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.

Dutch Courage

Perhaps it was the defiance of a newly-made national identity spurning control of an overseas monarchy, but, for whatever reason, the phrase "have a little 'Dutch courage'" remains rooted in the lexicon of America's "New Amsterdam". It's not a nice reference, either, because it implies that you're an utter coward unless you have a strong drink or two before you make any bold moves, which any night on the town would prove correct, rife as bars are with fistfights and amorous advances rejected as easily as one gets drunk.

It's also a clever nod to the infamously "neutral" stance of Switzerland and other Scandinavian countries that backed out of the fight during WWII, to profit instead from the murderous theft of Germany's Third Reich through their banking system, hence the illicit-sounding "Swiss bank account" that recurs in many an old-fashioned spy tale from that era. That's not to say we are immune to the pleasures of tavern life here in New York, or nursing a budding romance over a few cocktails. 

Social lubricants are often the glue that binds young lovers together, or as Jerry Seinfeld said on his sitcom (about drinking), "How do you think ugly people get together?!", as he and his best friend Elaine bemoaned the undateable inhabitants of Manhattan. Certainly, people have been looking for draughts of courage to sustain them in lieu of actual bravery for a long, long time. In fact, Rockland County is home to the oldest tavern in New York, and I like to think that on a full-mooned autumn night, the ardor of a man is bolstered by the potency of a drink well-made and even better served. Have at it, then. 

http://76house.com

Space Mountain

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Mountain  

Amusement park rides always bothered me with a bad case of "mal de mer", and so for many years I avoided them unless I took the over-the-counter meclizine pills that are sold here in the States for motion sickness. I often thought the dizziness was related to my hearing loss, and that the damage to my middle ear bones heightened the vertigo I felt during fast-spinning rides, but my father is more imapired than I am and he has great "sea legs". Oh, well. After experimenting with rides both on-and-off the pill, I knew it was best to take it an hour before any rollerocaster rides, which was about the length of the wait on the line in the summertime.

But, Disney was different. The whole place is one big tourist attraction, which meant double-dosage every morning, in anticipation of the day's events. I also had to take it while flying, which meant I arrived in a sleepy haze and stayed that way for the whole trip, before the manufacturer suddenly discovered that excessively doped-up sleepiness was a bit too much for anyone to handle well, let alone traveling children. Years later, the non-drowsy version offered me much better results. It wasn't like I had a choice about it, either. I went wherever my family decided to go, whether I wanted to or not, and they don't have the best tastes in travel, preferring easy Americanized experiences over authenticity.

With the park in Florida, everyone around me was way more excited than I was. Once I hit the water slides at our hotel, I had no idea why anyone in their right mind would choose to wait for several hours on a line in the brutally hot Floridian sun. We had all the fun we needed at the hotel pool. Why not just stay there? It was designed to funnel tourists through a series of highly choreographed "events" that eliminated pesky things like choices, because the tram to the park was right outside of our hotel. Wasn't that neat? Uh, sure. Like the subway is above ground, but with too much sun and heat. It seemed pointless.

At the time of our big family vacation that cost too much money (hence the drive towards the park everyday, with a reminder about how lucky we were to see other pale flabby tourists from New York wilt sickly in the heat), the biggest sensation was a ride called "Space Mountain"; so secretive in its marketed allure that no one at the park would disclose what the ride actually was. *SPOILER ALERT* It's an indoor rollercoaster, btw. Just like horror movie hits like "The Exorcist", we were given a build-up worthy of hell itself with caution signs like "Don't ride this if you have a heart condition", and warnings to pregnant women about the stress.

It started to freak my mom out, and then me, too. I didn't want to die. I just wanted to go on a friggin' vacation I could have fun with. I was a kid! But, once we'd passed the point of no return, and we needed to pick buddies for the ride, everyone but my dad bailed on sitting with me, in case I threw up during the ride. They debated backsplash, too. My dad just laughed at me the entire time, hitting my arm around the turns, and taking both of his arms out from behind the bar to make it extra scary, in defiance of the signs that cautioned us not to do so repeatedly. The photos of us taken during the ride were disastrous, too. My dad had on an angry red-faced smile while I looked like I was crying, as did my brothers and my mom. I was just glad it was over.

Afterwards, we talked about how the ride was just an indoor rollercoaster in the dark with some flashing lights. The hype had made it seem much scarier than it was, and I felt like I just passed a bravery test. My dad and my brothers were eager to try other scary rides, but me and my mom had enough boyish thrills for the day. We went on a pleasant little choo-choo train that offered a nice slow ride around the park, giving us a chance to see how pretty it was, without whizzing by at a blurry hundred miles an hour. The boys laughed at our "gay kiddie ride", boisterous to go around the mountain again. They'd later complain about the lines they abandoned in their search for more scares, while me and my mom went for ice cream, iced tea, and souvenir shopping. It was the best ride, yet.

Psychic Friends Network

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic# 

Certain generations develop a type of "groupthink" that transcends their immediate presence, to become indicative of a much deeper action taking place than that which it would openly appear to be. Because me and my classmates were forced into extraordinarily difficult life situations coupled with extreme stress, we had to communicate without exposing it to the very people supposed to protect us, our parents, who would retaliate any action they could perceive or stump as a threat while in their delusional states. I know it's as intense as it reads.

I have never (NEVER) met a GenX'er who was not physically, emotionally, mentally, and sometimes sexually, abused to the extreme. Under our parents bigger and often stronger hands, we had to make quick life-changing decisions "on the fly", though it is not something we wish to replicate in any other generation. Sanity and hindsight will do that to you. It left us to contemplate just what the fuck went wrong with the sick people around us, when we had the time and space to do so, which, for me and my friends, meant our successful escape to an away college, as a time period of such happiness and fulfillment that it ever marked in severe contrast those later times when we felt just as unfulfilled as we had during our entrapped childhoods.

We had been tasked, as children and teens, to heal every serious adult woe that existed including, but not limited to: alcoholism and addiction, sexual dysfunction, homosexuality, their media-touted "mid-life crisis", adultery, divorce, joblessness and homelessness, extreme over- and under-spending, bad healthcare systems and the medicated side effects of their genetic disorders like madness and dementia combined with schizophrenia and a bevy of scientifically complex mood/identity/personality disorders with a lack of available and appropriate treatments that threatened immediate bankruptcies, foreclosures, and debt, along with not-so-handy alternatives like debtor prisons and/or incarcerations (or foster care) through corruptly inept social services and justice departments. Like, everything that the world has to offer us as severely marginalized individuals.

As a really small generation, we found that our dire circumstances necessitated an unforeseen sophistication to our brief interactions, squeezed as we were by our parent's (and/or grandparents) acute paranoia, which meant that all of our household communiques were strictly monitored for any signs of advanced thought or problem-solving abilities that would conflict with an illness that took on biblical proportions, in direct contrast to our religious ethics. We were "wrong" for simply existing in the covering chaos that evil thrives in, susceptible as our families were to it, in their sicknesses. We became adept at "reading" our emotions well with just a glance or a look, which often only increased the paranoia of the less adept around us.

Survivors of bipolar families like ours often describe in alarming detail (to them, not us) the "rock-and-a-hard-place" space that the severely mentally ill impose on the people around them, as a boxed-in corner where you can either choose death or their abuse. I'm not kidding or using an arty metaphor, either. We had death-defying car rides with stoned drunks as children trapped in their back seats, or rocky water rides down spring-filled rivers that became ego-driven contests with parents hellbent on destruction in the face of our greater gifts that were designed for service but refused through wanton pride.

It's a hard thing to prove as a child, and even harder to describe without the evidence that our families would just as wantonly destroy, in fear of prosecution or exposure. That's how entrenched their untreated sickness became. They'd rather die or kill us, or at the very least hurt us badly, than admit to any wrong-doing or making of mistakes. It was an incredibly selfish and spoiled thing to do, and I remain aghast at my parent's immaturity, as I am in awe of our relative composure in the face of their extreme carelessness. I've been told that I am extremely "lucky" to be alive, but I know it's not luck. It's me, and my extraordinary band of "freaks" that you call "superheroes" or "X-Men", if and when the mood or the money strikes you. Try living it.

Incredible

Comic books were a big part of my brothers lives growing up, and by extension, mine, too. Because we were so often put into situations we couldn't control as children, we naturally turned to any medium that offered us a respite from the abuse around us. Nowhere was safe, not even the tree house we built in the backyard, because my parents had long ago established that they could get to us, no matter where we were. They considered us their property, and they would stop at nothing to remove any barriers that blocked their access to us, including the cheap thin doors with easy locks you could undo with a thumbnail or a knife from the kitchen, which was part of my mother's hysterical scenes. I briefly had a diary for a day, before my brothers found it and read it aloud at the kitchen table with my mother's approval. "You shouldn't keep secrets, Marie." She did.

There was one set of rules for my parents, and another set of randomly changing rules that suited either their mania or their depression, depending on how they felt, though they would never articulate it as such. We were always to blame, for any household infraction big or small. They acted like desperate street thugs afraid of getting busted by the police, which, in essence, they were to us: criminal in the extreme. Heroes were very hard for us to find, because other than me—or occasionally my brothers and grandparents—we didn't know any. I mean, none, and we come from a huge Catholic family. Since the bulk of my parents power came from their status as bigger adults to much smaller children, they used their physicality as their number one weapon against children who did nothing wrong besides exist.

I had all the proof of that that I needed, what with our good grades and frequent church attendance, though in later years, everyone in my family would use a bogus faith as a smokescreen to hide their real infractions, but not me. I thought it was hypocritical bullshit, because my parents lied all the time to my face, which as blown off easily by "don't do as I do, do as I say", which meant I was always better than them, and I knew it. They knew it, too. I didn't have the arrogant smart-ass mouth of my oldest brother, or the stone-cold demeanor of my deadened middle brother, because I was truly alive in their sea of sickness. Of course, with time, their tactics became more brutal and concerted as I grew older, which signaled clearly to me that my brain power was terrifying to them and so was my beauty, so much did they try to hurt me when I was stuck in the home, also by their contrivance.

The only solace I ever found—amid their suddenly stormy attacks that could sink into sullen silences lasting months or years—was among the books that were written by much better people than the ones I was surrounded with daily. I knew someday I would join their ranks, because I understood their writings much better than my family's virulent mental diseases. And so, when a t.v. show came on about a comic book superhero we admired, psyched didn't even begin to cover it for us as kids. Bernard, in his fear about being beaten up, was drawn to the "The Hulk" character who would turn into a strong beast whenever he became really angry. It mirrored my brother's ongoing struggles with a violent psychosis stemming from his emotional problems, manifesting itself into bursts of uncontrollable anger that both scared him and protected him, too, just like the comic read. 

When we found out that the actor portraying the Hulk in the t.v. show was an Italian-American from the city (just like us!), we were ecstatic. We couldn't read enough about him in our fanzines, hoping to catch a glimpse of him at our comic book conventions at Madison Square Garden, not that I would take a typical fan photo with anyone: too shy. We'd tell each other fun facts about his life, like the muscle movie he made with Arnold Schwarzenegger that was a huge hit, with both actor/athletes going on to star in movies and shows about mythical comic book action heroes. It was an epic time to be a kid. And when we found out that he was successful despite his deafness, we hero-worshipped him like no other star from our childhood.

Our grandmother was deaf, and so was our aunt, with my father and I also joining the genetic ranks of profound hearing impairment that is the inherited deafness running in my paternal line. We'd cite lines from his interviews like "Did you know that Lou Ferrigno has a 'deaf voice' he tries to hide, so he went for a t.v. role without any speaking parts?" Fascinating! He'd been born deaf! We loved his triumph over adversity in real life that meant he wasn't some typical show business phony from Hollywood who'd sing anything for a buck, like a cheap sell-out. He was for real, yo! We read with avid interest about the special earpiece he wore in his ear for stage directions from the sidelines that made us cheer even louder for him whenever he appeared on screen. "Change! Change! Change!" We'd root for the "monster" in each and every episode, over the lamer Bill Bixby character. What a wimp!

Of course, as savvy New York City kids, we knew that a lot of bodybuilders took steroids to get big, but we reasoned that Mr. Ferrigno had probably been forced into it, as part of his Hollywood success, because he had a serious handicap he needed to compensate for, we reasoned out loud to each other. Unlike the other seriously delusional people we knew, we weren't looking for god-like perfection in our 'hood heroes. To us, he was great just the way he was: a city kid who'd made good, coming out of the mean city streets. That was enough for us. And it's more than enough now, though by his photos on social media, I'm proud to report that he looks as amazingly healthy as ever, and I know he doesn't need any drugs to do it. He has a really hard work ethic, just like us. Sometimes heroes are real!

http://louferrigno.com/ 

Camp Out

The suggestion of any overnight venture with a bunch of insane (and gay) Girl Scouts was stomach-churning to me in the extreme, but me and my mom had already committed to being there, so we wanted to see it through. I was at the end of my rope with this clique, in the same way I practically decided overnight (to my rather detached and then suddenly overly-aggressive parents) that I would not pursue anorexia nervosa with a bitchy all-girl ballet troupe for a living, like, after the very first lesson, but they needed years to work out their overreaction to kids in tutus, which I understood, to a point. I'm really cute! This felt like that: I knew what was going on, but they needed "time to process it", which was our family's go-to phrase for mental disabilities and serious learning impairments.

Such is the way of life for the healthy children of sick parents, and, besides visits from my grandparents, I didn't know any other types of experiences at home, because all of my classmates and friends growing up had similar stories (or worse) to add as fuel to our group's fire. We hated our home lives, but children can only do so much, not that it stopped our parents from using us however they saw fit, which was poorly and often. My mom's neighbors in her current senior neighborhood are the exact same way: crazy angry city parents suffering from serious disorders who back up one another over, say, the health of any other type of human being on the planet, give or take a few acceptable life forms like their plants, because in "DivaLand", they must always come first, or abuse will surely follow.

"Yeah, Diane!" Ruth calls out to me working for my mother, like I always do. "That's what children are for!" And that's how they see it: they're sick (and now old, too) and we're not, so they will tap us until we crack, if we stick around, in between hours of free labor. Then, you co-dependently cycle through your circle to bleed other people dry, which doesn't work, because they're sick, too. So, it's back to me? NO! I'm so shocked! It's like a really bad play that's repeated over and over again, and any events or activities attached to them as a generation played out more or less the same, which made us tired of parenting them as children, which, as far as I can tell, is unique to Generation X. Nonetheless, they we were: at a horrible overnight with a fucked-up troop of gay Girl Scouts and their crazy butch "leader".

It was to be borne with as little drama as possible, but with manic depression flowing as freely as the soda that sustained these raging bitches, we were kinda doomed from the beginning. Not that I needed anymore confirmation about these types of things. Sigh...parenting is really hard in childhood, you know? I felt like I needed coffee with my mom and the other parents just to get through the night, and I don't need caffeine to remain aware mentally, which means I'm forced to undergo rigorous feats of endurance, yet again, that I did not need to repeat. My ethnic background and my home tribe of Acadian boys had pretty much set me up for country life, anyway. I didn't need these fucking chicks, and they hated that, too. Becoming overly attached is a sign of involvement in the "Mental Patient" world, and we knew how that play ended, too: badly. For you.

With this mindset of gritted teeth backed by true grit, it was simply a situation made to be borne out by me, however it happened, and I just hoped none of the country queers (and their pampered city parents) died or tried to kill each other throughout the madness that would surely ensue, because that's what madness does to people and their children, gay or not. The mothers were set up in a cabin, and my mom had already bitched about that to the Nth degree with her own act that spanned three curtain calls, because before she had MS as a convenient excuse to freak out, she used a hypothetical "bad back" and "pre-arthritic condition" that was possibly osteoarthritis (so interesting!) that she could deliver expertly when it was needed for her comfort, like sleeping on the wood floor of an old tent in a sleeping bag, like I did with the other children in the troop. But, not her. Oh, no.

She explained in great detail how she had several unique conditions that required special treatment, like a pad to sleep on and her own bed, which she got, while I wondered who would try to kill a girl first in the big tent at the camp. It wasn't long before I found out. There was movement along one side of the tent that sent the already-hysterical girls screaming like it was their big scene in a "Jason" movie, except it wasn't. It was probably a snake attracted to the lights they insisted in shining after "lights out", because of their night terrors, also a greatly understood part of the their tribal culture that was easily assimilated by their types of brains. Yes! Had to be it! I sighed, took a look, decided (what I already knew) that they weren't worth talking to, and then went to find my mom at her continued coffee klatch that was "hardship" in Diane-speak.

She decided that it was worth checking out, after she had abandoned me to sleep there on my own with those crazy bitches because the floor was "too hard", even though she had a stiff wood board installed beneath her mattress for firmness at home, with a gay little step-stool on her side of the bed, so she could get into her prized "antique" bed. I knew about it from every angle, because all of my young life I was forced to help her with everything, included flipping her orthopedic mattress, adjusting the wood slats under the bed, changing the sheets (of course), and adjusting the wood board. She had to have light-proof shades, the birds were also too noisy by her window, and she had a bevy of water-bottles, cold compresses, pills, special pillows, and other accoutrements attached to her bed-rest days that included hoarding piles of papers on my father's side of the bed that she would then dump onto the floor at night, until he finally forced her to go through it.

I didn't expect much courage from her, is what I mean to write to y'all. And she didn't disappoint me, as she played the "city mouse" frightened by the woods at night to a hilt. We talked it over as a group (sort of), and after my mom was also similarly reassured that they were bat-shit and overreacting to normal nighttime stimuli (like noises and movement) as a means of entertainment, she left after finally suggesting that maybe the boys from an overnighting Boy Scout troop were pranking them by pulling on the tent flaps, and that was it. Boys?! NOOO!!! "My mother specifically said I was not to interact with boys!" It sent a shiver of terror through the group that was way worse than a snake sighting, but I was psyched. I could use my flashlight to signal for help! Heck, it was better than having to go through the torture of picking an "outhouse buddy" with some chick in a full-on house bathrobe, metal mouth retainer, and bunny slippers. Fuck, man...where's my badge for that? None was forthcoming.

But, I'd made my point with Diane, and the next morning's pancake breakfast cinched the deal for me, forever. We were done, and my mom had a tale of torture and abuse that included severe back pain with lots of <insert her brand of medicine here>, and a total lack of sleep because the mattress was "lumpy". I got closure, and an end to enforced gay girl groups for me, for the rest of my childhood. It was quiet, I cried a lot in my room from the sheer loneliness and isolation of it, but at least I could read, and since that was considered an "educational pursuit" by my upwardly-mobile parents, they couldn't be seen as ripping that away from me, under my grandparents watch. All I had to do now was make it into college. And wait. There was always a lot of that to spare. Just hunker down, and wait it out.

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

Thug Life 4E

Trifling 'hood rats ain't nuthin' new to me. Like I've explained to y'all  before, the first real criminals I met who tried to scam me were my very own family."Home" and "house" and "safe" were never really words that signified good places for me to live in, as my sickest family members told me every time they thought I "stepped out" of line of their controlling manipulations. Continually consistent and strongly applied coercion is the very first sign to working class kids that our parents or older siblings are gearing up for their next big push at us, in a series of highly coordinated acts that spoke of their persistent ability to attack me behind my back as a child, which solidified my "head of household" status to me over and over again, at a very young age, when I was just some po' girl chile with no one to help me out, and nowhere to go.

Except that I did. I always had my excellently faithful grandparents to back me up with their good health and superior strength, as a direct contradiction to the fearful paranoia that so deeply marks the sickest people around us. They illegally violated our privacy and sense of security every time they were caught abusing us, and that could happen at any time, with their violently frenzied periods of deep paranoia that define the day-to-day reality that is mental illness and psychoses. It became so bad, me and my brothers began threatening exposure to our school teachers and social services, with the achievement of a new family policy clearly stipulating that there would be no hits to the head, so as to prevent telling marks from clearly showing where anyone of authority could see them, not that we thought foster care was any better than what we had. We knew.

It didn't stop my mom from beating up my oldest brother into a broken arm that he covered up for her expertly at Nyack Hospital's ER back in the day, with the conveniently well-practiced excuse of "falling down the stairs" at the ready by both parties that they carefully rehearsed during the car ride over. It was easy for him to do, too, because my brother had prior sports injuries that my mom could frame into a clear sense of his proven carelessness as a wild boy child. 

Our "savage" genetics were also an easy target for her to blame us for any of her abuse that she aimed at us. We were raked over the coals by the mad people around us, to the point of our collective perfection in comparison to their obviously bad behavior, which was then thrown into our faces, too. "What are you, like, 'perfect' or something?" We learned to avoid crazy people the way a cat burglar breaks into a city apartment during the summertime, through an open window by a conveniently placed fire escape.

My self-defense makes attempts at scamming me into this absurdly surreal game of "cat-and-mouse" that I can best with both hands, arms, and legs bound tightly, with a blindfold on. And it continued throughout my life at every public venue I ever "dared" to appear at, including the very public abuse that I suffer(ed) at this public library, because it doesn't matter where I go or what I do, who I am with, and what I look like. It doesn't actually have anything to do with me at all, because I don't do anything wrong, which is a huge problem for a violently acting-out criminal sitting next to me at a public computer, or on the bus to the city, or on the subway, or at work in some office.

It became a pattern that, no matter how cleverly and craftily done, I managed to fight back against —on little food, sleep, money, clothing, medicine, support, and/or shelter—sussed out in record time, to the horrified amazement of yet another delusional individual who felt protected enough to attack me in full clear view of several authority figures in charge who had every opportunity to clear up the situation with one word in my favor. But, that's part of the job, right?

Over time, I even developed a handy "cheat sheet" formula for businesses and other public venues that preferred to witness ongoing abuse that goes unchecked without protecting me, because, you know, I'm obviously society's number one scumbag. One: hire a bitchy thick blond to "man" your reception area with an even bigger desk to match her overblown ego. Two: allow her to gossip loudly and spread rumors within clear earshot of large groups of people who will then feign a planned indifference that you will pretend to control with Three: a series of intentionally inept "scolds" done purely for publicity's sake, before telling your mistress(es) behind closed doors to keep on doing exactly what she's been doing, because, again, I'm the beautiful, high-performing single woman on an extremely tight budget that you like to squeeze as part of some con game.

She, in turn, will blow on her troll dolls in an unchecked madness that you will laugh about in an obviously evil way, because you like seeing your lead bitch with fangs rave at a woman out of your league. So, on this very special Friday, let's go over your "Special Needs" list of rules that even a kindergartner understands, just in case you plead ignorance or impairment. Ready? Okay, here we go!

Children Ten Commandments

1. Have no other gods.
2. Have no idols.
3. Honor God's name.
4. Honor the Sabbath day.
5. Honor your parents.
6. Do not murder.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not perjure yourself.
10. Do not covet.

Got it? Good! Now, let's go over every flaw you have, in clear language that even you can understand, with your list of serious impairment(s):

Vice		Virtues
Lust	Luxuria	Chastity	Castitas
Gluttony	Gula	Temperance	Temperantia
Greed	Avaritia	Charity (or, sometimes, Generosity)†	Caritas (Liberalitas)
Sloth	Tristitia/Acedia	Diligence	Industria
Wrath	Ira	Patience	Patientia
Envy	Invidia	Kindness	Humanitas
Pride	Superbia	Humility	Humilitas

^†This virtue is generally considered to be the greatest and the most important of all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins

Don't play this here New York mama for a "sucka", kids. That is all. See you next week. Be ready. It's "go" time!

Share the Project

http://www.arcofrockland.org/

Do you remember that homework assignment from your elementary school days called "Show and Tell"? You chose an object from home, brought it to class, and then you got up in front of the entire class and your teacher to deliver an impromptu speech about it. For most of us, it was our first real experience with speaking in front of a crowd, and a nerve-wracking one at that. What to choose? What to say?! You spent your free time thinking about it, and then on the day of your speech, you second-guessed yourself all the way to the front of the classroom by fretting over each minute that passed by on the classroom's big clock, while another classmate did the talking. It actually does a lot of important tasks for human brains, organs that operate at their peak efficiency through utilizing all the advanced arts that are necessary for human communication.

It was the same thing for me in college. I took "Public Speaking" because it was required for all S.U.N.Y. school attendees, and then I "graduated" on to much harder skill sets, like talking about the projects I made all by myself at the world's premier art and design school. Bullshitting people you don't really care about for a good grade is an easy trick for most of us to pull off, but to be emotionally invested from your labors enough that you actually care about what you've made, and you want it to be well-received unanimously, is par excellence. A lot of people with some technical abilities do enough that passes off as skills people pay for, but a lot of the time, it's work we don't want to do ourselves because it's boring or dirty.

That's where we pick it up: you at the end of your rope, because you fear getting your hands really dirty, or because you're afraid of the risk that comes with those of us who are brave enough to fail in public without even trying. It means you're strong enough to survive a loss(es), so much so, you can visibly pick yourself up from the floor in front of a huge crowd, dust yourself off, heal, learn from your experience, and then get pissed off enough to do it better than next time. Some of us even publish the results. My father always told me that failure is essential to success, because it's true. If you win every single time you try something, then you aren't trying hard enough. Really brave warriors go out on a limb that can break at any time because that's where the sweetest, rarest fruit always is. So what if you fall down? Who hasn't?!

People afraid to fail in front of others are easily controlled through their visible fears. They're those athletes who illegally dose to have a secret edge over their opponents because deep down (or not so deep), they know they aren't good enough to succeed without rigging the contest to their advantage. They're the type of scumbag managers in your daily business who use access to your computer over a secure network to block or track your every move every chance they get, because they know they aren't good enough to be in your position of importance at a company. They're cowards, and cowardly people lie, cheat, and steal all the fucking time because they know they'd suck without you, their high performing muthfucka, to pick up their slack, and there's a lot of that to be had in this world.

I don't trust people who haven't been banged up enough by life because they're too afraid to live it. If you don't have war stories about your epic adventures (with some cool scars to show for your hard work), then you haven't lived enough, because you're too busy sitting on your fat ass peeking out from between lace curtains, like a punk ass bitch in your lazy cushy suburban home, passing judgement on those of us who love life enough to take risks, by taking a fall or two on our asses out in public. Ain't nuthin' but a thang to me, yo. In fact, in my chosen sport of MMA, we don't have "perfect" records (none of us do, really. Not one single athlete), because it isn't a fixed game like some of the shadier sports. There's no such thing as a "perfect" win in our world, because Samurai's accept that they are, like life, imperfect.

It can be jarring for fans of other sports that play dirty through drug use openly ignored, and/or with the assistance of funding from illicit gansta money to front their operation. Whachoo mean he lost? Whaaa....?! They can't even comprehend, because they've learned through a twisted game to expect a fake impression of perfection that's not real because it's a cheat. Some sports are choreographed for a narrative outcome like pro wrestling is, with it's funny over-acting and hammy role-playing, but make no mistake about it: when Brock Lesnar fought in the MMA, he fought a real fucking sport with skill sets so profound, it blows the minds of people who try it. There are just too many mathematical outcomes to predict statistically, and so our sport reflects the genius mentality of people who understand concepts like "hard" and "difficult to achieve" really well, because it's the life they live everyday: a tough game with the odds stacked so much against you, you can't help but draw on a crowd of admiring supporters.

And so it is with my charitable endeavors and active daily service to y'all. I do it because I love it, and I trained for it because I'm the best at it. But there are tons of fuck-ups. I don't have the money to operate a closed system of my own, so I "copy and paste" shit on some old fuckin' computer at the library, because it sucks too much to interact with my better (and older) plug-and-play Mac technology. I call them "Work-Arounds" that are essential to any "real world" type of living: those life situations that reflect the poorer thinking of the people around you who are too blind or dumb (or both) to put real money where it actually belongs. And so you see broken links with dead video uploads and missing photos (stuff I could never do for you at your rich white man's company without aggressive public censure in meetings or firing), because I'm operating under war-like conditions that accurately reflect the angst that I write to you about almost daily, on absolutely no budget whatsoever, because that's what the sick people around me choose in their deluded fantasies: a deliberately purposeful impoverishment that's my accurate lifelong reality.

I tell you this today, in this season of gratitude and thanks, because I don't ever want you to get it twisted with me, and because I care enough to commit my ideas and passion to you on this century's version of "paper" that is semi-permanent in this new digital age. This is my version of "Show and Tell" for you, because I care enough to humble myself by sharing broken work that is still better than any rich white muthfucka's gamed version that's aided and assisted by a thousand other people in support to just him and his goals (usually staffed with lots cheap women and other minority folk), who prop him up look like "Mr. Big Stuff", because he doesn't have the talent or the heart to fail publicly like I do. I want you to be clear about that moving forward, as we go forward on this enterprise that you support with your time and attention.

http://rocklandsample.org/

So, when you come across some joke of a "celebrity" who's puffed up with artificially padded social media accounts that are bought and paid for by advertisers and promoters (unlike yours, maybe), I don't want you to have any doubts about who they fuck they are, or how they got there. They're usually pumped up way beyond their actual skill sets, because most of them don't hold up to scrutiny up close and personal like I do, makeup-free on the daily and going on age 46, baby. That means no weirdo surgeries, no hidden cosmetic procedures behind closed doors, no airbrushing beyond all expectations tied to reality, no surreal overly moneyed shit to throw you off your game by bankrupting your pocketbook in service to someone else. I AM the real deal. Are you tho'? And why not, miss?

Because in my world, part of our "bragging rights" goes towards proud, prominently displayed post-fight photos that show you how we are never really injury-free from this life we battle through daily, smiling back at you through temporarily banged-up faces that show our hard-won war wounds, just like the bad-ass muthfuckas you know we are. I don't want you to be thrown by these supposed low numbers you think you see online, just like the too big ones represented by the false premise that some fat-ass porn star has got it all over you, because you care about teachin' yo kids right from wrong on the cheap, like my new friend Jeanne Newman does. Who the fuck are you compared to her, a woman who has devoted her entire life to public service through teaching and annual Thanksgiving dinners for her people? Just who the fuck are you, anyway? Because you ain't nuthin' to me.

You best be believin' that, because that's what time it is: only 350 followers on your page, or that many likes on your charitable site, or a paltry show of "thumbs-up" on your giving photo today? Oh hell, no. What the fuck is that, anyway?! Gone, baby. It's gone, gone, gone that-a-way. You are what's "it" to me. That's what's up. Same thing for my man Barnaby and his service to our beloved ARC friends, here in town (Hey, there Kevin! Mommy says "hi" and gives you big warm hugs all the time:), now takin' his act on the road to Massachusetts, armed with one of my lil' black stickers for prove positive of our unification. You know I do that, too! You think these people are unknown to me? Fuck y'all, then. You're a rock star to me in my world, baby. Don't think this false "divide-and-conquer" shit where you have to sweat it out alone on an isolated pocket is unknown to me as a strategy to keep you down. 

They're that afraid of us, my friends, because we are that strong and that good. Believe it. Believe in me. Believe. We've just grown out-of-bounds by one more person today, my friends. Yeah! That's it! We've grown by one, and now my wolf-pack is more full for it. Haha!

http://sharetheproject.org/20-2/

This one's for you today, Ms. Jeanne Newman! 

Thanks for all that you do daily. We see you!

https://www.facebook.com/sharetheproject/timeline

Right Stuff

This one's for you, boys.

https://www.wwiimemorial.com/Registry/plaque.aspx?honoreeID=333036

Toto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toto_%28Oz%29

I didn't know Charles at Oneonta, but like any lifelong "famous" person, he sure knew me. It's an odd sort of fame, because it means that everyone around me is talking about me behind my back, leaving me out in the cold (socially-speaking), which is a form of abuse in of itself, with or without the backstabbing gossip. It's fucked up, but so are people, and since I live a life in the public eye, I have no choice. I don't like it, and I don't control it. People swirl around me, like I'm the calm cool eye in the center of their tornado-like life, which is absolutely true. I don't participate or enable their dysfunctions, but there they are for me to see right on their surface, in full view. It makes disordered people pull way back from me, which is great for me because it means that I telegraph my intentions clearly. I prefer honesty: it's a deep part of my faith, and like my father, I do not suffer fools easily, just like our Lord and Savior did not during His Time on Earth. It's like being the "King of Lose" that's also the ultimate winning strategy; a baffling combination of human and super to the ill and healthy alike.

Of course, I'm a woman, and just not another Catholic saint (we have more than enough martyrs in the world, real and imagined), although I am those, too. But sometimes, just like any other working class student at a state school, I want to forget the cares of the day and have a good time. Charles knew some of my good friends, but because of my status, a lot of people connected to our various social groups knew me without actually being good friends with me. Charles supposedly had a girlfriend before he left college for good, but I only knew him as an "out" gay man back in the city, and a rather promiscuous one at that. I'm glad that I didn't know him at O-Town, because after a few beers, I would have pulled the poor girl who thought he was just "really nice" aside, to tell her away from the main group at the party that he was obviously gay, because I'm like that. I tell people the truth, unless there's some deep strategy at play that risks life or death, but you don't want to know about that right now.

Suffice to say, after I moved to Brooklyn to work in companies as their apprentice, my friends connected to the city began hanging out together again, as we adjusted to this form of "adult" living. Charles was part of one of my cliques from school, and just like before, I didn't really know him that well. He was just there, drinking and smoking like the rest of us, working low-paying "artsy" jobs while trying to stay afloat, just like we were. He was a gay man raised by a hip single mom from the 'hood who decided she had enough "snap" in her to cut out the deadbeat dad and go it alone. I admired that, as much as I knew all the pratfalls of his life. It ain't easy, yo. We got on fine, until he pulled me in for a closer look. Then it started poppin' off badly.

First, my crazy friend from RISD felt alone in "The Big Apple", so in retaliation for this turn-around she felt happened between Providence and New York, places where she thought she was some hot-shot and I was not, this current series of events was most unwelcome. She set at sabotaging a group of friends by sleeping with one of my college "besties" from state, who I just happened to have set up with another good friend of mine before leaving for art school. After she torpedoed that crew (which was fine with me, because they were quickly figuring out that I wasn't some hard luck case that they pretended I was back then, out of ignorance and spite), she went wacky with Charles, another guy who felt that he was on the fringes of our clique, looking in from the outside. In truth, none of them knew me all that well, they just flattered themselves into thinking so, so as to have access to my crowd of gifted beautiful people they felt were ripe for the picking.

It was fine as long as everyone got along, but in the fierce competition of city life, wanna-be's began dropping like flies around us if I didn't consistently support them in whatever they felt I should, like hooking up indiscriminately with people I cared about, and then whining about how hard life was while ignoring my obvious strengths, in desperate bids to regain some mythical upper hand over me that never really existed, and then resuming their plots against me for their continued exposure to me. Once I pushed Lisa out of the nest, she hooked up with Charles as his "Fag Hag", so she could maintain the illusion of being a real big-time "fashion designer", when in reality, she was struggling to make it like any one of us. The privileges were just gone without her realizing I had removed the braces that held her up. 

She and Charles were disastrous together. After a few months as roommates, vicious baby wars broke out between them, so bad that she wished AIDS on him for having the audacity to attract men she felt she deserved, which is the enemy to every single crazy "art fag" I've ever met. She worked on these boring conversions of adamant gay men like she was some type of goddess, when they really just wanted to party and have fun, occasionally stopping to kiss the girl they danced with at some club or party. It was harmless fun, but she acted like his lovers were some kind of direct attack on her fragile ego, which curdled into a hatred that continues to this day. I was with one of my good friends from school at that point in time, and he and I were trying to make our own way out in the world. We didn't need her around to cause the bitchy conflicts she thrived on, like her needy insecurities that were a bottomless dark pit no one wanted to fall into.

She left for the "Left Coast" because she isn't good enough to make it in New York, and by the time me and my crew finished with her, she knew it. Charles ripped her apart like she was his personal chew toy, which is exactly what she made herself into so she could play the Art Fag game to the hilt. They had used each other for money and convenience, as superficial as any of the many rejected sweater designs at the one and only fashion company she has ever worked at, because she's actually a knitter and a seamstress, and not an actual designer. Needless, we don't stay in touch. Why? She couldn't handle the truth then. I suspect not much has changed in her life since then.

I hooked up with Charles again while I was dating a fellow RISD grad I met at an alumni party. We were in Park Slope, walking around and enjoying the summertime weather, when we happened to pass the bar and restaurant that is right next to Charles' place in the 'hood, with him ensconced at an outdoor picnic table of choice, firmly implanted there as their regular customer. We were excited to see each other, and Charles was already deep in the cups with free-flowing pitchers of Sangria that we began ordering in triple while catching up, enjoying each other's renewed acquaintance. He loved my recent summer fling because he swore he was gay, too, which we laughed about it when my new beau got up to use the restroom. RISD guys can skew as "gay" easily sometimes, especially when a certain someone I was dating then told me that his best friend is bisexual, hence the gayish lisp that often marks the more effeminate type of man.

My guy swore to Charles that he wasn't gay, and we all went back to his apartment next door to the bar to "get high", something me and my RISD friend laughed about, because it was like being in college for us; that's how rare pot smoking had become to us out in the adult world where we thrived and excelled. After my summer romance ended, I didn't see Charles that much anymore, even though he was a block away from my apartment at that time. He was still embroiled in these weird baby wars that he tried to involve me in, with little success. Of course, he had a partner of ten years that he wanted to leave, thinking of using me and my apartment as his launching pad for this supposed upcoming "divorce" in their civil war, but as a woman in my 40s who had beaten most of her demons on her own, I was in no mood to enable a guy who still read comic books high, while occasionally working as a massage therapist out of his apartment, in between trips funded by his rich white boyfriend, and frequent hits off a burning joint.

It was way too "hippie dippie" for me, and I'd never been a hippie, anyway. I was way too working class, but like most kids back then who didn't actually know me, they saw tiny glimpses of me through a smokey haze of their drug use and ineptitude, which typically didn't reach all the way to me personally, so that's how I took it years later, too. One of the last times I saw him was during a rare weekday when I wasn't working at the local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, having a "girlfriend's brunch" while sitting outside at a Bar Toto table, enjoying in the warm October weather. At the time, I knew I'd avoid getting pulled into his messy teenage-like affairs, so I simply enjoyed what little time he and I had left during this century's acquaintance with each other; not as real adult support, but a fun diversion nonetheless.

We talked about the upcoming Halloween holiday, which he accused of being racist and not gay enough. There happened to be a gay couple sitting within ear shot at the table next to us who heard our conversation (the service was slow and really bad), so we chatted about his feeling that there are a lack of gay black superheroes for him to dress up as. I quickly lost interest in the game, preferring to whisper back the under-breath responses that the pretty blond guy at the next table came up with, while his partner was using the restroom. I had tapped out from this kind of teenage life many years ago, and after that brunch, we both knew it, instead of just me. He still had a lot of growing up left to do, like becoming financially independent and on his own, with a thriving career that he tended to by himself.

Before we parted ways (for good?), we recited a list of what we thought could be gay superheroes, me playing the role of "Dorothy" to his "Toto" as part of the supporting role he had in my life, before circumstances put me back in the whirlwind of change that he never had the guts for, for many really good and really messed-up reasons that mark the Gen X'ers who raised themselves, for better or worse. We finally settled on an obscure character from M. Night Shyamalan's movie "Unbreakable" played by Samuel L. Jackson; a character who may or may not be "gay", obviously black, and obviously super-heroed, but just not as good as the everyman played by Bruce Willis, as the relatively unknown character "Elijah Price", an obscure reference that suited his geekish boyish bent towards comic book life with storybook endings. I hope it suited you well, Charles, as the temporary "Boy Wonder" to the forces of my life that were too big for him to handle. Fair thee well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbreakable_%28film%29