Are We Done Yet?

I feel:: angry

Neverevereverevereverever try to cram for a test in Psychosexual Behavior. I have been studying since 4pm. It's now midnight. My printer has crapped out on me and I've only gotten through one chapter of review notes in 7 hours. If I could have printed them out I would have been done by now, but noooooo my printer had to kick the bucket right before the test. I've got Chps 8,9,11,12 and 13 to go and review the short answer questions. I'm going to fail miserably. It's my own fault. I should never have started reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince last week. I might as well just not even show up and take the make up test on final day, but that would mean that I would have 4 absences this term and that would mean he would fail me regardless of what I made on this test and the previous test. So, I'll go to class and bomb the test. Why am I such a damned procrastinator? Who could have guessed that a class about sex would be so...hard?

Bah. I'm going to bed. I want to watch Star Wars for the millionteenth time and fall asleep dreaming about Han Solo. I'll study more in the morning before class. Incidentally, I have a job interview tomorrow at Sears for a position in the appliance department. I know it doesn't sound glamorous or cool or anything remotely fun, but I need a job. I'm tired of having no money.

Yes. I am a tad pessimisstic at the moment. Dammit, where are my M&Ms?

Maybe Ala-Non

I feel:: crushed
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Buena Vista Social Club~Buena Vista Social Club

On Mondays and Wednesdays, for this second summer term, I have two classes. I have Psychosexual Behavior from 10:20am to 11:50am, then I have Water Aerobics from 12:00pm to 1:00pm. (I've lost 6 pounds so far by the way. I'm awfully proud of myself.)

At the beginning of the term, I printed out a copy of my schedule from the school website and slapped it on the refrigerator with a big ass magnet, then I told dad,"Here's my schedule." I even brought him into the kitchen and showed him where I had tacked it on the fridge. Monday, at 10:23, my dad called me. I didn't know this, of course, because I was in class and my cell was off (it's only polite). After that class, I had 10 minutes in which to get to the gym, change into my bathing suit and get in the pool. I didn't check my phone. I didn't have time. At about 1:10pm I was sitting in my car checking my voicemails. I had eight of them. I thought,"Wow, I wonder who all called me?" I never get that many voicemails. My dad, starting with the first call at 10:23, told me in angrier and angrier tones that he had locked himself out of the house and had neither an extra set of car keys nor an extra house key. The heat index that day was something totally ridiculous like 112F. So, I called him and asked him where he was. He yelled into the phone,"I'm sitting on the goddamn front porch! I've been here since 10:30!" I was hurt and defensive, so I told him, hurriedly that I had been in class. He interrupted me by yelling,"Since 10:30?!" So, I had to go through explaining to him about my class times. He accused me of not checking my messages enough. So then, I had to explain to him about how little time I had between classes and how large the campus is. He said after that,"Well, come home." Then, he hung up abruptly. At first, I was angry, then increasingly freaked out. I tore out of the parking lot and drove 60mph down University Avenue (a city street), I got on the freeway doing 75mph. I drove through my neighborhood like a madwoman, trying at the same time to look for kids. A drive that normally takes me about 20 minutes took me about 12 that day. I pulled into the driveway of our house and practically flew out of the car. I ran up to my dad and asked him, breathlessly, "Are you ok?" He laughed and said,"I'm terribly hot." I was so afraid he was going to have heatstroke from sitting outside for so long since he is 75. Much younger people get heatstroke from being outside when the heat index is that high. I opened the front door for him, he went inside, changed, and then told me that he was going to the Moose Lodge. I was floored. I was half worried that he was dizzy and dehydrated and might wreck; the other half of me was pissed that he made such a big deal out of it when it didn't seem to affect him at all. I felt like he took advantage of me. I felt like he knew that I would be freaked out and that I would rush home. After he left, I started thinking about some things like: Why didn't he call his sister to come pick him up? She only works part time and lives only about 10 minutes from us. He also could have gone to our neighbor's house. We know them pretty well. They sometimes mow our yard just to be nice. He also could have gone across the street to the house where the lady lives who makes cookies for him. She's a housewife and has 3 kids. He could have gone directly across the street to our neighbors who have the sweet Laborador Retriever. We talk to them all the time. Every time they are outside with their dog, she runs over to play in our yard. Those are just the people we know. I think practically anyone would have helped him in our neighborhood. He didn't have to sit out in that pressing heat and risk getting heatstroke. He has so many numbers in his phone of people he says are his friends. Why didn't he call one of them? He could have called my cousin Andrea or her husband. His sister's husband doesn't even work. He's retired. He could have called Joe and hung out with him until I got out of class.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I wanted to scream at him,"IT'S NOT MY FAULT THAT YOU LOCKED YOUR ASS OUT OF THE FUCKING HOUSE! MAYBE IF YOU WEREN'T SUCH A GODDAMN DRUNK, YOU WOULD HAVE REMEMBERED YOUR FREAKIN KEYS!" (I also think he's addicted to his painkillers now since he's been taking them for his hip ever since his surgery. He took first Vicodin, now he has Darvoset.) My therapist thinks I should start going to Ala-non, a support group for adult children of alcoholics. I don't know. Maybe it's time. Sometimes, I just want to bitch slap him.

Cherry Flavored Goodness?

I feel:: amused

Sunday night, I went to eat dinner with Sally and Tanya at Senor Tequila. As we were finishing our dinner, Tanya said,"My boobs were hungry." I wasn't really paying attention, but when she said that I snapped to attention and said,"What? I thought you just said that your boobs were hungry." She said,"Yeah, well I got all these crumbs on my chest. My boobs were hungry." I love my friends.

Today, in Psychosexual Behavior class, we had Show-n-Tell. On Friday, my professor told everyone that the assignment for Monday was to bring in some form of contraceptive device and to write a short, hand-written paper about our experience of acquiring it. I didn't have any money, so I figured I would just go by the Health Dept at school and get one of the condoms there that they offer for free. Well, I'm a lazy ass and I didn't go by there. I was so tired all weekend that I just laid in bed. I was experiencing this weird fatigue. It was like I was just to tired to move. Anyway, this morning, I came to class sans condom and figured I would just take the penalty of the 10 points. As I was walking up to class, I ran into a classmate of mine who usually sits by me. He asked me if I had written my paper. I told him that I hadn't because I hadn't managed to acquire any contraceptives. He said, "I have three condoms. You can have one of mine." It was like I was back in high school trading gummy bears or bumming cigarrettes off my friends. Weird. So, he gave me one and we both went into class early. He hadn't written his paper either. I sat down at my usual desk and started writing. I wrote about how embarrassing it is for a woman to buy condoms. Every time I have ever bought them in whatever store I am, I get the cashier that gives me the look like,"I know who's getting laid tonight!" At one point while I was dating Ryk, I thought I was pregnant so I went to Wal-Mart to buy a pregnancy test. It was right before Christmas. Since the lines at the registers were so long, being Christmas season and all, I decided to ask the cashier in the pharmacy if I could pay for it there. As she was taking my money, she said knowingly,"I hope you get what you want for Christmas." Before I could stop myself I said," Well, I hope I'm not pregnant." Then, she started cackling and said loudly in between gasps for air,"You better tell Santa to stop using that chimney!" Oh my God. I was mortified. I left Wal-Mart as fast as I could sure that everyone who looked at me knew that I was a dirty slut who might be pregnant outside of marriage. Talk about a guilt trip.

After we turned in our papers, my professor told all of us to put our chairs in a circle in the middle of the room and get out whatever contraceptive device we had brought. He started with the girl immediately to my right who had brought one of her birth control patches. She explained how it works and how to wear it. He then moved to me and said,"What do you have there?" I held it up and told the class it was a lubricated condom. My professor said,"Can you open it?" So, I did and it was practically dripping with lube. I meant to say it under my breath, but I guess it was louder than I thought, or else that room has great acoustics because after I said,"Wow, it's really...juicy",the entire class erupted in giggles. After I finished, he continued around the circle asking what people had brought and what their individual experience was buying it. He stopped suddenly mid-sentence when one of the girls in the back of the room pulled out of her purse a "pleasure pack" of condoms that were various colors, smells and flavors. He was laughing while he asked her if she would open one. She opened a red one and said,"Oh wow, it smells good." More giggles. My professor asked her if she would pass it around the room so everyone could smell the smellgood condom. When it reached the girl on my right, she sniffed it and told me in a littlegirl gigglewhisper,"It smells like cotton candy!" It did smell exactly like cotton candy,with a little latex aftersmell. A few people down the line, another girl had a condom only this one was not colored, flavored or scented. It was a Magnum XL. She opened the package, unrolled it and exclaimed,"I didn't think they came this big!" The girl on my right said,"Wow, it has girth!" My reaction was,"GOOD GOD!" at which point my professor looked at me and nearly fell out of his chair laughing. When class was over and we all were leaving, the guy who gave me one of his condoms said," Who knew that this class would consist of smelling condoms?"

Hey! Isn't That Kip Winger?

I feel:: hungry

I went to Books A Million last night with Sally and Tanya. I got lost in the children's section amongst the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Chronicles of Narnia, and the various Hello Kitty items. At one point, Tanya told Sally,"Keep her away from the Hello Kitty stuff!" I found a case of colored pencils, a hot/cold thermos, a notebook with Hello Kitty paper in it, a calculator...I could go on, but I won't. I wish sometimes that I were a little girl again then I could like little girly things without people looking at me like I'm crazy. Well, I didn't actually buy any children's books. Sally and Tanya bought a whole load of Nancy Drew Mysteries, so I guess I don't feel so bad. When is it not ok to not like children's things? When should little boys give up their train sets and Matchbox cars for PS2 and muscle cars? When should little girls give up frilly butt panties and dolls for raising children and driving minivans? Maybe I'm just frustrated at the moment. I don't know.

I experienced my first lightening storm last night. I was driving in it on the way back from the bookstore. It was scary/amazing/wonderful/thrilling all at the same time. The wind was whipping everything around like rags and my car was hydroplaning in the water gathered on the freeway. I was trying to drive, watching out for the lightening and trying to see through the driving rain and it felt like my heart was doing a jig in my chest. When I got home, I ran inside and yelled to my dad,"We're having a ligtening storm!" I rushed out to the back yard and just stood there with the wind whipping my hair around and the windchimes tinkling wildly. There was lightening everywhere I looked and it was constant with only a second or two between strikes. I remember thinking,"Jesus, are you coming back tonight?" It was that powerful. My cats, all three of them, were just freaked out. My two oldest were alternately pacing around the house meowing and running around like they had ants in their pants. My littlest one I found hiding in my dad's bathroom. I called and called him and when he finally came out he was walking sideways towards me with his back arched and his fur standing on end. I picked him up and for the rest of the night, whenever I would put him down, he would squeak at me to pick him back up. So, I wound up carrying him around with me for most of the night. I was going to write something here, but I dared not get on my computer for fear of power surges.

One day last week, as I walked into my Psychosexual Behavior class, I saw a transparency on the overhead projector separated vertically into two sections. On the left side were drawings of flaccid, uncircumcised penises. On the right, were drawings of erect, uncircumcised penises. On the blackboard, written in pink chalk, were the words,"GOOFY DICK GAME". My professor told us that the object of this game was to see how many flaccid penises we could match correctly to the erect penises. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. What was even funnier is that last night, while I was at dinner with Sally and Tanya, I was telling them about the Goofy Dick Game and Sally, incredulous, said loudly, just as our waiter walked up to check our drinks,"PENISES?!" We all nearly fell out of our seats laughing. As our waiter walked away shaking his head, I said,"Is it just me, or does he look like Kip Winger?" Commence new round of uncontrollable giggles. For the rest of the night, we called him Kip.

I Don't Know Enough Spanish Yet To Curse You Out Properly

I feel:: pissed off
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: something by Joss Stone

I just got in from going out to Midtown Billiards with Tanya. We saw a rockabilly band called Brandon McGovern and the Scrappers. They were a lot better this time than they were the first time we saw them. For one thing, they had a steel guitar player this time. That made the whole thing sound so much more full and wonderful. Tanya and I also got free cds from them thanks to Brandon having a crush on her. At one point during the night, after their first break, he walked on stage, walked back to her and gave her his cigarrettes to hold for him while he played. I leaned over to her and said,"That's a very boyfriend thing to do." She giggled and blushed and said,"Yeah, I know." Then, a little bell dinged in my brain and I grabbed her arm and said,"Oh my God, you're the Cigarrette Mistress!" We both doubled over laughing. We couldn't stop laughing and some people were staring. I must confess, I had my eye on the steel guitar player. I usually don't like clean cut guys. There's just something about that whole preppy thing, but this guy... I don't know why I was so attracted to him. Maybe it's because he's a musician and I have a weakness for musicians. Or maybe it's because he just looked so yummy and sqeaky clean.

Anyway, I digress. We had a pretty good time. I got hit on by two women and two men, well verbally anyway. It seemed like everywhere I looked there was someone staring at me. I don't think I was being paranoid, but I was wearing a serious booby shirt. The first lady that hit on me was kind of older. She must have been in her 50s. She had her husband come over and tell me that I was "awesome". Then, throughout the night, she would come over every now and then to our table and put her arm around my shoulder, which caused not a little jump in me, especially since I had a backless/shoulderless shirt on. She asked me to dance with her about 8 times. Every time I said no, but she just kept coming back. Damn, I thought guys were persistent. The second girl that hit on me was younger than me. She looked to be in her 20s. She was standing beside a guy I have known for about 5 years and when I went to hug him, she asked me, giggling,"Are your boobs real?" I just nodded my head yes. She then put her hand on my arm and said,"Oh, I didn't mean to make you mad. It's just that they're so big!" I brushed it off, hugged my friend again and made my way to the bar to get my usual chilled and shaken Sambuca. I went back to our table and she came over to me and told me that she was my friend's cousin. She introduced herself and I introduced her to Tanya. Then, she commented about my boobs again and couldn't take her eyes off them. She then began caressing my purse and saying how much she liked it, how it was soo cute and soo pink. She even picked it up and hung it on her arm saying,"This shows you have personality." I didn't really have much to say to her since the music was so loud, so I just sort of stared at her. I think she got uncomfortable right then, because she excused herself by saying it was very nice to meet us. I leaned over to Tanya and asked,"Did she just hit on me?" Tanya,"Uhhh huh."

The most obnoxious guy hit on me on my way out the door. I had seen him earlier standing in the front of the bar watching the band. He was wearing a pastel pink, green and white striped shirt with black slacks. (Let's all say it together...EWWWWWWWWWWW!!) Anyway, I glanced at him because of his utterly atrocious attire and just as quickly forgot about him. On my way out, I had to pass by him to get out the door and he grabbed my arm so tightly that I can still feel the pressure of it. He was holding me so tightly that I had to use my body weight to wrench myself free of him. He tried to pull me close to him while saying,"You can't leave." I should have gone off on him and torn him a new asshole, but I didn't. I just turned my head away from him, leaned my body out and tugged. What a piece of shit. What makes some men think that they can treat women like that? I was so mad that I actually thought about driving back there just to tell him off-IN SPANISH.

Earlier today, I had to go to the liquor store for dad as per usual, but this time, he decided to go with me. As we were driving, I asked him why he got just a half-pint of whiskey every day instead of just getting a big bottle that would last him all week. He said,"Because I would drink it all." I nodded my head, kept driving and we were silent for a few minutes. Then he said, "Do you remember when we were living in Camden and I fell in my room and had to go to the hospital in an ambulance?" I said,"Yeah, I do." He replied,"Well, I had drunk a fifth that day." I turned to him, a little shocked and said,"You told me that you had an attack of Angina." He replied," Well, that was convenient." He was silent for a little bit and said,"I could have died." I choked back tears that were threatening to fall and just stayed silent for the rest of the ride. Up until today, I had blamed myself for him having to go to the hospital that day. I had been sunbathing in the backyard when I heard him call me. I yelled,"What?" There was no answer. Again,"What do you want?" No answer. I went inside, walked down the hall to his bedroom to see him laying in the floor passed out. He had already called the ambulance. He passed out with the phone in his hand. All these years I thought,"Why didn't I come in sooner? Why do I get irritated with him so easily? What if I hadn't come in and he had just laid there in his bedroom floor and died?" GODDAMMIT. That's another thing in a long ass list of things he has done to me that has been unfair. No one ever said life was fair, but dammit, you don't just drink a fucking fifth of whiskey when you know you have a bad heart and you know that you have a child who depends on you for everything. What if he had died? What would have happened to me? That was so selfish of him. Shit, now that's another goddamn thing I have to struggle with forgiving him for. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK

Penises Running Amok

I feel:: angry
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: a song by Sixpence None The Richer

8:15am this morning. My dad and his sister were sitting in dad's car with the engine running. The alarm was blaring. It jerked me out of a dream and I stumbled to the kitchen to find my car keys and opened the front door. Dad rolled down the passenger window and I heard his sister yell over the ear splitting alarm,"We don't know how to turn it off!" I pressed the disarm key on my car remote and instantly the alarm ceased. Isn't it just common sense to know that you have to disarm the alarm before opening the car door and before turning the engine on? Am I asking too much?

Oy.

I was in the Dollar General Store (For those who don't know, Dollar General is a cheaper version of Wal-Mart. I go there because I hate Wal-Mart and it's only just down the street from my house.) yesterday getting food for my little angel (devil) kitties when I looked up from my kittie food choosing to see a rather tough, stocky, blond woman walk by me with a tattoo of a rebel flag emblazoned on her upper arm along with some guy's name just underneath it. How romantic. Love and prejudice. When I went outside with my purchases, I noticed the aformentioned guy sitting in a car with a rebel flag license plate on the front of it. If I had had anyone to bet money with, I would have bet all of it on the surety that the tattooed girl would come out of the store, get in the car and slide over to mulletman and he would put his arm around her tattood shoulder and they would drive off into their version of Dixieland.
I just found out last night, while studying for my first test in Psychosexual Behavior, that the US has banned female genital mutilation. Good. Great. But we only just did it in 1996?!

Oy.

I am so full of names for the female and male reproductive tracts that I can't even think straight. I should write a song about them. You know, like,"Knee bone connected to the thigh bone.." something like that. Speaking of male reproductive tracts, why can't men's penises just be detatched until they need to be used? That would make things so much easier for me and a lot less scarier. I guess I focus all of my anger and fear on the penis when it really should be focused on the men who have hurt me. The penis only does what the brain and nervous system tell it to do. It's not like it could detach itself and walk around forcibly ramming itself into vulnerable vaginas. Sometimes I can't see past the genitalia. I feel like men always want to conquer and control. I feel like they're always coming at me with threatening, erect penises. Yeah, I'm having a lot of bad memories today. It's not a very good day for me. I'm trying to be glib, but what I really want to do is take a couple of Vicodin and dissappear for like 6 or 8 hours.

Ever have one of those days when you just want to scream, just for the hell of it?

Carnival Rides And Carousel Pony Dreams

I feel:: scared

The stage lights made day out of darkness and I could feel the cool night air on my skin. I was at an outdoor music festival near to the front of the stage reclining on my elbows enjoying the soft, cool grass and watching Roger Waters play with Pink Floyd when a man reached over from my left and sqeezed my hand. I turned to look and there he was, black hair gelled up into a faux hawk, electric blue eyes, pale skin and full, red lips. He was wearing well worn jeans that looked like they were soft with many washings and a black shirt that, along with his jet black mane and paler than pale skin, made his eyes stand out like a blue fire. With his face over mine, he just looked into my eyes. I said something trivial like,"Wow, I can't believe I'm getting to see Roger Waters with Pink Floyd after all these years." I gestured to the stage, but his eyes never left my face. He was so close to me that I could smell him. He smelled like fresh turned earth and something sweet. I couldn't identify the smell, but it produced in me the same sort of comfort feeling that I get when I walk into a house and smell blueberry muffins baking. I felt like I was home, but at the same time, my extra sense told me that he was someone to be wary of. I should be afraid of him.

He took me to one of those trailers you always see at music festivals. The ones that only the talent get to stay in. The ones with actual furniture, electricity and blessed air conditioning. Several of his cronies, or servants, I couldn't figure out what they were exactly, were already there. He told them,"Make her ready for me." Then he left. I watched him walk away from the trailer standing just inside the door. The screen door was closed, so the further he got away from me, the more he looked like those awful pieces of art I used to do in junior high. The ones where you have to graph a poster board with ruler and pencil along with some piece of horrible art, then you have to reproduce it square by painstaking square.

I must have fallen asleep because the cronies (or servants) woke me sometime during the early morning hours when it was still dark, but I could see the dawn just barely beginning. They took me to the graphed-art-screen-door and told me to look at what was immediately in front of me. I saw the black haired man dressed the same as he had been when he left only he had come back with something. It was a carousel pony. I was taken back just then to times in my childhood when my mother would take me to ride the carousel at the fair which was just down the way from our house. I loved the carousel ponies with their bright colors and impressive manes. Their faces always made me uncomfortable. They always seemed to be in pain and screaming. Like they were once alive, but were caught just at the moment of an awful death, so their expressions would be cast forever in wood and paint. This pony he had stuck in the soft ground by its front hooves. It looked like it was a frozen running pony. I thought that,at any minute, it might come to life and run right into the ground. He gestured to the carousel figure as if to say,"See what I have brought you! Isn't it wonderful!" Then, he moved away from the wooden pony and that is when I realized that his arm and hand had been supporting something. When he moved away, that something fell out from behind the pony. It was a woman's naked body. He had positioned her in exactly the same way that the pony was stuck in the ground. I wondered why I didn't see her arms and legs before. I took a closer look at her and realized, as my heart stopped and sank dreadfully into my stomach, that he had cut off her arms at the elbows and her legs at the knees. I was frozen to my spot and all I could do was stand there and watch his face as he looked at me with sheer happiness and not a little madness. I noticed that he had painted her face and body with ochre red paint. She had a wide stripe that ran across her face from ear to ear and from her eyebrows to just below her nose. She had another wide stripe painted across her abdomen just at the place where her waist curved inwards. The last one was across her thighs; two slashes made to look like one. He had painted the ends of her limbs as well with the same red paint. As I watched, he told her,"Model". Then, she tried to twist and wriggle her way to an attractive position. It was horrifying. She didn't speak, so I can only guess that he had cut out her tongue as well. (She gave a scream so extravagant.) He kept her there, wriggling in the dirt for the rest of the night and I was forced to watch as he made her assume position after position. Finally, his servants drew me away from the cutting-graphed-damned-art door to the bedroom. There was no light except from the curtained window. (There was a screen on the window as well. It seemed as though the world had been cut up into little squares.) The door was locked and there was no way out save the window, but it was so small that a house cat would have had to sqeeze through it. I collapsed on the bed, more afraid than I had ever been in my life. I felt like I was crazy. I didn't just see what I just saw. He had presented her to me, along with the carousel pony, as a gift. It was like he wanted to show me his artwork. As my heart continued to pound in my chest and I felt the cold sweat creep over me, I kept thinking,"Everything is cut. Everything is cut into tiny, little bitty squares." I couldn't fathom the meaning. My heart stopped, jolting me out of my thoughts, when I heard the door lock turn and the hinges of the door groan. My whole body was paralyzed. I was so afraid. I could hear myself breathing in rapid, ragged breaths. At first, I smelled him, earthy and sweet, then I turned to see him enter the room and in the halflight of the dawn, I could see that he was carrying something in his hands. He stood in front of the bedroom window to let the dappled light fully expose him. He reached out his arms in offering towards me and with his unbelievably blue eyes glowing with preternatural light, he offered me,wordlessly, her bloody, severed head.


This is something I had to post. This was the dream I had last night and it has been with me all day and is still with me now. This has never happened to me, to my knowledge. I'm pretty sure that it's just a dream. Nevertheless, I'm freaked out. Not only did that happen, but after I woke up and stayed up for about an hour and a half, I went back to sleep and dreamed about that man again, only this time, he was threatening to kill my dad. I'm scared to go to sleep right now. This is the first time, EVER, that I have seen someone's face in my dream. I realized that as I was writing it. That's pretty important, I think. Anyway, whoever prays, I would appreciate some prayer. I've actually been having nightmares pretty regularly lately, I just haven't been posting about them much. I probably should write about them though.

No-No Parts

I feel: dorky

From The Guide to Getting it On:
~Western religions have never done too well with the notion of women and sexuality. For instance, early Christians taught that a virgin daughter occupied a higher place in heaven than her mother, since the mother must have had sex for the daughter to have been born. And around 400 A.D., Christianity's St. Jerome wrote,"Though God can do all things, He cannot raise a virgin after she has fallen" (Epistles 22). Not even God can help you when you lose your virginity, if you are a woman anyway. It's never been a problem for men, but then again, we're the ones who wrote the scriptures. (You don't have to be religious to know that when a boy has intercourse for the first time, he becomes a man. Yet a girl who has intercourse loses her virginity and is no longer pure as the driven snow, assuming she was in the first place.)

Rigid as St. Jerome may have been about women's virginity, he was quite the feminist compared to some of his Christian and Jewish predecessors. For instance, one early church father described women as "a temple built over a sewer," with sewer referring to their genitals. Men who made statements like these were later declared saints.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that many adult women who are unable to have orgasms were reaised in households where the temple/sewer notion still holds sway.

To this day people still equate a woman's personal reputation with her appetite for sex: if her sex drive is too low, she is cold or frigid; too high and the sewer floods the temple, in which case she is called easy or a slut, whore, ho, or nympho. In Britain, the term is "slag." While young men are free to strut their sexuality, young women learn to carefully regulate theirs. Otherwise, they risk being called dirty words.

Contrary to what makes sense, women are often the first to accuse other women of being sluts or whores. Men may have been the bozos who wrote the anti-woman theology, but women can be its cruelest enforcers. Also, scripture tells us that Jesus of Nazareth was loving a respectful toward women. Why did the church fathers who followed him have so many problems with this? And if the human body was made in the image and likeness of God, as scripture says, why were church leaders so rejecting of women's genitals and sexuality? Had God been drinking the day He crafted the clitoris and vagina? (pgs 17-18)~

Holy crap. This is the first time ever that I have ever felt good about my womanly parts. I know it sounds silly, but I never really thought that my entire body was made in God's image, only the presentable parts. It was told/suggested/insinuated to me that my breasts and crotch area were the no-no parts, so I have always felt dirty about them. Like just having them on my body made me somehow less than worthy. I also learned how to show and use my no-no parts to get things that I wanted, like love or the facsimile of it. I have also believed in my heart all along that since I'm not a virgin, that I'm tainted, used goods. I can't even regard myself as a valuable person, only a commodity that is either buyable or spoiled. Most of the men that have drifted/wandered in and out of my life have treated me that way and I realize only now that it wasn't entirely their fault. It's what I believed about myself. I just didn't fully realize it. I'm not saying that I deserved to be molested as a child or raped 4 times in the years after, physically/verbally/emotionally abused by my mother, father, grandparents and various other people in my life I couldn't stand up to. What I'm saying is that all of these things led more and more to my feeling that my body is a dirty, shameful thing. Most of my life, I've been victimized. I think it's about time for me to take myself under my wing and learn to love my body as a creation of God. I think it's time for me to realize fully that God made me just the way He wanted me. I'm not dirty. I'm not a mistake. I'm not damaged goods. I'm a person. I'm valuable and precious. I think it's time for me to start really taking these things into my heart. The things that make me a woman are not shameful because God made them. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. Don't look for me to be running naked through the streets any time soon, but I hope I no longer feel like I have to use my sexuality in order to try to manipulate people into giving me what I want. It's so easy to get dressed up to go out and plump up my breats so that they look inviting or to wear my make-him-stop-dead-in-his-tracks jeans. (Every woman has a pair of those. You know, the ones that make your butt look fabulous.)I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with doing those things. It's my motivation that's wrong. I tell myself that I want to be stylish. I pride myself on not following the herd, so my fashion sense tends more toward 50's retro or old school punk than what's trendy now. It's really, really easy to tell myself that I'm just trying to look my best or that my cup of style runneth over.
I started the new summer session on Tuesday. That morning, while driving to my Psychosexual Behavior class, I was sitting in traffic and saw this on the back of a car in front of me while we were sitting at a traffic light:

HOOCHIE

At first I thought,"I don't think I would be advertising that." Then I thought how weird it was for me to see that on my way to a class about the sexual behavior of humans. Today, I thought about the different meanings of words in different social situations and how it means different things to different people. Yet another case of my making a snap judgment with my mind clamped shut when I think I'm so progressive.

I've also been noticing all week people's sexual behavior. No, I haven't been watching porn. I am by nature a people watcher and I notice little things about people when I'm in public. Body language, conversations and such. I'm addicted to these two reality tv shows on VH1: Kept and Strip Search. I know most of the reality shows are annoying, but for some reason I like these. I noticed this week the sexual behaviors of the men and women on these shows. It's so interesting how even when we're clothed we can be sexual. I'm not talking about being inapropriate in public. What I notice are things like how couples stand close to each other when they are newly infatuated with each other, how men and women act in a club situation versus how they act at lunch or dinner. I have watched on those shows men come in thinking they are God's gift to every woman and leaving with their tail between their legs. I don't think this is funny and I'm not man-bashing. I am simultaneously amazed at how fragile egos are and I'm glad that I'm not alone with my fragile one.

One last thing. Earlier today, as I was drving home from class, I saw a tractor trailer carrying a refrigerated trailer. On the side of the trailer it said,"Rhett Butler Trucking". I immediately started thinking about the movie 'Gone With The Wind' and how sexy I thought the character of Rhett Butler was. I remember the first time I saw that movie, I wanted a man like Rhett Butler even though he had so much machismo and he was so self-destructive. I thought he was sex on a stick. Then, I thought how weird it was that a trucking company would name itself after a character in a book/movie. But Rhett Butler was a business man. He was into making profit off war and other people's ensuing pain. I thought if he were a real person and alive today, he would probably be in the trucking business. As I was driving along, I had an image of Rhett Butler standing at the trailer door of Scarlett O'Hara in overalls with a trucker hat, a cigarrette hanging from his lip and a Billy Ray Cyrus-esque mullet saying,"Frankly, Scarlett,I don't give a damn." I crack myself up sometimes.

Visions

I feel:: contemplative

Saturday night, at about 10:00pm, I got a call from Stephanie, who is my ex-ex Erik's ex. (I know that's confusing, but just stay with me.) She is the one whom he had been seeing for seven years while he had been seeing me for eight years. She said she wanted to meet me so that we could talk. She wanted me to meet her at a club called Visions, which is a strip club/tattoo parlor/piercing palace. I normally don't frequent strip clubs, but I went anyway because I really wanted the chance to talk to her. Well, first of all, the club is about 45 minutes away from my house and I left at 11:00pm. I was going to go to church on Sunday morning, so I figured I would just stay there for a couple of hours. The road to get there is right off of the freeway exit, but it's not a frontage road, it's more like a little country road that most people forget about. As a matter of fact, that road is the same road that I tried to take to Conway the other night to get to my friend Ashley's house when the traffic was backed up for forty miles because of a bad tractor trailer wreck.(I found out a few days later that the tractor trailer had burned along with several cars.) It turns out that this road ends at the city dump. The club sits right in front of it. Well, my unfamiliarity with the area and the darkness helped me to totally miss the road and take the access road back to the freeway. (The access road to the freeway is right beside the nearly invisible entrance to the little country road.)So, I had to drive 10 miles down the freeway to Mayflower in order to find a place to turn around and then drive the 10 miles back to Maummelle and attempt to find the entrance to that damned road again in the dark. I finally found it and took it down to the entrance to Visions. I parked, got out of my car and was immediately assaulted by the incredible smell of the city dump. I swallowed the vomit that was threatening to rise and managed to make my way to the main door with some dignity. Inside the foyer, the walls were covered with the kind of metal that is used to cover outdoor buildings. You know, it's grooved, very flexible and very flimsy. When there are tornadoes here, you can see this metal strewn about everywhere. I came upon a window in the wall to see a youngish girl sitting in a cubby hole with a cash register. She asked to see my i.d. and then she took a 10 dollar bill from the counter beside her and quickly pushed it into the register. I looked at her, confused, and she said,"She already paid for you." I assumed she meant Stephanie, but I also have a friend who works there, Chastity, so it could have been her. I don't know, but I thanked them both, just in case. She reached down and pressed a buzzer to open the only door. The door clicked, I pushed, and walked into the interior of the club. There were two stages connected in sort of a figure 8 design with long metal poles stuck in the middle with one girl on each stage, each in a different state of undress. Both were tall (Well, they looked tall with their 7 inch platform heels on.), thin, with very, very high breasts (I'm suspecting boob jobs all around.). I saw Stephanie sitting at a table in a corner by the bar, so I went over to her. I sat down beside her not realizing that the chairs were on castors. I happened to sit down a bit too quickly and my chair rolled backwards a few feet with me in it. I laughed at myself, turned to look to my right where a group of Hispanic men were also laughing. Oh well, I provided them with family entertainment. After our hellos and a hug from Chastity, who had just come offstage, Stephanie started talking about Erik. She talked about him for the next 4 hours. I could tell she was really hurting. She kept talking about all of the hurtful things he had done to her. She told me despite all he has done, that she still loved him unconditionally. She said they had talked recently about what all has been going on and she told him that the door was open for him to come back, but it would only stay open for so long. I feel bad for her. It's one thing to love unconditionally, but I don't think that unconditional love includes letting someone abuse and take advantage of you. I think it's time for her to let him go. Of course, that decision is not up to me and I don't think, at this point, that she would really listen to anything I had to say. I honestly don't think he cares for her as much as she loves him. I don't think Erik even has the merest inkling of a concept of what it means to love someone. How can he love her when he's sleeping with four or five other women? He just wants to have her as his safe haven like he did with me. He wants to be able to go out and sleep with whomever he deigns and be able to know that he can have the comfort and surety that she will be there waiting for him. I did that for eight years. I was blinded by what I thought was love. I thought he loved me. Stephanie thinks that he loves her. She is blinded as well. At one point during the night, she started talking about her daughter and how much she loves Erik. It brought tears to her eyes. Her daughter is seven years old. She asked Stephanie recently that if she was a very good girl, could she have anything she wanted for her upcoming birthday. Stephanie, being a loving mother, said yes. She said,"If I'm a very good girl, will Erik come home?" Heart-wrenching. Erik doesn't even realize how much he's hurting his own children. He's living with his ex-wife and sleeping with her, plus the four or five other women he's seeing. His son is going to take his father's actions as an example and think it's ok to treat women as objects. His daughter is going to see her father's example and think it's ok for men to abuse women.

I sat in my rolling chair and listened to all of this with an aching heart. I didn't even notice the dancers or anyone else around us for most of the time I was there. I looked at my cell phone for the time when a lull came in the conversation and realized that it was about 4am. So much for going to church. My sinuses were killing me because of all the smoke in the club and I was really tired, so I told Stephanie and Chastity that I had to leave, got big hugs and kisses from both of them, and made my way past the leering men positioned in a line along the back wall to the only exit door. I waved good bye to the girl in the cubby hole, who looked like she was almost asleep and prepared myself for another onslaught to my nose and stomach as I pushed the outer door open. Again, the stench was unbelievable. A man who was sitting outside the door, (He was sitting there when I came up as well. I can't believe he sat outside all night. He must be used to the smell.) just to the right, spoke to me as I walked toward my car. "Have fun?", he asked. I replied,"I just talked." "Talked? You mean, you didn't notice the dancers?", he asked quizzically. I said,"Well, there's only so many naked women a person can look at without becoming desensitized, after all, if you've seen one dancer..." He raised his eyebrows, nodded his head and said,"Yeah, yeah, you're right about that."

Disappointment

I feel:: crushed

I found out this morning by reading J's online journal that he has had a crush for 3 years on this girl he knows who is his best friend. Wow, don't I feel like an idiot. He posted that he didn't know whether or not to tell her because he said,"I have found out from experience that women around here don't like to be told the truth." So, I responded,"Just tell her. You will always wonder what happened if you don't." I figure that's a healthy attitude, right? I still feel like the last person to be picked for kickball.

Get Gnarly!

I feel:: excited
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: something by A Perfect Circle

Renee and I went to see the Tony Hawk extreme sport thing at Alltell earlier. Skateboarders, BMX-ers, Freestyle Motocross-ers. It was just awesome. I loved it. I wish it had lasted longer. I whooped and hollered like I was at a concert. The MC was working the crowd and he would say things like,"Ok, on 3 everybody scream 'GET GNARLY!' " So I screamed along with all of the kids around us. I haven't had that good of a time since....well, I can't remember. Definitely going to go back when they return next year. I might even go buy that Tony Hawk video game. I just got sucked in and I found myself wondering why there were no women doing these things. Then, I wished I could because it looks like SO much fun.

Last night, I went out with this guy named Larry who was running sound for the Tony Hawk show (That's how I got to be there. He left two will-call tickets for me at the door.)We went to Senor Tequila and had a good dinner, but unfortunately he hit upon the kiss of death for any man who wants to go out with me.
#1: He told me I look like Bette Midler. In fact, he thought I looked so much like her that I could impersonate her.

#2: He made a joke that he could see the new growth of my hair. I color my hair. Most people who know me know that I do. I'm not ashamed of it, but DON'T tell me that I have roots.

#3: At one point when I was hanging out with him in his hotel room, he vanished into the bathroom for about half an hour. He flushed the toilet 3 times. I should have known that he was going to be taking care of bidness when he said quickly,"You can turn on the tv if you want to." I had to pee really bad, but I didn't want to brave the funk that I knew was floating in there like a green fog.

So, right after he returned from his bathroom dissappearance, I left. I didn't really get too far inside his hotel room. I sat down in the chair that was immediately inside the door and I sat on the very edge of it the entire time I was there so I could jump and run if I needed to. He didn't really make me nervous, but you never know what people are capable of. Anway, I got a free dinner and a free ticket to an awesome show.

I Have A Question

I feel:: awake
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Rammstein~Ohne Dich

What does it mean when you dream that your kitchen appliances are talking to you?