Like a dog shitting razor blades

There are thousands of things I want to do with my life. I really wish I could narrow them down to a manageable ten, but whether it's my ADD, or just being a creative person, or an inability to commit to something tangible because I'm desperately afraid to fail at something I'm passionate about, I just can't seem to whittle out a path for myself. 

Do I really want to get my PhD? I've been plugging along so dutifully and honestly, I don't even fucking care about academia anymore. I don't care about my degree, I don't care if I ever use it, I'm just irritated about all of the student loan debt I've accumulated. At this point it's the completionist in me that's telling me to just get my fucking PhD so I can have it and tell myself I've done it. If I do nothing with it, who the fuck cares? Certainly not me! I don't want to be a doctor, I don't want to be a professor, I don't want to do anything that will drag me down emotionally, which, spoiler alert, is the crux of this post. 

Of all the things I could do with my life, photography is the thing that brings me the most joy and gives me the greatest sense of fulfillment. So I've been working towards a new photography venture that I have to be relatively tight lipped about for another couple of weeks, though I have mentioned it in here. I did two shoots this weekend for marketing photos that I wish I could post, but number one they are not yet edited and number two, see my previous statement about being tight lipped. 

At the end of the shoot, I was chatting with the model about how I need two more models, one that wears a medium and one that wears a large (the initial plan was to have me be the model for the large, but I mean, folks, I've seen my face and the verdict is in: it belongs behind the camera), and Derek starts piping in with people from his unit he can ask. He mentions a couple people and I tell him that they can't be a small, we've had TWO models in the small category, I need a medium wearer and a large wearer. So he recommends another person in his unit, I asked who they were and he said, X person I was with on PP19, you said she was really pretty. I got really excited and I was like OH SHE IS PRETTY!!!! Here is how that conversation went down, pretty much word for fucking word:

Me: Ooooh, she IS pretty! I liked her, let's ask her!!!

Derek: Ok.

Me: What size is she?

Derek: How am I supposed to know?

Me: Is she tinier than [model at the shoot]?

Derek takes a minute, glances over our model, and very flatly, very dispassionately:

Derek: No, I don't believe so. 

Me: Ok, is she bigger than me?

Derek: OH PSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH DEFINITELY NOT. No way. 

(this remark was both prefaced AND followed up with faces of sheer amusement and disbelief)

Me:.....Ok. Medium, it sounds like. 

And then I busied myself with putting equipment away because I was so fucking angry and so fucking hurt over not just what he said, but how he fucking said it. 

In case you are a fucking idiot like my stupid husband, let me write the conversation as my brain understood it. 

Me: Ok, is she bigger than me?

Derek: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME YOU GOD DAMN HIPPOPOTAMUS? Who is bigger than you??? DON'T BE STUPID. Of COURSE she's not bigger than you,  you fucking horse. 

Cue faces of disbelief and amusement, both before and after, and then I exit stage left. Aaaaand fin. 

And that statement undid months of goodwill I've built up with my body image. I've lost almost 40 pounds since November. That's no small feat, and I'm proud of myself for it. I still have 20 pounds to go if you ask my doctor (thought my doctor said I can stop now and twenty pounds would really be bordering unhealthy territory), and 30 pounds to go if you ask me, though I've also packed on muscle so the number waters are a little muddy at the moment. I had been feeling good about myself until right then. I had been doing these shoots in my bikini (which hilariously gave me a cross hatch burn pattern on my hips because my idiot ass forgot to put sunscreen there, but that isn't the point), prancing around feeling maybe not hot, but certainly cute enough to dare to wander the beaches showing off my (extremely tan, it should be pointed out) body. At the shoot we did Saturday, the boyfriend of the girl we were shooting uploaded a photo of me in my bikini, shooting, to his instagram story and I didn't even freak out. I saw it and thought to myself, oh hey, she real cute, look at that booty! I wish I could have corrected my posture, but that was my chief complaint. My posture. Oh, and that my gloriously pink hair was up and not flowing wildly in the wind. But no harsh rejections of my body as a lumpy mess. 

When Derek scoffed at the idea of this person being larger than me, I thought about that picture, and I thought about standing right there in my bathing suit, and I thought about the fact that he said this in front of a model who is exceptionally thin and fit and that her body was as on display as mine but of the two of us, nobody would judge hers and find it wanting like my husband had just judged mine in front of her and I just wanted to cover up and hide and tear my entire body off of my bones and throw it into the ocean where I could be rid of it for good. 

 When we got home, we had a two second window where Derek noticed I was pissed, asked me what was wrong, and I told him I was fucking angry about what he said and that it was hurtful and his response was, "no it wasn't". I said, "Uh, I beg to fucking differ" and then stormed into the house and dropped the subject because we had company for dinner. I wanted to talk more about it after Gabriel went to bed, but I was still pretty fucking sore over it and I knew I'd get emotional and yell so I left it for this morning. Derek still hasn't woken up and it's 11am, so I'm having to stew more and wait more to really get into how fucking shitty a thing that was for him to say. 

I talked about this with a couple of my girlfriends today, and it's things like these that make me wish I could just be rid of Derek. He can be so fucking poisonous to my emotional well being that I wonder how worth it staying married to him is. 

One of the things I learned from being with Dan is that emotional abuse just...I don't deserve it. I stayed around for Dan's emotional abuse and I enabled it and I never called him on it because I was a coward and I loved him and I thought he'd leave if I rocked the boat even the slightest bit, so I gave away any sense of emotional agency so I could be around him. I feel like Dan would balk at the idea of me labeling him emotionally abusive, but he was. He treated me like I didn't exist to the outside world, everything was on his terms, he was a fucking stone. I could go on and on about this, but I'll beat that dead horse another time. The point is I took away the knowledge that I'm worth more than being stepped on. Dan stepped on me all the fucking time. The fact that I let him counts for something, but he still stepped all over me, and Derek does the same thing, and I think they have something in common in that they both step on me and they are both careless with my feelings, but neither of them are/were intentional in their callous words and actions. 

Do I honestly think Dan meant to wound me the way that he did? I don't. I don't even think that's giving him too much credit, I just don't think Dan thought he was being such a prick. I never gave him any indications (well, that's not true. I had the odd crying jag in his presence over how shitty it felt on my end of the relationship, but he never chimed in with anything other than the perfect silence of a fucking sociopath)

Oh my god feet. Real Feet!

Kind of a lame entry, nothing all that important to say. It's the weekend before Gabriel's school starts, so we've been busy getting everything prepared.

Outside of that, here's what's going on:

Gabriel turned 12, I turned 35, I thought I'd be having a panic attack every day about these things, but I don't really give a shit that I'm 35, I feel better than I've felt in years, and that's what counts.

I've been getting ready to dye my hair purple, but a super vibrant purple. Not a dark purple like the first time I put color in my hair. My hair is in kind of rough shape with all of the bleaching, though, so my girlfriend Nicy sent me a video on how to lighten hair and remove color without using bleach, so I went for it. I figured it couldn't hurt.

I was going after getting rid of blue, which is notoriously stubborn to get out of hair. Perhaps on par with red, which really does stay in my hair forever. I had faded to kind of an interesting, sea-foamy green, and I was feeling it, but with Derek coming home, I wanted to look polished. Polished but purple, obviously. I needed to get a new color in my hairs that looked good. I thought about going galaxy, but decided I'm too fucking lazy to do all of that work. Derek wanted me to redo the pink I did when he was off at PP19, but they didn't have the color at my Ultas and I didn't feel like paying for Lime Crime to ship it, so I bout iroiro purple, which comes out looking like this on blonde hair:

It's perfection, and I've heard from so many people now that iroiro stays on longer than Lime Crime, and it's one of the best vegan/cruelty free colors on the market. 

So I set about lifting all of the color out of my hair, and after the first lift, I kind of fell in love with the blonde look. 

I still had some icy green tints going on, but I was really fucking surprised at how effective this bleach free lift had been. This is how my hair looked prior to the lift, literally the day before:

In case you weren't aware, that is an INSANE amount of color removal without the use of bleach. It wasn't perfect, but it was SO fucking good. And my hair was only dry, the integrity wasn't really compromised. I threw a hair mask on and called it good. 

I did my second lift last night, as the idea was to be fully platinum before putting on the purple. Here's the thing....I kind of love the blonde. And I kinda wanna keep it. 

I went blonde once and it was a disaster, and I've stayed away from it ever since. Except I did pretty good with it on my own. And I think I'm going to keep it until at LEAST my birthday party. 

Derek is taking me to Bar Leather Apron, and I'm so fucking excited. Two of my girlfriends are coming, one of Derek's boyfriends that I'm exceptionally fond of is also coming, it's going to be a great night. But I really think the blonde will look better with both of the outfits I have for the evening that I am currently trying to choose between. One is a shockingly tight but super glam and saucy pink bodycon dress with sky high cheetah print stilettos, and the other is a white top with tiny hot pink lips on it paired with a white pencil skirt and petal pink stilettos with white laces on the pointed toes. Both outfits are perfection, and I'll have a hard time choosing between them. While I am already quite tan (the lighting in these photos doesn't do my tan justice in the least, fucking LED bright whites), I plan on getting all the more golden in the two weeks leading up to my shindig, because I can't remember the last time I went out and felt photogenic. It's literally been YEARS. I'm excited. 

In news that is even cuter than I am, I got a new kitten. His name is Battletoad, and he's the cutest.

He's the tiniest, most cuddly little thing! Lili and Floopies are fucking PISSED  at my audacity, bringing home an interloper. Lili still hasn't forgiven me, but Floopies is coming around. He's stopped hissing and started sleeping with me again. Progress. 

And I've saved the best for last.

Gabriel is a super curious kid, and as a 12 year old, he's particularly curious about sexuality, sex in general, the human body, and puberty. Because I grew up with next to no guidance regarding the navigation of this phase of my life other than NO BOYS ALLOWED and ALWAYS WEAR A BRA, it's pretty important to me that I make sure Gabriel doesn't have any unanswered questions about puberty, for boys OR girls. I'm trying to make Gabriel's education as inclusive as possible, making sure he understands the fluidity of gender and of gender expression, teaching him about sexuality being anything but binary, that sex is fun and wonderful but being physically AND emotionally ready to have it is critical. I'm teaching him that safe sex is important, and to always practice it, but that people with STDs don't need to be avoided as friends or sexual partners. That STDs are a hassle, but they are nothing to stigmatize. Periods aren't gross, they're normal, and they can be very difficult for girls who get them, and they can be ESPECIALLY difficult for young trans boys, so to always be caring and never grossed out by anybody bleeding. I'm open about my own period experiences because Gabriel is curious about periods in general, he has so many questions and I will admit that it can be difficult for me, a cis straight leaning woman (though honestly, I think pansexuality is exactly my speed. I am not currently nor have I ever been sexually attracted to anyone other than cis men, but I don't feel like that's an out of the question possibility. If pussy or a feminine penis is on the menu one day, then they're on the menu one day. I don't want to discount sexual options because I'm locked in a label), to feel like I'm doing right by the LGBTQIA+ community, I get so worried I'm saying the wrong things and giving Gabriel bad information unintentionally. If anybody reading this has good recommendations for inclusive, sex positive, medically accurate and non-stigmatizing sex ed resources, please send them to me.

Anyway.

Gabriel has been making puberty comics. I think my kid is a riot, I really do, and I love what an interesting and sometimes severe sense of humor he has. So while I wasn't surprised by his puberty comics, I was definitely delighted. Here they are, so far:









He has a list of other things that happen during puberty, but he's been preoccupied with other things and kinda dropped the ball on finishing them. I'm really hoping he does, because I laughed over these and enjoyed them so very fucking much. I immediately shared them with everybody I know, and they also enjoyed them.

I worry a lot about my abilities as a mom. I have a lot of hang ups about it, mostly because I'm so stuck on thinking I was doing the right thing by my daughter and having that blow up in my face so hard. Things like this comic make me feel really good about some aspects of it. He's approaching what can be a really embarrassing subject with humor and openness, he asks questions, and he isn't all that shocked by anything.

Of course, he can also still act like a widgy little cunt, but I mean, he's 12. I think that comes with the territory. At least that's what I'll tell myself rather than believing it's a reflection of my being a big widgy cunt and that rubbing off on him. Yes. It is most CERTAINLY the former.