The Joys of both/and

Dude. So I'm back from San Fran/Oakland/Land of the Queers/NWSA/BEST VACATION EVER!!!!!!!

Woh. I don't even know how to talk about it. There was/is a hot non-girlfriend. (Sponsored skateboarder, currently not competing, just, y'know, teaching clinics that teach little girls to skate swoon; built her own bike sigh; is an artist, who screen prints her own stuff AND gets it tattooed on her body (it looks hot-t-t-t-t-t-t); and, y'know, really likes me and to make out with me. So that was fun.

Huh? What? Jessa who?

No sex with Hot Non-Girlfriend due to monthly cycles for both of us, but I'm relieved. I'm just not at a place where I can have non-intimate and emotional sex. So had we done that, I probably wouldn't be in contact with her and I'd be going crazy and afterwards I would have projected crazy all over her. Bummer.

Speaking of projecting (spewing being showing acting out frighteningly) crazy, let's talk about Rebecca Walker's keynote address at NWSA (National Women's Studies Association) Annual Conference--the reason I got to go on this vacation in the first place. Wow. Crazy people took over and it just went downhill from there.

Is it feminist to find Rebecca Walker overwhelmingly beautiful? I think the more she talked about being feminist and the personal being political and everyone needing to own her own shit the more attractive she became. I wasn't feeling her visible contempt for the crazy question-askers/story-tellers of the audience, but I couldn't blame her because I, too, kinda hate them.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO GO TO THERAPY. YES, I MEAN YOU TOO.

The Jessa break up seems to be going well. I had a short relapse on Monday night when I was first back in Columbia but I was going on four hours of terrible sleep, the depression of being back in the Midwest (we all know I love it, but it has it's struggles and I just wasn't ready to come back and be utterly unrecognizable and confusing to all patrons of the St Louis airport), and three nights in a row of getting to sleep with someone else. I missed her.

Without fail though, she was herself and because her coming over was what I wanted, it didn't happen. I never thought I'd be so thankful she's so selfish and has such power and control issues, but I think her blatant disregard for how I was feeling helped reconfirm why the break up was very good for me.

HNG living in Frisco is also very good for me. I might date her if I lived there and I don't want to date her. I don't want to date anyone. Not right now. That's just continually being confirmed in my life. I want to be single. I don't know how to do anything I want to do when I'm in a relationship. Bummer, but I think if I just hang out on my own and am forced to make my own decisions and do what I want to do I'll be forced to figure out what I like and then when I am ready to date I can continue to make decisions and even both do what I want and be in a relationship. What a novel concept.

I bought so many books and zines while on my trip. I love them all. I finished one book already, and I think 3 or 4 of the zines I bought I read in their entirety in the store before purchasing. I still have a couple books and zines to go.

And oh so much writing. I've been so inspired. Frisco was a good place.

Well, there's more to say--there always is--but I think that's good for now. Yes, both the best vacation ever, and I'm happy to be home.

i was alone once

I was alone once and I forget that. I was terribly and horribly alone. Yes, I was alone. And I forget how much that still weighs upon me. I forget how many of my actions and feelings and thoughts are direct consequences of that.

I tell other people that I don't want to tell them stories from when I was younger because they're sad and inappropriate and will bring them down. When maybe it's not just that. Maybe I don't want to bring myself down.

When I told Stefania the story of my last fight with Jessa, I couldn't look her in the eye. We, Stefania and I, joke about how great it is that I'm finally able to talk in the light of day. Another friend and I joke about how wounded everyone walking around out in the world is, but I think even in our englightenment, we forget about ourselves. Or we remember only the wounds we're able to deal with. Am I still hurt by this, or am I solely living my life in a way to stop it from ever happening again? (And by "this" I'm not trying to be vague, "this" equals my own all-encompassing, indescribable loneliness from what seems like a lifetime ago.)

Remember when I couldn't talk about anything emotional if there was light? I needed total darkness, having a sleep over. It had to be late at night and dark in the room and not in a position where we're supposed to look at each other.

I'm better, but I'm not done yet. I went through a number of months in my life without making eye contact. Maybe once a day, but probably not that much. I remember so vividly the first time I really looked someone in the eye at the end of that severe no-eye contact time. All I saw was pain. Tears swimming at the bottom of his eyes, before he said it was alright for me to go around the corner and cry. So I did. I went around the corner and I cried. Then I came back.

I remember running at ski team dry land practice and it was cold outside. My eyes started watering and I overheard some of the other people in the pack talk about their eyes watering and I realized that having tears stream down my face in that setting was not inappropriate. I could just cry and no one would look away in shame and embarrassment for me. It was almost a way to fit in. It was a long distance run in a park we only went to once because the hill was so steep we all almost fell and got injured. There were picnic tables and the boys were jumping on them and running over them and I ran along the side crying. The tears stinging my cheeks in the winter air.

When I told Stefania the story of that last fight, that fight turned breakdown, I couldn't look at her. She was on one end of the couch with her Chinese food between us, and I was sitting facing her door. I talked and I cried and I kept meaning to put chopsticks full of warm, dark noodles in my mouth, but I would forget and just keep telling the story. Sometimes it's best to just sit with the emotion. So I cried and I told her all of it and all that I had said and the way my leg was shaking. At the end I took a deep breath and forced a sarcastic smile, finally took a bite of lo mein and turned to her. Her face was red, scrunched up in pain, and streaking tears. Streaked with tears she was embarrassed to be shedding because she is one of my best friends and she knew I would only want to make her better. She was crying tears for me that she didn't want to be crying. And it looked as though she had been crying through the whole story, trying to keep it in, but I didn't notice because I kept looking anywhere but at her. It was good I didn't look over at her. I did try to make it better.

Sarah wrote me an email today that said "maybe one day you'll wake up to sunshine and revelation and realize that you are that sunshine in so many people's lives."

I was alone once. I am no longer.
Sometimes I forget I was once alone. I hope it's because I am no longer.
I will never be alone again.

interesting reading

Check out this article. It's a column, and sarcasm at its best.

Now, Back to the Real Crisis

Oh yeah, and I broke up with Jessa last night.

progress

I couldn't stop thinking about The Ex as I tried to fall asleep last night. All about her. All about kissing her face. Not passionate and intense and full of desire, just loving. Little kisses all over her face.

My psychologist said that when one loss occurs (Sarah and Stefania) all other losses are brought up inside you (The Ex).

I need to be single.

Sometimes, it's like the past year hasn't even happened. I mean, it has, but thought and feeling wise, no. Like nothing has changed.

For so many reasons, I need to be single. That's hard. And sad. It's like the whole past year didn't even happen.

"No heart?! No heart?! I'm all heart Motherfucker!"

So there's this part in the movie Jerry Maguire (this is my request to put aside all current feelings on Tom Cruise because the movie holds a special place in my heart, it came out and I bought it before he went nutso and I just can't give it up, nor will I feel shame for continuing to love it and the place it holds in my heart and my memories around it) where Jerry accuses Rod of living all of his life with heart, but playing football with only his head. "When you get on the field, it's all about what you didn't get, who's to blame, who underthrew the pass, who's got the contracts you don't, who's not giving you love. That is not what inspires people. That is not what inspires people! Shut up, play the game... play it from the heart." To which Rod responds that he doesn't want to be friends anymore and they yell at each other and it's intense and then as Rod walks away he gets more and more angry and as he loads the bus he has to take as a player getting carted all over the country he screams, mostly to himself, "No heart?!! No heart?!! I'm all heart Motherfucker!" Because he's pisssssssed.

I get this. I played competitive sports. Yes, Rod Tidwell (ignore that he's fictional and stay with me, not only am I getting to my point, but I'm bringing in feminist issues and even feministing.com) is a selfish asshole at times who just wants the fame and money associated with being a professional athlete, but damn. damn. As an athlete, there are few insults worse than saying you don't have heart. For real. And to be in the fucking NFL? If I met any NFL players, I would probably hate every single one of them, but dude, they have heart. You cannot be a professional athlete without heart. You can't. And don't argue with me unless you've played at the same level of sport as me, or higher, because you don't know what it's like. You don't. (And even if you have, bring me your best arguments and I'll still win.)

People, and many people I know and love, don't get that part of the movie. They don't know why Rod gets so mad. They just don't get it.

So I don't talk about sports. I talk to Autumn about sports. I sometimes talk to Marla about sports. I will talk to very few people about my true ideas surrounding sports and the sports culture and competitive sports. Sorry, but the rest of the world isn't in that world and just doesn't get it. It is a different world and only people in that world can really get it.

Today, reading feministing.com, I came across a piece about pregnancy in college athletes and whether or not the women athletes getting pregnant should get a medical redshirt. (The answer is yes, they should, but that's not even what I'm writing about.) There were so many comments after the piece all about people's different takes on the issue, and I could have killed one of the commenters. It's a good thing she/he didn't leave her/his real name. This one (for some reason I assume dude, but maybe that's sexist of me) person kept commenting about what it's like in the sports world and what the athletes do and how they act. Actually, no, moron, athletes don't act anything like that.

I'm totally upset over this. I don't even know how to make my point.

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At this point in my post, I got really pissed off and emotional over it, so I went to feminsiting.com and just posted a comment. Here's what I wrote:
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"As an athlete and a feminist I have a lot of opinions on this matter, but I just need to comment on some of the points made above. To try to keep it short, I'll bullet point my ideas and responses.

Why my experience and context matters to this argument:
- I received a college athletic scholarship
- A scholarship-receiving woman on my team got pregnant
- She got pregnant with a scholarship-receiving player from the mens team
- She stopped playing and had the baby (off the team, no scholarship), he continued to play (with his scholarship)
- A different scholarship-receiving player from the mens team got drunk (as per usual, I might add), fell off a fence, broke his arm, and got a medical redshirt (stayed on the team, kept his scholarship)

My opinion:
- No question, pregnant athletes should receive a redshirt

One of my responses to the idea that women can't recover and be athletes again after pregnancy/childbirth:
- The US Women's Soccer team of the late 90s and early 2000s had an unprecedented winning record (in any sport across the board) and had numerous mothers on the team (ie pregnancy does not mean a) the end of your life and/or b) the end of your athletic career)

Just because 'the truth' pissed me off with her/his inaccuracies:
- All we (my teammates, the mens team, and the larger culture of all the athletes on my campus) did was play pick-up games, have little skill contests, scrimmage, run extra miles, weight train, play other sports, etc; and that was the healthy stuff, there was also intense amounts of drug use/abuse (both recreational and performance enhancing), alcohol use/abuse, and all other sorts of "anything that can even be construed as dangerous outside of practices/training for their sport"

And finally, just in case the argument is made that my example is the exception (it's not, but I won't go into lots of other specific examples), I also took a Sociology of Sport class in my ungergrad years that furthered all of these, and many more, points.

Seriously, there's no question that it should be a redshirt, but we live in a patriarchal world--and the sports world perhaps even more so--so I'm not betting on it."

The point of my comment was to mainly prove the commenter 'the truth' wrong because it shouldn't even be an argument and she/he was using grossly incorrect assumptions about college athletes (and not just athletes at one of my two schools, I did take the class, I do have these friends, I know this shit) to make the case of blaming the woman for getting pregnant. Why is it always Blame The Woman? I HATE Blame The Woman.

I mean, as an athlete--and in that particular case, teammate--that was really stupid of her to get pregnant. It did hurt the team and had she kept her scholarship we would have been down one hopefully good player who could have received it, but that's what being a fucking team is. Whatever. That was the point of the comment.

The point of this post was to express my anguish at trying to talk about sports with people who aren't in the sports world. How can one talk about a culture she knows nothing about? I'm reminded of similar anger when a man in one of my classes tried to make the argument that his fear of getting mugged while walking down a dark alley is the same as a woman's fear of getting raped while walking down a dark alley. Why do people think they can talk about things they know nothing about?

I'm not saying all different colors of people (is that racist?) can't talk about racism, or all genders can't talk about sexism, or rich people can't talk about classism, or skinny people can't talk about sizism, or straight people can't talk about homophobia, or any privileged anything can't talk about any oppressed anything, etc etc etc, I'm just saying that if someone is going to go through the effort of arguing about something, at least fucking learn something about the issue before weighing in.

Thank god I only have 20 more minutes and then I get to go be around feminists eating local and yummy food. I need rejuvenation, because--whether it's about sports, feminism, or whatever--I, too, am all heart Motherfucker!

(and yes,) it was perhaps the highlight of my day

Alright. I did it. And when you (all of you collectively, god I miss Spanish, cuando usted) read this, don't even pretend to begin to judge me, because if you haven't done it too, then you've wanted to, and really you should respect me for owning up to it.

I read somebody's blog. Somebody's blog whom I know, but maybe not well enough to jump into the past year and a half of her life and read all about any thoughts she may have had and decided to post because...well, who knows why any of us decide to post, except to maybe continue the disassociation. (May I just take a quick parenthetical aside to shout out once again to Nomy Lamm, because damn, she taught me a lot. Not only am I no longer afraid to sing out loud--really, she just cured me of that, in one short lecture as it snowed outside on the first day of Spring--but she also verbalized that life is all just one big disassociation. It is. All of it.)

I took the last hour of work in this shitty week continuing the absolutely awful wedding the-world-hates-gays weekend to just read her blog and be distracted and impressed and feel a little bit better.

I don't think it was necessarily voyeuristic because I was reading because it was good writing and I don't know how many times I've wanted to read a blog and get lost in another's thoughts and writings and life, but gotten annoyed at their racism or sexism or toxicity towards everyone and especially themselves so that I can't even read on, even if it does mean avoiding the fucking Johnny on the Spot requistions staring me down from my inbox.

Wow. Yes. I really have an inbox--how did I get trapped in the comics section of every newspaper known to the world--and I really have to pay the Johnny on the Spot bill and it really sucks and is, if not The, then at least in the top three hardest things I've had to do since getting this grown-up job. It sucks ass. And the irony is so strong it's not even funny, it's painful. It's a joke set up that even stupid people can handle, and truthfully I prefer a little subversiveness. Yes, even in my humor.

And Yes, I'm going to continue the "yes" statements of this post even though it's repetitive, because damnit, it's fun.

And fuck damn, it was raining today when I had to go see my landlord to renew my lease so I had to ride home to get my car which means I parked which means I paid the meter and now it's run out so while I'd like to stay at work and escape and not face the real world that's sucking lately, I already got a TWENTY FUCKING FIVE DOLLAR ticket this morning so I better go.

I said goodbye to Stefania today.

As a closing thought: the water in my apartment better fucking work when I get home, because at lunch, it didn't. And sometimes I get thirsty.

And Yes, it was your blog that I read all day. And it made me feel better. So thanks.