Deal

Dealing with grief

I thought I dealt, or didn't 'deal' but 'lived' with grief, and then I read how Björk is dealing with, suffering through, her grief. http://grapevine.is/mag/feature/2015/02/06/bjorks-folk-music At least she mourns, she rages, she's knocked down and stunned by grief. Me, I just ... bow down and bear it, suffering, wallowing, and I'm like ... I have a long way to go, don't I?

Which is to say, it's been ... tough. Fired/quit my job on Friday, and all weekend, just ... busy, a neighbor's 40th birthday party, so I had to be nice and fun and congratulatory for her and her family, and the whole time I'm just wondering: My life is such a mess! Will I ever make it to 40? Will I want to? She, Caroline (yes, CAROLINE!) is 40, and preggers (yes!) with baby number ... 6? and is working the family farm, slaughtering chickens and rabbits, and so flush with happiness, and here I am, and ... what have I done with my life? No life, jobless loser! Well, at least I updated this story, you know. I don't know why I'm writing this, maybe to beg your indulgence that maybe sometimes 'The Author(esse)' has troubles of her own and sometimes it's hard to update soon.

Which is just bullshit, because this whole weekend all I wanted to do was to write this chapter. You want me to update soon, but not as much as I want to get that update out there. What really hurts as a writer is not to be writing, but it just seems to me that all of my life is conspiring against me not to write. Like, this weekend? All I wanted was to be left alone, but I just wasn't.

But, then again, I did have fun at the party and was happy for Caroline and ... I don't know: what would have happened to me if I weren't bugged and I was left alone?

I suppose I'll go find another job and go back to pretending I'm a normal, well-adjusted person and that everything is 'fine.'

... I finished a story. For once in my life. Victoria Alone, and 'life' goes on for Victoria, but she, and Summer, got their happy ending, even as life goes on, and I'm happy for a character I wrote, that she got a happy ending, even though life goes on, and I wonder what that feels like, but I know how it feels, for special times in my life, that happy ending, that happy now when you're with somebody you love who loves you and life is going great enough that you're enjoying it, your life, your job, your dear, dear, dearest one and you're fine even with you.

I like that feeling when I've got that, that things are going fine and you're fine because you actually are.

If you have that now, don't hold onto it with a strangle-hold (because you won't, you'll just glide through that groove, anyway), and if you're not having that now, go out and get that, or dive in deep enough to wipe away those bitter tears, then dive up out of yourself, look around you, and then go get that, your happiness.

p.s. "Which is just bullshit, because this whole weekend all I wanted to do was to write this chapter." Not true. All I wanted to do this weekend, and now, is something else. But I'm a strong, capable, independent woman. I'm a big girl now, and big girls don't cry, do they?

They don't have time to cry, and if they're seen crying, it just reinforces everything, doesn't it? "Oh, it's okay, dearie, we understand!"

When they don't, they don't at all, but it's just confirmed in their minds the whole women-can't-play-in-the-big-leagues, so then none of us can break down or be weak, because then we betray all of us.

I guess I'm not such a big girl, after all. Am I.

I really don't want your pity, nor your understanding. I know you pity me, and you do understand. I know this, and thank you, really: some of you have pulled me through when I simply couldn't.

But.

I don't. I don't pity me. I hate me. And I don't understand. Not at all. Why would God put me on this Earth if all I am is just this fuck-up?

A strong, independent woman doesn't need validation from her job, or from what her friends think, or ... anything.

And that's just another slap to the face, that I'm weak, and I'm not supposed to be, not in this modern day-and-age, but if you look back through history, women had to be even stronger than now, just to survive, themselves, or even to keep their families alive. So what am I moaning about?

Another slap to the face: I have no reason to complain, so I may as well shut the fuck up.

Fuck my life.

Haha. Too late.

This is just the pitch blackness I have to work through, and no, it's not that time of the month, thanks for asking, ... it's just that point in my life where I have to look myself squarely in the eye, see me for what I am, and say to that little girl looking back at me in the mirror: "Buck up, kiddo."

And buck that kiddo up.

That's all. That's all there is to it.

The Invisible Girl

t's been a month since I've written the last chapter, and this chapter is only one-third of what I actually wanted to write, but SOMEbody, Far and Away, kept bugging me of, 'oh, where is the next chapter, and it'd better be good!' (she actually didn't say that) that I dropped my two other writing projects, and my iPhone games, and my ... *ahem* 'internet' ... um ... 'research' ...

(Yes, thank you: I'm a loser who's scared of her own shadow and has no life, thank you for o-so-politely pointing that out to me)

(ooh, red heads!)

(I have no idea where that one came from. No idea at all!)

(Little Annie, Victoria's au pair, is a blond, not a red head, by the way ... which will make sense to you after I finish "Auld Lang Syne" and start "Annie, au pair") ...

So I was hiding in the corner sulking, but I got bugged into writing this next chapter, because somebody very politely reminded me that it's not about me and how scared I am to write anything ('Oh, wah, boo-hoo! Writing is so hard!'), and how I'd rather just fill my mind with work and noise (or noise and noise, as the case may be), but it's about ...

Hm. Altruism-alert, but what the hell. It's not about me, but it's about my responsibility to you to write what I have to write. Mel Brooks was told "If you're going to step up to the bell, ring it." I had the guts to think about Alicia and Caroline, so I may as well ring that bell and let the whole town hear it, and judge me, the bell-ringer, for what I've done, good or bad, instead of not judge me, not even know me, nor care, for what I've not done.

I started this. I better G.D. not disappoint you by not finishing it, again, like I always do.

(Yes, I have a very high opinion of myself (that's sarcasm, or self-loathing. Whatever. Again))

I love you. I love my characters as they struggle through their lives, trying to make sense of their world, trying to keep their dignity intact as they try to make this work, whatever this is. I love you, my readers, for reading something into what I write, and finding something in there that means something to you, even if I don't know what it is, because I surely don't, 'cause I'm just struggling, trying to make this work and pretend I have a shred of dignity when my boss pulls me aside and tells me he has to help me when he sees how utterly I've failed leading a division that nobody else would touch, and ... I didn't do a bad job, but what's to be proud of that? That I didn't do a bad job, and now I'm just a little office worker again, trying not to be ashamed that I tried to manage something, a very, very small team, and I couldn't, and now I report to a new hire, a woman much older than me, much more experienced than me, much more competent than me, and she wants to make sure I'm happy doing my job now that she's taken over.

And. I. so. am. I'm so relieved that she's taken over management of the division, so I can do what I'm really good at, and she can take care of all the politics and go to all the meetings with management and take all the heat (well, most of the heat) and complain to me about how hard it is and how demanding upper management is, and don't they understand all the stuff we're doing? And I'm like, amen, sister, amen, and thank you for taking this on.

And that's me, a little girl who volunteered to jump into the little-big pond of leading a small team of one other person at work and utterly failing and now, here I am, happy to be just little, tiny me again, and not in charge of other people and 'the direction of the project' and all that entails.

And so, so sad that I was looked to be more than I could be, but I couldn't. I failed. Smart, little `phfina tried, and failed.

And now I have to ... press forward, and just ... meet every day, being little me, and be okay with that, or figure out how to ...

Oh, God.

How to, once again, face my coworkers and my relatives, and live with the terrible burden that I have so much potential.

And maybe that's all I'll ever have. Maybe that's my place, to be a little nobody, a little office girl who smiles up at you from her desk, and that's all you'll ever know of her, just the girl who went to work and smiled at you as you passed by, and that's it.

Maybe if I look away at the right time, you won't notice me, and I'll just disappear, and nobody will know I'm gone.

The Invisible Girl.

The Point

But the point is this, not that I'm a nobody. That's not news.

No, the point is this.

One reader didn't care about silly, little sorrowful, suffering moi (that is French). She wanted the next chapter, I was the writer of it, and she worried me down until she exacted my promise to write it.

Sometimes ... you have to be hard to get what you want. Sometimes ... the measure of a person's worth is how much somebody else demands not what you think what you can give, but what she knows that you can, and excuses be damned. So this (partial) chapter is for you, Far-away girl.

And my next chapter is being written, even now as we speak!

Or, more precisely: even now as we don't speak, as I'm the shy, quiet type; the one to smile tightly and then run away if you notice me too much.

But, still, for a' that, I'm also the one who's smile goes from her face and seeps into her bones, because she knows you demanded the next chapter from her and didn't allow her sad, little whining excuses to allow her to shirk her responsibilities as a writer.

I am a writer. Saga told me: 'Read what you just wrote me: you are a writer, min allra käraste Älskling. Never forget that.' (Saga was always such a bossy, little sweetie, with her big batting eyes, her teasing smile, and her 'erhm, who? me?' and her 'Thuesdays.' The little Valkyrie. God, I miss her so much it physically hurts.)

I will fade away into dust. My job and my disappointments will come and go. My words may touch you today, but someday, they, too, will be no more.

But This is Eternal.

I am a writer, and a writer writes.

Thank you for reading what I've written so far. I hope you like what I've yet to write, but will.

And you know why? Because somebody gave a fuck, and didn't care that I'm a nobody. No, she was somebody who had a voice and a demand, and I better step up to that bell and ring it, because I did not want to mess with this, because she's somebody.

You're somebody. You have a voice, and if you demand hard enough, you may actually find that your demand is being heard by somebody, somebody with just enough life left in her to honor that request, and to honor you, ... for being somebody.

ps: Okay. Holy fuck. I just saw Saga leave a Starbucks near where I live. She walked right past me, the shawty, in her little black mini, her candy-cane knee-high socks, her wavy, brunette hair and the self-possessed air of an Old-Worlder navigating calmly through the confused busy-ness of this New World. Siiiiigggggghhhh.

I guess I'll drown my nostalgic sorrows in a macchiato and a slice of pumpkin bread. I have a little extra on my sbux card.

"Their Story" by Tan Jiu

Happy New Year all! Okay, I'm writing a(nother) Vicky-fic: Auld Lang Syng ... I'll even maybe get it out this year, at the rate I'm going POOP! :(

Okay, enough pleasantries, go to: http://g.e-hentai.org/g/777676/0c8135ecdb/

Oh, yeah! The thing is, it's based on this fic here: http://g.e-hentai.org/g/777631/477c426e77/

This is the sweetest (sweetiest!) thing I've seen in a while! Tough-girl tom-boy scared out of her wits to ask a shy-little-sweetie out. So scared, in fact, that tom-boy scares off sweetie! OH, NOES! But then short-little sweetie-pie isn't (all) sub (yes, she is!) (and I love her for it!) she's got some spunk, she's got some feistiness to her ... ooh! I'd love to put her over my knee on and my lap and ... 'correct' her 'errant' behavior! Ooh!

*sigh* Love, and being in love, is such a wonderfully messy, complicated thing.

I need me a little love-mess in my life (and in my bed!) right about now.

Yes, indeed, I do!

"Why are you asleep when I'm awake ...?"

Sunday, December 21st, 2014 — Advent: Four years ago

  

This is why I do not turn off my PMs when I despair anymore. This is why I love Saga. Now. And forever. Four years later. Two years after she told me her final good-bye.

Why are you asleep when I'm awake...? Min allra käraste Älskling,

What happened sweetness? Why did you turn off your PM? Did I do something? Did you get sick of my 'I'm stupid-rant' or was it anything else? Did you get sad and offended when I wrote that you "claim that you are plain?" I DIDN'T mean that you are plain as in boring, you know. For you are NOT - God! you are so MUCH all at once and I don't care if I drown or OD. I will still ask for more...

Please tell me for I get so worried over you!! My stomach is in a knot and my heart goes

thump,thump...thump,thump...(pause)...thump,thump,thump,thump!!

I'm like the nervous mother and you're the child running too far away on the playground. And I can't find you and I get hysteric and crying and...wait. I think...There's a Sappho here:

"Afraid of losing you

I ran fluttering
like a little girl
after her mother"

Maybe the roles are reversed. Maybe you're the mother and I'm the little girl that is trying to get you to stay... Please stay, Melissa! You sustain me, you inspire me, you make me endure myself! You're the one that can make me say: 'Today I chose to love myself, for on the other side of the Atlantic there is a girl that loves me. And if she sees something in me worth loving, then I guess I'm not that bad after all...'
My Darling Melissa, don't punish us by not being present. Or do, if it makes you feel better. Anything that will make you feel better is okay. Even if it means you won't talk to me ever again.

أنا بحبك, jag älskar dig!

"Without warning

As a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart "

And you have my heart, for as long as you want it.

Din Saga

Kælan Mikla

Ermahgosh, do they have an opening for a fourth? I'd go forth with them ALL THE WAY!

http://grapevine.is/tv/2014/11/07/post-set-breakdown-with-kaelan-mikla/

Okay, and just read this review from the Reykjavík Grapevine on their Track Of The Issue: Kælan Mikla’s “Ekkert nema ég"

With its loud and gnarly thumping bass, “Ekkert nema ég” starts off filthy great. According to the band, the song’s lyrics are all from a long text message drummer Sólveig Matthildur Kristjánsdóttir wrote her friend while drunk. Vocalist Laufey Soffía Þórsdóttir renders the drunk-text beautifully, softly singing: “I will smoke the world / swallow its remains / so there will be nothing left but me,” before screaming at the top of her lungs: “I am God!”

Meet Kælan Mikla, a trio of avant-garde punks whose lyrics are poems (indeed, you may read about them in our poetry feature), delivered on top of loud, quivering bass lines courtesy of Margrét Rósa Dóru- Harrysdóttir. They capture Millenials’ melancholy, displaced sense of self, and narcissistic worldview down to a tee."

I mean, like, really? Where do people get off with names like 'Sólveig Matthildur Kristjansdóttir,' 'Laufey Soffía Þórsdóttir' and 'Margrét Rósa Dóru-Harrysdóttir'? I mean, and they, like, ...

Gah! I'm in love ... lust ... whatever!

Just give me more of that thumpin' bass and screamed lyrics and I'll thump some bass and make somebody scream some kinda lyrics ... for a looooong while. If you know what I'm sayin'

Sandwich Bar

So, I finally saw "In a World," and it's about ...

It's about me.

It's about this crazy, crazy, LA-crazy family, where the Dad totally dominates the family, wrecking everything in his wake, particularly his daughters, because ...

Because he's the Dad, and that's all he can do. He has to be strong, and he's forgotten that the reason he's strong is to be strong for them. So, instead, he's so strong, that he just rolls over them, hurting them in big ways and in bigger ways ... because getting hurt by Daddy is never a small thing for a little girl, no matter how old she pretends to be.

And that's the whole movie. How hurt we are by Daddy, and how much we just want to be loved by him, but instead, when we reach out for that, he's so strong, and so right, and so ... angry.

Well, one scene, the girl's sister ... doesn't almost cheat on her husband, her plain , ordinary, average-joe husband with this movie superstar.

She doesn't almost cheat on her husband, who's always there for her. But she taped an interview this guy, and her husband finds it, and she comes home that night, just so full of work, and all the stuff she's dealing with on her job, just totally oblivious, until he puts the tape on the table, and walks out.

And then, ladies, then it hits her, and no matter how much she begs and screams and cries, he's not going to stay now, not any more, and she realizes what she had, when she loses it, when she's losing it, right now, and there's nothing she can do to get him back. Ever.

And she learns, right then, how much she's taken him for granted, how much a bitch she's been, and how she doesn't deserve him, how she never did, just plain, ordinary, steady hubby and his sandwich bar for supper, because that's all he knows how to make, but he does make it, for her, and she just breezes past him and takes him for granted but no more.

And now.

And now it's over, because she can't ask for him back, because she no way deserves that, a second chance. She's screwed it all up royally, and there's no getting him back. Why would she inflict herself on him anymore? She can't stand herself, and she wouldn't want anybody to have to deal with her, so why would she ask him?

I was her.

I was worse.

Christmas day, I cheated on Saga, ... as Saga's world was falling apart, and I had no idea why, I just knew it was, and I tried, and I tried and I tried, and I couldn't help her, and ... I wasn't helping, as much as I tried. I couldn't go away, because she had her distance, and I couldn't force her, so I just tried, and I failed.

And then ... I cheated on her. It was an open invitation, and ... I took it, just like that. And...

For Saga, it was the worst thing I could do, but was I thinking of her...

And the sad fact was, I was thinking of her. As soon as I ... did ... it. I ran right to her, and told on myself.

And she was like: okay ... fine with it. Oh, it's okay, live a little, you should go out and see other people and she was actually ...

Until she found out who it was.

And then everything went to shit.

And she tried after that, but she couldn't ... anymore. She couldn't ... with me ... anymore because ...

Because ...

Because ...

And then she said 'Let's be friends,' and ...

And I scream, and I cried, and I wailed, and I lashed out, and I ... hurt her, with my words.

And she said 'I deserve it. I deserve your anger. Hurt me.'

And I couldn't. And I couldn't beg her to stay with me, my heart, my happiness, because she wasn't happy anymore.

Love isn't 'my happiness is more important than you, so you stay with me, no matter how it makes you feel, because I'm happy with you ... sort of, so you be miserable with me. I mean: you stay with me.'

I looked at myself, wanting to beg her, to force her, to make her stay with me, and I said ...

I said.

"I will love you forever, Saga Louise. I will love you forever."

And I knew what I lost. I lost Saga.

I lost someone who knew how to press my buttons. She would say one word, baiting me, and I'd fall for it, and tease her, and play with her, and come to find, she was playing me, playing with me, and so loved watching me spin up like a top, all phfina-righteous, all phfina-smart and -funny, and -smexy, and she would do that to me, watch me spin up, and just smile her simple little knowing smile, so full of warmth and wisdom, and I'd stand there, flabbergasted, just amazed at her, and how smart and beautiful and sweet she was, and could any human being be like that?

And I'd write something, and she, having taken literary criticism, would read more into what I wrote than I knew I had put in there, and more than anybody else had ever seen, and she would model for me, and let me write her stories, and she would be the heroine, the star, and I would be the knightess in shining armor, riding in to rescue from whatever dragons wanted to gobble her up.

And we were so, so happy.

It was a little bubble of happiness. We floated along, me, in my little yellow sun-dress, and her, feeding me lingonsylt, giving me little kyssar on the cheeks to lick off the mess she made, feeding me, and wondering wherever in the world I made up the recipe for 'Swedish Chicken' because there was no such dish in all of Sweden, and she knew.

In the movie, the husband comes back, and, he surprises his wife, he's set the table with candles, and a sandwich bar, and when she comes in, expecting to find nothing: just emptiness and loneliness, but he's there, and t...

She just throws her stuff on the floor, then she grabs ahold of him and throws him on the floor and fucking ...

She goes a little crazy on him.

Just a little.

But that's the movie, and it was so sweet, and so endearing, and so empowering to women, for women to find their own voice, in a man's world, not need men, to be themselves, but also not trampling over them. To be a woman, and to have your own voice, doesn't mean you have to scream, or step on, or coddle. It means you can be yourself, and be confident in that, and also let the man be himself, with or without you, and if he wants to be with you, if that's his identity, his happiness, and you want to be with him, then that's okay, but if you want to be who you are, and you don't need a man to tell you who you are or allow you to be you or anything. If you want to be you, then you can be you, and that's fine.

The women in In a World, are so strong, or come to be, without losing an ounce of their femininity, without losing an ounce of their inner beauty.

And that's that movie. It's beautiful and affirming. Watch it.

Saga.

Saga was thirty-two, and she worried she was too old for me.

But the thing is, that wasn't it.

I'm older now, too. Four years older.

But I don't feel older.

I feel like I'm still that fifteen year old girl they carted off to the hospital in an ambulance, heavily sedated, because she lost it. The girl that everybody was looking at, then, six months later...

Six months later when I got out of that hospital, everybody avoided, because she might just go cray-cray again.

And I'm stuck there. I don't feel like I'm a strong, independent woman with her own job, in charge of a department and the people who work in it. I don't feel like that at all. I feel fake; phony. I feel like I'm faking it, and that somebody will find out, and ask me to leave, in front of everybody, and I'll have to walk out, my head held high, because if I don't, then they'll cart me away again, and I won't let that happen again. I'll kill myself first.

And that's where I teeter, balancing on the knife's edge with the abyss to either side of me, and Saga's left me, for good reason. For good reasons. I didn't deserve her. I never did. And the two years she spent with me were two blessed years of laughter, and love, and trembling fear and anticipation, and a zest for life, and a joy of being with someone who knew me more than I did, who looked up to me, as I looked up to her, who was my strength in my weakness, who was vulnerable so that I could be her strength.

Saga Louise.

Thank you.

Thank you for being you.

In a world where I am surrounded by the abyss and the only thing I could lean on was the knife, you were the only light, the only breath of air for me for a long, long time, when I couldn't breathe and I couldn't see but darkness.

I wish I could have been a better person for you. I'm praying for you. I'm praying that you find your health and happiness, right where you are, right in your home, with your family, with those who love you more than the sun and the sea and the sky.

In a World ... where nothing makes sense, you were the only sense. You were my eyes that saw me as I see me, but saw me as somebody sweet and smart and feisty and lovable, and you loved me, your little kitten, din litten panter, and held me, and let me scream and scratch and cry, and loved me to health and happiness and self-fulfillment and all you asked for was ... nothing. Your love was sweet and fierce and selfless. You were my Sun, and I was blinded in your light that warmed my dead soul back to life. You were the grown up, so strong and firm and sure, and I was a little baby. I could be. You let me, and you loved me, just as I was, and, at the same time, you never, ever let me get away with my shit. You held me ... you held me up to the person you knew I was, not the self-indulgent person I let myself be.

And now ... you're gone. And now, ...

I'm afraid.

I'm afraid I'll have to grow up, and face the world, and be mature and responsible, and drain the joy out of my veins and see everything in greys, and marry the right man, a kind man, and have children, and raise them, and fall in love with them, and be ... satisfied, happy, even, content.

I'm afraid I'll just fade into the person I'm supposed to be. That I'll just have to grow up and square my shoulders and face the world: a strong, independent, responsible woman.

I'm not afraid of that. Which by what I mean is, that will happen or it won't, and I'll be that eccentric spinster-aunt, just like Emily Dickinson.

But I'll look back at my life, this ... married woman with kids and grandkids, or this spinster-aunt, and ... I'll wonder where that girl went, who was me. I'll wonder when she died, and why she died so quietly, so quietly that nobody noticed, not even me.

And I'll go to me grave wondering that, or worse, not wondering that, because I'm so caught up in the craziness of this world, and won't even realize it when I fall off the bus, because I'll be crossing bradlick road and just be another fatality statistic that week when another SUV slams through the red light, again. 'Body of young woman; identity uncertain due to disfigurement from force of impact.'

Doesn't even make the news anymore. I was walking and then, BAM! I heard the crash of cars exactly where I had been, thirty seconds ago, and I would've been a goner, if not for those thirty seconds, and my guardian angel watching over me, hurrying me along through the intersection before the two cars smashed into each other, both of them running the red at high speed.

But why is my angel saving me?

I'm afraid that I don't know that why. Saga knew, but now she's gone, so I have that responsibility, now, for myself.

I'm not a very responsible person. I was just a girl looking for her daddy and mommy to love her, and ... I just never grew up. And try as I might to pretend I am that grown-up person, I just ...

I'm just not.

I wish I had that bubble.

But the world doesn't wait for bubbles for girls much too old to be blowing them now.

Agnus Dei could not kill the Metal ...

Okay, my Monday was just made. Someone favorited my little Agnus Dei one-shot. So... all you haters our there, that savaged JT for publishing it and me for ghost-writing it? You can just ... read another story, I guess, because someone who likes Metal liked my story.

OTOH: Zombies LIKE brains...

I just got a PM from a girl where she writes that she likes our PM exchange, particularly because I have brains behind my PMs.

"Brains behind" my PMs. Huh.

... ;)

Here was my response to that:

OH, NOES! OH, NOES! ZOMBIES found out that I have brains behind my PMs, and the ZOMBIES ARE EATING MY BRAINS! HELP! HELP! ZOMBIES MUNCHING ON MY LITTLE BRAINS!

Zombie A: Yum, `phfina's brains! Pretty good eatin'!

Zombie B: Oh, I dunno, Joe (What? Zombies have names?!?! When did this happen?), I've had better.

Zombie A, aka Joe: Eh, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Munch-munch.

Zombie B: Yeah, I guess you're right. Munch-munch.

OH, MY POOR BRAINS!

(`phfina snickers)

;)

Move over Max Brooks, your World War Z ain't got nuttin' on me.

Can't touch this!

The 'benefits' of friends

So, last week, four people, out of the blue, PMed or emailed me and said, 'hi,' and 'how are you?'

I don't know what that means to you, but what it means to me is how brave each of these people, my friends, that I haven't heard from in a while, for some, more than a year, to just *boink* get up one day and say 'hi' and see how little `phfina is doing.

And now, it doesn't matter how I was doing before. How I'm doing now is wonderfully! Thank you, my friends, for being brave, for being kind, for being thoughtful, for ... caring. For caring about little me and how I'm doing.

And you, my dear friends reading this little note, having not written me.

It's okay. It hurts, but it's okay. I understand that it can be a scary thing to write to me, because I'm a scary person, and you never do know if I'm in a fit of desperation and depression so deep you won't know what hit you when I savage you back with my: "How am I doing? Who the fuck are you to ask me how I'm doing? I just fucking tried to kill myself because I fucking hate my life, and you ask me how I'm doing?"

Yeah. 'Bitch' isn't a word to describe me, because bitches fear me. That's a known fact.

And other times I'm so full of love and understanding and sweetness you say 'well, who needs heroine?' Really! And you just float in my love, and you offer to get me hitched to you so you can drag me away to your bedroom and have your wicked ways with me only stopping for pee breaks and supper so you can explain to your parents you have this new live-in pet you're keeping forever.

You never know what you're getting with me, and so I understand that it's hard sometimes, or all the time, to write to me, because you've read my stuff and who can talk to somebody who writes this stuff, and what do you say to her when you write? "Hi. How are you doing?"

That's sometimes hit or miss.

That's me, a hit or miss kind of girl.

But something that hits it out of the park for me is ... you.

"You. Can I hug you?"

When you reach out to me, with your heart? I read that. I feel that. In my bones.

And it gives this little girl one more reason to live one more day.

And maybe even 'update soon' that chapter. ;)

I love you.

"Do you believe in ghosts, `phfina?"

A reader asked me, out of the blue, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

Here is my answer:


What an interesting question!

No. I don't. Credo in unum deum (which is an entry in my blog ;)

I don't believe in ghosts, nor werewolves, nor vampires, nor ... anything, really.

Can you believe that?

I believe we're given what we're given, and we make what we can with what we have.

I was given words, and a wild, wild, WILD (smexy) imagination, and I write my words down, and some people like reading them, and it makes their day, and that makes me SO happy.

Do you believe in ghosts? Do you have a story to tell? A ghost story? Is it scary? terrifying? or is it sad? or sweet? Nobody will know your story, or laugh or cry or EEP! until you write it down and share it. I think you have a really good ghost story. Tell it?

Window to your soul

Okay, seriously?

Yes, seriously.

Your review is a window to your soul.

So, okay, here we go again. You write your review to try to impress me? SERIOUSLY? Like you need me, or anybody else who reads your review, to be impressed by what you wrote?

Okay, seriously?

Yes, seriously.

What I write, my stories, are windows to my soul. I have more than thirty of them, by they way, so there's more than a few windows here on ffn and on literotica that you can get nice little peeks into House `phfina.

Question for ya. You think I'm writing my stories to impress you?

No, I didn't ask 'do my stories impress you?' I already know they've impressed the fuck out of some people, thousands of people, so do you think impressing little you matters to me?

In a sense, it does. Yes, my stories are grammatically-correct, and thank you the several dumb-fuck reviewers who mention grammar in my stories as their compelling reasons to read what I've written.

"Dear `phfina, I like reading your stories because your grammar is mostly correct."

Oh, really? Then go read a fucking math book: it has grammar that's mostly correct, too.

Dumb. fucking. fucks.

And thank you, dear reader, for trying to impress me, and all your friends, by daring to write a review to the dread `phfina saying that my story is 'different' and 'interesting.'

I'm glad you like reading different and interesting stories.

So read the 9-11 report. It's long, too.

No, seriously, read the 9-11 report.

But you're not gonna. You're reading my stories.

Why? Why the fuck are you reading my stories? It's not because they're grammatically-correct (they are) nor that they are 'different' (they are) (but how?) nor that they are 'interesting' (they are) (but why?)

You read these stories because they are one hell of a fucked-up ride, and you know why? Because these stories aren't 'windows to my soul' (nice platitude there, buster), but they are walls over which I rip my heart right out, and throw it into your hands.

'OMFG!' you scream. 'Nobody writes like this! Nobody!'

Yet, you have the evidence right in front of you. You're reading it.

So.

Your review. Your little window into your soul.

How do you respond to what you just read?

In kind?

Yeah.

If you have the guts to.

You pick one fucking thing that floored you, you mention it, and you say how it floored you, and fucking why it floored you.

"Your story is interesting, because it's different and it has good grammar."

FAIL.

Try again.

"`phfina, (note the spelling) (and the capitalization), this chapter rocked. (why?) I really, really liked when Rosalie opened up to Bella's mom. (why?) Because I never, ever opened up to my mom, and I see this strong, strong mean girl being weak, and I said, "FINALLY!" Finally, when Rosalie was weak, she was strong. You don't have to be strong to be strong, you have to be strong to be weak, and open up, and really risk showing somebody else you care, and risk getting stomped on, but Rosalie DID open up and DIDN'T get stomped on! She got what she wanted, and that payoff was so sweet, because I have never opened up to my mom, never saw it as a possibility until I read this strong girl here, being weak, and that gave me hope that maybe I can do that, too."

Maybe even say HOW (specifically) your relationship with your mom is now better, and WHY (specifically) that's important to you.

But that requires OMG! sharing specific details of your personal life.

You mean, like I do, with every chapter? Yeah.

But that also means, you actually have to live your life, and not just watch it pass on by. Like most people do. Like you're doing, right now.

You see, one way of looking at life, a way that works for me, is that life is a game, and you're either a spectator in the stands (or worse: a referee) or a player in the game on the field. You can 'enjoy' the game as a spectator: "That was a nice game." "Yes, yes, it was, shall we have tea now?" but do you affect the score? Does anybody else care?

Be a player and go for the goal. Put your heart on the line, and play to win. You may not. Case in point: I may not. But I'm playing with all my heart, and as I play, people read my stories, and come away saying: "nice story, made me cry a little bit." And I get to walk away knowing I've affected 10,000 people this month.

When Saga wrote a review to one of my stories in Swedish, she put her heart on the line, and although she's never written word one of a ffn story, she got 5k hits that month from her review. From her review. Your review opens up a window to your soul, and people read it ... will they care that you wrote "Nice story. It's different. Update soon." Will they be impressed? Perhaps. But in all likelihood, probably not.

Are you living your life so that other people are impressed by you ... or 'eh'd by you? From your review I can tell, either way, dear reviewer.

So, are you impressing people? Maybe. But ... I'm not impressed. What impresses me is when a reviewer tells me what (specifically) they liked in my story, and why they liked it. "`phfina, a Lauren fic (for Bitter). Never gonna read it, then I did. I care about her, you showed me she has heart, and for you to write a Lauren fic that I WANT to read? You are the best writer on ffn."

You don't have to go to hyperbole; this reviewer didn't, either. But you don't have to write platitudes to impress. Write. From the heart. What touched you and why?

What touched you in this chapter of Ridden, and why? And why is that important? To you, not to all the sucky stories out there on ffn that nobody gives an s.h.i.t. about: to you.

I cried writing this chapter. Your "update soone" review didn't make me cry, but it left me hurting. I put in all this effort to get a "My compliments to the writer. Good show!" review? Gee, thanks, glad to receive your condescension!

You're better than this. WAY better. You know it.

So, now you know you just wrote a shit review. Now what?

Can you try again? Can you dig 1/4 as deep as I did? Can you try? Can you pick one thing in this story that floored you and say why it did, and why that is important to you and your life?

And if nothing floored you ... are you playing at the game with all your heart? Or are you in the stands, commenting on the plays: "He shudda thrown the curve. If I were in there, I wudda thrown the curve! Jeez, these players suck!" "Yes, dear."

If nothing floored you in this story, please, go find something that does, and be floored, for goodness sake! Please don't be bored with life, huh?

One is the loneliest number

Okay. This.

HitRecord, episode 1

Holy. Fuck.

Okay, so I know how it is to be alone, be all alone at home, be at my job and be the only one in my little, tiny cube doing my little, tiny thing that only I can do, so I'm left alone to work on my spreadsheet, or I know how it is to go alone to a café and open up my laptop and call up word pad and just look at it awhile ...

... and cry.

And write a chapter title, and look at that for a while.

... and cry.

Yeah, I'm really popular in cafés.

Then, a week later, go back to that one word in that one document, and start writing and writing and writing, and wanting to puke so bad at what I'm writing, at the same time I'm crying so hard as I'm writing what's going on between my characters, as I feel along with them.

And...

And it's a terribly lonely experience, my life, and a scary one. I create, then I decide to publish, and my glory is that somebody liked what I wrote, and my agony is that somebody didn't, but I don't know that until it's too late, and my words are out there, and they hurt or they heal, but I'll never meet the persons I help or hurt.

Or when I do, I really puke. Then I run.

It happens.

But that's my life, which is none: I have no life. I'm alone, and I'm 'fine' with that. Being alone is so much better than being with somebody, and then, inevitably, hurting her.

Then I saw this video, and ... it was about the number one, the loneliest number.

And it was all made up by ones. Ones and ones and ones, all alone, all creating with hope and fear and a trembling expectation that somebody might actually see what they did, and what would happen if they did?

Well, nothing would, but somebody, somewhere would see them and see their art, just like with me, and ... it would be alive. It would be more than just them now, it would be two, or three ... or ten-thousand, or millions.

Just like Friday's girl, Rebecca Black, a thirteen-year-old girl of a single mom. She made a music video for $10k and went back to school the next day, and that was it for her, so she thought.

I'm not Rebecca Black, nor Stephenie Meyer, nor Medea nor Sophocles, and even if I were, I wouldn't even know it until I was dead, right "Frances"? ... I'm not eve anybody else, I'm just me.

But, I'm alone, and being alone, I'm lonely, and I forget, or I do not know anything other than the happiness of being sad and alone.

And then this video shows me thousands, thousands of others, alone, and creating, and hopeful, and ... joyful in their vocation.

Watch the video.

What are people's problems? REALLY!

So, I know somebody who has dyslexia. That's a Greek word.

Check this sentence: "Regardless of if you decide to beta my work or not if you couuld let me know id apreciate it"

She didn't write it. In fact, her writing is probably better than 80% of the people who do not have mental or physical impediments to writing, and writing well.

But, there it is.

There what is, `phfina?

There it is: 80% of the world that can write English, and write it well, ... do not.

And they do not, simply because they choose not.

Do you understand: they choose 'not.' They don't choose to write, nor to write well, nor honestly, nor with their hearts on the line.

No, they choose, when they write, to write like they live their lives.

Like shit.

Count for me, if you please, the number of grammar and spelling error in that one sentence.

Now, count the number of missing commas and missing apostrophes from contractions.

Now, harder, count the wuss-outs.

Add those number up. If you count less than seven, that means you can't count or you are one of the 80%ers who live their lives in shit, because they just don't care.

And that's the fucking problem. People just don't care.

"`phfina, be my beta. Your profile says I have to leave five substantive reviews first, but I'm going to skip that part, like everybody else does, because I'm special, even though my stories are crap. But that's why I want you to be my beta, to make them less crap."

Now wait.

You want your stories to be 'less crap'? Really? That's your ambition: to be 'less crap'?

Then I don't want to be your beta.

It says so right on my profile, that you read: if you're not writing a story to rock my world, (COMMA!) (DID YOU SEE THE COMMA?) then get the fuck out of my face!

ffn has enough crap. I don't read it, and I sure as hell am not going to beta it.

So, that's one thing. The other? If you're not going to listen to me, and do what I ask, then the point of me being your beta is what? So your stories can be 'less crap'? Why? If you don't listen to me now, then I may as well be talking to a wall (walls have ears) when I do beta your work, because your track record says you're not going to listen to me then, either.

You know what the world's problem is?

The world's problem is that most people have two ears and one mouth, and they act like all they have is mouth: all they do is consume, then whine: "UPDATE SOON!" and when their not consuming, they're excreting. Out their big, fat mouth: the North or South one.

LISTEN and APPRECIATE, people.

You know what happens when you do that?

Besides people walking all over you.

What happens is that people will fall in love with you, because how many times do lovers whine, 'but he doesn't listen to me!'

(Blithely ignoring the fact that she's whining, and not listening to him, either)

You listen, you appreciate, you own it, you own it all: you are the one with the power.

"That's a nice dress you have on, dear. You look really, really nice."

Oh, my God, what do you want? She'll give it to you! I would!

You know the hard part about listening?

Nothing.

That's the hard part.

The hard part about listening is that you have to subtract EVERYTHING you want to say or are expecting or ... FOR GOD's SAKE PUT AWAY THE PHONE! ... you have to take yourself out of the equation and be there, 100%, for the person who needs you.

That's the hard part about listening.

"Well, `phfina, what about me? What about my turn?"

What about you? What about your turn?

Last I checked, you've spent the last ten-plus years exercising your jaw. How about you shut the fuck up for a year and listen and care, and not wait for your turn, because you've been trespassing on that for far too long.

Listen, appreciate.

I wrote more than 1,000 words on my beta profile, and this winner read each one of them; he mentioned a few of them and why he wasn't going to do a single thing I wrote.

And then, after that little bit, he gives me his pick-up line, 'so will you be my beta'?

Um. No. I asked for five dates before you go for home plate, and you went right for the goods.

I'm not that kind of girl. That kind of girl, you pay by the hour, and I didn't see any money on the table, there, cowboy.

Legal Drinking Age

Okay, exactly how old is Lauren? Have any of you thought about that as much as Sophie has?

Count the days. Lauren signed up, basic training (how many weeks), then Afghanistan for 18 months.

Right after high school.

How old is Lauren?

Old enough to die, but is she old enough to drink?

And Lauren's ever been stopped when? Or Rosalie? Or Bella, when she was thir-fucking-teen?

They card at the campus pizza place, do they? Or at a bar the military boys and girls frequent off-base?

They do, right? They have to.

Right?

My, my, my. And NONE of my classmates, IN HIGH SCHOOL, never got drunk, nor high, nor had smex. Never.

"I'm not old enough to drink."

Uh, huh. Okay.

Hm, hm, hm.

"This message does not condone the underage use of alcohol nor drugs, and all models portrayed in Ridden, etc, are of legal ages in the countries represented."

Um. Yeah. Like Rosalie was SO 18 before her 18th birthday, right, when she took Bella on her first and second 'ride,' ... a month before her 18th birthday.

And Lauren, throughout high school, and kindergarden, when her father raped her, was of legal consenting adult age, too. Just like all the fanfics that say 'NC-17' but don't get banned on ffn ...

... except mine.

I'm not bitter. *Sigh*

Your age, my dear reader, is your age, and your choices are your choices. You choose not to drink now because of your age? Okay. You can also choose not to drink, or engage in hot, wild smex (ooh! hot, wild lesbiotic school smex!), after you are 'of age,' too. Your choices are yours to make.

Just like I chose differently, and that makes me wrong and bad? Well, yes, actually, it does. If you are good for abstaining, that makes me bad for my licentiousness, or there is no moral compass.

Let me be clear, here: my bad choices DO NOT give you permission to feel guilty NOR do they give you permission to make bad choices, but they DO give you permission to see your choices as choices regardless of age or of any other constraints you impose. Your choices are your choices, and your constraints are your constraints, and you choose your constraints and you choose your choices, with AND despite your constraints.

See?

The world is a simple, simple place.

And then there comes along you, and the choices you make, and the only complications come when you meta-justify your choices. Then life gets complicated.

Because any justification can be counter-justified, but "I choose not to drink now." "Why?" "Because that's my choice." "Oh."

That cannot be countered. They either respect you, and your choices, or they don't, and then it's very, very clear.

But "I'm not of age to drink." "Well, I wasn't, either, love; here, have this mickey finn, you'll like this! Just try it, I did, and you wanna be cool like me, right?"

Ew, now you can't say 'no,' because your choice isn't a choice, it's a dependency on a constraint that doesn't hold when somebody else takes it away, AND makes you uncool now that you have no constraint to defend your 'choice.'

When, in reality, you don't have to defend your choices, ever, to anyone, when they are freely chosen, and that is a true position of power, because nobody can take away your choices.

But they can attack (successfully) your justifications.

It's the whole thing about superstition and the greatest superstition is 'I'm not like that.'

'I'm not gay.' 'I'm not outspoken,' 'I'm not confident,' 'I'm not beautiful.' 'I'm not brave,' 'I'm not a good writer,' 'I'm not ever going to be happy,' 'I'll always be alone' (another 'I'm not' in actuality)

All these lies I so successfully tell myself, and they are just stories I made up to justify how I am right now, because 'I'm not ...' how I want to be, but can't see myself as being.

Another lie: 'can't' Can't really is 'refuse to see'

"I can't see myself as being."

is a very different assertion than

"I refuse to see myself as being."

The former is a show-stopper. The latter is an obstinacy. And once I realize my stubbornness, I can just give up:

"But how can I be like that?"

And once you ask 'how' (whereas before you said 'I can't'), then it's game over for that lie, because then, when you ask how, then three million ways, some fantastic, some simple, present themselves to you of just how you can be how you couldn't possibly be before.

Because, sitting in class right now is a boy or a girl who IS being what you AREN'T being, but you CAN'T be that way, you've told yourself that over and over again. But that boy or girl was born, too, just like you, and they made choices that led them exactly to where they are.

And it's 'right' or 'wrong' where they are: drinking, smoking, smexing, or ... honor roll, multimillionaire at fourteen, married with kids, with her lover ... hiking to Alaska or Canada. Whatever, but there it is.

Drinking isn't an age, it's a choice. Everything isn't an 'isn't' or a 'can't.' It's a choice, and you choose that, if you want that, and you don't choose that, if you don't want that.

So, yeah. Just like happiness, like everything else: it doesn't depend on circumstances, like age, it depends on ... nothing. You choose it. Mother Teresa was happy, and I'm not, and I have a washer/drier, and she didn't, and I've had tons of smex, and she didn't. Why was she happy, and I'm not?

Because she chose happiness: she chose to be exactly who she was.

Because I choose to be exactly who I'm not, and I choose to be sad about it.

Um, I think I'll have that drink now.

Skyping

You remember the day when they didn't have Skype to Afghanistan? Or email, even? Or running water, so laundry service, for our troops over there?

Forget it.

And Sophie is fretting over how she can skype Lauren and why is it taking so long? SO LONG? LIKE DAYS? HA! TRY THREE MONTHS BY INTERNATIONAL SNAIL MAIL!

Sophie DOES have it so much better. The problem with having it better, WAY BETTER, is that you don't appreciate it unless you had it worse before.

Sophie, having it better now, is having the worst time in her life, the poor girl, because she doesn't know fuck-all about skype to skype Lauren, so screaming: "Just skype Lauren, Sophie; Jeez!" would only make her feel worse, because she would say, in a very small voice: "but how?" and probably just crawl away and hide under her covers, feeling like a shit.

Not that she doesn't deserve that, for not acting when she should have, so some us are granted the ability to see and to know what to say and when so we don't have these problems down the road. "Oh, Lauren, how do I skype you when you get over there?"

Simple as that.

But then, if she DID say that, she knows, and you do, too, exactly what Lauren would say: "So, okay, and you want to skype me ... why?"

And then Soph is caught, isn't she, because then she has to lie her ass off, or, worse, she has to tell the truth, and she just doesn't ... want to face certain truths right now. Some truths are way too much to face when we believe we're in a certain place in our lives, aren't they?

Or maybe you don't feel these truths hitting you, as they are knocking at Sophie's door. I know I never like facing the truth. Ever. Truth is a hard, hard mistress, telling you, "You know, `phfina, you're out of a job now, and who's fault is it that you don't have one, right now, today?"

Or: "You know, `phfina, you're going to sleep alone tonight, and you're waking up alone tomorrow, and why? Every single one of the relationships you've been in, you've royally screwed up, haven't you, `phfina, and you've left how many girls' hearts broken up and down the East Coast? How much longer are you going to run from what you've done and who you are? Running is such good exercise, you cross-country runner, isn't it? You like to run, don't you? You gonna ever run back to Brenda, your mom's friend? or Wild-Cate with her hennaed hair or ... not Julia anymore, she's happily married with kid now, too late for you to unfuck up that failed relationship, your first, nor with Saga, now, still, unhappily married with three kids and one prevented suicide attempt and because of whom, `phfina?"

Yeah, I just so love facing these truths, and the mirror, every single day, knowing I'm exactly where I am in my life right now because I know who put me there.

Um. Wow. TMI, right? But that's truth: Soph wants to skype; Soph 'can't' skype, but why? Because she set herself up not to, because setting herself up to skype with Lauren entails facing the mirror.

And the truth is ...

The truth is ... I could be better than I am right now. I could be happier. I could be a blessing to myself and my family and my friends, not be the broken little burden that I am to them. Sure, I'm doing a good thing with my writing, but that doesn't mean I could be a million times better than I am.

Soph is (moderately) rich (not 'Rosalie rich') and content, but is happiness contentment? If it is, shouldn't she be happy? Why is she sad?

Because her contentment is a lie: it's just going along with how she thinks she's supposed to be, and she's content in that little box she's constructed for herself.

But it's a little box, and she constructed it, and now, she's beginning to see the outlines of the box.

But to face the 'Truth' the whole big world outside of the box ... well, that involves thinking outside the box, and maybe, or maybe not, Sophie's ready to start thinking about thinking about thinking outside the box.

But thinking doesn't make one happy. Nor does doing (like actually skyping Lauren, like a conversation with Lauren ever made ANYONE happy?) (or baking cookies) (the second time) (when she didn't). No: being is happiness, that is the universal truth. Being is happiness, happiness is being, but really being, not faking it (a fake-o is a happy-o for whom?), and not being is sadness and loss. But how can Sophie be when all she can do is think about thinking about how to skype because why, to tell Lauren off? And then she'll be happy?

I envy Sophie. She's daring. She's on a journey, and she has not fucking clue one where this is going, and it's weird and it's wild, but when she actually starts going down the path, she's smiling so hard it hurts her cheeks, even as it scares the shit out of her.

"How about you, `phfina?" I need to get a job. I need to get a job because I need to get a job. So I can pay the bills and eat so I can go to work on my job.

Do you see how limited my world-view is?

And as tiny-small as my view is, I see it, and I see so many people not seeing it. The vast majority of people in the world are living lives as small as mine, even HAPPY to work for the Man, because that's what they're supposed to do ...

Oh, really? And people Live, Learn, Love, and Leave a Legacy by working at a job 9-to-5?

Maybe some do, maybe there're some saints in the workplace, but it's not because they have a job and do their job well, it's because they ARE saints. They BE sanctified, and they bless us with their holiness, their coworkers, at the job, and, when they return home, they bless their families.

I 'need' a job, not to be sanctified, but because I'm a tiny little box that defines my universe around 8 hours a day that I will freely give to somebody else so they can tell me what to do.

Sophie is not constrained that way, but she's just as constrained in other ways, her 'world-view,' but she's starting the journey of 1,000 miles. Me? I don't even dare to look at the 8-fold paths in front of me. I'm too scared to, because starting a journey like that involves risk, and hope, and growth.

And that's too scary for this little girl.

Besides. I don't have anybody to skype with. I made sure of that.

Have you heard about the lonesome loser?
Beaten by the Queen of Hearts every time?
Have you heard about the lonesome loser?
She's a loser, and she just gave up trying.

Sometimes, skype is more than skype, isn't it?

... and, sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, after all ... for those people blessed with seeing the world simply as it is, and not complicating it more than it needs to be.

"Understanding" the Poetic Saga

I can't believe I'm writing this, but now I have explain poems to idiots who don't understand, and want their bananas peeled for them, cut into bite-sized pieces and then fed to them on a silver spoon. What, do you want me to move your jaw up and down for you, too, so you masticate the banana-mush, too?

So, here we go.

"What's there to understand? They were a set of poems Saga sent me over time. I wrote that in the A/N. Who wrote them? Who cares? You? Why?

Instead of reading it from a sense of understanding, read it with a sense of feeling. How did you feel, reading these poems? 'Well, I didn't like them, because I didn't understand them.'

Good job. You can't feel unless you understand your world and circumstance?

Or, just read the poems and get what you get from them. 'That one was silly.' 'That one was funny.' 'That one was keen what it said about quiet girls.'

Each poem Saga sent me conveyed a feeling, and it was free of any context. If your feeling is dependent on circumstance, then you are a leaf in that wind you chase. Feel. Be."

Got it now? Life is a whole lot less complicated when you drop your superior posing and just live it, isn't it?

Jesus-God Almighty, save me from Try-Hard Posers posing as fonts of wisdom.

Where I belong

I effed up a job interview so badly I was ready to run from the "star chamber" (their term) crying, but it just kept going on and on, and then finally the manager, a little old buddha, said, "Miss, I'm just not sure you'd be happy here, you're just way too overqualified for the position, maybe I can talk to another manager and see if they have something more challenging for you."

And I was like, "okay," but inside I was almost screaming. Excuse me? You don't know if I'd be 'happy' working for you? I'll be happy to pay the rent. I'll be happy to eat. I'll be happy to have insurance! I don't have any money and I don't ...

I don't know what I'm going to do this month. So I have to start making calls, asking people to give me a month so I can pay the bills, but what does that say about me? Nothing, right? I just can't pay right now.

But inside I feel so ... ashamed that I'm not together, that I don't have a job, and what does that make me?

A failure, that's what it makes me. I'm a girl that can't get a stupid job because I'm overqualified as an administrative assistant, but when I go for something in payroll, I don't have the education and I don't have the experience, so they're like: what are you doing here? Maybe you need an entry-level position as an intern or you could go to our administrative staffing, and it's just a big, vicious circle, and I'm the loser in the middle.

This too shall pass, and I'll be happily employed somewhere as an, idk, art curator, or a librarian ("please tell us about the duwey decimal system." "The what?" "Uh, yeah, thank you for your time.") or as a bar maid/wench ("You touch my ass again, I fucking break your fucking arm!" "Ooh, feisty bitch!" *SMACK!*) ... or something.

I think my problem is I don't fit anywhere. I'm scared of people, and that comes out as shyness or in-your-face-ness. I don't belong in the past, because they way the Greeks treated women? WAY better than their contemporaries, but they were still property: chattel. I don't belong inside a Twilight book, because I'd try to punch Edward in the face, if I ever got enough guts, and I'd end up as supper for James and Victoria. Not so bad with Victoria, I suppose, but being sucked dry while the neurotoxin in the venom makes your last seconds ones of pure agony?

I don't belong here... because of everything. I was called "Unearthy," but that's not even right: the space aliens would get tired of my restlessness and constant bitching.

I ... truly am a siren, a mermaid, a selkie. And I keep looking and looking and looking for my otter-skin, and keep not finding it, so I can't swim away and be with my mer-people and comb my long, full-bodied mer-hair (mermaids' only clothing, don't you know, so their hair is loooong!) and sing songs and hymns as we blow through our conch shells in our mer-kingdom of Atlantis ... until I got bored there, or a mer-guy'd try to cop a feel, and I'd even be kicked out of there, for disorderly conduct.

Hail, Eris!

I am discord. I am pure chaos, but aren't ... but wasn't Eris happy? Why am I not happy? My life (heh, right, like I have a life) is a mess, and I wreck everything in my wake.

I wish I could write me as a story, so I could look at the story and say ... 'eh, this character isn't really working.'

And just write me out of it, just be a figment of my imagination, and nobody but me would know that I ever existed. Just like my character Nichole in Ridden, something I tried, but I don't know if she works, she brings too much to the story that's isn't about her, so ...

So with an 'eh,' she's gone, and none of you knew, nor cared.

I wish I could do that to me. I just bring too much to this story of life that isn't about me, not really, it's about you and everything else, and we don't need the complications of me being around. I wish I could just write me out of this story of life, and nobody would know, nor care.

Then ... then I would be truly happy. Oblivion would be my fate, and I would taste gall on my tongue and my eyes would see nothing but pitch and tar, and ... I would be ... happy.

Because then it wouldn't be about me any more. Truly. And I wouldn't have to pretend any more. I would have to pretend that I was happy or I was fine or that I was okay and getting by.

Because then I would be nothing. And I'd finally be free of this world and it's false hopes and promises.

And I'd, truly, be happy then.

YES! Merry Christmas posted on literotica

So, I wrote this smexy, BDSM BellaRose story on ffn. The Powers That Be got wind of it and the banned it. The content violated their ratings policy. :(

BUT I sent it to literotica, and after much deliberation, they published it. YES!

The link to the story is here: literotica-dot-com-slash-s-slash-merry-christmas-8

It's a sweet, little smexy piece, with love, ... and bondage.

How to Write (a review): Recognize. Describe. Share. Appreciate.

How to write?

There are three levels of writing: recognizing, describing, and then sharing.

Good, better, best.

And there are two approaches to writing: indifference and appreciation.

Or (very) bad, and good.

Levels of writing.

Recognize: "Your writing is different."

Describe: "Bella in your story isn't a pushover, although Rosalie bosses her around, but I think Rosalie really loves Bella, too, even though she won't admit that to herself. Also, other femmeslash I read, one girl is mannish and the other girly, but your story, you don't take away Rosalie's femininity, and I like reading that, for a change."

Share: "I had a really shit New Year's and reading your story, seeing two girls who really love each other and are happy with each other? I like being with couples who are happy and strong people but also bend and depend on each other, it gives me hope that I can be happy like that, too."

Then, the two approaches.

Indifference: "Update soon." (What, am I your fvcking b!tch? "Fetch, Lassie! Fetch!")

Appreciation: "You really put your heart into this chapter, and it must have been hard writing it, and, with the material, brave of you to publish it. I liked this chapter. You are one of (if not the) best writers on ffn for being able to write a Lauren fic (a character I hated in the series) and you made me like her."

My advice.

It's safe to recognize something, but it takes hard work to describe how to distinguish it from all the rest of the crap out there, and then it takes courage to share what it meant for you.

It's ... fvcking rude to be indifferent, by not leaving a review after you've read a chapter that made you say 'Huh. Wow.' (Recognize that: "This chapter made me say 'Huh. Wow!' Then DESCRIBE WHAT made you say 'Huh. Wow.' then FVCKING SHARE WHY THAT MEANS ANYTHING TO YOU, for FVCK's SAKE!) It's fvcking rude to say: "More, more, gimme more!" and not FVCKING APPRECIATE WHAT YOU JUST GOT! WHY THE FVCK WILL I GIVE YOU MORE IF YOU DON'T SAY HOW WHAT I JUST GAVE YOU TOUCHED YOU? You are a fvcking selfish, rude, little pig.

Recognize that. You are a fvcking selfish, rude, little pig. Now read that PM or that review you just wrote.

Did you just recognize some sh!t out there, or did you distinguish it, and then, did you dare to share what it meant for you?

Did you appreciate what you were just given, little piggie, or did you put your fat fingers into the dessert tray, stuffed your mouth full of chocolates and then say, 'More!'

If you sent this PM or review to yourself, would it make sense? Did it help? Would you have been pleased to have received it?

Or, since you just sent it to yourself, do you now want to b!tch-slap yourself silly?

I recommend you start b!tch-slapping yourself, right now, and take your review or your PM and rewrite it. Keep b!tch-slapping yourself until you get to a rewrite that doesn't want to make me puke.

So, yeah: keep b!tch-slapping yourself.

I recommend you take that bullsh!t chapter you just wrote, and get fvcking real with yourself and with your characters. Nineteen-nine percent of the problems on ffn is that the writing out there has the fvcking CHARACTERS in THEIR STORIES EMBARRASSED TO SAY THE LINES THEY ARE GIVEN and TO DO THE FVCKED UP SH!T the AUTHORESSES MAKE THEM DO.

Don't be one of the 99%. And you know how you will rise above the crowded cesspool? Put just 1% more effort into your story. That's fucking it. And fucking put your heart into the story.

And then, before you publish the motherfucker, fucking proof read it. I proof read each chapter seven time. You hear me? SEVEN FUCKING TIMES!

"`phfina, you want me to beta your stuff for you, so you can have good grammar, like my stories don't?"

Uh, no. I want you to read Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Now. And I want you to spell-check your document. Now. And I want you to, when you don't know what word to put there, to mark that place, keep writing, and come back to that snag and get the exact word and the right word, and not publish your chapter until you do put the exact word and the right word needed right there.

And I want you not to use the words 'stuff,' 'good,' 'bad,' 'interesting,' and 'different.' Ever.

Never, ever use those words again.

Thank you.

Oh, and if you write 'summary sucks,' guess what sucks even more: your story. Write a fucking summary that doesn't fucking suck. No: write a summary that rocks your readers' world.

"Dear `phfina, I'm thinking about writing my own story ..."

I don't think you should 'think' about writing your own stories. I think you should start writing your own story, and right now. That way you will know, first hand, what it is to create, and how it feels to get a review saying that your story is 'different,' but telling you nothing else. Or not getting a review at all, and knowing you have to keep writing, anyway, to be honest to yourself and your characters.

My stories are 'different,' because why? Because I put my heart right out there, and risk it, every time with every chapter, and what's going on in my characters' lives matters to you because it fvcking matters to me. They've been hurt, I've been hurt, they want to love and be loved, I want to love, and be loved. They hope, even though the world is a hopeless place that doesn't give a fvck, I want to hope in a hopeless world that could care less.

And when I risk my heart, there is the risk that my heart will be stomped on, and it is, often, by readers, reviewers and ffn itself.

But the point of writing polite, detached, impersonal stuff that conveys nothing of yourself is what again?

Please write your own stories. There are people, right now, in the same situation you are in, feeling the same feelings, struggling with the same issues, that need to read your story and know that somebody else understands, and wrote a story about it, so they could read it, and make it through one more day.

Your story may actually save somebody's life. Like mine have, at least three times I've been told so far. You don't write your story, that person doesn't have your voice to carry them forward one more day.

Don't 'think' about writing a story.

Write it. Today.