Summer is over. I feel so sad. It was beautiful, all the green and sun melting everything down. I gave myself those three months to live as an idiotic welfare queen while adjusting to single life. Summer is all about hearts and love. I wish it could last forever.
But now comes the fall. A time for brains and being serious. Its color will be blue. I’m afraid I won’t cut it in this crisp new world. Only 9 months until the women’s shelter stops paying for my home. I need good ideas to enter my brain, but they don’t.
I haven’t crisped yet. I’m trying but the sun is still hot and yellow, melting brains down and hearts feel like fire. The sky is so blue, the EBT cupcakes so delicious. Everything green and frothy. I want to roll in the grass like a pig.
The world is a green paradise but beneath it a dark soil of fear, pain and panic. I bat it down with stress gummies & cough syrup. I say “It is what it is” when disturbing thoughts enter. This locks them in a magical box. I can’t face life head on yet. I’m not safe.
And until I get smart I won’t be safe. I need to think clearly and formulate a plan. But life is a bowl of puzzles and I can’t solve one of them. The second I use my brain I start to cry. I feel like my initial goal of becoming a millionaire this fall is not going to happen.
So I’m choosing a smaller goal. To become a good communicator and learn how to clearly express my needs and desires. To express my will. Which is hard because I’m not always sure if I have one.
When you’re a wife, you don’t need a will. Being willess is almost an asset since it gives you increased flexibility like a body with no bones. But then fate dumps you on the streets and you are expected to have a will. A will as strong as any man’s. People don’t realize wills can’t pop up overnight like a forest.
The only time I am sure of my will is when I am hungry or in extreme pain. Cause I have the will to survive. But even then speaking up on behalf of myself feels like sticking my hand in a blender. I am terrified of displeasing the people around me. This isn’t the same as wanting people to like me. I’m willing to be hated to give the people what they want. Cause sometimes they want a bad guy. They would generally prefer to keep the good guy role for themselves.
Wanting to please & wanting to live up to social expectations are two different worlds. People are rarely in the mood to admire someone. More commonly they need someone to feel superior to. This is where I excel.
I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember. Throwing myself under the bus to appease a hot spot in someone else’s psyche. If a friend needed to feel fast, I’d pretend to be slow. I’d lose contests on purpose so the other person could win. I’d perform horribly in plays so someone special in the audience could have the satisfaction of knowing I sucked. I don’t know why. Its just this feeling of terror that I can only be safe by giving people what they want.
I have my finger in the undercurrent of every dynamic. It makes me act strange because those undercurrents are intense. They are made up of things people don’t want to acknowledge. When you touch them they cause weird things to leap out of your mouth as though you are possessed. Like a touching a wire. But I need to release that underlying pressure to feel safe. If there is an undercurrent of anger I try to be the person it can be released upon. Then things feel safe again.
I don’t know how to stop doing this. So I’ll put that puzzle back in the bowl for now. And focus on the immediate task. To clearly express my needs and the desires to the extent that I am aware of them. Even when it seems certain to lead to pain and disaster. Perhaps as I express these bits of will, larger chunks of will will start drifting into my consciousness.
Every morning I’ll tell myself that as I speak up for myself, new doors open for me.
If I was a movie character I would be Rambo, no doubt.
The only way I can feel relaxed around men is when they are threatening to kill me.
Just today someone who had previously said he would curb stomp me then put me out of my misery with a bullet to the brain stem invited me for tacos.
I don’t enjoy being treated poorly but it makes me feel safe. I know what is expected of me. Compliance. In other contexts I don’t know how to function and start to panic. Like really panic.
First my kidneys seize up, then my brain shuts down. This isn’t good in social contexts because healthy people expect you to have a brain. They want you to be Captain of your Ship.
And I’m trying to rewire my brain into Captain Consciousness. But right now it freezes, scans for threats, monitors emotions & tries to glean the wills of other people so they can be followed. Cause it’s seized up in terror, especially around men and the nicer they are the worse the terror gets.
Nice guys feel like a dark fun house where the room is empty and silent and you don’t know which wall the clown is going to come busting through. The longer you have to wait, the worse the terror grows. Pins and needles until finally the clown pops to attack you. Now you can release a blood curdling scream and feel the pain of getting bludgeoned in the head, but regardless being attacked by a clown beats waiting to get attacked by one.
If I’m around a nice guy for extended periods of time, I become unable to move afterwards due to prolonged anxiety. First the kidneys seize, then the brains freeze, then the limbs. This state can last for hours or a day.
And its impossible to relax in his presence. Much less do the things expected of a modern woman like having a will and voice of your own. But these expectations are ridiculous. Can a man know what flavor of ice cream he wants while staring into the eyes of a cobra and trying to sway in just the right way to appease him? He wants whatever flavor the cobra wants because he is the cobra’s little bitch. Every human is a little bitch when they’re waiting for clowns to pop.
Nice guys feel like a tightrope stretched over the Grand Canyon. You know you’re going to make a misstep. Why not plunge to your death now and get it over with?
Missteps are certain because you don’t know the rules. They aren’t the rules you are used to, where doing & saying as little as possible is gold star behavior. Nice guys are fucking demanding. They want you to know your mind, express your mind, run your own business, be a cowgirl. Don’t take shit from no one, have a personality and know how to make your jeep jump like a frog.
Assholes only need you to not contradict them. Let them yell at you without defending yourself. Go into deep freeze mode so you can absorb quantities of anger without getting angry back. Blur out your brain so words wash over you like water. This is my skill set. But nice guys don’t value these skills. Good luck pleasing them.
And when you add to this the fact that the whole nice guy thing is probably an act and a woman eating lizard is going to bust out of his skin at any moment, you can see why they jack up my anxiety.
However, I am actively training my brain to be more positive. To believe in good things & seek them out. Because we won’t know how magical life is unless we look for magic & that all starts with believing. Or at least being open.
Yes, yes, my kidneys say, but also listen to this rhyme I just wrote!
What is a man but a clown in the dark? Who clown clubs your head then jerks off in a park?
Sometimes it is hard to write songs or even blog posts because I lose myself so easily and then I’m not on the right wavelength to tap the muse I want to tap.
And I know why. Because I have certain traits that aren’t socially acceptable, but when I detach from these traits I lose myself and have nothing to say.
There is a pressure to be everything at once but you can’t be. You have to pick your poison and then align with those people who can accept you as you are.
I have certain traits that are socially unacceptable- such as talking about dicks too much- but these traits are actually to cover up a set of traits even more socially unacceptable.
I read in a book once that everyone has a fake personality designed to cover their true weaknesses and this is definitely true for me. The bold act meek & the meek act bold.
Supposedly though, if you drop your compensating mask & allow your true self to shine through you will get much luckier. That is what I read in the book. But in my case it is easier said than done since my true self is a clear blob. How can I express that?
Anyway, let’s talk about sausages. They are my safe place.
What is a sausage?
A dick?
A man?
To me, a sausage is a paradise. The feeling of a moment stretching out in all directions. That bubble of eternity is one link on the sausage chain.
Or sometimes a sausage is a world set apart from other worlds. You are in the ocean and everything is blue, the ocean and the sky, like a blue pearl. That pearl is one link on the sausage chain.
I used to think women contained worlds and men lived inside them. But now I’m wondering if it is the reverse and all realities are created inside men’s dicks plus the dicks of giant men who live in the sky.
Men seem like magical beings to me, for better or worse.
They can change your sense of yourself until you are certain you are a worm.
Or they can lift you out of this world altogether into a link of the sausage chain you have never seen before.
Either way, don’t panic. There is a new link behind every bend and the chain goes on forever.
I shouldn’t be sad. I’m having the “You have no place in this world to call home” transit and everything is happening as God intended but still….
There is no place in this world to call home.
The weird part is in the absence of any home how much my life has expanded.
I just got ‘home’ from performing on two different stages and walking around downtown by myself at night. Walking thru sketchy areas at night has become a slight addiction. Why do they say you’re not supposed to do that? So far I haven’t found out.
But I wonder if this growth is leading anywhere or if life will be a never ending series of random events and people. I should be patient since it’s only been a month and a half since I moved out and the first month was spent trying not to die of heartbreak.
It’s just that there is no one to tell anything to. Not that there really was before since James didn’t like me to talk. But even writing in journals to yourself feels different when you are part of a home and a family. I can’t really write in journals anymore because I’m too unsettled and at the same time have more happiness than ever before.
If happiness means a high and fluttery feeling.
But I also had happiness in my old life when I would cry in bed everyday. It was a different kind of happiness though, like the way you feel in a soft pink egg. Even in sadness there was a feeling of peace.
Our spirit is made of fire and air. It propels us outwards & forwards, towards people and the future. Our soul is made of water and earth, a soft gooey dough that absorbs all experiences. Happy or sad, all experiences become meaningful when they encounter the soul’s soft body.
In my old life my spirit was trapped. Now it’s free. Yet my soul is nowhere to be found. Friends are not family. You can’t cry around them and if you do it’s some big fucking deal where you have to apologize afterwards. You can’t share the minutia of life that is the soul’s food. You can’t gorge on donuts and sink into a coma. You have to be on and up. Fire & air.
And I’m grateful for the newness. But it’s hard to settle down. I dance all the time. Sometimes I run rather than walk. Without a soul, you have so much energy.
But this is my predestined time of wandering the earth like a spirit. I need to make the best of my “There is no place for you to call home” transit and have faith that life will eventually congeal.
In astrology, the sun is your spirit and the moon is your soul. My moon lives in the house of marriage so getting unmarried was disruptive soul-wise. However, there is a little trick with this placement where it can also mean having an emotional relationship with The Public, a gooey blob of unknown minds.
So in the absence of a James, I started sharing minutia from my life on facebook. Which caused people to attack me for being an attention seeking whore. But I blocked them for being stupid. Because it isn’t attention the moon craves. It’s ooey gooey connection.
It’s not so much circumstances that are bugging me out as the questions… is love real, is home real, is anything real? What is there in life that weighs more than paper? I thought I would have a family in eternity. I even thought my house would be with me in heaven. When I was painting its walls, I felt I was building something permanent.
When I was moving out on my own what I wanted most of all was for my new life to be airy.
When I was married life was not airy at all. My husband did not like to interact with me. But I wasn’t supposed to interact with anyone else either. He said if I left the house I would get murdered so I stayed at home. Receiving a message from someone or just a random email was the highlight of my week. There were pros and cons to this sort of life.
But now, my life is nothing but messages from strangers. Two hundred a day. What is it called when winds rip people apart until they die with bits of them flying everywhere? That is what’s happening to me.
There are ebay messages, herbal messages, music messages, lawyer messages, messages about wizzles and fizzles, messages from men, messages from women.
Two hundred messages a day and I’m making two hundred dollars a month. This seems off somehow.
My friend made a match.com account as me which I think is hilarious. She pretends to be me and then forwards people she likes to the real me. I like the part where she interacts with them better. I’m too mentally overwhelmed to respond to anyone. Even the people I meet I can hardly remember their names and faces. Hi it’s Chris! Oh yeah, Chris, of course. You build houses. No, I’m the Chris that flies planes. Busy girl.
But I’m not a busy girl. I’m a girl whose brain is being electrocuted with random inputs from all directions. Meanwhile there is nothing solid in my life. I want to visit my dogs again. But if I get arrested there will be no one to bail me out.
Ten thousand winds but nothing solid. No feeling either. The other day I walked by a man who was on the floor with a hurt foot. “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor.” I said “Oh are you really?” he asked in a relieved voice. “No, I’m joking.” I said with a laugh. Two minutes later reality hits and I realize I sounded like a total psychopath. This will be another black mark added to my reputation of cruelty and violence. But I’m not a psychopath. Everything is just so airy it starts to seem unreal. So many words. So many people. No way to assemble my bookcase because my wrist still doesn’t work from the last time James squirted me over with dishsoap and pushed me into a wall.
Physical Violence is the elephant in my mind. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel or think about it so I don’t.
The first time James got violent I was asking him questions. Specifically questions about his pro-gun stance. While I mostly shared his views, some of his arguments didn’t make sense to me. He had just gotten news of a financial defeat so I should have stayed silent. But at the time I wasn’t good at shutting the fuck up. Eventually I learned, but it didn’t really help.
So he got upset and left the room. I followed him. I was extremely clingy. Later I learned not to be clingy but that didn’t help either. He told me to Go Away and I said No. He said if I didn’t leave he’d fucking crush me and I said go ahead.
Then he pushed me really hard like… I don’t think I understood how strong men are until that moment. I thought they were more or less like me. But it was supernatural. I don’t know what happened except that I ended up on some stairs with my arm cut open from wrist to elbow cause it got caught on the metal door latch.
I guess I was in shock & crying hysterically. James was like a god to me. At the time it seemed like hurting your wife was horrifically wrong. Now it doesn’t seem so wrong to me. But at first it was shocking and I was crying hysterically.
James told me I had to stop crying but I didn’t. He dragged me across the floor and sat on top of me with hands around my neck looking at me with this crazy look in his eyes. I thought he was going to kill me. I was screaming hoping the neighbors would hear me. I screamed for Slippers and she came. Then James got off of me. Later on though Slippers would just run and hide.
Afterwards was even more confusing. Writing about the incident now, I feel like I am a baby for even whining about it but at the time it felt earth shattering. Like I’d entered a new reality and the world as I knew it no longer existed. I thought James would be sorry but he wasn’t. He didn’t seem to think it was a big deal that my whole arm had turned yellow from bruising. If I tried to bring it up what had happened he would say “Well why did you say this? Why did you say that? What did you say 5 sentences before that? You don’t remember? If you can’t even remember then how can we talk about it? What angle were you standing at? What socks were you wearing 3 days earlier? These facts are important.”
There was no remorse just an endless string of questions about details surrounding the day that I couldn’t remember and when I would get frustrated with those questions he said he needed those details to make sense of things. The problem wasn’t him pushing me, it was all these little things I’d said and done which made him push me.
And the following years were all about that. Don’t use this word, use that word. This phrasing is the problem. Stating things as a question is the problem. I would read more and more books about how mens’ minds worked and try to change my tone, my phrasing, my facial expression. None of it helped but I always felt I was on the cusp of knowing what he needed and being able to give it to him.
Later on, maybe 4 or so years later, cheating came into play too. Cheating is the vocalist. It grabs all your attention. Violence is more like bass and drums. It hits you in the reptile centers. That is why I don’t know how to process it or even if it merits processing.
The first time it happened I thought it was a really big deal. Over time it became more commonplace to where I feel like a petty little bitch for writing about it. I don’t know if it matters or not. Why would it matter? People hurt all the time.
I hadn’t seen my dogs for almost 2 weeks because people were telling me it was too dangerous and I could get killed.
But one day I couldn’t take it any longer. As a single person I have friends, but its mental & airy. You miss the vegetable acceptance you can get through family. But Slippers & Patton are more than family. They are forever friends. Missing them was this pain in my heart that wouldn’t go away. I felt like they were calling me.
I’ll never forget the crazy smiles on their faces when I came through the door. We were all barking and crying and running around in circles trying to bite each other. Then James- who had not seemed to be there- called the cops but I didn’t even care. We were outside of time.
I went outside to talk to the police. They said I wasn’t in trouble. I wasn’t breaking the law since it is my house, my dogs and only James has a no contact order on him. But they said they didn’t want to leave me there just in case anything happened so they waited outside to give me 5 more minutes with my dogs & then told James to tell me a next time when I could visit them.
That was today and I just got back from 2 hours of seeing them. First we rejoiced, then we sang our favorite songs- Stand by Me, Fur Angel, Dog Went a Courtin’ & more. Then we had a snack. Then we lounged and stared into space. It was great to vegitate together. It is hard to be a vegetable in solitude. Plus they make me cry with their faithfulness.
I don’t place dogs above humans but I don’t place humans above dogs either. They seem very much alike except in how they dress. People keep telling me to get a new dog, but the thing is I have zero interest in dogs as a species. I have an interest in two specific people- Slippers and Patton.
Scorpio is a water sign, which means love and emotion. It is a black 8 turned on its side whose goal is to dig the deepest hole possible in one spot in order to create bonds of love so strong they survive the threshhold of death. Death is the test of love and everything really. Only that which is real survives.
So I’m not a let go and move on type of person. I don’t mind suffering for something which has value. But I would rather not invest in something which death will hack apart. Only those things you would suffer, bleed and die for really matter in the end because those are the only things that carry forward. That is my philosophy anyway. I believe there is an eternal world where treasure accrues. A relationship that withstands the tests of hell becomes immortal. Of course, this willingness to accept pain can sometimes backfire and make you hang on to the wrong things. But I do want my relationships with Slippers and Patton to make it to the Forever World. They are such special friends to me.
Which brings me to another issue…. for a while there I felt I was finding a groove. Surviving as a poor person was seeming not only doable, but magical. Cleaning my clothes in a bucket, picking lettuces from the Lettuce Patch for the Poor, accepting charity where offered… it felt like I’d stepped into a fairy tale. But when I shared my enthusiasm for poverty on Facebook people started throwing all kinds of fear and anger at my head, calling me desperate for attention, playing at being poor, condescending to actual poor people while also abusing all humanity by being a lazy slob who needed a job. They also said they’d seen me make soldiers cry with their own eyes. On purpose.
Normally I don’t mind retard attacks, but now that I have no husband it feels more unnerving than it used to. There is no one to take my side against a mob* nor do I feel as willing to lose the support of random acquaintances.
The get a job thing bothers me especially, because I do have a job. In fact I care so much about this job that I’m willing to sacrifice wealth, respect and safety for it because it feels like a divine calling.
I don’t relate to the view where your success as an artist is based on the number of humans who know your creations. What if you only had an impact on one human? What if that human was your self? There is no way to measure how impacts play out over the course of time. What is more impactful- a song known only to Noah that he hummed on the ark for his animals- or the most popular song on earth right before everyone drowned in a flood? You can’t say really.
And beyond that, I feel art changes the world even if no one at all hears it, because it carves new spaces in the world of imagination. The realm that precedes that which is possible on earth. Success is the extent to which you can open the portals you are trying to open and build the magical kingdoms you are trying to build.
At first I just wanted to write songs, but now it is important to me to write the specific songs that bore the hole I am trying to bore. I have a feel of the sort of energy I want to usher into this plane. Muses come and go but there is a muse behind them who is constant.
And if my muse guides me to beg for quarters why not? People got so angry at me for bringing up begging on facebook but I think there is something beautiful about it. Someone holding up a cup, giving you the opportunity to place a coin inside? Who knows what good could come from that? And what is the danger in a coin moving from one place to another?
The problem is these other people’s views on life & their horrible judgments of my character really threw me off my own wavelength to where I couldn’t write songs or anything. As though I was a monster for not devoting my life to a 401k plan. But it’s hard for me to see how a life where you aren’t following your own spirit is even a life to begin with.
For me there is no choice. Even if I try to do what others want I won’t. I just have to do what I’m going to do anyway and hope for the best.
Also, I have been on dates. Sweet men and delicious food.
Also, playing gigs for dollar bills and delicious food. I love it how people throw money into a hat or a guitar case. That is what started me thinking how beautiful it could be to beg with a metal cup. In between music, men, EBT & lettuce patches I am eating better now as a poor person than I ever did as a married lady of dignity and grace.
Also, someone I like asked me if I wanted to be friends with benefits. What does this mean? It sounds like such a cosmopolitan offer. My lesbians have assured me that pain this way lies. Then one lesbo called me on the sly to say she thinks its a great idea because relationships suck.
Also, I have a side hustle working as a secretary for one of my heroes, an herbalist. Years ago, I made a list of 10 people on earth I would like to meet. The other 9 were jackasses but this one has been a benefactor to me and changed my life. To receive help from someone you admire is a sweet feeling.
Also, it used to shock me how the black people on my street would walk down the sidewalk dancing and singing out loud. Now I do that too.
Also, I like the musicians I meet. I no longer hate people who play guitars. I guess I just hated the musician in myself because I grew up in a world where musicians had AIDS. But I’ve really come to cherish their freewheeling ways and the time we spend together. I love being able to ask people if they would prefer to eat a shit filled dick or have their own dick stapled to the wall & they will just consider the question and answer it rather than making me feel like I’m some kind of freak. I like being around people who are stoned. In their own way they are kindred spirits.
It’s almost like I’m becoming a free spirit.
* Btw…….. I said I feared no one would defend me from mobs now that I’m a single lady but that didn’t turn out to be true. My lesbians came to my defense just as they have before. Not just intercepting stones, but hurling them back. From a Scorpio perspective, nothing means more than a friend who will fight for you. This made me cry as well. I hope every female finds some serial killettes to have her back.
We normally start song time with Stand By Me, a song that was written by a dog for a dog.
I lie in bed at night with the lights on not wanting to shut my eyes. Cause when I shut them I see that James is angry at me, really angry and that makes me scareder. I wish there was something I could do to change it but there isn’t.
And when I close my eyes I feel how heartbroken I am about my dogs. I want to see them so badly it’s unbearable. But if I start crying I’ll have to sit up to keep from eating snot so it’s best to just lie down with eyes open.
A bossy friend told me of a poor person’s clinic near me where I should go for fear medication so I can sleep. I went there. In the waiting room a man was scratching himself while mumbling about killing people. His voice got louder as he groaned about being burned at the stake. Finally he was just shouting “Steak! Steak!” I started to freak out so texted “Help me!” to a friend then in a girly voice the man said “Help me!” Once I realized he could read my mind I relaxed.
The clinic gave me an official looking bottle of pills in a white paper bag for absolutely free. I had just walked in off the street with no insurance or anything. But they said if I come back I will have to give them blood. A price I won’t pay. I would rather pay in money. The pills they gave me dried out my mouth anyway.
James had his hearing. He pled guilty and was sentenced to one year of parole. This meant I didn’t have to testify but the trial was still traumatic because I don’t like seeing James in trouble. And I don’t like knowing he will be mad at me and potentially punish me.
My lawyer recused himself on the day of the trial for which I had prepaid him. He said he had to because he had been telling the magistrate that I would plead the 5th in order to not incriminate myself. Basically he implied I was lying. He did this because I wanted him to help me keep James out of trouble & also to keep me from having to testify. However, I had made it clear to my lawyer- I thought- that I wasn’t lying and I didn’t want to be portrayed as such. So this was unnerving & left me with no one to look out for my interests or explain what was going on.
I had also hired James’s lawyer to protect James. Like a damn fool apparently. Before he was hired I asked if he would be defending James by throwing me over a bus. I wanted to protect James but didn’t want to be sacrificed. He said “Good heavens! Of course not! That’s not how it’s done!” But it appeared he lied. There was something about the way he treated me that scared me on a deep level. James has been telling my friends that he & his lawyer are now going to sue me for abuse. I don’t know what kind of abuse but I guess I’ll find out.
But Monday I was not on trial. It was the state vs James. After James was sentenced however, the magistrate- at the urging of James’s lawyer who we will call Shitindick- said I wasn’t allowed to go into my house to get my possessions or see my pets. He said if I did I would go to prison. I started crying hysterically. I had already been told that nothing could happen to me at a trial that was for James so this was confusing. Technically I didn’t have to even be there.
So the next day I returned to the magistrate’s office to seek clarity. Everyone in the magistrates office assured me the magistrate could not legally ban a witness from seeing her dogs or accessing her own possessions. They looked me up in their system but there were no orders against me. They said it just couldn’t happen without a hearing or a petition against me being filed, none of which had taken place. They had no idea why the magistrate would have said that.
So I went to talk to the magistrate himself. I said I didn’t understand the legal basis of him telling me I would go to prison for collecting my things or seeing my dogs when there had been no hearing for me. I had not committed crimes, been offered legal representation or had anything filed against me. I told him his office had looked me up on the computers & assured me no conditions such as these were in place. They said it was impossible to punish the victim in a trial, only the person on trial can be punished.
He didn’t answer my question but just started talking about how the courts had bent over backwards for me (referring to when they banished James from the home while I was crying hysterically & begging them not to.) He kept saying “You ALLEGE these things against your husband” as though I was some conniving cunt trying to get James in trouble when he knew I’d been attempting to get the case dropped for months. He said “You’re not dumb, you ran for office.” as though dumbness was a prerequisite for getting head slammed.
“You had you chance to call 911 when James came back to the house.” he said. True, but how did that magically turn him into a monarch who can issue commands with no legal basis?
On other notes, it’s not that easy to function at the moment. I hope this is just a phase but my beautiful apartment is turning into a crack den. On the plus side, I’m doing an okay job of learning poor people secrets. It’s not even so much about getting by with less, which I’ve done for years. It’s more about saying yes to free stuff and yes to other humans helping you. Being a mooch was always my greatest fear so being poor is good in some respects since it forces you to receive stuff.
Where I come from people offer you stuff, but you are supposed to refuse. “Oh please, let me run out in this blizzard to get you fresh bagels for breakfast!” “Oh no, please don’t! I’m on a diet anyway!” “You on a diet? Nonsense! I insist.” “No really, I couldn’t.” This goes on for a few minutes as a charming display of politeness & consideration.
So when someone makes me an offer now, like “Would you like this bagel?” I don’t know how to respond. Are they actually wanting to give me a bagel or are they wanting me to refuse it? I’ve been trying to say yes and see what happens but it is unnerving. If you said yes where I’m from you would be a social leper. But bagels are so tempting to the poor.
Everyone said leave James so you can have a life. What is a life? I thought I had one to begin with.
I don’t know what I think of my life so far. Right now I am delusional because I can’t sleep at night. I don’t know why. I don’t like shutting my eyes so I try sleeping with the lights on. I wake up a few hours later & want to see what is going on in the world.
Being single is fun. Because you can do what you want. People always said “Being single is fun because you can do what you want.” That always seemed dumb. I liked what I did when I was married. Writing songs, baking muffins. I didn’t feel I was suppressing a desire to suck two dicks at once.
But I can’t deny that something has changed because I am having a lot more fun even doing the same things I used to do. I feel less inhibited. I don’t mean in terms of men or flirting. I just feel more free to be a dumbass.
There have been so many moments of paradise. Performing music is paradise. Writing songs is paradise. Drinking an alcoholic beverage, talking to a person….
I was playing in an antiques store & there was this door that opened over and over making a chime sound. The chime sound mixing with the music was paradise. I’m playing with a bass player named Bill. The bass mixing with the melody is paradise.
I have a weekly gig at an Indian restaurant. The music mixing with images of Hindu gods is paradise. Getting paid in food and carrying my box of food home is paradise. I love playing for tips and I love playing for dinner.
I went to an open mic where someone was playing keyboard in the most elaborate fashion. The chorus was
We’re not dumb. We’re just as smart as you. We’re West Virginians. And we’re humans too.
The audience was singing this in unison. The keyboard was going wild. Someone threw a bottle through the air and it missed the trash. Bliss overtook me and I threw a bottle too hitting Bill in the head. Absolute paradise.
These paradise moments keep stacking up to where I almost feel I’ll lose control.
There is a flip side tho…. I am struggling more than expected to run a tight & crisp ship.
For starters I don’t know what to eat. I stocked up my pantry with boxes of macaroni and tuna fish, not foods I especially like. But even cooking macaroni is too much work when you don’t have a dishwasher. I don’t feel excessively grounded. I always felt it was James who kept me down to earth.
I was single once before for about 6 months & I really started to go off the deep end. I was nailing bath towels to my wall to use as telephones. If I managed to get 5 dollars, I’d buy a pool noodle. I wasn’t delusional… it’s hard to explain but I was very aware of whether or not contacting people via bathtowel actually worked. But imagination & magical thinking took over 90% of my brain. I was writing songs constantly. I performed all the time. I painted. Did nonstop magical experiments. Then for dinner I would smash a can of green beans open with a hammer.
So when I feel spaced out and start walking in circles, I worry a little what the future holds. I hope that staying connected to other people will keep my feet on the ground.
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Now some pics…
A mermaid created by Vulgaris & a box of tea from Avulva who wants me to suck a bag of dicks this summer. Will I? Probably not because I am superstitious about men using their penises as straws to suck out the life force. Not to mention that I can’t afford STDS when my goal is to live off $2,400 a year.
People have been sending me things to hang on my wall which means so much to me. I can’t say I feel that alone. The problem is, many of the things require nails to hang and the landlord said no holes. I bought a pack of command strips but the instructions were so complex I gave up.
Tuna fish, macaroni, tuna fish, macaroni. Together for every meal. Food is mathematics. And handwashing dishes is worse than expected.
I’m not happy with this situation because food fills in the bass notes of our emotions and I want the full range. I like people who eat. I like people who cook. I don’t like people who spend years living off candy like I always do.
Washing clothes in a garbage can. There are no laundry machines where I live or even in the neighborhood so this is my best idea.
Fresh from the garbage can, clothes hang to dry. I hope they don’t get wrinkled. It’s my first time trying this.
The jungle creeps into my kitchen. Music is a source of bliss but it needs a counterforce to keep it in check. I don’t know if I’ll be able to supply that force for myself.
A candle. I always keep one candle burning somewhere with a secret wish attached.
Well it turns out double-saintdom is not all its cracked up to be. Enter the triple-saint.
The triple saint is a defensive position; flower turning into bud. The goal of the triple saint is to avoid feeling angry or hurt in situations that would rightfully make you so in the hopes of neutralizing a degenerative cycle.
Because no matter how much we talk up assertiveness, the reality is that assertiveness will sometimes get you killed. People are naturally going to advocate for themselves when it’s safe to do so. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you have to bend over & take it without getting broke on the inside. The triple saint is lubed and ready.
The triple saint is for when appeals to sympathy have fallen on deaf ears. You are overpowered, not human, and communication is pointless. You’re in a banana court for a crime you didn’t commit. People want you to swing. Why? Cause they took your money & if you die they don’t have to pay you back. The triple saint is for when you are the scapegoat.
Unlike the double saint, the triple saint has given up on being a pleasing mist. She knows all efforts to appease our futile. She is a pawn and the script has already been written. She is irredeemable & must be sacrificed.
The triple saint is caught in a backwards spiral. This is a relationship dynamic in which the more you give, the more you end up in debt. An example would be a hooker who works 7 days a week but owes her pimp so much money she can’t leave.
In a backwards spiral, you are always guilty, so you compensate by trying to give more, care more, cater more & pay closer attention to someone else so they will stop feeling wronged by you.
But no matter how you try, you just make things worse. All your efforts are either zeroes or strikes against you. And if you ever feel that this is unjust & try to defend yourself, well now you’re on trial for that. Guilty. Of hurting the other person by defending yourself. Guilty. Of being hurt by their actions. Guilty for how you made them feel, for what you made them do.
Backwards spirals occur when there is a power imbalance to begin with so confronting the other person will not succeed. Imagine a slave confronting their master. Any confrontation is a mark against you. Any complaint a grave injustice.
The path of the triple saint involves three steps which are simple but difficult to perform.
Stop Giving. This is most important.
You must turn off the flow of giving that you rely on to feel safe. To feel in control and hopeful that you might turn things around.
The triple saint must stop believing she can change people by loving them. Perhaps this works with plants, animals and babies but it doesn’t with men. Why? I don’t know. My theory is that God designed life in part to sharpen our wits. He doesn’t want us to be potatoes getting everything we want with hugs & smiles. And so he made darkness & men & the law of the jungle was born.
Anyway, here are the reasons you must stop giving…
a) To give up the dream that you can change people with love. So long as you see yourself as the cause and controller of other people’s behavior you cannot see them clearly. Without seeing your environment clearly, it is impossible to make wise choices.
b) Giving entangles you. You cannot truly feel great about constantly giving to someone who mistreats you. So you will end up feeling upset. This will eventually leak or explode out and become evidence of what a bad person you were all along.
c) Giving entangles you. You cannot truly feel happy about giving to someone who mistreats you. You will want them to change & will eventually express this in some form. This will make them feel controlled.
c) Giving entangles you. The more you give the more you are associated with the person’s problems. The problems you are trying to solve. So when blame comes down the pipe, you will be the first one hit.
d) Giving places you in the parent role. Whatever unresolved parent issues he has will be placed onto you. He starts expecting you to be responsible for everything, including his feelings. And at the same time you will be unappreciated and invisible as a person in your own right. Like a mom. You are a source of support and a place to dump negativity.
e) When you become the parent, he becomes the child. It’s not safe for men to regress into childlike roles, dues to their natural aggression which needs to be controlled through a sense of personal responsibility.
f) Men are rewards driven. When you give in response to bad behavior, you incentivize it. If you try to heal pain, you incentivize pain. If you cater to mental illness, you incentivize insanity.
g) Giving is a drug that eases anxiety. Until you stop, you won’t really know what feelings you are running away from or be able to address them.
f) Giving depletes your resources. And you are going to need them. Maybe you can’t stop the attacks, but you can be strong when they occur.
Give to yourself. Maybe you are the person you can actually change.
You probably fear you will be attacked if you invest in yourself. Maybe you will be. But you will be attacked anyway. Investing in yourself will make you stronger, more able to withstand, and a less appealing target.
Men- unlike women- never treat people well for being nice. They respect power. Having more of it is your best hope for good treatment.
And even if it doesn’t change how you are treated it gives you more options.
Giving to yourself can mean different things. What holes do you have that you are hoping this man will fill? Can you fill them yourself?
Are you seeking romantic feelings? Touch? Money? Friendship? A garbage man? Someone to compliment your eyes your thighs? If you can figure out what you are needing you can start trying to resolve your own neediness. Use your energy to fill your own holes. Stop trying to fill his holes. They might not be what you think they are anyway, since men tend to hide their true needs & feelings while projecting out false vulnerabilities for their enemies to strike.
If you are with him for sex, buy a vibrator. Money, get a job. Self-esteem, start praising yourself. Romance, buy scented candles & lie under a flower bush.
Lastly, what should the triple saint do when attacked? Don’t fight back or defend. Their goal is for you to be bad. They have more power than you or you wouldn’t be here. Any battle is a loss for you.
See attacks as weather. A cold breeze is touching you. A piece of hail falls on your head. Take shelter or curl into a ball but don’t fight. There’s nothing to fight. What’s happening has nothing to do with you. It hurts so bad to be powerless to change things, powerless to make things better. It hurts to have love withdrawn after you have made all life choices around the idea it would always be there. But saints were born to hurt. Just hold on to the idea that there is another world where you are loved. A perfect world. Rest there silently until the storm passes.