Random Acts of Awesome

This keeps coming up. I keep having these conversations about it, with men and women. I have all these thoughts running around in my head, trying to express themselves, but they're not clear enough yet. Hopefully soon, after I let them percolate for a bit. In the meantime, though, the only true perspective I have on this issue is personal. Talking to people I know, and my own experiences. My mother was raped multiple times, as a young teenage girl living on the streets of Boston. She was a reformed Catholic School Girl, she did a lot of drugs, and she trusted the wrong people. This inspired her to instill in all 3 of her daughters an intense distrust of men and of their own sexuality. I'm 34, and I've spent the last 4 years coming to terms with what this has meant to me. Distrusting men, believing them to be weaker, incapable of controlling their urges, knowing that I HAD to manipulate them to survive in this world they've created... it hasn't exactly helped

I found an old journal today, in the midst of going through boxes and boxes (and boxes) of books. It's from about 15 years ago. I was 18, 19yrs old, and I had just come back from a train trip across the country with my sister. I have a few entries in there from the trip itself, not many, but enough to remember how overwhelmed I was with the newness of it all. Most of the entries, though, are from me sitting in Barnes and Nobles, reading science books and taking notes, all towards the purpose of refuting facts that went against my religious beliefs. Seriously. I have entire journals worth of quotes, with me refuting them. One book in particular apparently got me really riled up. I actually remember this moment. It was late afternoon, and I was sitting in the cafe, reading and drinking coffee. The book is called "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism - A basic guide to the facts in the evolution debate." by Tim M Berra. There are about three pages worth of quotes from

I should have known Protestations aside, I've been waiting for this. I couldn't find it on my own, So I ate the cake, took the red pill, drank the little bottle down. And I lay on my back in the grass, Staring up at a sky that had gone mad. Stars pulsing in time with my heart, flying across the velvet expanse, cataclysmic explosions of color and light. Gods, young and old, writhing through the branches above me. Laughing. That sensation began to take over. You know the one. Chug...chug...chugchugchug The rollercoaster nearing the crest. This is what I was waiting for. Buyers remorse set in quickly, though. As the cart topped the hill and began it's inevitable descent, arms up, screaming more in fear than exhilaration, I WANT OFF is all I could think. The journey down through the rabbit hole... colors bleeding into each other, thoughts made manifest, hope lost and fear king. I draw you around me like a security blanket, a rock of reality to cling