My First Sexual Experience

I was thinking about my sexual experiences.  I'm not terribly sexual, and I've had sexual experiences with 6 people, all men, and only one of those experiences was enjoyable for me.  4 of my sexual experiences happened before I was in high school, before I was 13, and they continue to shape me today.

I should also make a point that I never felt violated or abused, maybe I should have in a few cases, but I didn't at the time.

I was planning on including all of my sexual experiences, but just my first one was very long, so I may hold off and do the others later.  I might not do them at all, but I definitely needed to get this out, and I always somehow manage to talk myself out of getting out thoughts once I've had them.

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When I was 6 or 7, my mother gave my brother and I the "no-no" zones talk.  She said we were old enough to wash ourselves, so noone could touch us in these places, not even mom and dad.  Our crotches were no-no zones, and for me, so was my chest.  I think this lecture roughly coincided with me having to wear clothes around the house, rather than being able to run around in my panties, so I was annoyed, and the discussion was boring, anyway.  I don't know if she meant to expand on the discussion later and forgot, or if that was all she planned.

When I was 8, there was a family who lived down the street from me.  We saw a lot of them because their house was right next to the bus stop, and the mother had apparently babysat my brother and I when we were younger.  I don't remember that bit.  I do remember they had an obnoxious number of kids, like 5 or 7, most or all boys.  My brother was friends with some of them, I was indifferent.

Now, my parents left for work before my brother and I got up, and we came home before they got home from work.  We weren't allowed to be out of the house when they weren't around, and I would frequently forget my house key inside, especially when it was approaching summer and our house would get hot and stuffy, because we weren't allowed to open the windows, either.  In hindsight, I probably just wanted an hour or so outside, free of parental supervision, and was just fooling myself.  I never intentionally left my key at home, but.

On one particular day where we were locked out, one of the older boys from the house down the street, Evan, called out to me.  He was 11 at the time, and he was usually mean enough to me that I had no great love for him.  But he gestured me down the street, and I had nothing better to do, so I went.  Rather than wanting me to come in the front door, he wanted me to come through the back gate into the backyard.

Now, their backyard was sorely neglected, with plants of all kinds growing up over the fence, so it was kinda gross, but I was curious.  Evan asked me if I wanted to go down to the basement with him.  My answer was no, and I remember wondering why I would want to go down there.  My house had a basement, it wasn't interesting, and I couldn't see how his could be interesting.

I know we had small conversation for a bit, where he tried to convince me his basement was cooler than the hot outside, maybe had a place to sit, something along those lines.  Then he stepped forward and kissed my cheek.  In that moment, I don't know how I knew, but I knew he wanted to do something sexual with me, and I didn't know what he wanted.

I had no idea if I could give him what he wanted, but I knew I didn't have long before my mom came home, so I wouldn't really have time to find out.  I also knew that if I was in the basement with him when mom came home, I would get in trouble for not being near the house.  I can't remember if I was scared at all, but I know that everything froze and shifted for me.  I remember thinking that this meant he liked me, and wondering why he'd been so mean to me if he liked me.

More than that, I knew this was going to have something to do with my no-no zones, which I knew was a bad thing, but I didn't know why it was a bad thing, just that it was, and I still didn't know what he wanted.  So I started asking him questions.  What if your mom comes down to do laundry?  She won't.  What if your other siblings come down.  Daniel will watch out.

Now, his younger brother, Daniel, had been prowling around the yard most of the time Evan and I had been talking, interjecting annoying things, but not really part of the conversation.  At some point during the conversation, he had gotten up on the roof and began throwing roof tiles at us while we were talking.  I remember being annoyed, but keeping an eye on him and the tiles he was throwing.  I think I got closer to the house so that there was less chance of him hitting me.  This was who Evan was saying would be the lookout.

I knew Evan wanted something from me, but I also knew that I didn't know enough to know if I could give it to him.  So I kept stalling, with his brother throwing roofing tiles at us.  Even to this day, not knowing stuff scares me, because I never want to be in another situation where I'm being asked for something I don't know enough to know if I could provide.

I was running out of ways to refuse Evan's invitation when I heard my mother's voice, calling out to me from down the street.  I told Evan my mother was home, and I ran past him, out of his backyard and down the street.  I have never run so fast before in my life.

When I got home, I was embarrassed and ashamed.  I didn't get in trouble for not being near the house, but I felt like I couldn't tell my mother what had happened.  I felt like I had done something wrong, and I didn't want her to tell me what I'd done wrong.  I didn't want her to know I'd done anything wrong.

I didn't even understand what had happened, and I was sure I'd somehow get in trouble if I did tell her.  I just didn't know enough to know if it was worth telling or not, and there was no need, in my mind, to bring her attention back to the fact that I'd been down the street when I should have been at home.

I told my father about it when I was 11, and I didn't tell my mother until I was 15.  I only told my father because I had somehow managed to come to the conclusion that I hadn't done anything wrong with Evan.  That was a hard-won conclusion, though.

The one where I whine a lot

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I am currently living with my aunt.  She is not my aunt by blood, she is chosen family, and she is white.  As I'm sure you can understand, this has made things complicated, because she has a variety of issues that aren't mine to share, but she is prone to shouting when she's upset, which distresses me, because yelling distresses me.

She makes me anxious, but I keep wanting her to be loving and supportive towards me, and even if she wants to, and she does, she is not mentally capable of offering me the emotional support I need, even though she is very generous about financial support, I've been living in her home rent-free for several months.

Now, I've known about some of her issues since before moving in, and others I learned after, but I will admit that I have fallen prey to dismissing a lot of her stuff, making her the bad guy in my personal narrative, just because I feel like I have no power over my life, and at least if I know who the enemy is, I have that much more control.  It's not right of me, and it's not fair, but that's what I've been doing.

Recently, I've been hearing more about issues that pertain to my aunt, but not me, and it makes me uncomfortable.  It frustrates me and it angers me and I wish it weren't so.  Because if I think of my aunt as human, I can't think of her as the bad guy anymore.  And if she's not the bad guy, does that mean I am?

Obviously, I know that there aren't really people who are purely bad or purely good and I have privileges just as she does, but I knew it academically before, in my head knowledge.  Now it's emotional knowledge that I really don't want to have.  The old adage of ignorance is bliss really holds true.

I have to reassess my perception of myself and my privilege as it pertains to her and to other people.  I just have to keep in mind that I am responsible for growing, noone is responsible for making me feel comfortable in my privilege.

So the long and short of this post is "I don't WANNA!"  With a temper tantrum for good measure.  As long as I do it anyway, I can pout in my head and just a little on my blog, I think.

Feelers

I think it's been a bit since I've just sort of told you what's going on with me and my life.  Part of the reason for that is that I feel like this blog should be my super serious, super professional place to Do Stuff, and that's not even what I wanted this to be.

I mean, yes, I do want this blog to be known and respected, but I want it to be known and respected for everything that it is, everything that I am, and I am so much.  Besides anxious and incapable of putting forth a full, dedicated effort for fear of failing and falling and looking foolish, I am a writer, a poet, I am so much and so many things.

Today, I am afraid.

This is really not a surprise, I have anxiety, I don't sleep or eat well, so that exacerbates my anxiety, and my aunt is prone to yelling when stressed, which, naturally, helps nothing.

I have to admit that I'm afraid of putting in effort, like really and truly trying to make things work, because what if I try and try and try some more, and I still can't do it?  What if I do it, but badly, and everyone laughs at me and judges me?

I don't fucking know.

What I do know is that I have a job, a way to be gainfully employed, even though it's over the internet, and that terrifies me beyond all reason.  What if I don't make enough money? What if I get stuck writing terrible articles about things I don't care about or even hate for the rest of my life?

So basically, the usual things I always get bogged down in when I've been awake too long or had too little to eat.

There is candy in the house, I can earn money, my phone bill is paid for at least another month, I know how much it'll cost to repair my laptop, I know how to find out how much I'll have to pay in taxes for what I'll be earning, my commission post has been redone and is queued, I know how the Champion series is going, and there is c h o c o l a t e in the house.

I need to take two deep breaths and go.  The fuck.  To sleep.

On an unrelated note, earlier, I was feeling really crummy, and I remembered something I read in a Christian book, one of the few Christian books I ever read, but it's called the Shack, and there's one scene where the main character is talking to a representation of an aspect of God, and she tells him something to the effect of, "If you knew you had to fail 99 times before you succeeded, wouldn't you be excited to fail the 90th time?"

I don't remember what his answer was, but I remember that he generally agreed with her.  I told you that to tell you that earlier, when I was feeling shitty, I reminded myself that I didn't know how many times I had to fail before I could succeed, so I just had to keep trucking.

Also, my aunt got really upset today when she was cooking for a going-away party for a friend, because the sauce she was making came out catastrophically wrong in ways it usually never does, and she's prone to running around and yelling when she's upset, but I was really proud of myself, because rather than also freaking out, or freezing when she got upset, I was able to stay centered and mostly calm, so I'm really proud of myself for that!

This post sort of ended in a completely different place than it began, but that's probably because I took a bit to finish working through my panic before continuing, so that may contribute.  I don't know if this is going to be one of my best posts, but it's real and it's me, and I said I was going to make a mistake, so I'm going to make it hard.

Commissions Are Open!

I'm opening up writing commissions.  It's basically going to be like art commissions, you pay me for what you want, I write something, and then I give it to you.  With your permission, I might also post it around, but that's up to you.

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For $5, I will write you a haiku or a limerick with one word from you to define the content, anything from love, trees, and life, to Sherlock, Godoka, and Sourin:

Haiku
Five, seven, and five
This is what makes a haiku
Nothing more or less

Limerick
The syllables in this poem don't matter
Put in as many as you'd like to splatter
Voltaire used this format I think
For a rhyme I'll add in a sink
And examples do it no justice

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For $10, I'll write you a short poem on the topic of your choice.

Example Here

And again, it can be about something abstract like love, social justicey, or it can be fandom stuff, too.

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For $25, you'll get a longer story-style poem, or a ficlet.  Your poem can be fandom-related, and your ficlet can be a non-fandom piece, if you want.

Poem Example Here

Ficlet Example Here

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Finally, for $50, you'll get a more in-depth story, with actual plot and direction, and it can be fandom or original, SFW, NSFW, whatever you like.

Fandom Example

Original Example

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So, if you'd like to commission a piece from me, please email me at PFGurl4Life2005@yahoo.com, and we can get started

Be Better

So, there's a new discussion coming up in the asexual community, one that says that the typical asexual refrain of "I don't have any physical issues that interfere with having sex, I haven't been abused, I'm not mentally ill, and I don't think sex is gross" is problematic.

This is completely true.

As someone who can say the above line, I naturally missed how problematic it was, but the fact is that some asexual-spectrum people are mentally ill, or have physical problems that get in the way of sex, or have been abused, or are sex-repulsed.

Asexual-spectrum people are people.  Some people are mentally ill, or have physical issues, or have been abused, or think sex is a whole lot of nothing they ever want any part of.  And some people who fall into any of those categories are asexual.

Asexual-spectrum folks who can say "I don't have any physical issues that interfere with having sex, I haven't been abused, I'm not mentally ill, and I don't think sex is gross," we have a duty to asexuals who can't say that.  We can not throw them under the bus so people don't think we're weird or broken, because they deserve to not feel weird or broken as much as we do.

To that end, I've made an action plan.  I might have to change it, because it could be problematic, but until I hear otherwise, if someone asks if there's something physically wrong with me, or if I've been abused, am I mentally ill or why do I think sex is gross, then what I'm going to say is, "The answer to that question does not change the fact that I am asexual, no matter how much you want it to, and frankly, if you don't already know the answer to the question, there is a reason."

The long and short of it is that noone is ace-spectrum "for a reason," just as noone is any other sexuality for a reason.  Which means that none of the cases we're refuting can invalidate someone's asexuality or demisexuality or gray-asexuality.  You cannot claim something caused a sexuality, it's a fucking moldy walnut thing to try and do, and anyone trying to do it is a moldy fucking walnut.

Additionally, it's not your goddamned business what people are going through.  If they have a medical condition, if sex grosses them out, if they're mentally ill, or have been physically or sexually abused, that is for them to know, and that is for them to say, or not say at their own fucking discretion.  They don't need to prove themselves to anyone, not allosexuals, not other asexuals, not anyone, and if they're gonna tell you this kind of shit, it's going to be because they want you to know.

And if you're using that kind of shit to invalidate their sexuality, then I say you sure as hell don't deserve to know, but that's just me.

Ace-spectrum folks who can say "I don't have any physical issues that interfere with having sex, I haven't been abused, I'm not mentally ill, and I don't think sex is gross," it's time to pull up your big kid underwear and step the fuck up.  Do not be like the cishet guy who throws a temper tantrum because he can't fuck a lesbian.

Just avoiding saying problematic shit is not enough, we've created a hostile environment, we have to take steps to create a safer one.  Call each other out.  Call yourself out.  Remember that life experiences do not invalidate sexuality.

Not Gonna Wreck Anything

So, I recently had a realization, one my aunt helped me to, even though she was upset and less trying to help me and more trying to have me stop hurting her, but still.  I had a realization, and I learned something about myself that I didn't realize.

My aunt told me that it seemed to her like I was just doing the bare minimum to not get kicked out, as I am living with her for free, on her and my uncle's generosity.  My first thought when she said that was, "Well, yeah," and my second thought was, "Wait, I can't say that, or she'll really think I'm using her."

It is not my intent to use her, because I don't like using people.  It's cruel and unfair.  I realized that I do simply do the bare minimum to exist, and then I stop.  I'll do what I need to in order to maintain that bare minimum, but I won't actively try to make anything more than that happen.

It's not that I don't know there is more to life than merely existing, because I do, I really, really do, but I have never known, never had the thought, that I can work to make my life BETTER.  Not just livable, but BETTER.  I don't know where I got the idea, where it came from, but there has always been something in the back of my head, telling me that if I do enough to subsist, if I have enough to survive, then the rest will be given to me for doing what I'm doing as hard as I can.

So I do whatever I'm doing as hard as I can, and nothing more.  It never even occurs to me that I CAN do more, that I should go out and find more, because surely my efforts will be recognized if I exist and don't do terrible for long enough, right?

I will confess that it's always been hard for me to do more than one thing in a day, it's something I've known about myself, but it never occurred to me that that was a microcosm of the way I think, "I am doing this right now.  I can't ALSO do that.  I just have to do this, and then I'll wait for the rewards to come to me."

When I was thinking about this, before I put it down as text, I was thinking it was a beaten-down thing, fat, woman, black, something like that.  But now that I'm typing it out, seeing my thoughts on the page, it is probably an entitlement thing, a class thing, maybe internalized classism, but definitely entitlement.

Now that I know I think this way, I can combat it, I can begin taking more and better steps towards having the life I want.

Long story short, if you are subsisting, with food more often than not, and shelter that's good enough, and bills mostly paid, you don't have to ONLY do that.  So if you aren't content with where you live, looking at other places won't make the place you already live any less of a place you are.  If you aren't content with your job, looking into what would make you hireable at a job you want, and honing those skills, won't mean you'll lose your current job.

I know there's not much energy to spare for extra stuff at the end of a long day of work, especially if you take the bus and/or walk, and everything that's not relaxation is frustrating and undesirable to deal with, but it won't wreck what you're already doing if you look at something else, it won't take away from what you're already doing.

I didn't know that before, so I'm sharing it with you.

25th Post!

So, I'm writing this post in advance, because it's giving me something to shoot for, but this is my 25th post, which will mean I'll have been at this for something like two months, consistently posting one blog post, one poem, and one story every week for eight weeks.  I probably won't even be a fraction of the way through my 365 days of posting, with eight poems, eight stories, and eight blog posts, and that is ok!  Past Lin is proud of you, future Lin, keep up the good work, even though it's hard and scary sometimes!

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I expected to be somewhere different by this point in time, maybe more successful, I don't know.  I've certainly grown and changed a bit, and I've had a few personal revelations, but I dunno, I guess I feel like I don't deserve the praise my past self heaped on me, even though, logically, I know I do.  My brain's weird.

Learn the Lingo

"I don't understand feminist language."

This is something I'm starting to see, more and more, as I move through feminist spheres.  And I don't like it.  Now, I get that there are a lot of things to talk about a learn, especially if you're going to do feminism correctly, where you support trans women and women of color and asexual women and disabled women and neurodivergent women and sex workers and teenagers and homosexual women and polyamorous women and any combination of the above and more.

Y'know, actual feminism, where you support ALL women?

There's a lot of lingo, cis, dfab, dmab, biromantic, alltistic, I could go on for pages, I really, really could.  And I understand that learning it takes time and effort, but I should point out that it takes time.  And effort.  I learned the vast majority of what I know from Tumblr over the course of a year or more, and though I'm still learning, because there is always something new to know, I was able to learn it.  It involved reading a lot, and a lot of time, which I had when I was getting into Tumblr, as well as an internet connection.

I understand that not everyone has internet access or a lot of time to read everything, or even the ability to read at all.  That is not what's grinding my gears at ALL, like what kind of asshole would I be to get upset about that?  A huge one, that's what kind.  I have a lot of privilege, I know that.

What gets me is people, on the internet, talking about articles they read.  On the internet.  Google exists, friend.  Hell, use Bing or AskJeeves or even the virus Groovario if you like, there are search engines out there.  If you have the ability to read articles online, you have the ability to search for words you don't understand, and you know what you do if your search turns up contradictory results?  You search more, and you read more.  That's how it works.

I can understand, if you're new to things, that you might not be able to understand why Men's Rights Activists, or MRAs, are so reviled, because it would seem, on the surface, that they are just men trying to help other men escape the backlash of misogyny, by saying things like "Men can be raped, too" and "Men can wear dresses, if they like."  It takes reading and time to see that MRAs are actually men dedicated to forcing discussions about misogyny to focus on how men are hurt by it, rather than on how men can stop using misogyny to stop hurting women.  And men.

Now, I'm not saying there isn't a place for discussions of men being raped, but that place is not in the middle of a conversation about how rape culture crushes women.  And that is what MRA's always talk about.  That, and alimony, which comes about because our society devalues women, even ones working in the same field as men.  MRAs don't seem interested in gay rights, transgender issues, or presentation, and they remain remarkably silent on those issues.

And that is the tip of the iceberg on things that can be confusing and misunderstood, such as dfab, or "designated female at birth," versus afab and "assigned female at birth."  People make mistakes, there's always something new to learn, which can be both frustrating and exciting, depending on your personality type and mood.

But something I've also noticed is that the people most commonly complaining about not understanding feminist jargon are white, cishet people.  For anyone who might want to complain about not understanding any of those terms, I don't care.  This entire article is about my frustration with people who don't take the time to search for themselves.

I even understand that some people need examples to understand something, rather than straight-forward definitions, need to comprehend it in practice, rather than pure theory, but I really don't think that's the problem here.  It seems to me that the problem here is that white cishet people don't want to think about their privilege, but they also know that not "being a feminist" is also something that will get them slammed, so they say, "I'm totally a feminist, I just don't get all that jargon, make it easier for me," putting the onus of their education on the oppressed, rather than taking up the mantle themselves.

Now, I won't deny that it's not just white cishet people doing this, people of all manner of privilege, able-bodied, alltistic, neurotypical, college educated, people who don't live with food insecurity, there are people in all of these groups of privilege, and more, who will put the onus of their education on those oppressed by their privilege, but you know who I hear the most?  White cishet folks.  Because they are at a crucial intersection of powerful privilege, and feel entitled to speak the most, speak the loudest, and argue the longest.

Of course, if you're reading this, chances are that you already know this, you already understand that this is a truism of our world, but I'm saying something about it because I am frustrated by it, and because I'm hoping to give words to someone who doesn't know why it's so frustrating when someone on the internet, or even offline, says "I'm totally this thing, I just don't understand the language used," when it's blatantly obvious they are not what they claim to be.

Having words to describe my experiences and frustrations has always helped me, so when someone says "I don't understand the language used here," it always sounds to me like, "I don't need to care enough about this language to learn what it means," and when I hear that, I just want that person to stop claiming to be standing with me.  You don't even care enough to learn how to talk about what is important to me.  How can you possibly be on my side?

To Live

Retail work is hard.

Let's just put that on the table, where everyone can see it.  Take a good long look at that for me, ok?  Think about that really hard.  Now think about any worker at every grocery store, corner store, supercenter, clothing boutique, or other place where you can buy shit.

Depending on the size of the store, these people spend all day on their feet, moving things, lifting things, shifting things, bending, crouching, sweeping, mopping, walking, putting things on racks, inviting people to buy this thing or that thing, but mostly doing the annoying, monotonous work of making the store not look like shit.

And they do it all for minimum wage.

That could just be Meijer, where I work, that people are putting in that much effort, but I suspect it's pretty ubiquitous.

And it's HARD.

This is backbreaking, agonizing work, and even if you nearly kill yourself working, you still bring home a check that's barely worth looking at.  I'm not even including fast food and restaurant workers, because they have their OWN unique pile of shit to deal with that I can't even begin to address, because I've never done that work.

It saps the life out of you, though.  I feel disposable, used, and utterly interchangeable.  Because I am.  They don't need ME.  They just need someone, a body in the uniform to do the work and take the tests and move the thing and lift the thing.

I'm so tired of feeling like shit.  I ache, in a bone deep way.

I realized, the other day, that all of my fiction, as well as most of my poetry, it has the common theme of escaping, running away, and that's all I really want to do.  I want to get out, go away.  I always feel like I'm asking too much because I want consistent food, consistent ability to pay my bills, consistent shelter, but I know I'm really not.

And it's not like this shit gets better as you get older, it just gets harder and more frustrating, and that's so disheartening.  I even know that my depression's flaring up right now because I'm hungry, and that hunger and slight malnutrition contribute to the way my body is aching right now, but I know that's not the fullness of it, that is not the long and short of it all.

Why do we have to make it so hard to just fucking live?

Deserving

You know how sometimes you see everything you want, just right there, in front of your face, and find yourself too terrified to reach out and grab it, too scared to go for the brass ring, because what if it wasn't what you expected, what if it wasn't what you wanted after all, or, more terrifyingly, what if you aren't good enough?

That happened to me, like, five seconds before I began writing this post.

One of my favorite blogs on tumblr posted a link to a new blog by the same creators, Mob Material, and it said they were looking for poc writers, artists, punks, trans poc, and more.  I'm a writer, so I saw that, and I said to myself, "I want to do that.  I want to submit to that, I want to be a part of that."

I took a look at the blog, and it was full of pictures of gorgeous and fierce people.  I have to admit that I got a bit intimidated. I definitely consider myself to be a writer, but I just started this blog.  It doesn't even have twenty posts, and it won't for a bit, because I am intentionally pacing myself, trying to avoid burnout by changing up what I do, and trying to make sure I have enough content that things don't get boring or stale, enough content so that people have something of interest to read.

But I don't know if I'm good enough, if I deserve exposure.  In my mind, the people who are good enough and who deserve exposure are the ones with more posts, more work, a bigger audience.  But how am I supposed to get a bigger audience if I don't advertise myself?  There is some small voice inside me that says that work that is good enough will advertise itself, but I've seen, over and over again, that such a thing just isn't true.  Work that is big enough will certainly advertise itself, but I have to do a little, I have to work a little harder to make my dreams come true, that's how this goes.

But that's the thing that always happens, isn't it?  We doubt ourselves.  Am I good enough, do I deserve this?  Women, black people, fat folks, poor ones.  We're so trained, have the lesson so instilled that we have to DESERVE it, have to wait for someone else to come along and help us up, rather than reaching out and saying, "Hey!  You can help me!  Please do."

Who cares if I deserve it?  Even saying that, like I didn't work damned hard to write everything on this blog, like it didn't take all my courage and strength to check and see if I could contribute, is a misnomer.  I do deserve it.  I  have been writing for years, dedicating myself to my craft, to my love, and at the very least, I deserve to try and let THEM tell me no, no more, it's not working.

Because it's not gonna mean anything if I'm not good enough for them right now, you know why?  If I'm not good enough right now, it means there is room for improvement, more work to be done, work that I can do.  I have control over this, over myself, and I can find more people to help me make my work better, stronger, sleeker, more what I want it to be.  And I will try and try, and try again, because eventually, I will find my place.  That's what you do.

Now, I can't deny that this is basically a pep talk for myself.  Since I've gone back to work, such as it is, I haven't been dedicating much energy to my writing, to this writing.  Additionally, I was going to work with a feminist online zine, and it really seems to have just petered out, but I think I'm ok with that.  I got what I needed from it, which was a reflection on my work from outside myself, to make my writing stronger, to help me improve.  Would more time have yielded more gains?  Perhaps.  But that's something we're never really going to know, are we.

More than the fact that I haven't been giving this the necessary energy is the fact that I haven't been giving this the necessary quality.  You may not have even noticed, I scheduled some things to post, which I think was a wise decision on my part, because they were prepared, and I didn't have to worry about it while I worked.  I did a lot of work, and I hurt myself, so I won't do that to myself again, but I think the fact that I can make this, do this now, is really my proof to myself that I'm still dedicated to this, I still want this.

I just have to make time for it, give up some things to do it.  I can still do those things, I just need a few hours to dedicate to this every week.

So, on that note, I apologize to you for slacking off, and I promise to throw myself back in with all the passion I had at the start, because you deserve that, and more importantly, my dreams deserve that.

Nicki Minaj and Ferguson

Most writers on this site have a few social networking sites they call home, though the amount of time and energy they dedicate to each one varies from person to person, according to their interests.  Like most people in my generation, I have a Facebook account, but Facebook is not a social networking site I'd call "home," because I can't really be myself there.

The people on my Facebook, while they are friends or people I otherwise want to keep in contact with, they are not like me in many significant ways, even though we might share interests.  What I care about, and what matters to me is not the same as what they care about, and what is important to them.  In general, this is fine, and I leave them alone, but I am not really content or myself there.

This would be less important if I had an offline social network to rely on when trying times happened, one I could realistically expect to bolster and support me, to grab me by the metaphorical arm to point out something terrible, or something unexpected and fantastic.  Being an introvert with anxiety, and a poor one at that, I don't really have that.  So I rely heavily on the internet.

My "home" networking site is Tumblr, because on Tumblr, I've been able to craft a safe space for myself and my numerous identities.  I've been able to create an environment where it is always assumed that the issues I care most for are important, and then it moves from there, rather than the discussions on Facebook of "Is this issue even important at all?"

It was absolutely devastating to me when, a year ago, I got locked out of my account by a hacker, and was, for some reason, unable to receive password reset emails.  I tried everything I could to restore my social network, even making a new account, and none of it worked.  I simply could not get my account back.  I couldn't even create a new one.  The only thing that really saved me, at the time, was the fact that I was working full time, so even though the social interaction I was getting wasn't enough, it was adequate to sustain me.

Two weeks ago, I made another attempt to get into Tumblr, get my password reset, because I didn't want to go to another site and try to recreate my entire social network, with everything I wanted and needed in it.  I was almost brought to tears when I was able to reopen my account.  I had my social support network back, as well as my source of news and information.

I got a lot about Ferguson, as I'd filled my circles with people who would care about Ferguson.  Because I'd been working on making my Facebook account a bearable place to be, I'd heard about many of the things that I saw, but there was plenty I hadn't, and I sucked that information in like the sponge I am, basked in people who were just as fed up about tone policing and derailing CNN videos as I was.

But, to my shame, I am forced to admit that the thing that I saw, upon my return to Tumblr, that made me angriest was not the very important things happening in Ferguson.  To be honest, this article was originally going to be about a disrespectful interview of Nicki Minaj conducted by James Franco, that interview's connection to "pranks in the hood" type videos where white men insult black ones and then yell that it's a prank when those black men get angry, and I will write about that later in this article, but I realized, as I wrote, that I had things to say about Ferguson, and my experiences of it.

There is a revolution happening there that I can only be peripherally a part of, which frustrates me more than I know how to express.

Ferguson will go down in my generation's history along with Occupy Wall Street and  9/11, and it will go down in black history along with Martin Luther King, The March on Washington, the Black Panthers, Jim Crow, and many other events I haven't bothered to mention, or have simply never heard of.

As I mentioned, I'm poor right now, so I can't go down to Ferguson to help those people, to be part of the civil unrest and revolution that makes America look like Greece did some time ago.  I can't donate money, because I have none, though I can contribute my time, learn what's happening, and pass that information on.

Due to the shaming of internet activism, I feel like I'm not doing enough with my work, writing articles and reblogging the newest information about what's happening, and more than that, I am ashamed for being grateful that I don't have to go through what the protesters in Ferguson are going through.  Noone is macing me in the face or menacing my friends, brothers, or cousins.  I am safe in the northern United States, far from the Missouri police, far from where school has been disrupted and lives ruined and people arrested, over and over again.

I want to feel ashamed of myself, because a very rich and successful rapper whom I look up to being disrespected affects me more deeply than unarmed people being shot and tear gassed by police officers, but I know myself and racism well enough to understand that they are connected parts of the same problem, that the events of Ferguson, and this trend I'm noticing of white men insulting and disrespecting black people as a "joke," are symptoms of the same illness that will not, can not be cured until our society is ripped up from the roots and properly replanted.

I also know that there is nothing wrong with how I feel about Ferguson, versus how I feel about Nicki Minaj and "pranks in the hood."  There are no words I know to describe how I feel about Ferguson, because even though it matters to me, it is, in some ways, distant, both geographically and event-wise, as I've been fortunate enough that my brother is white-passing, most of the time, and has never been attacked by the police, as far as I know.

I want Ferguson to spark a national revolution, but I feel an attendant sick certainty that, like Occupy Wall Street and 9/11, the fervor will die out, the government, through the media, will find a way to divert our attention, keep progress from being made, and things will get worse, rather than going back to what they were, so I honestly don't want to emotionally overinvest in this, because our inevitable defeat will deal an even more crushing blow to my already-trampled spirit.

I know that such hopelessness contributes to where we are now, but the events of Ferguson are simply not close enough to me to work up the angered fervor that I would need to find out what more I could do, besides what I already am, unlike Nicki Minaj and "pranks in the hood."

I look up to Nicki because she's a well-known black woman performing, and she does femininity the way I do, with brightly-colored hair, beautiful dresses, even wearing one outfit I dreamed of having made for myself in some hypothetical future where I could afford to have outfits made for me.  I mean no disrespect to Beyonce, who came up the way she knew how to make it work, or Oprah, Janelle Monae, Lauryn Hill, those women are all incredible bastions of themselves, black womanhood, idols to be looked up to and admired for their own work.

But Nicki Minaj is black and aggressively feminine in the middle of a bunch of rappers.  I have no problem with strong black women in the media, Beyonce and Oprah being fierce, Janelle Monae with her androgynous deconstruction of what a black female singer can look like, Lauryn Hill with her eclectic underground look, those are important.  But so are feminine black female performers, because they simply don't exist in our media.

There is a struggle, as a black woman, a dicing up of priorities that tries to force us to be black people, who happen to be women, or women, who happen to be black, completely ignoring the fact that there is an experience in this country unique to being black AND a woman that is completely separate from being black OR a woman.

Nicki Minaj is a conscious rejection of that dichotomy, a successful black woman who is, for lack of a better word, girly.  She wears cutely-curled, brightly-colored wigs while informing listeners that she is their leader and anyone who isn't a believer can suck a dick.  She raps for Willow Smith's Fireball in a dress made of stuffed animals, and she leads pink-haired troops to battle in her own video.

So to watch James Franco ask her if her ass is natural, to watch him hound her about her ass in a mockery of an interview for a prank that was meant to somehow be a movie tie-in?  It's unbearable for me, and closer to my heart, because the only girly black woman visible in the media, one who really did work her way up from the bottom on skill and determination, deserves better than to be treated like that, especially keeping in mind the fact that it's not just a white man on TV doing this to her, it's white men all over doing this to black people throughout this country.

The logic that lets someone think that mocking a person for a prank is not only fine, but a great thing to do, is the same kind of dehumanizing logic that lets someone think a black man deserved to be shot and killed by a cop, left to rot in the street for hours to be mocked by his murderers while his family watched, all because he stole $50 worth of cigars, and that sort of logic must be eradicated from our society before we can productively move forward.

On Strength

 I volunteered at an event some time ago. It was a tactic I learned from an overachiever friend of mine, so that I could get into an event for free, and also avoid the vast bulk of socialization, just volunteer to work on staff to get all of the advantages, and very few of the detriments. Staff sometimes even get perks general attendees don't, so that was a plus.

The event in question doesn't particularly matter, it was an amateur event by a local group, in a place I'd been to many times before, with people I largely knew, so really, none of that factored in, none of it really mattered. The event was interesting enough for me, especially as a staff member, and as someone who picked up some interesting things, but the duration of the event isn't what stands out most strongly.

What stands out most strongly are the beginning and end of the event. Because I was helping a friend, one who was something of an overachiever, we ended up having to bring forty metal folding chairs up from his basement, pack them in his car, then move them from his car to the event location. And there were only the two of us to move them. If you've ever moved folding chairs, you know how frustrating it is, the chairs are unexpectedly heavy, if they're different styles, you can't grasp them easily, so on and so forth.

Now, I'm fat. Not Bridget Jones pleasingly plump, but the kind of fat that gets pointed and laughed at on every sitcom, in every movie, the kind that gets shown in photos and video with face and head cut out of the shot to warn people of the dangers of obesity and to remind everyone how much they need to get on a diet, exercise, and lose weight. I'm black, on top of it, so I don't even get to be comedically funny, not that I haven't tried my hand at it, like everyone. I think I'm hilarious, and I still crack myself up, but I'm definitely not getting sitcom laughs.

But me, I get dragooned into every Medea-type character ever played by a black man in a fat suit: Mother, nurturer, sassy and bold. I would never say there's anything wrong with being that type of person, it's just not me. I have never wanted children or anyone else who might be dependent on me, because I can barely take care of myself, an introverted anime geek with anxiety and bad money management skills, I'd rather sit in a blanket-filled closet and read manga online than host any kind of gathering ever.

I have always known, always been shown, that as a fat person perceived as a woman, the best I can hope for is being disregarded, because otherwise, I would be subject to mockery, not just what I heard from my classmates, but the kinds of things said to and about fat women on television. But the plus side to being ignored was no danger of stalkers, rapists, and murderers coming after me. I was safe from all of that.

With that kind of background, I had to find my own way to be ok with myself, because I'm not exercising, not giving up the type or quantity of food I eat to lose weight. I've never had that kind of determination, and I don't want to learn. When I was a teen, an older woman, who was also black and fat, encouraged me by talking about how she couldn't be kidnapped, how her weight, and mine, was a strength we could use to protect us from the dangers people perceived as women face: assault, kidnapping, murder, rape.

I took that to heart. Fast forward to years later, when I was moving heavy chairs up and down stairs. As most fat people know, stairs are not friends on the best of days, and there were a lot that I had to be up and down all day, going down to retrieve chairs and carrying them back up. It was exhausting, but I was the only one to help my friend, who I've failed to mention, up to this point, was a man.

What really upset me was the fact that he could somehow carry two chairs under each arm. I tried. Even when the chairs were the same style, the weight and awkwardness of the chairs frustrated me, causing me to nearly drop multiple chairs, and making it difficult to get up the stairs or move anywhere. I just couldn't get my fingers under that many chairs at once. I tried moving three chairs at a time, and that was still frustrating and exhausting for me.

My friend, however, rather easily moved four chairs each trip. I know it was exhausting for him, because he was as fat as I, and stairs are draining when you have to travel them more than twice, but exhausting or not, he was able to do it, and I was not.

At the time, I was too busy being tired and rearranging chairs for easy access to the back door and the car to have an existential crisis, and I would have been fine, had another man had not helped my friend move the chairs back to the car after the event my friend and I were volunteering for.

See, my friend worked with moving office equipment, so in many ways, I mentally brushed off his ability to carry so many chairs as practice I didn't have, strength in action, familiarity with traversing stairs, really an enormous, ridiculous number of excuses for why him being stronger than me was a fluke.

Then another man helped my friend move chairs. He was tall and skinny, the kind of guy I would certainly never consider a threat to my safety, because I could very literally sit on him. I could break him and call it a day, or so I thought, until I realized he had four chairs, two in each hand.

I experienced a moment of very visceral terror. Not of this stranger at a public place full of people, but in general, my sense of safety was shattered, because I suddenly realized that this man, who I never would have judged as a threat, was physically stronger than I am. He could hurt me. I know this isn't a novel thought for most people raised as women, that a man could hurt them, overpower them, but it was one I'd never had before, safe behind my shield of invisible fatness and aggressively defensive blackness.

For a moment, I was stunned, unable to breathe, because how many men had I judged as not being a threat, who could have hid such deceptive strength? I am strong enough to move couches and dressers and armoires, heavy furniture that I've seen many men tap out of moving with help, I can move alone. And this man was stronger than me.

I was only stunned for a moment, because chairs needed to be moved, and I had to help carry and organize them, moving two chairs at a time, one in each hand, all that I could handle in my post-event exhaustion, or at all, and with the help of the other man, added to the fact that there were no stairs to accommodate for, the task was done in a quarter of the time, and I was happy to bury my thoughts in television and dinner, to sleep and let the thoughts go.

But it haunted me, and it still does. I've always “known” that I was the strongest person in any room, that I could protect myself. It was my consolation prize for not being beautiful, for not being able to find clothes that fit me, except in specialty stores for exorbitant prices, for only seeing people like me being portrayed by men in fat suits as a joke.

If I'm not physically strong, then what else do I have? Logically, I know that I have a lot going for me, but emotionally, I'm afraid that I will incorrectly guess a man's strength, and that mistake will end painfully for me. I'm afraid that without physical strength, I don't have anything else to make me worthwhile.

This article can also be found on Feminspire.

White Allies

I had the racism argument a few weeks back. You know what I'm talking about. The one that happens when black folks think they can hang out with groups of white people. It always seems to start with some white person, usually one who's younger than me, saying something that I know is racist. Every now and again, it's the other black person in the room.

Sometimes it's the second or third time they've said something like this since I've met them, usually it's the second or third time that day, or they're the second or third person I've heard say something like it that day, and I'm just tired of hearing it in that space.

Frequently, I already don't like them, so I know in advance that I won't care if they never speak to me again, but just as often, it's just so blatant to me, even though it might not be to the other white folks in the group, that risking the friendship is worth not having that said in my hearing. I can't control what people say when they're not around me, but I do my best to not care, as long as it's not said around me, just because even if they don't think about it anywhere else, they're thinking about it with me.

Either way, I have take a deep breath because ok, it's time to say something. I never want to, because I always know how the argument's going to go, and it's never anywhere good, but I can't let it slide, because it will stick in my craw and ruin my time in this group. And that's assuming the argument doesn't go badly enough that I find myself completely sick of these people and feel that I have to leave what is suddenly an unsafe space for me to be in.

Then, I usually take half a second to look around the room, see who else is around, and usually, there is only one other black person in the room, and I can generally be guaranteed they won't be helpful to me in the coming argument. Even though it's incredibly frustrating, I understand why they behave the way they do.

I begin this argument knowing that I can lose friends, or even entire groups of people for speaking up, and not everyone is comfortable doing that. More than that, I begin this argument challenging everything I, and the other black people in the room, have been taught by the news, billboards, commercials, television shows and saying that we deserve to be noticed and appreciated.

By challenging what's being said, I am saying that I have a right to not only contest the premise of the conversation, but the person saying it. I am saying that I have a right to exist and take up space in the group I am in. I am saying that I will demand more than the “honor” of existing in a tiny corner of white spaces, that I will demand equal space for myself and, by the law of racism that refuses to take me as an individual and forces me to be part of a unit, for blackness as well.

And that's difficult to deal with, especially for black people who understand that my actions will reflect on them, while simultaneously hoping that by setting me away from them, by either intense argument or half-hearted protest, they can keep exactly that from happening. It's difficult for them to see me drawing attention to myself and my differences, when all they can do is hope they will go unnoticed long enough to reap the better crumbs of overflow, when they get the constant message beaten into them that they will be given more for protesting less.

I can't really fault them for it, even though I might want to, especially after spending half an hour arguing someone down over semantics only to realize that I've not only forgotten where I was before I got interrupted, but that the person I was originally arguing with has quietly excused themselves from the space, and didn't hear the last five things I said.

I think I could honestly deal with having the same arguments with white people, over and over again, repeatedly ostracizing myself and losing friends, if I knew I had someone in my corner, or, at the very least, if I didn't have to worry about how other black people would make the argument more difficult for me.

But to be honest, this isn't about black people upholding their own oppression, it's about the fact that I had the racism argument a few weeks back, and not like I've ever had it before. It's about how different it was, how refreshing and relieving it was to have the departure from the usual argument.

For background, I am part of a Homestuck group chat, on Skype and on a Homestuck-specific site called MSPARP. I'm unemployed, so I don't really have anything better to do with my time right now. I've voice- and video-chatted with these folks before, so I knew I was in a room full of white folks, with one other black gal. This was where I had the argument.

Before the argument, I was having a Homestuck-specific argument with this one white guy. For the Homestucks reading this, the point of contention was "Did Vriska help Tavros?" He fell on the side of "Vriska wasn't trying to help Tavros, but Tavros needed to learn the things he did to survive Sburb," I fell on the side of "Just because Tavros learned from Vriska's abuse, it doesn't mean she helped him, as helping implies that she was not abusing him." He eventually stopped arguing against my points, so I'm chalking that one as a win for me, but that conversation is one for another day.

So we're coming out of that argument, both of us shaky from getting so emotional, and I was talking him down, because I think he'd rarely ever been so emotionally invested in an online conversation that it got his adrenaline going, whereas I've done this before, on multiple occasions. Somebody said something that registered to me as something I couldn't let pass, though I can't remember what it was now. It might have been about Ferguson, but I am honestly not certain at this point.

What I am sure of was that I had to say something, and I didn't like this person, so I was ok with the thought of them not talking to me anymore. I typed up my response, and threw it out into the conversation, receiving one of the stock answers I'm accustomed to getting from every white person, but from another person joining the argument, at which point, I wearily typed up a counter, mentally preparing myself to leave this group if other people joined in against me, as it was already two against one. Then I realized I wasn't the only one who'd said what I'd said. And then I realized who said it.

The white guy said almost the exact same thing as me, at the exact same time.

I'm sure you can imagine how shocked I was, that this white guy I'd just been arguing with was saying the same things as me. And he was a teenager! I'm 25, and he was a teenager! I was suitably stunned, because white male teenagers tend to be worse about handling racism than white male adults. He kept going in the same vein, and I was so relieved, I truly don't even have words for it. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, like I didn't have to risk losing my place in this group by saying "That is problematic, and I don't want it around me."

I know vanishingly few white people who I can trust to listen to me when I say "This is problematic, and here is why." He is the first and only white person I have ever met who I felt could help me carry the conversation, who I felt knew what the problem was, why it was a problem, and how to talk about the problem without minimizing my voice and my presence.

And when I was finishing up the conversation by griping to a white girl in the group about how no one listens to black people, especially black women, arguing our own case, because we must be trying to bring race into it, or something along those lines, but white men get lauded for it, he went "Ohshit, I'm sorry, did I make it seem like I was trying to win awards for fighting with you?"

He hadn't, amazingly. I let him know he hadn't, and that I was just making a point. But just the fact that he heard a criticism that could have been directed at him, and checked in, asked if he had done it or not? Just the fact that he didn't brag that he hadn't done such a thing or cry out that it wasn't his fault, that things just went that way? It was so novel, and such a relief. It made me trust him more than I have ever trusted another man, before especially a white one.

I've gotten to the point that I ask white people what they know about critical race theory before I even have a discussion about race with them, so I know if they even understand the basic premises I am working from. Very few know about it, and even fewer are willing to hear me when I say it is actually true. So the support was an incredibly unexpected, amazing relief. It felt so good to feel like I wasn't shouting into the white supremacy alone, that I had help, at least for that conversation, in that group.

My original intent was to direct this to black people, to say "This can happen, and it's awesome," but unsurprisingly, I realize that my audience must be white people. Any black person who's experienced this already knows what it feels like, and any black person who has never experienced it can never understand until they do.

So to white allies speaking up about racism: Educate yourself, and speak up when you've learned how to speak on topics that come up, especially in spaces with very few people of color in them. That goes double for when another white person is arguing with a person of color in a space that is mostly white, because that person of color has already fought an uphill battle to open their mouth. Even though it's nice to have another person of color speaking with us, the tragic but true fact is that we all know white people will listen better and longer to another white person saying the same things we are.

Also posted on Feminspire.

For Once

So, I was talking to a friend of mine last week.  Without going into too much detail, he's in a living situation that is very much not ideal for him or his personality type, in addition to the fact that he's been dealing with some emotional issues for the last few years that have contributed to everything being truly untenable for him.

Over the last few months, he and I have been talking a lot about him, his life, his goals, and he's gotten started doing a lot of things he's really happy about, kind of moving forward, into a new stage of himself and his life, and overall, I'm really really proud of him, how much he's progressed towards his own goals, and how much he's grown.

Unfortunately for him, when he began living with the people he's staying with, he was very damaged, mentally and emotionally, and he needed a safe haven.  He's grown past that point, but because they first met him when he was that way, they're stuck in old patterns of dealing with him, and he doesn't really know how to break free from those old patterns, especially because there was a change in the living situation that made him think the relations would change in a certain way, and it really didn't, so it's upset him, and he's a bit bitter about it, which I understand.

He's been staying with these people for something like ten years, which is shocking to me, because the only people I've lived with for ten years were my parents and my brother, and my parents are seven years dead, while my brother and I haven't seen each other in three or four years, because I was a jackass at him and now he doesn't want to talk to me.  His perogative.

Either way, my friend has known and been around these people for years, and he needs a change.

The reason I'm talking about my friend, is because he's planning on moving out, moving on, and I would really like to move in with these people when he does.  I stayed with them for maybe two weeks, earlier this summer, he reports that I have gotten rave reviews, and to be completely honest, I really enjoyed being there, and I was shocked at how different the household was from what my friend had been reporting to me.

That'll teach me to forget people have personal biases.

But either way, I really enjoyed being there.  I may have gotten special treatment, being a guest and all, but what I experienced may have been roughly the norm for how they handled things.  I don't know, really.  It didn't hurt at all that I had my own money at the time, which my friend doesn't, and which I won't, if I go back to them.

There were two things I didn't like about being there, one of which is fixable, the other ignorable.  But it really brought home to me how different my friend and I are, because everything he hates about being there, I really loved.

I love being coddled and invited to things and doted on, and that kind of thing drives him bonkers.  I also have different ways of dealing and interacting with people that he doesn't have.  They're a bit more difficult for him to deal with than for me, but also, he's been living with them for years.  There's history there that I don't have.

Currently, I'm staying with my aunt and uncle.  I love them, they are chosen family who have chosen me back, and I wouldn't be who I am today without them.  Even so, they are not coddlers.  They are not doting.  They aren't particularly attentive, and I'm the only one in their house who needs them like I do.

They're a bit harder-edged, and I certainly needed that when I was younger and stupider, but I have been working and struggling and toiling so hard for so long, I feel like it'd be really nice to be with someone who would dote on me and take care of me, not pressure me about work or making money, just let me do my own thing, but still engage me socially, invite me to do things, all that kind of thing.

God, even talking about it makes me feel spoiled rotten and selfish.

But when I was there, I did feel spoiled and cared for.  I didn't feel like I was being selfish or taking advantage of them, because every time I tried to be frugal, the lady of the house would keep asking me, "Are you sure you don't want more?"  Like, fuck yes, of course I want more, but this is on your dime, so I'm not going to accept more, because I'm perfectly ok with what I've got, and more would be gluttony and selfishness.

I always feel like I'm taking advantage of my aunt and uncle when I ask them for things or need things.  It might be because I'm emotionally attached to them, or because when I first knew them, they were direly poor, and it was an issue, I don't know, I just know that I do feel like I'm taking advantage, and I feel anxious and afraid, because I need things, and you said I'm allowed to want things, so why are you yelling at me or making cruel jokes that I know you don't mean to be cruel, but still feel cruel, and it's just.  A lot.

I do love my aunt and uncle, and I would never abandon them, because they've helped me so much, and I do love them dearly, but much like my friend needs to get out of his house, I need to get out of this one, and I would like to go somewhere where I'd feel like I was being doted on and cared for.

Everyone grows up and moves on, and things are so difficult, and I think it's not so wrong to want it to be easy.  For once.

Make A Mistake

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." - Tony Robbins

For a long time, I've procrastinated about doing what I wanted, asking for what I needed and so much more. I'm not sure why I did that to myself.  Anxiety was a large part of it, certainly, but also thinking I just needed to do more, be better, do it "right."

But I've decided that I don't care anymore.  More than that, I've decided that doing things the "right" way hasn't helped me, isn't working for me, and I am miserable, lonely, and more anxious than ever.  So if this is a mistake, this post, this blog, I'm going to lean into that, do it wrong, and do it wrong a new way every time.  Eventually, I will do it wrong for long enough that I will run out of ways to do it wrong, and the only way left will be to do it right.

Maybe I will never run out of mistakes to make.  Maybe I won't be able to do it wrong a different way, and I'll just keep making the mistakes I have always made.  I have anxiety, so those are terrifying thoughts, and it will probably never not be terrifying, but at least I feel like I have control, like I'm in control of myself and the route my life is going to take.

That's important to me.  To everyone, really, though most people don't realize it, because our society is set up to take your control, sap your will, make you obey at every twist and turn, until you can't recognize your will, can't separate it from anyone else's.  And to me, that wouldn't be so bad if people would stop telling me I did actually have control, if they'd stop telling me that me not having control is not only my fault, but also Not True.

We rely on people, whether we want to our not.  Someone has to maintain internet servers, grow and ship the food, butcher the animals, help provide heat and electricity and entertainment.  We are not alone, islands unto ourselves, no matter how nice, and terrifying, that idea would be.  Because on the one hand, I'd like to think I could exist in a vacuum, but on the other, I kill plants and couldn't feed myself without a grocery store.

And I may regret something I've said in the future, some way I've said it, may regret quoting Tony Robbins, or including his name because of whatever horror I don't know he may have wrought, or the context I don't know from whatever that quote comes from, but for now, I am doing the best I can, and anyone who has a problem with it can take their globe-fondling, idiocy-hoarding selves elsewhere.