Sexual Semantics

For those of you just joining this program already in progress, your humble narrator, while often anti-social, very much enjoys intimacy with those she cares about. She has also enjoyed intimacy with those she didn't know quite so well, by and large without regret. But as a bisexual woman who's also had relationships with men who did not prefer penis in vagina (PIV) sex, I've often been in a situation to ponder what I think is or isn't sex. If it's PIV sex, then lesbian couples, gay male couples, couples who only engage in BDSM or fetish play, and male-female couples who can't or don't have PIV sex, no matter how intimate they are or how long they've been together, have not had sex. If you draw the line at penetration, so we'll say adding anal sex and sex involving dildos or objects, well then you still have some couples of all stripes who decide not to have penetrative sex. Also, there are some hetrosexual people who have anal intercourse, but still consider themselves virgins because they have not had PIV sex, so penetration seems to be a bad place to try to draw any lines. I think that there are many people who would say that things you call sex are sex so oral sex, PIV sex, anal sex are "what counts." But even if you dismiss post-Clinton ideas of oral sex not really being sex, I can't count the number of conversations I've had where I said that I haven't really had sex with a man because we haven't had PIV sex and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who has relationships with men who's said the same thing. Back to my first hand though, I know I wouldn't say I've never had sex with a woman, though I've never had pentrative or, obviously, PIV sex with a woman.

So why the hell does it matter anyway? Well, I think it matters because we make it matter. In discussions of fidelity, it's asked if the suspect partner has had sex with another person. So what counts? Just like with sex, people draw the line in different places and even different members of the same couple might not exactly agree on what matters.

I've also found that it matters because it's how many people often judge the pinnacle of their intimacy. Because for a hetro couple, PIV sex is supposed to be the ultimate goal post for how far along your relationship is, since it facilitates your ultimate goal of a couple - procreation. Oh, what? That's not why you're having PIV sex? Heathen! I think all couples have to deal with a certain amount of presumption about what they have or have not deal on that rather simple sexual spectrum, especially if they've been together for any significant period of time, but that spectrum is based on hetronormative, penetration-focused, procreation-directed ideas. But I've realized recently that this puts undue pressure on...well, everyone, to push towards sexual acts they might not be ready for or push partners for the same. And, much to my shame, I've been guilty of this for a very long time. I got away with it because I am a woman and this particular partner is male. If the genders were reversed or if the genders were the same and I heard of one partner pressuring the other to do sexual acts that they had drawn a strict line through, even if I thought the refusing partner's reasons were less than reasonable, I would argue that the pressurer was being an ass.

Thus, while I know I'm probably in the (small) minority, I've decided to work on not putting goalposts or specific definitions of what counts. And if you have to ask if something is cheating, than it probably is. Or, in a openly open relationship, something that needs to be disclosed. More than that, I'm finding myself very happy with the current levels of physical intimacy, whether or not I'm going "all the way."

In a nice bit of coincidence, right after I'd thought out this post, I read this Savage Love Letter of the Day, "I'm putting "sex" in quotes here because your boyfriend defines sex as "vaginal intercourse." I don't. In fact, I think oral, handjobs, and visuals-with-a-partner also count as sex," in his response to a woman who's boyfriend thought four PIV sex encounters a week, plus oral, handjobs, and getting naked so he could get himself off, was deprivation. See, if my ideas mesh with Dan Savages, especially in the area of sex and relationships, I think I'm probably on the right track.

So what counts as sex to you?

Sometimes I Feel Cold As Steel, Broken Like I'm Never Gonna Heal

Ok dear readers, no bitching about this being a country song. It's very pop and very...build-up orchestral inspiring. Right now I'm only half way there. I'm at the broken part, still working on seeing the world again. That's part of why I haven't written much at all. I just don't have it in me. But maybe you'll be able to understand this. Thanks for everyone who's stuck by me. I'll try to have more to read soon. Love-Ava


Hello World

Traffic crawls, cell phone calls
Talk radio screams at me
Through my tinted window I see
A little girl, rust red minivan
She's got chocolate on her face
Got little hands, and she waves at me
Yeah, she smiles at me

Hello world
How've you been?
Good to see you, my old friend
Sometimes I feel cold as steel
Broken like I'm never gonna heal
I see a light, a little hope
In a little girl
Hello world

Every day I drive by
A little white church
It's got these little white crosses
Like angels in the yard
Maybe I should stop on in
Say a prayer
Maybe talk to God
Like he is there
Oh I know he is there
Yeah, I know he's there

Hello world
How've you been?
Good to see you, my old friend
Sometimes I feel as cold as steel
And broken like I'm never going to heal
I see a light
A little grace, a little faith unfurled
Hello world

Sometimes I forget what living's for
And I hear my life through my front door
And I'll be there
Oh I'm home again
I see my wife, my little boy, little girl
Hello world
Hello world

All the empty disappears
I remember why I'm here
Just surrender and believe
I fall down on my knees
Oh hello world
Hello world
Hello world

Slow

Just don't look myself in the eyes. I just have to put this one cream on my face and then I don't have to look in the mirror until I do my hair. I just have to keep it together to put on this one cream. Because if I see myself start to cry, if I even just see my face right now, I'm done for. It's all over. I'll be a blubbering mess. Thank the gods today is not a day where I have any reason to wear makeup.

A friend suggested I watch this amazing short film, Slow, directed by Darius Clark Monroe. To whittle it down would be to do it an injustice, but, as with anything that has to do with black sexuality or gay sexuality or sexually tense situations, I couldn't help but think of you. I watched all of Mr. Monroe's short films that were available on vimeo and I had to fight back thinking about you because I knew I'd lose it if I let myself think about how I couldn't share this with you, that I couldn't share anything with you again.

I wonder what you'd think of the new cover of "99 Problems." Tribute or rip-off or somewhere in the middle?

One of the blogs I read, Racialicious, is doing an online book club of Octavia Butler books. I don't know if you ever read any of her books and I know you were never really a scifi fan, but I'd give anything to buy double copies of everything, one for me and one for you, so we could read along with these other men and women all over the world.

I want to watch Game of Thrones or True Blood with you and talk for hours about race, sexuality, class, ownership, and anything else that comes up.

I know you'd understand better than many how it feels to worry about living up to potential, pressure to make good on the hard work that others did for you to be where you are, even if it's only pressure from yourself, when you feel like you're running in quicksand. I wish I could talk to you. Wish I could hear you tell me that I don't have to live up to anything. That I don't have to live a certain way because they can't anymore, those people I've lost, because you can't. I should live up to what I can do at any given moment because I owe it to myself. Hell, you'd probably offer me a toke and tell me to just chill, worry about it tomorrow, not to stress about it right now. But I wish I could hear that from you. Girl, you have no idea how much I miss you. Today and everyday.

I was changed for good and for the better by knowing you. If I wasn't an incredible pain in the ass on equality issues before, I definitely am now, which I think is better. Being around you made me realize how incomplete my education was and you made me want to keep filling in the gaps. You have probably been the only female who's helped me feel more alright with being turned on by "the wrong" thing. You knew I was totally in love with you but, thankfully, you never made a big deal out of it.

I'm sure this isn't the last time I'll write to you here, but it's the first time I've written in a long while and that's something. Even if my face is all red and puffy, my nose is dripping and I'm completely unsuitable looking to leave the house. Thank you, Miss Kee. I miss you terribly.

Drug Experimentation

Psychiatrists can never say with certainty that an particular drug or any particular combination will work, or that their side effects won't outweigh the good that they'd do you. This means that months of drug and dosage recombinations until you and your doctor finds what the two of you think is best. As your doctor has much more experience at this than you, it's usually more their call when you've reached that point. I've been on lithium since November 2008. I know I'm probably a broken record on the shitty side effects, but here it goes again. I have much less affect, my memory is fried, I can't concentrate like I used to, and my sex drive is nonexistant. Late last year, I got my doctor to agree to mess with my medicine a little bit to help increase my sex drive, but not by taking me off the lithium, but by putting me on a different anti-depressant. Yeah, that didn't work so well, because that drug made me physically ill all that time. No time to worry about if I'm horny if I'm puking my guts out, right? After that debacle, I had things other than sex to worry about and I knew that it'd be be awhile after those things got sorted out before I'd really be looking to get laid, so I just let it go. So, while this might be common sense, or at least something that is easily deduced, when a person who is supposed to take a specific combination of meds two times every day, "when they wake up" and "before they go to bed," but this person often sleeps odd and long hours and barely remembers to eat or get a shower, well, it's probably not a long shot that they won't remember to take their medicines like they are supposed to. (Yeah, I admitted this to my doc. I'm trying not to have to say it outright to my folks, as I'm attempting to take the meds, it just doesn't always work out that way.) The best, and pretty much only side effect I've noticed, has been the return of my sex drive!!! A bit of this sexual playfulness has popped up in emails, sometimes surprising even me. Then, last night, as I was flipping through premium cable channels late at night, like Skinamax Extreme and I felt a foreign tingle south of my waistline. Hmmm. What was that? So tonight I decided to take advantage of a bit of free time, renew my friendship with my rabbit. What can I say?!? I feel like a new woman. A new nymphomanic woman. A new nymphomanic woman who wants to start exercising regularly so she can be better, leaner, stronger, more flexible in and out of bed. Unfortunately, I think this will disappear once I'm on the "proper" dose of medication again. Ugh. What's a woman to do?

Uncharted

Today was the second meeting the grief support group that my mom and I are going to. Last Sunday, the third, was the one month anniversary of my uncle's death. I know that just the time in between, if nothing else that I contributed, because, honestly, I haven't contributed much to pushing through this or moving on, has made it a little better. I don't have that deep, physical, painful hurt all of the time like I used to. I can sleep without the extreme use of alcohol or anti-anxioty drugs, though I'm still having sleeping issues, which I might talk about later. But just the time, in and of itself, has helped and I've realized that I no longer feel that horrible all the time. And that's a start. I'm also slowly but surely moving towards seeking other help. My mom and I are going to a greif support group and I'm going to explore my options of getting back with a therapist soon. While I still cry too much, too often, and too unpredictably to be rushing into the job market right now, I did look at job listing for the first time since getting back. I'm thinking about buying a book to help with the resume building (or should I just do it online?) before I actually start sending anything out. Until then, I have tons of little things I can do around my own house until then.

A part of me feels completely disappointed in myself right now. Before my uncle passed, when I would talk to people, visitors wondering what I felt was next for me, I would tell them that I was going to continue to help my folks as much as possible but I wanted to try to find a job just for the money so I could start saving and start paying down my loans. I thought by now I would either have a job or be completely disheartened by all the job-rejection I was facing. But I haven't even be able to get out there and try to be rejected. I just know that I want to take a job that I won't plan on having more than two years, one that pays enough and gives me enough hours that I can save up for a car emergency fund, a first & last months rent & security deposit fund, and a general emergency fund, while also trying to pay down my student loans. I want to be out in two years. And that time period is quickly ticking away.

The grief support group is really nice. Our leader, a Chaplain at the local hospitcal focuses on us having a safe place to discuss our feelings about our loss(es) in that room and encourages us to have both a/a few good friends who understand and will accompny us on our journey of reliving our memories and acknowledging the pain that might come, as well as individual journalling. One of his slogans is that the sooner and more intensely you grieve and stay with the pain, the quicker you will find yourself on the other side, your new normal. I try not to let that give me a free access pass to do nothing but cry all day, but I think it provides a controlled model of how to deal with the pain and work through it. I can't move on and truly give myself to a situation, to a new job, to a new friend, to a new lover, or even to those friends and family and lovers in my current life, if I don't work through this grief.

But, on the other hand, I still have quite a bit of a lost feeling. That's why I wanted to share this new-ish song. The video is kinda cute, all the lip-synching. And I know Sara Bareilles is a bit too pop from some of my readers, but what the hell. This song really captures how I feel and I wanted to share. I hope you enjoy. And I hope all my friends out there know that I care about them, I haven't forgotten about them, and that I'll make me way back around to them when times here aren't so tight. Thank you to all my friends and family who have stuck around and continue to stick around.







Lyrics - Uncharted - by Sara Bareilles
No Words
My years won't make any room for them, oh.
And it don't hurt
Like anything I've ever felt before

This is no broken heart
No familiar scars
This territory goes uncharted

Just me
In a room sunk down in a house in a town
And I don't breathe
Though I never meant to let it get away from me

Now I have too much to hold
Everybody has to get their hands on gold
And I want... uncharted

Stuck under the ceiling I made.
I can't help the feeling I'm going down
Follow if you want. I won't hang around
Like you'll show me where to go
I'm already out of foolproof ideas
So don't ask me how
To get started
It's all uncharted

Each day
I'm countin' up the minutes til I get alone
Cause I can't stay
In the middle of it all.
It's nobody's fault

But I'm so low
Never knew how much I didn't know
Oh, everything is uncharted

I know I'm gettting nowhere
When I only sit and stare like...
I'm going down
Follow if you want. I won't just hang around
Like you'll show me where to go.
I'm already out of foolproof ideas so don't ask me how
To get started
It's all uncharted.

Jump start my kaleidoscope heart
I love to watch the colors fade
They may not make sense
But they sure as hell made me

I won't go as a passenger, no
Waiting for the road to be laid
Though I may be going down
I'll take in flame over burning out

Compare where you are to where you wanna be
And you'll get nowhere

I"m going down
Follow if you want. I won't hang aruond.
Like you'll show me where to go.
I'm already out of foolproof ideas so don't ask me how to get started
It's all uncharted.

I'd Tell You But You're Dead

I think one of the hardest phenomenon to get over when you lose someone, whether it's a break-up or a death, is that you are so used to talking to them, telling them things, sharing things with them that you think they would like to know or like to hear about.

Monday I called my mom, who isn't going back to work until next week, just to see what she was up to, as she wasn't at home when I woke up. She said that she had went to the bank to cash in the last of my grandparents' savings bonds and she felt....kinda lost, I guess, though that's not what she said, because usually she would call my uncle and tell him about how much money it came out to be (as the money was supposed to be evenly divided), etc. But now there's no one to call.

One of the blogs I follow, Racialicious posted about this independent black film that is getting a good deal of GREAT early press, called I Will Follow. The post had embedded a trailer, but, as I tend to read blog posts through google reader, either on my phone or on computers with VERY slow internet connections or while watching something else on television, so I usually have to go back at a later date to watch videos and it took me awhile to get to this trailer. But it made me want to see the movie even more, even though I think I'll have to bring a box of tissues. From both the trailer and the website's description, it's the day in the life of a woman who has just lost her aunt, who she was very close to, and the twelve people that day who help her find her way amid the mourning and grief. In the little blurb on his front page, Roger Ebert writes: " "I Will Follow" doesn't tell a story so much as try to understand a woman. Through her, we can find insights into the ways we deal with death. In one way or another, every emotion in this wonderful independent film is one I've experienced myself. Grief, of course. But also anger, loneliness, confusion and a sense of lost direction. Above all, urgent conversations you have in your own mind with someone who is no longer alive. How many people, now dead, have you wanted to ask questions you should have asked when they were alive?"

Which is funny, in a weird, sad way, because the first thing I wanted to do once I watched the trailer was to call or text Ms. Kee and tell her about it, because I know she would love this movie, because I know it would speak to her in so many ways, just as it speaks to me, but even more than that because it is directly rooted in the black community and how black families deal with loss. But I can't tell call or text her. Because she's dead.

Then I wanted to call my uncle to talk about how hard it is to want to share something that someone else would love so much, how hard it is to want to share something with someone you were so close to in so many ways. But I can't call him either. Because he's dead too.

Though I haven't seen the movie, I feel much like its main character must feel.

I miss you all so much. So so so much.

He's Gone

It's been almost two weeks and I still don't really know how to write about his passing or my own grief. I wrote something for his funeral but it was more a comedic tribute to the man I grew up with than anything that dealt with how I feel about him or about losing him. I'm writing this in the bright light of day because I lose all comprehension at night when I even think about writing. I think I'd end up with a stream-of-consciousness piece that maybe even I couldn't understand. But during the day, though I'll still cry (am crying), I know I'll push through it to do something, anything. I have an easier time convincing myself that the crying jag, brought on by some little thought connected by 100 degrees of separation from my uncle, will end. As everythig does.

I think I don't want to write because I don't want to feel what I know I do feel and I don't want to know those things that I'm avoiding feeling so hard that I can't even touch them or name them. You know, I've always thought that those pain questionaires that doctors and nurses ask you about were so arbitrary as to be useless. "Is the pain stabby or shooting? Aching or cramping?" I don't know, motherfucker. It just fucking hurts! Are you feeling sad? Lonely? Bitter? Angry? Guilty? Confused? Useless? Lost? Afraid? YES and then tons of other things that I don't even know the words for.

And what feels like it's equally as bad as all the expected grief is that I just want to move on. I just want everything to finally be like a normal life for just a little bit. I want to be done with estates and storage units. I want to just get a stupid, pain in the ass job, working 40 hours a week like a good little American zombie, at least for a little while. Not have to think. Just be pushed along with the flow of things. Set up a 2 year plan for getting out of debt and out of town, before my parents' health fails and I'm back in this same spot again. Use most dollars from my zombie job to do this. But I just want things to be normal. For the first time in my whole goddamn life, I want things to be normal. I want to be normal. I want to have not spent the last four years losing so much of what I love, watching them slowly die. I don't want to be wiser, deeper, more experienced. I want to go back to the day before my uncle was diagnosed with cancer and live a life where that never happens. Which leads to a great deal of guilt, of course. I mean, what a selfish little bitch, right?

But narcistic, exhibitionistic writers are still who they are and I still had to write something when a major life event occurs. Thanks for bearing with me.

End of Life Care

No matter how long life is or how long it seems, there will still never be enough time.

I can't count the number of times I've chastised a friend, telling them that, for most of us, life is so much longer than we give it credit for when we are 24 (their current age). Not only will you meet so many people you can't even imagine now but you'll be offered so many opportunities that you can't even imagine at this point, if you just leave yourself open to it. On the other hand, you can never imagine how long 50 years can seem until you're brushing your teeth next to someone you've grown to hate and loath over those fifty years (hell, even 50 minutes.) And 50 years can't go by quicker than when it's the right person, a person who improves with age in parallel to you. And despite all that is happening now, I know that life is long. So very long. Which means that we have to live with the hurt and suffering just that much longer.

All this medical stuff with my uncle never fully makes sense. I thought that when he came back home this last time, mid-January, I thought that my uncle was classified as "hospice," which was why we were getting all this care. No. See, he was classified as "home health care," on a schedule to show us all how to take care of him, check up on him, etc, but see there was this drug, called a targeted agent, which we talked the insurance into giving to him as a last ditch effort, but my uncle was on the fence about taking it at all, as no one could say that it would actually improve his quality or quantity of life. My uncle kept saying that he'd think about starting it once he felt a bit better but he never really felt better. But if you are on an active treatment regiment, you aren't on hospice. No one really explained this to us until probably Friday, less than a week ago. So we were all thinking about this, what we wanted to do, etc.

But the time for thinking ran out. Yesterday, my uncle started having some really intense pain. The immediate release drugs didn't touch it. My mother was 2.5 hours away, but just about to leave Suburb of Slightly Smaller Midwestern City. My uncle's boyfriend was scrambling to get all the info the hospital might need, to call the right people, to "Where the hell is that ambulance!" (So playing the slightly less dramatic version of my grandmother.) I was just holding my uncle's hand, trying to calm him down, get him to breathe, find out exactly where the pain was. Once at the ER, the doctors, including one we have a previous relationship with, we got the news that you don't really want to hear. My uncle was doing poorly. While my uncle's original living wills, DNRs, etc, said that he did not want extraordinary measures, people can and do change their mind when faced with a very caring but blunt doctor saying, "This is the end. I can do all these things, use the paddles, crack your chest (which will probably completely obliterate your ribs because of the cancer), put in a trach, all that stuff to keep you alive, but you won't be any better than you are right now and we won't be able to treat the cancer at all. OR we can treat your pain, either at home or at a home-y hospice center, though you will probably pass more quickly and be more aware of both the good and the bad of your situation." Though I have a whole other discussion about how much consent you can really get from someone in so much pain, their body wracked with disease, and on a huge amount of narcotics, I am glad that my uncle is making this decision for himself, though with his family, doctors, and social workers. He did not chose the first option. Right now, he is at the hospital, being stabilized, and deciding whether he wants to do hospice at home or at a hospice center.

But there really isn't enough time. One social worker, weeks ago, said that he knew people on hospice for a year or more, that they took trips. Hospice generally covers people who the doctors think might not last for more than 6 months, but that's just an average and people go one way or another. The way things had been going around my uncle's house, I thought we'd have time. We, my mom, my uncle, my uncle's boyfriend, and I, were just getting a rhythm down, moving stuff in so we were comfortable too. But it looks like we don't have that kind of time.

Doctors don't always come out and tell you things. They sneak things into other sentences. The Dr We Like said to my uncle "I wish I could keep you hear in the hospital and watch over you myself but there are more critical patients that could use this bed for the 7-10 days you'd be here."

10 Days. It's never enough.

Forgiving God

[Warning: Possibly offensive to religious, especially Christian, people. I'm not trying to hurt or offend you, just work out my own issues. If your religion is valid for you, helps you, works for you, and doesn't hurt or oppress others, then I sincerely think that is great for you.]

Keep your heart above your head and your eyes wide open
So this world can't find a way to leave you cold
You're not the only ship out on this ocean
Save your strength for things that you can change
Forgive the one's you can't.
You gotta let it go. - "Let It Go," Zac Brown Band

So I was listening to this song on my way out to my uncle's Monday night when I had a sort of epiphany. Or at least it felt like one at the time. If I would have pulled the car over and made my thumbs move fast and furious, maybe I could have gotten across exactly what kind of weight I felt lifted off my shoulders at the time, the new kind of light it shown on me at the time, but I didn't and the farther I get away from the incident, the less it looks at all impressive. But I'm a writer and I don't have many people to talk to about this, so I'm going to try to make some sense of it here.

First off, I should probably give a bit of background, for those who don't know:

A. A quick refresher on God/s, religion, and me: Christian parochial school taught me to question things, just not it, plus I felt my sexuality was bumping heads with Paul's lack thereof. Also, I could never find enough to back up my faith in a higher being. So atheism and exploration it was. Since my late teens, I've been drawn to the ideas behind Buddhism as a life and moral philosophy and meditation as a practice, while I'm about as "practicing" as most people born Catholic are practicing Catholicism right now.

On the other hand, I did grow up in a Christian culture and household and those ways, assumptions, and quick-go-to's/ easy answers are still with me. ("God never gives you more than you can handle." "That dead person is in a better place now." etc)

B. My uncle's health is... if not worse than when I last wrote about it, it is significantly different than it was until a few months ago. Within less than a month, he's lost the ability to use his legs or feel normally below the nipple line. We've been told that further spinal surgery is out of the question, by a neurosurgeon with a bedside manner that House would appreciate. Officially, we're kinda in a limbo. I just found out today that he's not classified as hospice or palliative care because my uncle is still on the fence about trying this last ditch 'targeted agent chemo drug', because he's worried it'll just make him sicker without giving him any better quality or quantity of life. Right now, he is at home, being taken care of by my mother and his boyfriend, with a bit of help from me, and a guiding hand, for a few more weeks, from a local home health care provider, though, unless his doctors transfer him to hospice status, the time we will have their help is quickly running out. Mostly, right now, he is confined to an adjustable bed in the living room, which doesn't allow for much privacy, though we are trying to get him up in the wheelchair we have right now, so he can sit up, and we'll get him outside in the wheelchair once the weather isn't too bad. We're talking about converting one of his vehicles so we can drive him around in the wheelchair and we're also talking about getting him a motorized wheelchair that will compensate for his balance issues. But much of our time is taken up with everyday care and, even if we had all the tech in the world, my uncle only has so much energy, so he couldn't be go-go-go all the time. This is a downhill climb and we're mostly just happy when he's not in a great amount of pain, when he's well fed, and when he's clean and can just relax a bit. He requires a great deal of care. One person always has to be here with him, two is preferred for help in moving him, and three is one extra, which can always be useful.

So we're caught up.

Last Sunday and Monday, a part of me wasn't sure I could go back to BFE [short-hand, slang for middle of nowhere, what I'll be calling where my uncle lives very often] from Suburb of Slightly Smaller Midwest City. I really shouldn't have gone on the trip out there anyway. My goals were to pick up my extra prescriptions and to see TyRoy, but Mom could have grabbed my drugs on her trip before mine and first snow and then illness prevented me from seeing TyRoy, so I spent most of the week in a haze of depression and weird sleep patterns and food deprivation. Never shoulda gone in the first place. But that's a different story, I guess.

So I wasn't sure I could go back. Mentally, emotionally. In the beginning, my uncle's health situation just made me mad, not in the "why the fuck is he sick? This is so inconvenient way," but in "This is so fucking unfair. My uncle deserves better. He deserves a long and happy and healthy life. And how dare you people out there be happy and healthy and smiley when my uncle is dying!" Now, sadness has been added to that mix of emotions. But still mostly mad. Like "I wanna beat the living hell out of someone" mad. So I get mad and/or sad, cry, pull myself together and say, "Ok, what can I do about how I feel or about any of this situation that I'm not already doing?" Annnnnddd, I get nothing but more angry. And I'm working on my own version of a volume 2 for Everclear's "Why I Don't Believe In God." Maybe that should be "why I don't believe in God but he's the only one I can be mad at so I'm feeling kinda helpless and fucked." That helplessness just reinforces itself, makes me feel like I'm not only helpless in the larger situation, but helpless in small ways, like I can't actually be useful out here in BFE in my uncle's everyday care, when I know that isn't true, when I know that the opposite is in fact true and that, without me, my mother and my uncle's boyfriend don't get a break unless I'm here to help.

Also, I tend to curl up into the fetal position or turn to martyrdom when faced with immovable objects and complete helplessness. If I do believe in God, that He's omnipotent and the cause of everything, and I believe that He is the cause of this, then I feel pretty goddamn helpless in the face of that. And I feel pretty goddamn mad that anyone would do this to anyone else, much less do this to me and my family.

Then, after I had forced myself into the car and into starting the drive, I was listening to that Zac Brown Band song, so full of 12-step-isms that I am thoroughly familiar with and something hit me about forgiveness.

Several years ago, I watched an Oprah episode where she described forgiveness as something you give to someone else, not because what they did was ok and not because they deserve it, but because you deserve to be out from under the weight of their wrong. Like I can only hope that someday my first real boyfriend, ex-T, can forgive me for cheating on him, not because I deserve it or because I'm sorry, though I am the latter though probably not the former, but because I don't want him to live his whole life bogged down by what I did to him, being wronged twice, carrying that second one throughout your whole life. And someday I hope I can forgive my biological father for abandoning me, not because he's sorry (probably isn't), not because he deserves to be forgiven (probably doesn't), but just because I don't want to carry the weight of what HE did wrong to me. So you forgive for yourself, so you are less burdened.

So, if God exists and he did all this shit, why doesn't he deserve forgiveness too? I'm not helpless against him. He fucked me over. And He should be happy to have my forgiveness.

When I tried to share this with Sir, he brought up "forgiveness=acceptance." I see where he was trying to go, but I'm not sure it's where I was going. I accept what is going on with my uncle. It's a bit hard not to, when you're right there seeing it everyday, when just before his 40th birthday your once vital intelligent uncle can't balance his chest well enough to sit on the edge of a bed much less go drive one of the cars he loves. So I accept, as much as anyone can, and I try not to delude myself about any of his conditions.

No, forgiveness is about having something to push back against. Someone who did something wrong and needs me. Forgiveness is about having power over something.

Guests, Not Tenants

I probably shouldn't be writing this, but, I'm a writer, or at least I like to think of myself as a writer so I felt the need to share. Maybe that make me more an exhibitionist than a writer, but I'll split the difference with you, if you'll just read.


The last month, has been a sort of barely controlled chaos. Not the kind of chaos that people like me thrive on, ones were we can make lists and prioritize and work our fingers to the bone until the chaos has been turned into order, sparkling beautiful order. No, this chaos is run by outside forces. Just as you get your mind around one thing and start to plan, start to make those lists, just then you get a new piece of information that blows those old plans out of the water. Sometimes, it is a new bit of information from the doctors, that the doctors looked over the new data and decided on a new course of treatment. Other times, it is a change in "the patient"s condition, which changes all the plans, all the treatment plans.

Monday, as I was driving back out to Podunk Town to see my uncle, my mother told me that my uncle's boyfriend had called an ambulance to take him to the local hospital because my uncle had gone from shaky, but able to walk with a walker that afternoon, to not being able to walk at all. Mom was rushing there behind me. We did the hospital merry-go-round because Podunk Hospital's MRI was down so late at night, so we went to Shitty Capital City's Hospital where a neurosurgeon with the bedside manner of a scorpion informed my uncle, his partner, my mother, and I, at 4am, that someone should have told us a long time ago that any and all surgical options were closed to him now and we shouldn't be talking to him but to a radiation specialist.

All the cancer docs talk to each other. My uncle gets moved back to Podunk Hospital, which is closer to his home, his friends, to his oncologist. Snow comes quickly and shows us that "closer" is a relative term, as I'm snowed into the trailer shortly after my uncle's boyfriend and my mom leave to visit the hospital. A Long unplowed driveway and unpaved unplowed roads mean I'm fucked. I so want to re-arrange things, for it to be easier for my uncle to navigate when he gets home, but I don't know where to start and, as he's kinda got that hoarder personality, I worry he'll get upset that I moved his stuff.

My second day of being stuck in the house and I'm getting a little antsy. Should have put in a movie or tv show on dvd but the couch puts me to sleep, though only when I'm not supposed to be sleeping. I took the garbage out. Then I decided to sweep the snow off the cars. It had already started on it's own, but I wanted to help it along. My thought was just to sweep off the car I would drive if I decided to drive anywhere. But then I started thinking about my uncle and my grandpa and how they wouldn't want their cars covered in snow, even if they couldn't go anywhere at all. And then I started crying. Oh, yeah, and then my neighbor showed up.

"Um, so you planning on going anywhere?"

Sniffle. "No, just needed something to do."

"Ok, well, if you don't feel like cooking tonight, you can come on in. I'm sure Candy [his wife] has plenty of leftovers."

Sniffle. Full on snot. "No, I think I'm ok."

Manly pause where he tried to decide what the hell to do with this crying chick. "Um, are you sure you're ok? Cause you can come on inside. Candy's inside."

Through full on tears, "Yep, I'm fine. Thanks alot though. Just gonna finish these cars then I'll go inside." Obviously, work makes me feel better.

Finally all the roads are plowed and I go up to see my uncle. My mom and my uncle's boyfriend are already there. My 'cousin' drives with me to the hospital and my uncle's boyfriend's mother and her bff show up just when we do. Talk about visitor overload, huh? Just before I arrive, my mom has a meeting with a social worker, who tells her that my uncle's insurance might not want to pay for the three day rehabilitation program which would teach my uncle how better get around, in and out of the wheelchair, as, while no one is saying it, is seems obvious that there isn't much hope that he is going to walk again. They may not want to pay because my uncle might not be able to do the rehabilitation, might not have the energy, might not have the ability. (To teach us how to do all this stuff, we'll have the home health care nurse, which is cheaper.) Ok, ok, ok, I'm along so far.

So that my uncle can have a bit of rest before his dinner, we (my mom, my uncle's boyfriend, my 'cousin,' and myself) sit in a waiting area. I wanted to start making plans, when are we gonna move this, where is this gonna go, how long before things are set up for my uncle to come home, how long before those of us who are taking care of him are settled in, can start looking for work. The last two are questions that get skirted around. No one will really look me in the eye when I talk about when I'm moving in, where we'll move the stuff that's currently in the closet so I can use that closet.

"Honey, I think that for right now we should think of ourselves more like guests at his house than tenants." That's when my mom finally met my eyes. I could see what she couldn't say, but I couldn't let it go unsaid.

"Because he won't last long enough for us to move in." She could only nod.

I got up and walked away. I made a few phone calls, but no one picked up. I was a bit relieved. I sent out a text and hir well-intentioned response fell flat. I wanted to talk to everyone but I also felt like no one could or would understand. "Now she's feeling more alone than she ever has before." (BFF) I need to talk but I'm not even sure what I have to say. All I know is that I hope I can stay strong enough, long enough to let this be about my uncle, about our family, not about me. And this was so much easier when I had someone I was physically intimate with. Oh my gods, so much easier.

I'm back at my folks house, in the Suburb of the Smallish Midwestern City. Mom needed to come back, replenish her supplies, as she had packed in a hurry for one night. I'm working on my 6th load of laundry.

I had an envelop with money that I was holding back when an acquaintance of mine finally got her own car, to help with car insurance or what have you. Not a big surprise, but that friendship kinda went kaput and the money is being re-purposed. Now the writing on the outside of the envelop says, "Funeral Outfit."

Loserdom

For most of my life, I've wanted desperately to be anywhere else, doing anything other than what I was doing. When I was younger, this meant that I rarely got to enjoy what I was doing, as my head was always thinking of the life I'd have once I'd gotten where I wanted to be. In recent years, that's also been combined with wondering how my life might be different, better, "if only," if only I had stuck out that college, that job, that relationship. I always knew intellectually that most people went through this to some extent, but I'd never had someone really confirm it until I talked to a friend tonight.

I fell in love with Buddhism mostly because it was centered on the one thing I found so difficult - being completely present in my everyday life.

It seems to me that sometimes when you really want to be something, fit, intelligent, kind, prestigious, you might start out working really hard but you don't realize that you've made it until well past when you've actually made it, until you realize that the thing you worked so hard but still couldn't get quite right has now become second nature. A big reason I kept wanting to reach out to Sir was because I had started to realize that I had become many of the things he and I had wanted me to become. I didn't really know when it happened or exactly how it happened and I know it hasn't really lead to the life we/I had imagined it would, but, nevertheless, I was molded that way, it seems, when I wasn't paying attention.

This week, I am staying with my uncle, at his place in Podunk Midwest Mapdot. Someone has to give him two large syringes of antibiotics three times a day for six days. Seems silly to stay in a hospital with beds that only torture his weakened back and fractured ribs just to make sure he gets this medication three times a day.

So I'm here this week. And, depending on... well, a great many things, I might be moving out here, to my uncle's or someplace cheap and close. Yes, it's be because it is what is needed an what fits best for my family. But it would also be what I want. For all I might not have followed through on or achieved, getting up at 4am to hook my uncle up to a pump that delivers antibiotics through the chemo port in his chest seems to erase all that loserdom. I could be a bestselling, critically-acclaimed writer of literary novels, but if I didn't do this, I'd be a fucking loser. And, just like that, where I'm needed and where I am are the only place I want to be. And I truly don't care about where else I could be or who with or anything about where my decisions and actions might have led me because, while I wish it wasn't needed and I wouldn't choose why it's needed, there's no place else I want to be, probably for the first time in my life.

December 28th

Three years ago, at six in the morning on his 77th birthday, my grandfather died, surrounded by his family, his wife, two of his children, his one grandchild, and their partners. We have all missed him very much ever since.

Everyday I think of him and almost as often something else reminds me of him. Like how he would have liked my gerry-rigged Christmas light set up. Like the Christmas song my uncle's boyfriend told us about, "I Farted on Santa Claus." Like thinking of him or my grandma looking for something in a store when I decided to follow through on helping a little old Asian lady who was looking for Christmas cards yesterday in the birthday card section. She was probably somebody's grandma and they would want to know that a (somewhat) decent person didn't just walk away.

I really miss you Grandpa. If there is a heaven, I hope you and Grandma and Knothead and Butch and your mom all are there together. I love you and I'll never forget you.

If You Think That I Could Be Forgiven

I was 15 when the Counting Crow's song "A Long December" was released. While my memory might not be accurate, it seemed like the video was in heavy rotation during the late fall and seemingly constantly by the time December rolled around. I loved the song, in the melancholy way I loved most songs back then, and I often cried when I heard the song or watched the video. Every year since, in the time period between Christmas and New Year's, I've sought out the song, to me a call to contemplate the year that is passing and plan for the year ahead. I guess it's my sadder version of Auld Lang Syne.

I drug it out tonight during the car trip home from Christmas dinner at my uncle's, on a mix disk made for me by Sir. "And if you think that I could be forgiven, I wish you would." Hmpt. Early on in our long-distance over-the-phone courtship, I had told him how much I loved that song. His response made me tear up: "You know the line about looking across a crowded room to see the way that someone lights up, stands out, when maybe no one else really sees it? That's how I felt when I first met you." It was probably one of the sweetest things anyone had every said to me.

I haven't written about it here yet, though I plan to, but a really good friend of mine, I'll call her Miss Kee, died recently, suddenly, unexpectedly, not from an accident or outside force, but seemingly from what I'm choosing to call a massive sudden body failure. As with anyone who dies, I wish I'd spent more time with her, though we were both kinda flakey and moody so it was difficult for us to both get our shit together enough at the same time to hang out. And, stereotypically, I've tried to evaluate things in my life that I want to change, so I make my own life more meaningful, more happy, more how I want it. Also, with one less living friend, it makes me wonder about getting back in touch with friends I've lost touch with. Or lost through my own stupidity.

"And if you think that I could be forgiven, I wish you would." This is where Sir comes back in. When I heard that line tonight, I thought of him. I wondered if the power of a song we shared, of that line, might break through the "you're dead to me" Sicilian mindset that his family has for those they feel have wronged them. But, well, the more I thought about it, the more I thought I wasn't really sure I wanted forgiveness for what he feels is the wrong I've done him. For those just joining the soap opera in progress, I revealled on this blog, which I knew Sir's current girlfriend read, that he was seeing someone else and that he had also cheated on her with me. I'm fairly certain that Sir felt this was all done out of jealousy, that I always wanted to be back with him, never liked his girlfriend, and, in a bipolar snit, put his business online to break them up. And I won't say that's all untrue. I would contend that I thought he and this girlfriend were a bad match for several reasons and that him moving even further away from where she lived, where he then met another woman, didn't help matters. I can also say that, while I"m not sure exactly what was going on at the moment, I am sure that things with BT and I, who were married at the time, were dramatic and I had probably just found out that he had lied about or was hiding something I felt significant. Since getting married, Sir and I had not had the friendship we had once had, so I didn't feel the loyalty needed to keep a secret of that kind. Most of all, I was tired of what I felt like was rank hypocrisy on his part. Mr Ethical, Mr Sexual-Intercourse-Virginity, Mr Do-the-Right-Thing took a weekend holiday with his new girlfriend while still maintaining the supposedly-exclusive relationship with the first girlfriend. The write-off text from a man who said he'd see me through anything was that I'd "burned that bridge." I probably should have handled it differently, but I think he'd have prefered I didn't handle it at all, didn't call him on his bullshit. I think that was my real sin to him and that's one I cannot repent.

But despite that, it hurts me to think he's mad at me, that he'll feel perpetually wronged by me. Hey, A, self-important much? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Think about the people you un-friended in real life, no matter how long ago, or not long ago, and I'm sure you'll find someone that you are still mad at, where you still grind your teeth when you think of them. Granted, that's not everyone, but it's someone. And I don't want to be that for Sir. I also know that I'm more the person now, inside, that I wanted to be when he and I first met, when we spent hours talking about who we wanted to become, than ever before, though I'm not sure how it happened or when it happened. I'm not the person I was when I burned the bridge, even if I still think what he did was wrong and what I did wasn't the worst thing ever. And even though I realize how limiting many aspects of our relationship were, hell how limiting many aspects of his worldview are/were, and I realize that I disagree with a great many things I let slide when we dated and when we were friends, I do miss him, his friendship. (The dating ship has sailed for both of us, I'm sure.) I miss him because it's damn tough to find someone smart enough to talk with and harder still to find someone you can laugh with as well. It's hard to find a very logic based person who can and will apply that to real life situations and be honest about that.

So, audience, what do you think? Should I ask for forgiveness, or, to paraphrase another band (Barenaked Ladies) ask him to just forget if he can't forgive? Do we think he misses my friendship as much as I miss his? Should I go straight to him with my plea?

Life as Majority

(NB: Anything that is enclosed in brackets [x] inside of someone else's quoted work is my added opinion.)

So I've recently had some drama in my life, even if it is more of an internal struggle over my current situation. While I had hoped I'd be disciplined and kind enough not to open my mouth and spread the misery, I've already failed at that so I figured, fuck it, I might as well write about how I see this playing into a larger social narrative as well as how my past influenced this moment and where I'm pointing my compass from here.

In the last post that I wrote, I brought up the concept of PRIVILEGE. I'd like to start by talking a bit more about that. So last time, I wrote that wikipedia defined privilege this way: "A privilege is a special entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. It can be revoked in certain circumstances. In modern democratic states, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth. By contrast, a right is an inherent, irrevocable entitlement held by all citizens or all human beings from the moment of birth."

Now I want to add a bit from Tim Wise, one of the foremost (white) American anti-racist thinkers out there. It's from "Denial - Privilege and Life as a Majority." Now I'm going to quote a great deal of it, but it's also worth it just to go to the page and read the whole thing.

"Sometimes it can be difficult, having a conversation with those whose political
views are so diametrically opposed to one's own.

But even more
challenging, is having a discussion with someone who simply refuses to accept
even the most basic elements of your worldview. At that point, disagreement is
less about the specifics of one or another policy option, and more about the
nature of social reality itself.

This is what it can be like sometimes,
when trying to discuss the issue of white privilege with white people. ...

Of course, what is ultimately overlooked is that denial of one's
privilege itself manifests a form of privilege: namely, the privilege of being
able to deny another person's reality (a reality to which they speak regularly)
and suffer no social consequence as a result."

For those who don't know, I am white and that is one of the areas in which I do have privilege. But I think that is why what Tim Wise writes speaks to me. I know I have this white privilege, knew it somewhere inside me long before I knew what the word meant in this context. Maybe I've always been a bit too overly empathetic, but even as a pretty young kid, I hated when things were unfair or unequal. These emotions became magnified when I was 7 and my family moved to a suburb just south of large Midwestern city. Unlike the large but mostly white student population of my former elementary school, black students made up probably 25% of the student body at the small private Christian elementary school outside of the large Midwestern city when I began attending. (The mix was probably 50-50 by the time we moved.) I had a big culture shock, as I'd never really been exposed to black culture. I wouldn't call my family racist, but, like many people of all colors, we tended to partake in culture that reflected us, or at least our skin tone. I could have sang you the soundtrack to the Big Chill, having listened to the tape so often in my mom's car, but I didn't even know what rap was. While the powerful white students in my class didn't give you a second thought if you weren't up to their level of pretty and well-dressed, my black classmates, even the most popular and powerful, would let you in with them, but only after you endured the push-pull of gaining their trust, which meant showing you didn't have a racist molecule in your body. Looking back, I wonder if it wasn't the friendship version of "you either like me for me & don't act like I should be any different, or you never really liked me at all and don't deserve my energy," something my mom drilled into my head about romance with boys, which I wonder if the black students' parents, kids during the Civil Rights Era, drilled into their heads. While I won't say that I left that school with a fully developed racial consciousness or a complete understanding of the psyches of black children, I do credit it with teaching me that minorities are both just like whites and not at all like whites, that every kid I knew was just as deserving of respect as me, whether they were white or black, but that the black students had a different reality, from our history of injustice to minorities to the higher incarceration rates of their older family members to how teachers treated them. It wouldn't be until college that I would actively try to develop my race consciousness, right alongside the gay consciousness I snuck in while in high school and the feminist consciousness that had bloomed during my first Women's Studies course. It's something I'm still working on today and probably will be working on until the day I die.

But being more aware of things means I see more, whereas before I might have had that little "something's off" itch, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Even having read just the same amount of things I have by authors of color, women authors, gay authors, disabled authors, about the ways they have been made to feel less than, about the horribly intrusive and ignorant behavior they've been subjected to, I have started to see that all around me, recognize it, felt my own heart hurt. But I've been a 'humorless, too sensitive, too PC, stick up her ass bitch' for as long as I can remember and I started calling people on using words like "gay" and "fag" as derogatory terms when I was a senior and just coming out. By my senior year, I had a modicum of respect from my classmates because I was the go-to study-buddy girl. I also came armed with facts. So when I challenged them saying it, bringing up that it often felt to a gay person like the equivalent of kike or the n-word, I also told them that, in this classroom with 15 people, statistically, there would be 1.5 gay people. If I was the .5, as a bi-person, who was that other person that they probably just hurt, that they probably dug the knife in everyday? Look, I have no delusions that it changed what they said when they were in the hall or another class. But it got the speaker to think and, if there was another gay person in that classroom, I hope they got the message that they were worth being stood up for.

But now I'm older, have less clout, am a bit less likely to open my mouth. In part, it's because of this nifty little trick we blog people call derailing. This page, Derailing for Dummies, which is completely hilarious, sums it up pretty well:

"You know how it is. You’re enjoying yourself, kicking back and relaxing at the
pub or maybe at the library; or maybe you’re in class or just casually surfing
the internet,
indulging in a little conversation. The topic of the conversation is about a
pertinent contemporary issue, probably something to do with a group of people
who fall outside your realm of experience and identity. They’re also probably
fairly heavily discriminated against - or so they claim. The thing is, you’re
having a good time, sharing your knowledge about these people and their issues.
This knowledge is incontrovertible - it’s been backed up in media
representation, books, research and lots and lots of historical events, also
your own unassailable sense of being right.

Yet all of a sudden
something happens to put a dampener on your sharing of your enviable intellect
and incomparable capacity to fully perceive and understand All Things. It’s
someone who belongs to the group of people you’re discussing and they’re Not
Very Happy with you. Apparently, they claim, you’ve got it all wrong and they’re offended about
that. They might be a person of colour, or a queer person. Maybe they’re a
woman, or a person with disability. They could even be a trans person or a sex
worker. The point is they’re trying to tell you they know better than you about
their issues and you know that’s just plain wrong. How could you be wrong?

Don’t worry though! There IS something you can do to nip this
potentially awkward and embarrassing situation in the bud. By simply derailing
the conversation, dismissing their opinion as false and ridiculing their
experience you can be sure that they continue to be marginalised and unheard and
you can continue to look like the expert you know you really are, deep down
inside!

Congratulations You Have Privilege!

Just follow this step-by-step guide to Conversing with Marginalised
People™ and in no time at all you will have a fool-proof method of derailing
every challenging conversation you may get into, thus reaping the full benefits
of every privilege that you have."

Of course, the dynamic also gets trickier when you are a privileged white person telling another privileged white person to please stop using a specific word. It's difficult enough to be, say a gay person politely asking a straight person to please stop using "gay" when they mean "stupid," with the tried and true "but gay people do it!" and "well, I didn't mean it that way, you know I love gay people." When you aren't a part of that marginalized group and can't speak for a majority of ALL OF THEM being offended, and you really don't want to say they are racist, which you might not believe anyway, well, sometimes it just feels like a losing battle. I think this video by J Smooth sums it up pretty well.




But finally, sometimes you just don't want to be the educator, the activist acting civilly. Though Sparky, writing at Womanist Musings, is writing about being a gay man trying to educate straight people, I think it's just as fitting for people educating on ablism, feminism, or racism. (Emphasis mine, not the authors.)

"The point is, I knew where this conversation was going within the first 10
minutes - gods, the first 5 minutes. The opening lines, even. I knew that I was
heading into a long, unpleasant and awkward conversation that was likely going
to throw a lot of straight privilege at me, push a lot of painful buttons and
generally leave me frustrated, tired and feeling like shit. In short, within 5
minutes of the conversation starting I wanted it to end.


How do I know this? Because I've had exactly the same conversation and
variations of this about a squillion times before. All completely
unoriginal, all tiring, all painful and all immensely frustrating. And I'm quite
sure over half have been utterly, completely pointless wastes of my energy and
mental health.

My point?


My point is sometimes I can't do it. And that's a shame because, even if
most failed, I know some of these conversations HAVE worked. I know some
ignorant people who bought a clue, listened and did their best not to do it
again. Yes, it can be productive. Yes it has worked. Yes calmly and reasonably
answering all the ignorant questions you've answered a thousand times or
politely objecting and explaining why something was offensive can and does work.
It's half the reason I ramble so much about sexuality on this LJ.


And sometimes I can't do it. Sometimes I'm tired, I'm in a bad mood or I'm
just sick to the back teeth of the whole damn hetero-normative world, it's
ignorance, it's insensitivity and it's endless reminders that I don't
belong. Sometimes I'm annoyed because it should be damned OBVIOUS
why I don't find that joke funny, or why I get angry at being called
"fag."

These conversations are painful and tiring and frustrating. They're
very personal (they can't help but be), they force me to confront
homophobia and homophobic ignorance head on. They force me to endure it and slog
through it. They force me to be vulnerable. They force me to expose that
vulnerability to someone who, at best, may clumsily trample all over me and at
worst may deliberately do some stomping."

And I'd like to add that I shouldn't have to do that with my friends, with people who know me. Wait, let me sort of take that back. If I have a friend who actually wants to have a conversation about these things, I'm usually up for it. But, when it's not going to be a conversation, when I ask you to please stop using a word, at least around me, especially when you know that there's nothing you are going to say that's going not make it hurt me and nothing I can say to change your opinion about the propriety of that word, do me a favor and just don't fucking say it anymore. "I didn't mean it offensively/racist/sexist/homophobicly" doesn't really matter to me in that context, because intent is not all. Effect factors in and it did hurt or offend someone. And "I'm sorry you were offended" is not actually an apology. It's a deflection which says that the offended party is the one with something wrong, being overly sensitive, reading too much into it, not having a sense of humor, etc. Real apologies admit wrongdoing. Don't try to offer an apology when you aren't actually sorry and/or think you did nothing wrong. I could go on and on, but, in the end, I still get the very clear picture that I'm just an overly sensitive, too PC, humorless bitch. And if you think that's what I am, why would you want to be friends with me?

A friend recently seemed upset that I would want to go out and find friends who shared the same political and social views as me. Her assertion was that she wouldn't want to be friends with people only like her. I agreed then and I still do, in that I wouldn't want all my friends to be replications of myself. (Anyone who thinks that would be cool should see the movie Moon, where Sam Rockwell's character gets into a knock down drag out fight with his... well, I'll just say a man who looks just like him.) But that's not what I want. I just don't want the paragraph above this and I'm hoping that won't happen with people on my own wavelength. Don't know if it'll work out, but I gotta try.

"I've lived in this place and I know all the faces
Each one is different but they're always the same
...I'm moving on"

Character-Building Conflict

[I'm going to be introducing some new words. Yes, new words. This includes invented singular pronouns, so instead of using 'they' to describe a single person of either sex, I'll use one of these pronouns. SO: Ze=He or She (subject), Hir= Him or Her (object) and His or Her (possessive determiner), Hirs= His or Her (possessive pronoun). Here's the wiki page.]

The ghost of someone's tragedy
How recklessly my time has been spent
They say that it's never to late but you don't get any younger
Well I better learn how to starve the emptiness and feed the hunger
-Watershed by Indigo Girls

So if you hadn't noticed, I haven't really been writing much except my own weird movie reviews. I think in many ways it has been because I haven't had anything to say. I won't say that I haven't been inspired to write, though I haven't been, because, if fiction writing and poetry writing classes have taught me anything, it's that you'll write very little if you only write when you are "inspired." Sometimes you have to create your own inspiration. But there has been nothing really...interesting? No, that's not it. I got it! It's that there has been so little real conflict in my life. Plenty of angst and pity and bickering and pointless arguing. But no real, for lack of a better term, character-building conflict in my life lately. Which has mostly been my fault. I haven't challenged myself. I let everything go. Let my muscles atrophy, including my brain. Until this week, I really haven't let myself face any challenges, other than the challenge of my vacation, which did teach me a great deal about myself, about the friend I travelled with, and helped me get to a better, more independent frame of mind about traveling. And though my anxiety about the outcome of all this sometimes threaten to overwhelm me, I have more energy and feel happier than I have in a long time.

Up on the watershed, standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize til your agony's your heaviest load
-Watershed by Indigo Girls

When I decide to do something, I just jump in. (Have you heard/read the story about how I got married?) The hardest part of taking a chance, of trying to do anything, for me, is to get over my fear of failing, especially because my previous failures have set me back behind where I started. Right now, with the employment things I'm trying to do, I don't have to worry so much about failure because I will only end up back in my current situation. I recognize the great privilege I have in that I don't currently worry about having to financially provide for my housing, bills, clothes, or transportation. But I'm also taking some romantic chances and the why's and how's are a bit more complicated and less...positive character traits driven than I think my friends realize, than even I realized or wanted to admit to.

You think I wouldn't have him
Unless I could have him by the balls
You think I just dish it out
You don't think I take it at all
You think I am stronger
You think I walk taller than the rest
You think I'm usually wearing the pants
Just 'cause I rarely wear a dress
Well...when you look at me
You see my purpose, see my pride
You think I just saddle up my anger
And ride and ride and ride
You think I stand so firm
You think I sit so high on my trusty steed
Let me tell you
I'm usually face down on the ground
Whenever there's a stampede
-I'm No Heroine by Ani DiFranco

Last summer, I remember MP and I talking about love and sex advice columns. He and I are big fans of Dan Savage. He said that ultimately most of the situations people wrote in about could be solved if people knew they could be happy on their own. If people knew a happiness in being alone, they could then compare it to what their current relationship gave them and leave if it didn't meet or exceed the happiness they had being alone. Also, if they weren't afraid to be alone, then it wouldn't be fear that made them stay in a relationship, but a real desire to be with that person and make that relationship work. It can also give a person leverage in hir situation because ze can tell hir partner that, if things don't change, ze'll leave and mean it, knowing that ze will be alright if hir partner says "ok, bye."

This really range true to me, both then and now. It is also in line with the Buddhist philosophy of non-attachment, which Wikipedia defines as, "a state in which a person overcomes his or her attachment to desire for things, people or concepts of the world and thus attains a heightened perspective." A quick google led me to this quote, "Without any fear of losing what we have, without being pushed and pulled by our inner likes and dislikes, we begin to find increased equanimity and genuine affection," from Urban Monk.

And, just to clarify, I don't think that MP favors being alone over being in a relationship. In fact, as he's been in relationships the whole time I've known him, sometimes several at the same time, I think he prefers them to being alone, but I think that he's suggesting not being so invested in the idea of being with this one person who is the only one and you just can't be alone and no one will every love you again after this person. I also don't think that it means to walk away from relationships you have invested time and energy in just because at that moment you are unhappy. Even the best relationships have unhappiness. Just that a person should look clearly at the relationship, if ze can still be happy with the problems of the relationship, if those problems can ever be solved, when deciding if ze should stay in a relationship, while leaving out a fear of being alone.

If you're not angry
You're just stupid or you don't care
How else can you react
When you know something's so unfair
The men of the hour can kill half the world in war
Make them slaves to a super power and let them die poor

But his perspective is from his life and comes with a great deal of privilege attached to it.

Let me stop a minute. I'm trying to be more consistent in what I talk about and how, so I'm also trying to introduce the best descriptive terms into what I write and how I talk. So let me introduce PRIVILEGE. Here's what wiki says: "A privilege is a special entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. It can be revoked in certain circumstances. In modern democratic states, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth. By contrast, a right is an inherent, irrevocable entitlement held by all citizens or all human beings from the moment of birth." This can come in the form of male privilege, white privilege, temporarily able-bodied privilege, heterosexual privilege, class privilege, and I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting. But it has to do with getting "an up" in the world, not because you earned it, but because you are white or straight. Part of privilege is that ze doesn't see the advantage ze has. I just wanted to give a quick overview before I talked about it in this context.

Now to go back to MP. His "be happy being alone so you can just leave" comes from a place of class privilege, mixed with a little male privilege and temporarily able bodied privilege. While his life hasn't always been as financially comfortable as it is now, he's had enough money or few enough financial needs that he actually could just leave for much of his post-collegiate adult life. As a heterosexual male, it is statistically far less likely that he'll be a battered partner, not be able to fend off an attacking partner, or be physically prevented by his partner from leaving. Last we talked, he was able-bodied enough to pack up, move, and leave of his own accord, as well as continue to work to support himself. That is a luxury that many people don't have. If I didn't have my family to fall back on financially, I probably wouldn't have that luxury, no matter how happy I was to be alone. I'm not faulting him for this, just pointing it out.

We don't say everything that we could
So we can say later
Well you misunderstood
I hold my cards up close to my chest
I say what I have to and I hold back the rest
-Anticipate by Ani DiFranco

Baby I love you
That's why I'm leaving
There's no talking to you and there's no pleasing you
-Out of Range by Ani DiFranco

Yes, I do have the privilege to end a romantic relationship at any time. I can't in all honesty say that I am happy being alone, well, not exactly. I'm not invested in having a "relationship" in the traditional sense, don't feel I just have to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. I want to have sex consistently. I would prefer that be with one person, a person who I am friends with, can talk with, can have fun outside the bedroom with. If a more traditional relationship develops from that, I'm going to try not to run from that, but I really try not to push it there if the other person isn't there. But I do push for honest, upfrontness (is that a word?), and full disclosure, on where my partner wants things to go, on where ze is now. While I may need to be less interrogative, I don't think it's too much to ask for.

But I realized that I'm terribly lonely when I probably don't need to be. And that I'm lonely not by my choice but by the choice of another that I'm not supposed to question. I also realized that, no matter how much I love someone, if we fight much of the time, having the same arguments over and over again, I am hurting myself when I don't need to. (I also believe I'm hurting him, but it is not for me to decide for him that he should not be with me.) I've spent so much of my life in relationships that I knew would never work, wasted so much time and energy. I don't want to do it again. I want to move forward, to a better place, to be a better person. And I'm so not a good person to him right now. Pretty sure he thinks I'm a pretty shitty person, in fact. And from where he stands, I'm not sure I disagree with him.

But do you ever wonder through and through
Who's that person standing next to you
And after all the night's apart
Is there a home for a travelling heart
But if I weren't leaving you
I don't know what I would do
But the more I go it seems the less I know
Will the fire still burn on my return
Keep the path lit on the only road I know
Honey all I know to do is go
-Leaving by Indigo Girls

Now we get to the part that doesn't reflect so well on me. Tonight, listening to this song, I also realized that there was probably something else. I've always been restless. Hell, the biggest reason I'm seeking employment right now is so I can save money to move later, when my family doesn't need me here, so I see other places as a citizen not a tourist. One of the things I loved about BT was that I felt he understood, and shared, that restless streak, that wanderer's soul. And, as he wanted to go back to general Army, instead of National Guard, I expected that we'd get shipped around, was happy about it. Being with TyRoy, I knew our relationship had an expiration date, when he got a new billet and had to move. Recently, I thought his actions meant he was pulling away, in anticipation of him leaving. Maybe that was just my hope. Unless asked point blank, TyRoy doesn't talk about when he might leave and he never acknowledges how it would change our relationship, which eventually made me worry he was being all ostrich-y about it. But what I realized tonight is that what I subconsciously always found so attractive in these military men is that they either take you with them to some place new or they leave without you and you get to start a new adventure without the stigma of having your relationship having fail. Yep, horrible but true.

So, in summary, I'm feeling great and inspired, introducing new words and concepts to my blog. I'm excited about job hunting, most of the time, though I don't have much risk in it. I am taking a risk in leaving my romantic situation (unless something miraculous happens) because I'm tired of being lonely, ok (if not happier) with being alone (though I might not be that way for long), and because I'm kinda a bitch who feels more comfortable leaving places and people than sticking around. Hmm. That doesn't sound very inspiring, does it? Oh well.

The Ignorant American Watches Some Foreign Films

Waltz with Bashir (2008)
Written & Directed by Ari Folman
Animated (but adult themes, content, and cartoon nudity and sex)
Voiced (sometimes by the real people identified in the movie)
Ron Ben-Yishai as himself
Ari Folman as himself
Yehezkel Lazarov as Carmi Cna'an
Mickey Leon as Boaz Rein-Buskila
Watched July 29, 2010

Gomorrah (2008)
Directed by Matteo Garrone
Cast includes
Gianfelice Imparato as Don Ciro
Salvatore Cantalupo as Pasquale
Salvatore Abruzzese as Toto
Carmine Paternoster as Roberto
Based on a "nonfiction novel" by Roberto Saviano
Watched August 5, 2010

A few weeks ago, when I was bored, I told Red Envelop Movie Rentals to bring up movies for me to review, since I thought I'd probably seen movies that I hadn't reviewed on their site, which helps them recommend movies to you. Well, the site started bringing up movies that they had sent to me and that I'd sent back. And I realized that I had not watched so many of them! (The dvd fairy made me backup copies and sent them back, and the dvds await watching.) I also realized how many of those films were foreign language films. (Stupid American, with no foreign language skills.) There's a reason behind this, though not a particularly good one. See, before I decided to blog all the movies I watched, there were many movies I would watch with only one eye, while I did something else, but paying attention with my ears. That means that I didn't watch very many foreign language films. I have been trying to rectify that.

But sometimes watching a category of film you don't typically watch can highlight areas in which you are not educated. This was definitely the case with both of these films, which is why I'm blogging about them together. While these are both very different films on very different subjects, they both highlighted, for me, my lack of knowledge on political and sociological issues of other countries. (My subsequent cursory self-education, via imdb and wikipedia, highlighted how little free memory I have, but that's another issue.) While I doubt that either of these movies were made with a great deal of thought as to if foreign audiences with my same lack of fore-knowledge would be able to easily understand it, I will be giving some thought to that. This is not to say that I think that foreign filmmakers should always, or ever, make sure that stupid American audiences will easily understand their films, though I do wonder how easy our films are to understand to foreign audiences, which does matter as many of our films, especially big budget action movies, make huge profits overseas. Then again, Hollywood action movies aren't typically made for us to stretch our minds.

I watched the Israeli film Waltz with Bashir first. It is an animated film, but a very adult-oriented animated film, complete with deaths in war, nudity, and even animated sex. But the medium of animation is well-suited to a film about the nature of memory where character recount what they remember about a war that happened over 20 years ago. The film is re-creates filmmaker Ari Folman's journey to either recover his own memories of or to be told what happened around him during the 1982 Lebanon War. He starts this journey after a friend recounts a recurring dream in which his own role in the war haunts him. While Folman tells his friend that he doesn't remember hardly anything about the war, the friend says that it is Folman's duty as a filmmaker to tell this story. That night, Folman has his own dream about the war, just a fragment of a memory, which is the thread that he follows in an attempt to regain knowledge of what he was involved in. Of course, there's a reason that he blocked out all of these memories, as he witnessed and did nothing to stop an atrocity that this war would be known for. For me, this movie was beautiful, imaginative, and moving, though not in a way that leaves on feeling good afterwards. While it did deal with recent Israeli history, which is an area fraught with emotions and opinions and contradictions, I felt that it was much more about the journey of these men, but especially Folman, to regain memory, to acknowledge their role(s) in the war and atrocities of it, and, if possible, process that knowledge. The movie makes no attempt to assert that this war, or any war, is a "good war." The movie also doesn't make an assertions or take positions about Israeli politics. It just focuses on these memories of this small group of men.

Early on, the viewer gets the idea that this movie is about a conflict in which Israeli forces were in Lebanon and that it happened in the 1980s. But there is no overarching exposition. Folman does not in his voice over say, "So I went to see Carmi, who I'd served with in the IDF during the 1982 Lebanon War." When he mentions the Phalanges, he doesn't elaborate on who they are or how they fit into the war, because his movie's target audience is other Israeli's who already know all this history. I think that if you are a viewer who comes to the film just to be "entertained," you might have some issues with this, but I do think that it only takes a bit of viewing (instead of reading) comprehension to put together enough of the pieces for it to make sense. I think that the movie is perfectly enjoyable to someone coming in with very little knowledge of Israel's recent military history, as long as they don't mind thinking just a little bit. In a way, as the movie is about (re)gaining knowledge, it seems appropriate to me to be putting these pieces together while Folman puts together the pieces on screen.

On the other hand, I found putting the pieces together less rewarding as I watched the Italian film Gomorrah, though that might have been a matter of expectations. Gomorrah is a movie about gang life in Naples, which leads one to expect a sort of typical "mafia movie." I've seen it compared to the movie City of God. Ummm, yeah, not really either of those. While it is based on a nonfiction novel which follows several different people who either work for or are somehow involved with the Camorra crime family. The movie follows five of these stories, which don't overlap or interact, which I think most (American) viewers would expect. I did think that the movie presented a gritty criminal underworld well, but it felt without context to me. I'm sure part of that was just my ignorance of the socioeconomic situation of Naples and Italy in general, but the movie does not provide any sort of exposition or context for those not in the know. One of the stories centers on a middle-aged money man, who we see visiting various apartments, giving them money, which most do not seem particularly thankful for. It is never explained WHY he is giving this money to people. (One imbd commentor said it was money paid to those who had lost relatives to death or jail because of their involvement with the crime syndicate, which sounds like as good of an explanation as any.) Towards the end of the movie, a war breaks out between the main crime group and what the subtitles identify as "secessionists." Once again, being lazy, I'll rely on the imdb commentors who said that this is in reference to a real gang war in the 1980s between different alliances or clans within the larger crime family. But I think that a great deal of this movie was lost on me because I don't live with this in my papers everyday. While this movie got quite a bit of critical praise, it just didn't strike me. Maybe I'll get the book, read it, then rewatch the film. Right after I watch all the other films the dvd fairy left me.