Alright, fine.

I guess we’re telling first time stories then. Normally I’m pretty closed mouthed about my first time; not that I’m ashamed mind you, just that people tend to think things. Not that I blame them – take just the naked (teehee) facts, and The Make-out Bandit (That’s your Nom de Plume now, bitch! Deal with it) has nothing to worry about; unless we recruit some more girls I win the Red Badge of Whoredom hands down. (Can we please recruit some more girls?)

So here’s the story. With some background.

Well, I was just 17 (ya, you know what I mean) and about half-way through my journey towards becoming someone who’s happy with what she sees in the mirror. This is important. As any high school womanizer will tell you, un-pretty girls put out. We feel like it’s the only way to get any positive male attention. If they just wanna look, and flirt and get nowhere, they’ll do so with a hot chick.

I was a pretty cute kid, who went through a God-awful spurt of ungainlyness that lasted most of my teenage years. Middle school was awful. No love-notes in my locker or stolen kisses behind the bandroom; accusing a boy of having a crush on me was a favorite insult among the popular set. With high school things improved somewhat. I got a bit cuter, and (some truly disastrous hair choices aside) developed a bit of a style, and was generally happier – which I’m sure didn’t hurt in terms of being more attractive to the opposite sex.

It was still pretty slim pickings, though. I was 14 the first time I had a male non-relative tell me I was pretty. He flirted and flattered and I hung on every word.  He was quite a bit older than me, and thankfully a good enough guy to not let anything actually happen between us, because I would have been hopelessly in over my head. I had many (many, many, many) crushes that went no where, one really bizarre on-again-off-again thing in which we skipped pretty much straight to second base (giving me the dubious distinction of having doled out my first handjob before getting my first kiss), and one guy asked me out (to Prom), which ended in…not romance. (For me). Although it did sorta kick-start my love-life in a way.

A few days after the disastrous Prom, I received my first kiss. (Yes, at the very belated age of 16. Embarrassing, but the boy doesn’t know, so it’s okay.) It was with the on-again-off-again boy, who we’ll call the Bastard from now on. The Bastard was dating a friend of mine, but they had a fight, and he was cheating on her with another (closer) friend of mine, when he pulled me behind the curtains of our school theatre and cheated on her with me. Yay high school!

Followed that up by making-out with a (younger) guy at a summer program, and crawling into the lap of my (very) drunk freshman-year crush and kissing him at a party. Which he apparently doesn’t remember, but it sure pissed the Bastard off at the time, and so was worth it.

Graduation time is approaching, and the Bastard is itching to cash in his v-card, and wants my help. For some reason he thinks I’ve already accomplished this, and I don’t discourage the idea.  I am not so inclined to help him, yet have a pretty poor track-record when it comes to resisting this idiot. And I’m pretty tired of being all pure and untouched m’self. I decide to focus my attentions instead on an underclassman who A) is very hot, B) has been sort of pursuing me for a while, and C) is hated by the Bastard. We’ll call him Junior.

The plan works. The Bastard backs off in disgust, and I get invited to Junior’s end of term party at a condo on the beach with no adult supervision. Some pretty fantastic fooling around occurs in the bathroom and outside on the beach.  We go out again, spend most of the evening parked. This boy is a very good kisser, and his hands? Magic.  Second date I bite the bullet and ask if he has a condom.

Long story short, the sex is awful. Too much, too fast, we never got into a comfortable rhythm. I can take some of the blame, seeing as I had no clue as to what I was doing, but I lay most of it at his door, since he was rather experienced and knew I wasn’t. In retrospect I wish I hadn’t told him he was my first, I didn’t bleed, and he didn’t go easy on me, so all it did was pump up his (considerable) ego.  The only thing that went well all night was the blow-job I gave him. Also my first. Apparently I’m a natural.

So there ya go. I picked a hot guy, who I didn’t have any feelings for, went out with him like twice, jumped his bones, and then never called him again. Or answered his calls. (To be fair, I prolly would have if it had been any good. But it wasn’t so I didn’t.)  Whorish? Ya, a little.  Ya wanna judge? Judge away! At least now you’ve got the whole story.

<3 – Miss Kitty

I have a history of giving up what I want for something else. Let me explain. For instance, I wanted to move to Denver to go to college, but I stayed here . I wanted to be an art major, but I majored in English, writing and business administration instead. I want to be an artist and wanderer, but instead I’m a editor/writer who owns a house. And, yeah, this extends to the men department, but that’s a novel in itself. When I was a kid, I wanted to play the guitar, but I spent seven years studying classical piano and later alto saxophone … I liked the sound of neither, so I no longer play.

These are just a few examples, but you get the idea. Why do I do it? I’m sure there are many reasons. I spent much of my life with crippling insecurity, which I’ve worked the last decade digging out of (I’m still not where I want to be, but I’m closer). So fear of failure has certainly played a role. Also, I am at times a people pleaser, so I imagine that some of this is tied to that drive to make people happy as well. And now the forgoing of what I want all too easily … well, it’s a deeply ingrained habit: not something I’m proud of, but it is what it is. Often, the emotion that chases these decisions years later is one of regret.

Lately my ambition to learn how to play electric guitar has been growing, but once again I’ve been trying to talk myself out of it, the excuses ranging from “I’m too old” to “I don’t have time because I’m starting school again” and “I can’t afford a guitar.”

Meanwhile, my son’s father has spent the last week launching a full-bodied attempt to convince me to give him one more chance, and last night was the grand finale. He came home with an electric guitar. Black and simple and used, an Ibanezer X Series, it’s nothing fancy. But it touched the core of something I’ve been longing for, and he pushed me into a dream. How can a girl say “no” to that?

So now I have to take lessons and I’m stoked about that. It might be only a few months before I start my MBA coursework, but at least I’ll know I tried … and I can sleep with that knowledge.

I’m feeling the need to organize something.  Anything. This is usually a result of unresolved anxieties or a jumbled emotional space, neither of which I believe I am experiencing.

I’m experiencing something though. At the moment I am experiencing the desire to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. Or the rest of the winter. Whichever.

Maybe it is the end-of-the-semester blues. Though that should have me jumping for joy. Maybe it is the back-from-vacation blues. That would be acceptable.

I’m having a little bit of difficulty adjusting to being back in the swing of things, actually. I know, I know, I was only gone four days. But being here, at work…bah. I am feeling slow and bored and disconnected. Worse, discontent. Though not sure what I am discontent with.

I’ve had a kind of peripheral issue going on at work that is poking at me. First of all, while there are many many good things about this job (good pay & benefits, steady work, hands-off boss, enjoyable, if unexciting, work, lenient time-off policy, good hours) I am beginning to feel less than enthusiastic about being here every day. It’s getting to my third-year anniversary, and frankly, about three years is my limit before I am ready to move on. Combine that with the fact that someone else in my very small department is very-probably going to be promoted into a position above me–and combine that with the fact that because I don’t have a university degree I know I wasn’t even considered for the position, and never would be–and yeah, I am having some negative emotions about it all, and some insecurity about my own position here.

The fact of the matter is that:

1. I don’t want a VP/management position anyway
2. I know I have been distracted and not performing up to (my own) standards, regardless of how everyone here feels
3. I really don’t want more responsibility
4. If I have to have someone else above me in the office hierarchy, then she would totally be my choice
5. I like my “independence” here and that my job kind of puts me outside the usual corporate framework, even to the point that I am somewhat set apart from the rest of the staff, at least in their minds.

But I can’t help feel somewhat slighted, and as though my value is diminished and as though I will never be truly valued, unless I have some sort of degree.  I am just a cog in the…wheel in the…spoke in the cog?  Eh, whatever.  (How can I be a fucking writer that doesn’t even know these stupid phrases???) And honestly? There is this abject part of me that wants to fit in, that wants to be one of the group, part of the team. Pitiful, I know. Disgusting, really. I don’t want to be one of them, and I’m simply not–my lifestyle choices really set me apart to start with, then add to that that I am the office web geek, and, well, I am my own little department, set apart from everyone else. But there’s this sad little girl inside, the one that was never asked to play on anyone’s team, who never got a Valentine’s Day card or got asked to a dance, who was never part of any crowd, that kind of wants to be.

Wow, pity-fucking-party here, eh?

It was those feelings that drove me to marry my ex, btw. He had this perfect Midwest family & life. I SO wanted to be a part of that. Perfect kids, perfect house, perfect marriage, perfect husband. But I never was perfect, I never did fit in, no matter how much I wanted to or he wanted me to.  Realizing that–and realizing that it was okay not to fit in–was a first step to finding my own self-worth, to valuing who I am, what I have to offer the world and those around me.  But sometimes…sometimes I just want to be picked, yanno? To be popular. To fit in.

Huh, I thought I’d got over that.  Apparently not.  Looks like I’ve got some more work to do on this fucked-up head.

Or maybe just a really long nap to take.

Edit: Because I refuse to give in to my own whiney-fucking-head I am going to organize myself thusly (and do the things that need doing in the process):

1. Go to class
2. Work out with Ad after class
3. Look at my projects list
4. Work on one writing project when I get home
5. Work on one photo project
6. Crochet before bed

Because if I don’t, if I let myself skip class and crawl into a bath and then into bed and wallow in my self-pity, I’ll feel even worse.

I keep on leaving my posts hanging, or with a really poor finish, so here I am updating this to apologize for my past self’s failure at having a nicely ended entry. I just finished watching The Ugly Truth, and in doing so, overcame the drowsiness effect of the drugs I took earlier for my sickness.

I’ll come out and say it, I’m an awkward person. I’ve never been good at making conversation, my horrible memory probably contributes to that, and well, to be honest, I like just listening to people talk. So if you put me with another awkward person, well there’s a lot of awkwardness that’s going to ensue. Thing is, I don’t mind the silence though. I’m perfectly content just sitting there not really talking about anything, but that’s probably cause I’m a huge daydreamer. I think the perfect relationship for me, would be one where I could run off with my thoughts, thoughts that aren’t worrying if the other person thinks I’m weird for not saying anything in long periods of silence.

It’s difficult for me to open up, or not even open up, but be able to really talk about myself.  A lot of the time, I wonder how much people really know about me. Friendship is a two way path, but I’m not very useful in that aspect. I don’t have a lot of ‘favourites’, and I honestly don’t know what to say when people ask me questions about myself.  I don’t have answers, but does not having answers make me who I am?  I sit and think, what can I say, what can I tell people?

Being sick has really screwed me up =( Oversleeping, not eating enough, and falling even more behind in classes. Ack!

-

This post has been written over the past few days, which is why the beginning is related to a post I wrote several days ago….but I didn’t want to leave it hanging again, so it’s taken a while for me to gather enough thoughts to finish this off nicely. FINALLY finally cleaned my room, you can see the floor again! I’m ready to study in it (if I so desire).

Here’s the new layout of my room by the way =) rearranged it so my face doesn’t get all drafty in the winter…

desk and clothing storage area haha. I put up my christmas lights! =D

the bed's still a mess because I haven't put away some of the stuff/fixed the crazy mattress...

Anyways, finals are in a week and a half, so I’m not sure how often I’ll be updating (although, I procrastinate a lot so….we’ll see).

=)

It all starts with your knock on my door. You stand there, like a ray of sunlight, shining and sheathed in a warm glow. You smile at me. Somewhere I could hear the ice break. It is melting. I start to feel vulnerable and weak. As if someone is taking away my protective shield. That’s when you reach out and touch my heart. Or was it a fleeting wish disguised as something real? I cannot be sure.

I feel my heart respond. In ways more than I can count. Like a dog that’s broken it’s leash, it races with joy into the open fields. Freedom is exhilarating. At least for the first few minutes.

Suddenly I am afraid. You are here to deceive. I know it. You are here to play the age-old game. Inflict pain. It is such a shame. My heart would break to know my trust was misplaced. But it hardly resists your amorous gaze. In your eyes, its just clay. Waiting to be thawed and shaped. Into a wanton slave.

I want to be loved. Yet I want to be safe. Can you create? Or is all you know is how to break? I don’t have the courage to see what will happen to me if I’m hurt again. I don’t want to end up as garbage, waste. Used and thrown away saying it was all a mistake. That’s what I really hate. The excuses offered to revoke your stake. So pathetically fake.

It’s in my nature to love. To fall and to give in love. To be consumed and conceived in love. Your’s is to create. Is it any wonder we don’t see things the same way? I live to love. You love to live. I yield. You reap. You forget. I forgive.

I struggle to make up my mind. Everything in life comes for a price, says a little voice inside. Sometimes the cost isn’t justified, says another. What are you, a bargain shopper? The first one chides. I have learnt my lessons in life! Retorts the second in kind.

“Hello.” You say. The cold wind gushes inside the still open door and slaps on my face. The train of thought comes to an abrupt halt. I am awake from my daze and return to where I was. Standing in front of you with a half open door. You quizzically watch my embarrassment. The sunlight produces a halo behind your head. I know what to do now.

I close the door and run inside. Never to open it again.

]]> http://anticap.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/not-stamping-out-hunger/ Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:33:21 +0000 David Ruccio http://anticap.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/not-stamping-out-hunger/

Whether it’s called hunger or food insecurity, the problem is causing a rise in the use of food stamps in the United States.

According to Kevin Concannon, an under secretary of agriculture,

“This is the most urgent time for our feeding programs in our lifetime, with the exception of the Depression,” he said. “It’s time for us to face up to the fact that in this country of plenty, there are hungry people.”

Here are the current numbers:

• the number of food stamp recipients has climbed by about 10 million over the past two years, resulting in a program that now feeds 1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children
• 36 million people currently use food stamps
• the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day
• there are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps

Find your county here.

Kind of hard to believe I’ve considered myself a professional writer for nearly seven years and I’m just now jumping into the world of blogging. 
I suppose that until now, I didn’t have that much to say about me. At least not that I was willing or ready to share.

But for now, let it suffice to explain the name of this blog and the reasoning behind it all. I admit–corny though it may be–Julie and Julia inspired me. It was nice to see another gal kind of down on life find meaning and a purpose all through getting her thoughts and her ventures out of her head and into an abyss for who knows who to read, comment and join in.

I’m kind of in the same funk. A bit down and out on my luck professionally, creatively and now… being a mom. Or so it seems.

My son will be eight weeks old on Tuesday. And in these short eight weeks, I have felt like both the strongest and weakest, best and worst, happiest and most depressed woman in the world. It’s true–children don’t solve problems and they don’t make anything hard any easier.

Now let me be clear–I love my son and couldn’t be more happy or grateful for anything in this world. The catch is–children make honesty essential. Every flaw, bad habit or selfish ambition is exposed… and even if not to the point of family and friends finally learning the truth of your fragility as a human being… all these things and more are exposed more painfully to yourself as you start wrapping your head around the fact that this person… this perfect, angelic, innocent and completely dependent person will learn from you–from the good and the bad.

All that to say… my sister-in-law was visiting for Thanksgiving, holding her nephew for the first time and chalked up his persistent cries to.. “oh well… I guess I don’t have the mom touch.”

My response… “ha… I’m barely a Mom.”

Barely a Mom… I can’t really think of a better way to describe where I am.
New to parenthood… Comfortable in my own habits and ways… and barely reconciling the two in a way that I’m sane… my son can know and trust always that he will be cared for and loved… and surely barely reconciling this new life in a way that I feel and can show others love.

So the journey begins. Barely a Mom… Barely a Woman myself… and Barely making it. But nonetheless… making it.

MUST READ: Some women keep writing about wanting to hear the words “I love you” more often. Others write complaining they hear it too much! Just how much is enough?

There are times when women’s emotionally-driven drama and antics really get on our nerves as men. There are also some things that appear to be dramatic because they are so irrational, but are in fact not dramatic at all, and things that you need to be aware of and address when necessary. This is some of the most important information ever presented in this newsletter, contains advice for both men and women, and if you miss part of it you can absolutely wreck your relationship with what you skipped over, so read this carefully and in its entirety and make sure you understand it. First, meet Tasha:

Hi David,

Can you tell me how to get my husband to stop being a needy little twerp? Every time his mouth opens, he says, “I love you.” It’s like a compulsion. He can’t end a discussion, enter or leave a room, or hang up the phone without saying it. It’s more like a greeting than a declaration of any kind of feeling. He’s coming across to me as saying it just to get me to say it back to him. It’s been happening for a month now, constantly since we went to my high school reunion (20 years) and I saw my high school boyfriend there (and his wife and pictures of their five children) and we talked for about 20 minutes and had a dance. He’s making me nuts!

Please help,
Tasha

Tasha’s problem was handled privately by a counseling session with her husband, in which I helped him realize that a 20-minute conversation to catch up on 20 years of absence and a dance, which didn’t even turn out to be a slow, intimate dance, was nothing to worry about, but do you see her primary complaint? Too many “I love you’s” equated to habit and insecurity, not an expression of love. Now for the other side of the coin, meet Carol:

Dear David,

I have read every newsletter you have ever written, and I have read your book as well and loved it. I had to learn to do many of the things in your book since I was taught a totally different way to handle relationships. I am sorry to say that I was one of these women that would let a man into her life and then totally turn it over to him to run because I wanted to be led. I learned that I was not letting them lead me, but was letting them run over me.
Now I see just how wrong and how dangerous it was to me and to my future to let men run my life.

The reason I am writing this letter is because I want to know something and I felt like you would be the one to help me answer this one.

I know that my boyfriend loves and wants to be with me and that I am the only one in his life, but I still like to hear it from time to time. I know that sounds like I may be needy or insecure, but I’m sure you know all women like to know that both parties in the relationship they are in have the same feelings. I am sorry if that is wrong but that is how I feel.

Thank you for you time,
Carol

My reply:

Hi Carol, and thanks for writing. I’m going to point out something to you here, something that I know you’ve read in past editions but may have missed the significance of, and then I’m going to clue you and everyone else in on why this is the way that it is and how men should handle it.

First, I want to caution you and all women, for reasons you will fully understand in a moment, that while the words “I love you” are good for an emotional rush, they should never be trusted in and of themselves, period. Your knowledge of whether a man or any other person loves you should come from their actions; a man, especially a predator, could put a bullet or a cudgel right between your eyes or open your throat from ear to ear while saying “I love you,” but no man can keep up the act that creates the illusion of love for very long at all if it is indeed just an act. It doesn’t take a lot of testing and there’s no need for suspicion; simply check that his normal actions say that he loves you before accepting the words. For instance…

Does he beat the hell out of you and then say, “I’m sorry, Sweetheart! I really love you!” If he does, he’s a lying sack of crap.

Does he drink up his paycheck, and when he tells you there’s no money for groceries that week, say, “but I love you and everything will be okay”? No, he doesn’t. He loves his bottle, not himself or you.

Does he work at his job, come home, and spend quality time with you (and the kids if you have them)? Does he make decisions that consider how they will affect you as a couple? Does he treat you with respect, as if he values your company and your input, instead of putting you down or even worse, whining about how he can’t live without you? If so, listen when this guy says he loves you, because he does. His actions prove it.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Now to the hard part: Why is it that even the most secure women, those who live in a relationship in which it is blatantly self-evident from a man’s actions that he loves her deeply, constantly complain that they don’t hear “I love you” enough?

Guys, I have to admit that this evaded me for a long time, and it wasn’t until I learned how women communicate and about their socially-oriented nature that it made sense to me, and most of them are unaware of it as well. You should have seen their faces when I asked them about it; it was like a light coming on when it struck home for them. Ready?

Women need to hear this because they are biologically-driven to need to hear it, just like they need to hear a verbal commitment to a relationship after a couple of months of dating or they walk out on a perfectly good thing. It’s part of the emotionally-driving biological mechanism that distinguishes their behavior, especially their socially-oriented nature and their communications methods and infrastructure, from ours.

They need to hear the words when they already know we love them because they are born communicators and also because they need that little romantic/dramatic lift that it creates when it “seals the deal.” They also need to see that we can say it frequently enough without blurting it out every few minutes like some needy wuss who spouts it like a litany to hypnotize her into staying around. It’s like their need to share and emotionally milk their problems with their girlfriends; irrational, involuntary, and potentially self-destructive, but nonetheless a fact of life and a need that must be fulfilled, one way or another, by somebody.

Now, how much is enough? Or too much?

That depends on the woman, but generally speaking, no woman I’ve interviewed, when asked how she felt about the frequency with which her man said he loved her, who was satisfied said any more than once or twice a day (once every day or two was average), and for those who were dissatisfied, their men were at the extremes, either pestering or boring them to death with it nearly every time they spoke or going many days or even weeks without saying it at all.

Take heed here: You can say it too often, as well as not enough. Women bore easily, and with most things, less is more, but there has to be some, because none is unacceptable. If you have a healthy love relationship, there should be some intimate moment come along every day or two, or even twice a day sometimes, that makes you realize how much you love this woman. When that happens, that’s when it’s good to tell her, because during those intimate moments is when she’d really like to hear it. It helps feed the emotions that she’s feeling, and if it’s honest, it’s right. No act, no routine, no pressure – simply letting it come out when it’s genuinely on your mind is likely to be just right.

Do NOT, under any circumstances, let “I love you” become a habit. We all hear so many people closing telephone conversations with it, as if it is some ritual greeting, and that’s bad because it makes the experience so mundane and boring. If you’re with somebody who has to hear it every time your mouth is open, that’s a HUGE red flag, because it’s not the emotion of love that she (or he) is feeling; it’s that really ugly one: NEED, the kind that breeds and feeds dependence and insecurity, the leper’s bell of a scarcity mentality at work and a high-maintenance dependent looking for someone to depend on. And then you get to see the scarcity mentality’s really evil twin, entitlement mentality, up close and person as this person becomes more and more demanding. If that’s where you are, you’re in big trouble, and you need to do a serious evaluation of your relationship. And if you’re the one saying “I love you” too much as I’ve described, you need to be doing something to develop some self-esteem, fast, or you are never going to find happiness, even briefly.

Relationships are only complicated when you don’t know enough about how they work, and/or about each other. Learning about them and each other doesn’t have to be a matter of reading an encyclopedia of dry, technical, academically-oriented psychological theories and then trying to apply it without knowing whether the theories even hold water. I’ve seen those books, and if you’ve been looking for answers for your relationship, you’ve likely seen them as well.

They didn’t work for me, and indeed made things so much worse that I had to research and quite literally find enough answers to write a book to have the improvement I needed. If those books worked for you, you wouldn’t be looking here, either, would you?

There’s a better answer, written in plain conversational English, that contains solid, tested explanations of how relationships really work, how women really think and speak, and what they really want, with examples and advice, and the best part is two-fold: you can afford it, and you can do what you find within it. Interested?

It’s called “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and you can download it at http://www.makingherhappy.com and be reading it in the next few minutes. Go head, do it now, because while all the achievers are reading this book, getting answers and putting them to work to better their life, the losers are sitting around questioning whether it will work for them and going further and further down that unhappiest of all roads, relationship boredom and crisis.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Labels: Boredom, Communication, Handling Women’s Insecurities, How to Please a Woman, Red Flags, Romance, Self-Esteem, Sweeping Her Off Her Feet

http://evilcodecave.blogspot.com/2009/11/dnascan-malicious-network-activity.html

2009's first write-in at Genuine Joe's

I hated Brownies, Girl Scouts, and Girls’ Club. After-school clubs, organizations, or whatever you were supposed to join to add sparkle to your college application–no. And sororities? They scared the hell out of me. Anything that comes with a cheer is instant soul-sucking death. I might have shortened my life expectancy by going to a Mary Kay meeting once. And the facebook groups I have joined and even created make me feel like I’ve gone down a wrong path.

I am not a joiner.

But I love NaNoWriMo. It is the first group thing I’ve participated in that is filled with people I could’ve been friends with in high school. It is temporary. One month and you’re done. I now know people I see once a year–and that’s the way it should be. It is free.

Where else do you get a group of people together with a similar goal/interest/passion, and yet each person goes about it in his or her own unique/quirky/absurd way? Reach 50k or don’t. Nobody cares as long as you’re writing. I know participants who never intend to write fifty thousand words. There is no rule about what to do next. Edit and try to be published. Publish yourself. Hide it away. Delete the whole thing. One fellow finishes his novel and come December first, he deletes the file. He doesn’t write again until November the next year.

The first novel I wrote took years. It was like slogging through a swamp of words in a dense fog. That NaNoWriMo goal, 50k in 30 days, is sunshine on a path. There is no edit and create at the same time. The goal isn’t write a great novel in 30 days. I couldn’t do that. I might never do that no matter how many days I’m given. I’m rewarded and approved of for quantity! That I can do.

The rest of the year is for quality. Hours spent picking over sentences and cutting out scenes and wondering what the point of it all is. Maybe I could say that 11 months of the year is like being a soldier getting ready for inspection and November is shore leave.

What goals do you need to help you write? When was the last time your imagination ran around loose on the page?

That’s it — enough.
I can get a lot more naked than I am right now, so watch me;
Let them raise their brows, but I’m about to go for broke.
No more playing to their pessimistic bets.

So much time just burning,
Sitting quiet, counting other people’s cards.
Well, I apologize.
Didn’t mean to drag this out, but
Who we kidding?
All you do is lose unless you risk enough to win.

So, fuck these poker faces, look me in the eye.
That’s right –
I’m smiling.
And I’m finished asking anybody else
How I should play my cards.
This round,
When it comes back to me,
You’re getting everything that I’ve been holding back;
I think I figured out what’s in your hand.

Gosh I feel kind of weird..

We just had formal talking, its this once in a year event to figure out if people like the school, how are you feeling kind of thing..

It went very well, I just you know.. No it went fine. It did, I was just nervous. Im sure it will wear off soon.

I told him about my dyscalculia, and right after I told my computer teacher. Shit, im really getting open about this..  That is pretty new to me, I don’t have problem telling people I struggle with mental problems. Everyone seems to have some kind of mental problem these days, it not that big a deal anymore. Especially since I have them under control.

He just told me, well you used a whole semester to tell me this? Well im glad you did, I was sort of wondering why you ask so many questions. And that is a good thing you know, the rest of the class is often to quiet.

He also told me that I am talented, so that is a good thing. And that im a bit quirky but its nice to have those kind of qualities, he also told me he don’t know me enough too say if I have the social intelligence that is needed at the graphic market.

Main importance

1.    To be on time, to be there and keep the time frame

2.    Social intelligence, to be able to work in a group, to make the group believe in your idea as the best AND to be able to see that your idea is not the best one and let the other person “win”

3.    Skills, drawing, sense of color, spacing, typography, graphic software such as adobe pack or Inksys.

I’m fine really, yeah. Hmm, do I have good social skills?  Yeah sure, sometimes I go all dreamy, but I can’t really help it.  Sometimes I talk allot, sometimes I don’t talk at all. I change through how I feel, and my emotions are very different from moment to moment, so I guess im not that stable. But it is better than it used to be.

I have worked with all kinds of people: babies, kids, teenagers, elders, christians, homosexuals, nice people, not so nice people, bad bosses, nice bosses (like the one i live with now) I managed to get along with all of those people, not like we where best friends. Job is a job!

Its hard to know how one seems to others, I only have access to my own head and my own world.

Maybe others worlds are not so different, I just think mine is stranger. But its not really strange to me, I like my fantasy world, but not when the bubble surrounds me. Airless prison, like a wall I can’t brake down. Keeping me prisoner of my own state of mind.

Lille bobble

I have to admit, I’ve had my promiscuous days. I was young and full of curiosity, not to mention, thirsting to experience the heights of passion I had read about as young teen in so many romance novels. I am not ashamed of my sexual experiences for, without them, I would have no idea what I am into now and would not know the ways to bring myself to orgasm. We’re all adults here so speaking about orgasms should, hopefully, not cause a clutching of pearls.

But it seems as if the black community has a very tenuous relationship with sex and, as in other cultures rife with religious taboos surrounding female sexuality, it is at the feet of women that the “evil” of passion and pleasure are placed. Anyone who knows me has heard me rage, often, against Madonna/Whore complexes when perpetuated by men. I find them chauvinistic, shallow, hollow, and a complete denial of the humanity of women. But what is worse is when women participate in the behavior as well, shoving women to their knees so that they can use their backs to step up on a pedestal that they can easily be dethroned from at a moment’s notice.

The black church weighs heavily on the sexual conscience of the community. Couple this with the over-sexualized and cannibalistic imagery of most main stream hip hop and it is no wonder that many young girls are confused about intimacy, love, and the act of sex itself as a natural phenomena to be approached with care but not trepidation.

I’ve been involved in on-line communities for many years and had the honor of being a member of a particular message board dedicated to helping black women conquer one aspect of our beauty that continues to cause us the most amount of stress culturally; our hair. That’s neither here nor there (though I will regale you with stories regarding that place in later posts) the point is that there were such typical and sexually elitist attitudes within the board that it was almost laughable.

Women with multiple sexual partners were often openly ridiculed, scorned,  and labeled as whores by other women who were, supposedly, bonded to them in a sisterhood of raising self esteem as an e-community specifically tailored to their needs. Often the reasons stated for such absurd behavior was religious, because of course, Jesus spent most of his time deriding women for engaging in sexual relations and barely had time for anything else.

The sad thing about these women is that despite many claiming to be successful, educated, and worth more then rubies because of their purity, their blatant insecurity at being faced by a fellow black woman who was not ashamed of her sexuality or her desire to have different sexual experiences in a safe atmosphere, frustrated them.  The idea that the “bad girls” were having fun and not feeling a lick of remorse due to it.  The secret shame these Madonnas spent their whole lives growing up with gnawed at them, while others reveled in their escapades and still saw themselves as women of worth and value. Something that, according to our cultural upbringing, should not occur and threatened the hierarchy upon which a major part of their self-worth rested.

Sex, in the black community, is something to be regretted especially if it is not sanctioned by the tight bounds placed upon it from our, mostly, southern church-bound heritage. Good girls keep their legs closed and go to church, bad girls put out and go every where else- the pedestal is set, the base is narrow, and unfortunately, one “slip” can send even the most devoted woman plunging to the depths beneath her tower.

This attitude effects the way sex education is taught to many young black girls; it’s not. Keep your legs closed. Keep your legs closed. Keep your legs closed. Words of wisdom were we speaking of a garden gate or the refrigerator door and while I am not saying that abstinence is a bad thing (because it is not!) it is time for black mothers to face the reality that their female child is bombarded with sexual imagery on a daily basis, and so, it is wise to educate her on not only the “bad side” of sex, but the fact that sex, when done with someone you trust and who cares for you, can be enjoyable and give one an opportunity to find out what makes one sexually tick.

To hint that these women, who wagged their fingers and clucked their tongues,  were intrinsically saying that their worth was attached to their vagina was blasphemy. To bring to light the idea that perhaps they were basing their entire value on the expectations of men from archaic nomadic patriarchal notions of “femininity”  which did not care for the sexual well being of the women in that time period, was me attempting to make light of the “dangers” of sex. Despite  an addendum stating that condoms should always be used and one should be regularly tested, the idea of purity was firmly ingrained in their minds. Their last defense mechanism.  That one vestige of “goodness” they had in a society that told them that their skin color, their hair, their body type, their noses, their ambitions, and their history made them unfit to be loved any other way.

There I said it. Though these lessons in morality are prevalent, they are OBVIOUSLY NOT WORKING.

The lack of healthy and honest discussion about sex might explain why black women are more likely to be infected with HIV, more likely to have OOW children, and more likely to hide, in shame, their sexual experiences for fear of reprisal.

Am I suggesting some kind of return to Saturnalian orgies? Of course not. But it IS time for honesty in our community and the reclaiming of the bodies that belong to us. By giving the power of our sexuality to so called “authorities”, men, or social expectation, we relinquish an aspect of ourselves that is sacred, beautiful, and awe inspiring. It is not up to others to define who we are and how we love. That is our decision and something offered to women of other races, but for some reason, stripped from black women under the guise of being “for our own good.”

Is this not proof that we have bought into the stereotypes foisted upon us since the first slave master raped a female slave?

Are we not keeping ourselves  socially and medically stunted in an attempt to have some form of moral solidarity that is slowly destroying us at the expense of black women and girls?

Adhere to your religious beliefs, but this notion that we must teach our girls that their bodies are merely havens of sin, while subsequently allowing men to hold on to the role of predator or innocent bystander, negates our human experience and creates a cycle of sexual victim-hood that robs us of our ability to be individuals in a sexual sense.

STOP teaching black girls that their vaginas are only good for making babies or inviting disease.

STOP acting as if education about condoms and birth control will cause young black girls to become sexually active. Many already are and are at a disadvantage in their ignorance.

STOP allowing misogynistic male religious leaders to fill the heads of our future generations with hypocrisies and shame about something that essentially makes them human.

STOP living in sexual ignorance.

STOP basing the worth of a woman on her vagina and whether or not she is using it. When I read a woman’s blog I am more interested in what she has to say then whether she has had 15,000 dicks in her mouth.

STOP using religion as a way of placing black women on a pedestal to mask our insecurities.

In taking back our identities from those who wish to confine and suppress us, reclaiming our bodies, our pleasure,  and our desires we are broaching one of the ultimate taboos plaguing black culture.  As long as religious and community leaders can force women to live in shame about their sexuality, it is easier to keep us under thumb. It is easier to call a woman a “whore” to shut her up and it is easier, as a woman, to imagine that it can’t happen to you as long as it is happening to someone else.

The age of willful ignorance MUST end within the black community if we are to bring ourselves back from the abyss of crushing HIV risk and unintended pregnancy and usher in an era of safety, understanding, and compassion.

These young girls will not be children forever and they will grow, carrying the inadequacies they gained as youths with them into adulthood; unprepared to handle the feelings associated with sex, the possible repercussions, or the ecstatic journey that sexual exploration can actually be.

Is that what we really want?

Sincerely Yours

-Box Cutter Bombshell

I am thankful for all of my siblings, however, I want to pay special tribute to my brother, John.   John is a year older and he is my ‘partner’.  What does that mean?   I am one of six and as I said, my brother and I are a year apart, then there’s a five year gap and my sisters, Jill and Kory are about a year and a half apart.  Again, there’s another five year gap, with my sisters Jane and Kate being just short of two years apart.  So you see, we each have a partner, and John is my partner.

This is my brother before I was born… clearly he was miserable without me.

Me and John hanging out.

In college John perfected his drinking, something he started in high school.  For me, it was college that really marked the beginning of ‘the missing years’.  For me, his partner, it was the beginning of almost 20 years of time lost.  My brother was disappearing, and eventual for me, he was gone.  Not literally disappearing; we still saw him, but it wasn’t my brother sitting there and he wasn’t any kind of reliable partner to me.  I no longer had a partner to share things with, to confide in or to lean on.  I know I still had my sisters, and thank God for them, but there is a special kind of relationship with your partner and I no longer had mine.  He would call me from time to time and simply ask “do you think I am an alcoholic?” to which I would always answer “yes” but that would usually be the extent of the conversation.  Partly because he was drinking or had been drinking and I didn’t talk to him when he was drinking.  Both to punish him and to protect myself.  And partially because he no longer wanted to speak to me when my answer was “yes”.

In 2006 I called my brother to wish him a happy birthday.  In that call he told me that he had quit drinking a few weeks earlier.  Thankfully, to his credit and hard work, he is still sober.

I am thankful to have my partner back.  I now have him back to share things with, to confide in and to lean on.  The journey of internal growth and self exploration he has gone through to bring his life back to good is admirable.  I am grateful to have his wisdom and his point of view on things.  He is now there to help me and guide me through my struggles and triumphs.

My siblings and I know that having six siblings that actually all get along and all love each other is something special and it’s something we don’t take for granted.

This is John and I now.  I am so proud of my brother and I love him very much.  I always have, even through ‘the missing years’.  But to have him back is something I am very thankful for.

  Adult Children of Alcoholism / Addiction in the Workplace

ACOA’s often transfer behaviour learned in childhood into other adult spheres of life. In true co-dependency style these often confuse and confound us.

Some of these are;

1. We confuse our boss or supervisor with our alcoholic parents and have similar relationship patterns, behaviors, and reactions that are carryovers from childhood.
2. We confuse our co-workers with our siblings or our alcoholic parents and repeat childhood reactions in those working relationships.
3. We expect lavish praise and acknowledgment from our boss for our efforts on the job.
4. Authority figures scare us and we feel afraid when we need to talk to them.
5. We get a negative gut reaction when dealing with someone who has the physical characteristics or mannerisms of our alcoholic parent.
6. We have felt isolated and different from everyone around us, but we don’t really know why.
7. We lose our temper when things upset us rather than dealing with problems productively.
8. We busy ourselves with our co-workers’ jobs, often telling them how to do their work.
9. We can get hurt feelings when co-workers do things socially together without asking us, even though we have not made an effort to get to know them and join in the social life.
10. We are afraid to make the first move to get to know a co-worker better, thinking they will not like us or approve of us.
11. We usually do not know how to ask for what we want or need on the job, even for little things.
12. We do not know how to speak up for ourselves when someone has said or done something inappropriate. We try desperately to avoid face-to-face confrontations.
13. We are sensitive and can get extremely upset with any form of criticism of our work.
14. We want to be in charge of every project or activity, feeling more comfortable when we are in control of every detail, rather than letting others be responsible.
15. We may be the workplace "clown" to cover up our insecurities or to get attention from others.
16. We are people-pleasers and may take on extra work, or our co-worker’s tasks, in order to be liked and receive approval from others.
17. We do not know how to be assertive in getting our needs met or expressing a concern. We may have to repeatedly rehearse our comments before delivering them.
18. We have felt that we do not deserve a raise, promotion, better workspace, or a better job.
19. We do not know how to set boundaries, and we let others interrupt us. We can accept more work without knowing how to say ‘no’ appropriately.
20. We are perfectionists about our own work and expect others to be the same and have the same work ethics and values.
21. We become workaholics because it gives us a feeling of self-worth we did not get as a child.
22. We may jump from job to job, looking for the perfect position as the substitute for the secure and nurturing home environment we did not have.
23. We get upset when people do things that affect us or our work without asking us first.
24. We have a high tolerance for workplace dysfunction and tend to stick it out in an unhappy job because we lack the self-esteem to leave.

After the ACOA laundry list of characterisation.

See also;

• Adult Children of Alcoholics
• Al-Anon May be able to help
• Alcoholic Family Roles
• Workaholism

Note: Cross posted from Recovery Is Sexy.com.

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I was looking at my diary this morning on the train and I realised that I don’t actually have a weekend to myself between now and Christmas.  I have no idea how time went by so quickly.  I really feel like someone has stolen a few months from my memory because it seems impossible that it can be almost December already.

I had an appointment with Head Doctor at 8am.  It’s always hard getting into the “counselling” mode when it’s so early and still dark, and when the weather is as horrible as it is today.  Last week I wrote about how I was struggling with time and impending change, and that’s what I spoke about mostly with Head Doctor.

She said that I need to trust myself more.  I told her about my cheesy motorway analogy, and how I was trying to accept the future and be more positive about change, but that I thought I was kidding myself that I could actually deal with it when it happened. 

Head Doctor got out her notebook from when we first met in August 2008, and read out some of the things that we talked about back then.  I couldn’t recognise myself in what she described.  It seemed like a different person altogether.  Using that, she asked me to list things I thought had changed since then.  Mostly I spoke about my relationships with people and about how I felt about myself. 

My relationships with pretty much everyone have changed.  I’ve lost a friend altogether, am on the verge of “breaking up” with another, but I’ve gained two great friends and feel more confident in myself (although this is an area I’m still sorely lacking in).  A and P have become really valuable to me, and I think I’m starting to realise that I can’t take that for granted.  Rather than spend my time being paranoid and insecure, I need to be proactive about what I need from the friendships and respect what my friends need too.  I need to insulate the relationship against change, so no matter what happens, I’ll always have them as close as they are now, even if they are miles and miles away. 

My relationship with Boyfriend is different – not necessarily worse, but different.  It takes two to tango, as the saying goes, and at the minute we’re out of sync, but perhaps that’s what needs to happen for him to realise how different I am.  Head Doctor told me about a book she read once that described relationships using dance as a metaphor.  When you’re taking the same steps, it works, but when one half of the couple is dancing to a different tune then that’s where problems arise.

That’s where me and Boyfriend are at just now.  But I’m ok with it.  I think I’ve accepted that I can’t put that pressure on either of us to fix things instantly, because neither of us know what else will change in the future.  It just seems like time is running away from me and I’m struggling to keep track of what is actually changing, so I can adapt my behaviour for when he comes home.

But, as Head Doctor said, is it my responsibility to help the absent partner catch up?  Sometimes you just have to move at your own pace and trust yourself to do the things that are right for you.  Because in this case, no matter what happens, you’ve always been true to what you need.

I’ve convinced myself that I take on so many simultaneous projects because I’m incapable of concentrating on any one thing for a decent amount of time, and that by operating in a variety of mediums and idioms I can quickly settle back into a creative flow whenever my brain decides to change spin cycle (which is frequently). It’s possible though that I simply fear completion.

For me there’s a bit of a paradox in the creative impulse. I recognise that on some level I make music because it allows me to communicate with people in a form detached from normal external judgments – where for example in performance any internal power structure is self imposed, and any external merely takes the form of the binary between performer and audience, and hence something that all parties enter into willingly. To a degree you deflect judgment away from content of character onto an abstracted artistic content, whilst retaining the semblance of a human exchange. The problem is that to produce a static work that one considers of “value” requires an investment of self (in terms of time, effort, belief, etc, rather than an arbitrary “emotion”) that shifts this surrogate identity away from the form of a blank mannequin to daub a chosen self onto, and instead becomes more like an attached, extraneous limb. The more I shape this canvas with my “self”, the more human-like it seems to become, eventually approaching a sort of artistic uncanny valley where – regardless of the intended content – I can no longer view it without it signifying something about me, whilst it never attaining a form that is outwardly apparent as being part of me. And despite, or in fact due to this disconnection the limb feels a more vulnerable aspect of identity, given that regardless of its significance it’s only ever experienced by other people as a separate entity, and so isn’t afforded the same level of protection. The fear of judgment returns.

This isn’t quite the case in all creative contexts (such as in improvising, which is something I might think about for a later post), nor do I believe that creativity is restricted to the commonly accepted artistic domains; ultimately though when it comes to composed music intended for public consumption my desire to create contains an act of willful redundancy, whereby the attempt to respond to one social inadequacy simply generates another. Thankfully there are other more positive motivations and outcomes to balance this out, else the fear of creating another hideous addition to this phantom body might overcome my desire to finish anything at all. As it is, I should be posting a link to my newest superfluous limb within the next few days.