the bloodwriting on the wall

when i was about eight and a half years old, i awakened on some ordinary morning and i found our little three-bedroom apartment eerily quiet. two of my brothers were asleep in the bedroom that i shared with them. my parents' bedroom door was shut tight as it always was. but something wasn't right. i could feel it. not that prickly feeling some people talk about, or that skin-crawling fear thing. something much more subtle than that had led me out of bed that morning.

i walked softly around the first corner, into the dining room. if there was anything out of place, i didn't notice it being so. my mom has always kept a very tidy house. not so neat that it couldn't be lived in, but always nice enough so that if unexpected guests arrived, we wouldn't be embarassed. thanks, mom. the table was clean, the chairs were in their places . . . sometimes we even had placemats, and i think there were some on the table that morning, too. maybe. it gets hazy. none of the furniture seemed out of place, though -- and on the surface, it looked as normal as normal could look in our house.

we were poor as churchmice sometimes. maybe that's why i feel so connected to the children at el tamarindo -- regardless of economic circumstance, those parents give their children the best they've got. they were always as i was when i was their age: poor, but clean and relatively content. back then, i never felt discontent. i was about three years into my mother's older son's sexual abuse of me, but it was so indelible that i've retained only two clear memories of it before the age of ten. i sometimes almost wish it were so, for the time after that.

he'd been given the den, my older halfsibling had. my father had wanted to give it to me, being the only girl. but all my mom could see was that i was his favorite, so the room went to her son -- the oldest -- instead of to his daughter, his favorite. i wasn't my dad's favorite just for shits'n'giggles, nor because i was the only girl-- although that went a long way in my father's family. i was his favorite because i made great grades, was so far advance that i was among about a handful of kids in our school who got to take french in fourth grade, and i was pretty tough, quiet, and smart. i wasn't 'daddy's little girl'; i was my father's kid. my dad liked me hanging out with him; my brothers and halfsibling, he could take or leave. given the choice, he would leave his wife's son with her. every time.

but i wasn't thinking about any of that on that morning as i walked through the small path that separated the dining room from the kitchen.

i can remember hearing my father saying something. he was praying, i knew, but over what now, i had no idea. he prayed a lot, my dad did. especially when he'd done something stupid like hit my mom. my belief is that God had already forgiven him. it would be another decade, though, before my mother would be able to do the same.

so i knew what the garbled ramblings usually signified, but this morning was somehow different. i remember listening for the tv and noticing that i didn't smell oatmeal. oatmeal was a staple breakfast food in my family. it was the only thing that went far enough to feed four kids and two adults on a daily basis. i don't ever remember eating breakfast at school, not even after the divorce. my mom fixed us breakfast every morning and we wore t-shirts under our clothes from october through may. i never caught a cold until i started living on my own. thanks, mom.

the kitchen was dark that morning -- another sign that something had gone awry. as i walked softly past the kitchen, i looked down at the corner of the wall, where the kitchen met the living room. there it was. all of a sudden, i could hear my father clearly, begging, 'bring her back, Lord. safe and sound, Lord.' it was my mother's blood, splattered on that wall corner. i could only vaguely remember the sounds of their argument from the night before, but as soon as i saw the blood, i knew clearly who it belonged to.

my mom had left. and she'd taken that bastard of a son with her. eighteen or twenty months later, the divorce would be final.

mi amor









mon coeur









eyes like mine
fearing all
afraid of nothing



eyes wide open
we take the plunge
into life's great beyond



whee!

Hmmm . . . this could be the start of something quite nice.
Last updated 24.9.2006

Advisor
None

Term GPA 4.000


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Course Section Title Final Grd Credits CEUs
1 SOSC-105-60 Introduction to Sociology A 3.00
2 SCNC-106-60 Introductions to Science A 3.00
3 HUMN-303-01 Professional Ethnics A 3.00
4 LEGL-103-01 Legal Terminology A 3.00

you've never looked into my eyes, but don't u wanna know
what the dark and the wild and the different know

there are some things in my life I'll never understand
but they become the force that makes me who I am

you've never been to the moon but don't u want to go
under the sea in the volcano

you've never looked into my eyes, but don't u wanna know
what the dark and the wild and the different know

i like that song
makes sense

damn she rocks
i'd forgotten

i wanna come over
lol i love this song
melissa rocks

i've been trying to figure out what's been depressing me over these last six weeks or so. since i've been back. and i think i know what it is. i think it's having to come back to the same shit i left behind. the same fears the same insecurities, the same arguments and the same emptiness that was all here. it was exhilarating, being down there. being taino, having a sister and lots of little golden brown babies running in the sun. i have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to be down there. i felt whole down there.

i feel a hole up here. not a gaping, gasping chasm. just a hole. hey, i've got a hole joke for ya. if it takes ten men seven hours to dig a hole five feet wide by three feet deep, how long would it take them to dig half a hole?












it wouldn't take them any time. you can't dig half a hole. lol

in some ways, being with him was like being with you -- as if somehow being with you could be replicated half a world away. like the day he walked me to the bank, or the day he walked in while i was standing there, in front of the tv, half naked and blushing purple. his unexpected presence did not scare me. it excited me. sort of like you did, when you walked up those stairs in your kilt and nothing more. like everytime i saw you after that. like everytime i saw him after that. i think it's good that we didn't speak the same language. still, when he calls, i smile at the thought of talking to him in my broken spanglish, and he to me, in his broken espingles. my friends don't seem to believe that everything that happened there, and since -- which wasn't much, really -- was an accident. like the fact that he called the other day. they don't believe that him giving me his number was an accident. nor that me giving him mine was.

i should call him tomorrow, just to say hi.

deseo tocar su estrella otra vey.

oh fuck, part deux

how eerie is it that the plane crashed a few hours before conan obrien headlined a skit about a bad plane crash on the emmys

there are two people in the world whom it would suck to be today

thank you God that i ain't one of'em

oh fuck

how eerie is it that a plane carryin 50 people crashes and the only one to get out alive was the co pilot?

is anyone else having serious car crash syndrome with the squidbillies at 4am on a monday mornin?

FUCK!

well, my shrink says that gettin some of the shit outta me on here is a good thing, so i'm gonna take another trip down memory lane

i think i left off at my parents, which is where all of anybody's shit starts, and at least i know that i'm at least halfway normal. well, in that regard anyway. really, though, a lot of this shit inside me needs to go to my mother's bastard. well maybe not. i mean, he obviously either had shit happenin to him or he was just plain born evil, which i can't dispute since i dunno who implanted the twisted little fuck into my mother's womb. maybe he's the twisted little fuck of a twisted big fuck and the whole thing's genetic. shame that genetic waste actually gets to live beyond its first month of breathing oxygenated air, especially when waste equals shit like the little shiteater my mother brought with her when she married my dad. i wish he'd've been a retard, but if he would've been a retard, there's little chance that my parents would've been my parents, which really isn't that much of a bad thing to consider anyway. not that i don't love my mom or anything, but if i'd've been given any choice in the matter, or if i'd've had to make a choice, i'd've chosen to be offspring of my father's clan over any chance of having the downside of the genetic material available on my mother's side. turns out that i got the best of both of'em, which is a whole lot more than i can say for the fuckups called my siblings. the best of'em, excluding my stepbrother, who i've heard is quite the fuckup in his own right -- what is it about mothers with fucked up boys that attracted my dad anayway? -- but of all the ones i grew my first thirteen years with, the best of them is terminally ill and has been hangin on a dialysis needle for almost thirty years and refusin any form of transplant cuz he doesn't wanna contract another dreaded disease on top of the one he's already got. sorta makes sense in an odd little fuckup way. he's the smartest of my mother's three boys. sux, don't it.

so i've figured out that i'm avoiding sex because i don't feel safe enough to engage in it with the partner i've chosen to walk this leg of my journey with. prolly why i got a hard on in dominicana last month. boy had me with a look and it don't hurt that i had him with one too. god, i miss feelin safe. miss walkin down the street knowin that they knew who i belonged to and seein them feelin the fear that such knowledge brought forth. i miss belongin to someone i feel safe enough with to wanna belong to. so i guess i've hit the point where i finally have to accept that my life consists of what never existed before he did and will never exist now that he is no longer in my life that way. i've been runnin from that, i guess, though that's about par for the course for me. run from that which i don't wanna see and abdicate all responsibility whenever possible. i wanna belong to someone, not have someone belong to me who doesn't seem strong enough to have me belong to them. i can keep runnin if i want to. but i don't want to. this relationship will probably end, and i don't wanna run from that either. hell, sometimes i wanna run toward that, but that's another discussion entirely. but there are some separatory issues that we must face together because in my insanity, i've allowed myself to become a babysittin enabler and that shit don't jive with who i know i'm really meant to be. and i don't wanna be taken care of, either -- especially by someone who sounds like their soul is shatterin into a thousand tiny pieces everytime they say that they're worried about me. dammit, if you're gonna tell me you're worried about me, at least sound like you're strong enough to actually handle bein worried about me, otherwise it just creeps me out and makes me run like hell in the other direction. but i digress . . .

so what does this have to do with my parents, my twisted fuck of a brother, and how can i reconcile it without hatin my parents? trillion dollar question, if i've ever seen one. well, far as i can tell, it's true what my shrink said when she said that our/my mother/s teach me/us how to be in a relationship and my/our father/s teach us/me what to do in a relationship. i be too thought-filled and i do run like a bitch when the goin gets close. i never ran from him, though -- the one i belong/ed to. that goin got real close. guess it's a good thing we never shared living quarters. don't think i'd remember how it felt to love what that was if we'd've had to do the day-to-day shit together. 'sides, it's good to have that to look at sometimes cuz when i feel like runnin, at least i don't run for real. or, at least, biologically, anyway. though i guess i do, especially when i start wishin my period would start so i can say fuck no with impunity. i hate feelin guilty about sayin no to a pair of eyes that adores me beyond words. it's a fucked up world, no doubt.

when i was fifteen and sixteen years old, i was not allowed to have friends. that may be a bit exaggerated, but while my mother's bastard was out runnin the streets and gettin locked up for way stupid shit -- that's another chapter entirely -- and my younger sibs were out havin a grand old time doin whatever the fuck they felt like doin, my mom told me that i had to come straight home from school and not leave the house for any reason except emergency because she needed me to stay in the house in case somebody important called or in case she needed to call home for whatever reason. what the fuck was that about? that's why i've been so fucked over the last year or so. i'm still in that babysitter/enabler twistercane. godDAMN it, says the eight-year-old with the foul mouth that i love so dearly. speakin of whom, how fucked up is it that michael mcdonald was/is so petrified of losing his christian-music fans that not only is the satan character NOT listed in the bigger/longer cast credits, but his name doesn't even appear on the screen until almost the very last credit -- meaning, we don't see michael mcdonald's name until after the caterers and fiftyfifth assistants, but before the production company logo reappears. i listened to that song he sings at the end, the one that talks about the darkness in a child's soul and what bastards they really are and havin his friends detail your car for about twenty bucks. he must know a lot of latinos. but he does all that, plus that fuckin tripped out up-there song -- is that a fag connotation or what -- and he's so scared shitless that you don't even know it's him unless you're a geek who sits through to the very last scene before the screen goes all ashy. like me. i love that movie. i watched it every night for about ten days, and i watched it four times just yesterday, in part to make up for not seeing it for several days recently. layers upon layers of the best fucked up shit i've ever seen. thanks for turnin me onto them. and the squidbillies. some of that adult swim shit is . . . just lovely.

well i've got a paper and a coupla other shiteatin things i gotta do but i gotta sleep too and what with the new pup and all, i need to get outta my own headspace for a bit.

new baby

and today, she climed up and down the main stairs all by her self!
an immediate spirits-lifter, she is . . . can't wait to take her to the scottish festival next month and on our next road trip and on the road to see aerosmith (maybe) . . . something about independent, intelligent, unconditional love that makes almost everything almost okay.

is she spoiled already?
you betta your sweet ass she is!

next week's challenge? learning to sit and stay. i'm a damned good dog trainer, that i am.

And God said, 'Let there be queers' . . .

And there were queers. And God looked upon them, and saw that they were good.

God's Party Aboard Noah's Queer Ark

The First Sign
And it came to pass, in those days, that two dykes were driving upon the road in their cherry red chariot. Darkness had formed across the land and the dykes hungered. And they thirsteth.

And the first dyke saith, I thinketh that McDonald's soundeth most good to me just now.

And the second dyke saith, Yea, that soundeth good to me, too, sister. And though I loveth the House of the Waffles, I wanteth it not. I, too, wanteth McDonalds.

And they droveth on their way, looking for a blue sign with golden symbols.

Then, lo and behold, a blue sign appeared. It had golden symbols that arched and crossed. And the first dyke saith, Lo, my sister. Hereth is our sign. Let us therefore come to the place where the golden symbols shall meet. And the second dyke saith, Yea, my sister, driveth us further, that we may partake of sacred cows and stringed potatoes.

And so, the two dykes droveth to the place beneath the golden symbols. And they droveth around to the speaking pipe and a new sign appeared, with all manner of food and drink. And in that moment, the dykes saith, at nearly the same time, Let us therefore eateth of the fish of the sea, for that seems more pleasing than sacred cow. But alas, the place was darkened and no voices answereth their call. The two dykes droveth around to the window, wherein they saw another sign.

The second dyke saith, This place hath closeth at midnight. And the first dyke, looking at the hour, saith, Yea, and it is now seven past the midnight hour. And the two dykes sighed, for they were sorely hungered. And they thirsteth.

And the second dyke saith, Let us therefore driveth further. Perhaps we shall see another golden sign.

The Second Sign
And it came to pass, after they droveth their chariot further down the main road, another blue sign appeareth, with another golden symbol like the first sign. And the first dyke saith, Behold, here is our second sign. Surely this one shall be open. And they droveth to the place underneath the golden and arched sign. Alas, this place, too, was darkened and there was no room at the inn. There was even no light within the place, and the dykes were discouraged. And still they hungered. And they thirsteth.

And the second dyke saith, There musteth be a place of golden arched sign that is open.

And the first dyke saith, Yea, let us try another place.

And the two dykes droveth off, into the darkness.

The Third Sign
And it came to pass, after they droveth their chariot further, another blue sign appeareth, with another golden symbol like the first and second signs. And the first dyke was encouraged, and she saith to the second dyke, Behold, my sister. Another sign of gold and arches. And the second dyke was also encouraged. She saith, Yea, my sister, let us therefore go and partake of the fish of the sea and the stringed potatoes.

And they droveth, but did not see the place underneath the sign of gold and arches. Alas, it was darkened and looketh like it had been abandoneth for several hours. They nearly passed the place underneath the gold and arches, but then they saw it and parketh in it. And the dykes still hungereth. And they thirsteth.

And then the second dyke looked up to the heavens and saith, Yea, Father, we now knoweth that thou doth not wanteth us to eat at the place of the sign of the gold and arches. Whereth wouldst thou have us eateth?

And the first dyke saith, Yea, Lord, where wouldst thou havest us to go? For we are hungered. And we thirsteth. Where wouldst thou have us eateth?

And the second dyke saith, Yea, Lord, whither thou leadeth us, there we shall go.

And the first dyke started the chariot once more, and the two dykes droveth on their way.

The Sign of the House of the Waffles
And lo, in just a few cubits, they saw God's sign through the trees and the darkness. They knew it was God's sign, for it was the sign of the House of the Waffles. And they dykes rejoiceth, for the House of the Waffles was open. There were other people therein, and lo, there was room at the inn.

Alas, there was another sign on the door of the House of the Waffles. The two dykes must goeth and changeth the plastic denari into paper denari, for the plastic denari changer worketh not at the House of the Waffles.

Seveneth Eleveneth and the Sign of the Exploding Slurpee Dispenser
And the first dyke saith, Behold, there is a Seveneth Eleveneth next door. And the second dyke saith, Lo, and a Slurpee wouldst be good just now. For still they hungereth. And they thirsteth. And the first dyke saith, Yea, sister, getteth thou a Slurpee. And the two dykes entereth the Seveneth Eleveneth.

As the first dyke changed her plastic denari into paper denari, the second dyke fixeth a cup for the Slurpee. The second dyke saith, My sister, the Supermaneth Slurpee looketh most pleasing. And the first dyke saith, Yea, tryeth that one.

Alas, the Slurpee dispenser explodeth upon both dykes. The second dyke, not believing this sign, tryeth the Slurpee dispenser again, and lo, it explodeth a second time. The second dyke, still not believing this sign, tryeth the Slurpee dispenser again. It explodeth a third time. Then the clerk, having seen the exploding Slurpee sign three times, saith, Lo, the Slurpee dispenser hath brokeneth.

And the second dyke saith, Yea, Lord, thou doest not wanteth us to have neither Slurpee nor food from the place of the gold and arches.

And the first dyke saith, Yea, Father, thou wanteth us to have only good food, from the House of the Waffles. Whither thou leadeth, there shall we goeth.

And having received the third exploding Slurpee sign, the two dykes therefore wenteth out of the Seveneth Eleveneth and wenteth back to the House of the Waffles.

The House of the Waffles
And lo, in the House of the Waffles, there sat hillbillies with unfriendly countenances and yellow people who wouldst not understand queerspeak. But God had a plan for the two dykes, and soon after they arrived, the hillbillies and the yellow people lefteth the House of the Waffles. There remaineth only the two dykes, a queergirl, and a gayboy.

And God said, Let there be queers. And lo, the queers entered two-by-two and the House of the Waffles was transformed into Noah's Queer Ark, where there was much rejoicing. There came the transchildren and the babydykes, and the queergirl and the gayboy and the two dykes made merry into the night, for it was the Lord's night, just past midnight, at a House of the Waffles in Southern Virginia. And God said, Let there be music. And lo, although no one toucheth the juketh box, gayboy party club music began to play.

Parable of Sunday Queer Night
And the second dyke asketh the gayboy, Sir, is every Sunday night Queer Night here?
And the gayboy answereth, saying, No, noteth usually.
And the second dyke saith, Well, it should be.
And there was much rejoicing, for the gayboy had thought that the second dyke was a hoe-moe-phobe and was much relieved to findeth out that she was not.

Parable of the Invisible Smoke Screen
And the first dyke began to walk outside to smoketh, but the gayboy saith, No, you may smoketh in here, but you must doeth it here at the bar, for the booths are the no-smoketh section.

And they laughed about having an invisible smoketh screen that would keep the smoketh from traveling from the bar to the booths that sat right next to it. They laughed and laughed, until the smoke behaveth and only stayed where it was supposed to. And they marveled at the goodness and mightiness of the Lord, their God.

The Dykes Depart
And it came to pass that the dykes left. And in their leaving, they wisheth God's queerchildren a goodnight and they rejoiceth all along their way. For they knew that God had led them there and that God had thrown them an impromptu queer party, down at a House of the Waffles, just after midnight, on His night, in a sleepy little country Virginia town.

The Final Lesson
Sometimes God just wanteth to hang out with His queerkids.
And there ain't nothin wrong with that.
Ay Mayun

so we were drivin down the road and the sign said christianburg, next exit
i looked out the window and said christianburg, just two lanes over
and she immediately jumped us
one more lane over

now THAT is a fuckin BEST FRIEND

four hours later

boi: you know, you're a difficult woman to love sometimes. sometimes you say you want this and then you don't want it and then you . . .

girl: i know. i am very difficult.

boi:








girl: thank you

how hot is it?

satan-in-a-speedo hot

well fuck, i just got this email from fp about doin a slurpee run. dammit. i didn't even have school today, but i went to a game with boi. there were a few fun moments, but nothin feels quite right. i dunno, maybe i'm overreacting, but i don't think so. the fuckin with my head, i coulda prolly dealt with cuz i can at least give him the benefit of the doubt. but that pretendin everything's just peachy even after i got better and the planned ambush during session . . . and most importantly, he knows -- how i feel about honoring agreements, especially given the number of agreements i adhere to for his sake. it's not the email itself; it's the principle of 'let's not ambush each other when we go into session'. let's lay our cards on the table, go in without any sort of ulterior motive.

and believe it or not, he and i have talked several times about his pretendin everything's fine when it's not. i feel like everything he did for me while i was sick was a complete lie. all that time, even after i got better, he never said a word til he was ready to pull out the email during the session.

how am i supposed to feel safe in going into sessions with him if i'm always on guard in case he comes loaded with stuff that he hasn't even had the decency to tell me he was having a problem with? maybe i am overreacting, but these sessions are supposed to be sacred space and i'm not a big fan of planning ambushes on people in sacred spaces. i trusted him to be up front with me and he wasn't.

oh and wanna hear the latest?

the first was about the shakespeare set he got me. it was a really sweet gift and i so appreciated his thoughtfulness. until he started askin me if i'd told anyone about the gift he got for me. for two or three days, no shit, he asked me that. the last time was at some ungodly hour of the morning when we'd been up talking and i finally had to tell him that i would be sure to tell people about the gift if he would just please go to sleep. and i never realized how much he did that -- how much he seems to always want me to tell everybody i know about every little nice thing he does for me -- until he did it last week with his birthday gifts to me. he even did it when he made me jello when i was sick -- wanted to know if i told anyone. and everytime somebody asks how i'm feeling, if he's around, he makes sure to mention that he took care of me while i was sick. is that the only reason he does nice things -- so he can check in and see how many people will be patting him on the back for the 'good job' he did?

talk about feelin cheap.

and then . . .

we were on the way home tonight. i had to stop by my mom's and drop off dominica gifts for her and my kid and pick up my b-day gifts from them. my sweet kid comments that it looks like i'm losing weight, which felt kinda nice to hear. so i get in the car and tell boi. you wanna know his response?

"well it probably looks like we're both losing weight. y'know j**** s**** at work told me that it looks like i'm moving better and my pain levels have been way down."

not, 'gee honey, that's really great. i'll bet that felt good'. no, 'wow, i thought so too so i'll bet it feels good to hear it from another source'. not even a, 'that's really nice. congratulations on that'. no, all i got was that apparently i don't deserve to enjoy a compliment that's just about me unless he feels that it's true about him too. and no conversation about anybody's compliments can be complete without another rendition of 'how many people complimented the little transboi, too'.

he tells me that somebody compliments him, i'm like, 'hey that's great. good for you', 'bet that felt great to hear' . . . something along the lines of how nice it is to know that other people compliment him in different ways. but i guess compliments that i get can only be valid if he can include himself in some way.

i can't count the number of times i've had to listen to him tell me about the same compliments from the same people. or even the number of times we discuss how low his pain levels are and how he's moving better and on and on and on. and still, even if i have to remind him that he's told me that story, he still gets that wow-that's-great-and-you-deserve-it kinda response. but from the first time i tell him of a compliment i've gotten, it's off to the races again about him. i'm not jealous of the attention he gets; i'm pissed because when i get attention, he attempts to downplay my own achievement by making sure i remember that he has achievements too. i know it's just a function of his own insecurity, but how long should i allow him to diminish my achievements by inserting himself into them? i think four years is enough of that.

talk about seein things for the first time.

sometimes it ain't about cheating. sometimes it's just about being treated with respect and consideration. but a new day is coming. i'm at the point in my education where i can actually take classes only one day a week -- saturdays -- and do the rest online. i'm looking at federal jobs, and my grades qualify me for positions making . . . gee, almost the same money as he does. i think the lowest i can be considered for is around 35-40K on a good day-- but with my grades, i can start at just under 50. can ya beat that? lol

i sent in my resume for about six of them last night. a 3.72 gpa should get me pretty far.

i think the worst thing i did was trusting this transboi when he encouraged me to step out on faith to heal and get back in school. i put my trust in him that i wouldn't regret it. and i do regret it. it'll be awhile before i get past regretting this, but you can bet your ass that i won't be doing this anymore. i've had to fight tooth and nail for every sliver of consideration and respect he's given me over the past eighteen or so months and i honestly feel diminished as a person for doing so.

when i was in dominica, i thought about whether the only reason i was attracted to yeis was because of the way transboi fucked with me before i left. sad to say, it was part of the reason. i guess it just felt really good to have somebody be considerate and thoughtful of me in all of the same ways that i am for boi -- but that i don't get in return from boi. yea, yeis was being paid to guard and guide us, but if he hadn't been especially attentive to me, neither of us would have gotten the amount of ribbing we did -- especially he did from his 'boys'. lol i saw it and almost felt sorry for him. almost, cuz it felt damned good, but it wasn't long before both of us figured out that unless we told the backstory to every single private joke we had, we were both gonna catch hell from the same people.

but even that was kind a nice -- and it felt nice, too, to not have to answer a million questions about why i wanted what i wanted or needed what i needed. i've missed that.

nice to not have to hear a weak-assed sounding, 'do you want me to help' when it's obvious that i'm struggling with something heavy and/or bulky. i've missed that.

nice to not hear a weak-assed sounding 'i'll try' everytime i said 'please do this my way'. i've missed that.

and nice to just feel safe in knowing that although he was there to protect me from physical harm, he was so confident and so strong, i would have never even had to think about protecting him. boy, i've missed that.

nice to be around someone who didn't feel the need to proclaim that that they were a 'trained killer' cuz really, people seemed to know to not fuck with him anyway. i've missed that.

and nice to know that if we had've slept together, there would have been no confusion and his first move would not've been to lie down sounding more like mickey mouse than a mature adult in bed with a woman that he wants. can't tell ya how much i've missed that.

and nice to be treated as a woman in my own right, not as an extension of whosever hand i happen to be holding. can't tell ya how much i've missed that one either.

it felt nice to flirt and giggle and even engage in a little mindfuck seduction with somebody sure of who they are and what they want. for the first time in a really long time, i actually felt completely safe -- emotionally, spiritually, physically, and sexually safe with someone. it's been around maybe eight or so years since i last felt that with anyone. the absence is of it is rather painful now that i've seen what i've been missing.

it's not really about yeis personally, although it was my attraction to him that allowed me to see the deficiencies in my own relationship. it's about remembering what it feels like to be the girl in the relationship and only floating into tomboyland when i want to -- not cuz i feel like i always have to. it's about enjoying the hell out of that polar-opposites thing cuz i like the balance that having male and female energies bring to a relationship. i'm attracted to butches, dominates, and ftms who really are male and not still not-completely-decided.

i'm the girl. i'm always the girl. i'm always the only girl in any relationship. i was my daddy's only girl and i no longer settle for any less from anybody i'm fuckin. i hate it when lovers forget that. i don't date girlie lookin or girlie actin or girlie fuckin people, no matter what kinda body they were born with. i've missed bein with someone who never forgets that.

it's about waking up.

it's about 'wow . . . why the hell have i been putting up with this boi's inconsiderate behaviors, his wishywashyness about his gender expression, and his lack of ability to accept and celebrate me as a woman in my own right without having to assert his place in my life when I receive well-deserved praise? i'm the one who washes his dirty fuckin underwear, for pete's sake! doesn't he know how lucky he is?

it's about waking up and asking my self what the hell is so wrong with me that i've been protecting his feelings for four years while he gets to say whatever the hell he likes without any regard for my feelings.

so maybe i'm overreacting, but maybe i'm not. maybe i'm just tired of having to train someone to treat me the way other people treat me without my having to ask for it.

why am i still waiting for this boi to learn to think about what he says to me before he says it?

and why am i still waiting for this boi to help me feel safe in our sacred spaces when that's all i've done for him for the past four years?

why am i still with someone for whom thoughtlessness is as natural as breathing when i know i deserve better?

i dunno why. but at least now i'm asking myself the questions.

ironic cuz i do love him and i even liked being married to him.

but it's not about love.

when love is not the question, love can't be the answer.

pretty fucked up, if you ask me.

Talk about your garden variety moron . . .

Yanno, my trip to Dominica put a lot of things in perspective for me. I mean, I talk a lot of shit about fuckin Yei for a week, but on the serious tip, while I was down in Dominica, I really realized what's important in life. And I am so over raising a 53-year-old child. I dunno if it was coming home to realize that lover wore the same nasty pair of jeans -- without washing them, mind you -- for the whole week I was gone or the fact that he let his laundry pile up while I was sick (he said he did that because before I left, I told him not to worry about it, but fuck, I came back really sick -- doesn't that kinda indicate that maybe that would need to change a little??) . . . Or I dunno, even the fact that he had clean pants hanging in his closet and he even had another pair of jeans downstairs in the dryer but he was too fuckin lazy to go get'em . . . and by the way, the stuff in the dryer didn't dry very well (my mistake, I didn't set the dryer high enough) but do you know how clothes and blankets smell when they've been sitting wet in the dryer for two weeks? Which means that after I got home and lover went down to get his other pair of jeans out of the dryer, he didn't even have the common courtesy to put the blankets and other clothes back in the washer for a rewash. And all the while, I'm celebrating the fact that he made me jello. God, I feel like such an idiot sometimes.

But you know, all that crap . . . why am I in a relationship where I constantly have to explain common sense stuff to somebody who's fiffuckinteen years older than me? I love my lover, really I do, but what kicks me in the gut is that these kids -- these sweet little, poor-as-dirt kids -- kids who have nothing in the world except the clothes on their backs, these kids were more considerate in a week than my moron at home has been in the past month. FP, I had to do all of my own end-of-life paperwork by my self -- no help from him in even locating the forms to print out. And I did it, all of it, plus you saw me packing for my self and doing all the laundry and I made sure that when I left, the only thing my darling dear really had to do was eat and clean up after himself. And I get back -- it's been 100 degrees in my classroom every day, so I'm heat sick (in fact, I spent the first two days there so heatsick that getting out of bed and surviving the day was cause for celebration) and I've got this nasty stomach flu and I'm weak and I'm tired and overly emotionally and physically drained -- and I'm, like an idiot, celebrating that lover made jello for about three or four days, meanwhile not only is he allowing the laundry to build up til I get better enough to do it, but he's also harboring this pissyassed grudge because he said somethin stupid that fucked with my head and he got the 'a' answer instead of the oh-honey-it's-okay 'b' answer he might've gotten if I hadn't've been up for over twentyfour straight hours, put together my living will and my last will and my advance directive, packed, done laundry, cleaned the house, and comforted his pussyassed separation anxiety-riddled mommy-please-don't-go crock of bullshit.

And oh, by the way, the key that started all this -- my key -- was in my backpack. I'd put it in the inside pocket on the Sunday before I left because he'd taken me to do a deacon visit at the old folk's home and I didn't want to take the chance on leaving my keys in the car when I went in. It was just in a different pocket than normal. Ask loverboi where his keys were when he had to pay some stranger to break into our car in the middle of the Giant food parking lot that Tuesday before I left.

So yea, he heard part of the 'a' answer before I left and he got the rest of it as soon as I got to a computer. And he carried that shit around with him and printed off the email to take into session and hid it in his back pocket, and he ambushed me with it while we were in session. Granted, in session, I was pretty angry about the whole laundry thing, but I honestly didn't know that I felt that way until we were in session talking about it. That happens sometimes. Often with him. Not with me very often, but it does happen. Boi can't claim he didn't know how he felt about the email. He purposely ambushed me with it, planned it out so that I would not find out how he felt, or even that he was still dealing with it, until we were in session.

That's a violation of one of our sacred agreements. Soon after therapist put us on the shared-journal thing, Boi tried to ambush me. I'd written some pretty angry responses to some pretty stupid shit he'd done, and he'd tried to sneak it into the session without me knowing about it. But the thing is, I don't care if he needs to bring stuff to help him focus on what he needs to say. All I ask is that if we're going to bring stuff like that in, that we tell each other -- give each other the heads-up -- so nobody feels like they're being hit with something way out of left field. It's one thing to have shit come up unexpectedly in session; it's a whole nother thing to come into session loaded for bear and not give your lover the courtesy of a heads-up about it. Boi decided that ambush was, again, his best option. He printed out the email about the key and while we were talking about the laundry, he said 'i wanna talk some more about the key. i brought the email so we could discuss it'. No shit, that's the first time I've heard that he had anything going on about that. I had honestly forgotten about the whole incident.

See I kinda knew that one of the reasons Boi pulled that shit was because he was scraping the bottom of the barrel, looking for something to hit me with as I was leaving, so that my mind would be so focused on him and on figuring out what was wrong with our relationship, I wouldn't have time or energy to focus on anything I found cute and fuckable in Santo Domingo. And oh yea, I found something definitely cute and fuckable in Santo Domingo. Only one, though. I must be losin my edge. But I digress . . .

Boi hadn't planned on telling me that 'the problem' was about misplacing my keys. All he'd planned on telling me was that there was something wrong, but that it could wait til I got back and we'd discuss it in session.

Now, if you're about to get on a plane to go halfway round the world and your lover says that to you, yea, kinda you'd spazz. You're even more likely to spazz if you haven't slept in over twentyfour hours and all of your time and energy that wasn't spent on packing was spent on taking care of your lover, comforting your lover, and making sure your affairs were in order should you happen to die before returning home to your lover. Yea, that 'something's wrong in our relationship and we need to discuss it in therapy' would send a panic attack through you even if you don't have panic attacks. Which I do.

But Boi never planned on telling me the truth of what was 'wrong'. He only planned to bait me, to give me just enough information to send me over the edge, just enough so that I'd spend my week away wondering what the hell was going on. On some level, I saw through his charade and I called him on it. I took the bait and said, 'what the fuck?'

Who wouldn't?

That's when he had to come out with the truth. That there was nothing really wrong. He was just pissy cuz I couldn't find my keys. That's when I went off the deep end, FP. I didn't go off the deep end when he came home acting like a little pussy because I was leaving for a week. I didn't go off the deep end when he locked his keys in the car and had to pay a stranger to break into the car, in the middle of the Giant food parking lot. I didn't go off the deep end when he decided to play games on his computer, watch TV, and then sleep half the night instead of helping me decide what to pack or even helping get the laptop ready to go. I didn't go off the deep end when I had to make those hard, horrible decisions about unplugging me when I'm brain dead all by my self without any input from my pussypissy partner who's still acting like a bitchytwitchy little girl every time somebody says the word 'death' because he's still suckin his thumb and not dealin with the death of his mother. I didn't even go off the deep end when his shit got me so frazzled that the only way I could relax and enjoy the last few moments at home before I took off was to put his whiny ass to bed and go out for a Slurpee run with you and my kid.

I did, however, go off the deep end when the 'problem' he felt we needed to discuss was a fuckin carkey.

I'm so sick to death of this. I probably wouldn't've given it another thought if it hadn't've been for his attempt to ambush me when he knows that I go into session with all my weapons laid down and with nothing in my back pocket that he doesn't know about. I wish so much that I could be back in Dominica. It felt so good to be around people who knew what family meant, people who know what's important in life.

In the end, I know that it all boiled down to Boi being jealous of my being able to go to Dominica without him. He's been all over the place, even been a Korean linguist and he's owned his own businesses and just done all sorts of shit that I'll never want to do. But he's jealous of where my sense of ministry takes me. He's jealous of the number of people who confide in me and he's jealous of me having people who would pay for me to go and work in another country, but who would not even think to ask him if he wants to go. Hell, Dude, diva la musica is arranging to pay for my hotel and conference fees in November for the conference in Pittsburgh; she'd even take care of my transport, which I may ask her to do, actually. You know, of course, that Boi had to pay his own way to Puerto Rico for that conference, as well as his own conference fees. The only reason he didn't have to pay for his hotel room is that it was actually my hotel room and I was nice enough to share it with him. The church took care of that for me. Boi envies a lot of what I do and he's afraid, too, that if I travel somewhere and fall in love with the place or a person there, that I'll just stay gone. He doesn't realize that when he pulls shit like fucking with my head and ambushing me in what's supposed to be a safe space, he's pushing to get the exact same thing he thinks he's trying to fight against.

Anyway, I'm sorry for rambling on like this. I've probably said the same stuff fifty times just in this one email. The stuff with your loveydearest kinda brings this shit with Boi into really close proximity.

Hey, I've got an idea. When we go to Santo Domingo in February . . .

:-) I've gotta get down to school Chat with you later,
R

fore i go to sleep

i'm not gonna call you on the fact that you broke our agreement to give each other the heads up when we were bringing "evidence" to a session. if you wanna sneak shit in, that's your right and i really don't give enough of a damn to worry much about it. anymore. bring your shit, either out in the open or buried in you back pocket. whatever blows yer hair back.

i'm not gonna bust you for fuckin with my head over a fuckin stupid carkey either. next time we're in session, you'll be gettin it back. i, for one, believe in fair warning. fact is, i don't care to carry the extra carkey, but if i can't find it, i don't wanna risk gettin my ass reamed for not havin it on me just before my february trip down to dominica. hell, i'm over the car altogether. far's i'm concerned, at least metro doesn't fuck with my head or plan to ream my ass out if i don't have my copy of the bus schedule in case the doofus bus driver forgets his route. sorry, mate -- a key just ain't worth all the bullshit you attached to it. not for me, it ain't.

in fact, i'm not gonna bust you for nothin because what's the fun in that anyway. i'm not gonna try to sound like minniemouse and lull you into a false sense of everything's-okayness from now until our next session because that'd be lyin and i have to do what's right regardless of what others might do. everything's not okay. but i don't really give a fuck about talking to you to make it right. you fucked with my head, you broke our agreement, and in breaking our agreement you actively planned to ambush me at our last session. you did good. i hope you enjoy the fruits of your labor.

but now that it's out in the open and now that i know you've been pretendin that everything's fine these past two weeks when it hasn't been, i'm sure you justified it by saying that you weren't honest with me about the email because i was so far away and then because i came home sick and then because i got impatient when you wanted to me to wait til i got back to talk about the damned car key so you were afraid or didn't want to take the risk that i'd be impatient again if you told me about your still being upset about the email and that's why you didn't tell me you were taking it with you into session.

hope your justifications keep you warm at night cuz in my book that's bullshit all the way down.

here's what i see happened.

you didn't think about what you were saying to me when you told me there was a problem that we needed to discuss in session. you didn't think about the fact that if it was small enough to wait til i got back, then it was also small enough to not bring up until i got back, given the fact that i was on my way to fly halfway round the world. you didn't think about the fact that knowing there was a problem in our relationship might concern me, especially given all of the end-of-life decisions i'd had to put in writing before stepping onto that plane. you thought that it would be okay to let me know, five minutes before i flew halfway round the world, that i'd displeased you in some small and insignificant way -- and you thought that if you just told me that much, it would be okay and that i'd never give that a second thought. you didn't even have the courtesy to tell me that it was a small and insignificant issue; you let me believe that it was something so serious that we'd have to wait til our next session to talk about it and resolve it. obviously, a key is really that big a deal to you. wish i'd known. but it ain't the key. it's the fact that your mind is like a sieve and rather than putting any significant time into practicing better memory techniques, you'd rather just enjoy the freedom to bust my ass when i forget -- that way you don't have to face what a dumbass you really are for not improving your memory when you've had the chance.

cuz you see, i notice other things now too. like how, if i ask you the same question twice, you get all impatient and snotty with me about having to answer again. in those moments, though, i know that you don't think about the number of times i have to not only answer the same questions fifty times from you, but that i also have to repeat phone numbers, access codes, and other important information to you -- sometimes twice in the same fucking five minutes. because . . .you don't write it down and put it where you can find it the first fortynineandahalf times i tell it to you. you don't think about how little aggravation -- or how kindly i show that aggravation -- you get from me when your memory starts lapsing ninetynine times a day. you don't think about that when you're getting impatient and cocky with me over a single question asked twice.

you didn't think twice about planning to ream my ass over a fuckin car key -- how insignificant it really was in the grand scheme of all that was going on. you didn't think twice about planning to ream my ass at all, in fact, because 'we'd already discussed it before' -- guess you felt justified in planning to ream my ass because we'd discussed it before and i still wasn't 'getting it'. guess i'll feel justified now in planning to bust your ass everytime you forget those little somethings 'we've discussed before' but that you STILL DON'T FUCKING GET.

you didn't think twice about warning me that i had a reamin coming to me after i got home. you didn't think twice about issuing that warning just before i got on a plane headed for a third world country. you didn't think about how what you said would affect me, about how i would feel receiving a warning like that, or even what a weeklong separation would do to me with the dark cloud of your discontent hanging over my head. you didn't think about how preparing for that trip was affecting me at all.

you didn't think about the fact that i hadn't slept in over twentyfour hours and that that sleep deprivation might have something to do with not remembering where my keys were. you didn't think about the stress that your whinywimpyneedy shit was putting on me and you didn't even consider how much more energy i was expending on making the separation as easy on you as i could make it. not once, when you were planning to ream my ass about a fuckin carkey, did you stop and think about the fact that when you locked your keys in the car that day, i did nothing but stand by you and comfort you and tell you that it was okay because i understood that you were stressed out and upset about my leaving -- that i had understood that there were extenuating circumstances for you. not once did you think about the fact that maybe there were extenuating circumstances for me, too.

you didn't think about anything except how upset you were that you wouldn't have my copy of the carkey to fall back on when -- and it's always a question of when with you, not if -- you were to lose your own copy of the carkey.

and then i called you on your thoughtlessness. i emailed you and told you EXACTLY what i thought of your wanting to bust my ass about a carkey, given all the shit i'd put up with you from the moment you got home that day til i finally got you to take your ass to bed so i could actually pack in peace without your high-intensity separation anxiety fuckin up my concentration.

you got my answer. you got my a answer.

you got what happens when you just blurt out stupid shit without thinking and i don't have the energy or the desire to think about the stupid shit that i'm thinking to say back to you to make you shut the fuck up about the stupid shit you don't need to be blurtin out to me at fiveoclockinthefuckinmornin. you got the unedited response. so if you wanna live in a world where you get to say shit without thinkin or considerin my feelings, don't fuckin cry like a little bitch when that's what you get right back, cuz that's what you're gonna get back. i'm way over protecting your feelings in those moments when you don't give a damn about mine.

i'm not getting ambushed by you anymore. i'm not gonna interrogate you or anything but i don't trust anything you say with a smile on your face anymore. fuck you. i will not be lulled into your false sense of everything-is-fine shit anymore. fuck you. nothing is fine anymore.

is our relationship okay?, you ask.

well, really, . . . not so much.

sucks that i just looked you in the eye and told you the exact opposite, don't it.

see, i can play stupid rabbit hat tricks too. hope it's as fun for you as it's gonna be for me.

i hate being ambushed

after telling you over and over how much it hurts to be ambushed, you ambush me. deliberately and with forethought, you ambush me. you act like nothing in the world is the matter except the same bullshit at your work -- but that's not true, is it? that damned email was eating away at you every day and you made no attempt to even try to work it through. yes, i was sick, but we have a journal, right? you couldn't use the journal. you couldn't even give me a heads up, even though i've made every effort to let you know that it's okay to take shit with you to talk about. and that's all i've asked.

i guess i should've known the other day when you didn't want to talk about work. you'd acted as if that was all that was on your mind, but when i came to comfort you, you said that you wanted to wait to talk about it in session. i should've known that you were hiding something else because you never not want to talk about work. you'd talk about it to God if you thought God had nothing better to do than listen to you whine incessently about how many managerial levels of people you've whined incessantly to, how many different managers or directors you've whined to even though half of them only stay around for maybe six months of your incessant 'they won't respect me' whiny assed drivel. but suddenly, that friday evening, sitting at your desk with your head lodged between my tits, you somehow didn't want to talk about work. that should've been my first clue.

i hate being sick. but more than being sick, i hate being ambushed.

at any point, you could've said, 'y'know that email you sent me really hurt but let's talk about it in session'. i've never had a problem with that. well, not true. i did have a problem with it when you said it right before i was scheduled to get on a plane and go halfway cross the world into a third world country. sometimes i think you pulled that shit about the key because it was the very last thing you could do or say that would make me delay leaving. you knew i could never leave you knowing that there was a problem between us.

or if you didn't know, you damned well should have. what the fuck made you think that after having to go through the whole process of making sure my affairs were in order by my fucking self, after doing all the fucking laundry and packing and cleaning by my fucking self just so that YOU could live and not worry too much about taking care of the house in my absence, after spending time comforting you in your whinywussypussyassed blubbering -- time i shoulda spent finding my keys cuz THAT'S what you decided to use to fuck with my head five minutes before i needed to get to the airport . . . what makes you think that after doing all of that BY MY FUCKING SELF BECAUSE YOU WERE ABOUT AS USEFUL AS A DULL KNIFE ON A SOFT WRIST, that i would be okay with leaving with my relationship with a problem so huge that my lover felt the need to tell me we'd have to wait until i got back to work it out?

you fucked with my head. you deliberately fucked with my head. and then when i called you on it, when i told you how hurtful it was to have you jumpin my shit over a fuckin CAR KEY -- that after you wussed out and laid in bed and fucking spazzed out so i couldn't do anything but take care of you wussinpussyin out ass and LOCKING YOUR CAR KEY IN THE CAR . . . and me taking all this in stride and being understanding and making sure someone would check on you and cleaning up and doing all the laundry and doing all of my own packing with more help from a dead fly than i could've EVER have gotten from you and taking care of all of those oh-shit-i-might-die documents with only a weakassed 'thank-you-honey' coming from you . . . after busting my ass to take care of both of us while being understanding and sympathetic of you going through your weakasseddodderingoldlady form of separation anxiety . . . that the thing you thought to be such a huge problem that we'd have to wait and talk about it in session . . . that that thing was a fucking KEY. you were upset because i couldn't be your wheres-the-fucking-carkey backup???? you were upset with me because you might forget and my key wasn't available for you to fall back on??? you know what? YOUR MEMORY SHIT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM!!!!! or at least, that's what i remember you telling me, so long ago when you started feeling like a useless sack of shit when i TRIED to HELP you find ways of remembering stuff.

and even if it ain't, what gives you the right to bust my ass about my keys when YOU'RE the one who had just LOCKED YOUR OWN FUCKING KEYS IN THE CAR that very day? at least i could get to mine without having to ask a stranger to break into our car -- with a whole parking lot full of people as an audience. you wanna talk irresponsible? fuck you.

and after dealing with that . . . after telling you what a crock of shit it was for you to even consider bustin my ass over somethin stupid -- and telling me that just before i fly halfway round the world . . . i . . . sorta . . . forgot about it all. i relaxed and enjoyed being home. you took care of me. i was so sick and you took care of me, lulling me into the false sense of security that comes with believing that everything was okay. but it wasn't, was it?

you know, it's fine that you were still hurt over the email i sent you about the fucking car key. it's even fine that you wanted to wait and discuss it in session. sometimes there's stuff that i only want to discuss in session, and i let you know that. i don't tell you just as you're leaving for work; i tell you in the evenings, after you get home, and then i tell you again a day or so before the next session. i don't sneak shit in to talk about. i tell you if i'm bringing something because we're there to work together, not fight each other. i'm not preparing for battle with you. i'm preparing to work in love with you. i don't want to sneak-attack you and i don't want you to feel ambushed cuz that shit just hurts. it fucking sucks. so if i've gotta bring something to help me focus my thoughts on whatever it is i need help in discussing with you, i'm gonna let you know what i'm bringing and why i'm bringing it. i'm not gonna waste energy and effort by hiding my intentions from you. that's not the relationship i want.

you got what you deserved when i went off on you about the key issue. it was minor, so minor in fact that you knew that it was something that could've waited til i got back to even bring up. you knew i didn't need to know that in that minute. and if you didn't, you should have. because we're adults, and adults think things through before they say them. adults are considerate and they don't fuck with each others' heads by throwing them into a panic attack over little minor shit. if you knew that it could wait til i got back to discuss it, then you also had to know that it could wait til i got back to even bring it up. and if you didn't, you should have. because that's the way i treat you. i would never let you walk out the door, whether you're going to work or you're going halfway round the world, never let you walk out the door with a relationship issue hanging over your head -- not an issue about a sex, drugs, or politics, and DEFINITELY not an issue about fucking carkey.

you fucked with my head. whether it was an accident or an intention, that's what you did. and you did it five minutes before i had to leave the country. and you did it knowing that i had been awake for over twenty-four hours straight. and you did it knowing that i'd busted my ass to take care of you, in every way i could. and you did it knowing that i did all that with nothing more than a few weakly, trembly thank-you-honeys coming from you. oh, and the pleasure of watching a stranger break into our car to retrieve the keys you'd locked in there.

if anybody else had fucked with my head with even only ONE of those conditions present, they'd be lucky to live to tell about it. you're lucky i didn't knock your funky little ass halfway into the next county for fuckin with my head over a fuckin car key. i have killed for less than this.

and then you ambush me . . . you sneak shit into session as if you're preparing to do battle and you don't want the enemy to know what you're armed with, or even that you're armed. and you ambush me with it.

and you ask me today if there's anything we need to talk about.

no. not really. i'm just glad we didn't fuck last night. i'd really hate you, if we had've.

i hate being sick. i've been sick since i got off the plane at reagan. as if being back in this area alone is what did it. really, everyone else . . . a cold here, a day of distress there, everyone else is doing great. me, i've been yucky sick. not sick as in stay-away-this-is-contagious. sick as in nothin-solider-than-jello. and my lover has been doing such an admirable job taking care of me. in the midst of all this, he has not forgotten that tuesday is my birthday and is at this minute trying to secure a hardcover set of shakespearean writings. he's trying so hard. he says all that he wishes he could do, but it really is the thought that counts. know how many lovers have ever tried to give me shakespeare? zip, zilch, zero. that's not a value judgement. that's just the way it is. my lover seems to know just how to get to my heart, and silly as shakespeare might sound, that touches me more than i can say.

i told him the other day that i love being faithful to him. can't wait til i can show him just how much.

and he's the best damned jello maker ever. lol

it's so good to be home

especially with my love who loves me

my beloved has been taking such good care of me these past few days. i somehow contracted a stomach ailment, probably from the mango i ate just prior to leaving dominica, and the distress has been exhausting. my beloved has made me soup and jello and tonight he made me magic risotto, a girlmoreism that really seems to be helping lots. whodathunk risotto could really do something?

well, alls i can say is that when this bug is over, my love will find quite a reward waiting . . .

i never knew . . .

i never knew that standing on an endless shore watching seas full of multi-hued chocolate children playing freely and surrounded only by love would affect me the way it has. golden and copper children who are so full of joy . . . well, but not always. the ones i spent this past week with were full of joy most of the time. in their families, going to school was a priviledge because your younger brother might be the little one whose mother bathes him outdoors, just beneath your schoolroom or your wish list might include toys, books, and . . . medicine -- even though you do not appear to be ill, or food. i'd thought, in my often broken spanish, that cosina meant clothes. it does not. it means cuisine or more simply, food. i wish there were words for the kick that i felt when i realized that the children used the unlit, unventilated toilet-with-no-plumbing bathroom downstairs -- the one where the door didn't close all the way (but what six-year-old wants to be in a completely dark bathroom anyway, right?). teachers use the ones upstairs (there are two) with at least a toilet that flushes and a partly-effective window for light and slight cross-breeze. i loved those babies, but i still used the one upstairs. i'm hoping that's offset by the fact that i didn't bitch or balk about using theirs when i first got there.

the kids, though, are superamazing! i'm in absolute love with every single one of them.

who wouldn't be? these were the sweet faces that greeted us every morning. i can't wait to go back.

standing there on the beach, i truly felt as if i were in the presence of God. i saw God's face. i saw this endless shore filled with golden and copper children unencumbered by fear running to and fro through water so clear i could see the white sands beneath my feet. i waded through waters that barely grazed my shoulder as far out as I could walk. i walked almost to the reef that day. my friend and i were both tenderfoots, but i was the far worse of us both. next time, though . . . next time.

we met some incredible people too. my yeis, my favorite y mi amigo por vida. those last couple of days were incredible with him. we got to be so awesomely open about our mutual admiration society. i laugh my ass off when i think of some of the thoughts and wonderings of some of my compatriots, and his, and of his absolute enjoyment of those last goodbye moments. he laughed and laughed until i thought he'd turn blue! i laugh when i think about all that odd energy that would suddenly permeate the room when we were noticed huddled somewhere laughing our asses off together. ohmygosh . . . he did the same thing i did -- he started explaining the reasons to his friends the same way i did to mine. oh . . . my . . . gosh! oh i hope i hope i hope he works with us in february. even if he doesn't, though, i'm gonna see him when i'm there. i've gotta see his new baby . . . the way he giggles, he's gonna make a great papi. oh i shouldn't say that too loud . . . the others might hear. oh, and he's so cute . . .

i never knew that there could be a bioguy who could still put a hoohah in my yingyang after the last one. the last one was awesome and i never thought any other bioguy could compare. they all just kinda made me giggle after him. but not yeis. uh! drop-dead gorgeous with a smile that made you absolutely just have to smile right back. looked good in a pair of trunks, too -- just enough pudge to be soft, but strong as an oxe in heat. yup, if i was gonna, it woulda been with him. no shittin. i dunno what he thought about me, but when i crinkled my finger at the empty seat next to me in the van on the way from the airport to the hotel, he sat right next to me and watched out for me from then on. boy, that was nice to do again! lol

my time in dominica allowed me to fully explore the fluidity of my sexuality, without actually having to have sex. that makes me laugh my ass off because it wasn't that long ago that examining my sexual fluidity had an entirely different meaning to me, in my world. it was fun. i went to a bar that became filled to overflowing with some of the world's most beautiful women. i wasn't really attracted to many of them -- although it was shorts night, so i did stand at attention quite a bit. of the guys, it was only yeis, which was probably a really good thing. though i dunno . . . the rest of our guides were cute in their own ways, but he was different. he's such a good guy, too, married and faithful, with a kid on the way. that's what made it fun with him -- we're both avid flirts but enjoy like hell being faithful. that's nice to do, too. lol whodathunk?

i never knew that being mistaken for taimo would be so powerful an experience for me. where my darkness is exotica but not foreign, except to stupid foreigners who deserved to be parted from their big fat wallets anway. lol a place where saying the name atawallpa opened doors so delightful that words can't contain what lies therein. powerful trip was dominca and i can't wait to reach her shores again.

solo Dios puedes un mundo gusto Dominica cos El Tamarindo, El Punto, y Santo Domingo en uno region.

my spanish is improving.

dominica es muy bueno

y yaison, mi llamo tener su nino.

that's all broken up but what the hell, it's cool.

my kids are GREAT and i taught them a new song in like twenty minutes. i'm going to prolly post pics tomorrow. we've got twenty of them, ages six to twelve, and they are just the sweetest little people in the world. they are a joy to teach, even though we are not staying with the topic we were supposed to. lol but what the hell, who's gonna bitch. i do know that come nov or feb, i will be back. with my passport and a few bucks, i can visit often and that's worth squirrlin away some dough for.

and i've met some really sweet people here too. ooh, fp, too bad we're talkin about a road trip. this would be an AWESOME thing to do for a week! lol

need to jet! dominica awaits!

well

enough of that

i want another child. not ready to have it yet, but i think i definitely do. after law school, i think. there's a glitch. lover and i are deadlocked on the issue of seedling. we have not spoken of it for several weeks, maybe even over a month or two, and we never fight about it. but for some reason it is in my conscious space at this hour of the evening. the debate goes something like this:

for so long and for twice too many times, i have not always enjoyed the priviledge of being able to control what enters my body. that has changed. so much so that lover and i have almost settled on adoption. for my part in it, there is only one, if any at all. no argument. non-negotiable. my lover sees me as irrationally stubborn and absolutely bull-headed on this matter. i'm good with that.

i don't believe in shoulds.

everybody should have a line in the sand.

gimme one reason to stay heah
and i'll turn right back around
gimme one reason to stay here
and i'll turn right back around
said i don't wanna leave you lonely
you've gotta make me change my mind . . .

i wish i could describe in words how our recent show went. it was magnificent. my love and i wrapped the audience round our baby fingers and made them spiritually cum all over the sanctuary. hell, i think we may have even caused a few physical gasms as well. if there were any questions . . .

there were, i know. i've seen them in their eyes. it's always so interesting to look in their eyes. i hardly ever let them look into mine.

so

i sang to him that song first. i didn't know i had a nice ass til a buncha christians started hootin'n'hollerin when i turned my back on'em. that was sweet. my beloved followed with a rendition of essence that had them turnin and twistin in a completely different direction. it was a good thing we were in a church that doesn't do orgies; we'da had to leave at once.

anyway, here i am at the end of this, my first week at the column and i've received over fifty fan emails from everywhere. it's good, too, cuz i've got a lot to say and with moms, wives, sigos, and other people at the backbones of their families readin and respondin, i could set the world on fire, one family at a time. they're gonna archive this one, too, like they do all the rest, prolly sometime tomorrow night. immortality. most amazing thing i've ever known. it's a great day to be the me that you helped create. eye radiate.

i gotta go read my legal terminology book now.

Interlude #3

or #4

i recently had the pleasure of meeting a most interesting young lady. she's a sweet girl, really, and as fierce as one can get and still be all that is good and right in the world. the lascivian in me says 'damned if i were but ten years younger'. who would not? she is intelligent and so independent, but when she gets angry, she is a most beautiful sight. she's like watching the fourth of july unrestrained. captivating.

have you ever met someone who, when you touch them, you are instantly aware of how dirty your hands are? unsure whether you should hug her goodbye or tell her she's beautiful because when you do, you suddenly feel like a dirty old man. one who simply radiates. she is such.

she is an absolute kick to be around because she holds nothing back. you know instantly where you stand with her and you simply must allow her to show you what she wants or needs of you. she will have it no other way. and i'm inclined to respect that. i made certain that my own child met her. if ever, heaven forbid, he is ever in trouble near her world, or she in his (stspreservus), i would wish that they would be one in the other's corner for all posterity. i hope to see more of her when i return from dominca; time with her reminds me of all that is really important besides my own bellybutton lint.

frogspond, and my love and i are making her special tshirts to take back to school with her. our favorite says 'the red tip on this cane is NOT paint. feelin' lucky?'. in lettered script and in braille. she is most delighted at the prospect. we must take pictures of her in that one, at least, before we fare her well. stspreservher

bellybutton lint

what sex is not, cont

i've read and been told that a woman reaches her sexual peak at thirty and that perimenopause starts in about five years later. sometimes i think of my younger years and the sweet memories of youthfully indulgent sex and it fills me with such awe that i feel the urge to become youthfully indulgent with my lover. i like feeling youthfully indulgent. and youthfully indulged.

when i was a youth, my first lover, outside of my five-year spiral into the twistedness of incest, was a boy a year older than me. he'd been dating my next door neighbor, and then i moved in. not sure how long they lasted, but i remember that a boy much older than us both moved in across the street and instantly became the big brother i should've had. he indulged my every whim, as often as he could. he watched out for me, played bored games with me, and always had time for me whenever he could. i remember wishing he could've been my big brother instead of the twisted little fuck i got. but he warned my would-be first lover off for about a year, until big brother moved away. a year later, i would enjoy a different kind of indulgence. i was fourteen, and we almost got caught by my daddy coming up the walkway that sunny afternoon. in the space of about two minutes, loverboy was up, dressed, out the back door, through the back yard, and over the back fence. gee-oh-en-ee gone. it was around that time, too, that my dad forbid me to see him, and his grandparents had forbidden him me, also. he started showing up some mornings, waiting for me across the street from my house before school. he was not a stupid boy. i started visiting him in his bedroom, on other mornings, much to the consternation of his grandparents. by the end of the year, he'd been sent to michigan to live with his parents. i somehow turned back up at my mother's front door.

it was very good that i had my first time the way i did. the incest had finally stopped about two and a half years earlier. i didn't think about it much but it played out later and when it did, that one lovesex moment would remind me what sex could be like, if only it wasn't what it was. i had a lot of sex during my teens and twenties. it was my weapon of choice. i could get most anything i wanted from most anyone i wanted it from with just the promise or denial of sexual favor. a blow job here, a twenty minute fuck there, and the world was my playground. i was date raped twice, and the second cut was the deepest. leaving college after that second time was the most therapeutic thing i did for myself. i still used sex as a weapon, though, but i found it worked better in monogamous relationships. serial monogamy was the natural next step in my sexio-social evolution.


love and marriage

i guess some part of me always wanted to be married. i never was real specific on whom and i had no idea of what a healthy marriage looked like. to me, marriage was an institution like all other institutions: fun to imagine, but hell to get out of. such was the ten-year stint my parents did, then another decade-long stretch between both my mother and stepfather and my father and stepmother. my lessons in the manipulatory arts had begun in earnest around the age of ten; once consensual sex was involved, the end of whatever delusion of innocence anyone had for me was gone like a summer breeze at the threshhold of a blizzard. it was with this mighty combination of power and prowess that i began my journey into adult relationships.

bellybutton lint

happy fourth

i hate 'eating with toes'. it was a send-up of 'running with scissors', which i read recently thanks to my good friend frogspond -- which, by the way, i highly recommend. the book's great; my send-up . . . not so much.

my dad loved the month of july, first day to the last. i dunno how he felt about it before i came along, but i was his twenty-third birthday present, born just four days shy of his. in a weird sort of ironic way, the man who would become my stepfather without the benefit of being married to my mother was also born in that month; his birthday was two days after mine. you can imagine what july was like in my house, regardless of where i was. i don't remember much for presents since we were poor even by yesterday's standards. but from about ten on, i felt pretty special in the middle of every year.

my dad liked fireworks. i don't know whether my mom did, but she didn't seem to not like'm. i liked'em too. they still mesmerize me. for just a few brief moments the nighttime sky is lit from below in a technicolor splendor replete with reds and blues and whites and greens. it's the only day that i consciously make the effort to love my country.

i don't hate my country. i can't hate that which i don't consciously love on a regular basis. what i hate is being discriminated against and being told that my spouse has to be their definition of a certain or other gender. funny, though. they think that because they can legislate where my money gets to go, they can control who i fuck and who i let fuck me. i am very married, if in no one else's eyes but the deity i can not slay and so, worship. his is the only one that counts, to me anyway.

i think sometimes about gathering all my friends, and all their friends, and all their friends and staging a mass resignation and application to freebie social services that drain the government dry. and telling my rich friends to import everything, to buy nothing american, not even green pea soup. to pay their bills but not the taxes added on. to set up offshore accounts and stop paying the irs. no taxation without representation, isn't that what boston was about? if this the best they can do with the shit they stole from the native clans, maybe it's time to stop payin'em to do it.

i don't wanna burn flags, bomb buildings, or even write vicious hate mail to that ape living in the house that will always be white regardless of who sits in the oral orifice. none of that stuff would get me what i want, which is for them to stop sayin niggerqueerredneckdyke like it's a bad thing. so i eat pussy; what's it to him? i'm not askin him to eat mine. if he doesn't like what goes on in my bedroom -- and in that veep's kid's room too, no doubt -- then he oughta quit thinkin about it. i most assuredly don't think about what goes on in his, though at his age, i doubt that there's much goin on besides the snooze button and the geritol'n'vodka shakes. i mean, look at'im. look at'em both. it's a cryin shame.

what if we boycotted the federal government en masse, started importing our foods, medicines, . . . just everything, and signed up for food stamps and medicaid cards? course, each person would have to pick one: welfare or importing goods. but just withdraw every cent we make out of the federal government's hands.

i sometimes think of a mass exodus to canada where universal healthcare is a reality and nobody cares what gender your spouse is, as long as you pay your taxes on time and are a productive citizen while you live there. i think his cronies would burn him at the stake til he was crisper than an alleged witch in the middle of a Salem town square.

i think that the trouble that would follow would be worth it, just so i could watch it all go down from up north.

eating with toes

what sex is not

i walk around naked indoors cuz when i was a kid, naked wasn't safe. so now i do it in abundance.

my mother's first child was four when my mom and dad had me. i think my dad knew from the start that this kid was fucked up. somehow, someway, somewhere in his first three point five years of life, somebody did something and turned this kid into a whack job at the ripe old age of four. my dad didn't help either, especially after i was born cuz i turned out to be the only daughter of my grandmother's only son, and as far as i know, as kids, it was just my grandma and her sister. matriarchal doesn't begin to describe my father's family. my dad grew up with all women and went the other extreme -- not gay, not supermacho, just very appreciative of the feminine way of authority in heading his households. as macho as you can get and still love fucking strong women. my mom was a single parent; she must've turned him into jelly the first time he spent the night with her and her kid. my dad was a chef in the navy with one tour in vietnam under his belt and another yet to come. his stability and kitchen ability prolly put a hoohah in her yingyang the first time he made her breakfast. or dinner, as the case may be. i can see the attraction. but he was four years younger and probably about twelve years less mature; for them to get married, he must've hidden that well.

i came along and i know that i sucked all the attention away from everybody. my grandmother instantly became my godmother, complete with the godfatherist 'naming of the child after the godfather' -- godmother, in this case. til just recently, i ran away from that name like piss runnin down a leg but i think i'm finally starting to grow into it. i know all too well the plight of kids who have to grow into overlarge ears and face-effacing noses. shit sucks and no matter how you try to hide it -- or what your parents do to hide it for you -- the pre-college years are your labelling rites of passage cuz every teacher, substitute, and principle is gonna say your whole fuckin name on the first fuckin day of every fuckin school year and by the time you live it down, it's summer when it don't matter anyway and you gotta start all over in sepfuckintember. that shit fuckin sucks. but i still wouldn'ta wanted the ears or the nose thing. you can single-initial-dot a name; nose jobs and ear tucks cost half an arm and two kneecaps and who the fuck has that kinda money when they first turn legal enough to get it.

my dad still got to share in the spotlight, him bein the only son and all, but when we visited cincinnati, it was all about me. the way they tell it, i would fall asleep on my grandmother's bosom and awaken screaming holy murder if anyone so much as lifted my thimble-sized thumb off my grandma's chest. i was that spoiled. i slept in my grandma's bed with her on every visit, from the time i was born up through my sixteenth year. i could stay up til fourfiftyeight in the morning and still go crawl into her bed and she never once complained. she even knew how much space to leave me, next to the wall of course, as i grew and got older. that spoiled.

my parents shoulda never had my younger two brothers. they got . . . minimal attention, mostly from people who'd already seen me, and leftover attention really sucks. especially for the oldest, who isn't even a real family member and my dad made that real clear the minute we hit the road leadin to ohio. six years later, my mother's first child would begin making me pay for being me cuz somebody forgot to teach the little sonofabitch to share in the first place; being kicked back to past third place musta really sucked for those four years he waited for the opportunity to get back at me and my younger siblings. he started with me, but got right on into my two younger brothers as soon as soon as they reached my 'age of ascension'. by the time he hit the ripe old age of fourteen, that twisted little fucker was a sexual predator who already had three preyed-upon victims that he fucked regularly and beat the shit out of often. i got most of the beatings and most of the fucking, but he was ruthless and relentless with one and all.

by the time i hit ten, hypervigilance was my toy and my playground and i played the boyscout-like sentry with relish and ease. it became a game of know-where-everyone-is-at-all-times and i routinely quizzed myself in my head to keep track of everything breathin at all times. if i lost somebody, i would make a visual and/or physical trip around whereever i was and made careful word-association mental notes as i returned to my post on the front porch.

i was also regularly getting my ass kicked by gangs of kids at school because the fuckin principal somehow got the bright idea that tellin the whole school that my test scores indicated that i was the most intelligent student there. i was in the fifth fuckin grade. do you know what it's like to have the whole fuckin school know that you're the one throwin off the curve on everyfuckinstandardizedtest? and that you get special priviledges because your teachers run out of stuff to give you to do cuz you finish everyfuckinthing they give you? i was also the new kid, transferred in after the divorce. it was fun, bein smart and all, but only til the bell rang. i lived two and a half blocks from school. the music teacher started driving me home from school regularly before that first christmas. when she wasn't there, and she did try to let me know ahead of time when she wouldn't be but it didn't always work out that she could, i had to run like hell and not make a single mistake. i think i maybe only made one. it kinda slacked off, though, after i broke some kid's arm one day.

there was this kid who issued nonverbal threats to me daily. i never quite figured out why, but it could only have been his thing, not something i did or didn't do or said or didn't say. he started the first day i got there.

one afternoon, i was waiting for the music teacher outside a kindergarten classroom, where she was talking to two of the k-teachers. up he comes with a friend of his. the friend was neither my friend nor my enemy. he was smart too. kid number one sees the opportunity to kick my ass backed up into a corner, and he proceeds to do so. having been trained to know that silence is my only friend when i'm getting my ass kicked, i scream not once. the friend runs away. good thing cuz after he got done and went inside to hold his own little nonchalant conversation with the three teachers, i looked at my hands. i'd put my hands up to protect my face cuz i still had to be careful of nosebleeds, and i see blood. all i remember was the hellforgod yell that i let out and the next thing i know, two teachers are pulling me off him while the third teacher tries to extricate him from the visegrip grasp my thighs have him clinched in and the volley of shots his face is receiving courtesy of my bloody hands.

i saw him again, a few days later. i'd broken his arm.

his parents transferred him a week later.

sex was rage and pain and everyone who was not a friend sat squarely with my enemies. a lover once told me that it was amazing that i could like sex at all. i'm inclined to agree with him.

eating with toes

love and marriage

i was born in cincinnati to two people who never shoulda existed anywhere on the same planet, much less gotten married to each other. my dad never shoulda married anyfuckinbody. ever. as for my mom, it's prolly a good thing she married my dad cuz i don't think i would've liked having the same genes as her oldest fuck-up. brothers i got; sisters, debatable. i heard about a girl, born to my father and slightly older than i, whose mother was so pissed that my dad was already married with me on the way that she sent spirits to torment my dad til the day he died. it's good he died. he needed the rest.

way the story goes, they were strong enough that my mom saw my dad picked up and tossed across a room like a ragdoll livin in a movie. she, my dad's other woman, also tried to switch my soul with that of the other child because she was sickly and i was not. dunno how that went for her, but then she tried to switch my mom's soul with my stepmom's, just to fuck with him. my stepmom's a crazy bitch. if they thought that my dad would just roll over for that one, they had another think comin. 'course she wasn't a crazy bitch while he was alive. that happened shortly after she got remarried and started makin grabs for the land my dad left me in myrtle beach. phuc dat bich. but she doesn't really come into the story at all, in fact, until i accidentally manipulated my dad into having some doctor accuse my mom of child abuse for tryin to beat the shit outta me and one of my brothers for hangin with my dad when it wasn't his turn. phuc dat bich.

yea, i was growing into quite the little manipulator, but that's what happens when two natural born peopleipulators torment each other in a steadily more frequent manner for the first ten years of their first child's life. by the time i was ten, i was probably about fifteen and not lovin even any minute of it. not to say i did not have good times. i loved it when my nose bled and my ma would meet me at the hospital, take me home, and lay my head in her lap while we finished off our mcdonald's before the boys got home and watched soap operas all afternoon. oh . . . so that's where i got indoctrinated into that happily-ever-after bullshit . . .

well, at least she didn't read me fairy tales. i think i woulda cut my own jugular if i'd had to grow up and find out that prince charming was a lie. it's not so bad with real people cuz at least there's a chance that it might happen like that--i mean, somebody has to write that shit, right? but to find out that not only was it not true, but that people like that didn't even exist anymore . . . if ever . . .
oh, somebody's bed woulda burned whitehot.

i never had tantrums, though. for one thing, i somehow genetically knew to not pull shit like that. not with my parents, boyo. my dad woulda smacked my ass clear across somebody's cheerios aisle if i'd've pulled that shit. instant death if ya want it. each of my parents only hit me once, and my stepmother, never. i was around elevenish when my mom hit me; that was what prompted the aforementioned child abuse claim. i was sixteen when my dad did, and neighbors had to call the cops cuz after i smacked him back, it was on. when they got there, he had me down across the arm of the couch, probably trying to fend off the kicking and biting that led to my teethmarks on his right forearm. my incisers cut through his thick winter coatsleeve; some fuckin dentist filed'em down shortly thereafter when my wisdom tooth had to be cut in. that was my first exposure to codeine. i still love narcotics. not with a passion . . . with a . . . nice, easy lust like the one i felt at the age of seven when my upstairs seven-year-old neighbor girl became my first crush affair. i loved to just sit and watch her play. she liked dolls, i think. i didn't care; she was my doll. she was outrageously beautiful with this long, soft black hair that reached down to her midback and these exotic eyes that made her look afriasian, sorta like my mom's when she first wakes up in the mornin or from a nap. she was narcotic. my mom's narcotic. my dad liked narcotics too. isn't that interesting.

i'm fallin half asleep.

it's been real.

i'm IN!

http://www.soapcentral.com/oltl/scoop.php?section=twoscoops