Just one more

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

Yes, for as long as I live.

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

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

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

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

I have died a thousand deaths. At least.

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

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

So.

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

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

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

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

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

Let's get on with this.

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

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

And there was one relationship ... well.

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

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

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

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

Okay, getting carried away here.

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

And still hope for today.

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

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

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

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

Brenda.

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

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

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

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

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

And I did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you know what, `phfina?

No, ... what, `pfhina?

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

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

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

I don't know.

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

And.

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

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

Brenda wanted to love, and be loved in return.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And death i think is no parenthesis

e.e. cummings

&mdash `phfina commentary:

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

A couple more

There were a couple of women I missed:

Mrs. A_

She and I don't particularly share tea and crumpets with her being concerned over the way I live my life, or ... who I am, I guess, but you know what? I've been coughing this whole month and I mentioned that I had been buying the Naked Mango Madness drinks at sbux and they were rather expensive, right?

So one day I get a surprise visit from bb's wife: she had swung by Costco and she gave me 6 containers, each of which were a whole quart of Mango Madness.

And I was like, oh, my God, that's so thoughtful of you, and how much to I ...

And before I could even finish she was like, oh, this is for you, and she was like, gone before I could even look for money to pay for it.

I'm ... I'm crying, thinking of her thoughtfulness.

You know, 'the kindness of strangers'? What does that say about anything or anybody? It says that a stranger was kind to you, and it says something nice about them, that they extended themselves for you, a stranger, totally out of the blue. It costs them nothing and it gives them something to feel good about, and you remember it fondly, too.

But the kindness of family? You know, the ones who know you? The ones who have to put up with you and your bitching and your imposition and who have to bail you out of whatever hot water you keep putting yourself into? For them to be kind to you? For 'no' reason? When they have every reason not to? And so, against all that, they do an act of kindness for you, it like ...

Okay. I have to stop now. Or else I won't stop crying.

Lilith

I've seen Lilith three times now, in the Giant plaza. She works as a check-out girl at the Giant where I bought some ... what was I buying that day? I forget, because I looked up, saw her name tag: 'Lilit' and saw her long, flowing obsidian hair and her two pools of dark water that were her eyes.

Yeah: 'Lilit' ... but she doesn't fool me. I got out of that Giant right quick.

And then, another day, I just so happened to be passing by the sbux near the Giant, and there she was, surrounded by at least four suitors, all of them looking at her adoringly. I could just see the headlines in the newspapers the next day: "Four Men Die in Anti-Terror Hate Crimes!" and the article goes on to describe how four young Arabic men had their throats 'slit' with odd puncture wounds and how the chief of police said that he would not tolerate hate crimes nor vigilanteism and that the young men were promising members of their community and had had no previous criminal records.

But I would know what had really happened. Lilith, or Lilit, as she goes by now, and who am I to cross her? Had her fill that last night. Well, I hope those men died happily, you know? Like how Bella takes her victims in Bloodbuzz. I wonder if I should have intervened that night, and offered myself in their place, you know: "Lilit, don't take them; spare them, these promising young men, and take me instead!"

But she may have looked me up and down, scrawny little thing that I am, and not be too enticed with the meager offerings.

And then the Arabic men may have taken offense that I was moving into their territory, mistaking my (not too involuntary) sacrificial offering. And Muslims don't look too kindly on alternative lifestyles or nonmainstream sexual identity. A lot of them don't ... or so I'm told.

I wonder if Lilith knows that I know. She probably does. She had probably heard my heart rate go through the roof each time I've seen her, so the cat is out of that bag on that one.

Rosalie may not be the only visitor through my bedroom window at night.

And Lilith, being the world's oldest woman, well ... she might be able to teach me some things, ... you know?

Hm, hm, hm.

blush

On that note: off to Mass!

Women

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

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

Maybe.

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

`phfina: mind the PG rating of your entries!

Yes'm.

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

Yes'm.

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

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

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

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

Clothes interlude

Okay, but seriously: why do people wear clothes?

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

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

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

Because you were born on the planet Earth.

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

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

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

And I felt so alone then, again.

Alice

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

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

Yeah.

It gets really crowded wherever I am.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rebecca

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

And she's in group.

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

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

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

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

I said not just a bitch.

"I'm being a fucking bitch?"

I smiled at that.

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

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

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

Beki

Then there's my sister Beki ...

there's actually every woman in my family.

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like, for example:

Traci

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

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

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

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

No, you say, you would never do that?

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

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

What did she actually do?

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

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

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

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

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

Emily

Dickinson, that is.

Here's what she wrote:

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

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

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

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

Sounds familiar, `phfina?

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

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

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

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

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

But I am not Emily Dickinson.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Daphne

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

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

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

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

And then ...

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

Um, what?

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

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

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

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

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

Some poetess I would make.

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

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

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

Jo March/Louisa May Alcott

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

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

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

So she tried.

Is this the best that I've got?

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

Nor anybody.

I'm just me.

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

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

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

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

Safety in Unknown

So that's wrong, right?

It's the fear of the unknown that we live, or try to pretend that we don't live that, with our false courage, or our real courage but the unknown is still there and the fear is still there. Immovable; irreplaceable. We try to avoid it by filling our lives with our iPods (oops: iPads these days, how outre of me to make that 'out' gaff now that iPads are 'in') and our rushing about, always late, because we always make ourselves late by filling our lives with noise, noise, white noise so we don't notice it, that fear, that we don't even notice the noise-as-substitute, that we don't notice anything, pushing past things (other people) to just get through our lives, racing through it, racing toward our own ...

Don't think about that. Don't think about death. We know death. We know that it's unknown, so we never talk about it, until we gasp out 'call 911!' as the darkness squeezes out the breath from our lungs.

Oh, boy, `phfina you are on a tear here.

Oh, yes, I am.

But I actually argue the opposite. We are not afraid of the unknown. Not at all.

Don't believe me? Well, I have incontrovertible proof.

The unknown is still there. And so are you.

What we fear, we murder. We turn on something, in our fear, and lash out, and destroy it.

I know. I so know. I do it, and I have lots of PMs from you, my dear readers, as you lash out at me from your true selves, lash out at me, to destroy me.

And do you ever.

But the unknown is untouched. Science gives a safe little façade ('lie') of 'progress,' but science (or should I write 'Science' ... as so many of you bow down and worship it every day: the lines are so long at the sbuxen they extend outside the building these days) is just a comfortable pillow you can rest on to say 'oh, we understand,' when what science has been doing is discovering what? not illuminating and explaining and demystifying and deconstructing the unknown. No, Science has shown us the further we forge, o so bravely, at that dragon Unknown, the more, the bigger it becomes.

But nobody faces that truth. Nobody dares speak what nobody wants to hear. Those who do are murdered, gassed, crucified, stoned or burned at the stake.

'Witch' comes from the root word: 'Wit' ... a woman with smarts. Can't have those in our village, nosirree!

'There's a lot here we don't understand; you are acting on beliefs built on lies that you tell yourselves: maya' ... 'PUT HER UP AGAINST THE WALL!'

The truth is (o God, here comes the mob) ... the truth is this. You are happy living your small live surrounded and consumed by ...

excuse me: coughing fit. Ouch. ... must medicate.

I'm back.

Where was I? Oh, yes: ... consumed by the unknown.

Yes: I said you are happy in this state.

"Oh, but, `phfina, no: you're wrong! I'm miserable with my gf or with my life or with my job or with my ..."

After all, you read fan fiction, my stories, too, to escape for a while from this misery you call your life.

The truth however, is the exact opposite: no, you aren't miserable. Or, more precisely, ...

SHUT UP, MISS MUSE!

(she was going to say something about my love affair with precision and has that made me happy, but I am not to be interrupted (too much ... well, yes: too much, but I can deal) when I'm on a roll).

More precisely: you are happy being miserable.

Oh, you say you aren't. Then the path is a simple one to take. You hate your job? Quit. Quit being that stuffed shirt, or stuffed skirt (up the ass), and move to Vermont and start that farm or art colony or fitness center you have always said you wanted to.

Go ahead. I don't even have to bother saying 'I double-dog dare you.' Because I know you. I look in the mirror. I know you.

"`phfina, you have a really warped view of life and jobs and stuff. You weren't fucked up the ass every day at sbux when you worked there, were you? No. So you're so full of shit that you can't even speak without it coming out of your mouth."

Maybe. Maybe. That's a perspective. And a good one if it empowers you. But I do know things. And I do see things.

I'm breathing easier now that I'm not a ... okay, I won't say bad things about my ex-job, bc there were good times ... kinda ... cleaning the bathrooms and stuff. But I know my job was way better than my customers in their slave collars, I mean 'suits and ties' or 'business suits' as they lived their grey-grey lives each second bringing them more despair as they knew that they were one second closer having to go to work.

At least I didn't have to do that. At least I had a job where it was my job to deliver happiness one cup at a time.

Still don't believe me, do you. Well, fancy this: most heart attacks occur at 9 am Monday morning. That's right: people would rather die than go to work.

So the fucking is metaphorical, did you get that? Which is so much worse than if you were actually being fucked by the boss.

I know. I just said that. But here's why. I know, from first hand accounts what happens when the boss fucks his ... whatever you want to call his girl Friday. They end up together, and sometimes happy, too.

I know. From first hand observations. I'll leave it at that.

And I've seen when the boss doesn't fuck his employees (literally) ... well, everyone is living in hell at that shop. Which shop, `phfina? Well, from what I've seen, just about every shop, or: for just about for everyone who has a job.

And you so want me to leave my free state and go right into the workforce so I can be literally or metaphorically fucked up the ass.

And then I get my paycheck ... and see which bills I can pay this month with it. ... I believe they call that 'DP.'

You can look that one up.

But you'd rather do that. Or go to school.

And oh, my God! Professors? You think they are better than bosses? Don't get me started.

Unless you are the professor, in which case it's the students: can they get any stupider ... any more dull and dreary ... this year?

... or ... whatever everybody else is doing. Why?

Because you are in the middle of the herd. Because if you move out to the edge of the herd, or ... God forbid! ... leave the herd, there's that big, scary unknown, and you'd rather live your dull, small life that everybody else lives than face that.

Or so you think.

But there's a symbiotic relationship between the herd and the hunter (the Unknown). They depend on each other.

You don't fear the unknown.

You need it.

You need it there to keep you in your place. You need it there to justify why you know, by every measure, you're not living up to your expectations, you're not living your life powerfully, freely, peacefully, joyfully.

And so what do you do?

What do you do when you see a star shine so brilliantly in the night sky.

"You do not put a lamp under a bushel."

Actually, that's exactly what you do.

You see a person achieving, and growing, and glowing, and living, and what do you do?

"It'll never last!"

"You'll tire yourself out."

"Are you for real? Nobody could be like that."

"Give it up, your crusade, nobody can do that, especially not you!"

You reach up from the shit you are in, not so they can pull you up into the light, but so that you can pull them down, in fact, under you, stepping on top of them: you are drowning, so you might as well extinguish the light.

It's nice and comfy here in this cesspool, and anybody who stays otherwise, with their hurtful achieving ('who do they think they are? Hmmphf!'), with their too honest writing should be tortured first, a lot, and then shot.

After all, the unknown is safe. You can play all sorts of games with it, like worry, and procrastination, and panic attacks, and anything that takes you away from living your life.

You know? Stepping out? In faith? In courage? Into the unknown?

Oh, no, can't have that! ... so ... what's on the TV?

After all, if you did step out, in faith, into the unknown, the unknown would become ...

Known.

And that means you would have to deal with it. It being you. And your life.

So don't write that chapter, `phfina, because you just so know they are going to savage you for it. Don't quit your job, because then you have to live your life on your terms not on theirs, 'theirs' meaning 'everybody elses' ... and 'everybody elses' meaning, only meaning mine. Because if you are living your life like everybody else (like I do) then there must be Something Wrong With Me.

Uh, oh: unknown looming up. Quick: tell `phfina to get a job so I can justify why I eat this self-loathing hate and despair that I cover up with sameness and boredom every day, all the time ... um, I meant, 'my job.'

Yes, there's safety in the unknown, for as much as we play the fear and worry game, the unknown is still ever out there in the Future, the unchanging chimera that it is.

So, ... ;)

I said all this to answer your question: "You've been coughing for a month and you haven't gone to the doctor, `phfina. Why?"

Well, once I go to the doctor, this cough, that's nothing, o God, I hope it's nothing, 'cause It'll Be Okay Someday.

Becomes something.

What it became was bronchitis.

Just a little nothing case of bronchitis that a prescription of antibodies and rest will clear up, or it won't.

But you missed it, didn't you.

That little case of bronchitis was nothing, is nothing now, but before it was unknown.

That little case of you not writing a chapter of a story of a book you'll never publish is you telling yourself 'oh, who'd be interested, and besides, I'm not a good writer anyway.'

That little case of you not asking that girl out is ...

... is, oh, my God does the beast rear its ugly head:

She's wouldn't be interested in me anyway. Why?

She'd probably say no if I asked.

She'd slap me in the face, pour her drink over my head and then she and all her friends would point at me and laugh at me.

If I were to ask her, then there would always be That There Between Us and it'd be so awkward, and I'd have to turn and walk the other way whenever I'd see her.

You ever think of how much it costs to say hi?

I do.

But I also weigh the other cost.

Everything you do, and everything you don't do, has a cost.

Not saying hi to me as I'm passing you?

Do you know how that kills me? Every time, when you lift your phone to look at it, rather than to look at me, and maybe see my eyes, and maybe say hi, and maybe smile?

Do you know how much your smile costs?

It costs a lot.

That's not the right way to say it.

It's worth a lot. It is so, so dear. You know why?

Every person I see. Regardless.

Regardless.

Every person I see, when they burst in to a smile or a genuine laugh, or just a small private grin?

Oh, my God! It's like there was this lifeless wraith before but now, but now, their spirit fills them and they actually glow and you can't compare one to the other, you can't say a person is 'more beautiful' when they smile. Because from lifelessness to lively?

They aren't more beautiful: they are beautiful. Period.

And, but, you withhold your smile. You withhold your care. You judge people, your roommates, your coworkers, your bosses, your friends, and you withhold, and you become cold.

And they cry.

Or, worse, they soldier on.

And you kill people around you, all the time, because you'd rather have a nice, distant, cool, polite relationship with ... well, everybody, because 'nobody can care about everybody they meet,' (fucking lie) so you don't even open up to one person. You don't even open up to your own lover.

You don't even open up to your own mother. You don't even open up to your own sister. You don't even open up to your own daughter.

And you kill them.

And it's nice, safe, and cautious here. Nobody gets hurt. ... except that everybody does; and everybody survives.

But for what.

I'm taking my medication. I'm drinking tea. I'm (trying) to sleep more than two hours a day.

To survive.

But why?

So I can get a job? And be a Productive Member of Society?

Which society is that? Your society is the one you choose to keep.

And that society tells quite a bit about you.

What society are you keeping?

How about this: what society are you bettering?

"Please smile today." "Oh, I didn't smile today, because it was a shitty day."

A day is a day. You make it shitty — not them, you — or you make it joy-filled.

You know what I've been practicing, besides the smile game (that is, I choose to be a person who the people I encounter are better for it and I know that from their smile I now see that I did not see before)? I've been practicing that the instant I think something, like, 'oh, I should write to ...' I don't think about it, I just do it. I step out. In fear. And I type the first work. Or I dare raise my eyes, and breath out a 'h-hi' to the man walking the other way on the park trail. Or I dare to sneak into Victoria's Secret and dare to touch then to take that lace teddy off the rack and I dare to try it on, just because.

Well, almost try it on. Draping it over me counts ... sorta ... it is a big step for me, you know.

And that's the thing. The step. For you it's nothing, and I'm a coward. But I'm not measuring myself by your yardstick. You've walked further down the road. And there's more road to take, and I took that little baby step ...

... and they I ruined it, for you, that is, right? But running away as fast as I could and hiding myself in that big cushy-cushy chair.

But I have that moment where I dared something I haven't dared before, and nobody can take that away from me. And it felt really, really good, really daring to step into that unknown.

Do you have a moment like that? Where you dared something? Nobody can take that away from you.

And you know what? It's more than money in the bank, because money gets used and it's gone, or something, but this moment? You can use it whenever you'd like. You can use it now to do it again, the exact same thing, which is to step out into the unknown, and dare, and live.

And like that first time, you have no idea what will come out of it, and you have no way of knowing who you'll be after you take that step.

And you know exactly what it's like to live, comfortably, in fear, with the unknown over there and you over here, nice, safe, everybody-does-it doing it.

Did I say 'live'? I meant 'exist.'

I have bronchitis, and I walked to the pharmacy to get the meds ... what? Did you think they would carry themselves to me on my death bed?

O, `phfina, so the drama!

And as I was walking home, the sky opened up, again, and the deluge soaked me to the panties now firming riding up my butt crack.

Perma-wedgie. Super-icky.

There's Thor, the god of thunder, then there's me, third day in a row, not the goddess of rain, but more like the goddess of soggy or bedraggled.

And then the heat and humidity after that power shower? I mean, it was a downpour and there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was beating angrily, focused right on my head. I mean: how is that possible! I almost melted by the time I made it back to my place.

And ... okay, well, maybe I stopped at a ... place where food is served, you know? It was happy hour with half-priced appetizers, and I have been told I need to eat, and American-sized portions? I can eat half (being stuffed!) and bring half home.

And while I was at the bar, I had this revelation.

I mean, come on! can the revelations take a vacation from me, please?

And my revelation is this. Frappuccinos? You know what they are?

"Strawberries and crème blended crème drink"?

Write that while having a coughing fit!

Why don't they just say: "Substitute strawberry daiquiri" and be done with it.

People buy a frappuccino to live a surrogate life, substituting fake sugar for the real thing, and the real thing isn't even an alcoholic drink, it isn't even a sense of control and empowerment by ordering a 'decaf soy latte with one pump of sugar free vanilla and, yes, I do want whip ,,, oh, I'll splurge and make that a grande' and watch with the amusement to see if the barista fumbles your drink so you get the freebie card off them.

Honey, I've made more complicated drinks than yours, okay?

No, the substitute is for happiness.

So you wait in a long line, annoyed and impatient, at oh, my God, so early in the morning, so you can rush right out into rush hour traffic, that, oddly enough, isn't rushing at all, but standing stock still for an hour, and so you can be a road hazard as you are dialing your blackberry and sipping your latte that, dammit, the barista made correctly after all, and then you sit around work all day, scared out of your mind that the boss will come by and ask you what you're doing when he knows full well you're doing nothing because he hasn't given you work in weeks, so you make work to pretend to be working and you bitch and moan with your coworkers about what a shitty job this is, gossiping about the slut or the boss or both or about the football game last night and ...

... and that's how you spend your day?

And that's how you want me to spend mine?

Yeah.

Well, it does look really ... safe ... in there, I'll give you that.

You know, you could even live, even at work.

You know what works at work, and what doesn't. You know when you settle (that is, all the time) and when you fix something broken at work, and you're the heroine and everybody's happy because that stinking white elephant went away and now everybody, finally, can breathe easier, and you know you did that. You know what you're happy doing and what you're doing because you're just doing it to pass the time to fill the time because you're bored, no, scared to actually do something and actually live.

Even at work.

Or you know that this work thing? This job? It's so not you, and you know what is you. Don't tell me you don't. You know, so deep in your bones you can feel it in your marrow, what is you and what isn't, because you feel you being you with you're doing what you're meant to be doing. And you feel yourself being fake when you're faking it, or just getting by, or not ruffling feathers, whatever the hell that means.

But you settle. And then you justify it. You even say, 'well, this is just the way that I am' or 'this is just how it is,' using context to justify what a shit you are and what shit you are in.

Sister, that shit doesn't fly with me. You can play that game with yourself all you like, and, boy, do you like it, but don't come round to me looking for me to bend over and take your junk up my ass.

You can play your game. I see how delighted you are to be miserable. I play my own games. Some of them are shitty, too, yes.

But some of them ...

I dare to hope.

I dare to believe in you. I dare to believe in you, even when you don't.

I dare to believe you can do what you set out to do.

I dare not to take the shit that comes out of your mouth. I dare to believe you can do better than settle for or settle with.

I dare to call the bullshit you are saying bullshit, and I dare not to agree, just like everybody else does: 'oh, yeah, you're right. What can you do, you know? That's just how it is.' You want that behavior, you go look for somebody who lives that behavior. Don't look for it from me, gf.

I dare to get caught in the rain and throw my arms out and dance, twirling my head back and around, as I scream 'Wheeeeeee!'

I dare to curse the darkness: "YOU STUPID DARKNESS" and I dare to live in that darkness ... hey, I love the darkness, and the stars and the moon, and I dare to light a lamp, and look right into the flame (ouch, my eyes!) and then hold it up, high, and say, 'hey, over here! You can do this, too!'

I dare to smile. I dare to open my eyes. I dare to see your smile. I dare to have my breath taken away by your smile.

God, you are so beautiful.

And you know why? You know why I call you on your bullshit, and stand here, shouting, that the life you are living is a lie? You know why I dare to see you as you can be, as you are, if you'd only open your eyes and see yourself? Do you know why?

Because I love you, and I care about you, and I want you to be happy.

My cough is telling me I need to lie down now. So I'll do that. Good night. I love you.

Sensitive Girl

Do you know the difference between a sensible girl and a sensitive girl? Although it's not necessary that these two girls be different persons.

Hypothetically speaking.

So, it's not that I have reason to complain. I'm alive. That's a plus, I guess.

So, remember when I got just deluged by rain? I mean, the most recent time. Well only a crazy girl would let that happen to her again, on the same week, forsooth!

So, I packed. Clothes, that is. In my sbux backpack.

I'm quite the sbux girl. Like, can I even stay away from one for just one day? Ever? Even after I quit?

But I digress ... and do you know how much those little Naked Fruit juice thingies cost? Every day? Sure, mango madness helps me breathe, but ... maybe breathing is too expensive, for goodness sake.

Did I mention to myself that I digressed?

So I went to the zoo earlier this week. Saw the blesbok (imagine my lips caressing that word as I say it over and over and over again) and the macaw, that would not say 'Hello' to me, no matter how many times I kept saying 'Hello' encouragingly to it. Do you know how many times I kept saying 'hello' to that bird? I don't know, either. It was a lot.

And the zoo? There's a lot of walking to it. It's very hilly. And I was just walking along, la-di-dah, and what happens? Out of nowhere the storm clouds come rolling in, and FWHOOSH! it was the deluge. Everybody ran for cover, mommies pushing their babies, chaperones herding the school children, so you know, a smart girl would head under a canopy, right?

Well, the thing is, for me, is that I'm wind and water. And, God! I just threw my head back and spread out my arms and just ... just took it all into my being.

I was eyed by more than one person. I remember one India woman, her almond skin and eyes, now wide with disbelief, just staring at me, so I smiled, God! I smiled at the pure joy of it, being caught in a rain storm and just living!

Of course, my sbux backpack was safely ensconced under the canopy, so I could just, you know, change out of my wet things (drenched, actually), and everything would be fine.

Never mind that I've been coughing for about a month now.

And I didn't take into my calculations that walking back up all those hilly hills to the sbux just outside the zoo (how convenient!) would take a while, like 'more than a half-hour' a while.

And I didn't forecast that the temperature would drop 25°F right after the storm, instantly.

And so the bedraggled field mouse of a girl reached the sbux, and hit the air conditioning in there ... I might've sneezed once or twice.

But I changed in the little girl's room, and so everything would be fine. I'd just metro home. That is: ride the metro rail to D.L. and then take the quatro-cero-dos to my stop and walk the rest of the way home.

Of course, the temperature refused to rise. At all. And then it got late. And the walk home ...

Of course, the rain storm was gone, but then there was this light, then heavy mist that stuck to me, my hair, my clothes, ... my throat.

And I got home, and I plopped down onto bed, and I started coughing.

So here I am. My head is something the size of Luxembourg and I keep coughing and nothing comes up or out, except when it does and it's phlegmatic and a bit greenish. That's not good, is it?

But that's not such a big deal. Not really. What's the big deal is that when I cough, I want my head to come off, because that's what it feels like it's doing. Or what I wish it would do. I have a headache that ... just my head hurts, and is hot.

I guess I'll go to the doctor's Monday. I hate going to the Doctors. I hate the whole medical ... industry. I never felt good going to them as a girl, and then when ... well, steamroller? I've been flattened by them.

Anyway. Went to confession today. Walked. How? you ask. I am so doped up on ibuprofen that I am floating in a sea of pain, that I don't feel at all, because I don't feel a single part of my body.

And I'm a very kinesthetic person. I'm very connected to the feeling of being inside my body, so when I get disconnected from my body, when I go outside myself, which I have done, it's the most bone-chillingly terrifying thing for me. I'm disconnected from my body now, and I feel ... I feel I might not make my way back to myself. But I am detached ... from my body, so I'm feeling emotionally numb, too.

"People do not die of trifling colds!" snaps an irritated Mrs. Bennett to her teasing husband, seriously concerned that Jane might not make it.

Jane made it. But that's because little Lizzy, her sweet, smart, sharp sister was there with her.

I've been hovering in and out of consciousness at home. I ate some ramen noodles ... yesterday? ... morning? and then went back to bed and then I went to confession.

Which was ...

Okay, I didn't go to Fr. P, 'cause the line was long there.

Yeah, right. It was longer there. But if I go to Fr. T, a little Vietnamese man who survived communist interrogation...

They told him to renounce his belief in Jesus, and when he wouldn't, they bashed out his teeth with the butt of a rifle.

... Well, he's old, and hard of hearing, and he hasn't heard my confession in about a year.

Didn't stop him from laying into me. Hard. For the admonishment and absolution. God! I go to confession knowing what a bad, terrible person I am, I confess it, and then I get what-for.

"Masturbating twenty times since the last confession?" he reproached. "That's too much. That's a sickness. You have to get to the root of this evil, or you will be addicted and consumed by it until you die."

Thanks, Father. He absolved me, and then I had to walk home with that. With this. With me. I made it home. I always have lived within a block or two of a church, so I could walk to daily Mass before going to school. And have a vision of Mary. Bonus.

No visions today, 'cause maybe I'm too tired now. I'm going back to bed. So tell me what I'm a shit I am for not telling you how I'm doing, ... after all, I'm barely typing and typing and typing these words in the hands I don't feel connected to these arms I don't know what they are attached to. I can take it. I'm thick-skinned, colored yellow with a dusting of pollen.

And you know what? With all this, I have absolutely no reason to bitch. My sister doesn't have cancer. I didn't get a kidney infection. I didn't lose my husband in Afghanistan. My boss isn't bending me over his desk and fucking me up the ass so he doesn't have to divorce his wife and pay paternity on a child he fathered in me. I'm not in a dead-end job, like the millions of people I see rushing onto and off of the metro every day, pushing me around as if they don't see me, as if I'm not there, so focused they are to get to their jobs ('Susan, correct these reports for me, will you?') and then so focused to get the hell home, so they can fight with their husband and scream at their kids and have a headache and wake up early and do it over again.

I'm none of those things.

So I should be happy. Yay! Yippee!

Good night.

Sensible girl

BWA-HAHAHAHAHA!

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

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

Yes, I do.

So, I'm a sensible girl ...

BWA-HAHAHAHA!

*ahem!* Are you done, Miss Muse?

...

Good.

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

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

So I went to the mall yesterday. Watched Thor.

I have a confession to make.

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

Yes.

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

Yup.

And I loved me some Thor.

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

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

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

Oh. my. God.

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

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

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

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

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

*sigh*

Crushing

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

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

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

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

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

with the by-line:

"Conservative Mothers Demand her Burning at the Stake!"

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

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

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

Not that I'm not girlish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gimme some of that CPR-lovin' Kat.

No, I was a good girl.

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

I liked Thor.

And poor Loki!

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

Well, I felt indulgent, so I indulged.

Then I went out today.

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

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

Yes, you do.

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

Big mistake. Huge.

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

Well, their air conditioning worked really well.

REALLY well.

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

Yeah, yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*sigh*

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

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

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

Toxic Psycho Bitches

Haven't slept. These last few days I've been sleeping, what? 2 hours total?

Losing weight: lost 6 pounds this week. Down to 114 lbs.

It's funny. Isn't a girl who's drinking supposed to be gaining weight? And I'm eating meals, and not puking them up, either ... well, not often, that is.

In group, we had a supermodel leader, and she kept losing weight, even following her dietician's advice. So her dietician, who charged her $4000 gave her her money back and said, 'I won't take your money anymore if you don't go to group, This is not your diet: you're thinking yourself to death." It was Donna, right, the super model.

I hate it when people tell me stuff, 'cause it gets into my head, and it never goes away.

I wonder how many girls are jealous of me right now? I'm thinking weight loss. Marvelous.

I'd like to blame toxic psycho bitches: wanting to fix me or fix their gfs, always so sure that they are right, as they spew shit right out of their mouths all over me. I keep running into them, insinuating themselves into my life, looking so sweet and vulnerable, so talented and so filled with potential, and then ... and then they start working on me, right from where they are in their cesspool, so I'd love to blame them.

I even have a quiz:

You might be a toxic psycho bitch if:

1.

... etc.

But there are tons of self-help books out there already, making tons of money off of the toxic psycho bitches so 'wanting' to change, to better themselves, to be happy, and then they start right in on everybody around them, sabotaging those they can, so at least they can blame other people for their own unhappiness.

Sounds rather like the beginning of this post, eh, `phfina? Yes.

So I won't blame anybody but myself. I'm responsible for who I allow into my life and how I allow them to affect me. If somebody wants to pour shit all over me, I could go use it as fertilizer, instead of wallowing in that shit, crying, can't I?

Yes.

Or I could say: Warning! Danger! Toxic psycho bitch on approach! and steer clear, finally, instead of getting sucked right into the melodrama of their lives, paying the full price of interacting with them, where they pay nothing. Oh, they may pretend to be suffering, but they are made of stern stuff, they can dish out guilt and wallow in pain with the best of them, and then ... AND THEN come back for second helpings, as long as you are willing to play their power-trip game.

YEUCK!

AND then, clear indicator they ask me, why have I stopped writing?

Why have I stopped writing? Hm, how many pages did I send your way today, sweetie, responding to your, what? three emails this last hour?

They have no boundaries, too. None whatsoever, if they aren't crawling under your skin, then obviously YOU have a problem opening up. And as soon as you open up, what happens? "Oh, this is what's wrong with you, and that's what's wrong with you, and ..."

GAH!

I should have learned after Kate how it is, how she opened up to me, bringing me to her 12 step, so I would open up to her, so then she could dominate and control me, if not from the top (as much as she tried) then from every way possible, struggling, screaming, slapping, humiliating ...

She was an amazing fuck, however. A-maz-ing. Toxic psycho bitches seem to have that ability: they fuck SO good, it's like, hard to leave them for your sanity's sake, because they have you enslaved to their ability to cum and to make you cum, any time, day or night. They DO get into your head, so they know what you like, they know your insecurities, they know every single erogenous zone on your body (easy for me: every part of my body's an erogenous zone), everything.

They get into your head, because they try to get into your heart, and steal it. And eat it, because ...

Because they've been so unloved, for so long, they can't believe it's possible, and when you try to do it, they are so, so, SO grateful ... for a while, and then they start seeing you don't really love them, because you're just like their mom or their dad, or their brother or their first boyfriend or first girlfriend, who raped her, or beat her, or dominated her, or ... whatever.

And that's the draw: they so need your love, you feel compelled to love them, and then you get sucked in, for as long as you can last, longer even, in some relationships, and then you're another casualty, another piece of evidence for them that they aren't the problem, you are, and then they go to the next person, after they've used you up and eaten you, and they do the same thing, over, and over, and over again until they die.

No, I don't know how Kate's doing ... she hasn't called my mom in a while, asking after me. I hope, I really hope she's doing well, and recovered, and in an healthy relationship, or happy on her own.

Are you a toxic psycho bitch?

Easy question to answer. Look in the mirror (can you?) and ask yourself, are people better off because of you, or are you the life-force suck in the group, so people avoid you if they can and avoid you if they can't (by opting out of being there when you corner them). Do you talk behind people's back? Sowing poison in other people's ears, so that you build a case out of a person YOU picked to be with? Do you try to limit somebody? "You can't do that; you shouldn't do this. You know you're not that good. You'll wear yourself out!" Or do you encourage somebody to take a risk with their life, and live.

Do you put yourself in the person you're talking to? Or do you get frustrated with them, because they are not doing what you want them to do?

You know, this is all my fault. I'm making myself sick, and it's because I broke the rules. I should have just responded to reviews, and not ever given out my email, and never, ever, never have gone on fb. And not even accepted PMs. I should have just written my stories, and should have just kept writing them, even now, but instead of writing about angst and melodrama, I'm living it.

It's good writing material, that's for sure. Thanks for that, toxic psycho bitches.

And under that layer of toxicity, there is a little girl, wanting to love, and be loved.

And I love her, that little girl. I'm an idiot, yes, but I love her. I love you, and I want you to be happy.

Can you pretend? Can you dare? Can you ask yourself, where is my happiness? And go in that direction? Dig yourself out of the mire you created for yourself (you did, honey, not anybody else. Somebody did something, yes, but that's in the past now, you're a big (little) girl, so put the past in the past, and deal with the now). Reach up, not to pull somebody beneath you so you can drown them with you, but reach up, and pull yourself out of this shit, and look at the sunlight, and the trees, and the people, and the city, and the lake, and breathe in and smell the freshly baked bread, and hug mommy, hug her tightly as she hugs you and she whispers, 'I love you, sweetie,' and know that she really does, and feel loved.

Just for one second today. Just smile, for one second today.

And then journal that. "I smiled today." And that may be your only entry for today, but, honey, you won. You can look back at that entry and know that on May 15th, 2011, you smiled.

You know what I'm going to do now? I'm going to submit this entry, then I'm going to go to bed, and then I'm going to sleep, deeply. And tomorrow I'll wake up. Today was cold and rainy (loved it!), ... actually, that was yesterday. Today will be what? A bit warmer? Okay, I'll keep to the shade, and go out, and be among people, and see them go about their lives, and see that there is life out there to live.

You know how hard it is to confront yourself with the ugly truth, instead of keeping up that stream of sweet, polite lies that nobody believes except the one person you've deluded into believing, that is: you? It's impossible. Until you get square with yourself, and admit: 'hey, I've been lying. I've been making people's lives around me miserable. I'm a really vicious evil bitch! God, how can anybody stand me and my [whatever you use to use people, like sick sweetness, or cold shutdown, or whatevs]"

So hey, there you are in all your ugly glory. Wasn't that hard to (finally) admit to yourself, now, was it?

Yes, it was. I understand. God, I do.

But then what? You see what you are and where you are. Happy with that? Yes, you have been so far. So, but ... why not try something different for a change. It's going to feel really weird (I know this, too), but then, WOW! somebody smiled, genuinely, because I wasn't cooping or manipulating or intimidating or dominating, but I was just with them and they were just with me, and hey, that's scary and strange but it actually was fun.

Well, I'll be.

And you can try that, if you'd like.

But whatever floats your boat. Me, I'm going to go boating with people who want to sail, not with those who blame me or the waves or the air or the boat for their miserable condition in life.

Okay, I do get that some people do get seasick, and somehow that's all my fault for taking them out on a boat, when they had full mental ability to say, 'no, thank you,' from the day WE started planning that trip TOGETHER. I do get that.

So go out driving in your sweet new BMW, or paraglide or pick flowers, or paint flowers, or have a nice lunch out, or ... whatever.

Be happy. Honestly happy. And if you find that you have to push people around to be happy, give that a break for a day, and go off alone, and see how keeping your own company out on the beach or at the museum or wherever isn't all that bad after all and actually is rather pleasant.

STOP LYING to yourselves. STOP analyzing and over-thinking everything. You're only killing everything around you with your sharp, cynical wit or your vainglorious righteousness. Act, and give the world some room to act with you.

You, you toxic psycho bitch, may actually be surprised how wonderful joy actually feels. You may actually find it's nice to come out of your cautious shell and live, and not 'live a little' but actually live, experience, breathe, feel, and be.

It's not about you, honey, your happiness. And it's not about them, particularly if YOU think you know what's best for them.

What is it about? It's about nothing. It's about clearing your head, and just being, in the moment, there, happy, and why? because even though there are 27 million things going on right now, and all of them not according to your plan, you are making the choice to be happy.

Your choice.

I love you. Good night.