Say fuck the lemons and bail

Blogging with my besties!

Prompt: Do you have any shame associated with your sexuality? Where does that shame stem from?

So, I think I used to have a lot of shame surrounding my sexuality? I've talked a lot about how I refused to admit my queerness because of howmy mom made me feel about what my queerness would mean to her. I knew I was queer when I was about twelve, I think, and I don't necessarily know what it was that was my "oh yeah, ok, so I'm a little gay, maybe?" moment? I can think of a few, like Debra Winger playing Emmet in the movie Made In Heaven, Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I knew. It wasn't a question, really, it was more a lack of understanding, because I had crushes on boys, too. Elijah Wood was my first age appropriate celebrity crush, after Mark Summers being my first male crush. But I had never been told about girls who like boys AND girls, nobody talked about being bi or queer when I was younger. I think the first person to ever mention bisexuality to me was Amber, and when she told me she kissed her friend Bambi I remember thinking to myself, "ooooooooh, that's a REAL thing?" but not feeling terribly secure in whateverslutty gay stuff was girding itself in my loins. 

I did a lot...and I mean a LOT...of gay shit when I was younger. The first time I ever engaged in sex with a femme I was 16, and I was like, oh. Yeah, ok, this felt great, but I told myself that this was only for a hot story to tell boys. Boys like girls who like girls in a flirty way, or a tee hee we're so drunk way, right? I didn't know anything about being sexual fo myself, I couched my sexual interests in the things I thought boys would like, and because I didn't think I was supposed to like girls, I pushed away any desire to figure out what was hot to gils. And I am included in that. So much of my sexuaity was centered around making myself attractive to people I wanted to be attracted to me that I had no idea about my ACTUAL sexuality until my twenties. 

I was with Dan, a historically crummy lay, when I started allowing myself to entertain the idea that maybe I was a lesbian. In fairness to me, I only thought I was a lesbian and not bi/queer/pan because Dan was such a monumentally shitty fuck that I assumed my lack of enjoyment over the span of years was because I actually wanted to munch box exclusively rather than thinking, "oh, maybe this guy just doesn't know how to fuck, and I am too afraid to tell him how to do it. That clearly wasn't it, but I hadn't ever allowed myelf to admit that alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll of the gay shit I did with femmes was because I wanted to. I was deeply ashamed of being interested in women, and I know for a long time I was scared of being a lesbian. Like if I weren't all in either way, something was wrong with me. 

I don't know if this is something that's common with all people who are bisexual, but even now as a person who is very proudly out, I have this always looming sense of not belonging and imposter syndrome. ike I'm only playing at being queer, or I'm only playing at being straight, and I need tto make a choice or I'm doing something wrong. I wonder if the shame comes leess from the actual fact that I'm queer and I have no genital preference or gender preference, and more from the fact that think I had been trrained all of my life for every choice to be binary, and not conforming to that in one of the biggest ways of all.

Now, I am almost exclusively trying to find queer spaced to situate myself in because I long to be known as queer, but I sill feel like I am somehow performing incorrectly. I am ashamed of my queerness not because it exists, but because I am both erased by society and my communiy at large...for whatever reason,the queer community LOVES a binary and kind of ostracizes you if you don't pick a lane...but I am erased by society and by my own sexuality, because I happened to fall in love with a cis man. I do not appear queer enough, because my queerness is invisible unless I shout about it, so I shout about it as often as I can, but I still feel like an imposter in my own desires. Like if I could just manifest them correctly, I would be the right kind of bisexual. The right kind of queer. 

I've gone from being ashamed of my sexuality because I'm bi from being ashamed of my sexuality because I can't seem to be bi corretly in ways that make my sexuality valid. 

I'm not a duck, I'm a human

We are back to blogging!!!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Today

Activity: Blogging with the bestie

Activity Prompt: Write about a time you were in a toxic relationship. How did you recognize that toxicity and what did you do to get out of it?

Alone or with partners: I SAID BLOGGING WITH THE BESTIE

Drink and snack with activity: I had an Italian sparkling mineral water and some keto candied nuts, because I'm a fucking grown up.

This is a tough choice for me. Do I want to write about my relationship with my mother? riting about Rhyann's dad is too easy and also too painful, because of all of the toxic relationships I've had and walked away from, that's the only one that cost me anything real, and that wound is forever fresh, even with my amazing baby now living wih me. I am making the conscious choice to not include Chris on this list, even though I could write about that for years and never be done. Do I want to write about my relationship with Allen, which is both the healthiest relationship I've ever had and violently toxic? Should I write about Dan, who gets all of my emotional turmoil heat? Should I write about my husband? How about my friends, as I think a good deal of my friendships have an element of toxicity to them, as well?

.....It is looking like I make bad choices.

I think I'm going to try and write about everyone, and we'll see how far I get by the time Amber is done.

Starting with my mother:

I feel like, to some degree, all children have a toxic relationship with their parents. I did not ask to be born, I did not get a say in my parents or family, and yet I have been conditioned and expected to love my parents unconditionally, by virtue of their status in my life. Which...again...wasn't earned. I read a little quote on Tumblr once that said. "just because your mother didn't break every generational curse doesn't mean she didn't break any", and while I want to give my mother credit for trying in the ways I'm sure she did, I can also recognize that she still fucking sucks as an individual. My father has said to me that she's my mom, and I owe her my love, and the thing is...I fucking don't owe her shit. I am not sure how to fully write about how toxic she is, but I can point some things out. When I asked my mom how she'd react if I told her I was queer, she freaked out and then was visibly relieved when I said I was asking for a friend. My mom told me I wasn't allowed to dress like a whore or have male friends, imparting ideas to me that I was not going to be afforded agency or trust. I wasn't allowed to dress myself, or wear make up, or listen to the music I wanted. My mom chose everything for me until I was kicked out of the house. My mom talked shit about my friends to my face, my mom was physically and emotionally abusive, my mom was never at all willing to undersand that other people have feelings and always centered herself. My mom treated me like her personal therapis and best friend, which is a line I do not think parents should cross. My mom is racist, sexist, ableist, and transphobic. I have thirty some odd years of seeing how toxic my mother is and dealing with it out of some weird sense of obligation because she gave birth to me, and the most freeing aspect of my relationship with her was realizing that it IS my choice, and I took that relatioship away because she didn't deserve it. I have been no contact with my mother since 2018, and my life is all the richer for her absence. Her ideologies make me embarassed that I am biologically forced to share space with her, and I wish her exactly the kind of life her vileness deserves. I have known about her toxicity for years and tried to gently meet her where she's at in the hopes of moving the needle, but when I understood there was no hope to be found and she didn't deserve my kindness, and that I was also doing my own unlearning journey a disservice by keeping active shitheels in my circle, I cut her the fuck off. And good fuckin' riddance to terribly, awful rubbish.

My relationship with Allen is trickier. In so many aspects of our time as a unit, Allen is the healthiest relationship I've ever had. The first argument we ever had, I called Allen a piece of shit, or an asshole, or something to hat effect and he stopped me and said, "hey, I know we're mad at each other, but let's not call each other names". And like...freshly out of my terrible relationship with Chris, I didn't know what to do with that. Allen and I were young, I think I speak for both of us when I say we were really and truly in love with each other in the way that only really fucking young, unjaded kids get to enjoy, it only happens once like that in a lifetime, I think. For a few years, we were amazing partners. We had each other's backs, I would have readily stabbed someone for Allen. In so many ways, I would still stab someone for him...but I may also just be looking for reasons to knife a bitch. Even our breaak up, while not fun because no break up ever is, was so amicable and loving that we were roommates for years. Allen was my best friend for such a long time. He was my rock. But the last...oh, I think 14 years? It's taken a nasty turn. I think so many people don't remain friends with their exes so they don't get exmples of how their exes ACTUALLY see them outside of being a partner. Allen thinks very little of me. He thinks less of his responsibilities to our daughter. Allen has been content to let me shoulder the burden of Alex's deep lows while taking part in her high highs and acting like he's the most involved parent. In his most recent visit here, while discussing that it's his turn to be Alex's primary parent because she fucking needs him, he told me that this isn't something he can just say yes to, he has to talk to his wife. But like...has he given me and Derek any kind of agency or ask about whether or not we're ok with having Alex? No. It's a luxury he thinks he deserves and an obligation he demands I fulfill. It is toxic to the very core to lay all of the responsibility at one parent's feet and then expect them to give you all the space in the world to faff about and do whatever. The last two years have really shown me how toxic his view of our relationship is, because I've called on him in emergenies when I was at my wits end and he ignored me. Couldn't even lie and say he was busy but be heard my message and would respond to me as soon as he could. Allen assumes I am going to handle everything and that he has none responsibility to help. He sends money for Alex's wegovy, but none to help me care for his daughter, and his relationship wih her sucks, too. He's not engaged, and while this blog isn't about heir relationship, it certainly says some pretty fucked up shit when you can't even engage with your kid and you have to be bullied into it. I feel like Allen has turned me into a fucking bully, because if I don't nag him to take an interest in the help I need, he will ignore the fuck out of me. What kind of a fucking depraved, unkind, dick of a human does that to a person that he once loved so much. I remember once listetning...very drunkenly...to the Eels' song Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor, and Allen got so upset about the idea of me dying that he cried for two hours inconsolably. This was in the beginning of our relationship, in the idyllic era where I was 21, he was 23, an the world couldn't touch us for anything. Not poverty, not homelessness, not distance. We loved each other once, and now all I feel is a profound sadness that I was either lied to or blind about who Allen is and how he really thought of me. We are not close like we used to be, though we aren't unfriendly, but I do not like who Allen is, and I am frankly fucking sick of him being such a cunt about how he handles our relationship as parents and as people who know the darkest things about each other and still chose to love each other once upon a time.

Amber just said she is done, so I am going to try an wrap this up. I would like to write about Dan and Derek, but I think I'm just going to choose my relatinship with Derek. You win this round, Dan!

I want to be clear that I deeply and truly love my husband. While I do not think I love him in the limitless way I loved Dan and Allen, I do think I love Derek with an understanding of what love is and a clarity about it thtt I've never had before. I actively choose my husband every day, and there are days where it's hard and I really weigh my options, but more often than not choosing Derek is easy, and I am happy to have him as my husband 11 years later. For whatever it's worth, I am still so wildly attracted to him, he just gets sexier eveery fucking day and I don't know how he manages that, but I'm nott going to complain about it.

However.

I've born the brunt of Derek's extremely fragile ego, and his need for validation...a thing he has vocalized is pathetic in others when he notices it. For several years at the beginning of our marriage, Derek was straddling the line between flirting with other women and inappropriate behavior with other women. While Derek assures me he never once touched another woman sexually since we've been monogamous, in my heart I do not believe him. And it's a horrendous thing, to carry that around. For all outward appearances, Derek has not worked at understanding that the distrust he sowed in me doesn't go away, and he is just...not a trustworthy person to me. He ridicules me and tells me I'm "crazy" about his female friends, has told me he can't evevn ttalk to me about his female friends because he knows how I'll get...but when I remind him that I struggle with his female friendships because of HIM, not them, he rolls his eyes an is outright dismissive. He doesn't understand that I WANT to have a male partner who sees women as valuable and worthy of friendship, because women arevaluable and worthy of friendship. I WANT to have a male partner who doesn't see women a just objects he can fuck as a means of chasing his own validation, or seeking his own pleaure, I want to have a male partner who is capable of real, true friendship with women because of who they are, sex would never be on the menu even if that male partner were single. I want that so fucking badly, because I am tired of hearing about the friend zone like i's a dirty word, and that the worst thing you can have as a man is a female friend who never wants to fuck you. I want the things he thinks I'm crazy about, and it is forever irksome that he can't understand that it's HIM who makes me nervous, not the women he knows. I hear how Derek talks about women, I've heard him when he thought I was asleep eating up all of the heinously vile and sexist stories one of his best friends old him about how he treats women, I heard how Derek talks about women's bodies especially if they're fat, I know how many lines he crossed (or, more upsettingly, I don't), and I don't trust Derek's motives. I really and truly don't. And he is so self assured that he didn't do anything wrong that he still, eight years later, prefers to say the distrust is about me and not him. I don't even get the benfit of his admittance or contrition. I am told that this is all in my head when I tell Derek that I STILL feel ugly and not good enough. I don't feel desired, or like I'm his first choice. Or a choice at all.

I could write more. Again, I love my husband, but he is not a good partner, and I deserve better in a lot of ways. He loves me in the ways that work for him, I think, but so often I find myself wondering if that is actually love he feels for me, or just...habit. In a lot of ways I feel the same way I felt when I was with Dan. Dan bought me things a lot as a means of placation, I think, because he either couldn't give me what I wanted or needed, or didn't want to. But I just want to feel loved by someone, and I feel like I love Derek, but I am not really sure Derek loves me. Maybe the thing I mean to say is that I want to feel loved and CHOSEN. I want to feel chosen, and I don't. I mostly feel like I am afforded things because Derek loves me, but it's the limit of the way he can. Loving me in a way that ACTUALLY puts me first by acknowledging me and seeing me? That's the thing I want. I like being spoiled and having my whims catered to, and make no mistake that Derek works hard as fuck to realize things for me. He is downstairs right now making me a pair of emarald green wings for my studio. But at the same time, I told him I would do them today so he didn't have to, and he told me fuck no, I would do them wrong and I don't have any idea how to space the feathers, and he was not terribly nice about me wanting to be involve when he said he was super tired. And when I said I would help him do them he said, "no, I don't want you tto touch them, you just get frustrated". I can'trelly explain how much that hurts without taking up way more time than I already have, but trust that it stings an doesn't really feel like him doing something FOR ME.

I didn't sell his toxicity becaue I am pressed for time, but it's there. I ould write about it! One day!

Like a bath mat you can jerk off to

Listen. It is snowing and I have been shit at my daily walks. But that's fine.

Today

Activity: Blogging with the bestie

Activity Prompt: Think about how fantasies have played a role in your sexual life. How do they enhance or complicate your experiences?

Alone or with partners: I SAID BLOGGING WITH THE BESTIE

Drink and snack with activity: I had a polar seltzer

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls: Yup

Blogilates morning abs: Nope

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5: NO IT IS SNOWING

10:

11:

12:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking:

Shoulder shrugs during the day: Not today!

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: I did barre and cycling today!

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling: Barre and cycling!

45 minutes of weight lifting:

Macros

Carbs:

Fat:

Protein:

Calories: I am not gonna lie, I stopped keeping track last weekend during my shoots in STL.

There really isn't much to fantasy for me when it comes to sex. I am a very creative, imaginative persnn for practically anything else, but I have never been a fantasy person. Maybe I'm too clinical for fantasies? Sex is very much about desire, and when I have sex, it is about physical connection of the hot andsexy variety, but I don't fantasize about it. I've never been into porn, or book smut, I get like...a feeeling in my body that I register as desire and I just hold on to that. I don't imagine stuff, I don't have fantasies that ttake place in places with people, I don't even think of people if I'm masturbating. It's just...it's always just been sex. Whichh is plenty hot and fine, I'm not upset about it.

As for how it impacts my sexual encounters, it hasn't for me? But maybe it makes me a bad sex partner? Maybe I'm a super boring fuck because fantasy has never been something I ask about or play into or care about.

Alcohol fueled cattiness and a strange amount of semen

Well fuck. I've been not so great this week. And by week I mean year. It's just been a whole lot of pain for me, so I've had trouble getting much physical shit done. 

Today

Activity: Blogging with the bestie!

Activity Prompt: Describe a situation in which you felt shame or guilt. How did you move past those feelings?

Alone or with partners: Me and bestieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Drink and snack with activity: I'm having dinner, halal cart "chicken" with cabbage, and a polar seltzer

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls: Yes

Blogilates morning abs: Yes

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5: No bitch it is legit 0 degrees out.

10:

11:

12:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking:

Shoulder shrugs during the day: Yes

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: No. My back pain is at flare time.

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling:

45 minutes of weight lifting:

Macros

Carbs: 23/23

Fat: 137/144

Protein: 99/116

Calories: 1814/1850

So while I was filling out my macros, I was trying to force my brain into focusing on any other time I've felt shame or guilt, because I didn't want to write about this one. I have lived a SUPER shameful, embarassing, guilt-ridden life, are you fucking kidding me? I write stories in my main blog about my shame all the time. But this story just got stuck in my teeth and there was no shaking it loose.

Back in 2011, when I was still with Dan, I had a pretty solid routine down. I would wake up at 4:30 AM at Dan's to go home, pick Allen up, and take him to work, hen I would go back home and sleep for an hour or two before waking Alex up a7:30. I would take my daughter to school every morning, a few days a weeek I would go to work, I would pick my daughter up from school, play with her for a few hours, make her dinner if it was my night, give her a bath, and then go over to Dan's house for the night, to start all over again. Most nights I would eat before I went over to Dan's, because like...no joke, I'm prety convinced he had an eating disorder. We were together for a long time, and I only really recall him eating like a human on, I don't know, maybe five occasions? Otherwise he ate like a fucking bird. A dead bird. Like a seed and an avocado with some water, though maybe the dude just got all of his macros from beer. He would kill a least 3 or 4 beers a night, MAYBE a six pack, though I can't say that for sure. He did have to stop for beer on his way home almost every fucking night. And I damn near lived with him, so I would get a extthat rang along the lines of, "you can make your way over to me now, babe, I'm stopping to get beer". I do not remember Dan ever having like....human food in his apartment. The few times he did it was because I offered to cook for him, but for real, we would legit at avocados with a bit of oil and some salt and pepper. I'm beefy, bitch! I need snacks!! Keep snacks in your apartment for your rubenesque wench. Better snacks than avocados. Which I love, but like...grow up, you fucking weirdo. Learn about real food. Or like...sorry about your eating disorder. Whichever one is more appropriate.

Sometimes Dan would get take out. Now, I have never been very high brow. I know food, I love food, I'm a great cook, but expensive dining was just not something I gave a fuck about. When Derek and I started dating, we talked about where we would take dates to measure how worthy they were of our time. Derek's place was McKenzie's Chop House in downtown Colorado Springs, a pretty nice steak house. Derek took me there after months of us dating, though I am pretty sure that I failed his eating lithmus test on our first trip together when I got drunk and ate all of his leftovers. I would take my dates to the same place, as well, but mine was way more low key. If I went on a first date with someone and I thought they were cool, the second date was to Taco Express, very lovingly referred to as "Greasy". Could my new interests kick it with a Corona and some messy as fuck Mexican food? Not a lot of people could, I wish that weren't true.

I didn't actually take Dan there, because I legit do not think he was cool enough to hang. As the years have gone by, I have realized tha I did not like Dan very much, I did not think very highly of him, I thought he was pretty fucking boring, honestly, and wildly uncool. One of the nicest things Allen ever said to me was that I made Dan so much cooler, and it was truly unfair that other women would get the benefit of all of my hard work. Thanks, bro bro.

So again, I didn't take Dan to Greasy, but if I was spending a weekend with my friends, he would text me to ask what I was doing, and I would usually say I was drunk with my besties, we got Greasy, and we were dancing and smoking and generally having a great time. I talked about Greast a LOT, and I was kind of fucking angry when I got a random weekend text from Dan telling me he and his friends went to Greasy and they thought it was amazing. Well yeah, man. It's Greasy, of course it is.

But that went into Dan's take out repertoire, but ONLY if he had gone out with his friends, not invited me, and then wanted to drunkenly fuck me when he got home. If we got Greasy, I ate way more of our usual (loaded taquitos) than he did, and he would throw out the leftovers a day or two afterwards because he never fucking ate anything in a meal portion. AND HE WAS A FUCKING RUNNER, WHERE DID HE GET HE ENERGY???

The other thing we would get is Chinese food. I wish I could remember from where, it was a pretty decent place, but one time...

one time.

I didn't have the money to cover my order, and I normally have a rule: I will not ask for food, or order anything, or go on a date if I do not have the funds to cover myself. Dan paid for everything 1000000% of the time, and I never ever ever had to ask him to do it, but if he wanted to eat somewhere, and I said yes, it was because I could take care of my own portion. I never had to, and I would find myself getting a litle complacent. Sometimes Dan would belike, want to get some Garbanzos for lunch? And I would say yes knowing I was broke, but knowing Dan would cover it.

So on this evening, I was prepping through my routine, I had just finished making Alex her dinner and I was getting ready to give her a bath, when I got a text from Dan saying I should come over in an hour, would I pick up Chinese on the way? He was running late and he couldn't stop and he just wanted to be able to come home, eat dinner with me, and have me lay on his lap for the night.

I didn't have the cash to pick up the food. I had just paid rent and electric, I was flat fuckin broke.

So I told him sorry, I didn't have the energy to grab the food.

He was like, babe. I'm starving and I've had a long day, I just want you and Chinese food, can you please pick it up.

I was like, I can pick it up if you call in what you want, I don't want any. I figured if it was just HIS food, he wouldn't make me pay for it, he'd call it in and pay for it like a normal person, and I could pick it up, eat something before heading to Dan's, and be fine.

He was ike, so if I call this in and get you an order of General Tso's chicken, you're telling me you won't eat it? And I was sarting to get agitated and embarrassed and I was like, NO, I don't want anything. So he asked again if I would just go pick up his meal, he'd pay me back, he just wanted to go straight home.

So I snapped as much as anyone could via text that I was broke and I couldn't g pick up his food for him.

And that didn't make me feel as bad as what he said next, which was:

I know. I knew you were broke and that was why you didn't want to pick  up food, I just wanted to force you to tell me. 

I was fucking MORTIFIED. Beyond mortified. The great shame I felt swell up in me is pretty fucking unmatched over forty years of shameful shenanigans. 

Dan went on to use this as some great lesson in couple's intimacy. That we had to be able to talk about these things together, I should be able to tell him when I've got money problems, blah blah blah. And like, irritatingly Dan was absolutely correct to say those things, I blame a stunning lack of intimacy on the demise of our relationship. Not that I think we would have lasted much longer than we did, it isn't like I think our lack of intimacy kept us from several long and happy years together, but I definitely think intimacy was a massive part of the misery I found myself in with Dan. But my guy, forcing me to say I'm too broke for take out was not the fucking move. Like, how is it intimacy to make your partner say something they don't want to say because they're embarrassed? 

In the time Dan and I were together, nobody knew about me. Not his brothers, not his parents, not his friends. I couldn't be facebook friends with him. Mother fucker made me guess his birthday. So hearing about intimacy from him was rich. The running gag in my friend group was that Dan was married and I was his local side piece, but in my heart of hearts, I always knew it was because he was deeply ashamed of me. 

I was cute enough to fuck, but not gorgeous.  

I had a job, but it was part time and clerical. 

I had two children already, never married. Pro and a con, I think.

I had been homeless.  

I was flighty.

I was wildly unserious and I was super in love with this about myself. 

I was artistic, but not talented. 

I was smart...in fact Dan told me on more than one occasion that I was not just smart, but perhaps the smartest person he'd ever met...but I wasn't educated. 

On paper, I was not any kind of pedigree of high quality. I was a free spirited 20 something that did enough to sustain themselves and their bad habits so they could fly through their twenties on selfish whims and bullshit. Like nature and god intended. But I was nothing compared to Dan. We met when we were 26, Dan already had his BS in something something I don't care...business something or other. He was a 2nd lieutenant in the army, though Derek says that's bottom of the barrel, he did something or other that sounded way more important than my clerical job at a real estate company. Dan had money, I did not, he had upstanding parents, I did not. I wrote once that I was like a homeless dog in Dan's shadow, acting beyond grateful for the shade, and I think that's true. I hadn't really noticed a difference in us until Dan found subtle ways to make sure I did. 

So him setting me up to admit I was not as stable as he was leveled me. I didn't end up going to Dan's that night because I was mired in shame and self loathing. 

How did I move through those feelings? 

I robbed him.

Slowly, over time, I robbed him. 

This is something I learned from the girls at the escort agency. If a man makes you feel worthless? Rob him fucking blind.

Have you considered a public tar and feathering?

I know the drill!

Today

Activity: Blogging with the besie!

Activity Prompt: I's ten questions!!!

Alone or with partners: Blogging with the bestie!

Drink and snack with activity:

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls: No!

Blogilates morning abs: No!

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5: No! I am not feeling well at all!!

10:

11:

12:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking: No! I don't feel good!

Shoulder shrugs during the day: No! I said I don't feel good, dammit!

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: No !

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling: No!

45 minutes of weight lifting: No!

Macros

Carbs:

Fat:

Protein:

Calories:

Ok, so this week we're doing like...and old school survey.

1. What is your favorite memory of us together?

This is really fucking tough, there are so many! We have almost three decades of friendship under our belts, how are we supposed to pick ONE favorite memory? I think I've got it, though. When Derek and I were getting married, it was a clear no brainer that Amber was going to be my maid of honor. Matron? Whatever. My main bitch of honor. It had been almost ten years since we had seen each other, which is far too long a time, so I think my favorite memory of us together was picking Amber up at the Denver Airport, and us running at each other and exploding intoa hug. Best memory. 

2. How do you envision our futures together as we get older?

Hopefully closer than we are now? I am happy that we blog together three nights a week, because I have missed having like, real connection time with my bestie. But I would love for us to occupy a closer space to each other where there can be several visits a year. When you think about like.....number of years left and average our visits out over the last ten years, we've seen each other three times in tten years. If we live another forty years, that's only12 more visits. If we keep at a three visit for ten years, we've got twelve visits left with each other before one of us dies. And that isn't enough. I need to live close enough to my bestie where we can see each other like, five times a year MINIMUM. 

3. What are three things you appreciate most about our relationship?

Hm. I think the thing I appreciate the most is there's no pretense. Like, I can say, "bitch I don't care what's going on with you right now, listen to what is happening to ME." and like, I bet it's aggravating, but I also know it'll be ok. And Amber can do that, too. Next, but no less important, I can be myself, however selfish or silly or dumb myself needs to be at any given time. Again, Amber can do that, too. And I think the last thing is feeling fairly certain tha I won't disappoint Amber by not being enough of anything. 

4. How do you handle stress, and how can I support you during those times?

Depends on the stress, really. Usually I need to vocalize it again and again and again while I work it out internally. I come to my own conclusions, and maybe it takes me a bit to get there, but I'll land there ifI can just rehash everything. Or even jut say I'm stressed. I'm not sure there's much that can be done, support wise? I think being there while I fiure everything out is enough. 

5. When was the last time you felt truly understood by me?

I'm not sure there's been a time where I've ever thought to myself, "I just fucking wish she really uneerstood me!" Like any misunderstandings have been superficial and not worth stressing over, because I usually assume it's an issue with how I present whatever is being misunderstood. 

6. Are there any unresolved issues between us that you would like to discuss?

I don't think so. I think tha we got to hash our shit out in Nashville, for the most part. I am hard pressed to hink of anything unresolved. This would have been a GREAT time to tell you about Cirque Du Soleil, though. 

7. What role do you think laughter and playfulness play in our relationship?

I think we've always been playful, so it's a pretty big part of our relationship. I would be shocked if you don't write somewhere in your survey about how the first time we hung out we just rolled around on your floor, which was goofy and strange and I think it really set the tone for how goofy and strange we could be together. Laughter has been a constant, even if we're having a serious conversation. 

8. What are your thoughts on our communication style and how can it be improved?

As a general rule, it's pretty good. I think it's definitely gotten better the last couple of years. My biggest beef about our relationship was that you'd ghost for however long you needed without even mentioning that you needed time to decompress, and I always felt like I never mattered when you did that. I always understood that you neededyour space and time, I just wanted  to be considered enough to be told. Honestly, communication has probably been more of a me problem the last few years, because as Ive learned to unmask, I have gotten steadily more bossy. Sometimes I bet I just need to listen instead of popping off at the mouth with telling you what to do. I hope that I ask you more often than not if yu want to just vent or if you want an opinion, but I bet I forget a lot and I end up just telling you what to do. 

9. How has our relationship evolved since we first met?

Oh, in all of the ways. Our relationship made it through a lack of internet, a lack of cell phones, a lack of access to physical closeness. We've become grown up friends that still get to be kids together, just wih grown up tastes, grown up boundaries, and grown up money. I think we are still exactly how we were thirty years ago, just...you know. Thirty years older. 

10. Are there any habits or behaviors you’d like to work on improving for the sake of our relationship?

I think I am a railroader. I worry a lot about telling you what to do, and I am concerned that it presents n idea that I think I'm morally superior to you, or I don't think you can come to your own conclusions. I never give you advice with the expectation that you take it, but I am not so sure anything I say comes off that way. If there are certain people in your life who make you feel dumb, or make you feel less thn, none of those people should be me. 

Alan Alberts and the Lobster House volume 1: Choose your Own Haunted Fish Tank

Y'all. Today and yesterday have been "I'm listening to my body" days. And my body has been saying, "stay the fuck in bed". And so I'm gonna leave the rest of the week to follow in yesterday and today's footsteps. This is all to say my metrics are trash. But like...cute trash.

Today

Activity: Blogging with the bestie!

Activity Prompt: Explain something that happened to you that is so strange that nobody believes you.

Alone or with partners: Me and bestie bloggin' it up as a twosome!

Drink and snack with activity: I am still eating my dinner, a veganified and ketoized halal cart chickenwith cabbage instead of rice.

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls: Nope!

Blogilates morning abs: Nope!

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5:

10: It's a no all the way down.

11:

12:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking: Still can't find my weighted vest! Also no.

Shoulder shrugs during the day: A few! I feel very weak today.

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: Nope!

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling:

45 minutes of weight lifting:

Macros

Carbs:

Fat:

Protein:

Calories:

One of my very favorite things in the world to do is tell stories. This isn't just a now occurance, I have loved being a story teller since I was a little girl. A family gatherings, my aunts love to recall to me how I would sit with their children, usually only afew years younger than me, and tell them long and winding stories, and my aunts would lovingly joke about how I've always been creative and imaginitive.

My daddy is my favorite storyteller. I have alway been so inspired by the way my father folds people into whatever he is talking about, whether it's one of his many ghost sightings, or a particularly funny evening he had at work. When my dad is on, it's hard not to be enthralled. I've always assumed that in our past lives, my dad and I were the ones who stayed awake to tend the fire and watch over others, and we came to know the stars intimately. We were the ones who invited others into our fold when they woke up in the long hours before dawn, and spoke fantasy into the ether and made the darker hours come alive.

Beig a storyteller is an artform, and I firmly believe it is not a thing you learn. You're either born into it, or you are our captive audience, there is absolutely no inbetween.

I was born a storyteller.

In my younger years, this meant I invented excitement and shared it with others. There are plenty of blogs I've written about where I made up ghosts and shared the stories with my friends, I would tell stories to my sisters, I wrote a play, I created whole worlds for my barbies...which were always drenched in violence...and my stuffies also went on adventures all the time. When our parents fought, I would drown out the fighting by telling my younger sister stories in the dark. Sometimes I made things up, though mostly I recited Disney movies. As I got older and life started happening to me in grander ways, my creative streak took a back seat and I started sharing real life adventures.

Like the night my grandfather died, I woke up very early in the morning, which was very uncommon, and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I took a book into the bathroom to read, and was startled when the phone rang a little bit later...a phone call that would wake my mother up to share that her father had passed away. I have always been certain I woke up the moment he died. My grandfather and I were very, very close. I'm not sure if anybody has disbelieved that story, especially against a backdrop of stories like that occuring with regularity across my lifetime. I have more unexplained stories like that than I know what to do with.

On our family trip to Ithaca, I wanted to visit my grandmother's grave, a place I have never gone to and I did not know where it was. My dad called my mom to ask her, and she said she thought it was at one cemetary in Ithaca, but didn't know for sure, as she hadn't been to her mother's grave since her funeral. As we were driving through the cemetary, I shouted STOP! to my husband, because I felt something. In my bones, in my gut, all around me, I felt something. Derek drove up to the top of the hill, which was not where I told him to stop, but when he parked, I jumped out of the car and took off in the direction of the place I felt pulled. As I heard my dad and Derek making a plan for everyone to fan out to find my grandmother, I found her grave in less than a minute. I didn't even have to look att any other graves, I walked right to her. I found her. I say now that I just knew where she was, and I did. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. My dad didn't believe me, when I yelled out, "I found her" my dad said, "no fucking way" and then walked over...it took him a minute...and was genuinely shocked. Everyone was surprised but Derek, who talks about my spirits as though they are a constant. A silent second spouse that he didn't sign up for, but is warmly resigned to having around. My dad didn't believe me, but was there to see that the story was true, and I'm not sure anybody I've recounted it to has disbelieved me.

The story of the laughing children in the hallway of the hotel galvez. The story of the girl in white at the abandoned mines outside of Vegas. The story of the voice and the impossibly slammed door in the abandoned warehouse in Walsenburg. The ghostly visits to my room in Ithaca when I was 16. The coincidences surrounding death, the ghost stories, the impossible knowing I've demonstrated my enire life, I've never really been met with skepticism, though it is possible that for all of these stories, there was always a gentle laugh once I left, and a loving, "oh you know Drea. She's a natural story teller."

The impossible things of my life, the things I've found most unbelievable, have been taken at face value with alarming consistency in contrast to the very true things that, when shared, people have no believed me about.

As a person who identifies as female, was socialized a female, and is suspected to be mostly perceived as female by others, I have almost never been believed by the masses when I share the stories about my abusers. It doesn't matter if the incident was sexual, emotional, physical, or verbal, it is those stories that people find most unbelievable. Surely I misunderstood what they meant, I've been told. Oh they would never do that to you, they're so nice to me. If that happened, you must have provoked it.

Even when I am disbelieved, I am disbelieved in a way that makes me the conductor of my own misfortune. My first abusers were my parents and my mom made sure that the one social worker who believed me and came to check up on me knew that I was, in fact,a natural storyteller. "Going through it because of the divorce" she had told the social worker warmly in the kitchen. "The bruise was actually from her falling off of her bike, you know how clumsy kids can be! She just misses her father". The idea of my mother, the inviting lady offering tea to an outsider, being a violent abuser was suddenly so exremely strange as to be unbelieavable. That social worker was the first person to throw water on my ideas of setting injusttice on fire, she would not be the last.

I am pressed to understand how a storyteller like me is dismissed out of hand for the more realistic things I share, and adored and never checked on the things we socially find the least likely.

I wish it were the other way around.