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Houston, we have a problem.

How am I not on a spaceship heading towards some other planet? This one is broken.

I do not want to use my little bit of power on the internet to make more stupid people more famous.
This is (to me) a sacred charge. My ability to be heard, is not taken lightly.

This, I can’t help. This girl is right up there with the girl who rambled on about dogs only being able to walk because we tell them to. And Kanye, and Kim.
We need us some internet police.
I don’t want to advocate mandatory sterilization, but can we remove a few warning labels and make Darwin happy. Please?

There has got to be a fucking reckoning.

This world won’t stand long. (Ruby Thewes Cold Mountain)

Not a Dr. Phil fan. He is nothing more than a less amusing long winded version of Captain Obvious.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=660364654092000&pnref=story

I see the irony that I am following suit on the thing he didn’t want to do either which is give this girl MORE attention. I don’t really want to give him more attention either. But come on.

May I add one tiny critique here? The words he used were too big, you could see them flying over her head and just hitting the wall.

There is a pendulum swinging, like a fucking wrecking ball. Way too far in all directions, smashing shit at random.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10155160319510247&pnref=story

You need to hear me all the way through here.

I advocate the equity of all people regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation.

Domestic violence, All violence is abhorrent to me.

Like Selina said ‘without one person making a stand black people would still be drinking from their own water fountains’.

I am going to lawyer up for Lucifer here, just for a second.

Are we, as women actually supporting one another? Not when this female advocator of abuse, or the girl who wrote the ‘homewrecker’ article are being threatened by other women. Not when the girl who defends getting beaten garnishes a million hits and the one pleading for help and change gets 700 shares.

What the fuck girls? Feminism is getting a bad rap because ya, a lot of it advocates hate.

WE’RE DOING IT WRONG.

Are we exhibiting any of the qualities that reflect the goddess principle?
Have we given men (or any of us) a period of adjustment as we have gone barreling ahead?

I don’t believe so and it hurts me on a deep level.

‘Why do you keep subjecting him to your swatches?’ (AHS)

We expect men to stand around holding our purses and paying the bills, picking out guest towels and be happy about it? Where is their outlet? When did we stop nurturing? When did they stop protecting?

Women are fumbling forward, holding each other down with this competitive jealousy shit and screaming “I am woman hear me roar” while turning a blind eye to men. They have needs too, throw pillows are not among them.

We have a lot of damage to undo, from the Bible to the cosmetics industry. Telling someone to kill themselves or ignoring pleas for help is NOT the way to go, there is already enough weight we need to shrug off.

The girl that sparked this article is just loudly (and oddly) being a poster girl for Battered Wife Syndrome. I cannot possibly be the only one who sees this. Somebody did this TO her. Someone can undo it. Obviously not Dr. Phil.

The suffrage movement was victorious approximately 100 years ago, give or take. Birth Control was introduced in the 60’s, prompting the sexual revolution. So 50ish years there. And we have existed as a species for 50 000 years. Drops in the bucket of time. Our advantage now? The World Wide Web and the ability to convey ideas and concepts at lightning speed. We are just in a really rough transitional phase.

This individuality we all want to have recognized, it’s universal.

The universe in me recognizes and honours the universe that resides in you.

I don’t have to agree with what you say, but I do defend everyone’s right to speak.

Both the women cited in this article deserve to be heard and helped.

Every prophet in her house.

I got stuck in Schrodinger’s relationship.
If I don’t see him, it can’t be over.

That is some seriously bad math.

Now I exist in the limbo that comes from unsolved equations.
Where is Good Will Hunting when I need him. Matt?

Neither Brad Pitt nor I really want to know what’s in the box.

Heart is hiding in her blanket fort, bearing her teeth every time she gets interrupted.
Logic dictates I grieve.

There are 5 stages of grief.
Depression.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Denial.
Acceptance.

I always forget depression.
Fuck, I forgot I was depressed, but I was, when this whole mess began. I had pneumonia too, I was a little distracted, dying and all.
Although hauntingly familiar, this was different somehow. I was divided into Dark and Light. Light me was rather rational, kept saying things like ‘this won’t last, we can do this’ (pompom shake), Dark me was kinda doomed, in her gloom. Spent 21 days in the Bell Jar, with all the boogers and crying jags, body aches amplified with the sickness. I think I slept through 5 of those days.

I spent 7 years fighting, or my whole life depending on how you look at it. I no longer anger quickly or at all. I never learned how to punch a wall without busting a knuckle, I have man hands now. A few temper tantrums here and there, mostly in the privacy of my own home, a few online. I just really don’t get mad anymore, and No that is not a challenge.

The denial part of the program just became truth. I can’t lie out loud, but in here…I am still the reigning Queen of Lies.

So I bargain.

I entertained these thoughts, and for the first time I saw them for what they were, entertaining.

“What did I do wrong?”

What parts of me can I let go of to make room for him?

The answer before? All.

The heels and pole were usually the first to go.

This interesting dance I used to do. Like a waltz, but this time I was leading.

1, 2, 3 No.

The companion of ‘what did I did wrong’, is ‘how do I fix it’?

I KNOW I can only change myself and 1, 2, 3 No.

I lost some weight.
It will come back or it won’t.
Not going to try to control it.

I smoke.
Not quitting.
I will forever smell like cigarettes and coffee or cigarettes and whiskey depending on where the sun is.

Can’t have babies.
Can’t help it.

I dress myself like Strawberry Shortcake meets Star from the Lost Boys.
Rings on my fingers and bells on my toes.
Already ditched 75% of my wardrobe the day I realized clothes are not happiness, and by saving my favorites for the perfect time, I never wore them.
Perfection occurs on ordinary days when you aren’t expecting it.

Wow, look at me avoiding the big one.

We need to add a sixth stage. PANIC.

I panicked.

Who the fuck is going to date me with my heart, guts and secrets splattered all over the internet?

Who the fuck is going to love me when they see the things I did?

I have no fucking idea.

But…

I can’t stop this, until I run out of things to say.
It’s going to be a while.
Writing is the only thing I have ever wanted to do and I have 20+ years of doing things wrong I want to get out, see if I can’t bring some comfort and joy, have my life mean something.

This blog will dry up eventually, I know this, or morph into something else, and I will sit down and write a romance novel, or take back vampires from the sparkle people.

I could negotiate a Denis Leary compromise and not talk about the person I am with. Worked for him and his wife. They are still married and he is a bigger asshole than I.

I am not mourning old me. I am dancing on her grave in a red dress, smoking a cigarette and swigging whiskey from the bottle.

I am no longer negotiable.
Liberating and terrifying.

I accept.

Nay, nay.
Not those ones.
Oh I would totally do that, I just forget to.
I even asked Young Un if I could snap one with him looking up at me from between my legs, of course he said yes, Scorpio. I just forgot.

Probably because we had just had sex.

I learned how to selfie last summer. I had no idea how people did that, with their phones.  And lo the Angel of the Lord said ‘let there be Instagram, and there were filters and it was good amen’.

I went a little overboard, One-a-Day, like vitamins.

Makes me feel good, why not.

Laying in Sunday’s bed, freshly fucked, both of us on our phones.
(We can turn on a dime from honeymoon to old and married. It’s pretty cute.)

I am throwing an X Pro II filter on a pic I took while he was in the shower. It was not dirty (out of context) no nip slip.

“Beautiful” he says, “send it to me”.

I acquiesced to his request, and I confessed, I had been doing it for a while now.

I love that lightness that comes from confession, and your secret gets you a smile.

“Show me.”

He knew
He had to have known.
He is both on my Instagram, and it is His skinny mirror.

He asked me, in the same conversation, if I had pictures of me on my Facebook page.
“Nothing recognizable really, why?”

“You are a good writer, you don’t need people paying attention to you for anything other than your words”.

His compliments are like those pictures you have to stare at and relax your eyes, then suddenly, a unicorn where before there were just pretty colors.

And now this. I am nothing if not a brat.

The first was an accident, looked left whilst retrieving my clothes and Viola. I had my phone in my hand. It’s a really good mirror. Then it became habit. Even when my legs were shaking too bad to get out of bed. It wasn’t the mirror making my lips fuller, my cheeks flushed, my hair cascade in a Lana del Rey-esque waterfall over the pillow, or my eyes sparkling like someone hid diamonds in there.

It’s the sex.

Makes me glow like one of those plastic ceiling stars if you left it ON the sun for about an hour.

It’s how I charge.

I spent a chunk of change on face cream and cleansers yesterday. Caught myself chuckling as I put it all away, “I don’t need this, I need to get laid”.
Joan Crawford said “I need sex for a clear complexion, but I would rather do it for love”. I chose to take the quote in whatever context suits me, verbatim is just fine.

I have always loved sex.

Absolute death sentence for a pretty girl growing up in a tiny town. I moved to get away from my reputation, but she and shame ended up in my luggage, been carrying that around for years.
Not now.

I picked up that man mentality somewhere years ago. That adage about sex and pizza. Even if it’s bad*…it’s still pizza.

Except I don’t need pizza.
Sex I need, more than food, less than oxygen.

Like sunshine, summer and swimming. Just happier there.

I guess that makes me a succubus, except I leave them glowing too.

I mentioned in “Bringing Home the Gold” that he and I would get stopped a lot, out in public. I am starting to glean, it wasn’t his beard, or my tits. We were radiant, well fed.

The new one had me shining like the Stella Polaris.
I pride myself on not lying, came the closest in 1000 days out one night with him. Too many strangers saying too many things.
“This happens” I said, “sorry”.

Yes, people often ask me for directions, the time etc. but nothing like when I am with him.
I now know how my porch light feels when moths beating themselves against it.

*Sometimes it goes the other way too. (True Romance)
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Isaac Newton)

Stay tuned for tales my encounters with the soul sucking wallet draining incubi.

So this one time, I won the Cougar Olympics. The whole thing.
Okay, not just the one time, I won the Pan Am games too, but that is another tale along the riverbank.
23 days before I turned 40.
No wait. Back up.
4 months earlier…
I was quite literally trolling for casual sex on a friend’s Facebook list.
9 months, no rain and there was a storm comin’. I was looking for fall-out shelter.

Me “I want that one.”
T “Ughhhhh. He’s like 24”
Me “no no no ”
T “Yeah yeah yeah. Someone else…?
Me “nope, I just scrolled through his pic’s. I’m done”
Fishing expedition cancelled on account of a hurricane sized tantrum.
I was afraid I would chew him up and spit him out.
There are rules here. Leave EVERYONE better than you found them.
Therein lies the gold.
Especially with young un’s.
100 days later, his face forgotten, getting laid quite happily.
The Great Conjunction.
I was planning a trip to LA, had been flirting with a poet, asked him out for coffee and he got nasty.
St. Anthony messaged me on my way to see Sunday and fucking Young Un shows up in my inbox.
Ya. THAT one.
“He pulled a mind fuck on us and talked” (The Lost Boys). rather intelligently, for 4 fucking hours.
Ever been on one of those dates that you expect to go really badly, like you’re 40, you just got tattooed and you agreed to meet a  24 year old rock star and you figure he is just going to regale you with tales of beer pong and his band and your vagina is going to slam shut to keep out the drivel? Me neither.
6 hours later we were still talking, nachos barely touched. Him halfway through his 2nd beer. The girl who dates alcoholics takes note.
I actually forgot it was a date, that we weren’t just old friends catching up, until he walked me to my car, asked me if he could see me again and kissed me.
I looked him in the eye and said ‘Jesus, I am going to get shredded”
He said, ‘one of us is’.
I replied ‘probably me’.

The gods looked down and said “as you wish”. Twice.
I just deleted all of his messages, all 4000.
They painted a way different picture than what I chose to remember.

The first time we fucked, he came over for dinner. We were both all blushy, clumsy and shy. I turned the burners off, took a righteous swig of whiskey and said “why don’t we just fuck now and get it over with so we can enjoy dinner.”

We did. It set a lovely precedent.
Wherein I was both clever and in charge.

We were walking down Queen Street one sunny afternoon and people kept stopping us to say “you two are the most beautiful couple ever”.

Not just the once either, we were almost late for dinner.

That night I got overwhelmed by being around people for too long and he just let me lean on him until it was time to go home.

And that is when the insecure sabotage clinging began.

That safety I felt, well it could go away couldn’t it. That ain’t safe.
Fuck.
I was so busy being intimidated, I forgot how intimidating I am.
I got scared, so I scared him off.
Rightly so.

We had rules of engagement. I let him break all of mine. I didn’t have permission to break his, or him. I was the adult.
I reacted to not feeling good enough by spoiling him, quite literally rotten.
Even then he tried.

Before I pulled my sugar mama pants on over my sweet sweet ass, things were good.
I went to his shows, met his friends. We were out for breakfast he was talking about how his mom had adopted him just a few months after she had adopted a crack baby. My heart breaks with the things that break the heart of God. I cried into my benny. He practically leapt over the table to console me and didn’t let go of me for days after that.
He took me out, showed me off, bragged about me, his friends stood up for me for fuck sakes.

“Is that the Mike’s stripper?”

“The stripper has a name, show some respect.”

Every time we fucked he looked like he had attained Nirvana.
He held my hand and opened doors, and fucked like a 24 year old rock star, go figure. I shoulda just let it be.

He said one morning all sleepy and adorable that he was ‘living the dream’.
Why the hell did I have to go and shake the baby.
Oh well.
Even on his way out he said “I HAVE to stay in your life, I have things to show you.”
He was right. For the first two months and the last 6 words.
Lessons learned. In absentia.

“I thought about what you said. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Then something occurred to me and I fell into a deep sleep and I haven’t thought about you since”. (Good Will Hunting)
You’re just a kid.
I’ll see him one day. He’ll wait for me to smile, and he will smile back.
After all, I left him better than I found him.

I had this idea, inspired by a woman coming forward via her Facebook page and posting 18 memes about her life. The hard parts. This.

Bruised But Not Broken. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bruised-But-Not-Broken/535561503197871)

I put off writing this. Something blue.

I tried 3 ways so far. This is the third. I wanted to do her bravery justice, write as eloquently as she does, make pain into something beautiful so it doesn’t hurt so bad. Like she does.

But I can only be me.

Every time I started to write, I felt a knife in my back, blood running down my legs. I felt what it was like to be trapped in the bathroom. I felt what it was like in the change room at work with a girl scrubbing blood off me with that scratchy brown paper towel while I did lines off the sink.

I felt the shame pricking like the needles at the hospital. I tasted that penny taste of anesthetic. The sinking feelings, the failure, nausea, all of it.

I don’t want to feel those things.

No one does. But, if you are a woman it’s a thing that happens sometimes. Maybe not the scratchy paper towels and the blow. But some version. 1 here, 6 gone, only 3 reported. Apparently only 30% of pregnancies make it to term, a lot less if you count the ones hidden, unknown. Numbers don’t bring comfort.

In Japan there are temples for children that never drew breath. Stillborn, miscarriage or aborted. Mizuko, the translation is ‘water babies’. There are statues and statutes for ceremony and mourning is acceptable.

I want that, a place to be where I can be sad, where I can catch a knowing glance from another woman in the same place for the same reason.

I open my mouth sometimes and the words come out, that my cervix is incompetent (who names these things), I am reproductively challenged, another woman will say, “me too”. Someone will seek me out because they heard about what happened. We talk. Those times feel like weight lifted. Like I don’t have to carry this guilt around like I couldn’t carry them. Like I am not a bad woman. That this happens, not exactly how it’s happened to me, but it does happen.

The rest of the time I am alone.

This woman I know and love, said to me ‘those babies came to rescue you, they left you because you were okay’. This is the only explanation that has ever brought me peace. She is right. I was in places I had to leave, something monumental had to happen to launch me out.

That court case I mention. I got pregnant and fired. I lost a wrongful dismissal case because I had chosen to abort, and not wanting to fight anymore, or EVER see the dude that knocked me up ever again. It was a beautiful place I worked at, but the people around me were toxic on a level I have never experienced before. But I had gotten used to it, like boiling a frog, slowly. I was the frog.

6 babies. To God, to the sky, to the Guf, wherever it is souls go when they leave.

I aborted the rapist’s too. Bullet dodged.

I had a miscarriage at a strip club, mid lap dance. I cannot (and would not) make this shit up. Saturday night, I had an appointment Monday, I was on my 5th day of doubles knowing I would be off work, boyfriend wasn’t working. Surprise.

Poor guy I was dancing for had khakis on and there was a LOT of blood. Another stripper was walking by, saw what happened and grabbed me, grabbed the money, got me upstairs. I have no idea what happened to him. Cocaine was her way of consoling me. Do what you can with what you have where you are (Theodore Roosevelt). I was back at work by Tuesday. We had to eat.

I had a miscarriage at Christmas, in my parent’s house. Didn’t know I was pregnant until I was hemorrhaging. Didn’t want to ruin Christmas, spent a LOT of time in the bathroom. My sister decided I was bulimic and I let her. I had major complications and had to drop out of college. I hated it, college I mean. More of an arrow dodged. He handled it better than any of them.

Another Christmas I was pregnant, in my 30’s, stable relationship, stable guy. My folks liked him. Went to say goodbye to my other sister at the airport. I felt like someone came up behind me and stabbed me. No one stabbed me. I lost that one slowly, over 3 weeks, hospital every other day, ‘baby is surviving but not thriving’. Over and over on a loop. I finally lost it, while at the hospital, small miracles. Immediately sank into a depression that lasted as long as the pregnancy would’ve. Lost my job because I couldn’t function. Fiancé, not so supportive. We broke up shortly after my due date. Another bullet dodged. He was a hitter, just not when I was pregnant.

July, woke up in a pool of blood. He didn’t know.

I knew a girl in high school, god, we were like 15 or 16. She got in a family way. Did the walk of shame down the hallways every day, belly getting bigger and bigger. She was shunned, it was awful. But she stayed strong. She went to Emerg. one night, full term, felt something was wrong. The shunning was not limited to high school. They sent her home. 48 hours later, her baby was stillborn.

I came by an acceptance way back then. Some things were just not meant to be no matter how hard you fight and how bad you want it. Her life was irrevocably changed, twice. There but by the grace of God.

Same goes for me. A rapist, a wife beater, a kid and 2 ‘pimps’ including he who threw me under the proverbial bus. I think I am alright where I am. My man-child watching car shows in the living room. He is gearing up to leave the nest this year.

I can see what my angel lady meant. Wish I knew her then.

So I am saying these words now.

You are not alone.

You didn’t fail.

Grieve, but keep living.

This is my temple.

Come in anytime.

sexloveandgrace@gmail.com

Once upon a time, I had a friend.

Neat huh?

We had our own little language. We would speak like ESL Polish Grandmothers.

She was Baby Who I was Mommy Who.

Say this with me, in a thick eastern European accent “whoo-cur”

Hooker, we called each other Hooker. Nicely.

I kept Hot Pockets in her freezer, next to the vodka. I had keys and kept a suitcase there too.

In said suitcase was … dun dun duh… THE VELOUR TRACKSUIT OF SADNESS.

Kinda like non-traveling pants, with more crying and sloth.

We were strippers, matchy match track suits are kinda like a uniform. This one had special powers.

Whomsoever weareth the tracksuit was the saddest girl of all and thereby choseth what we order for takeout and which episode of Sex and the City we watched and also gets to be drunker than the non-wearer. Years went by like this. This is how I spent my Saturn Return.

I met Baby Who shortly after St. Anthony, she was with me the whole time.
And I stayed with her A LOT.
You know, marriage falling apart and all, cheating husband to cheat on.

She and I had the depression. She was medicated, I was not.
She wore her damage like badges of honor.
I liked to shake it off and then do the bad thing again, and again, and again.

We were good and co-dependent, fo sho’.
We put the fun in dysfunctional and the ass in classy.

She is the one who dubbed my pathological truth bending/lying my “truthiness” and helped me conquer it.
She also wasn’t the only one who preferred me sad. I lost her, I miss her some days.

Or do I?

I think I miss that time and space to a degree. I had no responsibilities when I was with her. We went to work, got drunk made money came home and whined about it. I had no one to look after but me (and her, when me became tiresome), no wood to stack, no floods, just room to be me. And vodka, she always had the good vodka.

The pendulum swung, as it does. Way too far that way.

Co-dependence is bad mmmm kay?

I was thinking, ‘if I could go back’… seriously, I would just leave us alone, except to maybe make us go to work more. And I wouldn’t let her get irrevocable chocolate something on the tracksuit.

I still propose a change. 7 years in the same place doing the same thing. We held each other up but there was no forward momentum.

Now I use the power of the internet to check on my friends.
We pick each other up.
There is less passing around of the vodka and chocolate and more passing around of inspiration, wherever we may find it.

I was tripping towards the Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath) and someone tagged me in an article.
Changed everything (in the moment and for many moments after)

So I am going to leave this here.
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/11/ode-to-the-wild-woman/

Jada Pinkett-Smith wrote the following words and I find them to be gospel truth.
http://www.sinuousmag.com/2012/12/jada-pinket-smith-war-on-men/

I promised Jen I would leave this here so we could always find it
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/02/this-is-for-the-tough-days/

This (above) is my favorite arrangement of the 26 letters we have been given to use
and what I strive to be.

This, because this woman Sabrina Benaim, is beyond brave.
Depression is real and I have never gotten close to describing it the way she does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqu4ezLQEUA
And this. Because ‘the truth IS always the Anti-Venom’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndIJWhbH-4w

“Could you not see the consequences of treading in your doubt?
Hope is always the antidote’.
Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker
http://www.ussmusic.com/

In case I was unclear, the theme today is borrowed.

Only the intro is my original work.
All else is sourced, the best of my knowledge, with proper credit.

We all just want to be heard.

I was staring into space thinking “if I had a time machine I would go back to March 2014 and use the power of ‘I want that one’ and chose better. I got the initials right.”

Of course it’s #3.

7 days ago I got another, more tangible message in the form of an accidental text. It was an apology to some other girl done wrong by. It could have been for me, crazy summer and all.