Talent Show

By now, you should know as my frequent readers that my parents hit "The Village" and Broadway in the city for many years before me and my brothers were even born, so if you think you can top them in "art fag", don't. Don't even try it with them, or with me, for that matter. They were wayyy gayer with it, first. Trust, on that. I should know, because they bought the soundtrack albums with overly histrionic solos more fit for bad vocal stylings on pop culture "talent" shows than real singers with authentic chops. We've been over this before: it's that aggressive up-and-down warbling that goes "ohahoohhhoonnnannndohhhahhhon" long after it should have ended, popping "pop tart" vocal chords to give us instant headaches, but my parents are suckers for it, just like y'all with poorer musical tastes than me.

I should know, because I took serious music classes in college that developed my innately good interest in real sound by authentic musicians, and then I worked in a professional setting with it, which meant I took my act on the road and then walked it around town for many years. I know "good" from "bad" on an expert level, and that's that. I also know totally bullshit "diva" attitudes, because my version of the manic-depressive bulimic bipolar bisexual cheerleader stereotype was my ballet teacher in New City growing up, and she never failed to remind us to diet as children until it hurt, so we could have the dubious privilege of spending our formative years training among other gay kids with body image issues who wanted purely homocentric bitchiness in their social circles for many years, ones that self-patrolled one another by over-scrutinizing their bodies for overtly heterosexual body traits (like fully-developed breast tissue brought about by years of healthy eating combined with a great attitude), which meant, just like with the gay girl scouts, that I was utterly excluded from it as a peer group. Forever.

And just like I wrote before, I was totally fucking fine with that. Not my scene. And so, when those trite bitches in the gay troop decided that our horrible camp out should include gay skits, I knew it would suck, because none of them had the actual chops to go with artistry that mark the master's mindset from the amateur, even in childhood. Like the rest of my time with them, I knew beforehand that each and every thing they would do would suck badly, combined with my lack of control as a child with the brain of a ferociously bright werewolf who just knows exactly what will happen beforehand, and then it does, and I have to watch you do it. And then it happens. 

This skit bullshit with the gay troop was like that. I was so horrified by the idea, that I had to walk around crying in the dark for awhile before I could even contemplate telling my mom what I already knew: these bitches are crazy. It was, again, one of the worst experiences of my life and my childhood. As I walked around dark woods that are native to me, I had never felt so out of my skin among nature in my entire life, and I knew that could only mean one thing: a really bad ending. Not for me, but for all of you, and I was powerless to stop it. I knew it was motivated by their bad taste, and I knew it was just another way to exclude me from it. I finally worked up the nerve to interrupt my mom having a bitchy coffee klatch with the other moms over-nighting at the campsite, and just like I predicted, she sucked, too.

She pushed me away, telling me that I had to do it for some stupid fucking badge I didn't need for me and my life, and that I had to seek out a group, ask if I could join them, and then do their stupid fucking skit poorly. If you're not a master artist, it's hard to explain how bad hiding your skills hurt, because you can physically feel it in your body, forced to imitate other brains that are much worse than yours, like pretending to be dumb, deaf, sick, and blind. I was, quite simply, stuck on a sinking ship, and I was the only one aware of what was actually happening. I took my time walking around the campsite again, to put off talking to some crazy fucking butch who would either die early or kill herself, and every nerve-ending in my body was attuned to it.

Finally, after lurking around the edges of one group, letting them gossip about me and my presence at the edges of their exclusionary circle, I made an approach upon a group of girls I'd spent some time observing from a safe distance. It hurt all over, but I'm forced into abusive situations all the time, and for me, it wasn't even the first few times, nor the last. I went up to a nasty-tempered, chubby, moon-faced girl with short hair, and made a move at her, by way of making conversation. They were already in stupid stage outfits, and she'd pushed a pillow and a pan under her flannel shirt, giving herself freckles and blacked-out teeth, presumably to play a male redneck role in some skit that both degraded the country and herself, while we were in the wilderness showcasing our outdoors skills. It was bafflingly bad.

"Hey!" I mustered up as much false confidence as I could muster, by pushing my way through the group to join their conversation made into a tight circle. "What's this?" I knocked on her padded stomach area to hear the hollow sound of a cooking pan, and she immediately bristled by jumping down my throat too quickly, which gave away her hand to the rest of the group gathered around. "G-d, Marie!" She whined, way too loudly. "How would you like someone coming up to you and punching you in the stomach?" Uh, good point, toothless queer kid. I guess I wouldn't like it, so fair enough. Anyway, I told them I was being forced by the parents to join their skit by reason of insanity, and it won enough support among them as a group that I was allowed to join, by the other girls. But I'd made my point, and for that reason alone, the rest of the night passed in a blur that I could now tolerate. 

It sent them a very clear and distinct message in "healthy hetero female", which is my primary language: mess with me, queer kid, and I can hit harder than any girl you've never met before, gay, straight, or otherwise. In my culture, we are that brave and strong as a tribe, and the very first people to hit me were my own adult parents, and in the "right" mood that was way wrong, they may or may not pull their punches directed at me, even as a child. After them? My bigger, stronger brothers hurt me next. Around the fire, as I sat on a log watching the other kids perform, I distinctly remember flashing white teeth all around the fire, because in my heart, I knew I just won the biggest bravery award we have as a tribe, bitch or no butch. It didn't matter. I won. The rest of the night passed by smoothly for me, and I went to sleep in a group tent without further incident, because those bitches chose another target to prank during their manic night, fueled on sugar snacks they hid away in their camping gear. But, not me. No, not me. I actually slept a rather decent night's sleep, in comparison. Smoke that, c#nt.

http://nativequotesandbrilliance.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-test-of-bravery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_quest

Pancake Breakfast

In addition to the pain of being the token "hetero" at any gay girl scout meeting (as well as many design groups in the city, as an adult), I also hated everything they did as an activity, because I had pretty much learned it already on my own, or with my brothers and my dad's boy scout troop, and it was all the cool stuff like making fires, swamping out canoes, basic CPR, hiking, and making fires. Done. Why did I have to do it again with these chicks? They were horrible. My mom was also invited along for girl scouting, and she took the opportunity to join this gay movement with a gusto that frightened me in its bitchiness. As the only straight kid, it meant that almost every conversation excluded me, plus I didn't have the right hair length (too long, curly, and feminine) to make it plausible, even as afterschool banter with these queer kids.

It was excruciating, but because my mom had felt excluded from our boy scouting excursions that we loved as a family, she clung to the all-gay girl group like a pit bull biting down on its prey with its jaws locked. Finally, as a mom, this was her métier: a bunch of short-haired, gender-challenged bitches who worked on becoming better fucking bitches like it was the only badge in the book. It was pure hell for me, and it went on for far too long. Because my mom thrilled with this same-sex "be-in" like we were beret-wearing hipsters listening to jazz music at a smoky club in the Village (except that would have been infinitely better for me as an experience), I was also forced to go to their gay day camp (run by another large butch female), and overnight trips that made me cry bitterly. 

The idea of it was so repulsive to me, because I knew what waited for me there: more hazing and brutal abuse, with the continued betrayal of a mother who liked gay kids way better than her own straight daughter, at times. I went on one camping trip with them, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life, in cruel contrast to the great outdoor experiences I had with my brothers and their friends, led by my dad in our childhood, and then on our own. We had barely made it through the night, when my mom (finally) and I decided it was enough. We conferred via a brief tête-à-tête by the morning campfire, sullenly cooking breakfast with wet wood that blew thick smoke in every direction. "Yeah", my mom finally agreed, "there's something really wrong with Chris (the troop leader). We should quit. Never again." Yes! Finally! Sanity had returned to my usually savvy New Yawk mutha. You're back on the right team!

Because of this joyous news, I moved closer to my mama as we tried to salvage pancakes over a poorly made fire that would flavor anything we made with charred wet wood, not anything like the gourmet "smoking" techniques you see on t.v. cooking shows. "This sucks", my mom declared, and I was overjoyed. Never again. I'd never have to see these fucking cruel bitches again on my free time, outside of the nasty jeering they performed for each other as they passed us by in the hallway. We were finally out of this hellish scene! They were so fucking crazy that everything we did sucked, which only pissed off their butch leader even more, as she saw her troop spinning out of control with lowered attendance for each passing weekly meeting, because of her incompetence.

I leaned against my once-again pretty mama as we whispered back and forth over the campfire. Sensing a disturbance in the wicked dark forces, the angry butch had, just moments before, pulled back a tent flap in anguish, as her little spies reported back to her about my breakfast badge that went up in flames with the poorly made fire and soggy pancakes. Sabotage, like ballet, is a big part of the bitchy gay world, and each passing second confirmed what I had pretty much known since birth: I do not belong here, and in case I ever forgot that fact—with momentary lapse of politeness and genuine conversation that's "normal" for Rockland County—they snapped back at me way harder than was necessary, because that's what being a bipolar gay scout troop is all about, like cheerleading and reality t.v. shows.

"Mom", I said to her quietly, "can you flip these pancakes for me? I have smoke in my eyes," at the exact same time as one big looming butch stood over us aggressively, who had also passed the night poorly, like we all had. And it was true. The smoke stung my eyes so badly that they watered and reddened badly. It really fucking hurt. But, seeing this tender scene between an actual mother and her biological daughter was more than this bitch could take. She snapped out, screaming and yelling at us, with her eyes bulging and her hands balled into fists. "THERE ARE NO 'MOTHERS' IN THE WILDERNESS!!" She jeered down at us hunched over the fire. My mom, not to be bested in "bitch-speak" by anyone (she's from the Bronx, and they made it famous), said back to her, "That's not true, Chris. We saw a mother bear with her cub, like, yesterday, right near this campsite." And that was true, too. 

She hated us even more for having the right facts. "That's not what 'scouting' is all about! You have to 'pretend' she's not your mother to earn this badge!" Yeah, fuck you, lady. I'm, like, ten years old and scared. Anyway, I choose my mom and my family, you fucking freak. And that was it. "I don't care!" Fuck this, bitch. I threw down the spatula, and walked away from the campsite to pack up my gear. Lady— or whatever the fuck you think you are—you can take your fucking gay girl scout troop and shove it, and just like that, I was done. So was my mom. The spell over her was finally broken, and I had my real mom back. That was the best thing out of all of it. I got my family back. Shove that, butch! No badge in the world can cover "loyalty", when it comes to blood bonds. We'll always win.

TMI "Poopypants"

As the bargain program I packaged for the largest U.S. book retailer in the country wound down (after years of brutally hard work and unusually long hours), I finally found myself enjoying some free time during the day, even contemplating trips to the beach over long three-day weekends like any other publishing employee accustomed to summer hours. It became, dare I say it, a  more genteel and congenial place to work, much more like my way of doing business, with organization and efficiency built right into the workflow, which increased the mental static of the severely disordered around me in almost direct proportion as a contrast, because now I had time to explore the neighborhood at lunchtime and walk around the office. Oops.

I began surfing the web for longer and longer intervals, even becoming a "starred" commenter on a trendy media site geared towards the workaday lesbo, which was tremendous fun for me. As the assholes at work became increasingly rabid amid the next economic crash, killing each other off in violent work conflicts that matched their growing unease, I simply put on my headphones and went to work on another site. I'd put up "Illuminations" over one slow summer hour day before the weekend started, as a way to keep a focus on my personal work and achieving my artistic goals. 

At first, I established myself artistically through posting my photographic and design works to advertise my credentials, with a link to my extensive online portfolio to seal the deal as your new publisher, and it worked. In my business, when you don't receive a lot of negative criticism, you know it's time to go ahead at full speed, which I did. But, the rabid "Politically Correct Police" at this newsy dyke site hated me so fucking much, I immediately knew that I had struck online gold. Every single comment I posted, even the most harmlessly obvious observations, were vehemently denied and attacked in a way that meant those boy/girls knew I didn't strap on a fake plastic penis after office hours. No, it was far worse than that. I preferred the real kind, the fleshy one that comes attached to a man. Ew!

They must have sensed a beautiful hetero woman attracted to males in their midst by my writing alone, but because my comments were so good at generating buzz on the site and drawing attention to their shitty pieces (plus, I helpfully followed the site's rules by not answering their hysterics in "Common Cave Troll"), I was allowed this free pass through online lesbianism, with some temporary restrictions applied. They were boring, in their own bitchy out-of-towner type of way. Do you know the country queer moving to the city looking for an exotic good time but hopelessly inept? That! That was the annoyingly whiny tone of every overly emotional crybaby who went "wahwah" about New York City and its inhabitants; how unfair and cruel the city was to them and their "poopypants" interests.

I'm not joking, either. One of their biggest features was written by this bland WASPY bitch from the 'burbs who decided to unleash her inner "alternative" goth lesbian on all of us unsuspecting readers by publishing photos of her dirty vibrator covered in old period blood stains as it compared to her new one of the exact same model. So fucking interesting, troll. Here's my mucus in a tissue! Get a life, bitch. Every weird hick who has ever tortured me on the job came bubbling to the surface through these inane puff pieces designed to attract dykes in such a brutally obvious way, I found my smarter commentary striking lightning quick responses to their fucking bullshit as fast as I could type it, edit it, and post it, and guess who won? 

I did! It spurred me to write a lot more during the day, which was part of the point for me, and in the process, I pulled into the fray the unsuspecting crazy dykes who worked with me (or around me) to stop their work and read my posts. It became such a huge distraction in an office that conspired almost daily against me, that their publisher was forced to ask me to stop writing during the day (over his bullshit editorial staff), which I duly ignored. You can't legally censor creative output at a publishing company. It's that tricky "Freedom of the Press" and/or "Freedom of Speech" thingy we have in the Constitution. Duh. And so I typed on, in response to an injustice present in an unfairly skewed media world that sought to push me out, when they actually lived and breathed on my fucking land, on my fucking turf, earning on my fucking say-so through my design works that actually earned a lot of money for the house. If you don't like it, get the fuck out!

And so, out of those excruciatingly irritating tourist bitches with a zest to treat our fair city like a lesbian cruise ship on their "vacay", arose my desire to write more and more about my interests, which are a lot like yours, right? "Outsider" culture became no longer hip to practice, because how fun is it to read about changing a baby's shitty diapers? You know, the ADHD couple with the already fucked-up kid dancing around your cocktail party bare-ass with a stained diaper in their hands to show off? You crazy fucking bitches were that for me: so egregiously wrong in your hatred for us as a society (and your complete inability to adapt to normal human life) that I found it easy to despise a group of supposedly "marginalized" minority voices who used media to get attention, like any other spoiled football star overdosing on hookers, booze, and blow, except without the talent.

I took away their privileges at hating us for nothing more than simply being here and being healthily normal, but more importantly, for loving our lives and daring to love the city that gave rise to us. I stood fast in front of their searingly misdirected anger at me, and through the power of my words, I channeled them back into their backwater channels where they belong. And do you know why? Because this is my real prime time, bitch. I am your fucking "Major League" woman-in-action, dyke. You just didn't know it, yet. And now you do. You can thank this here mama the next time a woman gets voted into an important office, pigs. I probably voted in their primary election while you were too busy online "roasting" some plebe you wrongly perceived to be more powerless than you, and isn't that like every single prejudiced dyke who secretly hates women that you've ever met? It sure is! Who's the traitor now, bitch? Yeah, that's what I thought. Go fuck yourself. Without airbrushing, losers.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/TMI

Career Suicide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Career_Suicide

Believe or not, hatred disguised as competition runs rampantly through artistic communities, so if you are one (you art fag!), you already know all about it. Oh, on the surface they're touchy-feely and accepting about shit no one really cares about, like your gay nude crafts project (yawn, who cares?), but underneath, every single one of them is one bad painting away from a total diva meltdown. It's fun, once you get the hang of it. Slaying people who aren't cut out for the real game of it should be pressing on anyway. Think of it as a personal service.

I've taken out quite a few haters back in the day, because I've always been the target of bias and abuse, so bitchy psychological warfare is nothing new to me. Of course, I preferred the kind of weirdo hatred one finds among stacks of books, rather than the overtly bitchiness of a dance troupe, which is gayer than even I can stand, and I love me some drag modeling on the runways, trannies.

During college, they came out in droves, and not just the fun queers in assless chaps at artist balls. They were out before anyone else, working through their "issues" about looking at their naked boyfriends by drawing them for each and every figurative class. At one particularly small family publishing company, one junior staffer was so freed by the "gay card" at work that he openly mocked everyone walking by who might be on his "shit list" for the day, trapped as employers felt before we had federal protections in place for all types. He giggled viciously while he openly bragged at farting out loud every time a woman who worked in the office behind him dared to pass by his desk on the way to hers, something which she had no control over whatsoever.

He didn't speak to me unless he was practically on top of me, in case I had any illusions about how he felt towards "breeders" like me in the workplace, especially stinky female art directors who could get someone fired, if only she noticed your abuse, which I didn't. He was a pissant, what can I say? He did so little work, and had such a small impact upon our days as publishers, that he attracted very little of the attention he must have thought was his due in Chelsea in this century, which is a few centuries too late for the rest of the gays, I'm afraid.

In his desperation to get a rise out of me during yet another fake "war" over nothing that the crazies heated up whenever they felt "bored" (which was pretty much every single day of their miserable little lives), he called me over specifically to show me a close-up photo of a man's naked ass, with his hands spreading his cheeks apart to reveal a butt-hole, ostensibly to bitch to me about how lonely gay online dating was in the city. It didn't really phase me at the time (see the above: countless of hours of nude drawing classes from every angle) because he's so fucked up, that was considered a "good" day by our substantially lowered standards for the severely disordered, but it was the card I needed to get him fired in a sexual harassment suit that stretched back for years (you're welcome, Susan Norton).

But, he had no idea how far back really deranged scare tactics went with me. I went to the hardest school in the world, which meant that women in their thirties and forties thought it was acceptable to oust us by any means necessary, like those working class kids in their teens and early twenties without scholarships (hi, Cheryl!) from their highly coveted spots in the class. They took the only financial aid available to illustration students through phony trumped up "minority" scholarships (hi, Ellie!) and leads within the largest greeting card publisher (hi again, Cheryl!), supported as they both were by successful fathers who were professional illustrators, and that still wasn't enough to compete. Ohhh....hurts so bad, doesn't it?

The last card that was played out by one of the typical disgruntled 40-somethings living in my town was laid out for me before I left for my adventures out west, in what she perceived to be an unconscionable action of boldness for me to take after securing illustrator Cheryl (before she went back to school with us, she was professional graphic designer Cheryl supported by her computer programmer hubby Alan) her very first professional book illustration jobs while I worked at St. Martin's Press. Hey, you are most certainly welcome for that, too! Oh, wait. I didn't get that either. Huh. I think this might be some sort of pattern...anywho, I digress.

Cheryl had one last coffee with me in the Flatiron District (how chic, I know) during her not-so tearful goodbye to me. She was aghast that I would be leaving her for Colorado, as we walked back to the F train together. But, how could I be leaving? Didn't I know how hard she worked just to be here in New York?! Uh, right. In that cushy Central Park apartment you cadged off an old female friend with my work in your book as professional credits in the industry. Yeah, times are sure tough! I reminded her once again that she was in my home, and as such, I felt free to leave and return whenever I wanted to.

That incensed her even more. I could practically hear her teeth gnashing together in envy, the kind that destroys good careers, like the ones we created for her at school and in town. She seethed standing in her winter jacket, cold as the cross breeze is between avenues at that subway stop. She had to take her last shot at me quickly, because she was freezing in the strong wind, as she hopped around in her understated coat that was fit for her strict vegan religion. I could see her wheels grinding. Sure enough, inspirations struck this 40-something woman. Fear not, dear readers! She delivered her last real bit of conversation to me hurriedly, and then it struck me how much I had won.

"B-b-but, you're committing 'CAREER SUICIDE' if you move out west!" Awww. It was such a nice try that I had to laugh slightly. She was trying really hard. Yeah, I managed a shaky laugh. I'm worried about that, too! I honestly wasn't all that upset, because I knew I would be back someday. I said my goodbyes to New York over the next few days, taking in those tourist sites I normally avoided to light a candle at St. Patrick's and do a quick breeze-through Tiffany's, because in my heart I knew I'd be back. That's what being a New Yorker is all about. Just like my Catholic faith, you can always come home.

So, what happened to yet another bland but somewhat talented housewife artist? Well, her toddler cried until she packed up her drawing board for good (her pictures weren't worth the money she spent in daycare: nice work, Lachlan!), before leaving the city not long after I did for that place in space were all bad hippies go: a cool farmhouse just outside of rich Woodstock, a place where she can be free to espouse her harsh religion of no makeup ever, no meat ever for any type of reason, plus a rigidly enforced homeschooling process that would fully indoctrinate her one child into their fucked up faith of succeeding at all costs, friendships be damned. None of our classmates kept up with her but me, sadly, because I don't do gay "frenemy" shit.

No, this here Acadian mama takes care of her own, even Midwestern foundlings estranged from their own families through alcoholism and a solid case of the crazies that's taken serious hold. I always had the upper hand, dear, and this New Yorker is sorry about that for you, because no drawing can change the hate that goes on in your head, girl. I am sorry for you, truly. I hope it gets better for you soon. I'm still here working for you for free, ain't I? We're working as fast as we can, just like always. No hard feelings. We just don't have the time for it. Sorry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_prevention

Sportsdyke

Infamous 80s hairdo known as "the softball haircut", or more recently dubbed the "Dyke-O'Mullet", as worn by my kind of lesbian, a man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullet_%28haircut%29

Psychological warfare doesn't just take place in offices, behind closed doors. Luckily for me, abuse follows me wherever I go! In fact, some of the weirdest behavior that seems to happen around me all the time was during my time on the mats of some infamous dojos, with or without athletic lesbians included, because (and here's the kicker), I'd be there regardless of the other people who may or may not be seriously dedicated athletes. Me? I just don't give a fuck. It's enormously expensive to train with elite athletes, and as such, I take it seriously enough (kinda like ballet as a kid), but better, because there's lots of dudes around, which brings me to another important point: I've done some of my roughest fighting with my brother Bernie, during that glorious time before he hit puberty, and when I actually had a decent shot at beating him or making him cry, which I hated. He was my best friend as a kid, and a beautifully sensitive boy who was bullied at school (he was called "pretty boy" a lot), which I also hated.

It's part of what makes him so angry, because he's always had great difficulty processing his emotions well, given genetic difficulties that he certainly didn't want or ask for, which gave him way more free passes at home and away than I had, but not by much. He gets crazy/angry quickly, which, as an experienced martial artist in the Super Heavyweight class, means I can't train with him in total effectiveness at the dojo for competitions, which he also reminds me about whenever I want him to spar with me. You know, he could do me a favor, instead of the other way around, but whatevs, Bern. No, I know! You pay a lot of money for "your time", too, and I'm so puny and weak, how could you get a decent workout for your money? Not much has changed between us in that sense over the years, besides his obvious big size over me. You think I'm kidding? He's bred one heck of a big boy who took to MMA naturally (without hard time on the mats) much more than his older, smaller, and way more experienced black belt brother in Taekwondo, and that bears a seriously strong thinking-over, too.

Which brings me to the other point about me and fight training; it's in the blood. I'm not a warrior because I choose it, or because I like some trendy fucking gym scene. It chose me. And my brothers. And my nephews....but I digress. What some crazy dyke thinks is a good rubbing around with her strap-on "bestie" while spending our time on the mat to play stupid fucking games with (BTW: thanks, Anne, for rolling with Peg while "dyke-ing" it up at TSMMA, while I tried to stay alive with you two fucks during grappling, you know, because you had a brown belt and Peggy has a black belt), is my real fucking sport. Wackos waste time, and time is money, so get a grip, moron.

Just do what I do. Wrestle it out like a pro during class (while I look at some of the more handsome gentlemen folk with actual penises who may be training) and then afterwards...well that's up to you and me and you-know-who, because that "Big Injun" I know (who happens to be just around the bend) is the best warrior ever, if you know what I mean. Like, the ultimate. Yeah, that's it! How catchy! Training with professionalism without the weird fucking head games that don't work is like being "The Ultimate Warrior", or something like that. I dunno. Maybe.That's what I heard, at least, from those people commentating live on t.v. during MMA fights. See you on the mats, warriors, and leave your fucking crazy dyke shit you think you're working out at home, okay? I don't give a fuck about it. It's "go" time! Happy hunting.

http://www.mulletjunky.com/

Traitor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designing_Women

Unlike carefully guarded work-flows, my "daily bread" is a kind of open warfare that takes place publicly in the real world, for anyone to see. It's weird, but I've been famous all my life, which sucks. I actually don't seek it out, which is very odd for some people with self-aggrandizing types of mental illnesses to understand, who seem to take the content that they see as some sort of confirmation that we, the makers of such content, have the easiest lives ever, when it is often the exact opposite, but hope (and a raging disassociated disorder greatly aided by booze, drugs, welfare, and daytime television) springs eternal.

In every environment I go to, there's someone who has a problem with my existence, in a daily re-enactment of an age-old bias against me and my people that remains unsolved nor properly addressed until this very day, when we, the people, strike back against it. As it is for every beautiful woman of the world we live in (no matter how modest, hard-working, unassuming, or brilliant she may be), the freaks come out in full force, in a stalking aggressive way that marks the deranged and violently aggressive among us. For me, the first perpetrators of violence in any environment are typically gay women, which is strikingly different from the typical "pro-woman" posture that has incorrectly infected the modern Feminist Movement as some sort a gay girl's club, over an actual bid for civil rights that it is truly intended for, but such is life.

Public spaces are rife with indiscretions and planned attacks, and my life is no different as an openly "out-and-about" woman in society, which makes for enemies I didn't even know I could make, like the deranged lesbian secretly harboring death threats against me alone at her office desk, whispered as insults made out the side of her mouth, as she finally strikes up the nerve to pass by my workstation so as to insult me better. Well done! I guess feminine beauty that is loyal to a man's wedded touch in publicly exchanged sacred vows is a majorly capital offense against gay people everywhere...oh, wait a second...yep, this is 2016 and Federal Law grants the legal right to marry to any mature, healthy, adult American citizen, so fuck you very much!

Leigh was just such a dyke: bullish, mannish, Southern, arrogant, petty, ugly, and crazy. She hated me on-site, when she came over to our book design studio the first week I was working, to "play" with "her girls", who were actually my boss and the other professional book cover designer for a prominent sci-fi division that I knew from my time at St. Martin's Press, and which was an integral work connection that formed a favorable impression verifiable through that network, because the owner of the studio was a well-known hand-letterer for several award-winning science fiction book covers, now working on kid's content with me as her assistant. Oh....kinda different when it's legitimate and respectful, right?

Well, she breezed in with her gunmetal-colored man's do in a button-down long-sleeved shirt and men-styled corduroys to interrupt our problem-solving meeting at the owner's computer station, aping around playfully with my new co-workers as she recounted some weekend dyke tale that involved her fat girlfriend (also with the standard men's hairdo that's not dyed, so deal with that, asshole!), her gay crew, and an Indian restaurant with belly dancers that she mocked in front of us, in case we were in question as to how she felt about us as "straight" women working together without her daily involvement.

Her behavior grew worse with time, as it always does with me, because I am just as open with my life references that she set the tone with, in that very first introduction when she aggressively let me know about her sexual preferences, and which she hated as well, because my fiancee at the time was an actual beautiful man, and not a fake one. I called her out after awhile, and to which my boss told her other designer that she'd never have the guts to do, which I already knew through her well-known "deer-in-the-headlights" stare that was her trademark way of handling stress in conversations that were way over her head.

My boss couldn't protect me as a worker, not that I needed her to, as the better artist, and that was part of the ongoing attacks against me, too. I already knew all about daily hate from my own life and self-defense, but what I did do is give my boss every weapon she needed to discipline and edge out the offensive editor of happily-made children's books on the sly (without acknowledging my prowess as a skillful workplace operator), because I knew Leigh wouldn't be able to stop herself from attacking me, crazy as she is. After her repeatedly weird non-issue complaints that I used "too much tape" to put together my book mechanicals (so not earth-friendly), I knew she was that desperate to "out" herself with a career suicide sponsored by workplace harassment and unemployment benefits, which was exactly what she did.

After my gorgeous live-in boyfriend paid a visit or two to the office when she was visiting from the office across the hallway that we worked with for children's packaging, I knew she would boil over with seething hatred, never taking the time to know me, my life, or him (all far from perfect and marred with abuses), which was just what I wanted to prove publicly. As I went through the engagement and wedding process that my also-married co-workers knew intimately, too, she couldn't stand to hear us talk about it, even as we spoke of our hardships as ethnic women of New York; Carol as an Italian-American designer in the prominent, male-dominated art and design book studios of the 70s, Carrie as a Jewish woman forced to live with her mother again for financial reasons after her divorce, and me, living a far from perfect life.

When I knew she'd keep picking at me, even after censure coolly done by the higher-ups when I wasn't around to take notice of it (or feel a sense of closure and/or validation about), I pushed her over the edge by harmlessly remarking in front of her that "most of my friends were men" while I talked about my wedding plans made with a good friend of mine from school, which made her visibly gnash her teeth in front of the three of us. Oh, goody! It was just what I wanted to see from a hate-filled bitch like her, over-her-head as she was even in the shallow margins of our real book world, working at a small and relatively unknown book packager as a minor piss-ant who sweated over each typo like the insanely power-hungry bitch she really is.

She sputtered for a moment in distress, not instantly glib and nasty as she usually was, with this piece of offensive "hetero" content unfairly introduced into her heavily guarded, she-male world. She turned red, spitting with anger at me, in this minor revelation made over wedding arrangements, "WHAT?!" She struggled to assimilate my love for the men of my life, normal as it is, and real as it is, too. "MOSTLY MALE FRIENDS?!" Uh, yeah, bitch. No one for you to work over on me, in a secretive "lesbian underground" kind of way. No dirt for you! I smiled a little, as always taken aback by my devotion for the men who have loved me in my life. Yeah, I said. I have three brothers and a father! Who do you think I spent most of my time with, growing up? I made it as odd for her to question me, as it was (and is) natural for me to love. 

She couldn't deny that to me as my birthright, so she took one of her last weak shots at me, made right in front of the woman who cut my paychecks every other week (and without paying me for health insurance, full-time onsite freelancer that I was back then, that's now illegal for companies to do in New York City, so "you're welcome" for that, kids). "Oh, yeah?", she snarled at me, "Well, that makes you a traitor to me! YOU'RE A TRAITOR TO YOUR OWN SEX!", this, to a social advocate like me working at a design studio of women, at a time when that just wasn't done. "Yeah, that's what you are! You're a traitor!" And with that, her fate (and her end) in our industry was sealed.

After I left the small company out of boredom and my own prowess, I stayed in touch with the owner of the studio. Sure enough, and true to pattern, the offending editor left for points south after I left the company, never to return to the professional, big city, major league world of book publishing ever again, kids. How's that for a "happy ending"? Nighty nite, and nice knowin' you! But, not really, bitch. Not really.

This one's for you today, Carol and Carrie: real "designing women".