Random Acts of Awesome

If you knew how fucking hard it was for me to have any self esteem at all? You wouldn't try so hard to cut me back down to size. I think, I HOPE, that if you knew how hard I worked for this sense of self, you wouldn't feel so goddamn threatened by it. Listening to you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, listening to you call my hysterical, or haughty, or arrogant, or masculine... That shit doesn't roll off a well oiled back. It's been internalized since I was a little, little girl. Those voices are the ones I look for when I look for men. The words are the words I need to hear when I want to think someone loves me. If you knew how fucked up that was, would you stop? Would you let me be strong without needing to make me feel weaker than you? I don't have any patience for it anymore. I don't have patience for your "protectiveness" when I find a man who treats me the way you've always treated me. I don't blame every fucke...

There is a certain kind of man who can use my sexuality against me, leverage like a crowbar to crack me open and leave me empty of anything but a ghost of himself, for a period of time. It's an addictive sort of interaction, for both of us. My sexuality is composed of many facets (like anyones), but the two strongest facets are need and power. The need of others, fulfilled. And the power of energy coursing under my skin brought to the surface to shine. Few of my own needs are fulfilled by this kind of man. I cum, and often. I crave the pleasure. But that's not what's addictive. Desire, be it physical or not, and need fulfilled... that's the addictive part. His needs, my ability to fill the cracks. This man can be faceless, but his needs are always the same. There is a powerful something or someone in his past, that took away his own sense of power and autonomy. There is a latent, burning desire to dominate. A physical craving, unfulfilled, to hold down and take, to...

There's a Margaret Atwood quote I love, "Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.". I love it because it neatly highlights the disparity in power dynamics between men and women in the world we live in. This weekend, I can't stop thinking "Parents are afraid their children will shame them. Children are afraid their parents will leave them." Maybe I need to preface that with "Witness parents" and "Witness children". My folks. Man. I love them. There's no but after that statement. I just love them, as I'm sure they love me. The disparity in the power dynamic between myself and Christopher and them, though, has been sharply highlighted. They grieve the fact that we don't believe what they believe. And we live in childish terror of being abandoned, left for dead, deemed untouchable. They mourn our worldliness, even as they revel a little in the freedom we have. We tiptoe around them,...

SO many changes in such a short period of time. My body and mind are more than a little overwhelmed. I'm grieving and celebrating and trying to be practical and in the moment, all at the same time. I'm not good at ANY of those things, never mind all of them together. I'm glad I got to grieve. I'm glad I made myself say goodbye, instead of just walking away. I'm glad I lay in bed and cried in front of another human being, naked in more ways than one. I hated it, hated the loss of control. But I'm glad I did it. I think I broke the cycle of leaving being too hard, of loss and grief being unacceptable. At least for now. So, I am homeless, almost. I am staying with my brother and soon to be sister in law for now, till May. Then Arizona again. Then who knows. Not me. And that contributes to the celebration. Driving out of Portland yesterday, through the Gorge and into the hills of Eastern Oregon, felt AMAZING. Warm and right and good. Sitting here now, in a str...

I was reading an article about a young Chinese American man who's memoirs got bought by a major network and turned into a show. He was very matter of fact about the racism and fear that changed his story into something palatable to the US audience. But you could hear the desperation and anger behind his words. He'd become famous, at the expense of everything he held to be true. People loved the story they were fed, not his story. It was, honestly, extremely sad, though he wrote it in a biting, wonderfully sarcastic tone. It made me wonder anybody would want to be famous in this society. Anybody with an actual story to tell, at least. You can't be famous in this world unless you're thoroughly processed through the filter of media. And media has a vested interest in maintaining the level of stupid. Because stupid is cheap, and fast, and sells. Stupid is the fast food of the entertainment world, and the media that makes you famous also must make you stupid. They'...

I have been travelling almost constantly since June of last year. I get a little shiver of happiness down my spine whenever I say that to myself... I think I can (relatively) confidently say that I am running towards something, not away from something. It's an idea that's been bothering me, the thought that I might be blindly running away from responsibility and fear. Running blindly pretty much always leads to stumbling and hurting yourself. So, I wanted to be sure I was running while looking ahead. It feels like I am. Every new experience is eagerly grasped, processed, and then gently set aside to make room for the next one. I'm not looking behind me, I'm constantly scanning my horizon for whatever it is I'm looking for. Still haven't exactly figured that part out yet, but I will. In Montana, I was hard pressed to do any thinking. I was so constantly busy and stressed and physically active. And it was perfect. I was dragged, kicking and screaming, outsid...

It fascinates me, to think about how the human consciousness is being shaped by the volume of, and type of, information we now have available to us. I started thinking about it this morning, reading a blurb on a friend's Facebook page, about a woman struggling with the question of childcare and women's rights in today's workplace. I don't have a child. And I've never had to worry about what this woman is worried about. But I found myself empathizing with her, deeply caught up in her tale of woe. And, most importantly, my visceral reaction of sympathy for her was accompanied by an equally visceral, but vague, anger at those who would harm her. It got me.thinking about how we learn. Humans have always learned through stories. Our ability to create metaphor, to empathize, helped shape us into the juggernauts we are today. Storytelling, and storylearning, is an incredibly powerful tool in our arsenal of growth. So when I read these stories, when I empathize with ...