#i’m so unwell about the fact he’s got a religious name i’m SO unwell

[magpigment]

thoughts about gabriel w religious trauma? thoughts? thoughts? thoughts?

[sub-at-omicsteminist]

Why are you atheist??

I’ve been staring at this ask for a while now since it’s such an odd thing to just ask and I was trying to figure out when I’ve ever mentioned religion so I can answer in response to what they’ve seen but I don’t know when I’ve mentioned it.

I’ve never been a person of faith, I remember in year 2 (6/7 years of age) I was at a school Mass and I realised everyone else around me believed what was being said whereas I thought what was happening was just another story. I’ve always took religious teachings as stories to teach morals and guidance but I never took them literally.

I used to attended a Greek Orthodox church on Sundays and I’m christened Greek Orthodox and I didn’t mind it because the priest was a lovely person. He would say things like Science is the pursuit of understanding Gods creation and he would talk about how important education is. But the thing that stood out to me was he once said being trans isn’t a sin, it’s the journey God planned for that Individual. So when I was younger I wasn’t aware of the more homophobic and transphobic sides of religion.

It wasn’t until I started attending the Catholic secondary that I realised that some people used religion to back up ideas of hate and I became very anti Christian and stopped attending church because as a young Queer kid the bullying and being told I’m going to hell all the time really got to me.

My mum also became very unwell, she has a chronic illness amongst many other disabilities so I also thought if there is a God he doesn’t care because why would he make a child watch there mother slowly die and loose her mind and become abusive.

I loved talking to my friends about their religions though, I’ve always been fascinated with beliefs and faith because I’ve never had any. I partook in Ramadan one year to support my friend who was finding it hard and their family invited me to Iftar and I really respected how important their faith must be for them to do this because it was very difficult. Another experience I won’t forget was watching my friends mum create a Rangoli because she put so much care and attention into it and it is still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen because of that care that went into it.

But it wasn’t until I was 17 I started recognising not all religious people are oppressive, some people use it for oppression but if you take people individually who believe in it that’s not a bad thing.

But there are still things I don’t like, for an example at my secondary we were put into religious houses and mine was house Vanier, turns out that guy was an awful person. His name is Jean Vanier if anyone wants to look him up but it’s just disgusting. Also the priest at the Catholic Church closest to where I live was found out to be preying on children, I have no idea what happened to him in the end but it was a big deal in my town. I also live near some Jehovah’s witnesses who for a month straight harassed me after pride because I assume they saw me coming home with pride face paint and stickers on and I had leaflets about sinning coming through the letter box constantly, and even now they still bang loudly on my door to preach when I’ve explained me, my mum and dad all have diagnosed ptsd and find it distressing. My RE teacher also told our class how he pressured his friend who was SA’d into keeping her baby and he was so proud of himself and it made me feel sick, he did loose his job because he told a student they’ll die and go to hell if they take the pill even though they were taking it for medical reasons.

That’s the part of religion I hate, it’s those individuals I hate. I don’t hate religion or people who practice religion but I hate the fact those things happened.

One of the kindest adults in my life was the school Chaplin, she told me she prayed everyday for my mum to get better and she prayed for me during my exams. I spent a lot of time in the chapel because it was quiet when I was having panic attacks and she used to just sit with me and talk me through them.

I’ve lost track of what I’ve written but

I’m not anti religion. Me not being a religious person isn’t anti religion. I’m anti people using religion as an excuse to be horrible to others.

I’ve just never had any sort of beliefs, in my mind everything is just a coincidence. I don’t believe in an after life, ghosts, superstitions or anything like that either. But that’s who I am and I don’t think that should offend anyone. But I also know I could be wrong and I can’t tell anyone their religion is wrong or right because I simply don’t know that.

I think I prefer the term agnostic (a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God) over atheist because it’s as simple as I don’t know but I don’t think anyone is wrong for having faith.

But also I want to add I’m a white person talking about religion and my experience, all over the world people have different experiences so it doesn’t actually matter what I say. I’m just answering an ask and if you ever want to talk to me about religion I’m always happy to.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

As you all may know, my mother is on a ventilator for covid 19. She didn’t believe in covid. I tried to tell her but she didn’t believe it. She tried to tell me some kind of Qanon bologne when I’d try to tell her. I would give anything to have more time with my mother. There is some signs of improvement in her feeling better but I am not wanting to become too hopeful. She was on the phone with one of my elder sisters for six minutes rather than two the other day. She was angry at her for letting her kids come in to her house knowing they had covid.

I’m very angry at her doctor who told her she didn’t need the covid shot, in fact just telling her she is healthy. She has a small body frame and is on the shorter side but weighs nearly three hundred pounds and struggles to get around. She’s 59 years old and works as a nurse at a nursing home and works way too hard on minimum wage, has given birth to six children, has always had asthma and is prone to bronchitis and pneumonia. She’s a prime candidate for covid, in fact she is who I thought about the day I remember reading about covid. It’s like this disease was designed to kill my mother.

They sent her to southern Idaho for a ventilator. She is lucky to get one. They’ve run out in many of these red states that didn’t take covid seriously enough. It does not bring me any joy that right wingers and people who didn’t believe in the shot are dying. I’ve had liberal friends say over simplistic things about people from red states getting what’s coming to them and so forth, and people have rejoiced at the idea of trump supporters getting sick and suffering and dying.

I am left leaning, but I never want to get so caught up in my political ego that I eradicate any notion of humanity to the people I don’t agree with or might not even like. Their pain and lives are real and legitimate as anyone else’s. Their families matter too. They are wrong, my mother is wrong. She’s been backwards about a lot of the world my whole life.

But she’s also a very kind person. She is always giving to people and has contradictory, while supporting a fucking horrible president, also put up for and fought her job because of racism she was seeing all around her. She doesn’t really think like a conservative and her way of approaching life didn’t really ever reflect a deeper conservative value or drive. I’ve noticed other conservatives never liked her.

She believed the wrong things because she was driven by religious faith and loneliness to believe the rabbit hole of alt right Facebook. She doesn’t have much of an education, was bullied and abused for most of her childhood. she went to over twenty different schools and moved a lot throughout her childhood. She got married and started having children very young. She always worked as a bartender, or as a caretaker to children with disabilities or elderly folk. She barely understood the internet. She believed in god and joined religious groups on Facebook very open and blindly without even understanding propaganda or the political climate of what is being fought for, which pretty much took her down this poisonous road. And now she’s barely able to talk in an icu all alone, as this virus that she didn’t believe in tries to kill her.

Moving to the city and always being left leaning, but being from a rural area of the inland north west, where I was outnumbered and lived amongst these folk who didn’t like me all that much but I was always having to find ways to accept and understand sometimes gives me a perspective perhaps that maybe liberal kids from middle class families from liberal cities have missed out on. I will never be able to see it as black and white. It would be easy to just say that the people in Bible Belt areas deserve this and be rid of any sadness or guilt. I was disgusted by the anti intellectualism I was surrounded by and I lived for most of my twenties in my own world to avoid it when I was growing up and lived in my home state which is fairly red. But people are the same everywhere. They really are.

Her recovery is slow and I worry something terrible is happening to her organs and lungs as she has fights for her life. I hope her body is strong enough to keep fighting. I appreciate the care and labor and sacrifice the hospitals have given to keep people alive. There is so much anguish. We have lost a mural of so many wonderful and beautiful souls to covid. It’s hard to even fathom the grief and pain it’s left in its wake. I can barely cope with my own.

I took a walk today to think. I haven’t wanted to listen to music in a long while because my mood is on my mother’s condition, but I put in John Prine. He was one of the first people to die of covid that I cared about, albeit indirectly as I only know him through his songs. I had a ticket to go see him play before covid took his life. It was going to be small and intimate outdoor concert in town. His music was always so real and down to earth. He sings about the quiet sad things of getting old and the way that love is about the daily existence with other people. How you build and cope with things.

One of his last songs on the album before he died was about how science has no business tinkering with nature. It’s so genuine. And ironic. Not everyone shares this belief, but I think that the covid flu was made in a lab and someone made a mistake and let it out into the public. I believe it was just human error in Wuhan. Nobody, no government or anything wanted this. And the Chinese government did everything they could to avoid fessing up to the mistake. So the idea of a lab grown virus being what killed John Prine kind of hurts in a way, though he also often sang about being comfortable with death and having peace with a life that was happy.

There are countless people I could blame for my mother’s disease. I could blame the dystopian Chinese government and their inability to admit fault, I could blame our government and our long-standing capitalist system that monetary prioritizes gain over human life, I could blame my mother’s cruel upbringing for not giving her the tools she needed to make wise choices about the world around her, or she herself for not taking care of her body. I could blame her mother and father and brothers.

I could blame my sisters kids for their lack of consideration of what covid would do to my mother’s health knowing she was high risk, or my eldest sister herself for being lazy and letting them go to my moms house knowingly.

I could blame some mentally unwell woman named Susan who my mother might have vaguely known for inviting her to a Facebook group of hate and conspiracy, or blame the nuns who drove religion into my mother’s head as a child. I could blame the easy to punch Ted Cruz or Tucker Carleson or any of the right wing mouth pieces for spreading lies and misinformation to the people they are supposedly speaking up for on behalf of about covid. I could blame it on our artificially based two party system that prevents real discussion from ever happening.

In the end, there is a myriad of things I could blame. So many pieces to the puzzle I could write volumes. But it doesn’t change where we are at now. And I have little control of the world around me. Or what made it that way. It’s disappointing. And in a way, John Prine has that message too. I’m just sad. I try to remember that my mom of the many people I have known was very accepting of death. Maybe it’s because she’s a person of faith, but she has a practical dark humor about her too that makes her accept it. I know she wouldn’t want me to be sad, but I am all the same.

It’s happened at this point where I am genuinely feeling my age and kind of at a crossroads in who I am as a person and what I want to do. I’ll talk about that some other time though. There is only so much a person can read.

[purplesurveys]

1256

surveys by taco-tuesdays

What steps would you take in order to track down a thief? Not too far, honestly. I accept things pretty easily so if I’ve processed that I’ve been robbed, I am most likely to just let it go. I’ll feel like shit, of course, but I would just let it go and scold myself for failing to be attentive.

What is something that one of your family member collects? My mom used to collect printed table napkins from different restaurants, but obivously she hasn’t been able to continue that for the past year and a half. My dad and brother used to collect magazines but both stopped a few years ago.

What would you do if you were able to have lunch with the queen? The journalist in me will probably just ask her questions about her everyday life, how she spends it, what she’s into and what she’s not into these days.

If you got to create a new flavor of ice cream, what would it be? This is a little hard considering there are a lot of small businesses out there already getting creative and quirky with ice cream flavors so it’s just hard to tell if a certain flavor has already been invented or not. One thing I haven’t seen, though, is curry. I’d buy a pint of that in an instant.

What are some questions that you would ask your favorite celebrity? His latest vlog finds. He once shared a video of this smaller content creator, so I’m guessing that’s what he likes doing in his spare time and I’m sure he would have a bunch of other just as interesting recommendations.

If you were able to set up a stand, what would you sell? Street food.

Would you like to go deep sea diving? Why or why not? Yeah. I’m always willing to try daring, not-the-safest-thing-in-the-world activities haha.

What would life be like if you lived on a cloud? The realist in me just wants to say I’d plummet straight to the ground.

What would you find at the top of a magic beanstalk? Idk, my creativity can’t be bothered to be challenged.

What is one food you would not want to have rain down from the sky? Durian. It would hurt and stink like shit.

Which animal's characteristics are similar to your own personality? I don’t really assign sets of personalities to animals.

If you were in a department store, which aisle would you check out first? I personally still go for the toys/video games section first HAHAHA

What are some of your hobbies? They include going to museums, exploring new food and restaurants, traveling to different cities and countries, and reading about history.

You've opened a store that only sells purple items - what do you sell? BTS merch hahahahah duhhhh

What is something important that you've lost, and did you ever find it? I lost a rosary that came straight from the Vatican. No, I never found it again. I feel bad about it not because it’s a religious object, but because it came from my grandma.

Have you ever moved to a new school before? If so, how did it feel? I mean, I had to change schools when I was moving up from high school to college, but I’ve never changed schools within the same chapter of my studies, like in the middle of elementary or high school. But to answer the question, it had been a very liberating and empowering experience. I hated the rules in my Catholic school and there were so many elements from that place that made me hide so much about myself. The fact that I could wear shorts and curse and attend rallies and cut class and make my own class schedules in college felt incredibly freeing and satisfying.

What would've happened if Cinderella never went to the ball? See magic beanstalk question.

If you had one day to do anything at all, what would you choose? I would drive to Tagaytay and find a cozy restaurant and eaaaaatttt awaaaayyyy.

What are a few of your favorite songs? I really really like Singularity by V, Over the Hills by Hayley Williams, and So Far Away by Agust D and Suran.

Have you ever legitimately forgotten to do homework? All the time. I never wrote down homework.

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If you were a witch, what kind of a spell would you cast? On who? I don’t care about casting spells on people. I just want my cravings to show up in the snap of a finger hahaha. Can that be part of a witch’s scope of work? Kjdgfhsdfskjfhs

Do you enjoy autumn leaves or spring flowers more? Why? I wouldn’t know. I experience neither over here.

What is your favorite sport to play? What about watch? Table tennis. Favorite to watch would be either tennis or pro wrestling.

Have you ever gone on a cruise before? To where? Yeah. It was an East Asian cruise so I traveled to Shanghai, Jeju, and Fukuoka.

What would you do if you were invisible for a day? Probably go to the bigger houses in the village and see how fancy they get.

Depending on where you live, why might a day of school get canceled? Typhoon, floods. A lot of places are incredibly prone to flooding, so as long as it’s been raining super hard the chances for a class suspension will get high.

What types of transportation do you think we will see in the future? I dunno. It seems like we’re at that point where everything is in the process of being invented or perfected already. 

What were some of your toys you always played with when you were little? I liked kitchen sets and anything with lots of buttons, so like toy telephones or cash registers.

If you were a movie star, what would a day in your life be like? I have no clue apart from the fact that I’m just glad I would assumedly have more than enough money to buy whatever I’m craving whenever I want hahaha.

If you invented a time machine, what year would you like to go to, and why? Realistically I wouldn’t change a thing; but if I had to answer this question I’d go back to 2016 and never ask out Gab a second time, so that the next four years wouldn’t end up being such a waste of my time.

What is your favorite holiday and why? I don’t have one. I’m not a big holiday ~celebrator.

What is something that you like to do while on vacation? Try food I’ve never tried before. The more unconventional or obscure, the better.

If you could meet any fictional character from a book, who would it be? Eh, don’t really have anyone in mind.

What are some common places that people tour when they come to your city? There’s the waterfalls in the upper part of the city – I’m just not sure if it’s still a popular spot but it certainly was when I was a kid. There’s also an art museum that I’m certain is a lot more frequented now.

What's one food that you did not enjoy as a child, but do as an adult? Curry.

How would having no electricity affect your daily routine? I wouldn’t be able to attend work, at least not for the whole day. It would also feel a lot warmer without the electric fan, which would in turn make me cranky.

If you had one wish, what would it be? A renovated room with a dedicated corner for all my merch.

Say someone gives you a magic sweater. What happens when you wear it? Idk.

If you built a new city, how would you convince people to move there? I wouldn’t.

What is one of your favorite movies? Why is it one of your favorites? Two for the Road. It has Audrey Hepburn, it’s a realistic rom-com, and the chemistry between the two leads is superb.

--

If you were given a certain amount of time to live, would you want to know? Yeah for sure, I would want to know in a heartbeat.

What would you do if you were able to stop time? I don’t know what I would do, but that would be a nice...opportunity, I guess? to experiment with or try out certain decisions and see how well or unwell they would work out to be. So that when time resumes, I’d know better on how to best handle a situation.

Do you think that long distance relationships would be for you? I wouldn’t actively go for it, but I’m not shutting down the possibility either.

Is there a popular social media platform that you don't have an account for? I have one for all the main ones, I think. Even Instagram, I made an account not too long ago to finally join the platform.

How old were you when you found out about Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc? I never knew the Easter Bunny was a thing until I started taking these surveys at like 14. I never really believed in Santa either, and the only figure I was super disappointed to learn that it didn’t exist was the tooth fairy.

Who is your favorite Disney Princess? Rapunzel.

Which freaks you out more - clowns or porcelain dolls? Porcelain dolls. They look more innocent, which somehow makes them creepier.

What was the last mistake that you learned from? Hm, just a minor work thing that would be too complicated to explain here.

Do you prefer "regular pencils" or mechanical ones? Why? Regular. I always break off the tips of mechanical pencils.

What is one little-known music artist you'd recommend? Andi made me listen to The Drums recently and I’ve been loving their sound so far; they would be perfect on a road trip. I’ve only listened to one album, though.

What is your favorite Pixar film? Toy Story!

Who was the last person to send you any sort of message on social media? Angela sent me a video meme.

Where were you on September 11th, 2001? I don’t know...probably already being put to bed. Either way I wasn’t fully conscious yet as I had only been 3 and living on the other side of the planet.

Name your favorite green vegetable. Broccoli, spinach, bell peppers, or asparagus. IDK I love veggies hahahaha

Could you handle a friends with benefits type of situation? Not for me. I’m not even into sex. 

Do you prefer using a brush or a comb on your hair? Comb. 

What's your favorite flavor of potato chips? SALTED EGG. I’m obsessed; I had like five bags this week alone.

Would you rather build a snowman or a snow fort? Why? I dunno; I’ve never tried making either.

At what age do you believe children should begin having screen time? I’m not too sure at this point, but I do know I don’t plan on being too strict with my kids. I’d let them watch stuff on an iPad from like age 3 or 4, but one thing I would change from how I was raised is putting a limit on their screen time, maybe half an hour to an hour a day.

If you had to give a speech, what would it be on? I’d be down for any topic as long as I was given ample time to research, honestly. I like public speaking.

[another-tiny-ant]

Why an ant? What’s it all about?

So I heard that Tumblr is the place to come to vent your feelings, and I have been told by various counsellors, etc, that I ought to write things down to help clear my head. I got out a notebook and felt far too embarrassed to put pen to paper, and there was greater risk of someone I know finding it, which would humiliate me even more. So the internet it is- in true millennial form. I don't expect anyone to read this- I actually kind of hope they don’t. But I think I need to start talking, and typing/writing has always come more easily to me. Also this way, I can avoid burdening or upsetting the people I care about. So here goes...

I think mental health problems have always been there for me. I was bullied from the second I started socialising with other kids, and I’ve often wondered why that was. I have a learning disability, dyspraxia, which has affected my coordination, processing, speech (especially when I first started school), as well as other vital life skills, like organisation and planning. I know that, especially because I was undiagnosed, but also because kids are cruel, this marked me out as ‘stupid’ or ‘vulnerable’- an ‘easy target’- or whatever, but I don't think that can have been the only reason. Perhaps I was simply too timid, or kind, or willing to please, and so I got stamped all over (fortunately only ever verbally, though I say “only”...). It sounds pretentious talking about myself like that. But school was simply something to survive for me, not to enjoy, ever, for the whole fourteen miserable years I endured. Despite that, I have always had a love and thirst for knowledge and learning, and that was where I found my solace when things got too much for me- getting my head down in the textbooks (especially because most of my teachers were useless, or even abusive, to varying degrees), finding problems and then finding ways around them. I had to fight my own way through, and find my own coping strategies, because there was never anyone in school either with the time, empathy or will to care. I suppose that’s something to be proud of- I thrashed my own path through that jungle of dashed young hopes and dreams. Though that sounds painfully bleak.

I would be lying if I said I've never had friends, or fun, or love. I certainly have. Though I think my experiences have made it hard for me to trust people- I open up reasonably easily- though only superficially I suppose- but I find it very hard to trust. Friends have taught me to expect people to be unreliable. There are exceptions though. Can you tell, I’m forcing myself to be positive? I have people to see and talk to- I just crave some kind of connection or kinship that I haven’t really found from friends. The one person, however, with whom I do share that kinship, who ‘gets me’, and always not only exceeds, but explodes my expectations, is my boyfriend. Whenever I am down, or vulnerable, or upset, he doesn’t recoil, or ignore me, or push me down more, as I would expect any person to do- he gives me his hand and helps me up. He helps me brush down my clothes, clean myself up. He puts a smile on my face and reminds me that some people at least, are good. Not just good, but pure. Loving, open souls who spread positivity, like light that shines from their bodies and penetrates even the darkest shadows. And he does all of that, without even realising, or making any conscious effort. He is just himself. ‘Just’ implies some kind of put down- but nothing could be more perfect, or glorious. I don’t think he has any clue quite how wonderful he is. In fact, he’ll deny it out of hand. I wish he could see himself as he is reflected in my eyes- perhaps that would make his own battles so much easier to fight.

I have been struggling again recently. Just to state the obvious- anyone who read this I’m sure would see that straight away, just from my tone-of-written-voice. I would at least. But then perhaps, I’m different. I went to my uni GP surgery the other day- when I finally did get them to agree to see me- and tried to speak to one of the GPs there about what’s been going on inside my head. The trouble is, I stammer and struggle to get my words out, or really articulate what I mean, when I get worked up or confronted with those kinds of situations (hence this blog- my mind suddenly becomes less cluttered when I start to write- and less panicked). So the appointment really didn't go well. Added to that, I was very obviously quite under the weather- but the first thing I was told when I arrived was that “we can’t possibly address more than one issue in this appointment”. My mind becomes so much foggier when I’m ill, and my ability to cope becomes virtually non-existent. The only times I’ve ever punched bullies have been when I’ve also been unwell. Anyway, when I started trying to describe how i’d been feeling (and failed dismally to convey quite the aching bleakness I feel in my chest sometimes), the doctor googled a depression questionnaire, and got me to score myself on the questions. Naturally, I paled at the thought of potentially over-exaggerating, as I’m permanently paranoid of undermining the much bigger battles other people experience, so as always, I under-played everything I was feeling, and the results were pretty unrepresentative. Even so, I scored on the depression scale (though that sounds like an utterly arbitrary, bullshit scale to say the least). I suppose that was her way of telling me she was diagnosing me. Five minutes later, I was turfed out of the seat I was in, and clutching a list of phone numbers she’d handed me, as I walked out of the surgery, I felt no closer to mending myself that before I went. If anything, I felt even more cut loose and abandoned, in an institution that wouldn’t care if I lived or died. That’s not to say I’m suicidal, but I do often feel so overwhelmed that i just want to get on a plane and fly far, far away, and never come back. 

In case you hadn’t already guessed, I’ve kind of forgotten where I was trying to go with this. I suppose I’m just pressing keys and spewing words and hoping that I will suddenly feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. Nothing that miraculous has happened, but I do suppose I feel somewhat better for getting things off my chest. I suppose I just find it hard to see the good around me sometimes, and I take for granted what is special around me. I can remember from pretty much when I started talking (and more importantly, people started understanding me- let me tell you, that took a while), I was always called a pessimist. I have to consciously remind myself how lucky I am. I suppose that's why I feel so ashamed to talk about what's inside my mind. But I have my health (physically at least). I have my mind (for the most part). And I have potential. Most importantly though, my family could not be more supportive of me, and openly loving, and I couldn't be luckier to have my extraordinary, sunbeam boyfriend. Christmas is coming up, and not only will i get to escape university, but I will get to go home and spend quality time with the people I love most. I’m not in the slightest bit religious, but I love how everyone makes an effort to put all the crap to one side at Christmas, and just share their love instead. Beyond that, there will be the summer. So there is hope. I just have to keep reminding myself.

I remember now what the whole point of this post was. Haha! What did I say about my planning ability? I wanted to explain my Tumblr name/blog name/whatever-the-fuck-its-called, but basically why I am referring to myself as an ant. The basic reasons- it’s anonymous, first and foremost. But its also non-identifying, non-gender/age/class/creed/etc-specific. The real reason though is that it comes from something my mum has always said to me. So I’ve always been criticised for being a ‘perfectionist’. A counsellor even sent me links to webpages to read all about perfectionism, procrastination, and self-destruction. If I were to write an honest CV, those are probably the ‘skills’ I’d boast about. So when I get worked up about not doing a “good enough” job of something, or putting too much pressure on myself, or I’ve fucked it all up, my mum gently says to me something along these lines: 

“We’re all just tiny ants, scuttling around on the log of the Earth. None of us are more important than the other, but none of us are that important either. That’s not to depress you, but to remind you that existence is short. You’re not around for long. Don’t spend your life stressing about what you’ll achieve. Just do good. Even if it’s just in small ways. Treat people right. Care about the right things. Be kind, always. Make the small changes that you can and live happily. That's what it’s all about in the end. Just do the good that you can.”

That’s not to say that she doesn’t support any ‘big’ ideas that I have. Or that she doesn't tell me “you can achieve anything you set your mind to”, because those are also things she says to me all the time. What she means is take comfort in this perspective- don’t make things matter too much. Save your energy and enjoy your life, because life is short, and you do only get one go at it. And that perspective of being a tiny speck, if even that, in the plane and timescale of existence has always frightened me, but I think I am finally maturing enough to understand what she means. Live your best life, to the best of your abilities, with the best people, and love freely and plentifully. Don’t get yourself wrapped up in what it all means, or what the point of it all is. You’re just an ant- but not “just” an ant. You are a being with a life that you are going to live as best as you can. So this is me, trying to come to terms with the point of it all, but not wrapping myself up in “the point” of it at all. 

I’m Another Tiny Ant. 

🖤����🖤

[kampa77-blog]

No one knows what tomorrow will bring, let alone what impacts today will have on tomorrow.  We, everyone and everything on this planet we ride on, are embroiled in the universes greatest experiment.  The very fact we, or anything exists on this planet is a result of a series of completely random events that have developed into what we call “the world” as we know it now.  But, this “world” is definitely not the same “world” we knew yesterday, and it wont be the same tomorrow.

Just a few years ago we passed the threshold of 400 parts per million particles of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this is up from the mid 1800’s where the atmosphere contained just 280 parts per million.   This is a raise of 40% since the “Industrial Era”.  The reaction of the earths atmosphere as a result of this is what science is calling “The Green House Effect”.   Supposedly this is causing the atmosphere to heat up as a result, causing the weather channel to resemble something of a horror show !!.

Lets go back to the Industrial Era.  An era where factories, creating machines designed to make life easier, work less laborious and more output more efficient, spewed tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.  People got sick, land got polluted and through the convection of heated air, pollution spread across the globe, through the oceans and eventually popped up on a dinner plate in the Salmon Johnny Adams just ate for dinner.  In all its glory, science is trying to show us something.  To teach us that every action has opposite reaction, sometimes though, this reaction isn’t as equal as we’d like to believe it should be.  Just now are we beginning to realise the effects of what we did 60 – 80 years ago.   We didn’t know back then.

I remember seeing adverts stating that “More doctors smoke Camels….” & “It’s just what the doctor ordered”.  Try telling people 60 years ago that smoking cigarettes would give them cancer.  The smoking experiment eventually showed us that nicotine and tar inhaled through a filter caused cancerous cells to make us unwell and eventually die.

How safe do you feel now, smearing sunscreen over yourself before heading out into the sun.  We really have no idea of the long-term effects of using sunscreen, it hasn’t been around long enough.  How about supplementing sugar with Equal, Stevia or one of a handful of chemical substitutes ?.  Butter comes from milk, but Margarine,  which is supposed to be just one ingredient away from plastic and has added coloring to turn it from its natural color of Gray to Yellow.  Whats that doing to us ?? Maybe in 20 years we’ll find out. !!

What I’m getting at is this.  No-one knows the results of anything.  We can guess, which is exactly what science is;  the best informed and educated prediction about something we can’t be 100% certain of.

Scientists usually have varying opinions on everything, but there’s one thing every scientist can agree on, and that is that our atmosphere has changed.  What this means is that every scientific model that’s ever been developed is obsolete.  They have no idea whats going to happen next !!  Weather reporting and predictions is now more than ever, a “just run with it and see what happens” type system.  We can see what coming a few days out, but beyond that is anyone’s guess.  With the development and advancement of technology, wouldn’t you believe that we should be able to predict what’s coming two or maybe three weeks away !?

Fracking has become a huge topic for environmentalists.  Fracking is where drilling occurs and high pressure water (among other chemicals) is forced into coal seams to force out gas, used in industry.   The long-term effects on the climate is unknown.  Fracking has been blamed for earthquakes,  flammable gas found present in towns drinking water supplies, and disastrous biological and ecological effects across hundreds of thousands of acres of land.   No-one can say with any determination what the long term effects of fracking will be.  Just like no-one can say what the long term effects of coal mining,  oil drilling or even tapping into the underground aquifers will be.   We just pushing ahead with hope that what we are doing now isn’t going to have to much of an effect on tomorrow.

Funnily enough, the knee jerk reactions of mankind see’s groups such as WWF to help protect the worlds endangered animals as a result of their habitats being diminished to feed organisations such as Ikea, that uses 1% of the world’s wood every year.  Remember the Kyoto

Does anyone remember this ?  “I am the one that is burdened with finding the balance between sound environment practice on one hand and jobs for the American people on the other” I wasn’t long after this statement was made that President Bush abandoned the Kyoto Accord favoring a stronger economy over a strained world environment – little did he know just over 15 years later America like the rest of the word suffered through a global financial crisis that damaged the very economy he was trying to protect, in turn this slowed down if not closed down many of the very same polluting industries,  in the same way that the Kyoto Accord would have.

Putting the environment aside, the experiment we are all participating in stretches far beyond the environment we live in.  An example of this is the additions that we have developed to seemingly make our lives better.  Lets take the mobile phone for example.  When the innocent mobile phone was first used back on the 3rd April 1973, Martin Cooper, a senior engineer at Motorola, didn’t call his rival and competitor company to boast about speaking to them on his mobile phone, believing that his invention would be the cause of many a car accident, the phrase “time poor” or that it would in fact become the platform of millions of “apps”, a camera/video camera or even phone banking.  He believed he was revolutionizing simple voice communication allowing someone to talk to someone else without having a spring wire connecting the hand-piece to the wall.  The phone experiment has morphed into something more than just a tool, a means of communicating.  It’s now a computer, GPS, ATM, Camera, shopping trolley, alarm, stopwatch, calendar among a million other things.  Psychologically a mobile phone is as addictive as a drug, it’s as dependable as a family member or friend.  Its missed when we leave it at home.  Its pined over, its cared for, its checked more frequently than a baby, and now, its become more important to us than the safety of ourselves and the people around us.   How should we mark the mobile phone experiment ?  Pass or fail ?

Some of histories greatest experiments have given us some of life’s most useful discoveries.  Plato said “Science is nothing but perception” and he was right when it comes to Penicillin.   Scottish Biologist Alexander Flemming while researching Staphylococcus went on holiday leaving his dirty dishes near his cultures, the fungi that grew on his dirty dished killed the Staphylococci dead in its tracks, which lead to the discovery of Penicillin.   Microwave Ovens came about after an engineer, Percy Spencer, working for Raytheon, walked in front of a magnetron and discovered the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted.  A few tweaks and several exploding eggs later, the microwave oven was invented.   Vaseline came from the oil fields – known then as “Rod Wax” it used to gum up the drilling equipment, a guy named Robert Chesebrough re-branded it as Vaseline, and its been treating cuts and abrasions since.  See oil drilling did give us something useful after all !!!  Apart from Oil, which is present in practically everything we touch, wear, spray on our skin, wash through our hair, rub on our lips, cook on, in and with, watch, listen through, to and on, etc etc etc

The religion experiment has seem world wars, terrorism, so-called witches burned on stakes and millions of people persecuted for something that can’t be seen by most as it’s a state of mind, a belief, a way of life.  Religion directs large populations to dress a certain way.  Pray to god known differently across the various religious groups in different ways, at different time, using different languages.  For the Atheists out there, they’re not understood.  The fear of the unknown, or misunderstood has created some of the worlds greatest, most atrocious events in history.   Fear of being different, misunderstood, or simply the fear that someone believes in something different to our own beliefs has caused us to turn on our own.  Human against human.  What are we thinking !!??  Extremists take things to the extreme, it’s as simple as that.  But the knowledge that we are all here in the atmosphere, on the same ball, in the same galaxy, doesn’t halt their need to fulfill their belief.  For this, the experiment continues, for all of us.  A great chunk of us live in hope that the experiment will conclude peacefully, and there are those that believe the opposite.  All we can really do is wait and see.

The one experiment I can think of that’s likely to affect us all at one point or another, is the one that see’s us leaving the earth.  Some say its to escape the planet due to its increasing failure to support long-term life, and some say it’s purely as a way to further discover places we haven’t been.

My opinion is this.  We are here for a reason.  Not as individuals, but as a species.   Until we can all come together and coexist as that,  will we then realise the gift we have under our feet isn’t doing so well.  We’re to distracted with what everyone else is doing.   The earth is a garden.  If we don’t care for it, it will die.  And Our garden is starting to die !!!

    The Earth Experiment No one knows what tomorrow will bring, let alone what impacts today will have on tomorrow.  We, everyone and everything on this planet we ride on, are embroiled in the universes greatest experiment. 

[proudsmartass-blog1]

Living Well in the Dark Times of the Doom Cheeto

Lately whenever there’s breaking political news, this meme comes to mind. 

I won’t make this a political rant. There’s enough of that out there right now. We all know what’s wrong with the Doom Cheeto and all that he and his appointed staff (who collectively look like every perp & pedo ever featured on Law & Order, let’s be honest) stand for. 

I knew I would be affected by the orange shitstorm.  I just didn’t know how much or how quickly.  In less than two weeks, I’ve become absolutely disgusted and ashamed to call myself an American. I’ve seen friends and colleagues become fearful for themselves and their loved ones because of a fanatical religious ban that has no root in logic or reason. I’ve seen good people become terrified over deportation (themselves, their parents, their spouses), even though they’ve been taking the right steps on the path to citizenship so far. I’m seeing my rights to my own body & reproductive health being put up for debate by old sleazy privileged white men (who, without a doubt in my mind, have probably impregnated women and demanded that they have abortions at some point). I’m seeing my sexual orientation called into question on my ability to raise a family (good thing electroshock therapy can cure the half-gay outta me....wheeeeee!  <----bitter sarcasm). I don’t want kids, but that’s MY decision to make, based on how messed up and scarred for life my own Italian/Irish upbringing has left me...not based on who I’m attracted to. I fear that this narcissistic waste of flesh will lead us straight into WWIII. 

I’m participating in rallies and protests, but it feels like they are all for nothing.  I’m emotionally, psychologically, and physically drained, and my immune system took a deep plunge during the last month. I managed to catch just about every bug out there...the flu for two weeks, a stomach virus that I’m recovering from at the moment, My mental health took a hit...I’ve had more nightmares than usual, insomnia, and my BDD symptoms have essentially locked me in the boot of the car & been steering the wheel (anxiety attacks over having photos taken, seeing myself in photos, anxiety over having to eat, restriction, involuntarily becoming physically ill after eating).

It might feel selfish at first, but now more than ever it is extremely important to check in with yourself and take extra care if you are feeling unwell.  How? Ive no fucking idea!  But this is what I’ve been doing, and it seems to be helping me a bit. If it helps you as well or gives you some ideas, then have at them!

Allow yourself to feel your feelings.

This sounds stupid, I know.  But I’m the Chief in Command when it comes to burying everything deep down and fighting back tears! How am I? I’m fine. Even though I’m doing my best to put on this fake smile and hope that you don’t hear the screaming going on inside my own head...I’m fine!

It’s okay to feel your feelings. Cry it out. If you need to talk, open up to someone you trust.  They might actually be thankful that you initiated the conversation! I’ve had that very response, when I was afraid that I’d be inconveniencing them with my feelings/mere existence...they felt the same way. Or, try writing in a journal if you’re  not feeling people. Writing in a journal after waking from some pretty horrific nightmares has done me a world of good in trying to figure out the workings of my fucked up mind!

Find the humour.

Whatever it is...a situation, yourself, try to find what’s funny there.  This has actually been helpful in making me feel like I still have some control, perhaps via a displaced sense of having taken some of the power back that was taken from me from the thing (if that makes sense)? Like when I can’t seem to remember anyone’s name (even though you’ve told me five or so times), or recall the conversation we literally just had (that I actively participated in)! Another late notice from the electric company? I probably got distracted by something shiny while I was logging onto the website to pay it last month...whoops! Or like taking back the fear I feel every time the Doom Cheeto announces that he appointed so-and-so to whatever...

Okay, I don’t want a picture of the Doom Cheeto Brigade on my blog, but trust me...they really do all look like every bad guy ever featured on Law & Order!

Physical Health

This is a given, but also only if you’re up for it. I like going to the gym, but don’t always feel the energy for it.  If you’re not a gym fan, try going for walks or biking or indoor rock climbing (or outdoor, if you don’t live in a concrete jungle like I do!)

The worst thing you can do when you’re feeling down is sleep all day and hide away from humanity (which I’ve been guilty of on numerous occasions, so no judgments here).

Looking at sh!te on the interwebz.

Okay, so you’ve ignored said previous step and ventured off to Club Bed, featuring DJ Pillow and MC Duvet.  I respect it! While you’re regrouping, try easing your mind with enjoyable music (save the death metal for working out, maybe), or look at some uplifting/funny stuff on the web.  Avoid the news for now! I’ve needed to take days off from reading anything news-related, which is really hard and requires much effort lately.  It’s not ignorance, it’s not being selfish.  You’re taking a personal breather.

(Sad Ghost Club art :)

Cut toxicity from your life.

This one sucked, but I had to just cut out the people who were making the loudest noise when I asked for silence.  All were very toxic, very pushy and forceful in their disagreement with my opinions on political matters (after all, who am I to believe we’re all entitled to basic human rights in a place known as “The Land of the Free”?), very racist, and very not what I stand for or wish to associate myself with.  The suckage happened after the fact, after the unfriendings and requests that they no longer contact me. That I could not foster positive relationships with people who held that sort of hatred in their hearts (this is not the same as having different political views, mind you...politics does not = hatred!)

I have not regretted losing one of the toxic connections that I’ve cut, and have had improved peace of mind.

Create Community

Seek out others who are experiencing the same struggles as you are.  The internet can be a wonderful resource for this! Plenty of meet up groups out there.  If you cannot find community (and this is NOT easy, and where I’m at in the present moment), then seek to create it. Look into organising meet up groups and dates.  Again, the internet is an amazing resource for this! And remember...the chances of others feeling the same way that you do are greater than you walking around being the only one feeling that way (even though you might hope that you are the only one, because it really does suck, and you don’t wish this on anyone else).

Mental healthcare is, unfortunately, treated like a bit of a luxury item here in the US.  “It’s okay to not be okay...so long as you can afford to not be okay.” Insurance copayments and deductibles can be ridiculous. Meet up groups can be a godsend when therapy is not an option!

Random Kindness

I make a point of giving three random strangers a compliment on a daily basis. I’ve been doing this for the past 15+ years, in an attempt to combat my BDD. By helping others feel good about themselves, by pointing things out that they perhaps do not perceive as attractive about themselves (or maybe they do, and good on them if so!). They feel good. I feel good. WIN!

If I can help someone to not feel as grotesque and forgettable as I feel daily, either via a compliment or a laugh, then I’ve done my part.

(Hat = birthday gift from friends who put up with my emo nonsense & love me anyway! Get your own from TheSadGhostClub dot com )

I hope this babbling comes in useful to someone out there in internet land!

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story Part 94

*Zack is a thing that happened, and I don't want to talk about him anymore even though I suppose it's only chronological and natural that I must. I am not off the hook so easily, there is still more to go. He probably made up about ten percent of my life story in some way so there's that. 

I feel like these last chapters have been about him – as much as they have been about the developments in Sarah and my friendship and in my own emotional evolution. I look over what I have written  on the computer screen, and I see so many Z's that don't deserve my thoughts. He doesn't deserve this kind of recognition from me.

 Unfortunately, it's not quite over – though this is a turning point in the story where I began again to gain some new independence and gracefully begin treading into the post-father, post-Zack years of my life, years that I survived in the end though I had at times never thought I would. These things that happened five to seven years ago started me into the years that are what I feel more defined by directly than by what came before. 

What I have hoped to do (maybe to selfishly vindicate myself, who knows?), was to express that I came into what later happened unknowingly – I didn't want to give away that Zack was a slimeball and i knew all along this would end up happening to me, or that Sarah fucked up my ability to trust people. I wanted people to understand how it naturally unfolded. And there are still pieces I am not giving away – or at least I am not trying to. I could have let on early that Zack wasn't who I thought he was, but if I had done that then there would be a dishonesty in returning to those pre-Zack times and attempting to relive the anticipation with the innocence of my unknowing. Thirteen year old me had no idea what would be happening ten years later. I fell into most of the feelings I have had quite innocently – expecting something otherworldly at most to become me at some point or other. And up till my post-Zack years, I feel like a lot of it wasn't something I could take full responsibility for – I was desperately doing anything I could in the moment to stay afloat to pursue that mysterious tingling feeling in my heart that there were better things ahead if I could just keep sailing.

And I am extreme example of a late bloomer. I feel like I am a tulip in winter. Things people my age were doing at nineteen, I have just gotten around to doing nine years later at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. I'm like an old teenager or something. It's weird. And with that I will begin again to explain the my misadventures and about that blue eyed idiot that I wasted so much time thinking about, and what that all lead to.*

_________________________________________________

Zack had long been written off by his parents. Nobody wanted to give him money anymore long before he came to Sarah and I. He'd exhausted most of his resources. He was more or less ignored by most of his friends anymore – even the ones who had seemed like inseparable body parts to him at one point or another. And then Sarah started dating Zack, and his parents suddenly saw this drug-free, beautiful and thoughtful young girl had taken an interest in their Zack and they suddenly had found more money in their pockets to throw at him. They believed that she was there to fix their disaster of a son for them. She served some kind of purpose – to shape their egomaniacal self destructive son into some mild mannered young Christian man who's number one care was saving up for retirement and making sure he got all the grass even as he mowed the lawn outside the picket fence home where he lived a white middle class existence with his 2.5 children and submissive housewife. Sarah gave credibility to the uncredible. After my father told Zack to scram,  Sarah and Zack stayed at Zack's father's place – and early on they brought me with them.

Zack's father was named Randy. Randy I had known about for years – but never talked to. He had the big nose that both Zack and his sister Whitney inherited. It wasn't an ugly nose – I think society unfairly categorizes big noses into being ugly – when on the contrary they have their own unique elegance that is often overlooked. Randy worked and was a mid-level boss at the TDS phone company. His grandparents had been responsible for bringing telephone to Minnesota – and had made a lot of money off of it. Randy had the remaining money from those times. He squirreled that money away for his retirement. He saved the rest and put it in a retirement account for when Zack and Whitney became of age to inherit it in their late sixties.

Randy had moved the family to Idaho when Zack was twelve, which I was now beginning to wish he hadn't. Both Whitney and Zack rebelled against their middle class upbringing. Either one of them could have gone to college. There was money set aside for that. But they both collectively and individually were not interested in being wealthy. They resented their upbringing, and they both inherited their mother's mental illnesses. This isn't to say that Randy wasn't also responsible for Whitney and Zack's issues. He spoiled Zack, seeing him in that patriarchal father-son kind of way. Whitney to some degree was never really given the kind of care that Zack was given by both his mother and father. Everyone said Zack was a sensitive boy who needed special care.

Cindy was Randy's wife in the beginning, and Whitney and Zack's mother. They divorced when Zack was sixteen. At that time, Zack had been dating Melissa, whom I agonized over back when. Whitney had been dating Melissa's older brother, Josh. It was weird, but I guess it wasn't incestuous exactly – and it wasn't intentional. They just liked one another I suppose. What made it weird was, after Cindy and Randy's divorce, Randy decided to marry Josh and Melissa's mother, Theresa. Zack and Melissa broke up, but Whitney and Josh dated on and off even after their parents married each other. And I suppose I couldn't blame them since they had been dating long before their parents hooked up.

Theresa, was/is a drunk. She had a hard life – but somehow despite all that she retained a lot of youthful attributes. She slept with a lot of people. She fought with her children. And eventually she attempted to commit suicide. It was around the time that Randy was hunting for a new wife. Randy is simple. He had no need for anything more than someone to fill the role. He heard Theresa had attempted to kill herself, he drove up to her trailer, literally walked in and took her with him in his pick up to live with him and get married. And this really probably saved Theresa's life. It wasn't romantic by any means, in fact I think Randy's need to adhere to the social structure of being married for the sake of being married, and capitalizing on some poor drunk woman who's son was dating his daughter, knowing she would be vulnerable enough state of mind to say yes to marriage without question was rather base. Randy didn't seem right to me honestly, but he was so simple and pragmatic in his day to day life, you had to sort of tilt your head to see the discrepancies at times.

As for Cindy, she remarried too. The guy was basically a none moving entity that sat on the couch all day and watched football. Occasionally Cindy would scream and cry at him, but he would just sit there unflinching. The thing about Cindy is that she is very mentally unstable. I talk about a lot of mentally unstable people in my own family and in my own life and to some degree myself as well. But even at it's worst, even with my father for instance, most of the time he is a self aware and resourceful independent person. Most of the brokenness is environmental and societal. Cindy was born broken. She is insecure and needy, she screamed and cried. She went into religious tirades. I believe she would be capable of murder if she were only brave enough to go through with it.

She seems at first like a submissive homemaker. She's a brilliant seamstress, probably the most brilliant seamstress I've ever known. She can make anything. But she's somewhere between a helpless blubbering mess and a vicious religious freak. She can go between sobbing hysterics and insecure feelings of being tread on – to a sudden bloodthirsty obsessive anger. However, she seemed incapable of acting out on that anger directly. I thought my mother was bad until I met Cindy. Her first son was named Jimmy, and Jimmy had been taken away from Cindy due to Cindy being a danger to him. That was years ago, before she had Zack and Whitney. Right before the move to Idaho, Cindy had heard voices telling her she was a prophet of God and she had to leave her family and venture off into the world to proclaim the message of the Lord. She ended up hitchhiking to Las Vegas or something, and from there she was places into an asylum. Randy got her out. He never talked about her mental illness. He seemed to find mentally unwell women, and then proceeded to ignore them and play house with them in a very non personal way, or at least it seemed to me to be impersonal. I wondered if there was some kind of method to his madness.

I remember the first night I was driven up to Cindy's. She lived twenty miles up the grade north of Kendrick in a town equally as small – called Deary. It was the middle of absolute nowhere. It was later evening. She came to the door manically excited. She was drunk. I had a lot of sympathy for her. It looked like she was feeling everything. She was so excited to have Zack over. I could tell that she was really obsessed with Zack. Eventually Sarah and Zack went into another room, and I ended up spending a half hour talking to Cindy. She kept pouring herself more wine. She had been crying all night. Randomly calling people and yelling at them. I could tell everyone ignored her. Her new husband Steve sat stoically on the couch watching reruns of Home Improvement. He never moved or spoke. Cindy would scream at him, and he might as well have been a log. Zack ignored his mother too. I guessed this was what you did with her. She was insatiable. Still, I could only imagine that being Cindy had to be extremely lonely. Nobody wanted to be around her at all.

She took me into the back room of her house. In that room she had drawn pictures of Zack and Whitney as babies. She literally had set up these shrines of both of them as babies. And she talked lovingly about the both of them, but as I came to realize she was more interested in the idea of Zack and Whitney as babies then she was of them as adults. Despite the weird Christian homemaker thing gone wrong, I did have to acknowledge that Cindy had a very creative element to her. She was talented, and crafty. She then got out pictures of Zack and Whitney from twenty years before and though I barely knew her at all, she went through each photo with me one by one in great detail. I went along with it, as Zack and Sarah ate and carried on.

I didn't ever spend too much time around Cindy though. I remember one time I went with Sarah and Zack into Lewiston because Cindy was having an emotional breakdown and wanted to eat ice cream at Dairy Queen and talk about it. I had put in one of my very favorite sixties records 'Odyssey and Oracle' by The Zombies. It's better than the Beatles. I wouldn't say that The Zombies were as a whole better than The Beatles because they only made two albums and only one of them is solid. But for what is there, it is extremely solid. And Zack didn't like it. In fact, I could tell Zack was really annoyed if I ever put in music to listen to. I thought he was pretty basic. I was getting tired of the menfolk getting annoyed at women for picking the car music.

We ended up spending a lot of nights visiting at Randy's house. It was also the first time I really spent time with Whitney and Josh. To back up a little, I met Whitney and Josh briefly one time before. Zack insisted that Whitney meet Sarah. He called her and convinced her to come into Zany's and eat lunch with him and I. It was either right before or right after I told Zack the truth and all that good stuff. At this point of course, I was silently in a state of shock – and attempting to come to terms, but I was going along with it all as though nothing had happened. Whitney and Josh strolled into the restaurant. Whitney, I hadn't seen since high school. She was quiet – humbly dressed, pretty but tired. Her clothes had paint smudges on them from her number one hobby which was painting. She didn't seem very direct. She was friendly for the most part. When her and Zack talked, it reminded me a little bit like when Allison and David talked. Siblings close in age form their own kind of communication that is hard for other people to be fully apart of.

Josh came in with Whitney. They weren't dating anymore – but they always stuck around one another until Whitney got a boyfriend. Then Josh would get upset – and then she would eventually get bored of whoever she was dating and come back to Josh. At best they would date two weeks before she tired of Josh and went looking again. They had decided I guess to stop that six months prior – so maybe the cycle had ended for good this time (they had been living this way, sort of obsessed with one another for seven years), but nobody believed they were done with each other. Though I was private in my personal evaluation, I had never met a more stuffy, conceited little man in my entire life, then Josh Boyer. He looked to be around his late twenties. He was not friendly – he was tense. He didn't look happy with his meal. He seemed overtaken with a weird kind of nervousness, and though he was quiet the entire meeting, I sensed a lot from him. He was pretentious. He thought he was smarter than everyone around him. He seemed personally invested in being unhappy about being in the presence of other people. I wondered why he even bothered to come in at all if this was so painful for him.

It felt really strange because I had MySpace stalked Josh and Whitney for a year or two in my late teens and now we were sitting here eating a meal together. It kind of freaked me out.

The second time I met Josh and Whitney was at Randy's house. I brought Allison with me this time. David didn't want to come. Everyone in the group was an introvert besides Allison – who was younger than us and didn't know what to say to anyone and was mostly happy to be included in this venture regardless of her age. Besides Allison there was Whitney, Josh, Zack, Sarah and myself. Sarah was probably the most ready of anyone to be outgoing – but only insofar as it meant she wasn't going to be too personal. We all sat outside Randy's house in the green perfectly manicured back yard that ran around the house to the front. Zack looked tired. Whitney looked down quite a bit. Josh seemed distracted. I eyeballed everyone curiously in silence. Allison smiled.

There seemed to be some kind of pressure that we all needed to befriend one another. I am not sure why we all felt that way. I guess there were motives. I told Allison six months previous that she should befriend Whitney. It had been part of Operation-get-Zack-to-be-our-friend-again, but she now had it in her mind to befriend Whitney in a real way. Josh, I later learned, was interested in Sarah. Zack wanted us all to become religious and be in some kind of cult – but now that we were all together he had no interest in that ever happening. I didn't actually want to be there at all – I was feeling very lonely and sick inside that day but I fought it off by smiling which felt insane but I couldn't bust out crying in front of people so it was my only recourse. I mean, we were probably the only alternative people in the same age bracket in a sixty mile radius who wasn't going to the University of Idaho.

It was an awkward and deceptively sunny early evening. We all had tickets to see Bright Eyes in three weeks and we made small talk. David had mysteriously opted out of seeing Bright Eyes' final tour, as the project was on hiatus after the last album. We invited Sarah. Sarah bought a ticket for Zack – who I guess was going to be our driver.

Whitney and Josh awkwardly pulled out Apples to Apples. I haven't played it so long I don't remember how it works now. I don't remember who won either. We all said very little as we played the game. Then we decided to go inside and sit around the big dining room table. Randy's kitchen-dining room area was painted red. The floors were classy hardwood. Everything was well put together. Zack was coming down from meth and he went to lay down on the couch and watch television.

Whitney an Josh ended up arguing with one another. It wasn't something I knew anything about, but it made me feel awkward and at first I sat on the couch with Sarah and Zack even though I felt like being away from them desperately. I tried to overhear what was being talked about. What it sounded like was this. Josh was obsessed with Whitney, but Whitney didn't want to date Josh, and Josh didn't want to date Whitney but he was mad that Whitney wanted to date some guy she just met in Moscow, and Whitney in turn was angry if Josh lost interest in her. Josh's mother Theresa had been drinking, and she was getting upset with Whitney and demanding that if she was going to put her poor son through this, if her son had spent the last seven years obsessing over her and groveling and living on her behalf rather than going to get a healthy normal girlfriend and getting a career, then Whitney needed to date Josh. Which Josh seemed to simultaneously approve and disapprove of. Theresa was raising her voice, and from what I could tell, she delighted in the nonsense of it all more than Whitney and Josh combined. She was clearly the most invested. I thought it was strange that Theresa would want Josh and Whitney to date, considering she was Josh's mom and she was married to Whitney's dad. How normal could that be? It seemed really intimate and weird for them to be talking about this in front of everyone. This would never have flown in my family. Someone would have screamed or thrown a chair or punched someone. I liked this managed chaos so much better. It seemed interesting to me that people naturally chose to put their problems with one another at the table and confront them and talk about their disturbed feelings instead of use the might makes right method, which I had generally always rejected and felt repressed by.

I chose to 'use the bathroom' at one point in this open exchange going on in the next room, so I could walk passed and get a better sense of who everyone was. I needed to see their faces. As I walked by, Theresa was looking emotional and frustrated at both Josh and Whitney. Whitney looked slightly vexed. Josh was proclaiming that he was dedicating his life to Whitney even if he meant nothing to her. His eyes were intense and sort of crazy. Eventually the arguments stopped, and everyone in the family went out for a smoke – like it was halftime. Allison and I came into the dining room and nervously sat next to each other. Sarah eventually came in too and Whitney did most of the small talking that kept the conversations going. Josh eventually came in as well. He was silent and was looking around nervously, but as we talked more and more and as Whitney and him sipped on beers, everyone started opening up more. Josh went outside for an hour, and when he came back he was an open book.

He started by introducing himself. He told us he was Josh Boyer. He said he was capable of doing anything in the whole world, if not for his two major flaws. He was a coward and he was lazy. I don't think I had ever met someone who just openly said such things about themselves so nonchalantly and I was entertained immediately by his self deprecating sense of honesty and humor. He came about life in this awkward offbeat kind of way that probably didn't work in most social atmospheres. He had seemed so uptight and stuffy when I first met him. Now he was being recklessly shameless. I was amused but half embarrassed for him, and he knew people felt that way and he didn't seem to care. He told us that he was a connoisseur of the fine arts, and his role in our lives was to make sure that all four of us women's art was out in the world. He claimed he had the power to make this all happen, but he never specified how. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. He always seemed to be simultaneously telling some level 100 nihilist joke that only you and he could understand – often using himself as the main character of that joke, or if his ego really did tell him that he was some kind of upscale eccentric socialite gentleman, a long lost remnant of a bygone era.

What I liked about Josh was that he seemed able to slip into any conversation without any of the awkward judgment one would naturally expect. You could be talking about cannibalism or old people sex or anything that made people feel uncomfortable and he seemed to have a clever opinion on the matter. He didn't ignore anyone either. He looked at everyone in the room equally when he talked. It gave me this strange refreshing sense that I too was part of the conversation. For my entire life, I had always been the baby in my friendships. Often my friends talked about their dirty secrets away from me. There was this general assumption that I wasn't an equal. And I had internalized that in many respects. I learned to read between the lines in conversation and to be a good listener. But Josh gave each person at the table careful consideration when speaking. I was so used to people only looking at only Sarah. It might have been something of my own doing I will admit. I have never exactly been the queen of eye contact and I usually expected Sarah to be the main reason people were talking around me at all. Plus, Sarah generally seems the most classically interest in any given subject another person is talking about. I generally just listened.

Because Josh didn't treat me like Sarah's chambermaid, I eventually felt confident enough to comment on whatever it was he was talking about. I rarely felt comfortable doing any talking at all, but somehow Josh didn't make me feel weird about it. It wasn't that he was super accommodating or comforting. He wasn't that way at all. He just seemed to acknowledge the bleak emptiness and awkwardness of everything in life, his life, our lives and our fucked up imperfect world in general in a way that most people seemed afraid to acknowledge, especially on first meeting. Josh was talking about how anime was made in slave like conditions at some point, and I commented that most pieces of work were built on the backs of slaves and/or suffering in general and then we talked about the pros and cons of such a system. He also didn't flinch when I disagreed with him. He seemed intrigued and interested, and he wasn't afraid to dig into whatever I had decied to talk about. Secretly I have always been opinionated. I just stay quiet most of the time because when I talk it seems like I make people uncomfortable. I knew I could talk one on one with Sarah without her being weirded out, but mostly I just got this sense that I should keep my mouth shut for the most part. Be an observer of events and not be a part of the events themselves. Perhaps I don't have a clear understanding of where boundaries are laid down. I don't know what's socially acceptable to talk about.

Josh didn't seem to either though, so we ended up having a lengthy meandering conversation that didn't feel weird or forced. This was new to me. And he didn't get mad when I disagreed. That was something I was especially unused to. It goes without saying that disagreeing with any one of my family members in a serious way and they would get offended and would react angrily. Josh didn't get offended. He seemed to have different trains of thought that all seemed to be systematically comprehending the situation he was in at different ways, all working simultaneously. And he was hilarious and it was disarming. He still seemed pretty pretentious to me, but he seemed a lot different then when I had first met him. It almost felt like I had met two different Josh's.

Zack came in eventually from his nap. He sat besides Sarah, and Theresa looked at them both and started asking questions. Everyone was marveling at Zack's lucky break. Not being able to understand why a girl like Sarah would be with someone like Zack, they assumed Sarah must be some magical being here to rescue Zack. I think a part of Sarah's mind thought she might have been as well. They asked Sarah if she was dating Zack. At first she was reluctant, but then as she was quizzed further she just said she was. Zack was suddenly jovial, stating this was the first moment she had openly called their relationship what it was. He seemed really proud of himself.

Later that night, we were going home. I said goodnight to Josh and Whitney. I felt like I had a better sense of who they were as people. We got in the car with Zack and Sarah in the front. As we made our way back to where Zack and Sarah were staying, I couldn't help but notice there something felt really ugly in the car. It wasn't coming from me. I just felt this really ugly vibe in the back of the car that night. It was Zack. I didn't really get it at first. It almost felt like he was angry – or like he wanted to hurt someone. Where was this even coming from? Sarah had just openly confessed they were official to his family. Should be not be happy? Sarah had put in a Mark Lanegan album, and Methamphetamine Blues was playing very loudly. The speakers shook in the back seat of Zack's car. Zack was driving very poorly. It was dark and he was speeding down all these winding farm roads and there was mist everywhere. I felt carsick. At times I could tell that we were going dangerously around corners. Sarah looked back at me, and I could see the denial and confusion on her face. In some strange way, I pitied her. There was some underlying sense that she was trapped with Zack, that she was going to be the one that curbed the tides of Zack, or die trying. I was miserable, but at least I was free from whatever this dark ugly feeling I was getting that was coming from Zack. This was something Sarah was going to have to let into her soul if she wanted to be close with Zack.

We didn't crash that night. We made it to the bedroom. I briefly went in and talked to them in their room. Then Zack kind of grabbed Sarah and started tickling her. I felt weird about it. It felt like a power move. Sarah hated being tickled. Her cousins used to hold her down and tickle her as a child and it left her with this really negative association, plus it just kind of hurts some people, myself included. There was something really ugly that I didn't like the look of on Zack's face. Some kind of nonconsensual sense of power he now felt over Sarah was at play. Never had his face looked so hideous to me. Since she had admitted that they were now officially girlfriend and boyfriend, the gloves were off I guess. And Sarah didn't like the way it felt. She wouldn't admit it to me or to anyone. She wasn't admitting it to herself. But she hated this and it was too late for her to take it all back. I wanted to help her, and my first reaction was to tell Zack to knock if off. But the roles weren't clear, and it soon seemed strange that I had involved myself considering Sarah wasn't putting up for herself. I was forced to leave the room eventually.

I ended up getting my first job. Sarah and Zack had gone into Burger King to eat a crappy hamburger, and I had come with. Sarah insisted that I ask for a job. I didn't want to work at Burger King. This Burger King in particular had always seemed very unclassy. It was dirty and the workers didn't seem all there. But a job was a job at this point. I was close to perhaps getting a job at Zany's as the dishwasher still, but there were no guarantees, and I couldn't wait forever. So I humbled myself and agreed to go to the front and ask for an application. The manager walked out after my awkward inquiry, and he wanted to have an interview right then and there. I was very nervous, and in the end I know I did horribly. The manager looked rigid, angry, and like a man who was slowly dying of some horrible disease. He accepted me against his better judgment and he openly stated as much. He admitted he was just desperate, and I though he was not impressed with me in any way, he had no better options at the moment. I had to be there the next day for training. I had somehow been given a job.

So, I came in the next day, and they demanded I wear this hideous polo shirt and that I had to tuck it in my pants and a visor. I put them on in the bathroom, and marveled how fat it made me appear. I left the bathroom nervously. I was lead into the back kitchen area where the sandwiches were assembled. I had never been in the back of a restaurant before. It had all seemed like one big mystery. There seemed to be a lot going on, and I was dazed by it. Strangely, nobody came up to me and offered to give me a task. I nervously asked someone what I should do, and they shrugged and walked away. I was extremely nervous. I felt like I was doing something wrong. Was I supposed to train myself? How did this all work? I tried to ask a few people. The best answer I got was from a young girl who kind of told me in this vague way to ask someone who I later learned hadn't shown up that day what I should do. Most of them wouldn't even answer me. They would look at me, and then to one another and they would roll their eyes knowingly.

About a half hour later of standing there feeling criminally guilty for having done nothing and not understanding what to do upon my own initiative, I was lead to the back area where they wanted me to toast bread. They showed me this food machine that I put buns into. I was told to just do this. So I sat there for an hour grabbing bags of hamburger buns off of big industrial plastic shelf. Eventually I was told I had done it wrong. I had been toasting the wrong side. I had wasted probably ten bags of buns. They took the buns and they threw them away. I felt horrible. For one, how could anyone waste food like this?? They might not be properly toasted, but it was still perfectly good bread. Someone in the world I am sure would love to have those buns. For two, I felt like I had just destroyed property. I had just wasted company assets. I was surprised when the girl came up to me, shrugged and simply told me to stop. I felt like I deserved to be arrested for the mistake I had continued on making for so long that rendered the buns unusable.

After four hours of either standing there, or toasting bread till they told me to stop, I just had this internal knowing that this wasn't going to work out. I was not made for this kind of existence. It all seemed so mind numbing. I actively detested the philosophy of this place. A person didn't show up for their shift while I was there – and nobody even seemed surprised. The turn out was constant. The manager walked around looking sick and angry and eventually told me to leave. I was offered a free hamburger, but I refused. The smell of the meat made me feel sick. There was something hollow about this place, and places like it. The monotonous tasks almost felt designed to burn the individuality right out of you. The workers seemed dead inside – and seemed obsessed with the ten minutes every four hours allotted to them so they could smoke and look bleakly out at the Lewiston hills till they came back in and did it again. And day after day they would do this until they walked out. And once they walked out they would go find another job that was like this. There seemed to be something horrible and draining about it. As a child I had harbored some fantasies about Burger King. I had always loved wearing the paper crowns. Now I just felt grossed out. I had seen the other end of a place like this. I felt like I had confronted death.  I was told to come in the next day. I knew I would never be walking back into that building again – for food or otherwise. I didn't even feel badly about this decision for Sarah's sake or my own even. I knew I would have to surrender to the monotony of the lower working class, but not like this. Not Burger King. There had to be a trace of human dignity to me. I didn't go back and collect my paycheck. I put my uniform in a bag and left it on the front door late one night hoping the employees would find it.

PART 93 - https://tinyurl.com/yc8mae7e

PART 92 - https://tinyurl.com/yb7bwsuw

PART 91 - https://tinyurl.com/yar8e8rp

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-90 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far). 

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-90