Unconditional Sex

Just kidding.  The title was misleading.  There is no such thing.

I Am a Porous Rock

I am both selfless and selfish.
I don't want to be self-righteous or a martyr, but that's what I am.  That's what you all make me.

I am empathetic.  I feel other people's pain like it's my own.  I would take a bullet in the hallway for a child I don't even know, because sacrifice is what allows me to see humanity.  I will protect others - even if tough love is in order - because I believe in righteousness.  I believe in love.  I believe that the only way to be whole is to let go of the internal, primal mechanism of self-preservation and to help preserve humanity as a whole.

The central conflict is that you all see that in me.  Some people see how to manipulate me right away.  I can handle those people.  They don't matter as much.  What kills me, every day, is that the people I choose to love are the people who truly know me, and then they/you use my empathy as a weapon, against me.

When I love, I do it completely,  Wholly.  I would do anything for someone I love.  And, in my experience, the people who know I love them are the best at poking holes into the tough (but sometimes aluminum-thin) exterior of my soul.  You're predatory.  You see something in me which you thought was strong, but has deep vulnerabilities.

Then you pounce.

Maybe you don't mean to.  (I want to give you the benefit of the doubt.) And yet you still eat away at the soft spots - the sore spots - because you know I will give you what you want.  You know I will be there.  You know I have become (essentially) a doormat.  You win.

That's when you lose me.  One too many times, and you lose credibility.  You lose the very best thing I have to give to anyone, which is:  the best version of me.  You take advantage.  You stop trying.  You forget.

The truth is:  I am I.  I have to be able to stand alone, or I am nothing.  And you assisted in getting me here - to this place in my self-awareness   ...  again.  Because it seems that I have to keep coming back here again (in this vapid wasteland of self-loathing and self-pity and inertia) in order to see that YOU are not the answer to ME.

I have to be the rock.  The island.

Who Are You?

In the midst of a crisis, who are you?  Do you panic?  Do you rely on others?  Do you lead, or do you follow?  Are you part of the problem or working on the solution?  Do you want closure or seek new questions?  Are you following the rules or breaking them?  Do you WANT ..?  WHAT do you want?

Is the answer dependent on the situation?
Do the circumstances dictate your response?

Absurdity is real, and people answer to it every day, in different ways.

Why?

Snow Days (Bring It)

Snow day #2.  Five day weekend.  Today, they called school off at 5:30 am, but the snow didn't start to fall until like 2pm. 

Whatever, right on.  I'll take five days off in a row, 100% of the time. 

Snow is like a tranquil blanket, which doubles as an excuse to stay inside and either be lazy or be productive.  It's all up to you. 

What a beautiful thing.

The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is commemorative of Martine Luther King.  I had to go to work.  My students all got the day off.  I'm not sure what this means, unless we are meant to use a federal work day, and give students a holiday, while pretending to honor a man. 

So.  The Reverend Doctor Luther King, Jr was quite the man. 

I teach a course called Advanced Placement English Language and Composition.  I can think of only a few people who truly know how to use the English language to compose things which are powerful enough to move people to real action.  MLK was such a man.  He spoke in rhythm.  He spoke biblically and honestly and with such provocation that even white, suburbanites eventually had to LISTEN. 

When someone talks about a speaker COMMANDING a room, you've got to talk about Martin. 

The man was a reverend with a Doctorate in Theology.  He knew what he was talking about.  And he spoke about humanity and peace and love and harmony and equality and mindfulness and kindness in a way no one else was speaking in the 1960s.  He was so eloquently that thousands of people came to march with him and listen to him speak about the freedom our American founding fathers wrote about when creating the government. 

In the process, he pissed a lot of people off.  J Edgar Hoover put him on an FBI watch list.  James Earl Ray shot and killed him to shut him up.  But his message lived on.  Equality should not be reserved for certain people of a certain race.  Everyone deserved to be treated with basic human dignity.

Do yourself a favor and go read "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", and be grateful that Martin Luther King, Jr. walked the earth, even if his time was long before yours.  Respect.

On Any Given Sunday

Midwest.
Bitterly cold, like when the very air coming into my lungs hurts and the wind is a repeated bitch-slap.
Snow on the ground - ice underneath.
A good day to sit and think about what the fuck I'm doing with my life. 

There are only so many things I can rearrange or clean or attempt to fix without wanting to pull my fucking hair out.

Play the guitar, you say?  Sit down at the piano, perhaps?  Sure, but my inability to play those instruments EXACTLY how I think they should sound also (eventually) makes me want to just lie down and take a nap.

Unfortunately, I can't sleep.  And when the very early hours of the morning come around, my brain starts dreaming about the things I can't fix in my waking hours.  Dreams about being lost.  Dreams about being in the same place as someone I want to talk to, but not quite being able to catch up with them or have them hear what I'm saying.  And then come the pre-waking dreams of day-to-day drudgery:  paying bills, refinancing my house, getting divorced, paying for college ... losing sight of everything and everyone important to me.

I don't need antidepressants; I need a series of proper human actions that transport me to the life I want to be living.  And while I know that life is somewhere within reach, I am paralyzed by the little details which would get me there. 

Just another Sunday.

Today

Because Margaret Atwood and Stephen King told me  that I have to write every day in order to "be a writer", I'm going to write about nothing.  Here it goes:

The following is a list of what I did today:

• I woke up, laid in bed, watched The Office, made some breakfast (which I ate in bed), and snuggled with the cat.
• I vacuumed some spaces.
• I read DJ Trump's new tweets (idiot).
• I went grocery shopping (which I do not like).
• I drank some champagne (to celebrate ... nothing).
• I read a bunch of The Power (an amazing book).
• I went outside and looked at the snow (several times).
• I cleaned the litter box (enthralling stuff).
• I washed my clothes (which are still in the dryer, because I don't want to put them away).
• I took Step One of bringing a (mostly dead) bamboo plant back to life.
• I stared at the wall for a while (not kidding).
• I thought about doing a handful of things (which I did not do).
• I watched Margaret Atwood's Master Class online (in no particular order).
• I thought about my thoughts (several times - none of which was particularly insightful).
• I sat down at the piano (played like four notes and then got up).
• I graded some quizzes (then didn't care enough to post the grades online).
• I just put a frozen lasagna in the oven (and I'm hoping I can stay awake long enough to hear the timer go off).
• IT'S 4:30 IN THE AFTERNOON!!

That about sums it up.  I can't decide if I'm the most boring person alive, or if suburban living has completely eaten my creative brain, or if the trivial things I'm doing are what some people would call "peaceful".  

Whatever.  

Premarital Sex, and so forth

Today, during lunch, I got an earful about sex.  All the different kinds of sex.  Many, many things which I did not need to know about it.  Dicks.  Dick size.  Insertion.  Depth.  Blow jobs.  Swallowing v. spitting.  How many?  How often?  Why?

That last questions hits home for me more than anything:  why?! 

I'm not a prude, but the blatant, objective, comical honesty coming out of these girls' mouths (no pun intended) was like being at open mike night with Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler and Amy Schumer all trying to outdo each other, except all the stories were originating from one girl, who (apparently) was just trying to share her life, while educating a couple of lesbians and a virgin.  (And, unfortunately, me.) .

So ... I guess I (accidentally) made a "personal connection" with some people today. 

Now, I'm going to have to forget all of it, otherwise every time I see her ... well, that's what I'll see.

Mental Illness, etc

Talk to just about anyone you know under the age of 50, and they will identify as having some form of mental illness:  anxiety, depression, OCD, addiction ...

Talk to just about anyone you know under 25, and they will identify as having some form of mental illness, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, addiction, or simply a generalized version of "not being happy with their life". 

Why is this?  What has society (or the individuals therein) done to create such a panic in people?  Are we actually broken?  Is society systematically breaking us?  Are we just pussies compared to generations which came before?  Are we all basically the same as generations past, but we are less capable of dealing with everyday problems?  Is society predatory in nature?

I believe the answer is "all of the above". 

I also the believe the answer comes down to education and money, both together and independently.  Young people are inundated with the belief that they have to mortgage their futures to attend college, and older people are still under the financial duress of college loans (plus mortgages, children, and living expenses). 

It's time to stop the madness.  Simplicity has a place in 2019.  College is NOT a necessity for everyone.  Owning a home does NOT make a person happier.  Having children is great IF the choice is totally personal and not socially pressured, AND one has the money to support their decision.

Oh, and let's not forget MARRIAGE, which is (probably) the number 5 reason for depression and poverty in America. 

I wish I could go back and tell the younger version of me not to listen to all the bullshit spewed by adults.  I wish I would have listened to my inner voice that said, "you don't want to be married - it's a social construct, intended to make sure everyone is tied down".  I wish I would have been more frugal with money while I still had the opportunity to do that. 

But here we all are, medicated and placated, doing exactly what The Man wanted us to do. 

Cheers to all the people who live their lives on their own terms and listen to themselves.

My Favorite Part

My favorite part of this blog is that NO ONE, EVER responds to anything I say.

What's the fucking point.

A Break

I just have two weeks off from work, and once I realized today was Friday, I started to freak the fuck out.  I'm not ready.  I haven't gotten all my shit done. I'm not ready to meet another couple groups of new 18-year-old whiners who just want to graduate and not listen to me ... every day.

What the fuck am I doing?

I plan on trying.  That's all I can do.