Except M.J. God, I loved it when my mag light connected with his head. Fuck with me or mine, and I'll fucking mess you up.

I may be categorized as a featherweight, but I'll put all 120 pounds behind that swing, so that when you go down, you stay down.

Whoa, `phfina, rein it in.

Nobody notices my feet, and I don't have a foot thing myself. Babies' feet are very kissable, but after that, you start to wonder when those things were last washed, and so you kiss them to get your way to the Jade Gate, you know? Heaven? The Center?

And when I get there I kinda stay there, so things like 'feet' aren't uppermost in my mind then, IYKWIMAITTYD. ("if you know what I mean, and I think that you do.")

So I don't notice feet all that much, and people don't notice mine all that much either.

Just like me. People don't notice me all that much, until I surprise them, and they realize they are dealing with somebody of very fearsome intellectual power, and they get scared, because they can't cow me like they walk over everybody else.

But I have tiny feet, and small hands, and tiny titties, and very tiny kitty.

... just like my ego.

I may hiss, and show my claws, and say that I'm a panther. But you know.

You know.

You know I'm just a frightened little kitty cat, scared out of her mind ... so, so fragile.

So, you know, when you decide to do what you always do. You know? Unzip your fly and shit all over me?

You call it 'sending `phfina a PM' or 'reviewing on of her stories' or 'telling her about your day at school, or work, or at your business' but, sadly, for the most part, subtle or not, you decide to let fly on me all the things you are stewing about.

You know what 'stewing' is, right? Also known as 'marinating' ... but not in oil and herbs and spices.

No, you just love to marinate in your own shit.

Don't believe me? Reread what you just sent me, be it your review or your PM or your email. Reread it like this: '`phfina just sent me this email.'

That's right. Pretend you weren't the writer of your lovely correspondence. No: pretend you're receiving this PM from someone you admire or respect or love. Read what they wrote to you.

Can you believe that shit? Can you believe the nerve? And did you ask them to dump all their shit on you?

Like you don't have enough to deal with in your life already.

Okay. You've read it. You've got it. You've just shit all over me.

Now that you've got it, what are you going to do with it?

Apologize?

... hm.

(`phfina tries not to laugh, because she just might not stop, and then they'll come take her away again, perhaps forever this time.)

Here's what an apology is. An apology for a three year old is the hardest thing in the world to do.

Last I checked, you aren't three. And neither am I.

An apology for everybody else?

A cop-out.

"Oh, I did this. I keep doing this. But I'm sorry. So it's okay to keep repeating this behavior because I apologized, so that's just what I'll do."

Don't believe me? Check your life and see what your apologies have done. Changed much since your previous, oh, what? 15 "I'm sorry"s?

An apology is just another way for you to distance yourself from what you've done.

So, is your immediate instinct to apologize for apologizing?

Ooh, that's just great. You are so choice. You're sincerity is just oozing out of you.

So, instead of apologizing, ... what? Lash out?

"Oh, `phfina, it's your fucking fault for being so goddamn sensitive. You wanna put yourself out there, you gotta grow a thick skin to deal with shits [like me]."

Super. The best defense is a good offense, and you sure are defensive, aren't you? Or offensive? I get the two confused with people like that.

Perhaps because they are so offensive when they are being so defensive.

Again, distancing yourself from what you've done by attacking or blaming others. You're good: it's somebody else's fault.

So, justification? Coercion?

"`phfina, did I do anything wrong?"

Um, I don't have all day to write the list you know better than I do, thanks for asking, though. So you can have `phfina, the arm chair psychologist get into your head.

Sorry, (`phfina apologizes, not meaning it at all, just. like. you), but I've seen inside your head. Don't. wanna. go. there.

None of those things work. And you don't need me to tell me what you already know if all you did was to open your eyes and examine your past.

Why? No reasons.

But let's try something else.

Be with what you've written, what you've done, and who you are.

Before you do anything: write to me to apologize or to lash out or to coerce. Before any of that.

Be with it. With you. With yourself and your life.

Ask yourself some honest questions.

"This school I'm bitching about. Didn't I strain every nerve to pass the entrance exam to get in? Didn't I place my self worth on being in this school? Aren't I in now? And I'm doing what with it? Cursing it?"

"This job I got. That I was so nervous in the interview. And so, so relieved when they accepted me. So relieved I puked and peed at the same time. And now I hate my boss that I chose to work for? Now I hate doing what I begged to be accepted to do? That I had to prove my competence to them. And that they admired my work? And I'm doing what now? Cursing it?"

"This business that I run. These customers that I have. Didn't I beg, plead and cajole them to come in? Good, paying customers everywhere else? And didn't I hand off these good, paying customers (everywhere else) to an underling I knew would screw up and not practice due diligence, fully knowing I would have to step in and clean up the mess of this now indolent customer who won't pay because we're too scared to ask them, straight up, to do just that, and honor their commitments, but it's somehow their fault that we don't have any backbone, so I'll shit on you `phfina, because I can't kick the dog, because I don't have one right now"?

Stop.

New conversation.

You are in the school you fought so hard to get in. You are asking questions nobody else dares to ask, so you are learning the lessons better than any of the other students.

I know. There was this girl in my economics class. Mary. Hated her. HATED HER. Dumb shit was always asking questions that was so, so obvious in this super boring class. I just wanted to sleep, or get out of class and fuck the brains out of that cute little Asian chick, Grace, but no, Mary's hand flew up, and I just wanted to rip that offending arm off and beat her over the head with it ... beat some sense into her. Or at least make her shut her stupid mouth.

Prof thought differently. He said, "You should go right for your Ph.D. [this was just college, mind you] because you're thinking through these issues like a professor."

Mary got an A. I got a B, I think, or an A, or a C. Don't remember. Don't care. Didn't care about much that semester.

I'm lucky they didn't kick me out.

Not that I remember all that much of that semester.

I'm not bitter.

Fucking bitch.

See, any excuse works for a loser for why they fail.

Job? Business? It's the same as school

It's the same as school.

We don't have problems. You don't have problems. You have your life and people in your life. Now, you could go all whatevs-fundamentalist and kill all the people in your life, and that would sure take care of your problems, now wouldn't it?

Or. Or. Or.

Or try something else on.

You are exactly where you choose to be. You are exactly where you want to be. Right now. And, five years ago, or even five weeks ago, you would've sunk down on your knees and thanked God Almighty for the blessings you have of getting this job or customer or class or roommate.

What you have right now? From the lens of five weeks ago, even, is a blessing.

What you have right now is a blessing.

So, you can do what you are doing: cursing your blessings, and asking others (me) to sympathize and commiserate with you and your oh-so-unfortunate life.

Um, I'm not signing up for that.

Or, you can open your eyes and look around you, and count your blessings.

Your choice.

Homework

Yes, you get homework.

It's a two-parter.

1. read that last missive, or those last three missives, you sent me as if you are the receiver, not the writer.

Is it a blessing that I haven't responded like you would have responded to that shit?

I'll let you answer that.

To yourself. Not to me, thank you. I don't want to hear your sorry-assed whining apology.

2. Count. your. fucking. blessings.

Translation: count your fucking blessings. You are where you chose to be. Congratu-fucking-lations. So when I ask you to smile today, and you say, "I don't have much of a reason to smile today."

Well, excuse me, but I'll go sit with somebody who does have a reason to smile today.

My little niece? She's 3. She has infantile spasms, which means she can't walk or talk and she has more than 100 seizures each day where she screams in agony. She'll be lucky to make into her teens. Lucky.

And she smiled and giggled today.

And that made my whole day.

Make somebody's whole day.

Please.

I have tiny feet. Very tiny feet.

My soul is even smaller. Step on it, and it's crushed.