those eight years i want back

It isn’t that he systematically destroyed me.

It isn’t that all that time was spent decaying rather than progressing.

I was hungry and fat at once.

I’m so frustrated today because I caved in to his coercion, time and again.

He got his daddy to bail him out when he couldn’t bleed my mother for loans.  Pressured, I pursued an exchange so he could catch up on the rent. Except he bought a car.  Another car.  Because he had ruined my credit so beyond with something approaching 10 repossessed cars (several at second-chance places), written off credit cards and bills and loans, he leaned on the credit of the other girl. (“See, I don’t need you, 8th Letter, I have her.“)  He isn’t a legal resident of this country, piggybacking in and then lying to me about his marital state the moment he realized if he wasn’t married to an american he’d probably get tossed.

I should divorce him.

I should change my name.

I should file bankruptcy.

I can’t figure out what first.  I need a car that won’t fall apart in three more round trips to/from work.  One without flagging electricals and without rusted brakes.  I can’t get one.

I wouldn’t be in this place without his efforts.  I wouldn’t be as fucked up as I am right now without all the bullshit he said would be fine, would work out.  The 50 jobs he quit/got fired from.  The endless lies he broadcast.

And all of you say this -

“You consented.”

And I did.

And I hate myself so tangibly right now.

At least you fucking assholes have the pleasure of being right.  I consented.

This morning I threw away the pot of miniature roses that sat outside my door

My landlord painted the balcony and stairs last week.  He had moved the large-ish pot of roses that someone had given me as a housewarmer.  Except, he placed it upon my desk.  My desk is a door on top of two filing cabinets,  shimmed with one volume (there are 2) of the 1979 Compact OED.  (Garage sale find for $2.  This is the edition I got for myself upon graduation from UCLA.)  Anyway.  The desk is at a bit of a slant now.

He said I needed to get a dish for under the roses.  I tried to source on craigslist and freecycle but not with overmuch gusto because I would have to go collect it from wherever (nearest & best bet was Calabassas, and I’m tired.  It didn’t work out anyway).  A week went by and the roses that were in thick and in bloom had turned crunchy within my place.  It’s not usually sunny in my front room (I put them on the floor after a few days) and I wasn’t watering them.

Sweetbest told me on 14 Feb that she didn’t really want and/or need me in her life any longer.  She hadn’t answered much (in months) in any of my attempts at outreach, and I feel rather sure she accepted my offer to visit her (that day) whilst I was in the OC on other business just as a way to break up with me in person.

While she shared intimately with me during the few hours we got to spend together, the ultimate message was that she had no time and no inclination to pursue any relationship with me.

I mentioned it to a mutual friend who suggested the three of us hang out, but I may have been half drunk (and I was certainly nearly asleep when I answered the text).  I haven’t said much of this to anyone else.

When she and I had dinner on January 9, 2012, she reached across the table, extending her little finger.  ”Pinky power, Weenie [her nick for me].   It will never happen again.  Never apart. Never again.”  I teared up and linked my pinky with hers.  She was fucking radiant.  Her wide, beautiful, unforgettable smile was for me.  My hope exceeded any limits at that point.  The world was ours. I could do anything.

It is probably childish to believe that people mean what they say; and even more so this vow taken in the most solemn oath of our adolescence.  There we were, women of 37 & 36 years, chatting over wine and Italian food, swearing by our little fingers.

The pot of roses were among the items (tokens) she brought one Saturday last March.  I don’t know what to do with the other things she gave/left.  Some seem trivial (pile of hangers).  Some seem positively looming (a gorgeous duvet cover I would have wanted my whole life and never gotten around to getting, bowls and plates and all the flatware I use now, a blown-glass lamp from one of the nurseries).

It is her way to attach significance to material items that may otherwise be overlooked.  (Previously discussed, but I’m not going to bother with the link.  Short version: she is avian (nest) and I am serpentine (shed skin, regenerate).)  I doubt I’ll toss most of this, but I’m leaning towards acquiring some kind of trunk, tucking the things she haunts into, locking it and forgetting where I leave the key.

I have learned that most people’s shit isn’t mine to manage.  I don’t take things personally the way I did once (read: was nearly everything).  Admittedly, of late I’m quite tender  because I have erupting 3rd molars (YAY June 19th for insurance!), constant headaches, achy-sore muscles, rapid weight loss and stretchiness.   I’ve been hungry a lot.  Or not at all hungry and consequently not eating, I’ve been inconsolably insomniac;  I’m all too aware.  If something rankles me particularly, I may take a very deep breath and walk away so I can try to sort (the usually nonexistent) reasons I have taken offense into some reasonable order.  (Some of you have patiently counselled me when I’m completely at sea.)  Frequently, I can talk myself out feeling maligned, generally fairly quickly.  I don’t demand of myself that this roll-with-it is immediate.  I may get there, but I’m pretty well triangular and I’m good at not giving much of a fuck.

I crack the following joke with my boss – about things like ugly spreadsheets, questionable statistics, invisible project planning, or poorly done powerpoint slides: “Oh, fuck, man, that hurts my feelings.”  It’s not for serious. He appreciates this quirky levity.   (When he yells for me or approaches my desk, I have been known to reply and/or greet him by bawling “O Captain, My Captain!”)  

The aforementioned bon mot may go like this:  

Bossman:  So, H, I wanted to share a document I got this morning to do with [TrainWreckProject] …
Me:  [Maybe cringing]  Shit, Captain, are you about to hurt my feelings?
Bossman:  [Nodding, smiling like a grave] Yes, H.  This will totally hurt  your feelings.

SEE?  IT’S FUNNY.  Really. 

But I’ve sat with her rejection for two months.  I don’t care to pursue her, begging for her affection or attention or kinship.  She simply doesn’t have this to give me, or has no desire to draw it forth.  I know I’m tired tonight, but it’s been around that long.  And while I don’t dwell so much, (sometimes only grasping at huge, blinking question marks), I cannot fathom what math to employ to figure this one.   I don’t know how to run this analysis.  The formulae are always slightly beyond my comprehension.

And that’s Wednesday.

Because fuck you.

This is a partial transcript of an email exchange I had with someone who is a liar.   I’ve been thinking about this since last night, when I cooled off after I left his place upset and queasy, carrying my boots for four blocks on Main Street in Santa Monica.   He “thought [I] wouldn’t mind” if he invaded my body.  I told him, “you didn’t fucking ask,”  among other things, mostly that I don’t remember, except I called him a fucking liar a fucking lot.

I would like to direct the reader’s attention to the emphases which I added.   They are bold and underlined and italicised.  (The first email refers to an exchange we had that I abandoned months ago).

From: Baranov@aol.com [mailto:Baranov@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 9:00 AM
To: [OctavaLittera]
Subject: Re: for real ? massage?

If you were still interested, you had e-mailed me about a massage. I give free massages in Santa Monica.

In a message dated 3/7/2013 8:43:01 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  [OctavaLittera] writes:

Are you horny, is that why you emailed me?  I can’t imagine you lack for volunteers.

From: Baranov@aol.com [mailto:Baranov@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 8:57 PM
To: [OctavaLittera] 
Subject: Re: for real ? massage?

No, you e-mailed me after seeing my ad, we just lost touch. No need to be rude.

In a message dated 3/9/2013 7:06:41 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  [OctavaLittera] writes:

Really, I wasn’t saying that to be negative – I thought that was the purpose of your offer for free massage.  I attached no judgment to the question whether you were looking for sex, I just wanted to know if that was the case.

From: Baranov@aol.com [mailto:Baranov@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 9:17 AM
To: [OctavaLittera]
Subject: Re: for real ? massage?

I don’t advertise for free massages in order to have sex. Ever. I don’t charge because I am not licensed as a CMT (legal and ethical reasons), and I want to practice and be better at massage. If I charged, why would someone looking for a massage choose me over a licensed CMT?

In a message dated 3/9/2013 9:23:03 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  [OctavaLittera] writes:

But there are people who barter with sex.  – I don’t think this is bad or wrong, personally, I just didn’t know if that’s what you meant.  It isn’t unheard of on craigslist.  

On Mar 9, 2013 10:03 AM, <Baranov@aol.com> wrote:

Well, I’m not here for a general discussion of what’s on CL…only about what I do. Other people don’t concern me.

In a message dated 3/9/2013 10:07:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  [OctavaLittera] writes:

I appreciate that, but I was explaining where i was coming from.  I’m sorry you were offended, I don’t know you at all so I assure you it wasn’t intended as a personal affront

On Mar 9, 2013 10:08 AM, <Baranov@aol.com> wrote:

OK, I get it, it’s all good. If you are ever interested in a free massage without any sort of extracurricular implications, let me know.

[I say I am]

On Mar 9, 2013 10:23 AM, <Baranov@aol.com> wrote:

Yes, that’s fine. Today right? I’ll be home by 3-4 pm from errands.

 2315 2nd St., between Hollister/Strand, in Santa Monica. Permitted parking on my street starts at 6 pm. You can park on 4th between Strand and Ocean Park, 2 blocks away, and not worry about permits or meters. When you get to my address (it’s a house), enter gate to the left of the mailboxes, use code 1896, walk all the way to the back, I’m the cottage on the right.

 Let me know a more precise time you’d arrive.

 Adrian

510 388 7642

Could someone please now explain why I feel like it’s my fault this happened?

 

Eulogy – For Joe

O mighty, O treacherous bodies
You summon my belief in miracles,
Then destroy such juvenile faith.
O things of beauty, O conceits of being.

- Let me arrest this flirtation with regret,
however mitigated;
this is not my memorial.
(Though I seek not to dishonor, by the pretense of ease, the imposing and haloed example here.)

Profound and improbable that
kinship, as
a priest/teacher, his warrior years behind him,
walking with and in awareness and
with no expectation,
is well met by an anarchist/naif made from saltwater.

Our companioned journey emboldens my steps, my willingness becomes hale.

(What words are left to write of the love an acolyte bears?
Though unimagined combinations of metaphors are yet uninvented
that might sing spirits to rally.)

He, with the noises of train whistles
and ageless patience, he with unhurried speech
spoke me no words of spite, brought no harm,
cast no judgement upon my threshold,
wishing only the best-most-highest.

At the opening of my heart (where I might for some little time indulge anguish)
I keep a map of languages, and stow the geography of all wisdom.

Of those spirits dancing around me,
yours maintains
in the constellation
of
the best advice given,
of great tales shared,
of kindred minds,
of kindness
of beauty.

(Doubtless other aspects turn a world on her axis)
In all the evers, we’re there.

Hopper James
10 February 2013

Out-coming

It is no secret I am queer.  And I don’t mean only in sexual orientation.  I’m generally opposed to classifications/stratification/castes.  This, also, not a secret.  Part of my opposition to putting things in boxes or categories is admittedly defensive.  I don’t fit in them.  They do not work for me. In order to fit in anyone’s proscribed comprehension of one or another label, I have to contort my very being in manners that do not become me.   (OMG, that’s such a profound sentence, check my shit out.)

So.  I have this awesome mother.  I call her The Moth.

(For the record, we weren’t always close.  We got to be friends around the time I was 25 or 26 years old.)

She’s built from different things than me.  Where I am saltwater and glass, she is ether and moonlights.  My spiritual grandmothers are elephants, hers are swarms of butterflies.  We still understand each other.  She gave me the tools of analysis and criticism.  She lives feminism and ferocity, but does not preach.  Her example is kindness to everyone. No one is worse or better before she knows them.  (Caveat: right-wingers are always deserving of dismissal.)  We differ in that she is superstitious and I tend to derive my routines more from logical process engineering.   Even with her superstitions (which aren’t of the usual variety, to be sure), she is thoughtful and can debate.  Superstitions for her do not enter into things like politics.

When we lived in Austin, she moved into an apartment that was for the older-set.   As is The Moth’s fashion, she makes friends everywhere she spends any amount of time.  There was another single woman there, divorced, retirement aged, adult children, etc.

Let’s call this new friend Alice.  Not that there’s anything incriminating in the following.

Alice and The Moth share a similar political philosophy and if memory serves, Alice had work experience in government, like The Moth.  They get along famously.  The Moth tells me how she and Alice went to get french fries at Sonic one afternoon, how they took in an art museum another day.  The spend free time together.  The Moth reports that Alice invited her over to eat dinner and she made steaks and they watched TV together until midnight, as they enjoy the same shows.  “Alice got us ice cream and we made sundaes!”

So one day I say to her, “Hey, The Moth?  Is Alice your girlfriend?”

The Moth is funny. “Well, she’s a female friend.”

“No, no, The Moth, I mean, are you seeing her?  Like love/relationship/dating shit.”

The Moth sounds flustered.

“H,” she begins, drawing a breath, “I’m just…I’m…not gay.  Will you accept this about me?  I’m straight.  It’s ok, it’s who I am.  There’s nothing wrong with it!”

We stutter with giggles at the reversal this is for usual comings-out.

The Moth’s open-mindedness is a thing of beauty.   Her ease with the existence of alternative sexualities, or body-mods, or weird haircuts, or, “ok, sure, if you want to wear that scarf as a turban, go right ahead,” or her grace in allowing me to make and learn from what choices I may;  this has all been tender and instructive.  She maintains a sunny outlook without drenching anyone in pollyannaism.   I can’t say enough good things about her, or relate how grateful I am for her patience and support.

Of things I do not expect.

In my place, I know what and where everything is.  I’m closer to minimalist than anything else in these terms, though I don’t necessarily embrace austerity in this.   I have a pouch of things I might consider sacred.  I’ve reduced this from a rather over-taking-everything kind of altar to a satin bag that the moth gave me for travel.   It has feathers and train tickets and various memento that probably mean nothing or not much to anyone else.  There is a lovenote from Sweetbest to her younger daughter on a bit of paper from a takeout joint in Pismo Beach that was left in a book she gave me.  Things that may be cast offs but beautiful.  A shred of tissue paper that Manda used to wrap a present, on it are the words “She has the gift of sight.”   Atop this pouch sits a tiny figurine of the Venus of Willendorf.  (Also a gift from Manda.) She was a on a keychain fob, but I released her from that so she could rule over my shelf thing.  (Or just sit there being pretty and relicky and royal in her art history.)

I made friends with Randus last year around March.  He may have been my first independent/new L.A. friend.  We had a long talk one afternoon that buoyed me for days.  I wrote about it.  Since then our camaraderie has developed.  I am honored to be his friend, I appreciate him at every turn.   

I asked him to give me a lift to an interview I had on Tuesday to which the public transpo was nearly intractable.  He spent the night before on my couch, because mornings aren’t his thing and we had to hit the road by 8.45a, (which is practically lunchtime to me and in the realm of “RUFKM?” to him).   I was asleep when he arrived, but I knew he was coming so I left the door unlocked, pillow and  blanket on the couch, and a note that said have a beer if you want, man, they’re in the fridge.   I woke for a minute or two around 3a and he was here and I was glad he made it and I mumbled something silly and went back to bed.

We chattered on the hour long drive there and back.  He reminds me that learning myself is not a one-shot thing.  He reminds me that keeping a good outlook is an undertaking in mindfulness, and mindfulness touches my whole life.  The easy way he and I get along reminds me that there are always wishes to manifest and while setbacks may come, they also ebb.   I appreciate his honesty with me, I appreciate his strength.   I am grateful for his company, I am touched he shares things with me.   

So I was eating an apple a moment ago, and I wandered over toward the shelves of the things I keep.  Housed here are nearly all of my possessions.  I think I was on my way outside but something caught my eye and then got my full attention because I did not know what it was.  I was alarmed.

A tiny piece of paper, 2×3 inches and it’s not blank, but I can’t see very well, and I know it’s not mine, and I didn’t put it there and I’m suddenly concerned and curious.  I took up this foreign, interloping scrap.

I made no sense;  comprehension escaped me.  I stood holding my apple, regarding.  Suddenly, I acquired focus.  With alacrity, the whole thing sharpened and I saw it all.  My breath caught.  I turned the leaf and the meaning of it occurred to me in that blink and I instinctively sunk to my knees.  The overwhelm took away my balance.  I couldn’t stand.

From Randus

This was me.  These words is how he sees me.   I’m still teary and stunned.  I think of all the ways people in my life reach me, how I am so lucky and profoundly thankful for everybody.  I haven’t considered with any weight that I might be touching others.  That need for recognition/approval isn’t on my mind.  It doesn’t motivate me, you know?  I don’t feel like I have to say to anyone: “and you think I’m lovely, too, right?!”   I used to exist entirely in abject desperation that I was of any small import to anyone at all, “please someone, someone tell me I’m cute/sexy/funny/smart/anything.  Please someone say you see me.”   

But somewhere in the last year it went away.  If I feel now like I am not seen, I go out and meet people, or visit Sheddy’s and say hi to the kids there, or descend upon Tiomio.   I take it upon myself to do something about feeling invisible. The “pleasepleasetellmeIamsomeone” thing faded.  I giggle over beers or coffee with whomever and stumble home, and I don’t think as I walk, “I wonder if they’re saying nice things about me now.”  I got over it.  Sure, everyone likes attention, and sure, I like that the people I meet seem to think I’m cool enough to chatter with for a while.  And I don’t think I give off an aura of IDGAF, because I like pretty much everybody with whom I spend time.  Because I don’t care to surround myself with anything otherwise.  I enjoy you.

It just might be the case that everybody I like feels mutually.  And that isn’t so bad at all.

Thank you, Randy.
Thank you, Everybody.

Yours,
h

A glimmer of my own

My then-husband took it hard the first time I miscarried.   I was 21 years old.   Pregnancy had been entirely unplanned, I was in school, he was a freshly-certified teacher.   I really wanted someone to hand me a chocolate bar, a handful of ibuprofen and make it so I could sleep for a week; to have some semblance of comfort.

At that point in my life, I was a busy Christian.  Sunday church services (two morning, one evening, lunch in the middle), mid-week groups, choirs, bible studies, volunteering.  The times I wasn’t working or in class were booked up solid with Jesus.  Or, something.

Oddly, being a Christian (which I said I was from ages 14-22)  never made a dent in my understanding that abortion should be available to women.  (I was raised by a liberal woman).  I felt profoundly confused, and do to this day, at Christians who are so loud and illogical about their disgust with abortion, taking the mantle of “pro-life,” when they are also totally a-ok, yep, fine, sure, with the death penalty, and spew empty parrot rhetoric like, “a fetus is innocent.”  They don’t call themselves “pro-innocence.”    They say “life.”   And, why is one life better, please?  In those books they read, where does it say that anybody has the right to determine a person’s worth?  It doesn’t, I don’t think.  I think it says, “do not judge lest ye be judged.”

When I said that my husband at the time took my miscarriage hard, I mean he blamed me for it occurring.  I had some part in “killing [his] kid.”

The words had barely settled on the rug between us when I determined with the ferocity of the ocean that  I would never have a child with this man.

A fetus is not a child until it is born.

Despite my attempts at birth control, I became pregnant.  I’ve had two abortions.  One of these I underwent with a group of women who accepted me into their midst for a long weekend, wrapping me in their wisdom and soft arms.  They chanted around me and massaged me, fed me teas and herbs and bark to chew, and encouraged me to meditate upon beautiful words and ideas.  I listened to their stories, their lovely songs.  It was a place warm with love and good food, and a time I spent considering my life.  If I had a child at that point, that child would have no good life.  I was not through school, my marriage was rocky, my sense of self was everywhere but with me.   I knew I did not want to be a mother and I did not want to share parenting with a person who said I had been at fault for miscarrying.
That Sunday morning it happened without trauma, sickness, or agony.  I wasn’t even sure if it really was what I thought it may be. I gained some tiny sense of what it was to be in control of my body, of my life.  In an ancient ritual and embraced by those strong and beautiful women, I did not have to brave clinics, or protests, or anaesthesia, or aftermath.

I mean that: ancient.  Women possessing their own bodies is not a new concept, and the idea that those people who have penises should have any say in what happens to a woman’s own body is a bit logic-bending.    At no point will a male have to choose whether to carry a fetus to term or to terminate a pregnancy.  I can say this with ultimate confidence.  I can barely stand to listen to a male anti-choice point of view, not just because they are generally soaking in stupidity and rife with bullshit about how babies are unspoilt or whatever, but because the logic never makes it across the divide.  If a man does not have to choose, why is he against it?  His precious morals are of no fucking consequence.   None.

Choice is not about forcing abortions.  If you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one.

Choice is not about killing.  It’s about living.

 

Virginia Woolfe and my damnable pedestrian pride

I had a bizarre and disturbing dream.  I was crossing a street and was hit by a car. I became paralyzed and couldn’t walk any longer.

I woke hyperventilating and crying.

It occurs to me that I’m quite proud of being as ambulatory as I am.  The follow up consideration is that I’d like to get rid of that.  Not the ambulatory bit, the pride.

Of late, I have been aware of how very little I actually need.   Four months into unemployment, I have pared down a weekly ledger that usually exceeded $400 to one that is routinely less than $100.  I eat and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes.  I keep trying to quit smoking.  It doesn’t work.  Friday, I splurged on a jacket and a dress and that totaled around $12.  Not big bucks, I don’t think, however you dice it.  I was at the market later and tried to think of something special to get,  to celebrate, but I wandered the aisles and checked out, having saved almost twice what I spent.  I tried to talk myself into something chocolate, or a can of almonds or fancy mustard.  I wasn’t depressed, I just couldn’t find a reason past buying things for the sake of buying.

I want to work. I want super a lot to work.  I miss working.  As calm and un-bothered as my schedule is, I am ill-at-ease.  I have the hardest fucking time concentrating.  I haven’t written much of substance in weeks, though I keep planning to do it, my plans dissipate.  I don’t lack ideas, I am amassing an embarrassing amount of notes that would mean sfa to anyone else, but they are not finishing shit.  It’s not only about lacking creation.  Without creating anything, my confidence as an author is going to hell.  Am I a writer?  It’s said that if you write, you’re a writer.  Stalling is frustrating that identification.  I understand Virginia Woolfe’s  assertion that a woman needs a room of her own and a bit of spending money.  I grok that so hard.   I don’t need nearly anything.   Where do I apply for the job where someone says, “here’s your rent paid and wine and meat and coffee and  Camel 99s; here’s fifty bucks to blow every week at Sheddy’s;  here’s a bus pass for a month. Write some good shit.”  Where is this job?  

So, that’s a long way around to say I’d like to disabuse myself of the notion that I need my legs.  Maybe better put this way:  I would like to learn how to accept, with a modicum of grace, that if I even if I couldn’t use my legs, I’d still be O.K.

In which the author admits to how completely she misunderstands the American way

I have been out of work for nearly 3 months.  I had a contract with the loss prevention (LP) department at the headquarters of a niche retailer.  And then I took a contract that turned out to be a scam: on payday I woke up to check my bank account and it had been wiped out, demolished, overdrawn.  The company to which I contracted was non-existent and offshore.  All the email addresses of all the contacts I had were now invalid.  Of course unemployment was denied because I left my previous contract a week early.  (Take that RTW.)

I had attempted to keep a healthy distance between my own perspective on crime and those of the employees in LP.  Because I was contract, I could get away with this to some extent, but daily I got more disgusted with the whole concept.  First, I don’t have any principled issues with theft.  I don’t commit theft, but I don’t see all theft as necessarily bad.  Second (and a bigger problem), the managers and representatives in the LP dept were perched so high up on moral horses but were profligate liars.  Everything was false: from how well they were doing on their diets to how I should fuck about with figures in analyses, it was all facade.  The director denied how disabling was her back pain so she could keep working, the analyst pretended she didn’t mind not being the boss, the manager faked caring about anyone but himself, the coordinator was jealous of everyone.  The whole purpose of the department was to ensure that The Business could make more money by “preventing” theft and grift and prosecuting “bad people.”  And to do this, mostly, they avoided telling the truth.  It was so twisted.  When I was offered another job, I vacated the last week of the LP dept contract without much communication.  I fled towards anything else.

You see, I have no fondness for corporate mostly, and very little understanding of what the fuck good is capitalism.  I don’t care at all for the consumption culture.  I don’t get it.  It’s a weird problem for an American.

But I love the City.  After living in rural areas and a city with fewer than a million residents, I’m easier and more myself in L.A.  I know L.A. is not a cheap place to live.  I know I do not subscribe to a popular ideal.  I am trying to hammer this out.

I am terrible with money, as good as I am at logic and math.  I don’t understand it at all.  I budget to the dime and I lose tens of dollars to things I can’t recall.  (I gave away a healthy bit of my paycheques.)   I once visited a banker on my lunch hour and asked with the sincerity of a novitiate for advice on how to save.  He said, “put a picture of something big and expensive you want in your wallet, or on your bank card.  Every time you go to pay for something else, you’ll be reminded that you need to save for that bigger thing.”  I didn’t have anything “big” I wanted.  ”A nice TV?  A new car?”  No, nope.  I made up that I wanted to travel, but that’s not totally on the radar.

Really, I want to give it away.  Right now I want to make money so I can send it to the Moth and to Much and to Ipso and pay artists to be artists.  I want to pay for my rent and bills and get groceries and spend all my free time writing and fucking and laughing.  Seeing the sunset.  Drinking coffee and wine and smoking cigarettes.  But I have to figure out how to mortally wound this looming loathing I have for corporate.  Otherwise, I remain an unemployed beneficiary of other peoples’ good wills.

I avoid supermarkets.  I go to a local poulter, a local butcher, farmers markets, a sole-proprietorship tobacconist.  I bite my tongue and fingers when I enter a chain market to get coconut oil and butter.  I have made friends at the nearby Starbucks, admittedly, and I pay for coffees there a few times a week , though I can appreciate the sensibilities of that corporation.  (And I know them from having worked there for years.)  My clothes are all second hand, from charity thrift shops. (I guess not my socks and shoes, but these are usually from discount warehouse type places.  Generally, I just suck at retail.)

Please let me point this out in case it isn’t clear: I am not saying any of this to proselytize.  You can do whateverthefuck you want with your money.  It’s yours.  This is my own shit.  I do not carry any aconsumerism/acorporate(ism) torch to win souls to my side.   This is how I do my life, and I am aware it’s mine to figure out.  If you feel like I’m trying to convince you to do it my way, you’ve missed the point.  I am writing this to process.  I do not want to chase a paycheque for the sake of it, but at the same time I’m so confused as to any other way around this shit.  Lacking any poker face, I am uselessly honest in interviews.  ”I realize that business is business, and there’s a bottom line to tend, but nobody’s life is on the line.  It does no one any good and does nothing to serve the project if I lose my cool under pressure.”   Perhaps this is too casual for most employers.

I wish I could give a fuck.

Or I wish I could give up giving a fuck.

How do I do that?  Being penniless is bothersome because it’s tenuous.  When does goodwill run out?  I despair the dependency and I’m flirting dangerously with depression because I am so unsettled.  I want to work but how come it has to mean nothing?  The job market is not such that I can expect someone to give me a chance on a new career/job title, even with the skills I have and the intellect and creativity I possess  - there are too many candidates with finely precisely the skills required. I’m chained to the shit I know I can do, that I can say I’ve done, which of late is big corporate and is mired in ugliness.  ”How to make more money for people who have embarrassing amounts of money.”

I have the heart of a barterer, but I do not have the will of a bargainer.  I can barely see corporate wageslaving  as trade for my time.

Would it be too bold to say I miss sex work?  Fuck it, I don’t care.  Sex work is negotiated and upfront.  There was no bullshit, no licensing, no fucking litigation.   You want me for X many hours to do Y things for Z much money.  What about this for that?  Yeah? We good?  Awesome. Let’s do this.

I’d love to sum this up in a tidy conclusion that makes the previous 1100 words at all useful beyond a plaintive whingefest, but I’m still mixed up.  Though I’m somewhat less sour.  Of course the mellow might be because I’m sipping tea I got from a tiny shopkeeper who doubled the amount I requested (not charging me) with a wink and said, “feel better soon, come back and see me.”

And that I will.

 

In which the city of L.A. and most everyone in my life for the last 11 months becomes the “thee” in Sonnet 29

In my old life, I meditated extensively upon joy.  I had long since lost any grasp that I had any right to it. (I have written this somewhere, I don’t rightly recall if I posted it here, and I’m not diligent enough presently to search.)  This meditation was an exercise in self-loathing contortion to convince myself that joy was not in my constitution.  Bodily and spiritually, I was not made for that.  This may have been conditioned by criticism lobbed in my direction: “Just be better, why can’t you just be better?”  There was no act nor any rites I could perform to become better, or do better; that was nonsense and useless.

I daydreamed about living by myself, or would fondly remember my apartment from before:  the awful pink carpet, the  cork on the walls, the noise on the street at night.  Other things that aren’t romantic but were still driftwood to which I clung.  I didn’t think of it as wish-making.  It might have been something akin to regret, but regret meant I made a bad decision, regret means I didn’t do my life how I wanted, and other things that can sound like the whole thing was my fault.  It’s something in the middle, where I feel I might at least claim: “this isn’t at all what I thought it was going to be.”

There are apologists for C/NC, the same as anything controversial.   There are people I used to know who would gladly tell me there is no way I can construe my relationship as detrimental by design because at some point I consented to being in it. I should take responsibility for perceiving everything wrong. I should not at all feel badly done by because by consenting, I gave up that right.  In any other case this is called victim-blaming and is considered very poor form.  But these are people for whom C/NC is not a daily struggle to stay alive.

And that sounds like one  motherfucker of a dramabomb.

I’m not hyping this.  I usually wanted to die and when beset with serious panic or oppressive anxiety, that want-to-die turned into full-blown “how can I kill myself best”.

I tried prayers to who knows what and chants and aromatherapy and yoga and working a lot and not working at all and psychiatry and art and counseling and tarot and spell casting and slam poetry and sluttery.  I tried growing my hair long and using henna and wearing skirts and dresses and having long fingernails.  I tried homemaking and writing journals and gardening.  Some fellows in C/NC dynamics told me I should devote myself to acts of submission.  People suggested I address the person to whom I was married when I prayed.  To be more beautiful (yep), to speak softly, to take up a brand of femininity.  Don’t think about/for myself, but then totally and vehemently disavow that I was a doormat.  ”Suck it up, buttercup” was a favorite meme.  I whispered this over and over to myself; I stopped using first person possessives.  I had long discussions with other C/NC types about joy in suffering, that through prolonged agony I would be transformed and made into the very reflection of the person to whom I was married, my will aligned with his, and thereby attain some measure of  satisfaction (if he allowed me this).   People whispered to me that I was just so mind-fucked and how I ought to take pride in this.

Nothing soothed at length.  Nothing fully stopped my heart churning and my stomach aching.     There were moments of relief.  These never involved the person to whom I was married or his girlfriend, who had teamed up (ganged up?).   Shortly after we all got together as a polyfamily, his girlfriend revealed she was not really poly and not at all bisexual,  and made it plain that she rather I was not part of the tiny society she had made up with the person to whom I was married.  (This once included her threatening my life.  When I said how uneasy this made me, the person to whom I was married told me to shut the fuck up about that and get over it; that I should assign my concern to her well-being, because people with homicidal tendencies more often commit suicide.  I wish I was kidding.  I totally wish to all the best most beautiful sunsets that I made this up.)

I am nearing 11 months in L.A..  Ten in this apartment.  My shoebox utopia, where I write on the walls in chalk, and put up postcards and love notes with thumbtacks.  Where I burn incense and keep the place clean, and throw shit away that I don’t need, or opt not to buy shit in the first place.  Where my recycling to trash ratio is probably 7:1 and I have switched to cloth instead of toilet paper.  (I still keep TP for visitors.)  Where, un-criticized, I move towards zero-waste and embrace minimalism.  Where I eat in such a way that my body says thank you, and it never involves lying to myself about how american cheese is actually good nutrition, or that if I ate 2 lbs of mashed potatoes daily I would stop being depressed.  I never have to fake a migraine at the ER to get someone else recreational drugs.  Fuck, I never have to fake anything.

The last eleven months have not been all rainbows and puppies and silver-lined ease.  There has been despair and fuck-it-all, undeniably.

However, I don’t want to recite a litany of complaints to do with the last eleven months of my life.  Here’s why: when I consider the way things are, the way things have worked out, the people I know and the support I’ve been given from all over the world — I have nothing about which I might reasonably complain.

I do not daily want to die.  I do not spin for hours conceiving of how to commit suicide.

I no longer think of joy as someone else’s lot.  Joy is all wrapped around me, she becomes my aura.

Here’s a sonnet:

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,–and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings’.

Sonnet 29
William Shakespeare.