Mental Masturbation

These conversation I have in my head, where I have the perfect words to say, everything seems so clear. I find this effortless.

But just like masturbation: This time spend stroking my mind alone.... not as fun as it is which a competent partner and much more satisfying than it is with an incompetent partner.

The Dance

Relationships are like dancing. Some people you just click with and the dance is effortless, you move through the steps as if you are one. And with others it is clumsy and awkward, like Baby learning to dance with Johnny in Dirty Dancing. Feet stepping on feet, heads bonking. Or worse.

I'm kind of a strong person, so sometimes it is hard to navigate this dance with a partner. Maybe it is my internal struggle with traditional roles that I fight where I believe I am suppose to defer, yet my dominate personality directs me to do otherwise, I don't know. Even though I find that I can lead, the truth is, I mostly don't want to lead, I want to follow.

But even coming to this realization, if you seem befuddled, I will likely take over and direct. It is hard to not take the lead when a partner isn't communicative. If you can't communicate, I might as well dance with myself. Give me direction and I will follow. It's this "giving direction" that seems to be hard for some people. And maybe because I am a strong partner they are afraid to direct me. But I will follow your lead, if you prove competent and I trust you.

I realize some people are easy to follow and some aren't. Some partners just have a knack for leading. The trust becomes implicit and I follow them naturally. Other times, I fumble trying to trust, but never allowing myself to fully let a partner lead. I am waiting for a cue, but I become impatient (Patience was never a virtue I mastered). Sometimes I just can't figure out what is wanted from me. I will go where you lead, if I can figure that out. I can get confused by the signals and I step where it wasn't intended, I stop before I should, and sway to the left as my partner swings to the right. So, frustrated, I tend to take over and try to lead.

It is this confusion, to lead or to follow, that causes the awkwardness in the dance. And then I question, "Should it be this hard?" And there are all kinds of dynamics that are created when I "take over" the lead from a partner who wants to lead, but just isn't, in my eyes. It's just easier for me if you are a strong lead, or you clearly follow.

Even with the best of partners, though, I may on occasion like to lead. It's just me. But mostly, I do want to follow. I want to have a partner who can direct. Who I trust. Who knows how to lead, but can be graceful enough to defer at times.

It is rarely perfect and in sync when you start, but over time, you learn together to dance effortlessly and the give and the take comes without thought. Or not.... and you never learn to navigate each other and it is always awkward as you struggle to define your role in this dance.

An Understatement

To say that I have missed you would be an understatement. So many times in the last few months I have wanted to call you to tell you about some little thing, then remembering that I can't.

To say that I wish we could go back would be an understatement. I have replayed it over and over again. Wondering how it got so fucked up. Remembering each decision that alone didn't mean much, but all together painted a picture that I never intended or even could have foresaw. A mixture of guilt and anger seems to be the best I can do right now.

To say things have become complicated would be an understatement. Caught in the middle between moving on and fixing things with the Alaskan.

To say that I think you owe me more than what you have so far provided is an understatement. Is there any accountability for you in this? I said I was sorry so many times both to you and to myself when I couldn't say it to you and in the final message I wrote to you. Yet I have heard nothing from you that makes me think you believe anything but that you are the one who was wronged here. We were all wronged in one way or another, but why thus far am I the only one who has said I'm sorry?

To tell you I wish I could give you a hug right now would be an understatement. Something tells me it will take more than a hug to fix this. But damn would it feel good to just for one minute feel that comfort. To believe that no matter what our relationship will sustain.

To say that I am not ready to deal with this is an understatement. I knew this day would come and now I feel frozen, unable to move. Paralyzed. Afraid of anything other than where we are at this exact moment. Afraid that once again I will say or do the wrong thing. Nothing is easy anymore.

You are my Ya-Ya sister, you are my one and only parenting friend and I love you
Like family
It felt safe but it doesn't anymore.
I want to tell you this and more.
Yet here I sit unable to write to you, to reach out to you.
Afraid to go back, afraid to move forward.

Little Wonders

Let it go, Let it roll right off your shoulder
Don't you know the hardest part is over
Let it in, let your clarity define you
In the end we will only just remember how it feels

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain

Let it slide, let your troubles fall behind you
Let it shine until you feel it all around you
And i don't mind if it's me you need to turn to
We'll get by, it's the heart that really matters in the end

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain

All of my regret will wash away some how
But i can not forget the way i feel right now

These small hours, still remain,
These little wonders
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away
But these small hours
These little wonders still remain

Little Wonders, Rob Thomas

This Rage

I have always said my parents did they best they could with my brother and I given the resources they had.

My mother's mother died of complications with Diabetes when my mother was 16. And even when she was alive and not sick, she wasn't the greatest role model. In fact I don't recall even one positive story of her. My mother rarely talked of her. I know she was divorced from my Biological grandfather, and had remarried a man who also had two daughter like herself. They then has two more daughters together, for a total of 6 kids. When my Grandmother got sick the 6 sisters were scattered about to many friends and family for care while my grandfather cared for my grandmother. My mother wasn't with them when my grandmother passed away. It was decided in the aftermath of my Grandmother's death that most of the kids would go to foster care, as my Grandfather was not able to care for the 6 young girls. My mother was old enough that she was able to spend the remainder of her youth with family friends. The picture that was always painted of my grandparents was they were overwhelmed.

And so it seems with my own mother, she was frequently overwhelmed. And how she choose to deal with my brother and I was to "beat" us into submission. We were to do as we were told or suffer the physical consequences. She was not adverse to hitting us herself, but she preferred the "When you Father gets home..." routine of having us wait for our punishment. I hated hearing his truck pull up on those days. I learned at a very young age to become compliant to avoid my mother's rage. I seemed to be better at this than my brother, who never out grew this corporal punishment. I mostly learned to never stray outside the acceptable boundary of what I knew wouldn't get me into trouble. My brother, however, strayed often and suffered greatly. There was one such time that really stands out in my mind as an example of my Mother, so overwhelmed and just in rage.

It was no small feat to take us to Disneyland. I was 9 or 10 and my brother was about 8. My mom and her friend T (who had 2 girls around my age) planned to make the 10 hour trek south to the Magical Kingdom. There was months of planning for this trip. It was talked about so much I began to believe it would never happen. But eventually it did.

We all drove together in my Mom's big yellow pickup with a camper shell on the back. The four of us kids all rode together in the back (back then it was legal to ride in the back of a truck with out a seat belt). My Aunt Plant, lived in So. Cal at the time, so we had all planned to stay with her for a few days we were in So. Cal. She also had one son my age. A house full of excited little kidlets for several days, oh what fun.

I can remember little about our day at Disney, except that my Mom had matching shirts made for all us kids fearing that she would loose one of us in the crowd.

On the last night we were there all of us kids we playing together when my brother piped up with "What is an erection?" Since I was "so much" older (18 months makes all the difference here) and wiser (from having my first sex ed class in school) I proceeded to answer his question. All of the other kids piped in as well with there thoughts, but what we didn't know was that we had acquired an audience of adults listening to us from the other side of the door. I still to this day don't understand what the big deal was, but apparently they didn't like us discussing this subject matter. I was verbally reprimanded (being the oldest and apparently the one who "led" the discussion) and I remember my Mom being very mad and embarrassed. In my little mind I equated the embarrassment with me (I must be bad), when in reality my Mom was probably embarrassed by the subject and not equipped to have frank discussions about sexuality. In fact I don't EVER recall my mom discussing the "Birds and the Bees" (The only parental sex talk I remember when I was growing up was with with my God-Mother). So we kidlets went back to playing and avoiding the "Forbidden Subject".

Now I'm sure there was more that happened this weekend, especially since my brother was prone to acting out and was frequently in trouble for his behavior. I can only remember the offense that was the breaking point for my mother, and that was when my brother decided that it would be funny to run down the hall with a pair of girls' underwear on his head. The underwear he chose happen to belong to one of T's girls, who was the most modest of the bunch. And then the dam broke, and my mother figuratively "Dropped her basket". I was terrified of my mother in that moment. I'm not sure I have ever seen her that mad. My brother was hauled out to the garage where he was bent over a weight bench and beat. I remember hearing the sound of the belt as it struck his bare skin. There was no where in the house to hide from his screaming. The other adults were mortified by my Mom's over reaction. All the kids were put to bed, but I'm not sure any of us slept.

We left the next morning. My Mom was still in a rage. She loaded us in the back of the truck, us girls towards the front and my brother was told to lie next to the tailgate and not move for the whole trip home. All the while she ranted and raved about what awful kids we were and how embarrassed she was by our behavior and that she couldn't take us anywhere. It was the worst car trip ever.

So this weekend, when I took my own kidlets camping I had a moment where I lost it. My temper getting the best of me after working so very hard to put together a nice summer weekend for my family, who could not possibly comprehend all that must go into preparing for these type of trips. After all they are kids, self-centered by nature. They were bickering and being generally ungrateful, and in a moment of pure frustration this rage came over me. I got angry and yelled and threatened to pack everything up and drive home and then it happened. I looked at DQ, tears in her eyes and I remembered my mother, and I saw her rage and how I remembered it as a child. The fear: "I am a BAD mother!" smacked me right in the face.

I know I don't want to be that kind of mother, but as my mother's mother before her, my examples are fraught with less than stellar coping skills. I would like to believe that the fact that I can stand back in the moment and say I don't want to parent like this is better than my own mother did. But that isn't enough.

Later in the car, I admitted to DQ that I was sorry I lost my temper. We talked about this and I explained that even adults can make mistakes and bad choices about how we deal with frustration. Saying out loud to her that this was more about my ability to cope than it was about her bratty behavior was important. For most of my childhood, I KNEW that I was a bad kid. Because if I were better, she wouldn't be so angry and depressed all of the time. This believe took root in me and grew like a weed. And so began many years of trying to "take care" of the people around me assuming my behavior was the cause for their choices. If I were better, they would be better to me.

DQ and DPJ are not responsible for my behavior. This rage is mine. If I could swallow this like John Coffey in The Green Mile swallowed the cancer of the warden's wife, I would. Take it all in and let it die with me. My only hope is not to pass it on to my daughter as her only way to cope.

Chinese Kissing

This weekend Dread Pirate Joe decided to up his "Kissing Ante". Apparently all the Axe (Bow-chicka-bow-wow) he's been wearing has him thinking this baby "peck" kissing is no longer good enough. He climbed into my lap and proceeded to give me the longest kiss. Ever. And by this I mean, he grabbed my face with his little hands tilted his head slightly, closed his eyes and leaned in slowly until our lips met and moved his head back and forth for effect. He pulled away with a big smile and proceeded to try to "rinse and repeat". I stop him, "Hey what's up?" I ask. He giggles. I wonder where he learned this new move. And then I remember the moment, when I was his age, that I too, decided to "Up the Kissing Ante" with my mother.

My mom almost always had soap operas playing on the TV while she busied herself around the house. (I can vividly remember crying during General Hospital when Luke and Laura were reunited after everyone thought she was dead and Christopher Cross's "Think of Laura" played to a montage of Luke and Laura moments. My mom even bought me the 45 I liked that song so much! Can you say sappy? So where most little girls learn everything from Fairy Tales, I learned from Soap Operas!) So I saw a lot of soap opera "action" when I was young (which was mild by today's standards!) and decided this long wet kissing with tongue looked kind of fun. So who better to test this new "French kiss" on than my mother. So the first chance I got, I laid one one her: Opened wide and inserted tongue. Shocked my Mom grabbed my by the shoulder and pushed me back. Shock and Awe had nothing on my Mom's reaction! I learned right then and there not to try that again.

I tried not to be so shocked with Dread Pirate Joe. I explained that this type of kissing wasn't appropriate for someone his age. I laughed at his innocence and told him my "French kissing" story. He laughed and laughed (and I mean big belly laughing that is so adorable when you are 7!), until his face was red. Apparently, me kissing my mother WITH TONGUE was the funniest thing he has ever heard! When The Alaskan walked into our conversation, DP Joe can't wait to share my story. He says "Did you know my Mom Chinese kissed her Mom when she was little?" the Alaskan smiled and raised his eyebrow. Once I explained, he said "Maybe I can get a little Chinese action over here?"

Words and the Cooter Cuteness Conversation

Such very powerful things we say. Do we even understand the power? Most of the time, I don't. I say something and I am shocked at the response. I figured no one listened or took me serious enough to care what I say. But every now and then I get glimpses of this power when sometimes I push at a boundary with the things I say and I make people uncomfortable. I would like to say I am completely unaware that my words have this effect, and mostly this is true, but in this particular instance I'm not so sure.

See, I'm a talker. Some consider this a character flaw. I seem to need to talk my way through all kinds of things. I say things out loud in an effort to gain better understanding. I do not wait until I am sure of something to speak. I just speak. Sometimes very off the cuff, I say what makes sense to me in the moment. Most of the time I have no idea how I feel about something, I am still working that out. In the meantime, my mouth keeps moving, rarely even stopping to think about how what I am saying might sound to those around me. Sometimes these things are shocking or unexpected and make people uncomfortable. I'm sorry if I make you uncomfortable BUT I don't want to filter my speech or process these things differently or monitor your feelings about this or (and most important of all) feel shame for what I say. I am trying to embrace the talker in me. I own my words and I will say what I want. It doesn't mean because I say something that I will ACT on it or even be inappropriate as my words sometimes are. They are WORDS. I act out with what I say in an effort to understand how I feel. This is my process. It's the way I do it. You can take it and do with it what you like. It may mean that, as a consequence, you may not like what I say and (Oh, this is harder for me than you will EVER know) you may not even like me. But for today and for right now, I don't care. Because, if you know me and love me, you will take the time to look past this, deeper for what is really true for me.

And just like Howard Stern, George Carlin and many others push at the boundaries with their words, sometimes, so do I. The difference is, not as many people listen to me or care about what I say. Can you handle this?

It all started with this post which is a hoot. Well, most of what she writes over there is a hoot. As in: laugh out loud, co-workers staring at me, tears streaming down my face, try to control the snorting, funny. But this post, in addition to making me laugh, struck a cord. It was funny, but insightful too. Thought provoking. As in, I wanted to talk about this. First of all, it had really never occurred to me (at least in the way it occurred to her in kind of an obsessive way) to wonder about this issue. I am surprised (since I can be a wee bit obsessive, yes ONLY a wee bit) that I had never fixated on this issue myself. And folks, I have issues. Issues with my body, self esteem, being likable, being attractive etc, etc, etc. Maybe I was shocked that THIS wasn't one of them. Or was it? Had I ever even wondered about this? I don't know! I think it has crossed my mind on at least one occasion. But I've never had nightmares about it.

So, I began to wonder: Am I the only girl who HASN'T obsessed about the appearance of her vagina? Maybe everyone secretly had these feelings, and I was just not that self-aware. Or maybe the majority doesn't worry about such things, and in that case, I wondered, why didn't they worry more about this? After all, wouldn't it be surprising if most women (who obsess regularly about appearance in general) were NOT concerned about this? Leave it to girls to "worry" about such a thing as "Are my lady parts cute enough?". You would never hear a guy ask: "Does my schlong look cute?" Oh yeah, I almost forgot, you boys NEVER use those two words in the same sentence (cute and your rod)!! Let me rephrase: "Does my pecker look Good? Handsome? Manley? Attractive?" Oh yeah, we all know that you obsess about the size, and in comparison, women too worry about the tightness of our, eh hem, kitties. But appearance????

So yes, I laughed at her worry and then crinkled my brow and in a very thoughtful moment wondered "Is my cooter cute....?" And so started the Cooter Cuteness Conversation that got me in HUGE trouble. And actually, the trouble only furthers my desire to say the word cooter to anyone and everyone who would give me an audience. So here I am.

Cooter, Cooter, Cooter. My lovely lady parts! Yeah! How do you like them apples? Or more importantly: How do you like MY APPLES? OK, but seriously, not that many people have seen my who-ha, so it's not like I can take a poll. I asked the only person who was in my vicinity that would know (The Alaskan) if he thought my cooter was cute. "Of course, babe, sunshine and butterfly, the heavens open and the angles sing when you spread your legs. It's practically a religious experience." What else is he gonna say? Well honey, yeah, your pee-pee is ugly. U-G-L-Y (you ain't got no alibi) it's UGLY! Yeah right! Not if he ever hoped to partake in my peach again. Because, of course, by asking him I didn't expect to get an objective opinion. I knew (and wanted) his response. I wanted to be pacified here. To be told: "Of course it's cute!" Knowing full well it didn't matter, that if my coochie wasn't "doing it's job", cute or not, that we wouldn't have made it this far. But his oh so appropriate response to my playful topic of conversation isn't my issue, it was his discomfort with the subject matter: My PRIVATE Parts. Or should I say: his discomfort with me speaking about it in mixed company. After all, they should be private (MY PRIVATE PARTS)! See, the trouble came with the fact that I happened to poke at this in the presence of The Roomie (who of course has no opinion of my nether region having never made its acquaintance) but none the less laughed right along. And I persisted, giggling all the way, and kept right on poking at this, talking about cooter cuteness and MY PRIVATE PARTS in a not so private way.

Why you might ask was I stuck on this topic? I think I was just wanting to know: do guys really evaluate a girl by the appearance of her "stuff"? This shouldn't have been so hard to get at, I'm thinking. What was so difficult about me asking them this? Could have been that the more uncomfortable he got, the more I pushed. Could also have been the word cooter (I admit I LOVE the way it sounds coming out of my mouth) was in every sentence. I only wish now I had a more expanded repertoire of ways to refer to my vagina (I'll have to break out that episode to The L Word and watch very slowly and make notes for future use). But I'm sure he flinched every time I said cooter. Why Oh Why? I don't flinch every time there is talk about "Dropping the kids off at the pool." Or when they so vividly describe the smell coming out of their "rotting pumpkin" ass? Oh yes, and I smile (only rolling my eyes when he isn't looking) at this juvenile humor. Boys, after all, will be boys.

But I guess us girls aren't suppose to talk this way.

So, after a period of time, knowing there was no shutting me up, he went inside and got ready for bed. He was miffed. And I'm having a hard time being sensitive to his feelings. I want to be able to say what I want. And after this morning's harsh words, I was sulking when he dropped me off at work, and I told him (in my not so nice I'm-a-big-girl-and-I-will-do-whatever-I-want voice) that I would be asking everyone all the way down the hall on the way to my desk about MY COOTER! Surprise, surprise, he didn't like that as he sped away. Yes, not so "Big Girl" of me, I admit. Feck, I wish I wasn't so feisty sometimes and my mouth would just stay shut.

OK, no I don't.

Yeah, I know, I'm a talker. And that's what we "talkers" do. And I like that. Just try to shut me up! I didn't ask everyone down the hall this morning, BUT I did tell all the "helpies" about my troubles with talking too much about my cooter. Can't stop the mouth, you see. They smiled and some laughed and even sympathized. But I still don't feel better. So here I am blogging about this, writing down these thoughts and words to put out there in a VERY public way (another thing HE HATES! That I put this out there for anyone to read, even though I'm sure NO ONE reads this right? Anyone? Anyone? No. Thought so.) Oh, when he reads this (and he will!) Yikes.

I know the Alaskan has feelings about what I share and with who. He feels some things should just be between us, there are lines you just don't cross. And the issue with this lies in the fact that we don't agree on where that line is. I'm a pretty open person. Not that I hang my punani out for all to see (and judge). I'm not that open (or brave). It's not that I, too, don't have a line. Because I do. But when the boundaries aren't the same, how do we come to an agreement? How do I hold close to my autonomy while honoring his values? How do I not just defer to appease? Because when I defer I lose my sense of self and I feel bad about who I am. Like a child scolded, I believe I am expected to relinquish and assume that I am doing something wrong. When in fact, I am an adult and entitled to my opinion, and my words. But I can't help it: who's right and who's wrong. That is what it always comes down to. He's stubborn and I am at the very least defiant. So, I can't help but remember a quote from a Big Dog t- shirt that says:

If I agreed with you, then we'd both be wrong.

So there it is. My inner child (cooter) needing to be reassured that I am right (cute).

Eight Easy Steps

How to stay paralyzed by fear of abandonment
How to defer to men in solvable predicaments
How to control someone to be a carbon copy of you
How to have that not work and have them run away from you

How to keep people at arms length and never get too close
How to mistrust the ones you supposedly love the most
How to pretend you're fine and don't need help from anyone
How to feel worthless unless you're serving or helping someone

How to hate women when you're supposed to be a feminist
How to play all pious when you're really a hypocrite
How to hate god when you're a prayer and a spiritualist
How to sabotage your fantasies by fears of success

I've been doing research for years
I've been practicing my ass off
I've been training my whole life for this moment I swear to you
Culminating just to be this well-versed leader before you

How to lie to yourself and thereby to everyone else
How to keep smiling when you're thinking of killing yourself
How to numb a la holic to avoid going within
How to stay stuck in blue by blaming them for everything

I'll teach you all this in 8 easy steps
A course of a lifetime you'll never forget
I'll show you how to in 8 easy steps
I'll show you how leaderships looks when taught by the best

~Alanis Morissette