Christmas Pictures

"Mom? You know how you said God gave me to you as a present?"


"Yes. Yes, he did. It was the best gift I ever got."


"Well, I hope you remembered to send him a thank you card for that."


What she doesn't know is that there are no words that could ever convey the gratitude I feel for her existence.

Nuvaring Bitches

Am I only one who hates these Nuvaring birth control bitches? I seriously loathe these women. It's apparently girls night with three "besties" sitting around a coffee table nary a wine bottle in sight. The TV is on in the background and the old Nuvaring commercial starts playing. The stupid wavy haired one says, "Ooooh, I love this commercial!" and then proceeds to sing along to the most unimaginative jingle ever penned by a human. I mean how untalented do you have to be to come up with these lyrics? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Everyday, aaaa aaaah. Everytime I see her bob her head back and forth singing along to it I have a strong urge to bash her head into a million tiny pieces of bone and brain matter.

Then her "friend" tries to be all nonchalant, leaning forward pretending to get a snack while asking with a devilish gleam in her dead eyes, "Would you guys try Nuvaring?" But you can just tell that she's been waiting all night for this. This whorebag has some kind of an agenda and it creeps me the fuck out. Like, why is she so invested in her friends sticking a plastic birth control device in their vaginas? The black woman sitting next to her is the least annoying of the bunch but I'd still murder her with my bare hands. That is, if her grotesquely shiny shirt doesn't give me a seizure first. She says, "I don't even know what it is." Don't worry! Because Nuvaring pusher is going to tell you all about it. Her voice gets all weird and affected "It's. A. Monthly. Vaginal. Birth. Control. Ring. That. delivers a low dose of hormones."

Wavy haired, dumb commercial loving woman finally gets it. You can see how it just clicks and she realizes that this is the birth control you have to...Gasp!...put in your vagina! "Don't you have to...put it in" she says while making odd hand gestures. But Nuvaring pusher won't let her go there. Because for her it's easy. "It's small and comfortable, plus" (she leans in conspiratorially) "you don't have to take it every day." And there it is, folks. There you have it. I don't know how feminism has survived all these years, how we women have managed to lead meaningful, productive lives while attached to the oppressive tether that is swallowing a pill every day. But Nuvaring will set us free from this tyranny. Indeed, Nuvaring pusher has declared, "Let my people go." She is Moses parting the Red Sea, except the Red Sea is more like the labial lips of women everywhere.

If Margaret Sanger were alive today she'd be slapping some bitches. Not even a century ago, women weren't allowed to vote for our leaders, obtain a legal and safe abortion, or maintain any control of our own reproductive powers. The Comstock Laws made illegal the dissemination of information on contraception and the distribution of contraceptive devices. That is oppression, Nuvaring pusher. I don't know who you sold your soul to or why, but you are obviously in league with some Satanic element. And if I never see your smug, creepy smile on my TV again, it will be too soon.

Twins in utero

My sweet, baby boy















Girl parts. I'll just take their word for it.

















Money shot: Boy parts

























Twins touching hands through the membrane.

Thankful

Tomorrow I will celebrate Thanksgiving for the 7th time. Out of my 34 years, I have spent only 7 Thanksgivings seated at smooshed together dinner tables over-eating turkey and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce with my family on the 4th Thursday of November. Only Jehovah's Witnesses could find something satanic about such an innocent celebration - eating delicious food and expressing gratitude for the myriad of life's blessings.

Indeed, my Jehovah's Witness childhood was full of what I could not do. Traditional celebrations were forbidden:

Birthdays
Halloween
Christmas
New Year's Eve
4th of July
Valentine's Day
Easter
St. Patrick's Day
Mother's Day
Father's Day

I could not participate in after-school activities, such as sports or drama. Because my participating in these things would bring me into contact with people who were not of my faith and thus under the influence of Satan and destined for eternal destruction. I could not attend school dances, homecoming, or prom for the very same reason. I was not permitted to go to college because Armageddon was imminent and I needed to concentrate my efforts on preaching the so-called "good news", which was really an ultimatum: join us or die. Saturday mornings I spent out knocking on doors, dreading that the next door I knocked on would have someone from school behind it. When this inevitably happened there are no words for the humiliation I endured, the gut-wrenching shame I experienced.

My thoughts, my feelings, even my dreams did not belong to me. It is so painful to visit that now, the memory of those empty years. I was forced to make so many sacrifices and it was all for nothing. What they called "The Truth" was a complete and total lie.

Who knows what I would have become if it weren't for that fucking cult and it's brutal influence over my family. I struggle with so much anger and grief. I think about the little girl that I was, so full of potential for great things. And then I look in the mirror at what I have become and I want to spit in my own face. I have spent the past 10 years trying to make sense of what happened to me and attempting to undo the damage. I don't know that this is possible. I can't go back and retrieve memories of what never was. I can't have Christmas mornings tearing open presents. I can't have dressing up in a princess costume for Halloween. I can't have exchanging Valentines with secret crushes. I can't have sparklers on the 4th of July. I can't have pictures of me in a terrible, taffeta dress arm in arm with my prom date. I can't have living in a dorm and figuring out how I'm going to change the world over a dozen cheap beers.

What I had was not enough. I feel like I have these huge gaping holes inside of me, paths not taken, wounds that won't heal, abilities never realized. This emptiness is nauseating. I wonder what it would feel like to be a whole person. What does it feel like? Tell me. Somedays I want to crawl into the skull of someone else. Just for a little while. So that I could know.

Tomorrow I will pretend to be whole as I dine with my family, celebrating Thanksgiving as if it always was this way with us. Pretending we are normal and that we have memories tucked inside of us of so many Thanksgivings past. My daughter will never know any different and sometimes I resent her for it. I watch as she circles things in a catalog. "I want all these things for Christmas, mom!" She doesn't notice the tears gathering, the deep breath. "Anything you want sweetie. Santa knows what a good girl you've been."

That's all I can do now - Live through her. And I know that despite my past, I do have the present to be thankful for. My wild Liv, two babies having a party in my womb, a mom who's cancer was caught early enough to treat (stage 2), a husband who loves me despite what I am. I guess most of all, though, I am thankful to have control over my own mind and freedom from psychological tyranny. I know how precious that is. I will never take it for granted.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Kick Me

There's nothing in the realm of my experience that compares to that first swoosh in the womb. I'm not talking about those soft flutters or the quick ticklings or the questionable bubbles. The quickenings. Those can all be explained away in my mind as something else: hunger pangs, gas. I'm talking about the moment, the feeling, the unmistakable proof of life. The rolling and tapping of a tiny life that is moving of its own accord within my body. Before this movement, of course, I was aware of the pregnancy. I had taken the test and seen the plus sign. I suffered through the 1st trimester nausea and fatigue. I took the blood tests, even saw two little human-ish figures flipping me off in black and white ultrasound photos. Twin gestation confirmed. A baby boy and a baby girl.


But everything is different now. The image has come into focus. The lens has been defogged. This is the beginning of a lifetime of knowing. A lifetime of discovering what they like, what they dream, who they are. Two people are alive inside of me. They are attached and dependent, but they are separate from me in every imaginable way. Baby A, the girl, is already making me laugh. She is positioned over my bladder and tickles me with her rolling. Baby B, the boy, can't make up his mind. He is jabbing me on the left one minute and then jabbing me on the right the next. One day he plays hard without rest. The next day he is lazy and making me worry.

I like to shake the twins awake when they are sleeping. This is a sort of pre-revenge for all the sleepless nights that are surely in my future courtesy of the two of them. I grip my uterus on both sides with my hands and shake it firmly, but gently. Without fail those two creatures start up their distinct activity, no doubt flipping me off in the process. Why does it delight me to irritate them? Because it's my way of saying, "I love you". Liv will vouch for that. Everytime I tease her by telling her that I've changed her name to Willis or Barney or Leroy and then proceed to call her that for the rest of the day, I am actually saying, "I love you enough to take this time to irritate the shit out of you." Also it makes me feel powerful to pick on someone smaller.

These sweet fetal movements fuel my optimism for a joyful future. Without them, pregnancy is just a miserable, desolate experience. Before my physical awareness of their existence, I felt cursed. Sickness, exhaustion, heartburn, low back pain, deformity. Yes, deformity. Because let's face it: I look like I have a beach-ball sized tumor growing out the front of my abdomen. I would say, "Men are lucky sons of bitches...no, saints. They are sons of saints." But the fetal movements change everything. They remind me that my body, no matter how deformed, is performing a miracle. The blessing, the privilege of carrying and making human beings far outweighs the discomfort and the agony of pregnancy and childbirth.

The kick and the jab of my unborn babies' feeble limbs are my reward for enduring so much annoying shit. So if I have to wake them up to get my fix, they'll just have to fucking deal with it. They'd better get a thick skin real quick if they are going to be my kids.

Best Case Scenarios

"Do you feel it?"

I'm standing in my mother's kitchen pressing my fingertips against her right breast looking for the thing that left her sleepless the night before. Searching in a circular motion, the way the brochures they hand out at the gynecologist tell you to. At the 2 o'clock position, I find it. Nestled against her breast bone, a tiny object - a cross between a pebble and a marshmallow. I've felt similar things in my own breasts, when I still possessed them. I remember laying supine on my bed, topless, doing this private work. Every ridge or bump causing my heart to beat faster, my mind to orchestrate the worst possible thoughts. In the moment of discovery, I am already in a chair with an IV pumping chemotherapeutic chemicals into my body. I am already composing my last will and testament. I am already the deceased mother of a motherless child.

But for everyone else I offer best case scenarios.

"Yeah, I feel it." My brow furrows. "It feels too soft to be cancer."

"Would you be worried? I mean, if you found this in your breast?"

I almost laugh because when you have a BRCA2 mutation, you don't even need to find something suspicious to worry. You spend every moment of your life waiting for the axe to fall. You are on high alert, tensed and pretending to be ready for the inevitable moment your body betrays you.

"I would definitely get it checked out. I mean, I've had similar lumps that were biopsied and turned out to be nothing. Just get it checked out. It couldn't hurt."

It is October 1st. The first day of Breast Cancer Awareness month. In my family, we don't need a government sponsored month to remind us of the horrors of breast cancer. I don't need to buy a pink kitchen appliance or a ribbon magnet or hot pink M&Ms. Nothing I could see or buy could make me more aware. Because I am constantly made brutally aware of breast cancer by what is not there. My breasts and, more terribly, my sister. The savage memories of Amy's death and my mastectomy linger tenaciously in the brain.

This is why I hate Breast Cancer Awareness month. I don't need more reminders of the things I have lost. I don't need to watch perky women recount how they've conquered breast cancer and reassuring doctors sing-song how early detection saves lives. I don't need to see shelves of pink goods at the grocery stores. It is infuriating that some corporations are exploiting a disease to increase their profits. Breast cancer cannot be represented by a cutesy candy pink Kitchen-Aid. Breast cancer is a horrible, disfiguring disease that destroys lives and the emotional health of families. Fuck Breast Cancer Awareness month. How about living Breast Cancer Awareness life?

In the kitchen, there is a quiet. We are both thinking the same thing, my mom and I. Not this again. Please God, not this again. Cancer has taken his seat at the table. He is sticking his dirty finger in a fresh wound.

"Just call Dr. Kr--sher. Tell her what's going on and I'm sure she'll order a test right away."

"I'm scared."

"Don't be. I'm sure it's nothing. Just for your own peace of mind, get it looked at. You're due for a mammo anyway. You'll get the test and it will be nothing and you'll feel better." Best case scenarios.

But it isn't nothing. It's cancer. Confirmed by biopsy. My mother has breast cancer. My stomach does a sick flip to see that in writing. I had lied to her the way I lied to Amy a million times.

You're going to be fine.

I'm sure it's nothing.

It's probably been caught early.

They have so many medicines and treatments now.

You won't die. You can't die.

Sometimes I lied so well that I even convinced myself. What I want to know is, Why? Why is this disease attacking my family? Why doesn't it leave us the fuck alone already? Haven't we given enough? Haven't we lost enough? Haven't we cried enough? Haven't we watched a beautiful, young woman deteriorate into a sallow, dead shell enough?

For my mom's sake, I will keep spinning out best case scenarios. Maybe this time they'll turn out to be true.

Fun with Names

Choosing names for the aliens is not easy. I have 5 months (hopefully) to work on this but it really is an important decision. I still haven't found out the genders, so I'm considering multiple options for each sex. I'm going to throw some names out there and get your opinion on some of these.

I noticed how many people are naming their daughters boy names these days. Ryan, Evan, Charlie, Tristan, Drew. So I thought - why not Richard? I could spell it Rychard. The Y makes it feminine, don't you think? Y is really a magical letter. It can change any boy name into a girl one. Bruce turns into Bryuce (the Y is silent). Michael turns into Mychael. Stephen turns into Stephyn. Of course, I could just do it the old-fashioned way with this one and call her Stephanie. But who wants to be traditional? I want my daughter to be Uneeeeeek. I mean, if I give her a normal name how will she know that she is special and different than everyone else?

Another name I was considering for a girl was Lillith. But it's just too common. So I wanted to make it different. Y to the rescue! Lyllyth. Now its a totally different name! Lylly for short. Lily is getting too popular. But Lylly will surely set her apart from any Lilys running around the playground.

Now for possible boy names. I noticed names like Gunner and Hunter are fairly popular. What about Killer? Murderer has a great sound to it but it's too long and I can't think of any good nicknames for it. Can you? Another one I'm thinking about is Bladen. At first I wanted just Blade. But Bladen is so uneeek.

A lot of people I know have given their sons a surname for a first name. What a cool idea! I mean, who needs a first name when you can have two last names? Carter, Walker, Cooper, Sawyer. These are all great but just way too popular. What about Zakowski? It's not a family name or anything. I'm not even Polish. I just think it sounds cool. We could call him Zak for short.

Oh sweet Jesus, I can't do this anymore. I'm actually in physical pain after writing that. You want to know what the truly scary thing is? If you go to any number of baby name forums on the internet you will find the same kind of pathological reasonings as would be mothers contemplate and decide on names for their offspring. I'm terrified after reading some of that shit. Can we, as a culture, band together and stop trying to be unique when naming our children? These are not housecats or hamsters we're naming. They're human beings who will one day grow up and have to live in the world with these monikers we've so lovingly and thoughtfully bestowed upon them. These names will be on test papers and ballots and driver's licenses and resumes. Your 5 year old little girl named McKadylynn is adorable now, but what about when she grows up? Can you picture a federal judge with this monstrosity for a name? I don't even want to think about a future where that happens.

Childbirth is Nasty

It's weird the way we mothers look back with fondness on an experience that is (for the most part) quite painful and horrific. I'm talking, of course, about the experience of giving birth to our children. I'm specifying children here, because in about 6 months I will be giving birth to a couple of aliens, as evidenced by the ultrasound pics I posted last week. My first baby was a human but she was hell to get out of my body.

In the week before I finally expelled her, I wound up in the Labor & Delivery emergency room three times. Twice for false labor. It was my first baby and I didn't really know how it felt. If I had known how it felt, I probably would have killed myself before I ever had to actually do the work. The third time I wound up there, I thought for sure that this was it. I was in so much pain - gnawing, unrelenting agony. What I had thought for sure were labor pains, turned out to be a nice size kidney stone working it's way down my ureter. The doctor gave me scripts for Percocet and Ambien and told me to "go home and have a beer." I loved him. I think I still do.

Hurricane Katrina was raging on the Gulf Coast, and I remember sitting at home watching the news footage. I couldn't really emotionally connect to what was happening in the world, to the awful things that were happening to those poor people, I must admit. My personal world was in turmoil and I was high on painkillers. It was completely surreal.

I was scheduled to be induced the day before my due date. But I had heard so many horror stories about inducement that I wanted to go into labor naturally. So I said to Todd, "You know, sex can induce labor. What do you say? You want to do it?" He was totally game, my horny husband. It must have felt like fucking a manatee.

Hours later I was having active contractions and out of my damn mind with pain. Todd held my hand tight as an inept nurse tried to stick an IV into my arm to administer pain medication. My dear, sweet husband said, "I'm here...You're Ok. I'm not going anywhere." As the nurse stuck me over and over again in her futile attempts to find a vein, Todd stood up and sauntered right out of the room. Like, he just left without saying a word. I was in one of those rooms that just has a privacy curtain as a wall. Seconds later I heard a loud crash and under the curtain I spied Todd laying on the ground unconscious with a small pool of blood gathering around his head. He had fainted, and taken down a large metal cart along the way to the floor. I just started screaming. Like obnoxiously screaming.

It took a team of people, including my obstetrician, to calm me down. My OB explained that men faint all the time when their wives are in labor. I thought that was only something that happened in stupid sitcoms. Apparently not. They took Todd to the ER and I was assured that he was going to be fine after he got a few stitches. Then the doctor ordered some strong sleepytime medicine for this crazy lady. God bless him. Did I tell you that I'm in love with this guy?

Waking up from my blissful coma to godawful pain was just indescribable. You know, pain that makes a woman beg for someone to stick a fat needle in her spine must be pretty fucking awful. Todd had finally returned to me with fresh stitches in his chin and was full of apologies. He spent the rest of the day on his cell phone doing his Fantasy Football draft.

Twelve hours later, I was still not fully dilated. My epidural had worn off and when I pleaded for another one, a fucking snooty nurse said, "You're supposed to be in pain. You're in labor, hon." If I wasn't catheterized and partially numb from the waist down, I really think I would have attacked her like a wild animal. I hate those fucking people who think that childbirth is supposed to hurt. I especially hate those woman who think they are somehow superior human beings because they gave birth without pain medication or an epidural. What the fuck does that prove? If someone said to me, "I had my appendix removed without anesthesia. It's just more natural that way," I would think that they were insane. That's kind of how I feel about these "natural" childbirth women. Don't get me wrong - people can have their babies any way they damn well please. If somebody wants to endure excruciating pain for absolutely no reason, then godspeed. Just don't expect me to admire you for it. It doesn't make you a superhero or even a better mother than someone who opts for pain management.

When my OB came to me at 2 am and said, "We're going to need to do a C-Section," I wanted to kiss him. After 16 hours of labor, I knew that I wouldn't have the strength to push the baby out. I was relieved that my vagina would remain intact. I had had nightmares about needing an episiotomy. Yes, I'd rather have major abdominal surgery than be sliced open along my perineum. Then and now and always.

For my C-section, they laid me out on an uncomfortable bed with both my arms strapped down on extended boards at my side, I felt like I was being crucified. Why it's necessary to restrain a woman during this process is baffling to me. Helpless feeling. Paralyzed from the waist down, arms tightly strapped down, a blue sheet hung down between my eyes and some truly gruesome activity. When they cut, I could feel the blade opening my abdomen. It didn't hurt at all; But I could feel it happening. I could feel my doctor's hands inside of me tugging Liv out of her warm, snuggly home. And then: silence. For a brief moment after she was born into the world, she was quiet. I felt this sick panic and screamed for her. I heard my voice yelling "My baby - is she ok?" And finally - I heard her crying. It was the last time I'd be happy to hear that.

Childbirth is just nasty. I think that's why God made pregnancy so horrible. By the time we're full term, we're willing to go through anything for it to be over. Why am I telling you all this? Because Liv had her 4th birthday yesterday. Four years ago I became a mother. And I'm about to do it again and again. I feel insane right now - more so than usual.



Me and Liv 9/1/05

Aliens

My kids look like aliens.

They even look like they're flipping me off with both hands. I love them already.

Worst Blog Ever

I'm not dead. But I really, really wish I were. Yeah, I'm back to that but for different reasons. You see, no matter how much I rest, change up my diet, drink ginger ale, take Zofran - I still feel like I have a stomach bug 24 hours a day. I'm still dry heaving and vomiting and nauseated at all hours of the day. Nothing will kill your creative drive like this situation. I want to curl up in a ball and wait for it to be over. Yet I can't. Everything needs doing. Dishes, laundry, doctor's appointments, eating. Oh god. The fucking eating. It's like an added job I have now. Eating. I can't wait until the nausea tinged ravenous hunger goes away forever and ever.

So I'm nauseous, constantly hungry but with zero appetite, in pain from a few large cysts that have made a cozy little home on my ovary, fatigued, and worst of all I somehow got sucked into watching that horrible show More to Love that I blogged about a while back. I'm so ashamed. I hate the show. It makes me feel gross. Here's why: The women are pretty and yet all they do is complain about the fact that no guys ever like them because of their size. Every bad thing in their life they manage to blame on their weight. Everything. They don't talk about anything but their weight. I'm screaming at my TV, "Don't you have anything else to fucking talk about? Books? Movies? Politics?" And it's become painfully obvious to me that the reason these women are unlucky in love is because they have zero self-esteem whatsoever. Are there men who don't like heavier women? Sure. But I still see heavyset women in relationships all of the time. If you have large boobs and a vagina, you're bound to find a man at some point. Right? Just having a vagina means never having to beg for sex.

Which is why I'm really confused about that new HBO show Hung. How is Ray finding all these women to pay him for sex? I realize he has a big dick and all, but even so. He is sort of a pompous ass about it. Eh, I don't get it. But I still watch it. Honestly, my TV watching is out of control and it's about to turn into a full-blown addictive disease once September comes.

What I am most excited about (aka what is keeping me alive):

1. Sons of Anarchy
2. Mad Men
3. House
4. So You Think You Can Dance
5. Fringe

How about you?

Fairly Badparents

Originally posted Jan. 28, 2009

I get a lot of flack from a lot of people for letting Liv watch "South Park". Apparently this makes me a terrible parent. And maybe that's true. I don't deny that my parenting skills are amateur on a good day. I don't deny that I struggle with the complex nature of proper bedtimes, balanced meals, and the importance of saying "No". I do, however, take great pride in the fact that I'm a better mother than Susan Smith, Andrea Yates, and all those mothers on Lifetime made-for-TV movies "suffering" from Munchausen's by Proxy. At least my kid is still alive and not slowly dying from arsenic poisoning. Her teeth may be rotting out of her mouth with multiple cavities from all the candy I use to bribe her to behave herself, but they're just her milk teeth. I'll get it right with the second set, I promise.

South Park might not be the most appropriate TV for a toddler. But I have this to say about South Park: At least the parents on this show seem to give a fuck about their kids. No matter what horrible shit those kids pull, no matter how mouthy they get, no matter how they curse, or lie, or run away, or see imaginary feces singing Christmas tunes, their parents are there for them when it counts. I can't say the same from what I see of the parents on most traditional children's programming, Compared to them, I might just be Mother of the Fucking Year.

Take for instance, Dora the Explorer - This poor little girl. Her parents are so selfish that they have basically signed over all their parental rights to a backpack. And even though the thing does contain limitless amounts of useful objects and monies, it's no replacement for, you know, actual emotional support from loving parents. A magic backpack isn't going to wipe her tears, remind her to brush her teeth before bed, or, most importantly, deliver a well-deserved spanking to her bratty ass on occasion. Besides, that backpack is a sycophant. Dora needs a parent not an accessory that answers to her every whim and desire.

Dora's parents suck. Instead of spending quality time with their daughter or perhaps sending her to school once in a while, they send Dora off every day on "adventures", with not so much as a "Be careful". Most of these adventures happen to involve regular encounters with a conniving fox whose sole purpose in life is to fuck with her and steal her belongings. This Swiper character is really my favorite. He steals Dora's shit and then hides it. It's like he doesn't even steal the stuff because he wants it;He steals it for the sheer pleasure of watching Dora and her friends get upset and scramble around trying to find it. And then there's her frequent encounters with the grumpy, old troll who, if you ask me, more closely resembles a grumpy, old child molester. And let's not forget that malevolent witch who taunts and threatens her with ungodly world calamities (e.g. stealing Springtime) unless she and her monkey friend perform dangerous tasks at her behest.

Damn Scary if you ask me

I guess ever since the unmonikered twins were born, Mami and Papi are just too busy to spend more than a second or two at a time with their eldest daughter. Poor Dora has to fend for herself like some sort of feral cat. It's a good thing she has a naked monkey, a cow, a buck-toothed squirrel in a technicolor dream coat, and a marauding marching band of bugs to look after her. She's got quite a menagerie of incompetent guardians but they can never fill that empty place in her heart left by Mami and Papi's absence.

Here's a perfect example of what could happen if you let your daughter be raised by a backpack, a monkey, and a map:

Yeah, she might end up endorsing products that purport to be children's toys but in reality are meant to penetrate woman's vaginas. (Now that I think about it, I might have to get one of these. Dildo incognito)

And look at her cousin Diego. I mean parental neglect must run in this fucking family. Diego lives in a tree house and has constant forays into the jungle with zero adult supervision. His everyday activities there include, but are not limited to, playing with deadly, carniverous animals, hang gliding, white water rafting, and rescuing venomous snakes. In the rare moments his parents are seen onscreen, they appear to be more interested in helping endangered animals than in caring for their own offspring. Diego, though a minor child, is often seen driving a car, riding a jet ski, and travelling by way of zip line. Diego's parents are negligent assholes, and I, for one, think cockroaches are better equipped to raise healthy human beings.

And what's the deal with Calliou's parents? They look good on paper, true. But when you really stop to think about it, they're the most passive aggressive people you'll ever encounter. When Calliou misbehaves they
always make him talk about his feelings. Fuck that shit. What ever happened to good old fashioned ass
whoopings? Calliou is a pussy just like his dad. And when are they going to openly acknowledge the fact that
their son has a severe case of alopecia? Ignoring it isn't go to make everything okay. Kid is bald. Time to start
talking about that shit. If this were South Park, you just know Chef would be singing a little ditty about how
"we need to show everyone we care, even if they don't have any hair". Granted, he might end the song talking
about the bald nubian goddess he fucked years ago, but at least there's a dialogue about the issue. Calliou's baldness is like the elephant in the fucking room and it's high time they addressed it.

Then there's Fairly Oddparents, a show which details the adventures of Timmy Turner and his fairy godparents. And thank the Lord Jesus for those damn fairies, because Timmy's Fairly Negligent Parents seem to be so self-involved that they fail to notice the regular abuse he receives at the hands of a sadistic, psychopathic babysitter named Vicky.

Dragontales? Should be called "Dragon your ass to family court for a parental competency hearing". Where the hell are these kids' parents when they're taking constant forays into magical lands? Why doesn't anybody know they're gone? I could go and on about the horrible parenting skills and the dysfunctional relationships I see on Nick Jr and Sprout every day. I could write an entire thesis paper on Disney Moms & Dads and their numerous parental transgressions. Maybe one day I will. But I think I've more than proven my point with what I've already laid out here. I rest my case. The verdict? I'm a better parent than these assholes any day of the week. The damages you're going to pay me for talking shit about me for letting Livy watch South Park? Leave me the hell alone about it. And buy me a Starbucks cafe mocha with extra whip cream. Then, and only then, will I grant you an official pardon.

Peanuts

First of all, I want to say thanks for all the congratulations and well wishes on my pregnancy. I had an ultrasound Friday and here's what happened.

The tech says, "I need to get a better look at that..."

"What?"

"Well...there's three. I don't want to scare you but there's three."

"Three what?"

"Three babies. I see three babies."

"Shut up."

"I'm serious."

At this point I started shaking and tearing up. God is punishing me for my Hating Fetuses and Children post. He is punishing me for being an awful person.

"Are you alright, Gwen?"

I nodded and she started checking the gestational sacs for heartbeats.

"I'm only seeing 2 sacs with heartbeats. There's no cardiac activity in the third sac."

So I finally started breathing a little because twins are better than triplets. But twins? Really? God has a really funny sense of humor. Or he hates my guts. I'm guessing the latter.

I'm on vacation now trying to process the news that I have this long, high risk pregnancy in front of me. I already have a baby bump and I'm only 2 months. It sucks because I'm not obviously pregnant, I just look like I have this big beer belly or something. This is not attractive at the beach. I also have an appetite that could support a 700 pound man. '

Alright, I'm done talking about my pregnancy. I promise. I'm on vacation until Saturday. I'm going to post a couple old blogs that probably nobody read because I used to have like 3 readers for the longest time.

I Hate Fetuses and Children

I haven't been spending much time reading or writing blogs the past few weeks. It's not because I don't love you guys - you know I do. I would tongue kiss all of you, such is the depth of my enduring love. I've been absent and a few of my blog friends even noticed I was missing. I can't even express how special that made me feel. I've been immersed in this personal crisis of pregnancy because while not wholly unexpected it still managed to shock me. I pledge in all seriousness that I will not turn this joint into a pregnancy blog (excepting this post). Mmmm...a joint would be so good right now. For the nausea. Don't worry, I'm not going to smoke one. I can want one, can't I?

I've noticed in recent years that people get so up in arms about pregnant ladies doing pretty much anything. And people assume they can get all up in your business about shit when you're pregnant. I remember when I was pregnant with Liv, I would have a cup of coffee in the morning. People would always say, "Is that decaf?" And I'd say, "No. I actually got shots of espresso in this bitch. Pregnancy makes me really tired." People were completely horrified when I said that. It felt good. Now, I didn't actually put extra shots of espresso in there, but that's really not the point. A little caffeine during pregnancy is not going to hurt your baby.

I watch that show Hell's Kitchen. One of the girls on there was serving tableside shrimp scampi to the guests. One of the shrimp she served was a little under-cooked and the woman at the table said, "I have to be careful because I'm pregnant." Ok. That's fine. There is a tiny bit of danger in eating raw seafood while pregnant. Does it mean automatic death of a fetus if you consume something raw while you are pregnant? Ummm no. But this girl's competitors seemed to think so. Some of them were actually saying, "She tried to kill a pregnant woman and her baby." I was screaming at my TV, "Shut the fuck up. Pregnant women and their fetuses are not that fragile!"

Remember that episode of Weeds where Nancy wasn't sure if her drug kingpin boyfriend was going to kill her for ratting his people out? And she was pregnant with his baby so she went to a sushi place and ate raw fish and had a shot of sake and smoked a cigarette? And then afterward she went to the guy's house and tried to make him shoot her with a gun but instead he kind of raped her but not really because she was all smiling afterwards? That was hot. Anyway, I was reading the forums after the episode aired (because I'm a total TV nerd like that) and people were actually saying shit like, "Maybe she was trying to kill the baby!" And the same thing happened after that episode of Breaking Bad, when Walt's wife smoked a cigarette in the car after a stressful day dealing with a cancer-afflicted husband and a teenager who has cerebral palsy and all the crap that comes from just being pregnant. She just wanted a cigarette to relax and everyone on the forum was like, "Skyler is trying to kill the baby! She's a terrible person and mother!" Like people actually believe that there is a high chance that a baby will die in utero if the mother smokes a single cigarette, drinks one shot of liquor, and has a sushi lunch. Retards.

Anyway, I'm not advocating that people smoke, or drink, or overdose on raw shellfish whilst pregnant. I'm just asking, "Can we put things in perspective a little bit here?" I'm sure eating McDonald's food every day of your pregnancy isn't good for your baby either but people wouldn't crucify me in their minds if they saw me eating an Egg McMuffin. My mom smoked and drank while pregnant with me and look how awesome I turned out*. My OB, who is cool as shit, told me that it was really okay to drink 1 glass of wine with dinner or whatever. She said, "We used to give women in pre-term labor IVs of alcohol to stop their contractions." And then she laughed heartily at the memory of OB ER rooms full of drunk, pregnant women.

I received so many disapproving glances from people when I sipped my wine at dinner in a restaurant, or at a party, or at my wedding. And I just stared right back at them and said, "Bottom's up!" and dumped it all down my throat. Normally, I liked to savor it but it was so worth it to waste my one glass of wine like that just to piss people off.

People are really on my last fucking nerves these days with their righteous indignation. I feel like people have this need to continously prove what amazing human beings they are because they love children. Every day on Facebook I see something about how somebody's mad because a child got hurt or molested. Don't get me wrong, I get upset when things like that happen, too. I just don't feel the need to announce to the world just how concerned I am about the plights of children all over the globe. I want to ask, "Does that make you special somehow? Who doesn't feel indignant about helpless people being abused?" I just hate when people state the obvious and then feel all unique and good about themselves. (In fact when people feel good about themselves, it irritates me. That's why I surround myself with people who have low self-esteem). When someone says, "I hate child molesters", it makes me want to respond, "Really? Because I totally love them. I wish one would move in right next door to me and come within 25 feet of my daughter's pre-school."

So now I'm sure I've pissed off everyone. Give me a break - I'm in a delicate condition. And I will be reminding you of that often. I will blame everything on this pregnancy - bad writing, terrible attitude, car theft, cursing at old people, laying on my couch all day, murder. Well, maybe not murder. Unless it's a child.

I hope I don't need to tell you that I really don't hate fetuses and children. You know me well enough by now that I don't need to explain my dark, twisted, unfunny sense of humor, right?

*well, I'm not really awesome. But I'm also not stupid so that's got to count for something, right?

Peanut

There is a peanut sized creature in my abdomen wreaking havoc. This thing is sucking the life out of me. Sleep, sleep, all I want is sweet slumber on soft pillows. I am a ravenous wolf. I feel as though I've been deprived of nutrients for years and my body is demanding payment in full. I can't believe that there was a time when I lived with this hunger and actually enjoyed it. Now it is gnawing, distracting, all-consuming. The nurse said, "Eat carbs". I'd be saying "God bless her" if it weren't for the fact that I'm nauseous 24 hours a days and then vomiting ingested carbs. So gross. So my life right now. I want to curl up in a ball and sleep. Wake me up when it's over.

If it seems like I'm complaining, then I'm sorry. I realize that there are a lot of people who would do anything to be pregnant right now.

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

I saw something over at ED Bites that made me so angry; so angry, in fact, that I think my rage could fuel a sizable nuclear reaction. Are some people seriously judging the competency of public officials now based on their body weight? How the fuck is that even a little bit OK?

I have spent nearly a quarter of my life attempting to overcome the obsessive, pathological idea that my worth, my competence, my beauty, my intelligence were all inextricable intertwined with the size of my waist, with the number on the scale, with the amount and types of food I put into my mouth. I have suffered and toiled and railed against this thing inside of me, this monster that wouldn't let me live for a single second without thought of how much space I was taking up in the world. It is a mental illness. And now that I am better, now that I have learned how to think more "normally" about my body and try to love it despite it's lack of conforming to some random and ridiculous feminine beauty ideal, I have emerged on the other side of the abyss to a world that is basically immersed in the same pathological nonsense I have just escaped from. Fucking nonsense.

If I hear one more person lament a bite of food, if I hear one more person talk about their diet, if I hear one more person mention the obesity "epidemic", if I hear one more person make a disparaging remark about an overweight person, I really just might explode in my fury. I seriously can't take this shit anymore. It's a constant onslaught - everywhere. You're fat. Lose weight. You're lazy. Lose weight. Lose weight. Lose weight. Lose weight. Sometimes I feel this malice bubbling up inside my veins and I get a stronge and difficult to repress urge to scream, "SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP."

I realize I'm more sensitive to this shit because of the fucking monster that lies dormant in my brain, but is anyone else sick to fucking death of this bullshit? Am I all alone in my confusion? What the hell has happened? What is particularly upsetting to me is the way that not only has thinness been thrust upon us as a beauty standard, they are now insisting that thinness is a health standard. There is absolutely no evidence to support the idea that being thin means you are healthy. You can be overweight and be healthy. In fact, recent studies suggest that overweight people tend to live longer than "normal" weight people.

Perhaps the worst thing of all is the fact that we, as a society, are pushing a thin, anti-obesity agenda on our children. Kids I talk to are literally afraid of fat. They see it as a death sentence. Where did they get this idea? The other day I overheard someone talking to a 9 year old girl. This person said, "You look like you've lost weight. You look great!" I just about lost my damn mind. This child is not fat, nor has she ever been fat. So what does this comment tell her? That losing weight is appropriate, and actually encouraged, during a time of life when weight should actually be gained. Growing and gaining weight is a good thing. Are kids getting that message? I sincerely hope so. My daughter isn't a skinny thing. She's a sturdy 4 year old with a good amount of baby fat on her bones. I think she is absolutely beautiful. Even is she were to put on a little weight and look "fat" by our society's standards, she would still be beautiful. Being a little chubby is not the end of the world. There are more important things for her to focus on than that.

If she ever came home and told me that she hated her body or wanted to go on a diet, I would lay down and die a little death. I am bracing myself for that day, because I know it is surely coming.

I Don't Care Where You Are

Is it just me or are there way too many "Where Are They Now?" articles and TV segments in the media lately? I'm sick to death of it. Sick, as in I don't give a shit what happened to Danny Pintauro, or the unfortunate looking son from Roseanne, or Kimmy Gibbler, or Steve Urkel, or any other obscure child star of a TGIF sitcom. If I gave even a tiny fraction of a fuck where these people were, I would already know that information. I feel like every time I turn on my computer to AOL I'm rewarded with a smarmy glamour shot and a question: Remember Brad from Home Improvement? See what he's up to now... Then I have to remember something that I really don't want to remember and that's the fact that no I don't remember Brad from Home Improvement because I spent my Thursday nights sitting in an ass numbing chair while I listened to droning on sermons about the Ministry and Jehovah and no end of bullshit. Thanks for reminding me about all the TV that I didn't get to see. Did you ever notice how they put all the shitty sitcoms on Friday nights? Fucking TGIF. Family Matters? Carl Winslow made me sick to my stomach with all his judgmental antics. Why exactly was Urkel never good enough for his daughter? He seemed like a nice enough kid. And here's fucking Father of the Year rolling his damn eyes acting all put upon by a nerdy kid. And his wife? Don't get me started on that one.

Here's the thing, I have a brother - my own flesh and blood that I grew up with and I don't even know where the fuck he is right now. Last I heard he lived in Florida but he could have moved by now and you know what? I don't care. It's not that I don't love him. I just don't care where he is all that much. So if I don't give a shit where my own brother is, why in the name of all that's holy would I give a damn about that stupid "How rude" moppet or the one that wore the hats?

Is This My Mind, or Yours?

I'm sort of mad at this certain book. Or maybe afraid of it's guts. I'd rather somebody beat me to a bloody pulp with a Bible than read the contents of one to me. Although there are some very beautiful passages, such as The Song of Solomon, it's chock full of some pretty disturbing things. And say what you will about Jehovah's Witnesses but they don't sugar-coat the messages of the Bible. They study every scrimp of it, find a lesson in it all. Even that Mosaic law snoozefest in Deuteronomy. We studied that shit. How that applies to a Christian religion is beyond me. I'm not even sure how Christian it really is, considering most of what I remember studying was the Old Testament. I think that's because after Jesus comes on the scene in the Gospel, "Jehovah" or "YHWH", whatever his god damn name is, loses his steam.

That was so blasphemous and I don't even care.

Well, maybe a little bit.

There's a lot less blanket condemnation and merciless killing in the New Testament. You can't scare people with the Gospel. Well, you can. You just have to work harder at it.

I want to emasculate God a little bit. Take Him down a notch. Because I'm tired of having weirdness and underlying fears about him killing me for not believing in him anymore. Or questioning his existence, anyway. His fairness. His right to rule over people while never lifting a finger to help them. Who the hell does he think he is? See, right now I'm having a mild panic attack. I think all this fear is behind me but it's really still alive and less dormant every day. Monsters under the bed. Brainwashing runs very, very deep. And it's a severe source of shame for me. Which is kind of ridiculous, I realize. It's not my fault that my mother converted to a cult when I was 5 years old. It's not my fault it took me nearly two decades to extract myself from it's tenacious grasp. How do you not get brainwashed when this is what you are told to believe from a tender age? How do you not fall for it all when you are terrified into believing all sorts of fantastical bullshit that has no basis in reality by way of threats of death at Armageddon, birds plucking out your eyeballs, fire from heaven? My personality was formed on a steady diet of doomsday philosophy.

So much is riding on your faith in the veracity of the doctrine. It's more than your life. It's your family, your friends, your dignity. It's your mind - but it's not yours anymore. It never belonged to you in the first place. Even when you're only 7 or 10 or 12 years old, you are carrying the weight of the world on your little back. You are supposed to save these people, kids at school, the cashier at the deli, your grandma, your dad. You are responsible for their deaths. And if you shut your mouth, then when they fall into some crack in the earth at Armageddon never to be seen again, it will be all your fault. This is bloodguilt. You are so young and unformed but you have the special knowledge of imminent destruction of all humanity on your mind at all times. Try to imagine what that would be like.

I wasn't brave. I didn't try to save anyone because I was too busy trying to save myself. I didn't want to talk about my religion, my difference. I wanted to pretend it wasn't there, the thing that made me the weird girl sitting during the pledge of allegiance, or leaving when the birthday cupcakes came out, not going to the slumber party with the girls at school on Friday night, or not having anything to say after Christmas vacation. Everybody was wearing new clothes and having new toys. What did you get, Gwen? I got uncomfortable and then so did she. "Oh yeah...I forgot" She brought up the thing and it was there, suspended in the air as foreign and strange to her as a UFO. "Santa doesn't come to your house." She looked down. And I thought, "She thinks I'm bad but I'm not. She is an idiot because Santa Claus is a stupid lie. Christmas is like the devil coming as an angel of light but full of all kinds of vile things. Jehovah hates Christmas and so do I." Lies I told myself.

Truthfully, I was so brainwashed that I didn't even know I was afraid. Fear was the natural state of being. Fear of God is the beginning of life, the scriptures say.

Fuck the scriptures. I'm beginning to think that Trouble is right when she says my problem just might be a nasty little case of PTSD. The gnawing anxiety, the panic attacks, the nauseating despair, the wanting to die. I don't know. I didn't get robbed or fight a war, but I lived my entire childhood under a blanket of fear and guilt. That can't be good for the psychological well being of anyone.

I realize now after finally researching the power of cults over the human psyche, that I am recovering from the effects of mind control. Lifton mind control tactics that I think apply to my childhood/early adulthood:

Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here. (Yep. Any non-JW activity or person was deemed "worldly" and we were instructed to be careful about those things/people. Questioning the ideology, outside of initial "studying", was cause for expulsion from the group. I was never permitted to question the ideology. I would have been deemed unfaithful and possibly apostate, which in the religion is considered an unforgivable sin beyond any redemption).

Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members' "sins", "attitudes", and "faults" are discussed and exploited by the leaders. (Confession was only required for major sins like fornication, drug use, smoking, drunkenness, homosexual activity, etc. Typically the "judicial meetings" were between 3 elders, church leaders (always men), and the person confessing the sin. Sometimes there would be public announcement that someone had been "reproved", which is basically a reprimand with loss of privileges in the congregation. Sometimes reproof would be private. If repentance was not displayed for the act or if the act itself was deemed serious and willful, then the person would be disfellowshipped (excommunicated). No JW's would be permitted to talk with this person, not even his/her own family members, not even to just say, "Hi).

Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism. (JW's refer to their religion as The Truth. They are not permitted to read literature that is anti-JW or any religious material other than what is published by the organization. The Governing Body, which is a group of 12 men, are the only ones allowed to make decisions regarding doctrine. Their word is akin to God's word. If you deny that they are God's mouthpiece, then you are said to be denying God).

Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking (Yes. Absolutely. They even had a name for it sort of, The Pure Language. "The Society says"...was a thought terminating cliche. Or if somebody had a good question that highlighted that the doctrine was incorrect, this: "That's apostate reasoning". That shut people up real quick. Also we used words like Pioneer, Bible Study, Governing Body, The Society, The Faithful and Discreet Slave, Publisher...the list goes on and on. These words all mean something to JWs but not what it means to the outside world).

Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also. (Yep, times a million. JW's who left were not associated with at all. If they officially "disassociate" from the organization then they are treated as excommunicated and not even spoken to. If any JW speaks against the organization or even just professes a disbelief in it's doctrines, he or she is considered an apostate. Many people in the religion consider me to be so. I guess I'm doomed. Unforgivable. Beyond all redemption. Non JW's are considered walking corpses. Yes, I heard them described as such during a sermon once. Mind you, they would never put that in their literature. They don't tell Non JWs that this is their belief because it would disgust people and stop people from converting. But that is the message that is beat into your head from the platform. Sneaky bastards talking out of both sides of their mouths. While we were very interested in converting the masses, finding the sheep, and this was supposedly motivated by a great love for people, we had absolutely no problem praying for Armageddon to come quickly to relieve of us of the burdens of this world. Mind you, Armageddon's arrival would mean the everlasting destruction of billions of men, women and children. I'm sick to my stomach just thinking about what I wished for. Horrible things. So much shame).

I have a foot in each world. I don't belong completely to either. I spent more time in the other world, the place where I didn't have the right to do my own thinking. I feel like I was born the day that I stopped believing. I was 24. So how old does that make me now? 10. It's been 10 years since I started to use my own brain, think my own thoughts. I'm still trying to answer the questions: Who am I, really? What do I want?

I'm afraid that there aren't any answers. That I am completely empty - a black hole of endless nothingness. I have no base. My brain is all fractured. I spent 20 years devoted to something that probably doesn't exist. I might as well have been dead.

Fun With Fireworks

It isn't a Jackson/Binder Family 4th of July celebration without some good old-fashioned pornographic goofing.

My soon to be brother-in-law has some really precious stones. Don't you agree?

And of course, I always enjoy getting a nice, warm golden shower courtesy of my, again, soon to be brother-in-law:

Yes I cropped myself out of the picture. I'd been drinking all day and looked like shit. What else is new?

Eve's Agony

Reaching out
To touch a stranger
Electric eyes are everywhere
See that girl
She knows I'm watching
She likes the way I stare
If they say -Why, why, tell em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
If they say -Why, why, tell em that is human nature
Why, why, does he do me that way
I like livin this way
I like lovin this way -
Human Nature

I wrote this blog a while ago and as with so many other things I write, I opted not to post it. But it's one those pieces that stayed with me; there is a psychological importance to what I talk about here. Certainly to me and possibly to somebody else who grew up the way that I did, whose sexuality was forged in that terrible crucible of fundamental Christianity. I dare say not everyone grew up to be quite as fucked up a personality as me. I hope not. I heard Human Nature on the radio today, and I thought, "This is my nature." Maybe nobody cares about that or maybe they do. Either way, with my writing I seek to honor those things in me that twist and gnaw and hurt. I want to present myself not the way I wish I were, but as I actually am. That being said, here is me in all my despicable and strange glory. Do with that what you will.

"Here's your coffee, ma'am". She takes it from his hand and when she does, his fingers lightly, unintentionally brush her hand. And then it happens, because it has to happen these days. She feels the rush of arousal and the inevitable wetness that always follows it. This guy doesn't even know. He is all baseball capped and young and about to get off his shift at Starbucks and probably go meet his girlfriend at the movies. She'll be wearing something adorable, maybe a denim mini-skirt and a tank top, and she'll smile when he hands her a latte. "You're so sweet!" And he'll smile and bide his time until later when he can get her naked and panting and begging him to show her just how sweet he really isn't.

"Have a great day!" she sing songs and then walks away wondering if he could even tell the dirty thoughts pervading her mind. Pink excitement flushing her pale skin, quick, shallow breaths.

This is the way of it these days. Every moment is tinged with the color of fucking, sepia toned pornographic images, one after the other, on a perpetual loop. Distracting, invasive thoughts that make it difficult to live those mundane moments.

When she was fourteen, this was always a problem. She had her peculiar yearnings in bed at night. What was that about? She didn't know. Then it started to bleed into everywhere. In church, as the preacher stated his case for chastity from the stage, a sign containing some poignant scripture hung behind him, she sat, still as a statue. But she was a bad girl. So when he talked about fornicators and unclean behavior, it only served to make her excited. The rush, the wetness. Every muscle tensed, poised and ready, building, building, nobody knows. Then when it hits it is almost painful and unwelcome. Nobody knows. This is God's house and she is balling her fists at her sides having an orgasm. God knows.

She spent a long time at prayer. She spent a long time reading holy literature. "Deaden, therefore, your body members that are upon the earth as respects fornication, uncleanness, sexual appetite."¹ It was not good to feel so alive. It was better to cut off your hand than to allow it to do an unclean thing². Better to be dead than full of sin. Yet this arousal came unbidden and soiled her heart. It was going to get her killed eventually.

Unclean things - Romance novels stuffed under mattresses, hidden beneath piles of theocratic books and a heavy bible. She learned about carnal pleasures from the bible first. But those seedy books completed the education. Nightly, there were re-imaginings of those wicked scenarios. The push and pull of desire. "No, don't." "Yes. You will like it." "It hurts." "You have to." The heroines were always conflicted about their appetites. Good girls will never admit that they want it. They are afraid of their orgasms, of what they meant. She wonders - What does it say about me if I want that? She doesn't have to admit that she wants him hard inside her. "You have to." Her pleasure has a price. Her punishment is pain. Her pleasure is pain.

It's OK if somebody makes you.

When she was nineteen - in her boyfriend's car, intense kissing turns into unbuttoning pants, into hot whispers in her ear "just touch it, just a little bit." And she knew how to do it, too. But she said, "No. I can't. I shouldn't." His request intensified, "Do it, please?" She only wanted him to love her. No, that's a lie. She wanted to know how it felt to hold it in her hands. He pulled her hair tightly into his fist so it hurt and said firmly through gritted teeth, "Do it." So she did.


It's OK if somebody makes you.

Suddenly she was a metaphorical Eve. These are forbidden fruits indulged in. She insists, "God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree...nor shall you touch it, or you shall die." The serpent said, "You will not die for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad." Why does the serpent want you to do the bad thing? She doesn't care. She was fully clothed but her eyes were opened and she knew that she was naked. He tried to put his hands on her place and she pushes it away. He didn't insist. His orgasm was the only thing that mattered.

When she was alone, she cried. Wet and unsatisfied, she masturbated to orgasm, wallowing in her sinful, dirty nature. Wet with tears and her own arousal. She fell asleep an unclean thing. It was too heavy. She couldn't do it. She didn't want to be like God, knowing good and bad.

"I don't want to do it anymore. I feel...dirty." She wanted his love. She was desperate for it. She had risked her reputation, her relationship with God, the love of her family to satisfy him.

"Nobody knows."

"God knows." She was crying now. "God knows. We have to tell on ourselves."

She couldn't sit in church anymore pretending to be pristine, virginal. She was full of dirty things.
This is the part that she can't even think about. When you are unclean the only thing that will cleanse your soul is confession, submission to judgment. She made her confession to the older men in the congregation. The confession took place in a library, walls lined with biblical tomes. The room smelled like discipline and authority. She sat on a metal chair shivering internally and told three grown men about her first sexual experiences. They were wearing suits and holding bibles. It was all very official.

"Where did he touch you, sweetheart?" "Where did you touch him?" "Did he have a sexual climax?" "Did you?" "How many times did you touch him?" "How long did you touch him for?" "Did he ask you to?" "Did he take his pants off?" "Did you?"

She was nauseous in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes were opened and she knew that she was naked. All her dirty secrets laid bare before these men who barely knew her. It felt like a violation. She cried as they chastised her with scriptures. Pain is her punishment.


1 Cor. 6:18 - Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself.

2 Tim. 3:6 - For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Rev. 2:22 - And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

Hebrews 12:11 - All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

She wanted to repent because she was exhausted from carrying the burden of this clean disguise. She wanted it to be real. And they said God will forgive you but only if you display works befitting repentance. She was disciplined with private reproof, spared the public shame of an announcement to the congregation. But everyone knew anyway. She lost every small privilege. She didn't have that many to begin with since she was only a woman. Study the bible, prayer, ministry, church. Stop practicing the unclean thing.

You can't sustain repentance when you have so much lust burning in your veins. She tried to starve it out of herself. Even that didn't kill it all the way. Finally she knew that God would never love her. She thinks, "I am dead anyway. I might as well feel good while I'm still alive."

But it was too late.

The Lord God said to [Eve], "What is this that you have done?"
Eve said, "The serpent tricked me and I ate."
God said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall dominate you."³

That was the birth of her passion. It's OK if somebody makes you. To have pleasure, first pain. You will want your husband and he will rule over you.

She watches her husband undress for bed. She feels the rush and the wetness. She can't ask him to fuck her. He crawls in beside her, his body warm, his strong arms folding around her small body, his masculine scent filling her nose. She is breathing short, shallow breaths. She is aching for him to touch her. She can't ask. They fall asleep in this nurturing posture.

He wakes her in the night, mounting her urgently. He pins her arms the way she likes it. She pretends he is making her. She whispers one or all of the following, "Pull my hair, bite my neck, spank my ass, fuck me so hard that it hurts". Only then can she have it, the thing she's thought about all day. It grips her and she is momentarily afraid. It is an agony of pleasure. Passion and suffering. They are actually the same thing.

¹Colossians 3:5
² Matthew 18:8
³Gen 3:13, 16

More to Hate

I don't know how to feel about that stupid new reality show "More to Love". Actually I do. It's a familiar feeling. Hatred. Like I could murder a TV executive with my bare hands and feel all justified. Dexter-style. I have a code.

Let's play a little game. Remember those Highlights for Kids magazines that used to be in every doctor's office when we were little? I always loved those pictures with normal landscapes or domestic scenes and I had to look closely to find everything that was wrong or nonsensical in the picture. This game is a little like that. Read the following description of the show, More to Love, that I found on Fox.com and try to find all the things in it that are terribly, terribly wrong:

LARGER-THAN-LIFE SINGLE MAN LOOKS FOR "MORE TO LOVE"
New Dating Series Executive-Produced by Reality Czar Mike Fleiss

FOX is setting out to prove that love comes in all shapes and sizes with the new inspirational dating competition series MORE TO LOVE. Executive-produced by Mike Fleiss ("The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette"), the unscripted series follows a single average guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart as he romances several confident and secure plus-size women. Each week, the husky hunk will wine and dine a group of curvy women to determine if they have more love to give or if they are truly more than he can handle. When the size of competition narrows, he will have to decide if one full-figured lady will become his true love.

"This is a dating show that sends the right message about embracing and loving yourself no matter your shape or size," said executive producer Mike Fleiss. "When you are comfortable with your own body, you can really allow yourself to be open to the possibility of finding the right person to love."

1. Weight puns. I counted six at least. We get it. The man is large and the women are large. Maybe there might be something else about these people worth mentioning?

2. Reality czar? Really? Does he really want to take dictatorial responsibility for the vat of excrement that is reality television?

3. Do we really need proof that love comes in all shapes and sizes? What kind of an asshole is skeptical about that? It's not a theory that all types of people need and deserve love. And I sure as hell do not need FOX to deliver this lesson to the masses. (Oh my god. That wasn't a pun. Or maybe it was. Maybe that shit is contagious like small pox).

4. "Inspirational dating competition." That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one. The only thing dating competitions inspire in me is nauseous disgust. In fact, I keep an episode of The Bachelor on my DVR just in case I ate something I shouldn't and I have a hard time throwing it up. It works like a charm. 20 desperate whores, an asshole, and contrived, romantic sexual encounters makes for "Bye Bye Ice Cream".

5. "More to Love"? What the fuck does that even mean? What if someone is overweight and a total bitch (like me?) Is that More to Hate? Don't answer that.

6. "An average guy." How is he average exactly? He has a "big waist and an even bigger heart". Wouldn't that make him not average?

7. "Romances several...women." Romances? I don't know how romantic it is to date 20 women at the same time. Where I'm from that's called...typical male behavior. Romantic is kind of a stretch. Oh...it's the roses he gives out to the women who kiss his ass enough (figuratively and no doubt literally) throughout the course of the episode. That makes it romantic.

8. "This is a dating show that sends the right message about embracing and loving yourself no matter your shape or size." I'm so happy that Mike Fleiss is sending "full-figured" men and women everywhere the message that it's OK to love their own bodies. How generous and fucking revolutionary of him!

9. Thanks Mike Fleiss for letting full figured women everywhere know that one day we can feel comfortable enough with our bodies to go on a reality TV show where we can degrade ourselves, fight over an "average" guy, and be mocked with ridiculous puns about our weight.

Well, there's nine terrible, terrible things that I could find off the top of my head. The whole concept of the show is disturbing to me. Have you seen the commercial? It's so fucking condescending. Like, "awwww. Heavy-set women looking for love. Isn't that cute?" The announcer's tone is so earnest and patronizing. He might as well be talking about contestants in The Special Olympics. Czar Mike Fleiss claims above that the plus-size women contestants are confident and secure. I'm not really getting that impression through all the tears. The women are actually lovely, don't get me wrong. But the fact that they would go on this show in the first place makes me think they no likey themselves all that much. I feel the same way about all these dating shows. Why would a woman degrade herself like that? You all know that I hate myself, that I have spit at my own face in the mirror, and subjected my body to countless tortures. And yet even I, a person who probably deserves that shit more than any of those women, wouldn't put myself through that kind of emotional agony.

I keep seeing the commercials for this show and every time one comes on TV I get a nauseous pit in my stomach and have to go throw up. I'm going to be so skinny by the time this show goes on the air. Oh no! If I get too skinny then maybe I won't be "REAL" anymore. Right? Isn't that what the commercial keeps telling me? This is what a "real" woman looks like? Full-figured, big ass, big boobs. All those skinny bitches just aren't real. Not according to Czar Mike Fleiss anyway. He gets to decide, you see. Czar Mike Fleiss deserves a fatal blow to the head with a blunt object, if you must know. It's in the code.

The Ass

Woe Is Me

It's really exhausting being crazy in our modern age. It's one thing to actually live crazy, get through the drudgeries of daily life with troubling thoughts and feelings chained around my neck like an anchor. But on top of that I have to deal with the fucking quagmire that is the mental healthcare system in this country. Note to mental health professionals: Hi!...I'm insane. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm paralyzed with dread and self-loathing before you'll lift a finger to help me? Why are you making this so fucking hard for me? Does it feel good to fuck with the crazies? No wonder schizophrenic people fall through the cracks, so to speak, in our society. I'm lucid and marginally functional and I can't seem to get the help I need.

Yes, I'm seeing a therapist and that's all well and good. He had this bright idea that I needed to consult with a psychiatrist about possible medication as an adjunct therapy for what he initially thought was clinical depression and has since suggested may be some type of thought disorder. As you know, I have medical insurance through my husband's company. Medical insurance which he pays out a good deal of money for every month. That's fine with me. Our health is well-worth the investment. But it's infuriating to me that upon obtaining the list of in-network psychiatrists and proceeding to call all of them, not a single one of them would see me. Of course, my mind goes to the dark places and I start to have mild paranoid delusions that there is some way these people know that it's ME calling and I are like, "No way, Jose, am I seeing this worthless, poor excuse for a human being."

I let my therapist know about this "trouble" I was having getting anyone to consult with me on my pathetic issues. Despite his sympathetic remarks, I think he was really skeptical and believed that I actually had not called any of them due to fear, stubborness, low self-esteem or whatever. He offered, as he should, to call them for me and see if he couldn't get me an appointment using his figurative weight as a psychologist. Great.

Well, after two weeks of him calling these psychiatrists, he gets zero phone calls back from any of them. NONE. NADA. See? They just know that I'm the one begging like a little bitch for some relief from my incessant mental suffering. I said to him, "Now do you believe me when I tell you these things?" He just gives me that tight smile he always gives me when I say something that's absolutely right even though it should be absolutely crazy. That happens a lot. I know it's killing him that my paranoid delusions are turning out to be not so paranoid after all.

So my therapist gives me the phone number of a psychiatrist that doesn't take my insurance but would hopefully be willing to work something out with me from a financial perspective. So, I called this guy and guess what? His secretary was a total bitch. I explained my situation and she said, "Well his fee is $300 for the consultation and $2oo for any follow up half hour sessions." Three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars. I hate to be crass but I'm not paying anybody three hundred dollars to spend time with me unless I'm going to get several orgasms out of the deal. Maybe that's what I really need. Orgasm therapy. mmmm....doesn't that sound nice?

Anyway, back to fucking reality which pretty much sucks. I explained that I didn't exactly have $300 just right now. This bitch of a secretary is all "That's the fee and you have to pay it before I can even make you an appointment." That's it. Harsh reality of the world. Give me $300 and I'll talk to you and maybe prescribe a medication that will maybe help you to feel better. Fuck that. Fuck this bitch and her little prickly attitude towards a mental patient with suicidal feelings.

I'm sitting here just floored about the fact that I actually have health insurance and these are the kind of hoops I'm jumping through to try to feel like a normal person who smiles and actually means it. I'm just going to put this out there even though it's going to make me sound like a shitty person. Well a more shitty person. I know a guy who is on public assistance. He sees a psychiatrist every month for free. What is wrong with this picture? Oh yeah, it's me. I'm the thing that's wrong in the picture.

Truthfully, all of this uphill climbing is exhausting. I don't even know if I can do it anymore. I'm ready to give up on this nonsense of wanting to live and just accept that I don't want to live but I just fucking have to or everybody will hate my guts or the memory of them anyway. I would love so much if I could have a soul extraction and just be a type of robot programmed to do the steps of living and maybe some extra stuff also like flying and mind reading and sexual irresistibleness. Is that even a word? I don't care. And if I don't care about words, you know I'm having a fucking problem.