i really try

to love life and people regardless of the shitty things that happen. i'm sitting by my window and wondering why i still long for a boy who misses me, apparently, but "only because of the touching" that he is bereft of now. i didn't realize how much that hurt until today, because i miss all sorts of aspects of him, not just our physical interactions. yeh, what the fuck. i thought i had worked through my wierd funk of post-breakup whatever, but i haven't, i'm still hurting lots over it, and all i really want is to be up and over all of this. i hate thinking that i'm more cut up than he is. I wanna yell- I DONT CARE ABOUT YOU ANYMORE! YEH, I JUST MISS THE TOUCHING TOO! YEH, WHATEVER! but i would be lying to him and me. i do care. i do want him. i'm a little sorry that i gave up. i want him to want me. i want him to come over and hold me while i cry about having to work two jobs to swing survival. i want him to be nice to me and counsel me well NOT ANYONE ELSE!!! even though i know that the other folks in my life can do just as good a job...

hmmph. i'm feeling pouty.

over a month has passed

and i've been hiding from myself a little bit
running driving going as fast and far as i could
and now you're across a continent & ocean and i would love to hear your voice... just a little bit, some sort of comfort and affection and we're both moving on and i don't want to be with you but i want to be around you
folding my socks this evening i realized just how much i miss you
i'm starting a school year without you, and i've never done that before, you've always been around, asking me how my day went, telling me how yours was, showering as i peeked in the curtain at your wet body and we would goof off and laugh at each other and you kissing me all wet

come home, maybe a little bit to me, i wonder still- could we be together and happy somehow? could i tone down and accept you and you commit politically & emotionally and then everything would be ok, we would be fine, right?

i don't always miss you like this. sometimes i ignore it.

it's a little fucked up

that i know deep inside that our love for each other started to wane about a year ago, we hung on because the memory of true love was burned into our most tender flesh
there was a time that i was so tolerant
of all the shit i can't stand now
that's why it all died
i never gave in to demands

our arguments are so different now
because i've shut doors
and as soon as we approach them
i shut it down, turn away
i don't wanna go over the same shit
over and over and over
in the same damn way

i just want it to end

today i feel

better. i pounded out the work i had to do at work, i pounded at the stairmaster at the gym, i pounded out a curriculum on direct action with L. we're awfully good at developing curriculi. i pounded that uselessness right out of me- no more, hit it with a hammer, it shatters, i feel powerful until it comes shattered back to my belly. no, work out, work hard, think about the future. no no no.

nonetheless. no mopey hanging about the house for me. maybe next week.

there is a friend i have who i think is back on a wagon i left a few years back, and it scares me a little. i hate that wagon (loveit) and have been running from it (watchingitpullaway) for so long.... it's so hard for me to handle this person's indulgence when i never let myself go there, if i even got close i would hit myself with much larger and pointy hammers than those that i use against my hopelessness. i will increase my distance from this situation. i have saved myself and thats all i can fucking do, damnit.

fuck

all of it. today i feel fat and ugly and lazy and i got an email back from jw that essentially said "you're second on my list to house in ny" and damned if i didnt feel put off and fucked up and there was some sort of wierd assumption that i wanted to sleep in his bed when all i wanted was hospitality... this is the second blow off i've gotten in nyc and i feel resourceless and unhappy about it... i'm just out of cycle with that city right now.

i have some strange pipe dream that in n.c. there will be a person that will make me feel loved and ok even though he has traditionally not done such a thing, in fact has a bruised and battered track record with me, but somehow i still idolize and love him and expect that every time i see him he will be open and loving and ready. sometimes he is not but there is a comforting sense of belonging when i am with him and mimi, a sense that i am now with my people and i don't have to try anymore that i can just be.

hmm. time to work now. enough of my selfsorrow bullshit.

it's been a little while

and i get the feeling that it doesn't matter. i don't get any feedback from you voyeurs anyway.

today has been a hard day. after getting the house approved for t and i, after running after housemates & setting it all up & getting the money together i'm burnt on it. i can't wait to move but i want it to happen while i look the other way- i want people to pick it all up around me and move my life, make it better and whole again because in confidence i must tell you i don't know just how whole i can be for you all anymore. i am broken in the middle and all i can think is that if i build my physical strength- my muscle, my body, my stamina- that maybe i'll be able to hold myself together, that maybe i can still hold some semblance of myself in order for those around me.

and it's days like this, where i do not move like i want to where i have messed myself up too much to be the STRONG looking person i want to be, days like this where i lay in bed in pain of one kind or another and shuffle about the house in my blue terry bathrobe that i feel that broken part of me, cutting me up inside my belly the belly i must make strong and fit to withstand this internal assault

but its these days that make me wonder if i can even do the minimum to stay ok

and i think about those i have loved and wonder who next will run their fingers through my hair and tell me that i am loved by them that i am so much that i am needed that i am beautiful and who next will walk with me down the street and hold my hand and look at me that way and think of me well and when i am not around wonder what i am doing and if i am happy

i want to be happy again, and sometimes i kind of think that i am i mean i know that i'm not happy but i feel strong and different and Audrey somehow, even though the loss still rings inside me like a dull bell a bell i never wanted to hear but tolls the return of my life

i will pack my things i will go and i will stand tall as i leave behind so much i have known

including you
yes you

i stayed home today

and cleaned, and hummed, and was happy and me and together somehow inside all day. hank called, and i have to admit to myself that part of me is still so in love with him, i get so happy to hear his voice and when i think about his stubbly cheek rubbing on my smooth one something aches in my belly, back toward my spine. he called and sounded wistful and the minute i began to he got all hard- that's what's been happening, as soon as i show some inkling of regret he hardens up- but if i'm hard and tough he's soft and touchy and all "so how are you" "i miss you" "oh i love you so much" "what can i do to end sexism" oh god if i'm not fucking exhausted of that conversation. he's getting better, but it seems such slow going- i'm banging my head against a cinderblock wall and i'm bleeding you can see my brain through my scalp and skull and finally the blocks begin to crumble and dust but will i survive to see the end of all this

it's true, he was right, i do feel hopeless, i am convinced that i will never be able to interact with men in the same way, and i won't. it's true. i will never be that woman again, and i feel as though i need to grieve. i've lost so many people- so many bio males who decided that i was too hard to be around. i remember trying to lighten the blows with lots of encouragement and compliments but they hate me nonetheless. not all of them, but somehow i believe that as soon as they get a load of THIS they will run run run, fast and far and maybe send me a friendster from their new home in Jersey.

but in the end j is right again. i give thanks for my diverse community- and white men are a part of that. i love hank, it's true, and i believe in his change. it's been hard, but i've been through harder and much more hopeless situations. mmm, maybe a meth addiction? maybe poverty? yeh yeh, i have a roof over my head and a strong network of friends and i have fabulous skills that i can get money for and i complain about dude's behavior.

oh, yeh- I now decide to no longer attack men, but to attack their role. what does that mean for me? lots of great things, i think. i need to find a more sustainable way to negotiate male defensive stuff- and perhaps that can be through identifying them separate from their role and then going at the role. now, how exactly to do that...

i'm back

after a very trying week. family reunions, especially ones with aunts and uncles burdened with the histories thrust on them like the ones my dead dead grandfather perpetuated, are exhausting. my grandfather wasn't an evil man exaclty; he was a man, conditioned into a violent and isolating role, furthered by his involvement in the military, where he stormed the beach at Normandy
crawled over the bodies of his dead friends
his jaw blown off

he returned to the states a different person, now an irishman taken to his hereditary lust- alcohol. it drove him to all sorts of lengths, abusive lengths, a diverse abusive. let's not ennumerate. my mother, one of ten children, suffered at his drunken, angry hand.

wouldn't you be mad if your jaw was blown off? i'm not sure that qualifies destroying the lives of your ten children. and your wife.

he's dead. may he have found peace.

nonetheless, there are plenty of living people to gawk at as they play out the damage the dead have caused. my uncle, for instance, is scared shitless of love. and of being out of control. and of powerful women. he noticed my mother had some power- ok, so she was being a little ridiculous at some points, but she organized the whole damn thing- and he began to systematically attack her. she cried over and over but did not let down. i was proud of her. it was over a PHOTOGRAPHY session, for fucks sake, it was NOTHING- but he couldn't stand not having the power. couldn't let his little sister have photos taken of their elderly parents (my grandma remarried). he FLIPPED HER OFF in front of everyone. So, i pulled out the big guns...

and hit him where it hurts. he hates my father with a passion; i told him he was just like my dad, and that he was the reason Mama married Papa. he looked at me like he was gonna smack me and told me to be quiet. i love being able to get someone like that- you don't make my mama cry and not pay.

i love him though, and apologized later, he seemed to have almost more problem with my compassion than with my anger. i have pity for him- he feels so unloved, unloveable, unhappy.

I, on the other hand, am feeling a whole lot better about my life. i'm getting great support and feel as though my male centric behavior patterns are shifting... it feels good after a good two weeks of deep depression. yeh. fuck that. i'm still sad, but it's a happy sort of sad.

there is so much here

that i am afraid to know. i don't want to know that things that my mother has to tell me.

oh well oh my god

some things are much too crazy. my mother, at this moment, is puking off the side of my house, drunk after a long night of double irish coffees. i told you i was irish. deeply.

she told me many things about my father tonight- many things that hurt to hear. i love my papa more deeply than any of you can ever imagine- i would, in fact, kill you if you ever threatened him. really. tear your throat out and kill you.

tell you more tomorrow....

my mother

flies into town today. she is planning on moving here- i think, which is like a breathtaking blow to the chest as well as an exciting thing. When i was small my mother and I had a great relationship- she was always there, even if sometimes she was nearly *terminally* depressed, she would lock herself in her room all day with the blinds drawn, crying, and my little brother and i would microwave corn from the freezer so that we could all eat. i think my earliest memory of that was when i was five, and my brother was three.

nonetheless, she tried. she had me too young. mama never had a life- first it was taken from her by her incestuous, physically abusive veteran alcoholic father, then by my coke addicted, physically abusive draft dodger alcoholic father. men running, and somehow finding safety in my mother- where she was never safe. i'm so sorry, mama. she had me when she was 22. i'm 24 now, and i can't imagine living her life- married, two kids with a man more than ten years older than herself. a suprise pregnancy (me) that jerked her right out of college, where she had a 4.0. my mama is a smart woman. patriarchy was stacked against her.

i have it a little easier, i think, though conciousness of our oppressive society is perhaps a heavier weight. i don't know. it's hard to watch myself play things out, over and over, almost like i hover above my body doing these unhealthy, self-oppressive things and tsk tsk tsk. I am unhappy that hank and i didnt find a better way to deal with our relationship, and i have to say that I'm almost sorry we didn't break up earlier. i would have liked to be more emotionally healed before otis and i started doing whatever we were doing- we fell for each other quickly, and i transferred all my "shit" from hank to otis, almost purposefully. and therefore destroyed something, that perhaps, would have been really fucking cool. we just get along so well, and have so many corresponding interests and analysis- i feel like i went down the "psycho woman" path, but i know that that thinking i am also just playing out some shitty self-oppression. i'm not crazy- i just come from some fucked up shit.

what do i want? space. i want me back, i want myself to be fully in my power and prepared to function independently and powerfully in every area of my life. i want to distance myself from folks that can't hear me. no more silencing.

consistently

i am happy with my friend j. i have to say, though, that tonite i was feeling a little over stimulated by the scene- happy dykes/bi wymn, hanging out, loving on each other, together, talking about vibrators and dildos and sex, and damned if i didn't wanna just get down right then and there, tear clothes off and drown myself in breasts and sweat and sighs and beautiful, beautiful pussy.

i have to be careful. i can't decide to not oversexualize my relationships with men and turn around to do that with my friends, my network, my support beams, my team. i love the women in my life, in so many ways- and it's true, that sometimes i love to kiss them, hold their bodies close to mine, make crazy love, but that is only a small part of a larger, wholistic and lovely relationship.

i love you all so much. may we never part.

i was contemplating

creating another blog for this material, but after conversation with my housemates i have decided to include it here. regardless of my current decisions to 1) not relate with people (specifically men) based on sex/sexuality/manipulating sexism and 2) to not date anyone until January, i am motherfucking horny and I love sex as a form of expression and relating. I have committed myself to not giving in to the sexual repression replete in society- the repression that dictates our rape culture. I love to talk about sex, i love to have sex, i love sex- i love, even more, getting people's deep dark thoughts about sex out of them. it's too bad i can't be a good lover to otis right now- we had fabulous sexual possibility.

current sexual fantasy:
blindfolded. gagged. cuffs on both wrists; the cuffs are attached to each other behind my back. occasionally in my thoughts there is a black thong, garter belt & thigh highs, sometimes i am bareskinned. the male is indeterminate; sometimes he is a recent lover, sometimes he is one long past. always he is dominant, and nearly faceless.
i am on my back. he pulls me up to his kneeling form by my hair or neck; he puts his dick in my mouth carefully, slowly moving himself in as much as he can, pulling me on to him. i lick the vein lining the length of his cock with my tongue, savoring the taste of his sweat.
he pushes me off of him and flips me over roughly, taking me from behind forcefully, hitting my upturned ass hard with his hand as a I groan into my gag. he uses my cuffed hands as a handle to pull me harder onto his long, hard cock. i groan louder as my pussy drips onto my sheets.
He pulls out and i whine; i want him back inside. he shushes me, pushing my face into the pillow carefully he kisses my back and starts rubbing my asshole with his well-lubricated finger. His condomed dick rests momentarily at the gate of my ass; he starts pushing slowly in...

ok. ack. that turned more into softcore than i wanted it too... but i am reluctant to edit it. oh well.

its still tuesday

and damned if i'm not sad. someone mentioned otis, and my housemates started looking at pictures full of him & me, and i started remembering his face... the way his lips sloped carefully into his pretty, stubbly face... his dynamic nose that seemed to rise above his face like a dolphin dorsal over the oceans surface.

i am too much. i am too demanding and uncouth, i am defensive and tired. i am tired of constantly having (or feeling like i have) to call people on their shit, in order to be taken seriously. I just wasn't prepared to do it on my vacation. and i'm sorry. perhaps i was (am) a little burned out. and i let it get the better of me. do i constantly have to fight? I have had to fight for my life, and i'm tired of it. honestly. can i get a break? i'm tired of men, i'm tired of fighting them in this sexist society, i'm tired of being on my toes constantly. i'm tired of being tired.

i want more equanimity. i resolve to find some.

it's tuesday

and all i did today was hit the river. it was great. i love my friends- i have worked hard to build a positive and transformative community here, and its fucking working. yay.

i have decided to interact with males based on our shared humanity, not the possiblity of sex. mmm. gonna be super hard, i think, for all the reasons i listed below.

ok so

i'm a little obsessed now. i've gone into a writing mode. i get crazy about writing when i'm distraught, i can't seem to stop, one day i wrote ten pages of single spaced autobiography. it is that very piece of work that I am so proud of that might have made a certain someone- lets call him Otis- a little scared of little old me. i gave him my sixteen page autobiography and asked him to read it, he didnt for a very long time. when he finally did he said nothing to me about it. ever.

the autobiography is full of me. it's supposed to be, is what you're thinking, i know that- but this was full of me in a way that most things and people have never experienced. i am a recovering meth addict, i don't look it or act it at all, but i am and this piece was full of it. of rock and crack pipes and going down on drug dealers and survival and my childhood and father and death and poverty and everything that i am, just laid out neatly for a reader to dicover, and i have a feeling that he did not want to know all this about me. my past is unpleasant. i am not ashamed.

i am sad, though, that all this history adds up to one big trouble of me. i am not an easy woman to be with, and i told otis as much- there are lots of reasons he doesn't want to "be romantic", i'm sure, probably my autobiography was a small part of a big pie. i just broke up with my partner of two years, lets call him Hank. he's probably the biggest part. Not him in particular, otis and hank are friends in fact, but the fallout of me post-breakup and my subconcious and not-so-subconcious desperation were probably also factors.

hmm. desperation.

which is where we come back to the sum of my histories. desperation. what else do i know? for as long as i remember, i have been locked out of love- my mother would throw us outside and throw the locks shut when we were kids, couldn't come in to pee, my parents were so desperate for love from each other us kids sometimes stood outside looking in and when they couldn't love each other anymore they had a hard time loving us fully- for all sorts of reasons. work. bills. losing everything.

my life has been full of desperation. when my mom left i was all alone with my brother and dad and my father started worrying about my basic survival, he showed it in funny ways, saying things like "use your womanly wiles to get what you want"-the essence of his message. i quickly internalized this, understanding that i, most likely, would not be able to make my living doing construction like my hero father. i would have to find another way to get by.

hmm

riding home tonite i wondered where all of my neediness has gotten me, where i have ended up, what deep and fucked up hole patriarchy has dug me that i throw dirt down on myself over and over again. sexism has made it so that i effectively destroy my relationships with men in all sorts of insidious ways.

I have a terrible confession that makes me sick to my stomach, it turns me over in my bed late at night when i should be sleeping soundly. I turn everything into sex. I do it so that I can get what i want and need. If i turn it into sex, then men give me attention and resources. in fact, this little mechanism of mine has been very helpful in many different ways, in fact it has gotten me some basic resources over and over and over... like food, money, housing. I have been forced to use parts of my body as lures to men with resources I need, here's some titties, can i have dinner? heres some ass, can i have that apartment? great. thanks.

i feel out of control and overwhelmed and damned if i'm gonna let this happen to me again. i refuse to lock myself in the boxes society loves to put me in, i have been imprisoning myself, making masters out of men. no more. i wonder what i'll lose in the process, but it can't be worse than the humanity i've lost in the making of me as piece of love for men's needs.

i think im beautiful but can't believe it unless men think it too. i want to reach out and love people based on our shared humanity, not because i want them to help me feel better or more or less sad or more happy or less lonely or anything else. it never works.

to some very specific men out there: i'm sorry that i needed you to be everything that my dad couldnt. i'm sorry that i blamed you for my unhappiness. ok, so sometimes you could be overtly sexist assholes, but damned if i'm gonna blame you for my unhappiness anymore.

only i can be responsible for my happiness.

i'm giving you the finger...