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.

Come talk to me

The wretched desert takes its form, the jackal proud and tight
In search of you, I feel my way, though the slowest heaving night
Whatever fear invents, I swear it make no sense
I reach through the border fence
Come down, come talk to me

...

Ah please talk to me
Won't you please talk to me
We can unlock this misery
Come on, come talk to me

Peter Gabriel, "Come Talk to Me" Us

— `phfina commentary:

Okay, what are you doing? Why are you reading this post? Go! Go out and buy Peter Gabriel's CD Us (and while you're at it, get Lana Del Rey's Born to Die ... she wrote that album for us, girls; she really did).

I mean, okay: is that guy even human, or is he his name: an angel? There was not one false note on that entire album, so sad, so serious, so super-silly with his "Kiss that Frog" ...

Wait. Is 'kiss that frog' the same as kissing a 'python' because if it is ... okay: eww!

So: "Come Talk to Me." I mean, it starts beautifully, and stays that way: the (bag) pipes strike a mournful chord, and they never, ever stop, the continuous drone in the background of that entire song reminding us all of the hurt that is happening throughout the world, all the time.

And Peter offers a really stupidly simple solution to it all: "Come, take to me."

No, not: "Hear me while I tell you all the solutions to your problems, you idiot."

He didn't say "Listen to me." He said: "Come, talk to me."

And where are we coming from? We're coming from our wretched desert, where Jesus went off to be alone.

We're all alone, all of us so filled with our own pride, our own self-worth, just like that tight jackal, that we can't even hear what another person from the well of their loneliness is saying to us. We'd rather rip their throats out than sit down, look into their being, and listen to them.

But Peter, he reaches through that border-fence that we erect around ourselves, and begs us: "Ah, please, talk to me. Come on, come talk to me."

Sweetheart. You are hurting.

But talking to yourself, locking yourself up into your wretched desert and erecting that border-fence only feeds that hurt.

Please, talk to me. Come on, come talk to me.

I don't have answers ... I mean, I have tons of answers, all the time, and I'm damn sure I'm right, too, 'cause I'm a weak human being, too, so please forgive me my frailty ...

I don't have answers; I don't have help or relief from your pain. But I can reach out through that border-fence, and listen, and cry, hurting with your pain, and love you.

You are alone in this world. I know this feeling very well. Please, talk to me.

I love you.

Weak

"Dark Paradise" sung by Lana Del Rey

— `phfina commentary:

Okay, you know what Jesus did?

Well, okay: 'said.'

Jesus said a lot of things, but, for the most part, he spoke in metaphor.

Why?

Because words aren't the thing. The thing is the thing, and words describe the thing, but aren't the thing at all.

But the thing is (geddit: 'the "thing" is'? geddit?), people forget that. They start thinking of the words, instead of the thing, and forget that the words are not the thing, the thing is the thing, and in forgetting, confuse words for the thing itself, so they only have words, and, get this: forget the thing, itself, entirely and in fact, now, we live in a world, in a universe, where the only relevant thing is the language that describe things, and we don't care about things anymore, we care about the words around them.

For example. Remember that time when ...

Yup, you're crying already, when she broke your heart, so badly, but she broke your heart. She is not now breaking your heart. Your heart, now, is free to love, or free to laugh, or free to cry.

But no, you bind your heart with those memories, which are descriptions, words, of something that happened in the past and will never happen again, unless you recreate it, and you always do, because all you have is words, memory, and that's all we are, spreaders of memes now, we, ourselves sell our hearts, souls, bodies to memes, so that ideas survive us and what's important, the idea, or this moment, that you're living, right now?

It's the idea, the word, the logos, the meme, that's important, because you're not living anymore, you're just an automaton drifting through the fog.

So.

With me?

So, Jesus was always saying, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like ..." is like whatever, doesn't matter, because Jesus was taking just one aspect of the thing, Heaven, and saying, the faith of a mustard seed could move a mountain, and everybody stood around and said, 'yeah, sure, whatever, sounds good.' but never, ever, got it, because if they got it, they could move a mountain with a mustard seed of faith, but they didn't, Jesus did, because he had that Faith, and that Faith wasn't words, it was the thing, itself, because He directly experienced what the Kingdom of Heaven was, but all He could do for us was explain, in metaphor and parable what it was like, and then show people, you have 5 loaves and 2 fish and there's 5000 men, let's eat, and they all did, and they still crucified Him because they still never got it, even as they had the fish burps from eating their fill from 5 loaves and 2 fish and they still didn't get it.

And you still don't get it.

Some people get it. Because they have that faith, that ... whatever, whatever they set out to do, and they do it, and a man walked on the surface of the Moon and mountains have been leveled or tunneled through, and the desert has been made an oasis (that city in Kuwait, right?) (or Salmon Fishing in Yemen, right?) and people set up their homes in the middle of, or under, for that matter, the oceans, and you still don't get that these men and women are just like you but they believed they could do it, and you don't.

So, I have words.

That's what I have.

But I know that, see. So I'm going to say something.

I am weak.

That's the thing.

So now I'll use metaphor.

Here's the metaphor.

See that little girl? Her weapons were these: a sniper rifle and a needler.

What are these weapons? A sniper rifle, in the third round, will get you this: the first shot, an Elite will say, "Did a mosquito just bite me?" The second shot, the Elite will say: "You touch me again with that, I will kill you." The third shot, in the head, kills him.

Three shots to kill an Elite. Oh, don't miss: a sniper rifle's clip only has 4 shots.

There are 24 Elites in one wave in the third round.

The needler? Skirmishers laugh at it. It requires a full clip to take out an enemy, or if shielded (like an Elite), to take out just their shields.

And the covies are good dodgers. So you miss. A lot.

Those are my weapons. Weak weapons for a weak girl.

Here were the weapons for the other two players: rockets, and fuel rods. These launch shells so destructive they can take out 8, 9, 10 enemies with one shot. BOOM! They are dead and problem solved.

Strong weapons for strong boys.

Here's the thing. I have weak weapons so I have to work for each and every kill.

They had strong weapons, so they could just aim in a general area and laugh at the destruction they wrought. No skill necessary.

But if you live by the rockets ... you die by the rockets. You shell an Elite, who, because you are lazy, avoids a direct hit. You've just made him mad. He's coming after you.

So okay, your next shell doesn't miss, but guess what? An Elite, charging you, firing at you all the way, takes a shell in the chest, right next to you, who dies in the blast?

He does, yes, but so do you.

Over, and over, and over again.

I was down by 10,000 points that game against those rocket boys, but I had weak weapons, so I ran when I was shot at, and I never died.

Guess who won that game?

Those boys, they were strong, and they rested on their strength and confidence, and, in resting, fell to it.

Pride precedeth the fall.

But I am weak. I know I am weak. I acknowledge it. Freely. I am aware of what my abilities are: I suck at this game, this game called Halo, this game called life, but I use what I have: sniper and needler in Halo, and words in life, and I use them well, and in conflict, where strong people fall, to their own strength, over, and over, and over again, I walk away from fights, triumphant. Right. Victorious.

Whereas other people walk away, angry, selfish, bitter, self-delusionally, wondering: "What the hell just happened? Did that little cunt just walk all over me? I have more skilz than her, I'm a boy, I have the better sex than her. I have more money than her. I have ... all of that. How did she come out on top? How did I look like a fool who didn't know what he was saying in that meeting?"

I am weak. I acknowledge it. I embrace it, and my weakness is my strength.

Other people?

They are strong. Or they want to be. But they are afraid that maybe they aren't.

Actually they are strong, but you can't be strong if you hide things from others or yourself. You can't be strong if you don't know that you are weak.

So somebody lashes out at me, and hurts me, badly, because, yes, I allow it, and yes, they are strong, strong enough to see my weakness, and to bear down into it. Hard.

Like Traci. Like those girls on ffn who looked for understanding, but then found what they really wanted: somebody else to hurt. Me. Because if they can hurt somebody like me, so gifted in her words, as they are not, then that makes their hurting okay, because they hurt somebody else more, so they are now better than me.

But they aren't. But you aren't. You aren't better. You are hurting. And, in hurting, you've hurt somebody else, carefully, thoughtfully, sinisterly, deliberately hurt a delicate, fragile creature: me.

And now you have that deal with. Because now, hurting, you've corrupted yourself, and you see that. You see: 'wow, she sure is a sensitive cunt! All I said was ...' All you said was the exact words that you knew would hurt me, and what happened was that I didn't shrug or laugh it off, I lashed back, or I cried, or I went on a drinking binge, or I slit my wrists.

And you participated in helping me hurt myself, with your words.

So, you can deny that, as people are so good at doing: "I didn't mean that!" "I was only joking!" or "Man up, for God's sake and stop being such a whiny bitch!"

('Man' up?)

Or you can acknowledge that.

How do you acknowledge that?

"I'm sorry"?

No.

"I'm sorry." means all of the above, sugar-coated in sincerity.

Why?

Because "I'm sorry" demands an "It's okay" and in "It's okay" means every mean, little, belittling thing you said is now "okay" somehow because you said "I'm sorry" and you got your "It's okay."

You acknowledge that by acknowledging that. "Holy shit, I was a fucking bitch just then! I meant to hurt you, and I did. Oh, my God! I'm really like that."

And you know what? You're really like that.

Let me say that again: you are really like that.

You, your machinery, kicked into high gear, when you are hurting, and it said, let's hurt somebody really badly, right now, and you snap out those hurtful words, and you hurt somebody. And there are girls, and boys, in high school, right now, killing themselves because there are boys and girls, just like you that, when hurting, hurt others.

That's who you are.

You know why?

Because that's who you choose to be.

And not: "Oh, I choose to be a hurtful person."

No, like this: "I'm strong. I have to be strong. I can't hurt. I'm not allowed to hurt. I'm not weak. If I'm weak, then that means that all these bad things that I allowed to happen to me are because I chose to be weak, and not see them coming, and seeing them coming, not take steps to stop them from happening. Every time I start that fight with my sister she cries and I cry, but no, I start that fight, and now she's dead, or in the hospital with a stomach pump, but I chose to ignore my weakness, because I'm strong and have to be right, even at the expense of my sister's/friend's/classmate's/coworker's life, because it's either them or it's me, and I'm strong, so it's them."

Or: "I've seen my step-father looking at me. And I know, in the pit of my stomach, what that means, but no, mom left home for groceries, and I didn't insist on going, I didn't tell her I think daddy's going to rape me to her, so she left, happy as a clam, and as aware as one, and daddy raped me, and now I have that scar for my life, that I could have stopped. I could have, but now I'm going to scar mom for the rest of her life and every man I ever see for being daddy in my bedroom, and every woman in my life for not stopping what I could have if I had been honest with myself and got help before I needed it, too late."

My dad didn't rape me. But there are Dads raping their daughters, right now. And people just let it happen, because if they don't ...

Then they'd have to admit that something's wrong with him. SHOCKER! But worse, for them: they'd have to admit something is wrong in themselves for picking a man they now know something is not quite right with, but rather than listen to their heart, they do what is safe, they are careful, and turn a blind eye to the thing that hurts them and others, because we can't make waves, can we?

Here's something for you. Examine your histories. Who were the people written in the books? The people who played it safe and got by? Or the people who made waves?

Now.

Now you have a choice. You can get by, and, thereby hurt yourself, more and more and more, playing it safe, and hurt others, and in fact: everyone in your life that you encounter in big ways and in big (for those of you 'confused' about my last declaration, there is no small hurts, you fucking assholes).

Or you can acknowledge who you are being, right now, and right this instant. And choose. And choose to be that, AND make a difference.

"I am weak, and I won that game of firefight."

"I am black, and I have a dream."

"I am Desi, and I am Mahatma."

"I am a woman, and I am God's wire."

I am not MLKjr, Ghandi, nor Mother Teresa.

I am me.

And what can I do? And what can be done, that I am in the world.

Doesn't matter.

What matters, for you, right now, is that you are you, and what can be effected, what can be accomplished in the world because you now choose to be you, instead of using what you believe or what happened to you or what you have been telling yourself that you are, but really whispering deep down in your very core that you're really nothing and shit, ... no: what can you do, what can be done, and done, because you are you, now that you choose to be you, you in your strengths and in your weaknesses.

I am weak.

I acknowledge that.

And none can touch me. None can hurt me.

I am weak.

And I think, and I breathe, and I live, as no one else in this world can, nor ever will.

You? You are so full of your own shit, ... newsflash: just like me, and everybody else in the world, ... the one difference, the one difference between the wave-makers, the doers of this world, and the cannon fodder, the one difference between those two categories of people is that the former, acknowledge them as themselves and, with that, move the world, and the latter say, 'nothing's wrong! nothing's wrong!' and swim in their own shit, and eat it, too, every day, and serve it to whomever they can get to buy it, and call it 'Organic Mango Smoothie' and give you shit for not liking the shit they're serving.

You choose your side, every second. You choose the later by default. It's call the survival mode. But, newsflash: it's just as easy to join the winners' club. You know how I know? A genius and the common man? The mensa and the densa? The difference between the two is 1% more effort of brain power.

Is one percent all that hard? Is one percent effort worth it for you to rise out of the cesspool?

Here's one percent, for me, for you it'll be the same, even as you say it's different, but it's not, because I say so, and I'm writing this entry, so shut the fuck up with your opinion:

Give yourself a good, hard, honest look in the mirror, and acknowledge exactly who you are, and exactly who you aren't.

A child of God, who, with the faith of a mustard see, can say to the mountain, "go," and it will cast itself into the sea.

Have a nice day.

Hevl Iz Havolim

Oy, Hevl iz havolim,
Oy, Hevl iz havolim,

One's whole life is misery,
Another lives large...
Oy, vanity is vanities
Oy, vanity is vanities
A dream is the world
And the world runs on money

— `phfina's commentary:

Who's my favorite author these days? (and for all time?)

I would have to say, judging what comes up on my phone, Qoheleth.

I mean, for fuck's sake! Finally!

I mean: really. There's somebody who really gets it (or 'got it,' he's way dead by now). He looked at the whole world, from the very tip top ('King of Jerusalem' when Jerusalem was where it was at and happening in the whole world), and saw it, saw it for what it really was.

He saw me. He saw you. And he looked in the mirror and saw himself.

Nobody does that. Nobody.

He did.

He saw it all, and said: 'Oy, hevl iz havolim.'

I mean, all of it. All of it.

Read his words, all of them, and bit by bit, you'll start to get it. You'll see people working. You'll see yourself working...

And to what end? To what purpose? For whom?

You toil from sunrise to sunset, only to do the same thing tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

And what does it get you? More toil. And a scolding from your boss for not meeting the impossible deadlines he sets for you as you see him take a 'comp-time' day off, but you? No: you have to do the books, because who else would?

Or you succeed. And then what? You die and somebody else languishes with the wealth you accumulated with your hard work, wasting it away on pleasure until it's all gone.

So, what then? 'Fuck it all, and why don't we get drunk, and screw?'

So, you'll see yourself drinking, partying it up with your friends, getting blasted, getting wasted, and for what? For happiness? Yeah, right: if happiness is what I see in bars, or afterwards, the morning afterwards waking up with a complete stranger, or worse, waking up alone with your old friend, Mr. Hangover, soon to be follow by Ms. Porcelain Goddess.

You'll see yourself sneaking off, alone, in private, to do the things you hope nobody else will know what you're doing.

And you know it's a lie, you know, what you're doing, hiding from everyone, is plain for all to see, and you know why you're hiding what you're doing.

Because it's evil. And wretched.

Welcome to the world, loser.

That's what you are, and you know it, and your defensiveness at me calling you a loser? That only proves it, buster.

Because no matter how much you think you're faking out your friends and family, there's still that one person you lie to all the time, but, deep down, she knows the truth, and you would, too, if you had the guts to look her in the eye and call what you see when you look in her eyes in the mirror.

Qoheleth did. And he wrote it down in his journal, for us to read, 2400 years later.

2400 years later, and his words still apply today.

So, what do you do, given that everything, everything, is empty and meaningless.

Nope, nope: that one thing you think is so important. Nope. It's not.

Really, it's not. And you know it. Fight me on it, because it's important to you that something, even this one thing (like, what, again? I'd love to hear your altrustic bullshit) (Oops, I meant your altrustic 'cause' ... yeah, whatevs), that being gay-rights or human-rights or digging a well or feeding the poor or making money or looking good or not looking bad.

That's what it all descends to: you want to look good, and, well: above all else, not look bad.

To whom? To what end?

So that when you die, they can say about you: well, she looked good, and she didn't look bad.

Think about it. The end. Think about it.

Because 2400 years from now, your drive to make it to work on time and pretend to look like you know what your doing, by hiding, or by appearing smart, or by bullying, ....

2400 years from now they are not going to think two seconds about what you worked so hard, wasting your entire day, your entire life over.

They won't even know your name.

They won't even care.

Even Qoheleth, poor Qoheleth. I mean, it's taken to this last century before even the best and brightest philosophers have even begun to touch on this point. And they are still getting it only partially right. I mean, even Qoheleth knew that it was all pointless, and he knew that it was all pointless was ... pointless.

You don't know that. If you did, you wouldn't be 'yeah, right, whatevs,' because that's passive aggression, and you wouldn't be like 'yeah, but `phfina, ....'

There is no 'yeah, but...' there's no exceptions to the clause, even the clause itself, and until you get all the way down to the bottom of the pyramid of turtles and find the big, fat elephant ... I mean 'emptiness' there ('there' being 'nowhere' and 'everywhere') then you haven't even started to grasp how completely idiotic you are trying to argue with me from reason that there meaning in this meaningless thing, this meaningless everything.

This meaningless nothing.

Go to the very bottom of the beer bottle, and see the emptiness there.

That's you.

Until you accept that ...

... Until you accept that, you are one very sad fuck. Trying to see meaning, hope, redemption, reason in anything and everything you hold onto so tightly to.

So, let go?

Let go of what? You're still not getting it. You're holding onto nothing!

Get it?

No, you don't. And don't try. You know why? Because 'trying' is adding your layer, your view, your context over all the excuses you've made to make yourself all nice, safe and secure in a world that has none of those things.

You're got a huge pile of shit on the plate in front of you (literally! you know what animal feed is composed of? Look it the fuck up) and instead of calling shit, shit, you paste all your reasonableness over it, like icing, and now you have a shit cupcake.

'But it's a cupcake now,' you reason to yourself as you heartily dig in, every single day, for the rest of your life, living this lie you call 'life' and 'that's how it is.'

'I can't tell my mom I'm gay,'

'I'm on my way to work now at 6:15 am'

'I wonder if he likes me...'

'God, I need that drink...'

You don't even stop, anymore, to ask yourself 'why?' You've graduated from being a rebellious teenager. You're grown up now (context), you have responsibilities (context), and ... and all that shit you tell yourself all the time, and you don't even buy it, you just do it because you have to do it, but why? you can't even dare to ask yourself why, because if you dare ...

... *gasp* if you dare to ask yourself why, you might actually come up with the real reason.

The real reason being, there is no sanctuary!

Yup, you're doing it all, sweetheart, because, just because, ogod, you tell yourself you have to, and for no other reason than that.

None.

Really. We had a doctor in group, and she saved a ten-year-old girl's life.

So, but, good, great, whatever, so that girl could live a few more years and do what?

What is it with us and 'doing'? We all need an occupation, but for what?

Sweetie, we all need ... need... to be doing something, anything, saving a ten-year-old girl's life, because ....

... because we have to fill the emptiness with something.

Otherwise we'd be faced with emptiness. Which would mean we would have to face it.

Or do what I do.

Run from it, with all my might.

And then face it again, the next morning, every morning, and look into her eyes, and see absolutely nothing there.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing in my eyes looking back at me.

You're still not getting it.

It's okay. I have to tell myself that, because after all, it doesn't matter whether you get it or not ... in the end.

Why does it matter to me then?

Or, put another way, when I was a little girl, growing up in a nowhere town in Connecticut, I would always wait for the part of the homily our Monsignor gave when he said, 'So, then what are we to do?' or as the Apostle Paul says 'So, then, how shall we live?'

Or as Qoheleth says, 'What, then, are we to do? Eat, drink, and be satisfied with the work of our hands.'

It's all pointless. So be happy.

That's it.

No, really: that's all, so if you're not happy doing your pointless thing, why bother?

But what's happy?

Hm, there's the rub, but then, that doesn't matter. Happy is whatever you want it to be.

Really.

So if you're happy sitting at work, doing nothing, stealing a pad of paper and some pens, well, then, have at it.

But, you really, really, really have to look. 'Have to' as in 'have to.'

Because, really, you can see that you're not happy.

Because why? Because you choose you and your life.

So happiness, `phfina, is my choice?

Yuppers.

So, it's all pointless, and the only meaning in it all is what you assign it.

And, well, for most people, they need a point, you know those kinds of people I'm talking about: always having a fucking point to their fucking 'oh, I was just asking a question!' conversations? Those people who are always carrying a chip on their shoulders the size of what I hear the WTC used to be.

You know: you.

So, ... (ooh, did I hit a nerve? So sorry. No, I'm not. *snicker* I'm having FUN!) ... if you have to have a point, well, then, have a fucking point.

Make a game of it.

Wake up in the morning, and, if you're honest, say, 'what-fucking-ever, it's all pointless,' and if you're not, (really) put on a (chipper) smile, and say, 'today, the point is ...'

And make one up.

And it really doesn't matter what it is, just make one up, and make a game of it.

'Today the point is to make seven people smile,' and then make seven people smile, and check back with yourself at the end of the day, and if you made seven people smile, then Yay! you won, and do your happy dance.

(I actually do do a happy dance. You should see it. Guaranteed to make you smile ... or snort coca-cola up your nose, and that would make me smile, ... either way, I win)

And if you didn't win your game, then Yay! you lost, and do your happy dance.

No really, remember? It doesn't matter. It's all a game. All of it, and you choose to play and and you choose how to be while you're playing it.

'The point today is to sleep in somebody's arms tonight.'

Remember to do your happy dance. And when you explain why to her, she'll either smile, or ... slap you in the face, which will make me smile.

Either way, I win.

Yup, I set myself up to win my games.

I'm hard enough on myself already, and for no (good) reason, too. So I deserve to win some, just because and for the smile.

So, cool, once you get that, that it's all a game, and it's a game you made up that you're playing, ...

Then that's the first step.

To what? Nothing, of course.

Wanna get better at it?

I walked home tonight, as I did every night.

You know, I choose to exist.

Right now.

Right now.

And right now.

Every single step is a step I made, because I chose it.

The steps I knew I was choosing?

Those were some incredible steps.

You're not even aware you're alive, are you?

You're not even aware you're taking this very breath, right now, I bet.

(My game. I just won. And when you do become aware of the breath you're breathing? When you become aware of yourself in your body at this very instant? Now that's a bigger game for me that I'm winning.)

Every second of every day is a choice you are making, right now, to be alive, and, in being alive, you're making choices, a multitude of them, to make a difference, to be the difference, or to go with the flow.

It's really comfy to go with the flow.

Particularly when you choose to pretend to not be aware that is what exactly what you are doing.

I know.

I know it a lot.

It's called 'work' because, up to now, it's what I choose to make what 'work' is.

But, you, me, when we become aware of being alive, at the very instant, and making a choice, this very instant.

The world becomes something else entirely.

It's called scarcity verses abundance.

People who chose to limit themselves, to live in the world they created within their safe little boundaries live in the world of me-verses-you, in the world of either-or, in the world of causality, 'if I do this, then she'll think that.'

Maya, illusion.

People who choose to be aware, and to be aware of choosing, ...

Well, then, they have everything, and more. Because why? Because they chose it, and they damn well know it.

And that, too, is maya.

So choose your illusion, even your transcendent illusion, as if I, or the gods, give a fuck what importance you assign to your altruism.

So you play a game, and you are (self-)aware twice a day (when you make the game and when you win or assess your game), and that's great.

Step up your game.

Become aware of getting up for the day. Become aware of choosing to jog because you want to choose to jog.

Become aware of yourself and your body in the shower. Become aware of you choosing to put on your panties.

You choose it all. That's very freeing.

So is choosing not to put on your ...

Well, I'll leave that experiential knowledge for you to find out....

I will say it's very ... liberating, and you become so much more aware of ... well, everything, when you're so ... um, ... 'liberated.'

*ahem*

;)

*blush*

Or, play the game of 'self-awareness' of 'choosing the "right" path for you' ...

... because we're all so concerned about you and your problems.

@_@

I do it. I do it everyday. I do it right now. I choose to look in the mirror, and beat the shit out of myself, everyday. I choose that.

Because it makes me a better person? For what again?

It's all vanity!

So you choose to be self-aware. Are you? Great! You win. Do your happy dance!

How come people who embark on the journey of self-awareness never do a happy dance while on the journey? And if it's a journey, where's the end of it? And if there's no end to the self-awareness journey, then what's the point?

*snicker*

Geddit?

Hey, look, take your self-awareness journey seriously, if you wanna, but, you know, it's your game that you chose, so you may as well be happy doing it, amirite?

Honey, I love you. You ... look: you are perfect, as you are, right now, and if you weren't, how could I possibly love you? I demand nothing but perfection from you, because I so demand it from me.

You wanna measure up? You measure up.

So there.

Oh, and one more thing:

A Man's a Man, for a' That

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that.
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

Robert Burns.

— `phfina analysis:

Oh, to be a man, and to laugh at princes, and titles, and what comes what may, and still to be a man, for a' tha'.

But to be a woman. To be me. When what comes what may, but what is left to fall back on?

It's Christmas season, when Santa makes his list, and checks it twice, and all good little girls and all good little boys think about game consoles, bicycles, with training wheels, and maybe a pony.

And `phfina's thoughts, traditionally, turn to suicide.

I caught myself. Thinking that, and all that, and I just went right there, spiraling down into the circle of despair.

And then I said: no.

I said no. I am not determined by ... by anything, Ladies and Gentles. I am not determined by my chemical composition, by the faux-festive 'holi'day season ('Buy more! On sale!'), by other people and what they do, or don't do, to, on, around, or near me.

And so, I was riding home on the bus, and I cranked it, my ghetto iPod. You know that loud music Bella Swan was listening to as she was figuring it all out in Twilight? For legal reasons, Steph couldn't mention it in the book, but she's given interviews saying it was Linkin Park's Meteora. So, it worked for Bella Swan, so I cranked that puppy, got off the bus, and screamed out the lyrics as I ran home, full tilt.

Heh, must of been funny, for oncoming traffic to see this, what?, this little banshee just running, and screaming and smiling so hard, so full of joy. I may have it bad, but not as bad as those guys, with all their millions (of fans) (and dollars), and a' tha' spewing their lyrics of self-hate:

"It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something more.
It's so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone.

Something has been taken from deep inside of me.
The secret I've kept locked away, no one can ever see.
Wounds so deep they never show, they ever go away,
Like moving pictures in my head for years and years they play.

If I could change, I would. Take back the pain, I would.
Retrace every wrong move that I made, I would.
If I could stand up and take the blame, I would.
If I could take all the shame to the grave, I would."

Linkin Park, Meteora, "It's easier to run" © ™ ® ... don't sue me, it'll cost you way more money to do it than you'll ever get out of me, anyway.

But check the vid (and, yes, do I ever check more than a few vids) of them making the album, there they are, these kids, about my age? older? younger? with a graffiti artist with their wives and babies and fan girls and production team. Happy, active, creative. Being. Doing what they are doing because they are following their vocation.

I mean, Meteora, right? It came right out of Heaven into our hands, and there it was, perfection, from beginning to end, for every goth grrl with combat boots and a convincing snarl ...

(... which I am so not ... there was just such a girl on the bus ride home: big, tall, black nail polish matching her black combat boots and black leather jacket, and henna in her hair, and little me was more than a little fearful of yon warrioress) ...

And for everyone who listens to that album for whatever reason.

And then there's Gorillaz Plastic Beach and, of course, being Gorillaz, it's ... 'alternative' and ... 'experimental' ... and perfect, coming down from Heaven in a pristine jewel case right into my ear buds.

But then, looking at the making of Plastic Beach vid (again, `phfina, watching vids ... yes, I am a perv, and thank you for sharing), you see how hard it was.

How hard it was.

See, we have Plastic Beach to listen to and to admire.

Gorillaz? They had to make it. Just like Linkin Park had to make Meteora.

And what did they make it from?

Watch the vids.

They made it from absolutely nothing.

They had nothing to start with. Nothing at all. And they struggled, and fought, and discussed, and revised, and threw away a ton of stuff, that they kept trying and trying and trying to make it just right and just perfect starting from absolutely nowhere and not having a clue of where they were going with all this.

And.

I mean, it's not enough, the terror of the blank page staring at you, my dear authoresses, even though that is enough to kill more than 90% of us, and with that figure I'm being generous ... or conservative, ... or whatever.

No, it's not just that, the absolute terror of emptiness that creativity faces when it stares at the blank page or canvas or staff.

Although it's more than enough to kill us, right, Vincent? Seymour?

No, what's worse is that there is all that. All that.

A man's a man, for a' tha'.

But there is a' tha'.

A man, or even a little girl like me, has to face a' tha'. Linkin Park had [Hybrid Theory] and then the even more awesome [Reanimation] and in the face of all that success and expectation they had to create Meteora (without the brackets). Gorillaz, omg, Gorillaz with album after album of success and praise, and they had to throw it all out, all of it, and then they had to create Plastic Beach.

Men. All of them. And one little girl named Noodle, facing all that, all that expectation (which translates as: if you don't measure up, we will be disappointed, and you are worthless and should just kill yourself), and the blank page.

And creating.

And when I say, 'creating,' I mean 'creating.'

Do you know what I mean?

No, you don't. Because you're stuck in your life being a human being. "What can one person do?" you justify.

Creating. Doing something other than what the already almost certain future contains for you. Seeing your past, clearly, for what it is, and what it isn't, and putting the past into the past, and seeing the future for what it is ... not.

Because the future? It doesn't exist until you create it. It truly is really 'not'. But then you create it, and then it is: and right now. And, ladies and gentles, make no mistake, you create your future, every second of every day. You choose to continue doing what you've always been doing, living the life you've always been living, or you choose to step out, on faith.

Into the abyss of the new.

Scary there. I know.

... sometimes.

And the new? Funny thing about the new. It's right here. It's right here in front of you.

All you have to do, is to see it. And it's there.

Even in a' tha' ... even in the every day humdrum. It's there. The new.

The time is now 1:34 am. I'm going to go to bed. And then I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and do exactly what I did yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. And so are you.

Or.

Or I'm going to surprise myself, and wake up, and do the same-old, and then, when I settle in/down/for, I'm going to perk up and say, 'hey, I'm going to ...'

And surprise myself. And be. And live. And see things, really, for the first time in my life.

And so can you.

I'm Free

I was in a sammich shop, getting a sammich, when this oatmeal and barley guy (definitely granola) starts strummin' away on his guitar the following song:

She's a good girl: loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves Horses and her boyfriend too.

This doesn't describe me at all. I'd have to be a good girl, now, wouldn't I, for this song to be about me. But then he sang this:

Now I'm free, free fallin'

I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
I wanna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for awhile.

And I'm free, I'm free fallin'

Free fallin' now I'm free fallin' Free fallin' now I'm free fallin'

"Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty

— `phfina analysis:

You really do want to know, so I'll tell you. Why you want to know, I have no IDEA! But you do, so you can tell me how fucked up I am, and so I put in all this effort to tell you, really and truly, what's going on in here in this nothing that is me, and what do I get for it? I get punished for trying, so why even try?

Why. even. try.

When I heard that song, the unchewed food in my mouth turned to ash, and I had to go. There are anvil clouds overhead and a good, cold stiff breeze, and I should be happy, as I am the wind and I am the water, and I am in my elements.

So why are there tears falling down my face. 'I am water,' I say, and all I do is cry, but I haven't cried in weeks, and now it's hitting me. Hard. 'I am air,' I say, so all I do is talk-talk-talk, that's all I do, that's all I am, wind and water, tears and air. Nothing.

I saw it, a vision so hard, in that sammich shop that I had to leave my unfinished meal, I had to get out of there away from people.

I was ...

Remember "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"? At the very end, that little waif of a girl at the temple carved into the cliff's edge, looks out into the air, whispers

"Goodbye"

and jumps.

I am on the edge of the cliff, looking over, looking forward, looking down into the abyss. I don't have to look back. I am not that girl who had a devoted lover calling out for her to stay, willing to help, to be there for her. I have nobody behind me.

And then I raise my arms and I ...

It's a chemical imbalance. I tell myself. I'm chemically imbalanced, and the silence has worn me down so I listen to that not so little voice in my head telling me exactly what I am and exactly what I have to look forward to, and those two things are the same thing.

And I know who to blame for keeping myself an arm's length from any and everybody trying ... or not trying ... to reach out to me, to tell me that I am lovable and loved. I won't let anybody that close to me. I tried looking into a friend's eyes today from group, as she was teasing me about ... about what? my sammich, my silly tiny little mushroom sammich for silly tiny little mushroom me.

Yeah, I'm a mushroom. I can't go out into the sunlight, just like a morlock, and I eat girls, but the girls I eat do scream and moan, but it's not 'cause they're complainin' nosirree, bob!

Hm, the medication is starting to work. Starting, `phfina?

But I couldn't look into her eyes.

I couldn't.

I couldn't look into her teasing eyes, I couldn't look at me in them. I couldn't.

And I had to go, leaving everybody because some stupid song was playing by some stupid granola guy, ...

... and I never say stupid.

And I had to leave them.

And here is where I complete ch 2 of Sirens, and I go to that cliff's edge, and I ...

and I go home.

I return to the dust. Oblivion awaits.

You know: I have this post all prepared. It's here, right in my back pocket. It's a one-liner. It's entitled "The Sublime Art of Suicide" and the body of the post is just one word: "goodbye."

No note. No 'explanation.' No nothing.

'Goodbye' ... 'God be with you' because He won't be with me anymore.

Not where I'm going.

So when you see that post, you'll know what happened.

So I was supposed to finish here with 'Goodbye,' and fuck the special title.

But I took a walk, and okay, I have a chemical imbalance? I'll self-medicate. I saw Thor. I (now) know what a boilermaker is. I'll rebalance, and then rebalance again, then rebalance again, until I lose my balance.

A can of guinness with that cute little fizzy ball inside is a full meal, and only costs two dollars at the supermarket. AND happy hour is in full swing now.

Warm up exercises, you know.

And then after I rebalance (after which I will have obviously hit the hay and have that ashen taste of dehydration in my mouth when), I'll wake up tomorrow, and we will see from there.

We will see.

This isn't a cry for help. So don't bother. I don't want your help. You have to be something to want something, and I don't want anything.

Or maybe I have it backward, and I'm so full of ... something, that I've filled the space that is me, that is: I'm not a clearing, I'm just this big huge blockage, so I have no room left to want for anything.

Do I want anything? No, unless 'wanting nothing' is something. No, unless oblivion is a desirous state.

It isn't. Oblivion is the abyss; it isn't a state, it's a ... dis ... what is it? A disintegration, a rending, a destruction. It's not a state, it's an end.

Shiva. Kali. Lila.

Me.

----

οἰκτροτάτην δ᾽ ἤκουσα ὄπα Πριάμοιο θυγατρός,
Κασσάνδρης, τὴν κτεῖνε Κλυταιμνήστρη δολόμητις
ἀμφ᾽ ἐμοί, αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ ποτὶ γαίῃ χεῖρας ἀείρων
βάλλον ἀποθνήσκων περὶ φασγάνῳ: ἡ δὲ κυνῶπις
νοσφίσατ᾽, οὐδέ μοι ἔτλη ἰόντι περ εἰς Ἀίδαο
χερσὶ κατ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἑλέειν σύν τε στόμ᾽ ἐρεῖσαι.

Homer, Odyssey, Book XI, ~400-430

Just one more

... or I could go on ... 'forever'? 'Forever' is such a very long time (actually, it isn't, as eternity is beyond time), so how about 'for as long as I live'?

Yes, for as long as I live.

There are so many things to say about every single woman in the world, about every single one of you, that I will never finish, nor ever plumb the depths. It's not that there isn't no end to the women in the world (there isn't), because that's just superficial ... 'oh, I could go on forever just naming names.'

Do you know somebody, just by hearing their name? And go no farther than that?

It's that there's no end to the depth, of even just and only one person. I will never 'complete' with a person: knowing them.

When that happens, they are dead to me. I hope I die before I kill anybody off like that.

I have died a thousand deaths. At least.

So I keep bringing stuff up. The same stuff? I don't think so. I think different stuff, or the same stuff, but I hope I'm carried forward, even just a little bit, in bringing up my shit, and hers, and saying, okay, what happened here? What did I do? Who was I being here?

And do I succeed? Well, the funny thing about life is ... that it is a game, and I can keep playing the same game until I win, that is learn from it to play a bigger game with me in my life, or I can keep playing this one. Life doesn't care. Life is life. What's left is my choices, and how I choose to be while choosing them.

So.

So Saga asks me: "What are you going to be writing about me when you leave me?"

Saga's smart, dummy that she is, and she knows me better than I know me.

Because ... because in all my relationships, I was the one who left.

I was the one who left, all of them. They all recognized in me something that they needed, something that they saw in me that they had never seen before in anybody else in their lives, and they clung to me, all of them, so desperately, trying to keep me, even as I was in their arms in bed, they clung so desperately, the desperate women I've left and left and left.

Because I've loved them, but I am not strong, as I try to pretend to be, and I feel ... what? Them pulling me down, or ...

Let's get on with this.

There are the relationships that we parted mutually. We both went into the relationship looking for something, and we both left, satisfied. I'm not talking about those, because ... well, really: those weren't relationships, those were both me and her satisfying our own needs and moving along, even if those needs were for intimacy, or good conversation and companionship, or ... or a good, hard fuck. Or two. Or three. Or more. And tender holdings afterwards, so maybe that's what I was looking for really, and the animal, the panther in me needed to be satiated first, fully tamed, before I would allow myself to hold and to be held?

I don't know. I look in the mirror every day, but I still shy away from most everything I see in my eyes.

And there was one relationship ... well.

Well, Julia left me. Julia was strong enough to get away from me before I dragged her down to my level.

Heh. 'My level.' How low is 'down'? Every time I hit the bottom, the bottom drops out.

So Julia left me, and found happiness. Julia is smart, smart enough to see where her happiness lay ... and where it didn't.

Saga isn't that smart, or doesn't care. And I'm so grateful for that, and so sad for her, clinging to me, cleaving to me, really, even though she sees me better than I do, and, okay is so blind as to see the good in me and ...

Okay, getting carried away here.

So Saga's not going to leave me, and she does see the trail of skeletons in my wake, and has read my stuff, and she is clairvoyant in that she can connect the dots and can look, clearly and with a level head, into the future.

And still hope for today.

So this is what I write, Saga, about my exes. This is what I write about you.

I am a writer: I write what I write. I see what I see.

And what I see is this: human beings, flawed, striving human beings, so desperate, so hopeful. So loving, so spiteful.

So, you've seen me love a person you've all hated: Traci. Now, what do I have to say about ... Brenda, now.

Brenda.

You know what? Brenda so desperately wanted me, all the time, in our relationship. I don't know what I was to her. I don't know if she does, or even if she asked herself the question. Was I to be her husband that died in the Gulf? Was I to be her daughter that she never had? Both? How did her son feel about this? And she wooed me, and played with me, and touched me and kissed me and held me and held onto me as a woman does: desperately, but despairingly, knowing that she'd have to let me go, someday, when I left her, so she held all the more tightly.

And she taught me the art of spooning, and the strap on. Do you think Julia and I made that discovery in ultra-Puritanical Connecticut? No, it was the college position for us, and I sometimes, now, wonder if the sex wasn't ... fulfilling for her and that's why she left me?

But of course, that really wasn't the issue at all. The issue with Julia was that I was there, but I wasn't there, I was in an intense relationship with myself and my precision and perfection and my failings that instead of reaching out to her for help, I shut her down (by shutting down) and shut her out.

So when Brenda, sweet, motherly Brenda, attached the straps to me ("This is weird," I thought) and eased me into the bed with her and put me behind her and slid the dildo I was wearing into her, I was like, what is going on here?

I felt dislocated, confused. Was I supposed to be a man? Was I ... I don't know but then she wrapped my arms around her and she put my hand over her tummy, pressing her hand into mine into her, and she asked, "Do you feel that?"

And I did.

And she said, "That's you, filling me."

And suddenly, it wasn't a belt with a foreign object attached, it was me. It was me, and I was in her. And I started thrusting, much harder, and she moaned, and cried out and begged me to fuck her, her pressing her hand into mine into her, and she came rather quickly after that, and I ...

And I became possessed, needing to fill her, needing to pleasure her, and I took her, and then I came, o, God, did I cum when I was pounding on top of her now, her legs locking me into her as I thrust with my strength, wanting to, no: being in her.

And afterwards, she held me, and caressed me, and cooed over me, as I panted, a girl-child-man, on top of her, and she rolled me off to her side, and said, "Sleep now, sweetheart; I will hold you." And she held me, me still in her, and I could even feel her squeezing me? Is that possible? I felt it.

And I didn't have the courage to ask if I could suckle at her breast. I didn't have the courage to ask myself that I could ask her. I was so lost from my loss of Julia, and so lost in what I was to Brenda, I didn't have ...

I didn't have the strength to know who or what I was, even just for myself, or to be okay that I could be Brenda's baby, suckling at her breast, and let her love me, with motherly love, and hold me to her breast, and hold the whole world at bay as she held me, her baby.

How could I be her baby daughter, when I was just now her 'husband'?

And you know what, `phfina?

No, ... what, `pfhina?

Maybe that was exactly what she wanted, and she was too shy to offer herself to me that way, too? But maybe if I had asked, maybe she would have gladly surrendered, offering herself that way, and held me to her, and maybe she would have cum again, so hard, with my lips latched onto her breast and my fingers playing, probing, plunging into her pussy that she might have screamed instead of moaning and whispering, "Oh, God!" as I pounded into her with the strap-on?

Or maybe not. Maybe she would have said, "Melissa! That's too weird! What would my best friend, your mother, say if she found out I was nursing you!"

As if me fucking her with a strap-on was ... okay?

I don't know.

I do know this. All that. And all I have written.

And.

And she took me in. She took heart-broken me, and yes, she took something for herself and her needs from all this, yes, she doggedly and determinedly seduced (very not unwilling) me, but she did take me in, and loved me, and cared for me, when ...

When nobody else did. And she cooked me meals, and she took me to a JazzFest, and she waited for me over a cooling supper and then when I walked in, two hours late, she wasn't (too) angry, but when finding my car ran out of gas miles away, got her gas can, drove me to my car, and we drove back to her place, and she took me in her arms. And she held me, as long as I let her hold me, for days and weeks, and when I left her, she let me go, and ... wrote, and looked for me, and that freaked me out, so I ran hard, changing names and States, and her last note was a sad, 'I hope you are happy and in a loving relationship' delivered right to the sbux where I was working, under a pseudonym. She could have walked right in, I suppose, but she didn't.

Brenda wanted to love, and be loved in return.

When she found this little girl, this broken little girl, she loved me, with all her might and all her strength and all her heart, and she held me, so tenderly, just reveling in it, savoring each moment we were together: me in her arms, and in her, her, holding me, feeling my weight press down on her, my sweat mingling with hers, my breath lifting her arm up and down, like a ship riding the waves on the ocean.

Brenda was too much for me. Brenda was too good for me. She gave me all of her, she took what she could from me, what I could give, and was happy with that and the moments we had together.

Saga, what will I write about you, when I've left you?

I'm not as clearsighted as you? Nor as ... practical about life? Or the present? Or me? I can't see that future.

So, let's pretend. Let's pretend this is that future.

Saga, I love you. I treasure the moments we had together. I savor them. I remember them. I remember you and how good you were to me, and I wish I could have been a person that was good enough to make the world and its concerns not matter and never matter, but I'm not good enough for that, or for me to be worthy enough to be good enough for you.

Saga, I'm sorry I was not ... Saga, I'm sorry. I love you and I want you to be happy.

Do you see how irrelevant the future is? Do you see the now is all we have in what I say to you in that pretend future, of what I say to you now?

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

e.e. cummings

&mdash `phfina commentary:

I put the analysis before the poem. I hope you don't mind.

Women

The subject of this post may not surprise you, but its contents may.

Or maybe nothing I do surprises. I'm a human being, after all, so I'm predicable, and predictably so.

Maybe.

So: women. God, I love women. I love to bitch about them, I love to cuddle with them, I love to check them out, I love to check them ... in (over and over and over again), I love to ...

`phfina: mind the PG rating of your entries!

Yes'm.

Anyway, this post is supposed to be unpredictable, right? Not predicable, you horn-doggie!

Yes'm.

Anyway. A while back I wrote about toxic psycho bitches, remember? How could you forget ... unless you thought that post wasn't about you, that is, and then you instantly forgot about it and went on with your life full of giving and charitable good works.

You know, I was being sarcastic, just then, but I actually do know people like that. And I actually have real examples of women who lives are foils to the toxic psycho bitch archetype.

And that's what's this post is about.

It's about women, the many and various ones I know and the many and various ones that I don't. And the ones you know, too. Stop and think about them with me.

Clothes interlude

Okay, but seriously: why do people wear clothes?

Have you ever thought that thought? No, you haven't. You get up every morning, and I'm willing to lay bad money on the table that you do not think: oh, should I wear clothes today?

No, you don't think that thought, ever! What you think is, "What should I wear today?" "I don't have a thing to wear!" you lament as you look into your overstuffed-to-the-gills closet. And then you choose jeans (C'mon, cut me some slack, maybe some of you are like me and Bella Swan!) or you choose a skirt, knee length? just covering the knees? just above the knees? a leather micro-mini? A demin ankle-length one? And then your blouse over your undergarments (don't make me go there, the list and variety is too long, and then it turns my thoughts prurient as I envision what I will do to those undergarments ... to get to what is under those garments ... and then I'll have to excuse myself and this post will never get finished ... so, yeah).

So you never even think: "Should I wear clothes today?" No, you just wear them, and your thoughts are along the lines of what to wear; what statement you are making with them. And you know why you never think that thought?

Because you were born on the planet Earth.

I thought that thought. Two days ago, it was blisteringly hot, and everybody was just so beautiful, wearing their clothes, and I was like: why?

And then I realized what I was doing. I realized, I'm thinking a thought nobody else in the world would think.

And I know why I do that. I've been told. I'm not of this world. I don't belong in it nor do I belong to it. I am a selkie.

And I felt so alone then, again.

Alice

You know Alice visited me, when I was working at the sbux. I had to clean the little girls' room, and she came in and ...

... well, that was after Rosalie had just cum in ... me.

Yeah.

It gets really crowded wherever I am.

Well, anyway, Alice had come in and helped me clean up the splatter poo that some little girl had left and some mommy was perhaps a bit too squeamish to clean up after, but do people ever think 'the help' might be a bit turned off, cleaning up their explosive poo? No.

Anyway, Alice got to talking to me, you know: a voice of reason and reasonableness ...

... not that I need it; I'm just fine thanks. And as we were talking, I realized some things about her; about Alice.

She's not of this world, either. She always has to keep away from the crowd and the throng, but unlike me, that's exactly where she wants to be, right in the middle of the party and excitement, but she can't go there: she's just too alien, and would draw attention, yes, but the wrong kind of attention that leads to fear, to panic, and to the mob.

So fun-loving Alice has to stay aloof. And at home? With staid Jasper? Sneering Edward? (let's face it:) Bitch-queen Rosalie?

The Cullen family: they are a fun-loving party-hardy group, aren't they?

So that's Alice's world. She revels in the excitement, but all she can do is stand off and observe it from a distance.

Rebecca

There's this woman in group; her name's Rebecca. When she walks into a room, she owns it. Full-length red dress, conservative, tasteful heels, purse worth more than my ... well, name anything of mine, a crown of golden flowing blond hair, commanding, flashing blue eyes, patrician features. Rosalie? No, not at all. Company CEO? You bet. In fact, she goes into companies and cleans house. With a broom.

And she's in group.

So we were talking one day about her family, her hippy husband and her lay-about kids and just how frustrating it is that she has to be the one all the time to make sure everything's right and if it's not who gets blamed for not bringing the kids' swimming goggles?

Is she type A, you wonder? You needn't.

So in our conversation about this ... (we have 'conversations' in group) she realized something:

"I'm being a bitch to my family, aren't I?"

I said not just a bitch.

"I'm being a fucking bitch?"

I smiled at that.

And then she broke into this huge smile and said, "Wow!"

And she saw herself in her family and what impact she had on them.

I don't know anybody who could say 'I'm being a fucking bitch' and get so empowered by that statement that their whole life changes in that one moment ... that is, until I was sitting across from Rebecca, being there with her.

Beki

Then there's my sister Beki ...

there's actually every woman in my family.

You see, the men in the family are just so powerful creatures that everything around them is just blown away, and the women?

The men are strong, but the women are strength. Every one of them, mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins. Maybe it's a New England thing, but there's this unshakable strength in them, this sense of purpose that is, ... well, for me, frankly terrifying.

Beki was sitting with my niece Elena, and Elena was recounting one of her art projects where she had 'spilled paint all over the floor.' Beki queried this, 'all over the floor? so the entire floor was blue?' and Elena said, 'Well, ...' and was backed into a corner of admitting that she just spilled a drop or two which she cleaned.

But I watched this, watched my sister crush my niece, and hers, with her precision and ...

And I just wanted to go up to my sister and scream in her face. She was crushing the will and joy of a child, and for what purpose? to be right? to be correct?

Why?

And all I have to do is look into the mirror, and see what I do to everybody around me, and for what purpose? to be right?

I remember watching a movie where a palm reader was at a party and she told the hostess, so frustrated that everything at the party was not going according to plan or by the schedule and the seer said, 'well, you can either be right or be happy ...'

The woman didn't hear a word, of course, ... the soufflé had to come out of the oven just then, you see.

As the party came to a close, the hostess asked for her fortune be told to her, too.

The seer said: 'Oh, I thought I already gave you your fortune,' and left with a cryptic smile.

Beki, me, Lynda, Aunt Ronalee, Aunt Rolene, Aunt Roberta, Mom, Nana ... we can either be right, or we can be happy.

But ... well, we do have it hard. So hard. Pepe killed himself, and my uncles, two of them dying before Nana ... Nana watching her children die in front of her, and that killed her. And, well, the men are hard men, having to be right, no matter the cost, having to be happy, no matter the cost to the people around them; wanting both, getting neither.

And so Beki ... me ... we have to be so, so strong, her by being right, me, too, and me by running from anything and everyone that I ran away from my family, even ... putting hundreds of miles between them and me.

But you can't leave home; home is always there, waiting, and is always here in your heart. Even if you don't want it there.

We cling to something: strength, or rightness, just to be able to hold on, and it comes out on you or on a little girl telling a story, or our spouses or girl friends.

Toxic psycho bitches? I don't have to look far to find one.

And that's why a connection to you is such a life line, because you reach out, even when you are sick or tired or sick and tired, and you send me a note to ask me how I am doing.

And everybody is capable of charity, sometimes you have to look to see it, though.

Like, for example:

Traci

Boy, did I get some hate mail when I wrote why I left sbux and it was all directed toward Traci and what you were going to do to her if the two of you ever met.

I don't feel that way. I mean, let's look at what she did dispassionately. And maybe you're angry because you recognize yourself in her?

After all: you find out something so incredible about somebody you know, don't you just run to your confidants and blab?

"Hey, you know that thin sickly looking girl who works at the sbux? She's like this really sicko lezzy writer or something, omg! Check out her blog, isn't she like totally the psycho?"

No, you say, you would never do that?

Oh, really? You want to see your PMs to me where you blab about everybody around you, your coworkers, your patients, your girl friends, your siblings and parents, I mean anybody in your life you dump every vicious feeling you have about them not even thinking for one second what life must be like for them.

So let's take one second and think what life actually is for Traci in that moment.

What did she actually do?

I got shit-faced drunk, for which she treated me, and she took the keys from my hand, and drove me home, and put me into bed and didn't take advantage of me, even though I was, like actively, desperately, soliciting she do just that.

Would you have done that for me, a date that snapped? Or would you have excused yourself to the bathroom to make a quick and clean getaway? And let the chips fall where they may, that is: have the police pick me up and charge me and have me cool off in the tank and require me to post bail?

On the other hand, would you have said, 'She's so drunk, she's won't know tomorrow what I'm going to be doing with her tonight ... besides, she's begging, practically forcing herself on me, so I may as well ...'

What did Traci do that was reprehensible? She saw something, found out about it, just like Bella Swan did, then confronted me with it, and, okay, I freaked, but how could she expect that from me when you couldn't get a 'boo' out of me for ... how long we've been working together? Months? More than a year?

I argue that hero of that story actually is Traci. Oh, ... everybody hated Rosalie in the Twilight books, until somebody (bb) asked: 'What did she actually do? Is what she's saying accurate? prudent?' And then everybody's like, 'oh, yeah, everything she said was right, and nobody listened to her.' Traci is no Rosalie, because she's Traci, but I don't think she rates the death sentence for driving an out-of-it girl home and putting her to bed.

Emily

Dickinson, that is.

Here's what she wrote:

There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

She wrote that for her little brother, who wasn't little any more, but imagine if she wrote that for you ... for me, the little honey bee, flitting about her garden, suckling the nectar from her rose bushes.

Um ... I have to ... um, take care of something.

Did Emily have beaux? She was a 'recluse' whose poetry is now carved into stones in parks, and whose house is enshrined. She built high walls and if a visitor came, she would literally run and hide somewhere.

Sounds familiar, `phfina?

But her poetry shaped the literature of a nascent nation that the Old World viewed as a savage land populated by a barbarous race.

(Go ahead, it's okay to admit to yourself that you view that statement as accurate now)

Emily Dickinson ... have you seen a photograph of her? I have. I almost fainted when I saw my scared, timid eyes looking back at me.

And out of the flighty hands came words that every school child must read, and because why? because she's a school marm?

No. Go back and read her poetry ... because she dared to look into herself and write and expose her heart to the whole world.

But I am not Emily Dickinson.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Daphne

Why do you follow me?—
Any moment I can be
Nothing but a laurel-tree.

Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.

Yet if over hill and hollow
Still it is your will to follow,
I am off;—to heel, Apollo!

Vincent ... she, okay, she lived her life like she was some Norse Goddess and life was the horn holding that elixir of sweet nectar.

And then ...

Well, and she wrote poetry, and she didn't just write poetry, she wrote poetry that earned her the Pulitzer prize: the first one ever awarded to a woman. She wrote poetry so honest, so unvarnished, so bald, so bold that she made the equivalent of $300,000 each year of her life off of it.

Um, what?

For that kind of money, ... well, maybe I could ...

Nah ... you know what my poetry looks like, but if I were to follow form, all I could come up with always starts with:

"There once as a girl from Nantucket ..."

And then the next line, I always get stuck ('stuck-it'?) on one word the rhymes, but do you write poems with that word in it? No. And then I never get to the dénoument, either ...

That's me, stuck-it, fuck-it `phfina.

Some poetess I would make.

Besides which, I read Vincent's ("Ballad of the Harp-Weaver"? Please! How could I write something like that?) and 'Uncle Emily' and Sappho and ... okay, no. Just no.

Well, Vincent's life took a turn for the worse, she lived her life to its fullest and then she was used, spent. She died, soon after her husband had, drunk, despairing, falling down some steps.

I look at steps, looking at them, as they eye me, hungrily, and wonder if their teeth will be gentle as they chew me up (or actually: down), and I wonder if I will taste sweet to them.

Jo March/Louisa May Alcott

So Jo wrote not stories about vampires and fairies and monsters.

No: she wrote p.r.0.n. for women's magazines. And then her professor husband asked, 'Ist das zhe best dat you gott?'

And it wasn't. Little Women was. So she said she would try.

So she tried.

Is this the best that I've got?

I'm no Jo March. I'm no Vincent, nor Uncle Emily, nor Rebecca, nor Beki, nor Traci, nor you.

Nor anybody.

I'm just me.

I don't even belong to this world. I don't even belong in it.

And I wonder sometimes, ... what if that was the best that I got? What if my best came and went, and all you can do is read what I've written, because when you ask: "Is that all you got?" so fiercely, daring me to step up my game, and deliver that next chapter you know, you hope will impress you this time, or again, ...

... and all I can answer is, weakly: 'Yes, that was all I had.'

"There once was a girl from Nantucket,
Who looked at her writing; said: 'fuck it!'
She flew down some stairs
With the wind in her hair
Her end: bloody bits in a bucket."

Sensible girl

BWA-HAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, okay, are you done laughing so I may explain myself?

You sure do love explaining yourself, don't you, `phfina?

Yes, I do.

So, I'm a sensible girl ...

BWA-HAHAHAHA!

*ahem!* Are you done, Miss Muse?

...

Good.

So, of course, by sensible, I mean 'of the senses.' Just as Marianne scolded Elinor to be 'sensible' when Elinor was talking pragmatic common sense. No, Marianne wanted her older sister to give herself over to her heart, to her senses, and let go of practicality and reason.

So, as I was saying, I'm a sensible girl.

So I went to the mall yesterday. Watched Thor.

I have a confession to make.

You always have a confession to make, don't you?

Yes.

I'm a bit of a fan-girl. Put anything into my hands, and I'll read it. So my dad collects things, and he had bb's entire comics collection, and guess who went through all the comics as a little girl.

Yup.

And I loved me some Thor.

You've got to admit ... the homoerotism? Big guy with a hammer shaped like a limp ... you know, goes around wrestling other big guys (called: 'giants') instead of hanging out with his wifey names Sif, and his mother named ... get this: Frigg, and in the end fights a very long ... snake ... with his ... 'hammer' ... and they both 'die' ... together ... at the same time.

'Die' in the olden days meant ... you know ... the word meaning the opposite of 'to go.' You know?

So I loved me some Thor, and read all of that. And then I found another set of boxes of magazine.

Oh. my. God.

Dad could sent up a museum to showcase his vintage collection. I preferred me the p.e.n.t.-'home' ones instead of the p.l.a.y.boi ones, 'cause there were more action scenes, you know? I didn't much like the guy's ... um, you know.

I was like 'ew!' and why is he slobbering over that girl like that?

But when I saw two girls together I was like ... um, I was like ...

And then I had a serious case of boob envy. I wondered, when I grew up, if I would have boobs like that. Full, firm, perky, just, you know, out there! And I couldn't wait to grow up, you know?

Well, I guess I haven't grown up yet, you know?

*sigh*

Crushing

So I saw Thor, and Natalie was like, 'Oh, that's my husband's ... I mean my ex-husband's shirt,' as Thor was prancing around throwing that shirt on. And then she said: 'He was a real jerk; ... Men!'

And I was like, so tempted to shout, 'I got a solution to your men-problem RIGHT HERE Natalie!'

But then I got really embarrassed, like, I could just see them asking me to leave.

Asking me to leave with a police escort, that is. And then the headlines the next day:

"Thirteen Year Old Girl Makes Lesbianotic Pass At Natalie Portman in Movie Theatre;"

with the by-line:

"Conservative Mothers Demand her Burning at the Stake!"

They did do tarring and feathering at the last Tea Party in Boston; I don't doubt they wouldn't get Medieval on my ass at this Tea Party's iteration.

But when Natalie blushed at Thor's gallantry ...

... God, I almost lost it again. She looked so girlish and sweet! I mean ... RAWR! the panther almost got uncaged right then.

Not that I'm not girlish.

I mean, I was at the Mall for the movie, and ... but before then ... I ...

Okay, I went to Victoria's Secret, okay? I was, you know, ... well, I was just browsing okay?

So I snuck in there, and then I was looking at this 'ensemble' (if you could call it that) a turquoise lacy teddy/panty set, and you know I didn't take it off the hanger, but I was just standing in front of the mirrors and I draped them over me, you know, just, you know, to see, just pretending, and ...

Okay, I don't know where she came from, but this sales girl came up behind me and said, 'Your boyfriend will really like you in those, very cute; very sexy!'

And I think I squeaked or I shrieked and said I was looking for a friend and I think I blushed so hard I burned off half the skin on my cheeks, and I think I kinda walked-really-fast or ran to a safe haven...

... which was the book store, of course, and I like, ran to the back of the book store so that nobody, could like, trace a path between the two stores and I, like, grabbed a random book and, like, hid you know? like scrunched right down into one of those cushy chairs they have.

I have no idea what book I was reading for a while, and then I had to go and see Natalie ... I mean Thor. That Kat Dennings was not bad at all either. When she said, 'Does he need CPR, 'cause I totally know CPR,' I was like, well, I'll climb right into that picture and swoon for her anytime.

Gimme some of that CPR-lovin' Kat.

No, I was a good girl.

Was it okay to like the Thor guy? I mean, really! Emmett! you know? Big, strong, stupid, self-assured, kind, very kind, gentlemanly, caring, sweet. More guys should wear red capes, get the crap beat out of them then dish out some oh.my.godery with their big hammers if they are going to be as sweet as that and treating a girl with honor and respect.

I liked Thor.

And poor Loki!

... but look at me, swooning like a fan-girl.

Well, I felt indulgent, so I indulged.

Then I went out today.

Got rained on. And it was hazy, hot and humid, and who was soaked to the bone in her blue jeans, sneaks, and tee?

And you know how your bra gets when it gets soaked?

Yes, you do.

And so it was ... uncomfortable. So, I used the ladies and ... well, ditched it.

Big mistake. Huge.

You know those public transportation busses? That all-too-recently blasted their heaters, because, like, last week it was freezing?

Well, their air conditioning worked really well.

REALLY well.

And there I am, on the bus, and my nips were out there, announcing to the world: 'Will exchange a good, hard fuck for a training bra.'

Yeah, yeah.

And you know how your white cotton tee shirt shrinks when you get it all wet, in the rain? and ...

Okay, so I get sent to the 'pre-teen' sections of stores by helpful sales clerks. 'Oh, are you looking for your mommy?'

So this tee wasn't tight to begin with but ...

Yeah, you get the picture. And so did everybody on the bus. That I saw nobody of, 'cause I was too busy looking, very hard, out the window, praying I didn't get gang-fucked like you see on those pervy Japanese school-girl pornos.

Not that I'd ever watch anything like that but ...

Turned on, you pervs? I'd ask if you're turned on by stick figures, but I don't even rate, so I'd have to say, are you turned on by 'twig figures.'

*sigh*

Any. Way. Yeah, girlish me. I also went into sbux and exchanged my beige puke-colored sbux card that had seen too many swipes at the P.O.S. ('point of sale' ... not the other 'POS' meaning ... sometimes) for a nice red-n-black with hearts one. The girl at the P.O.S. said my new one was much cuter and smiled a cute sbux smile at me. She asked me if I was the 'Grande Soy Latte' but that was the girl behind me.

I wonder if I should be a 'Grande Soy Latte'? As that Asian delight with the short hair bob and stylish black square-rimmed glasses and too short and tight green apron looked just too edible for words, and ...

ANYWAY! TOO many adventures today, so I will bid you Good Night!

Addenda

Addendum 1, re: 'good little wifey and mom'

... yeah, right. If it pleases the court, I submit exhibit a (above), you see how brown that carrot bread is? Do you know how the Jews built the pyramids? They took that solid as a rock, burned to a crisp carrot bread and stacked one on top of each other until, voilà (or 'Violet'): pyramids.

And all I said to myself was: 'Oh, I'll just lie down here for a minute, and just rest my eyes ...'

... four hours later ... is that something burning?

You know, in Arabic tradition, the first thing the new bride does is make bread in the tandoor for her mother-in-law. It has to be perfect: not to doughy, not burnt. I saw a picture of one young girl crying because just one minute of inattention had the bread singed. Perfect start of the marriage there, eh? with the mother always saying, 'Oh, yes, I remember that time little Fatima burnt the bread ...' with a very stern and scolding look.

Addendum 2, re: fox supple.

Okay, okay, quit twisting my fallen-off arms, okay? So, I went back and revisited the soufflé recipe — the 'real vrai egg soufflé' recipe — and how could I not, with Saga saying, scoldingly, 'oh, but I'll try the real soufflé recipe, not your fakey one' (she didn't actually say that) and the French brigade and gendarmes battering through my door ("Oh, heresy! Sacrilege! Sacre Bleu! [whatever that means ...] You must try the vrai true recipe for the fun and joy of seeing if the soufflé stands!") (I do not know what fun it is to have your arms fall off, but whatevs ...) and this time, using a wisk, and much stronger, more exercised arms, and a wee bit more experience, it came off rather quickly, and yes, it was light and airy ... effervescent, even, unlike my quick faux substitute.

Still took an hour.

But it was yummy.

Anyway. You choose.

Addendum 3, re: 'Whatever that book was'

That book was a graphic novel. This guy wrote about boring stuff like vampires and stuff, and his friend/editor said: 'Meh.' and 'Blä.' and 'Write from your heart! Write from your soul! Don't give me this garbage!'

So he wrote and drew a graphic novel, about a girl, 24 years old, with terminal breast cancer.

And it's heartbreaking, poetic, beautiful ... as she's dying in the cancer ward, no hair, wasting away, she ...

Well, research it and read it. I won't describe any more to you. But he wrote about hope, you see, even in dying, even in death, he wrote about hope.

I think I see part of what my 'writer's block' is about.

...

I have so much else to write, and to say, but I'm off to a wake. A friend of the family died.

Hm. I wonder what will be said when I will die? 'A friend of the family died.' Probably not. I need friends for that to be said.

I'm not fishing, btw, so don't bother.

You know: update soon and all that. All we have is now; that's all you're given. You can't expect anything from me, like updating soon or finishing a story or responding to a PM, and I can't either. I mean, I try and I'll try, but one day soon ... well, all you'll see is that I haven't updated in a while. That's all. I appeared for a short time, wrote some things, and, like Violet, I'll just be gone, is all.

I'm sad, for some reason.

I love you all.

Taking it personally

You walked into the party
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror
As you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

Carly Simon, "You're So Vain" 1973

— `phfina commentary:

You know, I get this all the time. From a goodly number of you, too: "Why are you writing about me in your entries?"

Okay, so you are ready for the one-two sucker punch, right?

Honey, you think this entry is about you, don't you? And you take it so, so personally, don't you? Oh, yes, you do. I know. I smart — still! — at some of the very sharp words I have received about things I have put up about ... "you."

Well, there's several things in that above statement (sez `phfina, wearing her professor tweed blouse) and the first thing that strikes me is, well, how else would you take it?

I mean, really, there's a couple of ways to deal with things, one of them is to be cool as a cucumber about it. "Well," sez you, "that's your point of view, and that's all very well and good, but it really doesn't apply to me. I don't take it personally, and nor should you, when I say the things I so coolly say. I have other concerns, you know, so I don't have the time, really, to engage with you."

You know what I have to say to that.

Well, I could be all impersonal, and say, "Well, fine, and have a great day."

Do you see me wearing that hat? Well, besides all day, that is: "Enjoy your beverage!"

My other response is screamed: "Well, fuck you!"

Some of you have faced that, I guess.

Look. Cool? Me? I was just accused of being 'not cool' ... and I'm like ... have I ever been accused of being 'cool'? And if I have, I would rip your face off.

"Oh, `phfina, you're so cool!"

Excuse me? Excuse me?

I BURN ... okay? I'm burning up, and I DON'T be all like: 'well, there's nothing personal.'

Because why?

Because GUESS WHAT!

It IS personal. Somebody said something to you and you were affected by it, and if you WEREN'T ... well, then go to the hospital, and get your pulse checked 'cause you just may be dead, okay?

"Don't take it personally"? Well, how the fuck else am I supposed to take it?

Excuse me, but if you're forgetting, but I'm a person here, and — newsflash — so are you!

And you just said something to me, and, yes, guess what? I took it personally, and just because you can use everybody else as a doormat, saying that sh!t to them, I am not going to let your shit fly with me, got it?

Like bullying. Like I am now.

*sigh*

Cool as a cucumber? Well, you don't look like a cucumber to me, but if that's the way you want to live your life ... as a cucumber, and not as a person ... then I say: have at it. I won't be able to stop you.

But I grieve, though. I do.

So ...

hm-hm-hm.

So some of you ... a lot of you ... read my posts, and are like, 'well, that's ... interesting.'

(how I detest that word. A cop-out word. A word that commits nothing of the sayer, ... just makes them think that it makes them look intelligent)

... And what do they get from that? Being cool as a cucumber?

What does anybody get from being cool ... instead of being committed?

But some of you go the opposite way, and go all `phfina on me.

Like, okay. I write in 'update soon' that not coming out to your mother is a cop-out, and who took it personally? (edited) And she was furious with me. Furious.

Did I write that post about (edited)?

Like, okay. I write in 'bad news, you win,' how you push around somebody you can own, bullying them until you suck the life out of them, and (edited) got it in her head that I wrote that post about her.

Did I write that post about (edited)?

But what did these girls get out of taking it all `phfina-y?

They got really, really pissed. At me. And took it out. On me.

And that hurt. 'Cause I didn't write those posts about them.

But then they did something. Then they looked in the mirror, and saw where those posts did apply to them, in their lives, and what did they do?

Well, they looked at were they were doing this, and they got to work on themselves. And the rewards, for themselves, on recognizing in themselves something that they didn't see before about themselves, and didn't like, and seeing it, and not liking it, going to work on it now, instead of just automatically lashing out, hurting people ...?

Well, have I given away too much? But when you see something in yourself, that somebody else points out, so rudely, so harshly, with so much love in their heart for you?

(Because otherwise, why would I bother? If I don't love you, why put up with all this pain and hurt of saying these painful and hurtful things?)

New worlds have opened up for them. For them. Plural.

I have opened up new worlds, for at least four girls ... because they took what I wrote ... personally.

And I didn't even write it for them.

Who did I write it for?

Who is the one girl who hasn't benefited from all that I've written, who, writing these words, instead of getting better, shoveling her way out of her shit, just digs deeper and deeper into the morass, finding more and more shit she has to own up to, but instead of getting better, just gets worse and worse and worse.

Who, when asked, 'how are you?' answers, 'I'm fine.'

But who really is in a place where she knows if she says, 'I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself. I want to die.'

Well, that raises all sorts of issues, problems, that have to be dealt with, but people just don't leave her alone with the 'I'm fine' answer but demand, 'No, really, how are you?'

But we've covered that ground before.

All this stuff I write, you take so personally, and I have to say ...

I'm so proud of you.

I'm so proud of you, taking on yourself and your life. You may think 'you're so vain' for thinking this post is about you. But I have an entirely different view on the matter.

You are so brave, reading yourself in this post. Daring to take yourself on. Being. Living. Daring to be and to live and to face yourself and revel in the things you like about yourself, and be pissed off about the things you hate, and then taking those things on.

When you read a post of mine, and say, 'well, that was interesting ...' look out. Look to your life, because I think you're not living it, if you're merely existing in a smug sense of self-satisfaction. But when you read my post, and you get so, so pissed off at me ...

Well, I could ask you to be gentle with me, the little hypocrite that I am, hitting you so hard with my sucker punches but then hiding under the covers the second you cut loose at me, screaming like a banshee for singing your life with my song.

... and that's me: so cutting, so insightful, so scared of her own shadow, that when somebody wants to put my name on a brochure that lands them millions of euros, all I can think of is people seeing my name, and I get sick, physically ill, just thinking of that.

... and that's not you. You aren't me. Thank God. You've dared to read my stuff, and to cry, or to cum, or ... even to dare to post a review! (Oh, the terror!) Or even dare to tell one of my friends you like reading my stuff (but not dare to say peep to me, God damn it) ('cause you know I'll tear you a new one) (but then you're shocked — shocked, I say — to find out that sometimes (okay, sometimes) I can be sweet, you know).

But what have I dared. Well, today I dared to go out to a museum. Wow. Hooray. Stop the presses. And that's about all I could muster. I mean, I liked it and all. Didn't like Paris. I was like: "City. Ick. People. Scary." Yearned for a forest in the countryside, but here I am, in the metro D.C. area, with all the city-life conveniences, so who am I fooling. I'm not a eel catcher in the forest of Fontainebleau. I'm not an Alsatian girl with a pretty little hat (she did look rather Irish to me. But what do I know?)

And going through the city, I kept my head held high. But all those people. No. Not people. Families. There where tons of them. Families. Mommies and Daddies and babies and children. And it was nice. But it bore down on me. It wore me down. I just ... wherever I looked, I was like, there is something I'm not, and never will be. All those families, so happy together.

And what am I? And what am I?

And know, being what I am, which is nothing, I just draw further and further into my shell, and that hurts you. You wonder how I am, ... but knowing full well that I am not well. So now I have people who care about me, and it hurts them that I'm hurting.

But when I was out, and writing, and getting so much attention, most of it good, but the bad was really bad. Really bad.

'cause I take it personally, your callousness, and your anger, and your righteousness. It's your shit, but I'm the one who gets shit on, for daring to say what she sees. And — oh! — you have made it abundantly clear to me how much you don't like being told things you don't like to hear about yourself.

So I thought writing would ... you know, ... be cathartic, you know? And let me release all this stuff that is tying me down to the past, so I could cut myself free of my suffering and float away into blissful nirvana of living my perfect, perfect life.

But ... look at me now.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones ..."

I'm this little stick. This little reed. And I so wanted to be solid like a stone.

But I ... my body's burning up. I ...

I set out writing, and I ... well, you see this great whatever ... and I'm wasting away into nothing. All these words I've written haven't helped me any at all, they've only made me worse.

And what's worse-worse is that you've subscribed. You've read my stuff and now you care about me. So my hurting now not only hurts myself, but now you hurt a bit, seeing me shrinking into myself. I can't have a good sulk and die all to myself, oh no! I hurt you now, with my silence and sadness.

Would I have written word one, seeing me now?

No.

This hasn't been pretty. This hasn't been pretty for me at all. And I can mirror-time all I want, but I know in my heart of hearts that it's all a big lie. All just another attempt to try to believe in hope when I see that I'm just trying to reach up from the darkness of this pit of despair, when I jolly well know this is my eternal consignment, so the reaching, grasping just shows the glimmer of light for one second before I'm re-immersed in darkness, making it all the more bitter for me, my fate.

If I hadn't written, I wouldn't have all this love and care from you. I wouldn't have you to hurt.

And I can't even manage hurting just myself. It hurts too much.

Hurting you? Seeing you rise above yourself, but then, you turn, having made it, and reach back for me? to pull me up and out?

I think: how sad. You are living the impossible dream. And I beg you to cut the chord. To move on. You've saved yourselves, ... please don't wreck your lives going back into the mire to rescue a lost cause.

I wish ...

I wish you were smart enough to see the reality of it. To take your earnings and to cut your losses (me, that is).

I wish God had answered my prayer a couple of years ago, and spared you, and spared me, all of this that is me.

But I can't go back, and I can't go home.

I can only go forward into tomorrow, until it's today. Again.

Or ... not.

I'm going to bed now. Good night.