chainsaws at 7am

I don't want to feel like this. I'm tired. I'm full of dread. I hate Mom. I hate my borther. I won't actually post that part, but it's true. On the walk to work today all I did was think about a bunch of shit I wish I could say to my mom. About how terrible my brother is, or how much help he needs, or how I'm a lesbian and that's not changing. She refuses to accept me, but pretends that she does. It's just that the "parts" about me she doesn't accept she just looks at as childish and a rebellion. The problem is that those "parts" are the only parts I'm being honest about. All the shit she accepts is the character I play for her. Shakespeare wasn't kidding when he said "all the world's a stage, and we are merely players" (or something like that, come on, it's close); he was talking about being around his family. Which very well could be true because he had his family back in Stratford-upon-Avon, and his lovers—dudes and dudettes—with him in London. So he was playing along as well.

And I'm not talking about the parts we play just to be ourselves and get by in the world. Because of course I also play a part when I'm around friends or with Jessa or at work, but I'm not someone else. I'm not pretending to be an entirely different character. When I'm around the family, I pretend to be someone that I'm just not. I pretend to be a quiet and reserved proper lady, who just happens to have an odd haircut. But the truth of the matter is I'm an angry, radical feminist with a purposeful and hot gender queer haircut. I perform a slightly masculine (meaning non-femme) gender identity, rock my girlfriend's world 3 to 4 times a week, perform drag, work subversively, educate and advocate for social justice in everything I do, and have made a life for myself where I am happy, loved, respected, and successful.

Why is that so terrible to my mother? I know the whole anti-makeup, not-what-she's-used-to haircut might be a little tough, but I don't wear ties when I go home and I'm not out to my grandparents about whom I love and when I say what I do, I sugarcoat it so the small talk doesn't turn political.

Oh my god. I'm going to lose it.

Grampa died. He died one week ago today. I'm going to the funeral. It's next Saturday. I have to see the family. I'm going, but most of the time I really don't want to.

Do I need to cut off the family? What about the love I have for my grandmother? What about what it feels like inside of me when I can hear that she genuinely is happy and proud of me? I don't want to give that up. I don't.

And I'm working so fucking hard to be friends with Dad. I mean, I'm pissed at him—and rightfully so—for a lot of things that happened and should not have, but I'm trying to be his friend. I don't want him to be sad. I want to hug him when he's crying for his own father if it'll make him feel better. I love the idea that I could actually have an impact, and a positive one at that, on my father.

I assume most of the cousins will be there. They don't know me. It'd be cool if they did, but I'm happy to be the quiet and off-in-the-corner cousin who looks a little punky and is going back to Missouri the next day. I don't need these people. I don't want these people. The amount of pain that they could cause me is just far too great of a risk. I'd rather not know my cousins than get to know them and not like them and have them not like me. I know there's all the self-help books and "love is letting go of fear", but there's something intelligent about knowing myself well enough to know that it's far too great of a gamble.

I just want it to be over. I'm haunted by the overwhelmingly daunting weekend ahead of me. I hate this.

updates

Hello everyone. I'm busy today because Nomy Lamm is in town so I don't have much time but I want to say:

a) Things with Jessa are better. I actually stood up for myself and it was nice. Of course plenty of deep thoughts and emotions are being left out here, but I have no time.

b) HUGE shout out to Kimmy for running (and finishing) the LA Marathon. Yeah. An f-ing marathon. Damn. Good work Soulmate!

Back to work.

let's try this again

Jessa's being a bitch. She's being mean. I don't like it. When I go to kiss her, she tells me I have bad breath. When I ask to hear "I love you" she won't say it. When I was trying to give her sex, she opened her eyes and saw her terrible and ugly ex-girlfriend. She "doesn't know what to do" because all of her hook-ups (as she titles them, not me) of the past six months have contacted her wanting to hook-up again. (And yes, I need to add the emphatic "all of them" that she repeated with such confusion and was so troubled over.) She just doesn't know what to do.

You know that expression "nice guys finish last." Well, I'm not a guy, but fuck it if I don't feel like I'm finishing last. It's like, the nicer I am, the better care I take of the other person, the less I demand of her, the more I take care of her, the worse and worse and worse and worse and worse she is to me. Why does the kindness of one lead to the meanness of another?

Why must I demand fair treatment? Why can't I just have it? Or remember way back at the beginning of this when it felt like I was not only getting fair treatment, but I was perhaps being taken care of? Don't I deserve to be taken care of?

Yes. I do. But I don't think I ever will. I really don't. And I don't say that, at this point anyway, with sadness. I mean, it'd be nice, but I'm not going to demand it of anyone because demanding to be taken care of means I'm still doing the work, and I don't think anyone's ever going to do it on her own.

She's just very selfish at times. She has no interest in so many of my stories. She gets annoyed at so many of them. I wonder what it's like to have someone who can actually put up with all of my stories and thoughts and ramblings and movie quotes and poetic expressions. And I'm not even going to dream of accepting and enjoying them, I'm just hoping for "putting up with". Last night when I did a fair job (for me) expressing upsetness at her not saying "I love you" when I ask to hear it, I said that I ask for it expressly because I can feel it, but it feels different when I can hear it "dancing around in my ears."

At few other times in my life have I felt so stupid. And I know that's a stupid thing to say. Here I am admitting to it, but I shouldn't have felt quite as stupid as I did around her. And I like the idea that someday I may find someone who only knows it's stupid the way I know it's stupid. But I can still say it and she can still get it.

And Jessa gets so pissed at me for being sensitive or taking things too seriously, but when I say my stupid-ass, most-transparent joke IN THE WORLD, "hey, you dropped something" she takes it soooooo seriously and gets soooooo pissed off. Last night she really told me that I'm not allowed to tell that joke anymore. What the fuck is her deal?

Let's not even get into my life-long fear of "all I'm good for is sex" and how well Jessa keeps that one coming. And oh yeah, did I ever tell anyone about how way back when she said that she wouldn't like me anymore if I wasn't still skinny?

rightful ownership

The Thought
I looked her in the eye last night, after an evening of emotion she couldn't recognize, and I wondered in my head if I had indeed given her my heart or if I'd even be hurt if we ended. I know it's probably bad and wrong, but this is a place for honesty in a world I've made full of lies, or at least omissions.

The Cause
I talked to Autumn last night for the first time in much too long. I felt relaxed and energized simply to have heard her voice and concerns and truths. Not only the truths of her life, but her truths for me. How is it that we're capable of knowing one other person so well? How is it that we're capable of loving one other person so well? How is it possible that others have this with entire other groups of people? I get mad at people for judging me because of my lack of family, but I judge them as well, I judge them for the importance and immense value they put into their families, but if I had an entire group of people who made me feel like Autumn makes me feel... Well, I wish I had a family with love like the familial love Autumn and I have for one another.

I went outside to talk to Autumn. We had to talk about _________ ... does it really matter exactly what we talked about? I think it doesn't. I think what matters is that we talked about the things that we don't to anyone else about and it was okay. And even though the subjects we cover are extremely tough and confidential we laugh and we smile and damnit we love one another. It's this acceptance that I just don't know what to do with except rejoice and take comfort in.

So we talked about these things--these haunting, shameful, upsetting things--and we were honest about them. Because when we as people in general talk about The Sad Things, they're not always sad at those moments. And if they're persavise inside of us, why must we treat them with such gravity at all points? I can't do it. Autumn understands that when I speak of these issues within me, they are the ones that keep me up at night and cause so much pain and make me cry and sob and silence myself, but she also knows that they're just another part of me. I can speak of them without forcing the tone of my voice and demeanor to hold the weight they can push down upon me.

I can get angry with Autumn in a way I've never been able to get angry with anyone else, ever. I can get angry with Autumn in ways I can't even get angry by myself. And it feels so good. We started talking and I walked into Jessa's bedroom and talked on her bed. Autumn expressed some of her issues and I rolled onto the floor in my empathetic yet silent protest to the pain and hurt that lives within her. From the floor, I played the vague-on-the-phone-because-of-who-can-overhear game, and then I slipped on my shoes and went outside. I paced up and down the block, raised my voice in the empty parking lot, startled the man walking his dog, and felt better. I got angry at not receiving all that I deserve. I defended my actions and the actions of those around me, even if they're not perfect. I called myself an asshole and even got validated in that because Autumn and I have an honesty beyond what the world really understands.

The Result Within Me
When I walked back into Jessa's apartment, I could feel a lightness in my step. It felt like part of my lungs had been blocked, and after talking to Autumn, I could finally breathe fully again. I smiled without noticing.

I pretty quickly explained to Jessa that I hoped she wasn't insulted I went outside.

"No, it was nice, you were kinda loud." In that tone of hers with so much underlying ugliness spitting out the words.

She didn't take away the good feeling, but she did bring back my ability to be angry and to know that I deserve the best the world has to offer. That comment is not the best the world has to offer. I answered with sarcasm and humor and the fucking immediate reinstatement of the walls around my heart. I had just defended my girlfriend to my best friend so I didn't shut down or shut her out, but the guard was back up. And the memories came back. The thoughts swirling around inside that had been perking up much too often lately until my talk with Autumn silenced them at least temporarily, were taken off their lunch breaks and came back.

"When I opened my eyes as we were passionately making out, you looked like Shannon."

Oh really? I looked like her ex who was awful, a total mooch, a bitch, physically attacked her, didn't deserve her, didn't respect her, did way too many drugs, an alcoholic, irresponsible, and UGLY?! That's what I looked like to my girlfriend. To the girlfriend who earlier that morning I had woken up with ON MY WEEKEND instead of sleeping in, and cooked her breakfast and made her coffee. That's what I looked like to the girlfriend who the day before I had taken time out of my Saturday to pick her up cigarettes (with my own money) and make her a sandwich so she could eat at work. To the girlfriend I'd been taking care of. To the girlfriend I give up sleep for.

Oh fuck this. I'm getting pissed off. A little bit after the "I'm too loud" comment, I asked her to tell me she loved me and she wouldn't. Awesome.

Back to work.

who am i again?

So, I've started a poem. It's rhymed and metered. The alternating stanzas have matching tones. The one main problem I thought of since stopping mid-stanza yesterday to deal with a bird problem (you can't even imagine) is that the first stanza talks to a general "you" while the rest of the poem clearly speaks to one specific "you". Or does it? Perhaps the first "you" can be specific. I don't know. I'm not going to type out my thoughts, but there's a clash that I have to re-examine.

The point is that this free-verse fan is working on an alternating hexameter and pentameter abcb rhyme scheme quatrain poem and I really like it. I don't have it with me, but I have the first stanza memorized:

empty cigarette pack
i don't even smoke
poems to get your lips wet
words to make you choke

You get the idea. Once it's finished I'll post it here. As long as I can finish it and I still like it.

Peace.