All our times have come

I did 26 in the hole. The world had stopped moving and I stopped breathing. It was as if I was submerged. I kept having dreams that I was swimming under water, beneath current, sucking in great heaving breaths. My eyes went dark and I watched myself as a specter through my mind. There I was, driving to work, sobbing incoherently. Here I was again, having drinks with my gf, lost not only to myself.

I made a very pragmatic decision, based on arithmetic. Who would support me? Who would produce the most successful life? Who shared my goals and ambitions? There were charts and graphs and more than one Pros and Cons list. I agonized over the decision, though really there was never any question. I would stay with her. Lonely, ignored, unappreciated – it made the most fiscal sense. There were cats to raise and a pile of shared debt and rent to pay and oh, yeah – I had already invested in her education. That’s OUR degree baby.

There is so much I am sorry for, so much I wish I could change. Every death is his death. Every loss is my loss again, magnified. And still no one knows. And after all these years, who would even care?

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made. I made a choice to berate and begot and beg all the days of my life because unconditional seemed a moot point. He never asked for anything in return. He never stopped listening. He never gave up on me. Until he did.

I did 26 in the hole. The hole of my loss and his death and our undoing. I stopped moving and stopped breathing and wished with every fiber of my being to be taken down to the soil with him. I wished to lie under the earth in that cold, hard place where we return to ash because he wouldn't be with me any other way.

We All Fake It

Every time I attempt to try to understand the MTV Show Faking It, my thirteen year old heart feels a virtual blow from a former bully. I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't struggle to come out. I was always Y'A. I hated my mother up until the day she died and everyday I discover a fondness for this heinous, unaffectionate woman who saw in me what took me 18 years to see. I was me. My mother, by not focusing on my OCDness, by not focusing on my GAYness, made me feel pretty damn normal by default.
So what is my issue with Faking It? Every time I watch, my feelings are jumbled. I didn't have issues with my gayness as a kid, but that doesn't mean I didn't have problems and people didn't have problems with me. My gay ass was damn near last on the list of my struggles. I was called tomboy so much I found it insulting. There was always venom on the tongue like I should be in the house baking at 7 instead of running around. My mother called me a tomboy with no venom in the confines of our walls in our house like an observation. Everyone else said it like they knew me more than I did. Like they were telling me my future and it would be hard because I like to run and jump. Life is lived half out of the house. I have adoption identity issues that trump my gayness. I remember when I was in junior high school and high school when you "accidentally" let a friend go too far at your expense. They laugh a lil too hard and you allow it. My problem with the show is simple. We all fake who we are. We become who we are out of necessity, but in 2014 when the restrictions to marriage equality are falling what seems like daily, should we even promote the idea of faking sexuality? Should we watch a show about a girl clearly struggling with her sexuality get VERBALLY abused by her best friend? We have made so much progress. So much so, that I no longer have to come out. Not that I ever did. But finally my coworkers don't find it a requisite speech on my first day. 
Do we really want kids to think it is funny and cool to pretend to be gay? The realities that homeless trans and gay youth are faced with after they come out is not funny. I have a few coworkers that are in the closet at a job that has a no tolerance policy on discrimination. A job that is great in that respect. A job that has many gay and lesbian employees. I have a job where I have to pretend to be stupid. I have co workers that stop speaking to me because they feared others would discover their long hidden sexuality. Even hidden from me. I have coworkers that run on the assumption that because I'm gay I understand, we nod and smile and are not seen in a corner alone talking. The show reminds me most of these people. This is why I know a 40 year old woman who just had a baby with her gf who is in the closet. What should be the happiest time in her life is shrouded in secrecy. I can't watch the show Faking It because we ALL know when people fake it is not funny at all.

Not An Addict

I learned my days of the week thus: Thursday my dad got paid. On Thursday, my dad came home a little later, arms full with parcels we were forbidden to touch. On Thursday, my mom would tell us the Pepsi in the refrigerator was our father's mixer. We couldn't have soda. Don't touch. We had rules. He didn't. Thursday thru Sunday we tried to ignore our father while he succeeded at ignoring us.

I drink everyday, but I am not my father. I pair; I savor; I enjoy. I lie. If I am honest, I don't know where the line is. If I am honest, I don't care. I don't come home after a long day of work to a family I hate to forget I exist. I am single. I love the quiet. I come home. I work on my body. I make a healthy meal and I pair it with wine or some white or brown liquor that will enhance its flavor. Seriously. I am not saying I'm not an alcoholic. What I am saying is I can't tell. If I am a cop I can watch a show called BLUE BLOODS and family dinners aren't complete without two bottles of wine, beer, and a scotch night cap. If I am a doctor, I can watch GREY'S ANATOMY and there is wine product placement. We live in a drinking culture. Who am I to resist?

The real problem with my society now is no one is left to judge me. I can judge a friend because they are broke and yet spend all of their money on booze. I can judge a co worker for the 2 bottle of wine nightly ritual and declining health. Who is left to judge me? I work out 6 days a week and eat healthily. There is really no checks and balances for someone who drinks everyday, fair trade or organic, just the doctor's recommended dose of red wine . . . . We should all let go. All embrace our inner Mad Men with a scotch, a cigar and zero inhibitions. I contend . . . I'm not an addict.

one drink

i have had that day before
when i start realizing and remembering
reflecting and admitting.
it always ends the same.
i weep and exclaim. i'm
rendered empty handed.
i don't count experience.
what do i have now?
nothing. empty handed
empty hearted.
i wish i was empty headed.

I have no furniture or My life as an emotional refugee

Jess

There is a disturbing phenomenon that I have noticed of late amongst my friends. We don’t own furniture. Now I don’t mean those hulking black walnut china closets our grandmothers would dust on Sunday or those Queen Anne wingback chairs your great aunt never let you sit in. No, I literally mean my friends and I, in our 30’s, don’t own normal, everyday, rest your arse, furniture. I’m not sure when the cross-over occurred. When I moved into my first apartment at 21 I had tons of furniture, all hand-me-downs my parents grudgingly gave up to their oldest daughter. My father, still kicking, surely would have requested he be buried with that damn orange velour sofa had it not lived in my apartment for many years (and met a TIMLEY demise when my ex ‘accidentally’ lit it on fire). Along with the sofa, I was given a kitchen table with chairs, book cases, an awesome green paisley Lay-Z-Boy, plastic deck chairs, and I used all of it! I can still hear my sister lamenting the fact that there would be nothing left for her when she eventually moved out (pretty sure I did her a favor). There’s some kind of magic that happens in your youth when you secure that first apartment. You feel like an adult and adults have furniture. My friends were no different – all of them accessorizing with cast offs from relatives, but at least no one had to awkwardly slouch against the wall like our living rooms were some kind of old man bar.

After I dug out my car this weekend, I was searching for a chair to hold my parking spot (parking chair – look it up) and I realized that if I wanted to save my spot, I’d have to sacrifice one of only TWO chairs I own. I no longer have a kitchen table and these two chairs are the last vestige of that suburban dream (it died in the divorce). I am careful to only invite over two friends at a time – they get the couch and I take the recliner. As I thought about it, it became apparent that I’m not the only one. My bestie has a habit of selling everything she owns every time she moves, and she likes to move. She bought a couch on Craigslist about two years ago and it’s a two seater. If you don’t call dibs, you are shit out of luck and stuck on the floor with the dog. My buddy JR had to split up his adult living room set when his gf moved to a different city for a better job prospect. I’m sure the couch believed it would one day be reunited with the love seat, but as I had already foreseen, they are on the rocks and the furniture set will remain incomplete. He doesn’t have a kitchen table either and it’s no wonder we never invite anyone else to hang out – no one wants to be squished on the sofa.  

Everything I own is left over from the adult life I led in a LTR when buying furniture and setting down roots was the ten year plan. When I shrugged off that relationship to emerge anew, I slowly starting destroying the furniture we shared. It was too big for my too small single-life apartment. I replaced it with economic, space-saving pieces from Ikea that were never meant to last the long haul. There is impermanence to my generation. We went from stable 20-somethings to nomadic, unsure 30 year olds. Everything I thought I’d have by this age, everything I was working toward at 22, is now a distant memory as I sit slouched at my Ikea computer desk, sitting on a new $20 plastic desk chair (I sacrificed the old, broken kitchen chair to hold my parking spot). 

Y'A

Jess wants to know how people in their thirties can still live like they are on a college campus. Well sit down. Here is why. I assure you this is not a sad story. It is just a life. When I was unceremoniously kicked out of the home in which I was raised a year after my mom died, I moved to Brooklyn. I hated Brooklyn and the only reason why I was willing to venture this far west was because my girlfriend at the time, Michelle, swore she would help me AND help me adjust. I lived in a Brownstone in Bed Stuy. I fixed it up like a home. Pictures of my nephew and my ex's son were literally covering every inch of the apartment. My landlord had two sons which was great for my nephew. Michelle spent most of her time in my house. It was small. I wasn't used to the neighborhood, but it was me and I was stressed, but felt safe. That is, until my landlord's husband beat the shit out of her unbeknownst to me. I was upstairs and didn't hear any of it. She left and I was evicted. Michelle and I were off again after a "respect my house" type of argument. I asked her for my keys and I was faced with finding a new place fast. The prospect of being homeless with my nephew weighed heavily on me and yet Michelle outright refused to help me. She refused to listen to me. So that's how I ended up in Bushwick. Further west . . . I was so far away from where I grew up, I would dream of the house in which I used to live. When I had to pack . . . took down every picture . . . I admired the fresh paint job Michelle and I did in the bedroom, I knew I never wanted to have that home-ripped-out -from –under- me feeling again. I now live like I am not quite unpacked. Don't want to make too many footprints here. We were in Bushwick for five years before I told my nephew we could get new furniture and paint his room. I was flush with cash and there was no excuse. I was also in no jeopardy of being evicted. Then my landlord said he was planning a million dollar remodel of the apartment building. I told my nephew and he was disappointed. The remodel, of course, never happened. Divorce rearing its ugly head again. So now I have been in my apartment for ten years with barely any furniture because I am afraid of packing and afraid of finality and I always have to be on the move. I am always careful of making more memories in a place not mine. I am in the beginning stages of buying my own house. Above all else, I think about the furniture and the painting and the garden and office with the bookshelves lining the walls. I don't even think about the neighborhood. I just think about what I would do with a place that is actually mine and can't be capriciously taken away. 

It's Cool They Say. I Wish I Could They Say

I killed my sister last night. It wasn't planned, but I knew eventually it was going to happen. She asked me to meet her somewhere for something. It was strange since we have had no contact since my mother died 13 years ago. I showed up and we met basically at the end of an alley. I am flanked by two buildings and only one way out . . . Fuck me. As soon as she sees me she makes a hand motion and two of her daughters, my nieces, come out of nowhere. My sister begins to berate me. I feel really small. I am wont to retreat; to slink back with my esteem and not berate myself for coming here in the first place. I look behind me. I'm fucked. My nieces begin to pummel me of course. I am a tiny person. I can only defend myself to a certain degree since I am outweighed and outnumbered. I am on the ground thinking about what I have on me and realize I have pepper spray. They are enjoying this too much. They are giving me way too much time on the ground to think. I rise to my feet and spray the idiot closest to me in the eyes. I actually thought for a second if she had asthma and I sprayed her again. She goes backwards blindly as I spray her sister. At this point it is just me and my big sister. I throw the can of pepper spray to the ground and I pounce on her. I straddle her and I pound her head into the ground. I pound and I pound and I don't remember if I am saying anything. Am I explaining to her what I am about to do? Am I grunting? All I know is that I am slamming her head into the ground and I can't stop. But I do. There is no more head to pulverize. I stop. I stand up and fall to my knees shaking. I am crying an uncontrollable cry. I am not crying because I killed her. I am crying because of how it feels to kill someone with your bare hands. That out of body, auto-pilot feeling that you are not yourself. I am crying because I was so full of hatred for my sister. This hatred was born of hatred. This hatred was born of abuse and I burned all of that hatred out of my body with every pound of her head on the ground. Every sound and splatter brought relief. It is finally over.

When I woke up I was shaking. And I needed a hug. The thing that people don't realize about lucid dreaming is it isn't a dream for me until I wake up. When I wake up, I am tired from all of the running and falling and slamming of heads into the ground as it were. This morning my arms were tired and my eyes hurt. It is scary as well. I am not only a lucid dreamer, but I can control my dreams. I could have easily gotten out of the dream once I realized it was an ambush. Sometimes I'll do this with myself. I want to see what my brain will come up with as if I am learning more about myself. I knew I would kill my sister. It was the only way out of that situation. But I guess what I expected out of the dream was not the actual feeling of killing someone with my bare hands. Whatever it is I expected, I did not get. Lucid dreaming is a curse and nothing to be envied. Look at me. I'm killing my sister and exhausted all day. It's not fun kids.

Rules of Entanglement

I created a list of dating rules years ago. This list has served me well. When Jess decided to dive into the dating pool a few years ago, I made sure to share this invaluable resource. She clearly took the rules to heart. Case in point – I found out only yesterday that Jess’s favorite book is Catcher in the Rye. If I knew this three years ago, we wouldn’t be friends today. For me, dating is an exercise in transferring the “I want to fuck you” energy into “I want to do more than fuck you” energy. By that standard, your favorite book should never come up on date one or two, or even eight for that matter.

Commiserating with Jess about my last few dates (horrible!) prompted us to write down, formally, my rules of dating – to be used by all women kind. We want women to get out of their own way and let dating be fun again. Full disclosure, we are lesbians and we do consider ourselves experts on the Hows and Whys of women and dating (we are experts on any topic we discuss, but that’s for another post). These simple guidelines can and should be used by women of all orientations. It would make life a lot easier for the rest of us.

Let’s begin, shall we?

1. Getting to The First Date
Women like to play coy. That's not demeaning or misogynistic. It is a reality and lesbians are some of the biggest offenders. Women will lead you on a trail driven by pseudo aggressiveness and copious amounts of alcohol and wait for you to do the "heavy" lifting. Once a couple of rounds have been ordered, the waiting begins. This is where we drop the ball ladies. If you meet someone and you are PHYSICALLY attracted to them, ask them out. Do not wait for them to ask you. Like most guys, I will miss the signals that you are trying to send out that you want to see me again. It is just that simple. The person doesn't have to be your soul mate. If you like what you see, don't pass up an opportunity to ask to see it again.

2. THE First Date
The first date should be completely casual. Not too early and not too late. It should be a one on one opportunity for you to talk about nothing. That's right ladies. Nothing. On date one I don't know you. If your attire is clean and you are remotely amusing, date one should lead to date two 100% of the time. On my most recent “first date”, the chick I was entertaining acted as though we were competing for the same job. It was not fun. I was completely physically attracted to her, but as I sat there trying to mull over whether I wanted to see her again she kept dropping nuggets and nuggets of information that was making my second date decision pretty easy. She hates her dad. Why do I know this? At the end of the first date I want to be able to say "Sweet, we both love RuPaul's Drag Race" not "Shit, we both hate our dad". Good clean fun. That's what a first date should be all about.

3. The Marathon Date
No first date, or subsequent date for that matter, should last 12 hours. You do no need to spend an inordinate amount of time with someone you just met. Your date may regale you with exciting stories of her time in the Peace Corps or his years spent summering in Cape Cod. You may find this banter interesting, intelligent, introspective – insert I word here. STOP. There is plenty of time on date 2, 3, 4 5, 6, and even 7 to learn more about your potential mate, to build intimacy and comfort. A marathon date does nothing but give you a false sense of closeness, which can lead to #9, sans testing (YIKES!).

4. The Thirty Year Old Virgin
For all intents and purposes, when you begin to date someone new, you are a virgin. Not literally. No one wants to date an old virgin, but in the figurative sense you have no exes. I don't even know when you should ever hear about an ex. Seriously. It is hard to grasp who you are while you are telling me about people I have never met. Inevitably, I will sit there trying to figure out why they dumped you. There are subtle ways you can go about never talking about your exes. Some people have a tendency to fall into the trap of confusing "What's your type?" with "Tell me about your ex". To answer the former I generally say that I have no type. As for the latter, I say I have dated humans in the past.

5. I'm O+ and You?
I have a very strict two date mental illness declaration policy. By the second date I should know if you have been diagnosed with ANY and all mental illnesses. This also goes for transitioning gender and STDs. I have a couple of things you will need to know before anything gets serious. The only declaration on date one is that I'm gluten free. On date one, you will notice I have OCD, I will admit it and I will, for the rest of the date, stifle most of my tendencies. Full blown OCD comes date two. On date two, I need the option of saying I can handle your bipolar disorder since I already like you. Knowing this on date one will most likely not result in date two.

6. With Friends Like These
I was hanging out with a guy a couple of years back. I have known this guy most of my life. I was invited by a different friend to meet up at a bar and watch the NBA playoffs. I asked the guy if he wanted to go. That was a mistake. As soon as I showed up, my friend was giving me the tenth degree: Who was the guy? Why was I with a guy? I'm gay. What the fuck am I doing with a guy? I said relax, just watch the game. And I was relaxed until the guy I brought along decided to claim his territory and inform me we were dating. So…this was entirely my fault. I raised the stakes. Because I let this guy around my friends, he felt the need to amp it up a bit by saying something stupid like he and my gay ass were in a relationship. This anecdote was shared for your benefit to emphasize that the later you introduce your new love to your friends, the better. My last date was talking about her birthday plans with her bff and I asked about it because I genuinely wanted to see if I could hook them up with a nice place. She thought that was me begging for an invite. I said "Oh, I don't want to go. You guys have fun". She got mad. You should never be too eager to introduce someone to your friend. A week later you will have to explain why you can't bear to hear their name uttered. Take your time. Get to know the person and see if they are worth introducing to your chosen family and then your actual family.

7. Pretty lady want a cocktail?
Here is where the waters get murky. We’ve argued over this rule and come to no compromise. Y’A insists there be a one drink max during a date. She has consistently refused to follow her own advice. Jess feels that as an adult, she can mind her own drinking and read the situation to see what seems appropriate.

Y’A would like to interject and clarify: “Jess thinks a pitcher of Sangria equates one drink. I have done this. All it does is make me thirsty for real alcohol. If you are driving, one drink. Far from home, one drink. Anywhere in Brooklyn, one drink. Trust me.”   

Bottom line – don’t get shitfaced on the first date. Be your shiny new penny self until you receive some confirmation that this person genuinely likes you, then peel back the layers a bit and buy the pretty lady a cocktail.

8. NO SEX
Do not have sex on the first date. How about keeping it in your pants for the second date, too? Str8, Gay, Queer, Genderful – we’ve all made the same mistake and paid dearly for it later. After spending the equivalent of a nurse’s ER shift together, you may feel that you know this person, have made a judgment of character in the positive, and there is no reason to wait any longer to seal the deal. I implore you – wait! Just because he’s good with dogs and volunteers for a No Kill Shelter does not mean he isn’t over his ex gf and experimenting with some strange to see if he can get over her. (Lesbians, just fucking stop. Leave the U-Haul on the rental lot and calm down.)   

9. Sex

Now that we have ruled out sex, let's talk about sex. Whenever you decide to do the deed, you need to have a conversation or two before you are caught in an awkward situation. I am not going to waste time saying get tested for STDs. You know what to do at this point and if you don't know to get tested before sex, then I won't be having any sexy times with you. What I am talking about is what KIND of sex you are in to. I don't want to be revved up and all excited and then I find out you are a power bottom. What am I going to do with that? If you like spanking, cool. If you like biting, that’s even better. Full on humiliation, remember I’m a feminist. I just want to know if I need a strength and conditioning coach beforehand. In the gay community, there are tops, bottoms, verse, and switch - I don't get into any of that, which makes it all the more important to have that pre-coitus conversation. Allow me to illustrate = without this convo some chick could show up at my house with an uninvited duffel bag full of toys, leaving us both limp, blue, and floating in an ice bath. I think you get the point. 

10. Remember, this is supposed to be fun.