Well, it's quittin' time, guess I'll laser off your nards tomorrow.

I fucking finished school yesterday.

31 days off and then forever to go.

How did I spend my first day of freedom? Playing motherfuckin' Skyrim. I'm still cheesed I never got to beat the game myself. I didn't see a point after watching Allen and Dan beat it while I was relegated to picking locks for those two shitheads. But enough time has gone by where I have forgotten the bulk of the game, so I felt pretty confident in picking up. Derek doesn't have the time to play it, otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd be watching ANOTHER person beat the game instead of me.

I have to get cracking on studying for this stupid bullshit test, but uh, I also have to get cracking on finishing my website. I started redoing it a year ago, I paid someone to build it for me, and I have no delivered on my end of the bargain. Because I am a piece of shit.

Shoots this weekend just pile more work on my stupid, shitty shoulders, but uh...thems the brakes?

I also haven't worn a bra in three days, and I must say, free titties are the best titties.

Blow blow me out, I am so sad I don't know why

When I was with my daughter's dad, I was so unhappy with our relationship. I knew Chris was fucking around on me with his ex girlfriend, but I didn't quite know how relationship dynamics were supposed to work. He was my first serious relationship, and I had no fucking clue that it was acceptable to just vocalize that you were unhappy for any reason and walk away. I thought relationships were like court: I had to provide evidence of why I was unhappy, prove Chris was cheating, show that I wasn't being unreasonable. For some reason, I spent a lot of my life trying not to be "that girl", even though now, at 34, "that girl" is my fucking hero, and I long to be as true to my gut and my values as the "that girl" that so many women are desperate not to be. 

I tell myself it was because of the age gap. Chris is seven years older than me, just like my husband is, but at 17 (listen, I do not have the time to unpack how fucked up it is that a 24 year old man was fucking a 17 year old girl. Just....leave that bit alone), his age felt like it granted him more authority than me. So my way of voicing my displeasure and my sadness with him? It's glorious, really...I wrote in my journals and would leave them open for him to just innocently stumble upon. I did this for YEARS. Just pouring my stupid fucking heart out about the problems we had, and the problems I wish he would have fixed, and the things I wish he'd stop doing. I have no idea if he ever saw the journals, I have to imagine that he just laughed at them, if he did. Either way, our problems didn't resolve themselves. I DID get up the gumption to leave, though, and told him off all at once at 3 in the morning, right after he said we should get married. Which was fucking glorious, by the way. Letting loose years of pent up frustration and sadness and anger and hurt was cathartic as fuck. It didn't matter, and in the grand scheme of things, I think Chris wins. I still think about him often. Not fondly, I hate his fucking guts, and of all the people in the wide wide world, he's the only person I would risk jail time to physically assault. And in a manner of speaking, I'm still leaving open journals for him to find, though I doubt very much that I cross his mind at all. Which almost makes me hate him more, but I think I'm at full capacity on that front. It doesn't even matter if he knows how virulently I fucking despise him, he has Rhyann, and the ability to spin whatever narrative he wants to about me to her, or to erase me completely. I'm not quite sure which version is worse. 

I didn't have to leave journals around for Allen. Allen and I didn't last, obvs but I think, for the first few years, we had the best relationship I've ever had. Our relationship was fair, neither of us was any better than the other, and our problems, while not great, were tackled together rather than us butting up against one another. I wrote Allen love notes, instead. I left those everywhere he'd find them. I hid them in his wallet, I posted them on the mirrors in the house, I'd leave them as bookmarks in his books so he'd find them when he opened them. I did this a lot. I'd make him dumb little drawings with silly love notes over the years we were together and happy. Even when our relationship went sour, I was never afraid to tell Allen I was unhappy. The only thing I was ever afraid to tell Allen was when I started seeing other people, even though we were no longer together. I don't know why I felt guilty about that, it's not like he didn't know. It wasn't even fear, and he went on to be my biggest fucking ally when it came to vetting dudes. Men would come pick me up for a date at the house, and he'd come and get me and be like, yeah, you'll fuck that dude and never talk to him again, or he'd come in and laugh and tell me that I would never put anything of mine near that guy's penis. When I started seeing David, Allen signed on to him IMMEDIATELY. With good reason. David was incredible. I chose way wrong, and I should have kept seeing him instead of cutting him loose for Dan (sometimes I think that, if I had cut Dan loose instead of David, I would have married him, and we'd be stupidly fucking happy together. David was that kind of unicorn, and you can pry that fantasy from my cold, dead fingers). Allen and I have kind of a strained relationship now, which sucks, but I still think of him like my big brother, and I think I will always credit him for showing me what a healthy relationship should be like. He was kind to me, he was fair to me, he loved me well. I loved him the same way, until the end of our relationship. Shit went south FAST. I was unhappy, I told him, he didn't fix it, I didn't want to do all the work, and when Valentine's Day came and went with nothing from Allen, I went up to FoCo, slept with Matty, and came home and broke up with Allen the next day. I'm widgy on whether or not that counts as cheating, but it doesn't much matter now. 

I picked up journaling again when I was with Dan. I chronicled all of our problems, all the time. I have three handwritten diaries full of sadness and anger and hatred. It is a testament to both how much I loved Dan and also what a fucking pussy of a pushover I was to see the shit I pushed through just to be with someone who, as a whole, treated me like a pet. Allen and I would talk about Dan and he'd be like, dude, you can do better, just fucking bounce. And I'd come so fucking close to it, and then I'd back down, and I'd go write about it in my journal instead. I wasn't leaving these ones around for Dan to read, though. I think I brought my journal with me like, four times to Dan's, and I wrote about how hateful he was and how much I despised him and myself for continuing and enabling his bullshit behavior toward me, but my intention wasn't for him to like, peek over my shoulder and see what I was writing and be like HEY, WHAT THE FUCK? Or in the hopes that he'd get nosy and read them for himself. They were only for me. And then, when I switched to blogging, I had two hidden blogs that I honestly and truly set up thinking Dan couldn't find them. I didn't want him to. I wanted to be able to be honest about how sad he made me without having to worry about how it would make him feel if he saw it (and honestly, fucking gag meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, his reaction to my feelings shouldn't have mattered. Because fuck him, that's why), so I separated them from the blog I knew he read, I thought I made them private. When Dan called me to say he found them and realized he hadn't been a very good person to me, the 17 year old in me that had hoped for that reaction from Chris was fucking THRILLED. The 29 year old in me was furious and embarrassed, and that's the version that won out. I whole-heartedly agreed with Dan, let him have it for about 30 minutes, and then went back into Huhot where Allen and I had been having a lovely buddy night out together in absolute hysterics, angry that I had gotten the attention I wanted when I was 17, but not the reaction. Dan's reaction to seeing all that wasn't to apologize and fix it, it was to stop talking to me because he was bad for me. I mean, he wasn't wrong, but what the fuck? Similarly to Chris, Dan wins for life. I still think about him quite often, as well. Not with hatred like Chris, but not with affection, either. It's more like confusion and still a little bit of hurt, but not for anything connected to feelings like love. I stopped loving Dan years and years ago. It just hurts to not get closure when I have to carry around so much Dan related baggage that I never got to really hash out with Dan like I did with Allen, or even like I did with Chris. I wanted to be friendly with Dan, and I still do, but it gets really old having to remind myself to not send him a birthday email every year, or to not send him a random email wishing him well and saying hello because they won't be met with friendliness, they'll be ignored. It is weird to have people you think about and wonder about a lot and to tell yourself to cut the shit, because they haven't given you a thought in years and years. It really is strange to think that I'm forgotten to people who still have so much rent-free living space in my head. 

I don't really keep handwritten journals about my husband. I don't have to. I tell Derek everything I'm pissed about, I tell Derek everything I'm happy about, I tell Derek when I think he's being a shady mother fucker, as he so often is. I don't hide blogs from Derek, I don't have to worry about him seeking my blogs out (I was touched that Dan read my blogs, though. My friends didn't even read my blogs. They still don't. It was like, the one nice thing he had on everybody that I've ever known), I can write about how much I fucking despise him, but rest assured anything I've written about him in here, negative or positive, I've said directly to his face before, or shortly after, I wrote about them. I tell him everything. 

But that doesn't make our relationship any better. I tell myself I've learned a lot about how to be good to myself in a relationship, and to see myself as important when I'm half of a whole (like I did with Allen) rather than seeing my other half as the only half that matters (like I did with Dan), but I haven't. I don't trust my husband at all. I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I spend the vast majority of my time holding my breath for the inevitable. It is far from my fault that I don't trust him, he has had his dalliances over the years, and he has earned my misgivings. I think I'm more sad in my marriage than I have been in any of my relationships, even though I'm more honest, and I refuse to not speak up about shit that bothers me. I read somewhere that sometimes, the best person for you is nobody, and I wonder if that's true for me. I don't think I'll ever trust Derek fully, or even close to fully. I am skeptical of most things he says, and his behavior that may be very normal to someone who trusts their spouse seem out of place and questionable to me, but I'm too exhausted by my own self-doubt to do anything about it. I don't think I'm good enough to find anybody better. I'm not pretty enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not thin enough, I'm not young enough. I'm not enough of a good anything to land someone better, and I think that's why I have just resigned myself to staying in a marriage that doesn't quite fulfill me emotionally. I love Derek very much, and we have a good enough time together, but it gets old being the only person that tries to put effort into making your relationship not boring, or trying to keep shit fun and not stuffy. I used to leave Derek love notes all the time. I'd tape them to the door so he wouldn't miss them on his way out of the house in the morning, or I'd put them in his underwear drawer so he'd see them first thing when he was getting dressed. I don't do it very much anymore, because part of me resents that I haven't ever gotten one back, and part of me just doesn't care enough to anymore. I feel like it's minimal effort season for the rest of my marriage. That's sad, but here I am. 

Everything's coming up Millhouse.

I have been churning out papers like mad, which is both a complaint, and a remark on how amazing at procrastination I am, given that I have had all semester to start these final papers, and I did not do that until the last possible minute.

Most of my classes are review classes this week, which I'd like to attend, but I would also like to finish the assignments I have due this week, chiefly the honker of a paper I have due on Wednesday, and my ten minute presentation I have due on Thursday. So rather than bike to school in the glorious weather, I'll be holed up inside, writing this paper like I have been all morning, and hoping I finish it today. Which isn't likely, as I cannot stop procrastinating long enough to write more than a few sentences at a time.

I am truly excited for this semester to end, though. Eleven more days, and I am free and clear for 31 days,  until it starts all over again, and when in the fucking journey do I stop wishing I were dead? It's so tiring to do school all the time, but I have shoots scheduled for after finals week, Stevie gets here the day I take my last final, and Derek is taking a two week long break after she leaves, and we'll get to reconnect, and really experience the island together, which we haven't gotten much of a chance to do.

I'm also looking forward to getting a better base tan. Check me out:

I am so much more tan than I would be if I were in Colorado or Texas. Texas was too hot to stay outside for more than fourteen seconds, and in Colorado, I ran at night and worked during the day, and when I wasn't working, I was hiding my body under hoodies and leggings while I ran around my haunts taking photos. I was always tan in Nevada and Florida because I was always swimming, and that's about how my skin is shaping up now. I'm about three weeks away from the leather bag look, and I'm so excited. I just told Stevie we have to become a deep brown while she's here, because this feels pale to me now. I recognize that I'm actually pretty tan, but it isn't enough, god dammit. I was always a gloriously brown little girl, and I want back at that. 

Also, it's time for a new tattoo. My design is going on my forearm , and Derek and I were talking about finding a way to appropriately get something symbolic to Hawaii that wouldn't make us look and feel like huge posers, and Stevie and I are talking about getting tattoos together while she's here, but that just doesn't feel like enough for me. 

I almost always smell like coconut oil now, because my SunBum smells like coconuts. I love Hawaii me. I love Hawaii. I feel so fucking lucky to live here. 

Except for these god damn papers I have to write. About Hawaii. I'd really rather not. 

A new scholastic problem

A source I used for my paper on Chinese tourists cited itself with a Chinese character. I...I don't know where to put it in my reference list.

FUCK NOW THERE ARE FOUR. How do I organize them???

Frankly, my dear, my sentiments would be far too time consuming to detail here and the movie has already been almost four hours long, so I guess I'll just say "I don't give a damn" and be done with it.

Listen, I'm not going to lie to you...I'm fucking done already. Also, I ramble a lot about nothing that matters, but I DO end this with two pictures of my butt, so...you're welcome, or I'm sorry.

I am exhausted with school, and I am exhausted with one of my professors, and I am exhausted by not being at the beach every single fucking moment of every single fucking day. It's not even gratifying to know that in five weeks I'll be done. I'm fucking done already NOW.

                   

Yes, my wall is purple. I love it. I hated it initially, but I've grown rather fond of it. I'm sure this looks like very little actual work, all things considered, but it's quite a bit. It's a fuckton of reading (that I'm actually doing this semester, because right before you get your degree is when you should buckle down and be a good student, right? Really earn that 3.8 GPA I'm so proud of), and a lot of coordinated effort with young ass students that need to be corralled by my old ass. Taking on five classes really isn't all that much, considering when I was going after my business degree, I was taking six (my second semester, the dean approved me for seven classes, and I think he did it because I walked in so confident I could handle all of it AND a full time job AND a kid AND a flourishing social life that he wanted to see if I was ACTUALLY capable of it. Joke was ultimately on me, and I dropped college algebra. I am fucking numbers stupid. That's why I'm going after a masters in psychology and not business. Too many numbers. No thank you), and at one point in the beginning of my psych path, I flirted with the idea of taking 8 classes JUST to be done faster. Five is a very reasonable number, and because my sole job is school right now (I haven't even touched photography except for funsies. I am too fucking busy), feeling over it might be a little bit whiny. But fuck it, I'm over it, and if that's whiny, I'm whiny.

I'm stuck at home today, unable to go work in the lo'i, and I'm pretty fucking disappointed about it. BUT it means I can put the finishing touches on my mini mid-term paper for my least favorite class that's due tomorrow. I sent my professor a huge email detailing my complaints, and she wants to meet with me about it tomorrow, so I'm putting together a more detailed list of complaints. I get really weird about rocking the boat sometimes. I really noticed it when I was with Dan. I would have a pretty fucking legitimate grievance, and then I'd talk myself into thinking I was wrong for having whatever thing bother me, and I would cement my feelings of wrongness by convincing myself that I'D be the asshole if I brought it up. I did this for a fucking LONG time with Dan. The whole of our relationship, really, and it's left me with a very complicated ball of needing understanding and closure in the pit of my stomach, and being absolutely haunted by pretty fucking consistent dreams about Dan. A lot of unresolved issues there that I could have curtailed if I  had had the spine to go through with telling him the first time he crossed my lines that he was being a needle dick, because I would have either dropped him/been dropped by him on the spot, or I would have maintained that momentum for the rest of our relationship and taken the piss out of him every single time he treated me like shit. Which was a lot. I uh...I'm not making myself look like all that strong of a woman here, and in truth, I wasn't when it came to Dan. That tall mother fucker was my god damn kryptonite, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. On an unrelated note, I feel pretty fucking shitty that my husband, whom I love far more honestly and a lot more as a whole than I loved Dan, gets the short end of the stick because I loved Dan with more fervor and less reservation (undeservedly so). My husband has his faults, and a lot of them make me feel inferior and ugly and uncared for in much the same ways that Dan did, but I far prefer my relationship with Derek. Getting back on track, I am not spineless about the things that irritate me with Derek. I always mention them, because I'd rather be honest and open and obscenely irate at my husband than silent and convincing myself I'm wrong about my pains in my head. I learned that it's better to be the way I am now (and really, the way I was before Dan. I was always the kind of person who told people to fuck right off when they were doing something that hurt me personally. I changed all of that for Dan, and I really....I really just do not fucking know why. He didn't earn that from me, I just gave that to him right off the bat. It's infuriating to see that hindsight isn't 20/20 at all...it's WAY fucking blurred by any manner of other shit) than to be a super fucking mousy bystander in my own emotional immolation. I learned that through experience, and I feel validated in behaving the way I do now. It's served me well.

I do NOT have that validation from dealing with a professor, though, because I've always handled my relationships with professors as having a very impermeable line between always correct (the professor) and always wrong (the student). Do I believe this is true? Absolutely not. It's such a strange dynamic, really, and so arrogant to think that this one person knows better than you, therefore you need to look at them at all times, and address them formally at all times, and treat them like superior humans when the truth is, they fucking suck a good deal of the time and should be told as much. I've always kept my mouth shut about my shitty professors, though, because I think I understand fairly well that in a showdown between myself and a professor to any person higher than them in the school authority hierarchy, I'm the one the school doesn't know, and it's easier to write off one student than an entire teacher. I've had bad professors before...careless ones that talk shit about students, and don't show respect for their students, changing expectations and due dates without mentioning anything, just being general pricks because they have the power seat and wield over students because they can. I've just dealt with it, because I was adult enough when I started college that I could let it roll off of my back and not bother me. I had too much other shit to worry about, and if I  kept my head down and just did my shit, I'd survive and be able to forget all about my nimrod professors sooner rather than later.

I do not know what the deal is this semester, but I have fucking had it with one of my professors, and I sent her a pretty fucking detailed email accounting for my grievances. I felt super justified in sending it, especially after speaking with other students in the class and having them agree with my problems. I told her she was disregarding of her students and their other obligations, that she shouldn't be talking shit about students when they're not there (I had bronchitis and missed two sessions, and my classmates filled me in that she was running her mouth a bit about me missing class. I've also heard her run her mouth about other students who missed class because of work), that her emails are brazenly snarky and maybe she needs to watch her tone (she sends emails about her disappointment in us for not attending things, and that attendance is important, but she regularly asks that we miss days worth of classes to attend things she wants us to do with little regard to the make up work she's incurring for us), that asking her students to create their own make up work is fucking lazy as hell (has anybody ever had a teacher that was like, eh, create your own assignment, I can't be bothered. This absolutely floors me), and that all around, she's setting students up to fail by being inconsiderate. I cannot stress enough that I have conferred with other students, and there is a general consensus that this is going on, and I know I'm not being a nitpicky cunt for calling this professor out. That being said, I didn't mention the other students because I'm not a fucking rat and I'm not trying to get everyone into some school drama when they have enough on their plates, which leaves me open for her saying that the problem isn't her, it's just my interpretation. So I feel wobbly in the stomach about this now. I suppose we'll see about it all tomorrow.

In other news, cycling has done wonders for my butt. It has never been so deliciously round in all my days, even when I was running. Check it:



Even my little back dimples have returned! I know I'm still a lardo in almost every other meaning of the word (and I'm working on it. PCOS is a fucking bear to combat, even with being a pretty fucking healthy eating vegan, and even with cycling every fucking day, and even with yoga every fucking day, and even with hiking and swimming on the weekends, I am struggling to slip the fuck out of this hideous god damn fat suit that my body is walking around as), but small pushes forward are starting to be noticeable. Derek says he notices them a lot, which I guess is encouraging, but I'm still frustrated that shit isn't just falling off the way it used to before PCOS took over my body in a not so nice way.

I will say that cycling the twelve miles for school every day, and trying to come to terms with having an older body that doesn't just let go of weight like it did when I was in my twenties (both because of age AND because of PCOS which I think was really kicked into gear from gaining weight after my accident. An exceptionally vicious cycle), and having to wear weather appropriate clothes that allow for me to not die from heat exhaustion on my way to school but that are suitable for cycling, and sweating because the ride is long and difficult, and the weather is sunny and humid, has really helped me be more ok with having a fuck it attitude about my appearance. I look like a fucking bedraggled ass labradoodle when I roll into class every day. I'm in riding shorts, so it looks like I freshly shit myself with the padding bulge directly over my asshole area, I'm sweating damn near literal buckets from every inch of my skin, I'm in a yoga tank or some other workout friendly, breezy shirt because it's so god damn hot out, and my hair. My fucking hair. I don't straighten it anymore because I'm too busy doing other shit that would immediately ruin the flawless look I'm going for when I make the effort to straighten my wild mane. I smell like SunBum, though, which is really the only perk to my Zero Fucks Given look. Other than that, I am a hot god damn mess for every single class. And I have stopped giving a fuck about how I look there. I think I mentioned this in a previous blog, but I feel particularly self congratulatory about this, because my appearance has always mattered to me in a big way. I knew I didn't have much to work with, so I wanted to fucking work the little bit I had hard. I don't have that luxury now, so I can't do my hair, I can't do my makeup, I can't hide behind fashion. I'm just sweaty and frizzy and fresh(...ly red) faced and always wearing workout clothes, and that's just the pulp of that motherfucker. I do wish I could walk around campus looking cute as fuck, or at least put together. Part of me is still envious of people that get looked at. That really isn't what people are about with me. I think I'm pretty ENOUGH that dudes needing a place to bury their dicks for a little will look past the fact that I'm not an Amazonian supermodel goddess, and then they find out that I'm just WAY super cool and obviously the smartest and also super cool and smart that they end up being intrigued enough to stick around, but my looks have never, ever, EVER been my strong suit. I keep holding on to the idea that I'll be hot one day, but let's fucking be real: I'm 34, I've never been hot a day in my life, and whatever hotness I DID have is more than likely long behind me.

I am considering a tummy tuck, because this pesky ass extra skin from having two watermelons pretending to be children living in my guts for almost a year each ruined my stomach. I would like to not loathe myself (correction: my figure. I fucking love myself, I think I am the goddamn tits) so that I can....I don't know...look in the mirror if I'm naked without recoiling in shame and horror. It's a strange thing, because I don't care about how I look at school in the ridiculous shit I'm wearing so I can be comfortable cycling the twelve miles to be there, but I definitely care about how I look naked. And my naked body is a fucking trainwreck, and I hate it, and if surgery can help that, I am all in. My primary worry, and the thing keeping me from a consultation, is that if the surgeon asks me if I've considered X procedure, as well, or would I maybe like this thrown in for little extra, I will never be able to unsee those flaws, and I will forever be chasing a plastic ideal that will be prohibitively expensive and never, ever finished enough for my satisfaction.

I may just have to accept the fact that, if Derek and I don't make it, or I decide to have a vengeful affair because he had one first, or whatever throws me into the fray of finding new dick in my thirties or forties, dudes are going to have to be ok with my body as it is. Maybe they can just focus on my ass?

Why do mice have such small balls? Because so few know how to dance!

I moved around a lot the first few years of my life. My parents split when I was....about four, I think? Maybe five? My mom and I left Ithaca and eventually settled in with my grandpa George and my grandma Dottie (whom I called Garm Garm) somewhere in Broward County, Florida. I can't remember what city, it doesn't really matter. We didn't live with them long, and my mom moved into an apartment with her friend Beth. Here are two stories about fucking absurdly stupid things I did while we lived at that apartment.

Vignette one:

Of course my mom had to put me in school, and while we lived in that apartment, I went to Sunrise Elementary. CORRECTION: Horizon Elementary. I know this because I tried to look up Sunrise to see if there were any pictures of it, only to find out that Sunrise Elementary didn't exist, I was mixing shit up. The school was Horizon Elementary in SUNRISE, Florida. I was pretty fucking close. Anyway, it was a shit place.

                                                 

Not pictured: Federal Funding worth a damn.

I only went there for one year. I'm not really sure why, my memory doesn't serve me well 100% of the time (see: my ego). My teacher there was named Ms. Stats, and again, I don't know why I remember that, but not why I didn't stay at that school very long. Here's what I do remember: we did a lot of arts and crafts in her first grade class. I vaguely remember something about carving stamps out of potatoes (letting children carve anything out of anything seems ill-advised. For fuck's sake, my husband doesn't trust me with knives NOW), but what I remember most was making Victorian-era Silhouette cameos. We would sit in front of a lamp and the teacher would trace our outlines onto a piece of paper, and then we colored them in. which I believe IS the traditional method: trace a lamp shadow onto paper, then have first graders color it in really badly with stubby crayons. Classically Victorian.  

Anyway. 

This is where I become the poster child for both responsible teachering, and effective child proofing. While Ms. Stats was doing her thing, I was doing mine. I was off wandering through the classroom, rummaging through places I didn't belong. There was a little washroom section in the very back of the classroom, in this hidden little alcove in the wall. There was no cupboard above the sink, and no cupboard under the sink, just bottles of soap, and boxes of cleaning agents. I sat down in front of the wash basin (one of those industrial plastic dealybobs with the big trapezoid for a sink with a barebones hook faucet, and a single tube that held it upright), and I grabbed a box of Ivory Snow. This very box:

           

I saw this box, and for some reason, my first grader brain thought, "that looks and sounds DELICIOUS", so I uh...I started eating it. I grabbed a fucking fistful and shoved it right into my stupid, stupid mouth. That's not even where all of this falls down, because I ate more than one fistful. I ate TWO. It took me two fistfuls of Ivory fucking Snow to figure out that this box of delicious powder was actually a box of disgusting powder. My stupid ass sat underneath a sink, like some sort of fairytale goblin, eating laundry detergent by the fistful, and here's the thing: MY TEACHER NEVER FOUND ME. Nobody ever realized I was exercising curiosity about Pica. I put the box down, and then went and told Ms. Stats that I ate something gross under the sink. She asked me what I ate, and I showed her, and she flipped her fucking SHIT. Pretty righteously, obviously. I remember her asking me why I did it, and I remember suddenly feeling VERY aware of how stupid what I did was, and reflecting on the taste in my mouth and thinking I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of my class, who was now an audience to Ms. Stats yelling at me about my eating fucking detergent. I panicked, and realized as she was asking me why the fuck I ate detergent that I had to come up with a damn good reason why I ate detergent. I whizzed through my brain for ANYTHING food-related that I could cover my ass with, and I blurted out, "I THOUGHT IT WAS MASHED POTATOES". Because my mom made mashed potatoes with potato flakes, see? Ivory Snow looked like mashed potato flakes. Brilliant save, I thought. Except it wasn't. This was not enough for Ms. Stats, just like it wouldn't be enough for me if my son was a dumb dumb and shoved fist after fist of laundry detergent down his god damn gullet. She asked me what made me think it was mashed potatoes. What about it being under the sink, next to bottles of soap, made me think it was mashed potatoes. I was fucking trapped now, because hand to heart, I have no fucking idea why I ate that soap. I just did. I just wanted to eat the soap. So I told the best lie I could: I thought the mom and the baby were so happy on a mountain of potatoes. I wanted to eat a mountain of potatoes. Which isn't REALLY a lie, I fucking love mashed potatoes. But there was no connection to them until I needed it. I think I knew it was soap, I just....nothing was going to stop me from greedily gnoshing on soap flakes. I got it in my head that a snack of detergent was my prize after nosily making my way through the classroom while I waited my turn for my silhouette to be drawn. This wasn't my initial plan. I didn't set out to find some soap to eat, it was more me rolling with my whims. Box under a sink? Wanna sit down and eat it? YUP. So I did. 

Ms. Stats must have called my mom (or poison control. Or both?), and I must have been sent home, or Ms. Stats made a judgment call and decided I wasn't going to die, and since I didn't vomit, I was fine to stick around (you guys, the fucking WAY early nineties was a wild time regarding child safety), because I DID get to do my Victorian silhouette project, and I only remember that I got to do it because I was the only kid in class with curly hair, and Ms. Stats didn't feel like tracing the outlines of my curls, so I just had a huge, smooth bubble around a smaller, vaguely head shaped bubble with a jutted triangle for a nose. I think she was mad at me. 

And that is the story of how I started the Tidepod challenge in earnest. 

Vignette two:

There was a HUGE forest of Sawtooth plants and ferns and palm trees behind this complex that my mom and Beth and I lived in. There was enough space between all of the plants for a child to run through all of it, but I mean....that should have been ill-advised, because those Sawtooth bushes are fucking sharp, and I got cut to pieces on them more than once. Like I said: 1990 was a dangerous time to be a kid, but a great time to be a fairly absentee parent. So I was wandering around the savage brush of a forest that this Florida community provided when I had a brilliant idea:

I was going to go tell my mom there was a fire. 

There wasn't, obviously, but this somehow seemed like a good idea. I didn't want to be an alarmist, though. I think my motivation was to show my mom I wasn't afraid of fire, and I was brave. So I went home, and sat down in the living room, staring at my mom who was smoking a Virginia Slim on the couch, because 90s. She played directly into my hands, asking me why I wasn't playing outside anymore. I shrugged with a nonchalantness far beyond my years and said, "I don't know. There was a fire, and I got bored, so I came inside."

My mom didn't automatically believe me, so I can only guess this must have been after the detergent eating and my judgment was questionable. So she pressed me about the fire a little bit, asking me where it was, and did I see it for real? I didn't smell like smoke (a bold assertion for a woman puffing away on the fucking stupidest brand of cigarette there ever was). And I started getting indignant. Of fucking COURSE there was a fire, mommy, it was in the bushes. And it was little, but it was still a fire. I got pushy enough about my imaginary fire that she got up, slightly more panicked, and called the fire department. 

Are you ready for the story to get good?

There really was a fucking fire. A fucking tiny little brush fire had started, not by where I was playing, but close enough that I was commended by the fucking fire department for being so fucking brave, and doing the right thing by reporting a fire immediately instead of watching it. My grandfather bought me a fucking bike for my efforts. I got a stuffed teddy bear from the fire house. MY MOM GOT A DISCOUNT ON HER RENT. The entire fucking community was so grateful, because that fire could have been so much worse, and honestly, I remember the smoke looking scarily large to my little brain when we went outside to meet the firemen and tell them where the fire was. A big, billowing cloud, and the air smelled really bad. 

That is the story about the time I willed a fire into being because I wanted to be a hero. 

I honestly do not know how that happened. Hand to heart again, there was no fire when I went home. It was just an idea I had, to tell my mom there was a fire. I don't know why I  had that idea, I don't know why I thought it would make me look brave. It is such an eerie coincidence, and of COURSE I couldn't tell my mom I fucking faked the entire thing. In my head, if I told my mom, or told the firemen that that fire wasn't my fire, and I knew that fire wasn't my fire because my fire wasn't real, they'd think I started the other fire to cover my ass. I didn't, I just lied at a really convenient time. 

So...you're welcome, Sunrise, Florida. I'll accept that key to the city any time. 

Toying somewhere between love and abuse

Aside from my business page, this is the only form of social media I have left. I deleted my instagrams, I deleted my facebook pages, and I had given up on snapchat ages and ages and ages ago. I'm not even sure I'll be keeping this up for much longer.

In examining my life, I don't think I like who I am online, but I don't mean that the way it sounds. I am as myself as the relative anonymity of the internet allows an of us to be, but I'm such an inflated version of myself, and it's exhausting trying to live up to the real, but idealized, me that I present online. I constantly try to be funny, because that was always what I thought I had going for me, but funny isn't funny when it's forced, and it's hard to be clever in a vacuum. A joke loses 80% of its punch being told online, because the nuance of delivery isn't up to the comic, it's up to the consumer, and when you don't get the likes you think you deserve, you get a glimpse of how much of your ego is tied in to the validation of people who don't even really matter.

This doesn't scare me, necessarily, because I'm not even sure I really understand anymore what it means to have people matter to you. I feel like so much of life is performance art, and at the end of the day, why? Why should I make myself sing and dance for the pleasure of others for the pleasure of myself? It doesn't give me a sense of self, it doesn't validate or destroy any beliefs I have about myself, it does nothing but exhaust me. It's weird to undress the human experience and think that it doesn't count for anything and have that not frighten me, or make me sad. I feel quite indifferent about it. I'm losing my ability to feel connections to any kind of morality, or humanity, or immediacy because why does any of it matter? None of it does. And I don't mean in the nihilistic sense of "nothing matters", I mean in the most realistic sense of nothing matters.

I told my dad about a week ago that morality is made up, and I truly believe that morality isn't real. It's absolutely arbitrary, and fluctuates between people. I'm not sold on the idea that anything that has a cosmic, absolute truth would be that malleable on such a large scale. Of course, my father brought this to the ridiculous conclusion that I must just want to start killing people.
                                                       
                                                  
                                                   My dad brought a guest to the party!

Of course I don't want to, but I don't believe that the practice bears any moral weight. If I don't believe in god, believing in morality seems absolutely fucking foolish, as morality is just a by-product of religion, or at the very least, self-preservation.When asked why I bother being a vegan, I responded similarly: it's not that I think it's any morally better than not being a vegan...morals don't exist. I just don't want to consume anything that forces suffering on anything. I buy as responsibly as I can because I want to. And also, I have to live in society. I know I won't like the consequences of being a pariah for my relatively kooky ideas, so I just stay on the margins, quietly, without making a fuss.

Which is what makes it so difficult to understand why I don't talk to either of my parents anymore.

A month or so ago (yeah. I left this draft sitting for ages, as per usual), I got into a big fight with my dad, I told him he was a shit father, and that he's always been a shit father, and that I don't want him to be a part of my life at all anymore. To not call me, to not come to my graduation, to not write me. I don't want to hear anything he has to say. When my mom was here a week ago, her husband said scores of next level racist shit, I called him out for it, he threw a temper tantrum. When I told my mom he could either keep his racist opinions to himself or stay behind, she opted to stay behind with him because, "people should be allowed to be who they are, right or wrong." I told her she was complicit and full of shit, and that we should part ways because I just don't have time for that mess.

I was angry at both of them, and I felt like I have every right to be. But I'm also really ambivalent about it. I don't feel like I've really lost anything, I don't care if either of them are hurting over this, I genuinely am fine without them.

But if I think all of this shit is just weird social construct control, why bother feeling anger? In effect, my mom would be right. Moral relativism SHOULD be winning the day, because morality is false. Even understanding that, however, trips me up. Not enough to pick up the phone, or take either of them off of block, but it trips me up enough to make me think I'm being a hypocrite in my own weird vacuum of believies.

I think this is all what liquor is for.

Take me to bed, or lose me forever

Depending on how you personally feel about me, I may or may not have good news:

I made it safely to Hawaii!

I am fucking LOVING IT on Oahu. I have never been as atpeace and in love with anyone or anything as I am this island. I've gone snorkeling almost every day, I'm already tan as I've ever been, and it's like everywhere I turn, I have a thousand opportunities to take a photo.

Check it:

I'm going to be upfront: I started this blog literally three days shy of a month ago. I've been so busy doing stuff and things to finish it. My husband is sleeping right now, despite the fact that we're supposed to be going hiking today, but that's ok. He only has a few more days off before he goes back to work, and he may be heading off to DC for four months after that, so if he wants to sleep until noon, I'm content to let him.

In the month that it's taken me to come back to this, I've taken thousands more photos, which obviously I will share in a moment. I've also explored only about one percent of the island, and I am pleased to report I am more in love than ever. This place feels like home. I've only ever reserved that word for Ithaca, Colorado Springs, and Vegas, but the last time I went to Vegas, it felt unfamiliar, and when I went to Colorado Springs a few months ago, I felt like an interloper. I don't feel that way here, though. I feel calm and happy, and time goes slowly enough that I can enjoy my moments instead of feeling frenzied in them. I don't want to leave here ever.

I am still snorkeling more often than I'm not. I have a beach right down the street from my house, but because of the season, the water conditions aren't terribly conducive to swimming, unless I also want to die. Driving over to the side of the island where the water is calm is a haul, but it's worth it, so we make the drive a lot. A lot a lot. Derek and I found a really great spot too snorkel that is NEVER crowded, it's always just us and the fish. Given that it's so still, I shouldn't have been shocked when an octopus did whatever the oceanic equivalent of lumbering is at us, swam with us for a minute, and then got all freaked the fuck out and darted under a rock, waiting for us to leave. Every few minutes, it poked its head out to see if we were still there, which duh, we were, and after about ten minutes, it resigned itself to the fact that these two rude humans weren't going anywhere, and it just tentacled out and went about its business. I didn't think our ocean experience could get any cooler without paying a lot of money for people to take us to go swim with dolphins or sharks or some shit, and then the next day, as the sun was setting and I was snorkeling lazily around our private-ish little bay, I saw a blotchy figure that I knew wasn't a rock. I swam a few yards closer, and it was a fucking sea turtle. Just hanging out, being gorgeous and majestic and graceful and amazing, and I lost my god damn shit. I frantically waved my husband over, and this sea turtle was lovely and gracious enough to wait for him to arrive, and once he did, the three of us swam together across the bay. For hundreds of yards, I swam with one of the most protected and treasured creatures in Hawaii, and all I could do was cry and laugh into my snorkel mask. It was absolutely amazing.

Everything here amazes me. I am never not in awe of my new home. I have a yard full of gold dust day geckos that delight me for the moments during the day that I'm home, and then at night, different geckos come out and bark and sing, and it sounds like an entirely different universe. My skin is gorgeously dark and soft and slightly sticky from all of the salt, my hair is wild and curly because I refuse to waste time straightening it if I'm just going back out into the ocean, and I cannot remember the last time I frowned. I am ALWAYS smiling, and it's nothing short of incredible that I feel this happy.

I love it here.

Here are some more photos that do not do this place justice.

A story for Gary Puckett, in three parts.

I wonder if the reason I dislike children (aside from my own) is that my childhood was such an event. I mean, nobody is going to be making an indie darling film out of my life (but yo, A21, I'm here if you're fresh out of ideas), but I definitely lived a LOT before I hit 21, and not a lot of kids do. By the time I was 15, I had been kicked out of two homes, volleyed back and forth (state to state, so the bouncing around wasn't exactly friendly to me personally), been institutionalized (as much as I wish that were hyperbolic language, it is not), my parents had divorced, I had lived in several states because we just couldn't land anywhere, I'd had my beautiful, amazing, wonderful daughter and then made very grown up decisions about her without a shred of grown up experience and subsequently lost her, I'd run away and fled one state to go live in another (in the middle of the night, too, isn't that EXCITING sounding? Except it wasn't, it was terrifying), I could keep going, but the point is, I'd lived a lot. I'd lived far more intense situations than anybody I know. Abuse was a pretty hefty undercurrent of all of this living, as well, just to kind of put a fun party hat on my early life shenanigans. Physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse, I was a fuckin' grab bag of insidious things! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

My childhood was a disaster. I know that underneath all of it, I still had a LOT of privilege, even though I was DESPERATELY poor growing up. We had a roof over our heads, but barely, and my parents did their fuckin' most to make sure I never needed anything, and fuck, man, bless them for that. I sure WANTED for lots of things, but that isn't the point. I was in this weird place of extreme poverty, but still privileged, and I'm not sure how that works out, but I suppose it does. Anyway, the point here is, my childhood was not so great. Though...one thing I DO want to mention...I was a pretty special member of the Lisa Frank Fan Club when I was a little girl. I got things to color, and stickers, and a pencil, every month, and I'd get even specialer things on my birthday. So yeah, my life generally sucked, but I mean, I got pictures of pandas in overalls and ballerina bunnies, so I guess it was a wash? My mom wouldn't let me be a member of the MST3K fan club, though. I wasn't lying when I said I was abused.

It's not terribly surprising that I wanted a lot of attention as a young girl. If I wasn't buried in a book, pretending to be Jo Marsh, or The White Cat, or my absolute literary heroine Anne Shirley (I will always say that she is the person in literature that is the most like me, and you can fight me on that if you want, but you'll lose), I was doing the absolute most at school to be noticed. Keep in mind that I'm talking about elementary school here. I was larger than life, and while I distinctly remember everybody loving me, the adult in me is fairly positive everybody fucking hated me and wished I would die. And who wouldn't want to shut up the frizzy haired weird girl that was extra as hell with her theatrics? I was like Carmelita Spats, without the mean streak. I was also a know it all, and I love how I've made that past-tense. Like I'm not still a hideous know it all. Everybody always wanted me on their team when we played Brain Quest, and I always thought it was because I was popular. In retrospect, I'm fairly sure it's because I knew all of the answers, and everybody wanted in on that winning action. In third grade, I discovered that boys were interesting to me in a way they hadn't been interesting before, and the first boy that made me feel that way was Elliot Glassman. Oh my god, he was the rising and falling of the sun to me. I had no idea why, but I wanted to impress him, so that's what I set out to do.

Our teacher, Mrs. Brown, read to us every day, and obviously I could use that to my advantage. After all, I read all the time, I was an amazing reader, both out loud and in my head, and what person ISN'T just swept off of their feet, blown away, and then sexually drawn to a person that can read with perfect cadence AND do all of the voices differently so there's a distinction between all of the characters? I was pretty quick to learn that the answer to that question was "nobody". Mrs. Brown was reading The BFG to us one day, and I had the absolute nerve to raise my hand and ask for permission to read to the class instead, citing that her voice sounded tired.

What a fucking cunt I was.

Mrs. Brown let me read, though, and when I tell you that I stood in front of the class and didn't just read, didn't just do all of the voices, but utilized my limber, gangly, awkward and long limbs to make story time ACTION STORY TIME, I am telling you the truth. I acted out the simplest sentences, ones that didn't even deserve a hand gesture, much less sweeping arm movements and leg kicks. I was never allowed to read to the class again, unless it was at my desk, and I'm sure it will surprise nobody when I say that Elliot was not impressed.

In fourth grade, I still held a pretty passionate, burning flame for Elliot. I don't know if he knew, but with the way I read to the class, i'm pretty sure that my dreamy-eyed staring at him from across the class was just as over the top and ridiculous, so if he didn't know, it was less a testament to my subtlety and more a statement about how oblivious he was. We had a school concert coming up, where every class had to present some kind of little show for the rest of the school, and it had to celebrate diversity in some way. In my head, I planned out something super elaborate, where I was the star. I was dressed like a princess, and everybody would love me, because I would look beautiful and elegant and like a grown up, and who would notice most of all? Elliot Glassman, that's who. Did anything close to that happen? Not even. We did something celebrating South America, complete with cha cha dancers and maraca rattlers, and some sort of chorus number. Did Mrs. Brown (yes, I had her for two years in a row) stick me in the chorus? No. She knew better than that. I'm fairly sure she needed a laugh, because she made me the conductor. Now, I didn't have to hide in a pit, I was front and center on the stage. I would argue that I had the most important part, because I was in front of everybody, telling them what to do. Or at the very least, pretending to tell them what to do. Now, here is where Mrs. Brown failed me, and why I'm pretty convinced that my casting as the conductor was for the benefit and mirth of herself and any other adult watching:

Nobody told me that conductors are stoic figures, that utilize their movements to really signify changes that orchestras or choirs need to make. Tempo, pitch, things like that....I had no idea the nuance of being a conductor. I knew that I was in charge of everyone, and Mrs. Brown made SURE I knew that I was "the lead" and that the lead needed to conduct the other students.

Well fuck me sideways, Winston Park Elementary, this was surely not just my ticket to stardom....yes, I thought that to myself, and I remember thinking this to myself, and yes, it embarrasses me enough that I physically shudder when I think about it....but my ticket to Elliot noticing me for my brilliance and charm and my AMAZING skills of a conductor.

Did I mention that we  had three separate parts of this performance? We had the choir, the cha cha dancers (Brittany and Jillian. The most popular girls in class. Brittany and Elliot really liked each other, so naturally, Brittany could eat shit, for all I cared), and the maraca dancers. Did I know that I was only conducting the choir? I did not know this. Was I corrected and told I was only to conduct the choir? I was not. Did we have SEVERAL practice sessions before we presented this? We did.

How did the presentation go? I'll tell you. And I'll preface this by saying that the reason I remember this in such stunning detail is because I am SO EMBARRASSED by it.

I got dressed that morning in my most flamboyant, and also, in my mind, Hispanic looking outfit. It was a very colorful skirt that went down to a little past my knees, and it was the absolute twirliest. I could execute PERFECT twirls in this skirt, and the skirt would stay up and spin and spin and spin, hovering around my midsection like a glorious carousel, a brilliant flash of colors and patterns whizzing by too fast to see, because the skirt was magical, and I felt magical in it. I paired it with a shirt that I had used for Halloween. I just spent thirty minutes trying to hunt down a photo of that shirt, but I couldn't find it, and my mom couldn't, either. This shirt was used with a cowgirl costume...I don't know why I ever wanted to be a cowgirl fro Halloween, but I was one year. The shirt had this strange ruffle on the front...like a sewn on cravat from a bad tuxedo shirt. My favorite part of the shirt, though, was that it had a little tie in the front, and it showed my tummy. I didn't realy have any clue about being sexy back then, but I knew showing my tummy off felt daring. So this white shirt with a bad tuxedo front that tied above my belly button paired with the twirliest skirt felt, somehow, Hispanic, so I put that outfit on and went to school, and I cannot remember what I was thinking, but I'm sure it was all daydreams about Elliot Glassman telling me I was charming and beautiful and that Brittany was nothing compared to me, and I was the smartest girl in the whole school (now, I will say that he DID eventually tell me that, even though the way he did it dashed my heart into a thousand pieces, but that's for later), and we should be boyfriend and girlfriend. Even though I had no fucking clue what that meant. None of us did.

Here's what actually happened.

It was my class's turn to do their performance, and I was fuckin' READY. I had my game face on, me and the twirliest skirt in the world were going to bring down the fucking house. Do not forget that my only job was to move my arms around and conduct the choir. That is such an important detail, because I did not do it. The curtain lifted, the choir took their places on the little choir bleachers (is there a name for those? Choir bleachers isn't it, I'm sure), the cha cha dancers hid behind the choir bleachers, and maraca shakers stood on either side of the choir bleachers, and then out I marched, taking my place in the center of the stage, looking out into what I imagined was a sea of adoring fans, and I fucking curtsied and bowed. Like I was a huge fucking star or some shit. I turned around, and with as much gusto as I had in my tiny little bones, I used my hands and made all manner of fucking ridiculous gestures to the choir, indicating that it was time to sing their song. So they started singing, not so much because my crazy fuckin' hands demanded it of them, but because the background music started, and that was their cue. So, the choir is singing, I'm doing my best impression of someone having a seizure in their hands, and then it's time for the maracas to come in and start shaking, so I stop conducting the choir and start conducting the maracas. And when I say conducting the maracas, I mean I dropped my conductor's baton (I made it myself, did I neglect to mention that? I made it my fuckin' self, because diving deeply into something is all I know how to do) AND PICKED UP AN EXTRA PAIR OF MARACAS I HAD HIDDEN ON THE SIDE OF THE STAGE. Yes I did. And then I stood in place and tried to show the maraca shakers how to shake their maracas. Which is so condescending, now that I think about it, because how fucking hard is it to shake a maraca? It isn't. Did they need to be conducted? No. But I legitimately thought I was conducting EVERYBODY, so I shook my little maracas, and I didn't shake them in time to the other maraca shakers, so I can only imagine how much I brought down the room, and the general sound therein. A third maraca shaker, not following the beat, and just shaking her maracas anywhichway she damn well pleased? What a fucking nuisance. But in my head, I was REALLY bringing my A game, and elevating this performance to an entirely different realm.

And then.

Then it was the cha cha dancers' turn. Here's where it all fell down.

Brittany and Jillian came out, doing whatever dance they had practiced, which I had zero knowledge of. Just like I had zero knowledge of the rhythm the maraca shakers were going to shake out. I knew the choir, because THAT WAS MY ONE JOB. That was all I was supposed to know. That wasn't good enough for me, though. I heard "conduct", and I fucking ran with it. So out dance Brittany and Jillian, and I throw down my maracas, and I start dancing, too. And when I say dancing, I fucking mean it. I upstaged Brittany and Jillian by a million miles, though not because of grace, or talent, probably because of sheer shock value. I twirled across the stage, I cha cha'ed, I shimmied, I held up my arms and shook my hips, and kept twirling my skirt like some kind of colorful, insane, whirling dervish. A shocking, surprising, tornado of color and dance moves twirling her way around the stage, REALLY seizing my moment and assuming I was selling my skills to the audience, and they were loving it. I have to imagine that EVERYBODY was insanely confused. The rest of my class, Brittany and Jillian especially, my teachers, my fellow students, and the parents that had come to support us. At the end of the song, I was breathless and red faced and shimmied out, and I legitimately had the nerve to step in front of everybody else and fucking bow. I pushed my way to the front of the stage, like the asshole primadonna I believed I had earned the right to be, and bowed and curtsied like I had seriously been the star of the show. And perhaps I was, but for all the wrong reasons. I imagine my teachers got a HUGE laugh out of my antics, but I was never spoken to about it negatively. The only comment I got was, "You know, you were only supposed to conduct the choir, but I love how into the performance you got." I'm pretty sure that's what sunk this all into my memory, because I remember being told that, shooting a look at Elliot Glassman, and then feeling more embarrassed than I had ever felt in my entire life, because I knew I had way overstretched myself, and I probably looked like a fool instead of like an AMAZING performer. Elliot didn't give a shit.

Here is where I want to take a small break and just kind of clue you in on what I was working with as a kid. This is a picture from Fourth grade:

Great hair, great shirt, AMAZING taste in the finest of plastic jewelries. Why I wasn't dominating the social circuit is beyond me. Except it isn't, I was terrible.

I don't know how soon it was after that amazing performance of mine where I hogged the spotlight, but it couldn't have been long, I asked my best friend Taneesha to ask Elliot if he liked me. For whatever reason, young me had a self-confidence and ego that present day me envies like crazy. I was ALWAYS feeling myself, despite the fact that my mother dressed me about eight years behind the curve, I had frizzy hair, I was always buried in books, I had an answer for everything, and while this look may have been working for Anne Shirley, it certainly did Ondrea Tucci zero fuckin' favors.

Taneesha obliged, because of course she did. I remember hiding in the corner of the classroom like some kind of feral animal, watching their exchange, hoping for good news. In my head, I remember Elliot looking uncomfortable, though it didn't register as uncomfortable to me then. I'm pretty positive that's just adult me projecting onto the memories of young me, but uh...that projection is very probably correct. Anyway, Taneesha comes back and tells me precisely how Elliot feels about me.

It wasn't good, just to save you the agony of waiting for the punchline.

Elliot thought that I was alright, for a girl, but that I was the smartest girl in school, and a good friend. I didn't know enough to know that was a brush off, I took it as hopeful, but I really honed in on the "girl" thing. Like, a lot.

I spent the summer daydreaming about me and Elliot being boyfriend and girlfriend, whatever it was that that meant, and I knew that being seen as a girl was what was holding back my daydream of us being together from being reality. I needed to be seen as a woman.

It's funny how life works out for you sometimes, because when I went into fifth grade, with all of the same kids in my class (Elliot sat at the back of the room in a group that had Brittany in it, and I was seething with jealousy over that), the girls were OBSESSED with getting their periods. i mean, there was a lot of time dedicated to talking about it. I remember standing in line for lunch one day, with Jillian and Brittany and my besties Janice, Daveeda, and Taneesha, all of us a buzz over what we had heard it was like getting your period. I hoarded all of this intel and used it to my advantage. Jillian, Brittany, and Janice had all heard their older sisters, long into their periods, talking about what it was like to have it, so everything they talked about came from what I considered to be reliable sources. I decided that a period was what made you a woman. I don't know how or why that decision was made on my part, maybe it was some hairbrained video we watched in sex-ed, but that was the thing that was going to change me in everyone's eyes. My period would transform me, from "alright for a girl" to "so beautiful, as a woman" in Elliot's eyes, and fuck, I wish I were joking. I really do. I wish I were making all of this up, especially the next part.

I hatched a plan to fake my period.

I dropped hints to my friends about the symptoms their sisters had discussed with them, like oh, I feel like I have cramps, and then gesturing toward a vague section of my stomach. I have to pee so much now, which...how was that a symptom? I have no idea, but very frequent urination became a thing. My chest is sore, even though I had zero fuckin' chest to speak of. These clues were all dropped on the same fucking day. I wasn't smart enough to lay down the framework for my period over time, because I didn't know any better. So over the course of one day it was BOOM cramps BOOM peeing a lot BOOM my non-existent titties hurt. Now, I WAS smart enough to not just drop these hints, but to play them up. When I had cramps, I clutched my stomach area and grimaced as believably as I could. When I mentioned I had to pee a lot, I played that shit up in class, running to the bathroom every ten minutes. which was in our classroom, not in the hallway, so my antics were noticeable, and I thought I looked every bit like the kind of girl who was about to get her period, but I probably just looked like a little girl with very desperate diarrhea. Or a kidney infection. After half a day of being what I assumed was the very model of pre-period, it was time for the finale. While Mrs. Nathanson, my fifth grade teacher, was at the board, doing math problems or something, I honestly don't remember, I gasped VERY audibly and ran to the bathroom. Again, not thinking for a second that people might have thought I had diarrhea. Which is what I would think now. Diarrhea or bulimia, but definitely definitely DEFINITELY not period. I bide my time in the bathroom and, because of COURSE I did this, I pulled red food coloring out of my pocket and squirted all of it in the toilet. Every last drop of the red food coloring I stole from my mom's pantry the night before, gone. I got it all over my fingers, which bothered me for two seconds until I realized it made my period story more believable. I put the food coloring bottle in my pocket so I wouldn't leave evidence behind, and then came waltzing out of the bathroom and declaring the following to the entire class, very loudly:

Well, it's happened. I'm a woman now.

And I put a LOT of emphasis on woman. Probably WAY too much. The entire class looked at me, the lesson stopped, and I felt so fucking smug and satisfied with myself, because how adult must I have seemed in that moment? A real life woman. A WOMAN in their midst. Those fucking lucky ass fifth graders, to be in the presence of a living, bleeding woman. You know who didn't give a shit? Elliot fucking Glassman. You know who did? Mrs. Nathanson, who rushed into the bathroom, dragging me in there with her, and my plan kind of fell apart here, because I didn't realize that periods were a huge fucking deal, and longer than one moment, and more involved than I could have ever anticipated. Mrs. Nathanson flushed the toilet (how on earth did she not go, "yeah, Drea, that's fucking red food coloring in the water, what the fuck. The jig is up, bitch, explain yourself immediately"), hugged me, asked if I felt ok, and then said she'd walk me to the office so we could call my mother and have me picked up from school. And I literally had to spend the next five fucking years faking like I had a period, but REALLY badly. Like, REALLY badly. My mom started me off on pads, and I just kind of stockpiled them, because I didn't know what else to do, or how to fake using them. And she'd ask me to tell her when I needed new pads, and then I'd be like, oh, now. I need new pads now. But the timing was always erratic. If I had ACTUALLY had my period, I would have needed pads WAY more frequently. But that doesn't matter, and it certainly doesn't matter that, when I finally got my period for real at age fifteen, skipping school because I ironically had sore boobs and cramps and an upset stomach, and this weird feeling that felt like I maybe had to pee, but different, watching Maury Povich and eventually bleeding all the fuck over my mom's hideously ugly green leather sofa, I couldn't even tell anybody, because I had been faking my period for so long that everybody thought I had it already. I had nobody to announce I was officially a woman to.

And nobody fucking gave a shit about me announcing it to an entire class, trying my best to target the ears of Elliot Glassman, hoping against hope that a bleeding vagina was what fifth grade boys were hoping for in a girlfriend. Elliot Glassman continued to not give a flying fuck about me in the way I wanted him to for the remainder of the year. I was absolutely gutted. I harbored that crush well into sixth grade, even though he didn't go to my middle school. I had a very hard time letting go of my first non-celebrity crush, because it was new and different and eye-opening. I didn't think I was supposed to get over it, because I had no fucking idea that boys would flit in and out of my peripherals for the next twenty years. Elliot Glassman was the first in a long, long line of boys that I would fawn over and dream about in spectacular fashion, and make a fool of myself over, again and again. In that way, he's nobody special, he's like every other boy I came into contact with. The thing that makes him special is, he got to witness my period.

Don't want you to get it on with nobody else but me

I received an email from my boudoir photographer that my images are ready.

I really thought I'd take longer to look at them, but I looked at them fairly immediately (well...after Anali looked at them first). It feels weird to say it this way, but I fucking LOVE the photos. I hate that the photos are of me. I don't particularly care for how I look, because hating myself is very en vogue and also I'm a fucking wad, but she did such a fucking great job of taking the photos. If I had a different body and a different head...well, wait. Now hang on, because that's how shitty Disney movies start, so my language should be VERY specific. If I had a SEXIER FEMALE BODY and a PRETTIER FEMALE HEAD, I am positive I would have better body image, and I would be able to look at these photos without tearing myself apart first, and chastising myself for my flaws. Cant have myself waking up tomorrow with like, some jacked and bullstrong male bodybuilder's body and the head of a kestrel, though that would be kind of amazing. Ugh, though even my specific language opens up so many loopholes. Like sexier according to whom? Maybe someone thinks the sexiest woman alive with the hottest body is someone who weighs 600 pounds (that fetish exists, don't ask me how I know), and the most gorgeous person alive is, like....someone I find wholly awful looking. It could get twisted and complicated and awful very quickly, and I mean, I get that that's the point. It's very Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. And it's also adorbs that I've broken this scenario down as if it MIGHT happen. Fuck me. Ugh.

Let's see which ones I have the nerve to post. It certainly won't be all of them.

Right off the bat, I think I look like an unwilling child bride in this photo (is there any other kind??), and it weirds me out that this is Derek's phone wallpaper.

That fucking jacket. Derek and I were at the PX, and I saw this jacket and knew I needed it. Thankfully, my vegan principles were hardly compromised, as Michael Kors swore off fur last year, and this is definitely a faux fur jacket (with muthafuckin' TINSEL in it!!!), so I had all of the luxury, none of the guilt. And only half the price tag! Because it was on sale! Instead of spending 400 dollars for a ridiculous coat, we only spent 200! Hooray! But also I'm still hearing about my frivolity from my husband. Can't win them all. Sidebar: one of the things that kind of blows about boudoir photo editing is all of the smoothing that goes into it. My skin looks smooth as fuck, which means my leg muscles aren't really all that noticeable. I've been doing squats and lunges like it's my fucking job, and it's definitely paying off, but my legs just look thick instead of their usual muscular.

I will never understand what makes thigh highs and garters sexy. They are a pain in the fucking ass. That's so much work and effort for a payoff you'd be getting ANYWAY, and I imagine that they are 100% theatrical, which makes them impractical, which makes them a waste. They're a pretty popular thing with our clients, and while I PERSONALLY have misgivings about wearing them, as I think they look silly, I kind of wanted to cover a typical boudoir base. So here we are. Thigh highs and a garter, while I pretend to be a sexy mop that is consumed by ecstasy.

Like, does that not look ridiculous?? My feet look ridiculous. My legs look ridiculous. Those straps look ridiculous. I. Am. Ridiculous.

Ugh, but there's my tummy. My stupid, PCOS tummy. I work out all the fucking time (have I mentioned in here that it's up to three times a day now?), and I cannot shake this tummy that my dumb dumb disorder has shackled me with. I'm hoping the three times a day, vegan keto (which is damn near IMPOSSIBLE, but I'm pretty determined to make it work for a few months. Now is not the time for the keto science, either. I know what it all say, and I'm doing it, anyway), and this supplement regimen I'll be starting on Monday make a difference, and I can get back to what I used to be before this ruined my body. But to get back to the point, THOSE FUCKING SHOES ARE A GOD DAMN DREAM.

I fucking TOLD YOU I had been doing squats and lunges like it was my fucking job. That booty is the proof. I HATE that little fold of fat under the bra thing, but eh. I'm chubby? Fat folds happen. WHERE ARE MY LEG MUSCLES, THOUGH. My calves legit pop out like angry veins. I've earned that definition, and it almost feels like muscles can't be sexy, so they have to be smoothed away. It's ultimately no big thing, because I look nice and smooth and touchable, it's only mildly irksome because I'm feeling like I have to explain that I definitely have muscular legs, not uselessly thick ones that are invitingly smooth.

Oh, just checking to make sure I got a super close shave. The way normal people do when they're in bed, alone, hanging out. Contemplating life, the universe, and everything. *Towel not pictured*

Oh, me. You're so cuddly and dreamy. My hair is looking AMAZING, though. I should have been cuddling my hair instead of my tiddies.

That window looks like a garbage chute, which is perfect for me, as I am a trash monster. Also, why do people wear g-strings as ACTUAL panties? They are so uncomfortable and I felt like I had some sort of tree branch wedged in the crevasse of my sizable booty. Maybe that's just me, and my ass crease would get used to the flossing feeling eventually, but I'm definitely not interested in finding out.

I sent this photo to my husband and said, "my face is so dark, you can pretend I'm someone else!" I really fucking hate that I have such a short torso and a high waist. Ugh, and such a chubbo tum tum.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty confident that EVERYBODY lounges around their homes in a faux fur jacket covered in tinsel, tousling their hair and giving "fuck me" eyes to every corner. If I'm wrong there, I need to reconsider my life choices.

If this is sexy, I am a fucking GODDESS when I'm nursing a head cold, as this is what I look like 100% of the time when I'm ill.

I'm not ALWAYS grimacing! I smile sometimes, and I'll prove it.

See? I'm smiling! IT IS GENUINE AND NOT FORCED AT ALL I HOPE YOU BELIEVE THAT THIS IS A REAL SMILE AND IT ISN'T CANNED FOR THE CAMERA.

Oh, you know, just laying here, being coyly pensive, thinking about the nature of reality.

In my entire life, I don't think there's ever been a picture that has encapsulated me more than this one. This picture looks more like me than I do. I feel like I have a truly special gift in my ability to make what is supposed to be a sexy, soft photo look sardonic, but I think that's my approach to my own femininity in a nutshell. I've never really seen myself as soft, or sexy, or overly feminine, so I've never tried to be, and my mannerisms, while not rough around the edges 100% of the time, are more cutting than they are delicate. So here we are. The most accurate portrait of me there ever was ever.

Stormy did such an amazing job, she really did. I can barely stand how good the PHOTOS look. I'm another thing altogether, but her photos are killer.

Then why post them, you might be asking yourself, in a manner that would make the Talking Heads proud.

It annoys the fucking piss out of me when my clients don't share their boudoir photos. I can't even tell you how much it bothers me. I take it so personally, even though I'm sure it's because the photos are meant for private consumption, and not because they hate the photos. But I'm posting these because Stormy's work deserves to be everywhere.

If you need a photographer, obvs come to me, first, but if I'm unavailable, she's the one to go to. And if you have to travel to London to do it, she's worth the trip.

http://rebelandromance.com/