Ba-Ba-Buoy!

Yesterday, a good friend of mine asked me (again, because he's elderly) about marriage and children, which are admittedly much easier questions for me than you might think, but here it goes, one more time: I was married (in a outdoor ceremony by a female Methodist minister, which makes it "null and void" in our Catholic tradition) to a friend of mine from the SUNY school we attended that he failed out of, and because he's a manic/depressive alcoholic, we didn't have any children. I did "know" he had problems without really knowing it, because I don't share his disorders, but I wanted him to make it as my friend and a fellow native.

I was "down" with him as a squaw, which meant it was more than just between us; we were fighting to survive in this world, and I understood that about our lives. Plus, he was really handsome and a carpenter, which meant that he gave me enough space to create without actually being a gifted artist, and that was serious: he just didn't have the intellect I needed. But, he was a nice boy and he could be very charming, so I helped him with counseling ONCE by holding his hand for the first visit, and then he never really addressed healthcare again. Oh, well. If his family didn't support our vows like they promised at our wedding, then there wasn't a real marriage between us, like my father said to me over the phone. It was time to go. And that was that. He got re-married and divorced again, to come looking for me again, too.

"Well, what about kids?" Oh, uh...what about children? They love me, and I've been taking care of people my whole life, so....you know? It isn't some desperate thing for me to be a caring person. He said he'd noticed me around town with a tall handsome man, and I laughed. Yup! That totally sounds like me. Experience is a hard master to learn from, especially if you don't have that much, which is why I've always enjoyed talking with older people. They really connect with what I'm saying on a deeper level. Besides, I've always been a natural parent, and it's about stuff that matters, too, like this time at the beach with my niece.

Her mom was riding the corporate pony like a seriously programmed drone, which meant me and my brother were free to go to the bay without her tense dramatics and canned marketing copy following us there. Fine by me! Let's go. It was a beautiful summer day, so I took the train (actually, several) from Brooklyn to Grand Central to Connecticut, so we could go swimming in the sound near their hometown. My niece wasn't getting along with her brother, so me and my bro split up: he took the boy, and me and my girl went swimming. The bay is a lot calmer than the roughness of the ocean, so we felt easy in the water. She confided to me that she always wanted to swim out far enough to touch the big red buoy floating in the bay, and she was feeling confident with me by her side, so we decided to do it.

The sun was warm and the water felt great, but like any big swim, halfway through it, you feel the distance spread out before you. It got choppier, too, and I could see the apprehension in her eyes, so I let her know she could put her arms around my neck and I'd swim us back to shore, anytime she wanted to. Nope. She wanted to do it. That's my girl! I talked about other swim strategies to combat swim fatigue, like floating on your back to catch a rest, and we tried it a couple of times together. It was a lot farther out than she thought, but that was the challenge of it for her. I think she was 10, at the time. I asked her how come she hadn't done this swim with her mom, and even though I knew the answer, I wanted her to keep talking to lessen her fears.

She said her mom told her she was "burnt out" from swimming because of her swim team days at school (she's a compulsive runner, too), so now she was just "bored" with it. Oh, how fucked up and selfish, I thought to myself. But, that's who she is, and my brother married her anyway. And that's why, on that day, I easily took on the role of a mother to fill in the gap that her sick mom leaves behind, with the grace of a native New York girl who's been swimming her whole life. I could do it, so I did it; not to take away, but to give.

We finally made it to the buoy, and it was a lot bigger than we expected. She got scared as we clung to it bobbing on the waves, and then she was done with it. "Okay, let's go back. Like, now", and then she started swimming without me. Smart. She was a little breathless, so she wanted to have enough energy for the swim back to shore. I gave her some space to enjoy the experience on her own, following her in the water from a safe distance. We were tired when we made it back to the beach, but we knew we'd just had one of the best days ever, because my little Jane had passed one of her first real tests of bravery. Well done, Métis. See you in the ocean again, soon.

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

"Jits, bitch!"

I understand that some celebrities and other well-known personalities are often portrayed as targets for public aggression, but sometimes all that static is justified. I didn't need to see the entire video of a rapper trying to game some neighborhood kids to know that it's not right for a grown man to sucker punch a teenager, no matter how much a youngin' sasses back at you. Anyway, what the heck is he doin' trying to run a soccer game in their 'hood? He ain't from Atlanta. He's from Ohio (I checked), so why does he step up to manning their game? Is he a soccer pro? What's with the one-glove action?! 

What makes him qualified to step in and boss some kids around, kids who look like they're having a local game on their block, not some group team practice? Chill, mutha! And if you got grown-ass men actin' like children in your game, then do what this smart kid does: drop him in a tackle, take the back by holding your mount, then finish him with a reliable hold like the "rear naked choke". That's how you win without ever having to throw one single punch (might hurt your hand, yo!), and that is the magic of Jiu Jitsu, friends. Stay safe out there, kids. Urban jungles can be rough with the wrong crowd!  And have fun :)

http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu-jitsu

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".