Legal Drinking Age

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

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

Right after high school.

How old is Lauren?

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

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

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

They do, right? They have to.

Right?

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

"I'm not old enough to drink."

Uh, huh. Okay.

Hm, hm, hm.

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

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

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

... except mine.

I'm not bitter. *Sigh*

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

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

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

See?

The world is a simple, simple place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But they can attack (successfully) your justifications.

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

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

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

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

"I can't see myself as being."

is a very different assertion than

"I refuse to see myself as being."

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

"But how can I be like that?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Understanding" the Poetic Saga

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

So, here we go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rosalie and Lauren ... and Jess

So, I was asked this.

How easy is it to get into the minds of your characters, `phfina, then to step back out?

I don't get it. Or you don't.

Or something.

See, I don't get into the minds of my characters, then get out. I think ... I think a lot of writing is exactly that, however.

"Oh, Bella needs to fall down some steps, then Edward needs to say, 'Silly Bella' and dazzle her, so they can fuck and I can get my rocks off writing that and rereading it, and then I can get 10k+ reviews."

Right? Well, not exactly like that, but that's what you read, story after story. Bella has to go to the Lakota store, so the Native there has to hand here the one and only book in the entire book store that says "Edward (or Alice) is a Vampire, so tell them and make passionate Bella-squeaks when you get it on."

How many stories have you read that? People do just off-the-wall things because the plot has to move forward and because it's Bella, so she has to know, although this is the first time these two are ever meeting.

I don't read fanfiction fics anymore, not even the good ones, not even the ones rec'd to me. Not even yours, because you want me to.

Because they're filled with that, things (bad things) happen to Bella, because things (bad things) happen to you, and you take it out on her, but she, somehow stupidly, makes it in the end, because she's Bella, and if things turn out okay for her, they'll turn out okay for you. You know what I mean. You read it all the time: stories with bad things like Bella cutting herself because you, dear authoresse, hate yourself so much you have to hurt yourself to breathe, or daddy Charlie rapes Bella because your dad raped you. Or ... winner! Edward rapes Bella, forces her to have an abortion to save her life, and she's hopelessly in love with him, because he treats her like shit, rapes her and makes her have an abortion she didn't want, because Edward knows best and is a whole lot smarter than stupid, clumsy you, I mean, Bella, and if she doesn't love him, he'll leave her, and that would be bad, for some reason.

See, you can read my stuff and see all that in there, yes?

Or no?

Why is my stuff, where bad things happen to the characters ... why is my stuff compelling? Is it compelling for you in the same way that you can't take your eyes off the people going into the ambulances that happened at that three-car pile-up you passed today?

Or, is it compelling to you because you're going through the same shit I'm going through, but instead of me saying 'oh, this bad thing happened, but it's okay, because it'll turn out well in the end, because it's Bella.'

I write instead, 'this shit happened, and now Bella has to deal with it.'

This shit happened, and now Bella has to deal with it.

This shit is happening, and now I have to deal with it, because I'm writing about it, and I'm crying like the little baby I am, and that's all I can do to deal with it, write about it, and cry.

But I'm not writing about it where it's going to be okay, because it isn't okay. Bella's dealing with real issues and she's really hurting.

And you're dealing with real issues, and you're really hurting.

Or you're not dealing with real issues, and you're really hurting, but you see Bella dealing with it, as best as she can, and she sucks at dealing with her issues, but she's trying.

And if Bella can try, maybe you can try. And maybe I can, too.

That's a rather long route for me to say what's the appeal of my writing. Ick.

But, so, if I don't push my characters around in the plot, then what am I doing?

Having a conversation with them? Having them drive the plot?

Nope, not really.

Here's what I'm doing. Here's the secret to my writing.

I am my characters. Every single one of them that show up on the page, I am them.

I am fucking Lauren.

See, nobody understands Lauren because nobody wants to think of themselves as her. She's the bk, the bad kid, and if you think of yourself as her, you're a bk. And you can't possibly be a bk.

I'm Lauren.

I so didn't want to write this chapter, because I never 'got into the mind' of Lauren. I didn't want to. I don't want to bring up all her shit and now that I have, I have to deal with it.

You don't. You don't write Lauren fics, you don't read them. Too much shit in them for you to 'deal' with, so why bother?

Except for the little fact that you have too much shit in your life you have to deal with, and you don't want to bother with it. You just want to leave it on the floor and have somebody else: your mom, your friends, me, deal with it, and say you're 'fine' and that you 'don't want to talk about it, because it's private.'

And you go on sticking that knife in the back of your mom and your friends and me in everything you say and do, because you have all that undealt-with shit in your life, and you think you can push the people around in your life like you push around Bella in the fics that you read and write.

You are Lauren.

I am Lauren. The difference is: I acknowledge it and now I have to deal with it.

You don't, so you don't have to deal with that dirty little shit that you are ... just everybody else does in your life.

"You don't know what you're talking about, `phfina."

Yeah, whatever. And nor does your therapist, even though there's over one-hundred years of studies into your fucked-up psyche, but you know better about you, because you're you, and all those psych-os are old fogey-pervs.

Whatever. Keep at it, Lauren.

But, okay, that's not very empowering to you, the one or two people (still?) reading this. What is?

Rosalie is Lauren.

Everything, pretty much, that Lauren has gone through, Rosalie has gone through.

But what's the difference? None, really, Lauren's hurting, Rosalie's hurting.

It's just perspective and what they do with their past. They are both living in their past, it's just that Lauren uses her past to hurt other people, because she's hurting.

Rosalie uses her past to fuck-all everybody else, and do what she wants (just like Lauren, by the way), but Rosalie is functioning, in her fucked-up-ed-ness, whereas Lauren is frozen in it.

I'm fucked up, you're fucked up, we can either function or freeze. Our choice. We can either lash out and say "I'm dealing with some shit here, leave me alone in my misery" or we can comfort.

And we can comfort codependently ("Love me because I'm crying and holding you") or freely.

There are so many layers to living. You can be hurting and hurt people from that hurt, or be hurting and help, but then be all weird about it, or be hurting and help and really make a different in somebody else's life.

That's the measure. Not how you're dealing with your shit. Everybody has their own shit, but some people actually are like, wow, I want to be with them! I want to be like them! They are so nice, genuine, friendly, helpful, sweet, loving, caring ...

And they, being all that, still have to get through their day, every day, same as you and me.

And they do.

Just (un)like Rosalie, just (un)like Bella, just so unlike Lauren.

But Rosalie and Bella and even Lauren try to make it through their day. They have alternatives: they can check out, big-time, or they can check out of the conversation, but they can also try to make it through the day.

So, in that regard, Rosalie, Bella, and even Lauren deserve a measure of respect from me.

I have to treat them as persons, with thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears, and so when somebody says or does something, it affects them. Don't you see that?

When you say or do something, it affects the people in your life.

Try that on for size.

Now, ...

The real surprise for me is Jess.

Because I so ...

There's one in every school, isn't there? There was one in my school, which may or may not have been Tolland High where I may, or most definitely was not, a cheerleader.

Just like Bella. eheh. ;)

But, so I just so dismiss the Jess's in my life. Fucking thoughtless ditzes, laughing at everything, popular, and so not deserving it. I work for my grades, I don't sell out my feelings, my emotions, my opinions, my ... body just because I want to be liked.

But I did.

I so want to be liked, and I so sell-out, by checking out, when I'm not liked, and when somebody likes me, I so...

Sell myself.

I would do anything, with anybody, when they like me. You know that feeling, being liked? And you know what you're willing to do to keep them liking you, and not to be alone?

Anything. Right? Anything.

And, yes, I mean anything, and yes, you can read all about it in my blog, my useless, wasted, empty life in my blog, if you want to. Read about me, and read about that girl who ...

Well, you know. Maybe even personally. We do things, sometimes, to feel this now, and we know we're going to pay, but that's later, not now, and we so, so want to be loved. Now. Because we so, so know we're going to be alone later, and maybe this now will make later a little bit more bearable, that we were liked now. And felt something, and was connected to somebody else.

Even if it's just going for lattes at sbux with your friends.

Go to sbux and have a latte with your friend. It means so, so much to her.

And Jess. I hated her. I hate her. Because she's a sell-out, and she does it without thinking.

But no, she's not a sell-out, and, yes, she thinks, and she worries about it, too. God gave her a brain and an conscience.

No, the reason why I hate Jess is because all I have to do is to look in the mirror to see her, now that I've written her, and recognized her in me.

I am Jess.

And I love her. And my heart hurts for her. Because I know what it is to be liked, and I know what it is to be alone.

And I hate Jess so much, because she is surrounded by her friends all the time. She's not alone. She's never alone.

Because she can't handle being alone. She knows what that feels like, and it sucks.

I know what it feels like, to be alone, and it sucks.

I don't 'get into the mind' of my characters, and get out.

I am my characters, and my characters are me, and when I write them, I love them, understand them, and respect them.

When I write to you, I love you, I understand you, and I respect you. And it so hurts when you don't to me, so I know it so hurts when I don't to you, yet I do it over and over and over. It's just too much, isn't it, to really listen to someone and open your heart to them.

But I see the alternative every day at work, in PMs and in stories and reviews. And ...

And not listening? It hurts me so much when I'm not listened to. And when I tune someone else out, I hurt them. I see it. And I hurt me.

Rosalie is Lauren, Lauren is Rosalie. And they have their best friend Jess, who needs them more than the next breath, although she's cool about it, everything's good. And, actually, Lauren, you need Jess back. Can you admit that? Can you admit you need a friend, too?

Good morning, my lovelies.

One Life

My day was ... eh.

I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about yesterday, today, or tomorrow. They all run together and are pointless, anyway. The only thing I want from my day is just to get through it, and if I don't, because I died, then thank God! and FINALLY!

But one thing I found today is this.

Im just me. A lost 23 year old girl, trying to find her way, her path. But its not so bad, cause I have Sham. Cause I have Justin. Cause I have mom and Izzy. Oh, and lets not forget Phfina, lol.

If you're reading this, Phfina, lets make a deal. Lets try to be happy. Lets try to live and save a life, like, you saved mine.

Smh.

— PussyNinja

And no matter what my day was or is before, now it's different, because, one day, because I existed, a girl is alive, and has a gf and joined the Navy, and everything, where she wouldn't have done any of that. But somehow, I, and what I've written, made a difference of one life.

I don't give a shit about my day any more. It's different now.

And that, no matter how I feel, good, bad, whatever, will never be taken away from me. I won't be here anymore someday, and people will forget me and move on.

But I won't forget. Ever.

"You have such potential!"

Dear Diary,

You know what I hate?

I hate it when people tell me: "You have such potential!"

You know why I hate it?

Because they are right. And I know it.

Let's face it girls, when somebody tells you 'you have such potential!' what do they think they are saying? Well, they're saying you're talented, smart, kind, caring, hard-working, beautiful, and they see that, all of that, in you, and the words just burst out of them, and you see their bursting because they're smiling hugely at you as they say this.

But what do you hear? You hear: "Well, you're certainly going nowhere with the gifts God gave you ... when're you gonna get off your duff and do something?"

Yeah, me, too. I hear those words that they speak, and instead of being complimented and encouraged, what I want to do is scratch their eyes out of their faces ...

... for starters.

But why?

It's called a conscience.

That little voice inside me gets very, very quiet when someone tells me, 'you have such potential!'

And after that person leaves or after I leave, and I control my breathing, and make sure the tears are wiped away, that's when she speaks.

"They're right, you know," she says quietly.

They're right, you know.

You know who don't get the 'you have such potential!' comments?

Rosalie.

She had no potential. You know why?

I'll tell you why: when she saw something she wanted, she was in motion. She worked toward that goal, every step of the way, and she didn't care if she had to fight every man, woman, and child and dig a tunnel through a mountain or walk over the top of it. She didn't care. She what she wanted, and she went for it.

"But, phfina, Rosalie's a fictional character! Who cares who said what to her, because she doesn't exist."

Guess what, girls: that's true for every one of us.

We tell ourselves stories, every second of every day.

"I'm not like that."

"I never could do that."

"I'm not that kind of girl."

"I can't do that."

Then we tell each other stories:

"You can't do that!"

... and we forget that they are all just stories that we tell ourselves and each other. We made pretend, when that chilling, crushing thing happened when we were four or five, that we were such and so, because if we are such and so, then they hurt wouldn't've happened, or, well, we realize, after we make pretend, that hurts happen anyway, so we make more pretends and forget we just playing a game, be it 'don't hurt me' or 'I'm cute!' or 'Math is hard' or 'don't leave me!' or 'love me, mommy, please ... please.' or ...

What happens is we end up by being the pretense, and then the pretense becomes our ego, so we can relegate to our id all those scary monsters that come out anyway so we can add more buttresses to our ego so we can pretend that the hurt doesn't really hurt because we're this or that.

And 'this or that' is not who we are, nor who we can be, it's a safe, little unreality box for safe, little us ... who love, who care, who are smart, and talented and beautiful, ... but if we extend ourselves at all, and write a review in Swedish, then somebody, 5,000 somebodies, in fact, notice us, and when they notice us, then we're opened up, and when we're opened up ... and then hurt can ... hurt us, again.

So we close ourselves up, and forget we read a story 8, 9, 10 times, laughing, crying, and being joyful in that moment, and, in that joy, giving a girl a reason to live, for just one more day ... just one more day, or two more years that she would've lived if you hadn't opened yourself up and told her you loved her, and that you will always love her.

So you shut down, so that's safe.

But playing it safe? being careful? You see those girls at parties (that is: me), sitting in a far corner by herself with her drink and a very tight smile plastered on her face, but you've read her writing, so you go up to her, and enthuse: 'you should publish this stuff! This is amazing! Write more! I love it! Imagine who you'd impact if you reached a broader audience! But why are you writing fan-fics? When are you going to branch out and write your own works instead of copy stuff that's already derivative? You're better than that! You know that!"

And that girl lets that all wash over her, and hands that dude her drink and runs to the bathroom to puke her guts out, then leaves the party, trying to hide her tears.

Why? Fear? What's fear? It's nothing, right? It's being afraid of nothing, because why? Fear is fear of something that may happen, and it seldom does, right, girls? You know that. And when it does, what happens? It happens, and nobody cares, and after it happens, you don't care either, because it happened, it's in the past now. It doesn't need to run your life now, because it happened then, it's not happening now.

But that's what 'you have such potential!' is, isn't it? It points out that you could be there a star or authoress or ... whatever, but you're here, and the only reason you're here is because you're afraid of going there.

Oh, yeah: I went there.

Steph Meyer went to 28 publishers before that last one picked up Twilight.

28 publishers. How many would I have gone through? Easy: zero! Because I'm afraid of going to even the first one. How many more would Steph had gone through?

Oh, come on! She went through 28 already ... that tells me that she was going to get her story published come hell or high water, because she had that much confidence in her story.

Because she had that much confidence in herself.

"Easy for you to say, `phfina: 'Oh, don't be afraid and just do it.'"

Yup, easy for me to say, because I've seen in, too: in my Nana. She was 95 when she died, and she volunteered at the hospital and at the local school until she got terminal cancer at 94. She was a force in motion, always doing something, always in motion.

Nobody told her that she has such potential, because she was in action, all the time.

And it was just so simple for her: time to garden. Time to feed the family. Time to volunteer at the school. Time to grab the fighting boys (my uncles) by the ears and give them what-for. Time to bury Pepe after he killed himself.

She had a hard life, her whole life, including raising a family of eight during the Depression, but she never complained, she was just too busy to complain, because she had something to do, because she saw a need, and she just took care of it.

And that's it, isn't it? You have something, a beautiful voice, a way of writing words, or painting, or a will and determination or a business sense. You have something. And you can put things, life, whatever, between you and you doing something with this something that you have, and be very busy and very successful, and very sad and angry when people tell you have such potential, or you can be just as busy using what you have and creating the world how you see it, how it should be, because you, you call the shots here, because you said so.

And that world that you do create? You created it, and it can be filled with the things you put in the way of yourself, and of others, and you have this nice, safe, little fence around yourself. Or you can just git-r-done and let it rip and not give a flip about what anybody else says, because that's all they do, stand around the water cooler, and that's great, because they can talk, as long as they stay out of your way, because you are woman, strong, beautiful, empowered, talented, and you are going places and making things happen.

Your choice (your ... 'potential').

"But, `phfina, what am I supposed to do?"

Oh, come on. You know the answer, even as you ask the question.

The world is the world.

And you are you.

And there's this huge thing between you and the world, and how you see the world as it should be.

That huge thing? It's nothing to what you can do. I just wrote a few words on paper and published them, and look what happened? I did nothing but a little tiny something, and I have letters in my treasure chest from people telling me how I saved their lives or how they found love or hope.

You put your foot to that first step forward, and your other foot will follow.

And the world will change around you. It has to. Doesn't mean it won't be easy, but you already know what the alternative is like.

It sucks. It sucks a big fat sucky potential suck.

So, read this. Say 'eh, whatever,' and go back to your potential.

Or, read this ... then write me when ...

... or you publish your story ...

... or you manage a multibillion dollar mutual fund, and you're 21 ...

... or you start the next Google or eBay or Amazon ...

... or someone tells you you saved their life.

... or whatever that huge thing is in front of you, and you climb over it (literally) or bust through it or hold it in your arms and tell her you love her.

I love you. You have such potential, and I love you, right now, right as you are, because you, in your potential have done things, and touched hearts, and you, in your potential, are a person. A person who reached out to me, and cried that someone told you these hurtful words, and I cried with you, hurting with the same hurt, and you let me do that. And loved me, little me, in all my stupid fearful, paralyzing potential, and you didn't judge: you loved.

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.

Unfrigginbelievable!

Okay, so what does a girl do, when she's stuck on the beach, all alone, with an alien invasion coming in to end all of it as we know it?

Well, take out 1000 aliens before they take her out first, obviously.

Okay, but what happens when, right after she gets this...

... the 'Inconceivable' medal, or 500 kills in a row, a marine, a ... and I'm sorry to say this ... a girl marine throws a grenade into the pile of dead covenant you, that girl, had just single-handedly killed and where now in the midst of them, scavenging for grenades?

Oh, I found grenades alright. They all exploded in my face. Ending my spree, that I had just spent ('wasted'?) an hour to work up to!

So, what is she to do?

Well, obviously the first thought, on respawn was for me to hunt that marine down and shove her grenade right up her ass! Pin out, and NO KY.

But no.

No. I'm a calm, mature, level-headed girl. So, no. I didn't do that.

Even though I was very sorely tempted.

No. What I did was breathe in, then breathe out, then start over. From scratch, with kill number 1.

Three hours later...

... yup, the 'unfrigginbelievable' medal, that is to say: I killed 1000 covies dead. In a row. One after the other. One by one.

Hey, if you're going to set out to do something, set out, and fucking do it! Other things will happen. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. They don't matter. So, a marine kills me at exactly the half-way mark and I have to start over. SO WHAT? Did I say I was going to do this? Yes. Did I do it? Yes. End of story.

I work hard. I push myself hard. Yeah? So? Those are either excuses or reasons.

I'd rather have a reason to be alive. I'd rather not be a sorry excuse taking up space.

My choice, errant grenade notwithstanding.

Kay. Nighty night!

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:

Who's that girl?

So we all went out to the 'Taste of Reston' ...

... fun, in the sun, for `phfina equals ... sunburnt.

*sigh*

Is there like a Congressman or Senator I can write? Because I spent the whole time, hopping from shadow to shadow, I swear! But did that provide me any protection at all?

It was like the Sun's condom had a hole in it, if you get what I'm saying!

Insta-babies! Or Insta-sunburn!

Full, full day!

Started with bb taking us all to sbux near where I used to work, and I ordered a green tea frap, and the hot azn chick looked at me, appraisingly, and said, 'Hm, sounds familiar ... do you want a shot of peppermint, too?'

She remembered!

Well, if I didn't want to drag her to the little girls' room and do naughty Rosalie things to her before, well ...

Well, let's just say she got off from an amazing three-hour-marathon sport's fuck, because my nieces were at present in the little girls' room, and let's just say, with their budding curiosity, it would require from me a rather lengthy and embarrassing explanation as to what I was doing to little azn chick with the super hot square glasses (nerdy girls ... So. FUCKING. hot!) on the bathroom sink.

*sigh*

THEN we went to the thing in Reston, and a bunch of stuff happened, including little Iz going on the Ferris wheel with her papa, and me, staying on safe ground with EM, ...

AND WHILE that was happening ...

You ever get the feel someone's checking you out, you know?

Well, yeah. And EM said, 'That man was looking at you.'

About a guy, older than me, who walked by, and I was like, 'Yeah ...'

And she was like, 'Why was he looking at you?'

And I was like *shrug* and 'I don't know.'

EM thought for a while and said, 'Maybe because you're beautiful?' and looked away, embarrassed at her own words.



Maybe.

I wasn't exactly wearing that color: it was more of a lime green with big white flowers printed on my summer dress, and I wasn't too sunburnt by then, but I looked in my reflection in a shop window, and yeah, so I get looks, my skin so pale, and my icy blue eyes with my dark hair, like I just fell out of the boat from Ireland or Russia.

So yeah, I get looks. Yeah, okay: I'm beautiful.

But what does that buy me?

I mean, okay, two girls left me to go marry and have kids, and boys don't stick around, and maybe that's because I'm picking the wrong kind, you know, the ones I wrap in my arms so they cum inside me and as soon as they're done doing that ... doing me, ... they're done with me.

And the girls that don't leave me, ... I leave them.

You know, so I don't get hurt, when they do leave me.

Everybody leaves me ... I can't even keep my baby ... my baby I had for a little more than a month in the womb, and all I had left was some excessive bleeding and the emotional trauma of being a failure of the one essential thing that being a woman is.

And I graduated high school? College?

How?

God, I am a piece of work. I can't even go to a fairground, and get looked at by a guy, and where do I go? right there! I can't even order a drink at sbux without imaging me dragging off the poor lass, having my way with her until after she's done crying out for more, and then saying, 'oh, yeah, what's your name, by the way?'

But if she indicates any interest in me? It's like, I do run to the bathroom, so I can puke my guts out and then make an escape out the back window and break the world record for the one-minute mile, and that's not because I'm driving, baby.

The rest of the day was nice. I got to see a family, a normal family, in bb and his wife and kids going to church, reading the bulletin, going out to sushi and spending way more than what would feed me in groceries for a ... week? ... month? but just basking in the luxury of it all, and watching little Iz drift off during supper so it was time to drop me back off at home, and here I am, back at home, by myself again, ready to drop because it's been a very full Saturday, a good day, out among people, soaking up experience (and sun *sigh* in the shade ... *sigh*), and being with family.

That girl. Me. Who is she?

Just another pretty face, right?

Good night.

The Color of Wheat

Tu n'es encore pour moi qu'un petit garçon tout semblable à cent mille petits garçons. Et je n'ai pas besoin de toi. Et tu n'as pas besoin de moi non plus. Je ne suis pour toi qu'un renard semblable à cent mille renards. Mais, si tu m'apprivoises, nous aurons besoin l'un à l'autre. Tu seras pour moi unique au monde. Je serai pour toi unique au monde...

Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

— `phfina's commentary:

Guess what I had for breakfast this morning?

Freshly squeezed orange juice. Healthy. Check. Yummy. Check. (but TART!)
... and oatmeal.

Hm.

Plain, boring, mournful ... oatmeal. `phfina, like, how many times in a row is that you've had oatmeal for breakfast? Why don't you, you know, get some variety in your life, try something different, something better, you know?

Can I tell you a secret?

Guess what I'm having for lunch?

I have two options. I packed an oatmeal packet from the bulk box of oatmeal ('Quaker's Oats! They're good and good for you!') I bought earlier this ... whoopsie, last month. Or I can have that packet of ramen noodles I've stashed away for occasions such as these.

I'll get back to 'occasions such as these.' But first a word from our organic sponsors.

You know, in group, you get these granola nuts, they go all organic and distilled water or mineral water or vitamin water or whatever kind of water I cannot afford at how many dollars a bottle when I get the coffee or tea dispensed for me for free here at work? You know what they say ramen noodles? They, my dear coworkers and bosses and IT people and everybody staring at me as I take them out of the microwave?

They say it takes 30 days to purge my system of the chemicals impregnated in the noodles and used as flavoring in the flavoring packet.

And they tell me exactly what those chemicals are doing to my body every time I pop a diet coke so I can stay awake at work and not get found out, my head on my keyboard covered in my drool, and get fired for sleeping on the job because I'm up all hours doing activities that generate a lot of revenue for the Ladies on 14th street but making me a big fat zero dollars and zero cents and if it were generating me income, then I'd either be a kept woman, ... or a whore.

So will I have ramen noodles for lunch? No. I think I'd rather starve. I think I'd rather starve to death than have all those people staring at me around the microwave and then telling me how terrible I'm being to my body and why don't I eat more, am I anorexic or something?

So, why don't I eat something else?

Here's where we get back to 'occasions such as these.'

I have no money. I have no money in my credit card, because I have no credit card: I have a debit card. I have no money in my bank account. I have no money ... anywhere, not under my couch cushions not in my pockets, not smuggled across the border in my cunt or stuffed up my anal cavity, no money in my red leather Gucci purse ... HA!

If I had a red leather Gucci purse, I would have grilled it, put some barbeque sauce on it and eaten it by now.

The situation is not dire, thank God! Because I get paid on Friday, just before the rent comes out ... I hope ... Hm, April 11 is when I'm late, so, no, I'm good. I hope to God I get my tax return soon. Why is it taking so long?

So, do you see where I'm at? Do I eat oatmeal for breakfast every single day because I so love oatmeal?

Sure. I can always choose not to eat ... oatmeal, that is. I have that choice.

Be very, very ...

People, please!

Please be very, very careful what judgements you render on others. 'Oh, you're eating oatmeal again? Doesn't that get old for you?' You say that to your coworker so easily, as if they had options.

You know ... no, you don't, so I'll tell you: I don't know what I'm going to do for supper tonight, tomorrow, the next day ... all through Holy Week.

I can go on a fast, I suppose, a week-long fast. Dieting. I can name it `phfina's poverty diet and make a mint of money: 'Don't eat; just drink water. For a week. Repeat that every couple of weeks.'

Or I could ask my charitable sister-in-law. We had chili this weekend that she cooked in the crock pot. She cooked enough to feed an army.

But, then, ... I'd have to ask. I'd have to ask her, you know ... really casually, like: 'Hey, could I have some of that chili you cooked this weekend, ... that is, if you ... you know ... had too much and were going to throw it away, ... or something.'

You know: not looking her in the eye. At her door. Me, standing outside, with no car to take me home.

Yeah, really casually, like that.

And then she'd know, wouldn't she? She'd just know. And you know what she'd do? She'd load me down with chili, and bread, and peanut butter and vegetables, and she'd drive me home, and ask me if I needed anything else and could she help in any other way, and I shouldn't be afraid to ask or wait and did I need help with rent and ...

... and she'd know.

You see this laptop I'm writing this post on? I 'inherited' it from my bb. The XBox I play Halo on? I inherited it from bb's stash. The mic that's broken that everybody keeps asking me on Live all the time? I inherited it from ... guess! my bb. The Live account I play on? I had to ask for it. I asked my brother Mike and he said Best Buy has it for $40, and I had $40 in my pocket to eat or pay for that subscription, so I could be a Halo Goddess. So I could be good, and admired, for at least one thing, at least one fucking thing in the thing that is my utter and complete failure of a life.

"Wow, you're a girl, and you play Halo? Wow! Watch `phfina, she's really good with the banshee!"

And I jump into the banshee and I cut my bonds tying me to the earth, and I fly, free, soaring, like a Hawk, a Falcon, a Raptor, swooping in for the kill, so fast, so deadly, so beautiful.

And then I shut off my XBox, and I go to my bed in my little prison cell they call a 'bedroom' and I pull up the covers around me and try not to be cold, and I try not to let the loneliness eating away at my soul ... hurt ... not too much, anyway.

Chilling fact: I have more money on my farecard than I have ... well, anywhere else. I think I have enough fare to last this week. If I don't, I am well and truly screwed. Work from home? Sure! I'll just do the books and payroll from my creaky old laptop on a non-secure line. I'm sure they'd go for that at work. Or, better: 'Hey, boss, can you come and pick me up at my house, because walking the thirteen miles might make me miss the payroll cutoff, and I think you want your paycheck as much as I need mine.'

It used to be, you know, in biblical times, that if you didn't work, you didn't eat.

Nowadays, the lower classes? You work ... but eating? That's kind of optional.

There's an empty pit in my stomach: the lunch of ramen noodles and a tablespoon of peanut butter don't quite last through 7:30 pm with me sitting here in the busstop, so I can get home so I can turn around and go to work tomorrow.

Can you believe there are still people working at work. At group, it's very much a loyalty thing: they work, not for the pay (at all!) but because they love what they do, and they love serving others, that's what we exist for.

So, but, because of that loyalty, I can't hide under my desk and then wake up really early the next day and pretend I came into work early. Do you know how much money I could save every day if I could pull that off? Clothes and showers could be an issue, yes, but ...

You know what the difference between the classes are?

Dreams.

The lower classes don't have dreams. You know: aspirations.

We, the lower classes, have ... fantasies. 'Oh, yeah, that'd be really nice if that'd happen, but it never will, and if it did then ...'

And that's where we, the lower classes, stop. '... and if it did, then ...'

Then what? We have no idea! Just ask us! The lottery was seven hundred million dollars last week, so we went into an office pool for tickets (yes, there's where I spent my lunch money: lottery — a tax on the poor). I asked around of what we would do when we won. Nobody had an answer. Not one of us.

That's why we didn't win the lottery. That's why the poor ... are poor.

'If I were a rich man,
I'd yada-yada-yada-ya.'

We have no idea what we'd do with the money, so we don't get it, because we don't deserve it. You know what happens when a poor person wins the lottery? Within one year they all declare bankruptcy.

But for rich people, they don't have fantasies, they have dreams. Do you know the distinction? A dream is a possibility, a plan.

You talk to a rich person, I mean filthy rich — `phfina, examine why you just used that adjective — and ask them what they would do with 25 million or 700 million dollars, and they would give you, right then and there, a whole list of things that they would do that would spend every last penny, and it wouldn't be a poor person's fantasy of 'Oh, I'd spend less than 1% of it on a TV and a drunken spree and a vacation somewhere and then have no idea what to do with the rest of it and so lose it all on stupid cockamamie schemes and on relatives I didn't know I had yesterday."

No, it'd be, "I'd form a corporation to research breast cancer cures and hire specialists from around the world," "I'd build a facility to refoster enterpernuerial growth in the organic farming sectors" "I'd form a coalition of small to midsized businesses in the Richmond area and spearhead an urban renewal that emphasizes both the city's historic significance and local knowhow" "I'd create alternative energy sourcing at the household level, such as wind turrets that fit on chimneys so power becomes self-generating there and market it nationwide, solving the energy crisis at the grass-roots level." "I'd ..." "I'd ..."

You couldn't get a rich person to shut up about what they'd do with all that cash. And then when you demand what the hell are they doing now, they open up their portfolio of foundations they've started and vested, and the things they already have on the drawing board. Like water-drilling projects in Ethiopia or reforestation of the Amazon or seed schools for kids in the U.S.A. or ...

Are the rich hungry? Yes! They are starving to more and better for more people so that more people can have a better life. And by helping other people get housing or food or education or gas or clothes, the rich get richer and richer and richer.

Are the poor hungry? Of course! I am. Right now. I've got a knot in my tummy that says 'hungry' and so I'll fill my belly with corn chips and beer (the two biggest sellers at supermarkets, in case you didn't know) and when I've satiated my own hunger, with empty calories, I'll sleep, work, and then eat. All for myself, because why?

Because the poor don't have dreams. They can't afford them. All they can afford is well, nothing, but seeing their way to the end of the day, they can't see beyond themselves, so that's exactly where they stay, right in their own squalor. The rich are always looking over the next vista, completing this project so they can start the next three that they have in the hopper. The rich are so busy they don't have any time for themselves, because they're always chasing their dreams ... in the service of others. And that's why the rich never stay where they are, they leap from height to height.

But ... so I'm poor. Penniless. And hungry.

Help me?

No. That's a mistake. You pity me, and you crush my soul. You 'help' me, and the only thing you do is dig the pit deeper for me. I'm hungry? So, out of charity you give me a sandwich.

Mistake.

What does that do for me? It tells me, oh, I don't have to do anything, because that next meal, somebody will give it to me; no need to extend myself.

You know who knows this the best? Better than the poor themselves, if they were honest with themselves?

Those who feed on us. Those who prey on us.

Proof?

Go to your drug dealer and say you'd like the next hit on credit.

Those lottery tickets I pooled? I was right there at the cash register. We handed over cash, and they gave us the tickets. You know what the cashier would've said if I begged: "Please, sir, I'm hungry, can I have a lottery ticket, and I'll pay you back when I win?"

You know what he would have thought to that.

So, I'm on a diet now, because why, because I'm ...

... okay, here's a crushing reality. Not every one us are Donald Trumps or Bill Gates. Some of us ... are ...

... some of us are meant to be used. We're just serfs, slaves, chattel, or, nowadays, material, resources ... food.

The big techno-industrial-agricultural-energy-defense conglomerate has spoken, and dictated ('Dictatorship') the role of the masses: to be used and then to be discarded.

Don't believe me? Read Atlas Shrugged as fiction. Watch Metropolis and Brazil and say, 'Well, thank God that's just a story; who could ever image a world such as those?'

But it's still all me. It is. I'm going to be hungry until I dig myself out of myself and start being of use to society, small for a small reward, and at large for a large reward. If I stay stuck in this world-view that I'm a waitress, barista, secretary servant, then I'm going to live a servant's live. It's happening across the board now, even: unless you're a Rock Star doctor, you live your career on the beeper and die in debt. The government and the insurance companies are seeing to that, and the doctor who made house calls and lived with his family in a nice house is now dead and buried.

Why? baristas, secretaries, doctors, computer programmers, we're all interchangeable and replaceable. I get hit by a bus tomorrow, they'll get a new secretary.

But people in service to others, providing an irreplaceable service? You think the owners of sbux are going to bed tonight on an empty stomach, wondering if they can pay the rent? They are in service to a mass of people who can't live without their morning latte. You think Tony Stark is every going to worry where his next dollar is going to come from? And with all that wealth what does he do with it? Spend it wining and dining, yes: but for himself? No, for hundreds of people at a time, and then he uses his research to develop a better, more durable, pacemaker.

What's the difference between Tony Stark and me? It's not that he's a fictional character and has billions of dollars (have you seen the numbers from the movies that Marvel is producing?), no: it's that he has an idea and the burn to see it through, and then that idea, and that burn, is the seed which is very fruitful in producing more and more ideas, that he pursues with a fire and passion in his heart.

You ask a poor person what they'd like, and they say 'Oh, I'd love to have a bentley ...' or 'I want a 50' high-def TV' for example.

You ask a rich person what they'd like, and they say, 'What I'm doing is ...'

You see the difference? Rich people are living their dreams, and have everything, and more than they want or could ask for. We poor people? We're barely surviving, but we have a very rich fantasy life, because that's all we have. We don't have hope, nor aspirations, so we have no inspiration.

All we have is respiration. And sometimes that next breath is just so hard to take. Everywhere we turn is disappointment and despair, and it crushes the hope and the very breath right out of us.

And we help kill each other. We keep each other down, by our words and actions. And all rich people do, is when they hear somebody say, "I'm restarting the economy in Pennsylvania by founding a pharmaceutical research park," ... all they do is say, "What resources can I provide to make this happen?" And now one of the richest counties in the world is in New Jersey right outside of Philadelphia because somebody had a crazy idea, and had the burn to make it a reality.

Where does this all leave me? As soylent green. That's exactly where I'm headed, I can't help myself up, and anybody who helps me just indulges my gluttony for self-mutilation. Eventually people will stop helping me up, and then I'll just sink down under my own weight, truly becoming a 'human resource' ... fertilizer for the forest floor when I lay my body down.

I coulda been a contender. I could've been a writer. Saga inspired me, and then ...

See? I depend on others, I'm a burden to society, and people take care of me a while. They have. And they could take care of me to my dying day.

But what's the point of that ... not 'existence' even, but just 'persistence'? I serve the coffee or generate the report (not even 'write up' nor 'type' but now 'generate' because I'm just a generator connected to the computer that does the actual work) or bring you catsup for your fries. And if, 'when,' that is, I can't even manage that, then there's 'health''care' professionals who have their own servitude of emptying the bedpan of the vegetable that was a writer once until she had her mental collapse and we saved her life by doping her up on valium and other depressants so now there's this vegetable named `phfina in bed 13 with her drug regimen administered and verified every hour.

I'm talking from personal experience here. Fun-fun.

That's what I have to look forward to. Because you know and I know, the people who've had 'episode's in the past? It's not a lottery for them; no, it's a shoo-in. They should keep the bed warm and covers turned down for me.

They probably do. They'll probably greet me by name, with a welcoming, understanding, compassionate smile.

And as sick as that sounds, and it does make me very, very sick. At least I have that to dread, and to look forward to. Most people in poverty have nothing to look forward to. Nothing. All they have is nothing but what they did today to wake up to tomorrow, and if not that, it's because they didn't wake up, because the heat went out in the dead of Winter.

The little matchstick girl, written by Saga Christian Andersen starring `phfina as the sweet little object-to-be-pittied main character.

And I know, all is it takes is one of my little matchsticks, to light the world on fire. When you set yourself on fire, everybody gathers around to watch you burn, but what is that spark for me.

I have no idea.

That's maybe ... ouch.

That's maybe why I don't have children. I wouldn't know what to do with them, or what to give them. Hope? For what? A future?

That's why so many women are having children later, I think, right?

Because we're more 'responsible'? Yeah, right! It's because we're scared shitless of our own shadow and we're going to bring people into this world who will look up to us and wait for our perfect answers to everything and we so know we aren't that person, so we try to get our shit together, and then suddenly, we're 30, and 35, and 40 and 42, and we're having our first kid because if we don't now, we never will.

So in desperation we try to prepare for kids, and then in desperation we try to get a kid in any way possible, surrogation, IVF, cloning, and whine that we have to pay all this money when teenagers thirteen-year-olds are paying money to block pregnancies for just looking at boys.

So here I am, paralyzed: a college-educated woman who's not smart enough to pay her monthly bills, nor afford breakfast even, stuck in a rut of her own making, painted into a cage perfectly form-fitted to her. To me.

And to no one else. I've 'tried' to let people in ... by ... what? running as fast and as hard as I can as soon as the conversation strays into dangerous waters like intimacy, hopes, aspirations, dreams and plans for the future? Because why? Because the couple of times I've gotten really intimate, really tender with somebody, they leave me? Instead of my usual pattern of me fucking a poor girl's brains out ... with my superior intellect and insights, so they know and see a good thing in me and can I handle that? Sure, by dumping them on the ground right at my feet and then walking all over them as I make my exit out the door, because if they saw something good in me, obviously there's something wrong with them.

And I know ... I know that all it will take is that one spark to turn my life around, for me to be on fire, filled with zeal, and I'll write that book or I'll, idk, start a rock band, or I'll be this, *shrugs* great investment guru(esse) and make a mint of money showing women how to make a mint of money and not be under the financial gun, but to be the power keg of success.

Ick. Weak analogy.

Or something like that. Or I'll be a super hot weather girl and have thousands of retweets of my every tweet about cirrus cloud formations. Or I'll be the first woman pro Halo player to win an MLG tournament, and start a school for girl gamers showing them how to kick boyz azzes by fighting smart, like girls, not 'yah! charge!' like berserker boys, you know?

But for now.

But for now. My fantasies are all I have. Pipe dreams. The 'yeah, that would be nice, some day' kind of fancies. And to be a Halo Goddess for a bit at night after work.

And then my oatmeal in the morning.

That's all I have right now. All I have is my oatmeal in the morning.

And, yes, it's not good enough. It's plain, and boring ... insipid.

But it's all I have. My fantasies and my oatmeal.

And ... and even though it's all I have, I'm making it work. I can't afford the $3 omelet in the Cafeteria. I can't afford the sushi, so I buy the Indian rice dish and make it last three meals and get teased by the Desi guys about how white girls don't eat, and have to be full, have to make myself be full eating a few bites so I can make it to the next paycheck.

Don't pity me. You pity me, and you belittle the efforts that takes all that I have just to make this work. You pity me, and I give up even that.

Don't help me. You help me, and then I give up trying, because I can get it from you, or from the next person I beg, easier than by me trying.

You know what you should do: you should give up on me. That way, ... like all those dystopian fantasy stories that are so accurate at describing reality, I would fade into the mob, the mass of aimless grey people merging with the rain-soaked crumbling buildings.

That's what you should do. You have your own lives to live, and your charity is pointless for lost souls like me.

The person who is going to save me is me. I have to do this. No, I know: not on my own, but you can't save me by forcing me to save me. I have to save me, by reaching up, and saying, 'Abba, Father' instead of doing what I do, which is, at the first sign of light, running and hiding in the darkness. You look to save me, I run, I run harder and further and faster.

I think, if you really want to save me, well, you can force me into the light, and hold me in a full-nelson until you've beaten the shit, my shit, out of me. That's one way, I guess.

Or, you can stand there, a beacon of hope. Stand there, not bending toward me, but stand there, living your life, unperturbed by the turmoil of this world, that is: me, and let me sneak toward you, and maybe, when I'm ready reach toward you, and tentatively touch this thing, this reality, this possibility that everything is not all darkness and bitterness and melancholy. A fox is not tamed, it tames itself.

Incidentally, walking home today, I saw a dead fox on the side of the road, smashed under the wheels of a truck. It probably saw the truck's bright, bright headlights, and walked toward the light, or was stuck in the road transfixed in the high-beams and ...

I'm going to bed now.

A(n Im)modest Proposal

No thanks to Jonathan Swift, that meanie.

You all know it's Lent, right? That special time in the Christian calendar when you spend 40 days and nights praying and fasting.

They even made a movie about it.

Um.

So, what am I giving up for Lent?

Well, what not to give up is the more à propos question for me (and, yes, that is French, and, yes, I am using it correctly, 'cause I looked it up in the dictionary and everything).

I mean: hm, drinking? masturbation? self-flagellation? drinking? cussing? drinking? mastur-mastur-masturbation?

Then I came up with the purrrfect one. It's so good, everybody should take this one on:

I'm going to give up wearing clothes to work.

I mean, okay, all buildings are climate controlled, so all I have to do is book it to the bus, then metro, then bus to get to the nice, toasty-warm office building.

Okay, so the streaking laws are kinda strict in the Commonwealth of Virginia (and I suppose where you live, too), so I guess I can wear some clothes going to and from work (a trench coat, anyone? With a raspberry beret?), but after that, baybee, when I get to my office, they have a coat closet in the main area, see? and there's where Imma gonna take off my coat, and ... 'show and tell'?

'Know all, see all,' is how it is with me, baybee. Let's not keep secrets, shall we? If you had had any questions, all you now have to do is look, baybee!

Same with you.

Like, this resolves ALL sorts of issues people deal with every day.

And what kind of issues? STUPID issues! Like:

"Is she a ... natural blond?"

Well all you have to do now is look south and check.

"I wonder if she ... shaves ... her ... you know?"

Well, now you know.

And it ... 'it' meaning 'stupid questions' ... are not just limited to guys. Take our gender, the chick gender, for example.

I mean: what's our first nervous breakdown of the day?

You know what I'm talking about, girls.

Guys open the fridge, and hang by the door for a half-hour, wondering what to eat.

MEN!

But girls are worse, not by the fridge: by the closet.

You open up the closet, and blouses are stuffed in there so tightly they are cause the door to burst open, but what do you lament every morning:

WAIL! "I haven't a THING to wear!"

And now that's really the case if you take on my lenten abstinence.

"Check out that nekkid chick," is all you'll be hearing all day, every day.

Wonder if boyz be checking you out? Wonder no more.

But it goes so much deeper than that, right, girls?

They say: 'The clothes make the man'?

I say: Bullshit!

No: women are defined by what they are wearing, particular by what designer label the clothes are wearing that they are wearing.

*sigh* All this writing of the word 'wearing' is wearing me out.

"Oh, look, she carries it well when she wears outfits from Judy's"

"So, you buy off the rack ... from the salvation army? Or do you dumpster dive, you tramp?"

Of course, we girls don't say that ... out loud. But that look. That disparaging look.

And then we look in the mirror, after we look at a girl wearing a simple white blouse and a string of pearls, that she bought from Nieman Marcus ...

... and we say that, and much worse, to ourselves.

Empowering, being nekkid, there's now one less thing that we can degrade ourselves ... and others ... about.

"But, `phfina, I don't have that supermodel vogue bod!"

Heh! You're saying that to ME? I mean, I went to Tysons mall last weekend, and every single boob check I did (and I did more than 50, thank you for asking), I ended up failing.

No, strike that: one pre-pre-teen had smaller titties than me.

Big win. @_@

C'mon, girls! We're our own harshest critics and worst enemies!

Another empowering point. Everybody now can see you, see me, that is, exactly as we are, and exactly as we aren't. And, you'll be confronted at every second, to have to love yourself as you are, I mean: getting really honest with yourself.

So there's that: the self-love thing.

But then, you know, we girls are always wondering ...

... cause that's what we girls do ... all the time: wonder.

And the things we wonder, I swear!

"... does he like me?"

So hard to tell ... that is: with clothes on.

Now, it'll be hard, but not to tell, if he likes you.

And if you're still not sure, just rub up against him

You'll know, either way.

And, I think, I'm not talking from first hand experi...

... wait, actually, I am.

Whether a guy likes you or not, the little guy down there likes you.

My kitty likes getting pats.

He doesn't have a kitty: he has a snake. It LIKES getting rubs.

It really does, girls.

I know.

And so, you'll know if he likes you or not, just by, a little girlish simper and a quick package check. Failing that a body to full body rub will get you the answer you need.

OR! it will tell you if he has erectile dysfunction, which amounts to the same answer. Cause ... well, okay, holding a guy's hand at an art museum is one thing, but it's not the same thing, you know, for ... you know, what happens between the sheets, and if he's not putting babies in you, good, long, and hard, then ... well, he can be a guy friend, I suppose, or you can have ... scintillating intellectual conversations with him.

Um, ... yeah.

And, well, that gets right back to the guys. You know how they're always talking manly shit about their things, right? Well, now, that cuts out that bullshit at the watercooler. Permanently.

gf is NOT impressed with your non-tree-trunk little weenie speaking louder than your he-man chest-thumping.

I tell you what.

So, paradoxically, being nekkid at work will cut out a lot of the bullshit at work, so people can actually, SHOCKER! do work at work.

And then, well, there's always the janitor's closets, for when, guy, sees girl, likes girl, so (instinctually) indicates.

They hop into the closet, and then, get back to work, him leaking a bit, and so is she.

THINK of the population problems!

I mean, in Europe, there are now towns that are deserted. And 'How the west was won?' In the midwestern Unites States, they are closing down schools, and then, soon after, they close down the towns.

Problem solved in a few years.

AND, ... well, wearing all those clothes all the time, guys get repressed ... and go ape-shit nuts, and grab the secretary, bend her over the desk and fuck her up the ass.

Hard.

To avoid the paternity issues, don't you know.

Not that I would know that ... personally.

Well, now, there's no avoiding it ... you know, her ... you know, staring right at you, and she gets in a crowded elevator, and what do you know! his snake just so happens to slither right up into her happy place.

See all the problems my simple solution solves? It gets rid of all these stupid ambiguities, solves depopulation issues and keeps workers calm and content and productive at work.

Now, some of you girls (5%, right?) are saying to me: 'But `phfina, guys aren't my thing! A guy snakes me, I swear to God!'

Easily solved. Just carry scissors. He'll get the idea when he approaches and you open them in front of your hips. Snap them a few times for emphasis. Guys aren't subtle, but he'll get the hint. He will.

"But `phfina, that solves nothing for me. I mean, your straight girl can tell if a guy likes her, but with girls, it's harder."

No it isn't. Same method applies, too: rub up against her. You'll know if she likes you after your full-lip-lock-French-kiss. You'll know, 'cause you'll either get the pullback and the two tight slaps across the face, or you'll find yourself in a full-frontal nelson hold on the floor with her.

Or first the slaps, then the nelson. That's when, when you eventually take a break for air, to growl a 'feisty bitch' in her ear that you nibble and give her a love-smack on the heinie. Feisty girls like a little discipline, I've found.

Now, yes, girls are complex beasts, and have their own monsters to deal with, so she may struggle and slap and pinch you because she's struggling with her own acceptance of her up-until-now undiscovered sexual orientation.

So: help her. A few more kisses, and she'll be at peace with herself, and more than willing to learn about herself from somebody more experienced in these ways ... that is: you.

See?

Somebody give me the Nobel peace prize right now ...

Why? ... 'cause okay, these stupid ethnic issues.

Okay, so this Arab guy is killing Jews, and vice versa. Oh, well: I don't even have to look outside my own back yard with the Orange and Green Irish killing each other.

Well, weapons, when fired, get really hot.

You touch somebody's butt (now nekkid) with your rifle muzzle you've just fired, ... they'll let you know. That's one solution.

The other solution is, okay: hot babe on the other side of the DMZ. You gonna shoot at her, or, you gonna jump ranks and shoot in her.

Uh-huh. Thought so.

And then, her kids? They're yours, too. And you're not gonna be shelling building on the other side, 'cause your kids are in that building.

"Visualize world peace"?

It's easy if you try ... to see them all ... nekkid.

;)

"So," you say, after reading all that above, in your self-righteous affrontry, "`phfina, put up or shut up, biatch! I hear a lot of talk from you, but I bet you're not doing what you're sayin'! Strip it or gag it!"

I respond: "Quit writing my story ideas!"

(Or actually: please do write my stories! You write them better, anyway)

And then I actually retort: "Oh, yeah? Who said I haven't? You? You work where I do? Well, you can shove it, yourself, 'cause guess what I did!"

Uh-huh. I did.

This is what I did: ...

... no, I didn't get nekkid at the office, not at my desk, ... nor at my office ... technically ...

... because, technically, the bathroom ... well, it's shared for the whole floor, see? So it's not technically part of our office, see, and ...

"`phfina!" You cry, shocked now, "You didn't get really strip down to your all-together in your office bathroom."

Yep, I did.

Wanna peek?

YOU PERV! I KNEW you would wanna. You pervy perv!

So, ya know ... (God! I'm blushing so hard, thinking about what I did!) ...

So, I can't just write something demanding and pushy, like I always do, unless I'm more than just 'willing' to do it, too, but that I actually do DO it.

So, I went to the little girls room, outside our office, that sterile, cold, taupe-colored industrial place that they probably have the exact same designs for our prison systems (and no, I never want to verify that supposition, thank you) (although they do say the smex is plentiful there, but I don't wanna be the bitch to some mamma named 'Bertha,' with three murder convictions under her (copious) belt and a desire to act out her snuff fantasies on me, thank you)

(I say 'thank you' a lot, ... I'm polite like that. Particularly when I'm so hard embarrassed and want to talk about anything other than the topic at hand ... or in hand, that topic being me. *sigh* Back on topic)

... and picked the 4th stall in, and ...

stripped.

I took off my blouse, kicked off my black flats (that I keep stashed at the office, 'cause like hell am I gonna wear those during my commute and get the 'Oh, look at that poor girl who just fell flat on her face onto the rain-slicked concrete sprinting to catch her bus, the poor thing! Hey, girl, I hope those papers whipping away aren't all that important, are they? Are they your school homework?' and I'd die as I answer, 'No, only the original invoices and payroll I worked all night on, no biggie ...'), peeled off my (nude) stockings (slightly sweaty and girl stinky) (ewww). (and 'Nude' is a color, okay? JEEZ!)

The floor was cold and hard on my bare feet.

Then came the skirt. (Yes, I own skirts now, as I have to represent, so shut up). (no, it's not a micro nor a mini. Ankle-length and business drab grey: there is NO WAY I'm showing off my knobby knees, thanks)

Then all that was left were the bra and panties. Unhooked the bra, and peeled that off, and it felt wonderful, you know how it feels when elastic digs into you so long you don't notice it anymore, that is, until you relieve the pressure. That's what it felt like: a relief. But it was also weird and scary. If I were found out now, I'd be not only fired, but also arrested.

I didn't feel brave. I felt scared out of my mind, and my ears went into overdrive trying to listen for the sound of heels on the floor outside the bathroom.

Just one more article of clothing. I hooked my thumbs under the band of my panties, and, phffft, they were off, around my feet, and I kicked them onto my shoes.

Yup, I checked: I'm a natural brunette. No doubt about it.

Well, what are you supposed to do in the bathroom, girls?

I was a complete mess, on the inside, ready to puke from fright, but, you know, I did my business.

Nekkid.

And, while that was going on, as is recommended by the AMA or whoever prints those helpful informative waterproof placards you hang on your showerhead, I did a (very quick) breast exam.

No cancer. Well, no new lumps, anyway. I made sure.

I did have something that I'm absolutely positive that most girls in the world don't have there.

I'm not gifted with a c-cup, but I do have more nerve endings, and super-concentrated, right at the tip, too, but all around that general area. I know that for a fact. They were all super-stimulated, and I could feel the impulses emanating from every single one of them.

*whew* Um, did they turn up the temperature (from like 3 degrees above absolute zero in our bathrooms for some God-forsaken reason)? Or are my cheeks burning off from the sunburn I don't have?

I would love to report that, having done my business, and making sure I'm squeaky clean, that, in my newly liberated state, I went all the way, being in a heightened state of excitement.

I hope I don't have to explain the euphemistic implication of 'went all the way' to you. And if I do, then I'm going to slap an 18+ parental guard on my site, I swear!

But, no: I didn't.

What I did do is that I think I broke the world record in getting redressed, and, maybe, I put a dent in the next stall door, banging open my own stall door to get the hell out of the stall where absolutely nothing went on out of the usual and why do you ask, officer?

So, um, so much for the liberating experience of stripping down and showing all your all of what you're made of.

Woman power!

Yeah, right.

I wonder ...

'Cause that's what we girls do: we wonder, all the time, about ... 'stuff.'

I wonder if ... if everybody else was nekkid, would I be embarrassed for not being nekkid?

I wonder.

No, I don't.

'Cause, putting myself in that situation, you know that dream where you're back in college, and you come into class, wearing only panties, and if your dream is generous to you (which it never is. Dreams are such jerks!), a (totally sheer) camisole and you find it's the final exam that you totally didn't study for, and the very first question is this essay question where you have to rederive Euclid's 5th axioms using conic sections, or if essays are your bag, it's a multiple choice question where option A is three paragraphs long, but B and C are 5 paragraphs and D is 'none of the above' and E is 'All of the above' and you get sick to your stomach wonder if you pick E, because A, B, and C all sound reasonably right, does that mean you're also picking D, which is 'none of the above' and you don't want to point that out to the prof, because he's going to pissed at for you, again, asking those rebellious questions in class, and if you go up to his desk you know he's totally going to stare RIGHT THERE right through your see-through pink panties that are enscribed, embarrassingly, with the word 'HOT!' RIGHT THERE!

And if he's not staring there, it's because he's already got you bent over his desk, with the ruler raised for the 11+ spank on the pain scale.

And that's when you wake up?

Why did I just write all that?

Oh, yeah: So, in Ma Femme est une Actrice, Gallic guy walks onto the movie set and everybody else is nekkid and he's the only one who's clothed. I mean EVERYBODY! The boom boy, the cue girl, and of course, the principles, in bed, ...

One of whom is his wife.

And the security guard confronts him: "Eh, mate, waddaya want?!"

Nekkid.

That's when our dude faints.

That is EXACTLY what I'd do.

I'd walk into the office and Jackie (my new hot azn chick boss) (cause Janet moved to Texas to be with her GRANDKIDS!!!!) would greet me from her desk, nekkid, and I'd ...

And about then is when I'd wonder why did everything go dark and why is everybody standing around me, asking me if I'm okay? ... nekkid?

That's when I'd really freak, and run, probably not screaming, cause I wouldn't want to draw attention to myself, see? and run outside, seeing everybody else nekkid.

And faint again, hitting my head on the hard, smooth, cool marble floor.

Hmmm, feels like Rosalie.

But that's another story.

Um ... happy Lent everybody! 'Cause remember what this all is for, or: "I'm strippin' for Jesus!"

Um ... WHAT'S BEHIND YOU?

(`phfina streaks off)