bixface confessions

older than your mama

[bixface]

my aunt Ruthie was a mennonite & holy roller, when she had her stroke it was at a family dinner, she looked up at everyone, screamed "motherfucker", and dumped a whole bottle of kraft salad dressing onto a potato while yelling incoherent obscenities when she fell over she yelled "oh shit oops" she recovered so fast the doctors didn't realize it was a stroke until several days later, when she started making sense again, she stopped being rude like on a dime, suddenly afterward she said she no longer believed in the christian god & started being nicer to her daughter - then died before she could alter her will

not quite as dramatic as the two days everyone thought my uncle and his daughters had burned to death (it turned out to be four different family members) but I was there for it so it marked my consciousness in a certain kind of way

the imagery comes back to me sometimes due to random association

when I thought my uncle was dead I drank a lot, then I found out some of what had happened during an intense hangover, so that marked me in a certain kind of way as well

[bixface]

it's tough to get through this moment when lots of people are having a ball making fun of how trump is (factually) a child rapist

I was horribly abused as a kid and there's a lot of stuff that people joke about that's never going to be funny or innocuous to me - language people (especially online) are accustomed to using that hits me hard in the face, makes me sad and angry for a day or three, every time

I wish people actually cared about the things they pretend to be passionate about - I wish the stupid urge to prove others lowly wasn't so powerful n public discourse

I wish kids and their safety really were important to usans, in every wise, in every venue

I've had trouble trusting americans my whole life, and I've grown so tired of the cycle of lying to myself about their potential qualities while carrying a heavier and heavier burden of anger and wariness every year

[bixface]

I hate being crippled, a lot

I hate constantly catching myself wishing I'd died with everyone else, when I still believed in love, when I still felt loved

[bixface]

I wish there were some way to do it that people would do

I wish there was rational hope for a human life on earth

it's so hard to let my mind come back knowing what it will be subject to, the memories, and the pressures

it's impossible to let my heart do that, open up, or come back, I don't think it's a possibility anymore

[bixface]

calling him for father's day turned out to be a good idea after all, on reflection

today I don't feel guilty about never going to see him again, despite his cancer & waning years

I've felt guilty about that for a long time, but after hearing him snarl trump things and repeat stupid propaganda he ought to have been far too smart to be sucked into, unless that's what he wants to get sucked into, took so much weight off of my shoulders.

It's not that I will want him to die, or that I won't be sad when he does, but there's clearly no point in a visit. He's compelled to goad me with ideas he knows I'll object to or disagree with strongly. He can't avoid the topic.

He's always nurtured racist leanings, and he's always had a powerful need for intellectual conflict. One could say he saddled me with that, genetically. I don't have any desire to argue about right v left, with him or anyone else, the whole argument is artificial and misses the point entirely, where I'm concerned. He should know that, anyone that knows me should be able to work it out very quickly. I maintain they do, and he has, and that he goads me on purpose, for no reason at all other than instinctive rancor.

He is a good natured man and I do love him, he is my father. But neither of us can travel. That's how I'm putting it now.

[bixface]

I'm astounded at how many decades it took me to realize that the primary sources of trauma in my life that weren't blood relatives have all been catholics

actually stunned

I've never had a specific beef with a given religious tradition before in my life but today I'm saying What The Fuck

[bixface]

the balance shifted since then

[bixface]

I like to think there's some kind of black ink in my ledger of pain but I can't know for certain. The people I've caused the most pain are the people that put me in the world to begin with. It's hard to feel too badly about angry things I said to mother.

I wince over things I've said to others, at night, when it's preferable that I not remember, like the brain is waiting for my guard to go down before inflicting guilt on me.

[bixface]

the things we say to each other aren't meaningless.

but they don't mean what we're saying, all the same.

the connection is real, and the sentiment is heartfelt,

but the world is old, and we've dirtied it up badly during our stay here, and it knows more than we do, and it does judge.

the world does judge. the earth judges us, each of us. it knows us, it can read us at a glance. it can know us by the merest details, to our cores.

the things we do to one another aren't meaningless.

[bixface]

doubly depressing to realize that the access and integration with projects and life I expected to be able to try for was based, in the past, on sexual appeal

one because it's sad to realize my intellect and insights weren't as important as my random physical specs

two because daaaaaamn I could have had sex with some incredible academics and artists over the years if I'd been thinking about it

in real life I'm what the kids call demi but it's a leaning more than a hard rule

I miss thinking better things about people in general, and, heartbreakingly, in specific

[bixface]

it's not their fault at all but most of the people in my life cause me intense anxiety now, since november

outcomes and consequences are right there in front of them but they're pretending everything should be Fine

it's upsetting

the people that aren't wearing mold-cast smiles are saying THE most depressing stuff in the world, but what are ya gonna do, they have the right, it's the time for it

I'm trying to be smooth but it's not very helpful, my own situation exploded at the same time theirs all did

[bixface]

it's impossible to unknow things

I lost the ability to laugh and I can't remember when

[bixface]

I would argue that this is outside the standard of care.

[bixface]

I used to really appreciate and get interested in fan art

tumblr beat it out of me and kept coming around to make sure I remembered my lesson

[bixface]

it turns out to be pretty easy to manipulate this group into tearing itself apart

now that you're all de facto second wave feminists & gaiman has been summarily consigned to the underworld, it won't be too long before any similarity to queer culture that ever percolated here will have sunk back into the sucking mass of terrified insipid cruelty, USA style.

the part that really sucks isn't the loss of the idea of kids fixing the world - that was always a sad & baseless hope -

just having to have offered community to the same right wing white power assholes that have ruined life from the start, being scolded into letting them have the only community resource that ever existed in real life: time. that sucked. you suck.

I just can't deny it, I have really come to despise most of you for the barking republican church ladies you've enthusiastically become

[bixface]

I like for there to be time to stop myself. Even innocuous things. I like there to be a way out.

This doesn't carry into love. If there's a way out, I don't consider it real. I don't see this as a good character trait, but I recognize it's true about me. If I think there's a door for a lover or a friend to escape through, I walk over to it and open it very wide, stand next to it, and fix my dear with an empty smile. Not all the time, just one time. The hard thing to face is that I am not worth keeping around to the majority of people, and the people that do want me around can't be relied on. It's not that they're not trustworthy, it's that they'll never be able to share a rent with me or adjust their own behaviors in order to be able to peacefully coexist with anyone else.

Acquaintances are safer. Sharing isn't secure, with loved ones, in the same way as with casually known people. Groups can soften that edge but only for short engagements.

[bixface]

It has been a massive, terrible mistake.

[bixface]

being pretty to look at is a curse