The Birthday I Spent in a Crackhouse

My last birthday was a complete hellhole shit show. It was September 4th. I think I have sufficiently recovered to talk about it, even though I still kind of don't acknowledge that it really happened. I mentally called do-over, like a little kid who fucked up in four square. This has caused me to have a somewhat bizarre, awkward reaction when people ask me how old I am. Sometimes I stutter. I'm hoping this response fades with time, because it isn't very cute or convenient. Not enriching my life a whole lot, I don't think. Nope.

Birthdays are always weird for me, for many reasons, but this one definitely deserves a special mention. I felt it coming the way you can tell you're coming down with something.

Thin Walls Don't Make Good Neighbors

My mother and I once lived in a one bedroom apartment, 505, uncomfortably sandwiched in one squat level between two other units, on the top of a small hill. The walls were about as thick and sturdy as a Club cracker, and had none of the cracker's buttery deliciousness. Which is good, because if they did, we probably would have had no walls at all. I ate a lot at this point in my life. I'm getting sidetracked. As I was saying, if I was on one side of the apartment, and a neighbor in the apartment on the opposite side fucking blinked, I could hear it. I was a kindergartner living with an uptight, working single mom. (Nothing against my mom, she's cool and everything but I didn't think she was very cool when I was four and I wanted to jump around and shit.) Needless to say, any time I did anything, ever, you know, like, breathe- I was SHHed and told we had thin walls and I was going to disturb the neighbors. I might be exaggerating ever so slightly, but in my bouncy ball baby brain, that is what it seemed like.

One fine evening, I was sitting on the couch, watching an episode of The Golden Girls. Then my mother did something that really spiced up our otherwise quiet evening.

Back Me into a Corner and I'll Break Your Neck in One Swift Move

Being a dominatrix has to be incredibly cathartic.

Just saying.

Seriously, think about that. You get paid however many hundreds or thousands of dollars to make someone do whatever you tell them to do, bind/gag/torture them, and humiliate them. They pay you to treat them like shit, and they're saying, "Thank you, Mistress," or whatever. Talk about a power trip.

I'm picturing a leather clad chick letting some goofy, naked executive off of a leash and taking a ball gag out of his mouth.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Without the sex. Or videotape. Ok, just some lies and forgery, and NAPS.

When I was a child, there was a period of time when my mother took very frequent naps.
After some investigation, trial and error, and the like, I eventually decided that these nap times were an excellent opportunity to ask for permission to do various things that I wanted to do. I also found these afternoon interludes useful for asking important questions about life, what in the hell there was to eat for dinner, and the occasional attempt at getting a permission slip signed. I swear I wasn't nearly as rotten as this paragraph is making me sound.

My mom and I got into a fight that ended with me being practically hysterical once, her being completely unconscious- because I was trying to ask her something or another, which was undoubtedly a terribly pressing situation. She responded with some weird sleep talk about helping myself to 'whichever pop I wanted to get from the window.'

Self-doubt and Happiness

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." - Sylvia Plath


Quoting someone who stuck their head in the oven isn't probably the best starting point for an entry, but this struck home for me when I read it. My urges to isolate have gotten stronger and stronger the longer I am unemployed. I was actually doing pretty exceptionally well (for me) connecting with people, making phone calls, going out, and having a pretty good time. There was still the ever present undercurrent of anxiety, but I wasn't generally finding myself wanting to unzip my skin and jump out the window or anything quite that alarming. My confidence was growing, and I felt like things were going to go well here.
Then, little by little, I allowed self-doubt to creep in.

Keep your pants on. Probably.

The events of this day have encouraged me to question whether or not I should be considering becoming part of the sex industry, or permanently locking myself in my high rise apartment with my fat-assed cat, Duncan, a huge supply of ice cream, and regularly Tivo'ed Spanish soap operas.

I've been job hunting maniacally for a month. Job hunting is a special brand of self esteem enhancement and social interaction. Today, for instance, I got a call back about an ad I responded to online, about housekeeping. The guy was Extremely vague at first, and welcomed me to ask whatever questions I had. He asked me if I realized that this was not a 'typical position,' which immediately got some warning bells a'ringin He let me know there would be compensation for gas, 'special clothing' allowances(uh-oh)...

Redefinition of Rape Needs to be Aborted

H.R. 3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act."
I understood why some people might think this is a good idea...until I started to read the details, and understand the ramifications.
In order to allow for exceptions, this act has singled out "forcible rape" as eligible for funding, and set forth some somewhat bizarre classifications regarding other specific circumstances of sexual assault.

'The limitations established in sections 301, 302, 303, and 304 shall not apply to an abortion-- '(1) if the pregnancy occurred because the pregnant female was the subject of an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest; or
'(2) in the case where the pregnant female suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the pregnant female in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.'

So...

"If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. (Smith's spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.)
Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old's parents wouldn't be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. They also wouldn't be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense." --Nick Baumann

Also, if a woman is drugged and date-raped, coerced, or otherwise incapacitated without 'excessive force' (whatever that is supposed to mean), she's SOL: no fed funding. Statutory rape? Sorry kids. Oh, unless it's incest. Then it is covered...as long as you're underage. Incest between adults? Nope, not counted as rape by this definition. Limited mental capacity? Developmentally delayed? Not rape either, according to this proposal.

Who's in charge here?