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So, yeah. I'm 21 now. Not like anybody gives a shit.

Excuse the 'tude. I'm feeling quite disheartened.

No, really, it was an okay birthday. Tremendously uneventful. I got home early Monday night, and Dave had gotten me a big bunch of roses, all different colors, and a big chocolate cake, so that was super sweet. He had to work the next day (my actual birthday), but that was no big deal since we celebrated before. Before I forget, he got me a gift certificate to the spa for my birthday. Great present. Could use more like that.
So, I was by myself on my birthday and went to the movies, since I could see one free. I saw Date Movie. I don't recommend it. I should know better. I'd seen all the crappy movies they parodied, but they couldn't think far enough outside of the box to parody them in a way I wouldn't expect. The three 12 year-old girls in the theatre enjoyed it. Oh well. It was free. (I considered asking for my money back, just to be a jackass. haha)

So, yeah...nothing much really happened. I called my parents when I got home, then I called Julie...then I went to bed....nothing.
I didn't drink. What an exciting 21 year-old I am.

(Nasty details ahead)
Today was going okay till Dave got up. We tried to fool around on the couch, but I just couldn't get myself into a position that was either comfortable or pleasant for him, and he kept going soft. He was so angry about it, and so impatient with me. I feel...I feel just plain useless. Like, what the hell have I got going for me if I can't do it on a fucking couch? A little piece of me thinks maybe everything was just really too rushed, and he was too impatient, and I was probably bleeding (which grosses him out, but hey what the fuck am I really going to do about that?), but all the same, I feel like a huge burden. It's not often that we just "give up."
The only way I could stop crying was to figure that he was just being impatient, that he's tired and pissed off about something and taking it out on me...though that's no great solace. Is this what it's going to be like for me? Always? Why do I put up with it? God, I'm really upset at myself for not being able to perform, but at the same time, I'm so pissed at him for treating me like that. I deserve patience and understanding...and if I'm not aiming myself right, then work with me for Christ's sake! I wonder how much longer I'm going to make myself go through this. It's not fucking worth it to be in another relationship where I feel inadequate and I walk on eggshells and I change what I want just to be loved. I really hope that's not what this relationship is. I love him, I really do love him. I don't love his attitude or how he treats me sometimes, though.
Sometimes I think that he's embarassed or disgusted with my body, too...What the hell do I do? I wish he could just love me how I am.

So...I'm disheartened. It's not that I'm not happy with my body...I think I could be perfectly content with myself and how I look and who I am...if it weren't for how discontent everyone else is with me. Does anyone have any good links for fat girl support? And I'm not talking weight loss. Fuck you if you offer. I'm talking about a real support system; a resource where women can talk about how their bodies really work, with real terms, not fluffy vague concepts. Not, "Oh, making love is an incredible experience", but rather, "Sometimes, I have difficulty positioning his penis to slide inside of me, so a trick I learned is..." *sigh* Maybe I'm the only one with these problems. maybe I'm just built wrong.

My last post was a bit of a weird and whiny one, and I disabled comments. While I have to reserve a person's right to post anonymously to my blog, since I have done it myself, I can't help but feel peeved there isn't at least a name. Still, I respect your right to be anonymous, "Just a cat lover", and I won't demand that you make yourself known. However, I'm more peeved at content of those posts. I'm very sure you meant well, "Cat Lover", but your tone was patronizing, and just what I was getting at in my last post. I hate to have my problems reduced by the people I complain to. I hate to be told that I'm overreacting, and that it's really nothing; and for you to suggest that really, there's just got to be someone out there that I can turn to is not helping my situation. Now, in rereading your reply, I know very well that you meant well and you just wanted to say something encouraging, but really, tell me something that I don't know. There isn't someone I can turn to because I don't trust people. It's not like there's some one magic person out there who's more special than anyone else and I can trust absolutely everything with. And really, I think I'm coming farther emotionally now more than ever because I can't turn to people. I can't turn to people who will just tell me what I want to hear and pat my head and tell me everything's okay, and just make it go away. Right now, I have to do all of this on my own. I have to come up with my own solutions and deal with my problems and complain to myself. And now I'm just really whining, great. Well, I had a point, but now I've lost it. At any rate, "Cat lover", thanks for the reply, but it's not helping to just reiterate what I hate about how other people treat me. I know I'm smart, and I know I'm worth it, but I don't get treated that way, no matter how I act. I've got to feel out my problems in a different way, and find different solutions. And now that I've gone off on you, I hope you'll still reply if you feel it necessary, maybe with a name? I don't give out this blog address to many people, so I'm concerned that it could float around to those I don't want to see. All in all, thanks for trying, "Cat Lover". I don't mean to single you out, but I had to say something.

I'm continuing to add to my Amazon.com wishlist, only now there are items for the comic production as well. Within this week, I'm going to order a portfolio, so I can store the thumbnail pages from my notebook safely, and keep them in order, so when we sit down to actually draw it on the big paper, it'll go that much more smoothly. I also added Pentel clic erasers, because I'm trying to wean myself from mechanical pencils to actual wood pencils. The mechanical kind I have, though tremendously easy and pretty and mechanical, smudge like the dickens and ruin my hard work. (Stupid leaning hand and my smudginess.) I don't think I need pens yet...I've got quite a few. But all the same, I'll see what Jon recommends for pens (I'm such a brand snob) when we get down to the final product. Let's see...there was something else I wanted to search for and add to my wishlist, but I can't figure out what. Oh wait, there was bathroom rugs and a little towel hamper, but I know that wasn't it either. Still looking, though. God, I wish I had more money...lol
I've really been able to kick myself in the ass with the comic lately, by the way. I'm finally easing up on my thumbnails, so that I can actually get pages done, instead of sitting there, looking at them forelornly because I can't figure out the layout. I'm not sure how exciting the actual comic will be, but I'm really getting into how the story will play out, especially since I now realize that I don't have to cram everything into a few issues. I can give out as much as I want in each issue and just keep it going forever and ever and ever. (though, there is a set end.)

Whew, I'm starting to feel better now that I'm working out these feelings in words. It gets all pent up inside me and it makes my head feel so heavy...I feel like I'll bust. But I feel better, like it's all fallen out of my head on the floor, and now I can just mop it up and move on.
Oh god, I'm making another wishlist for the comic stuff. I love computer organization.
Speaking of organization, wait till you see my latest project. I've been thinking of it for a long while now, but I want to archive all my old doodles in sheet protected binders. I probably won't be able to sort by year and date and that sort of thing, but it will still be much more easily accessible, and organized. Right now, there's a huge box of papers at my parents house that I haven't touched since I set them in there years ago...I can't wait to go through and organize all of them when I have the resources. I can buy boxes of 100 sheets of sheet protectors for like 10-12 dollars on Amazon, so I'll get a bunch of those and start in....oooh, I'm so excited. And there's a couple of shelves empty on my bookcases over here too. I'm gonna be so styling. Now if I could only work out the problem of my "piles" and working out in the living room, when I have this whole room to myself...hmm.

So much to buy, so little money. *sigh* Such is the peril of a shopper. Thank GOD I don't have a credit card. Oh, the damage I could do myself with that.

So now I've ranted a little bit. Sorry for putting you all through that. It just needs to come out somewhere, and this is my space, so this is where I'll do it.
This weekend, my parents are taking me to Bugaboo Creek for dinner. Hurray! I miss Bangor so. I hope to coerce some mall-trolling from my father, 'cause I already know my mom's up for it. Not that I need to spend the money or anything...but it's fun to go.

Happy Birthday to me...I'll drink someday.

Herein lies a lot of pain, frustration, and ill will.

This disconnect I have is really making itself felt lately.

I don't trust anybody.

For every good friend, for every relative, for every love, I can only see how they can hurt me, how they do hurt me, how they might hurt me, and I feel it so much that I just want to break away from them. I've created this disconnect myself, in trying not to be hurt.
A part of me still wants to hurt, though. It's familiar. It makes me think. It makes me feel something. I hate to think that I crave drama.

I don't trust them. I don't trust you. Everybody makes me hurt, if only by what they may think. It's not just hurt, though...it's this driving, searing pain that wrenches me in an unreachable place, leaves me feeling exhausted and heartbroken and utterly alone.
I'm not even satisfied in the solitude. I need these people I don't trust.
What the fuck is wrong with me?

It's all becoming overwhelming. My head's feeling heavy and my eyes are starting to swim again. I feel like something will snap.
I just want to go to sleep in a very dark room. I want to go to sleep quickly so I don't have time to think about things. I don't want to dream about anything. But then, I always have to wake up.

It drives me crazy that my problems only matter to me.
How much of myself and my time and my heart and my energy have I devoted to these others I seek comfort from?

The problem isn't them, though, I know it's not. It's me.
For all the people in the world who'd do what I think I want them to do, what I think I need, it would never be enough. I'll never trust that completely. I'll never completely connect with somebody.
Of course, that's me for you. All or nothing. All of the time, or it never meant a thing.

I always play the game, but it's always their game. They always win.
What would my game be if I could play it? I'd wrench their heart out too, and not even care. In fact, I'd get pleasure from their pain. It would be horrible, excrutiating, devastating for them, but that's what they'd get...and be happy to have tried.

I'm not a good person.
I hate when they just brush that feeling aside. I tell them, I confess, the truth, and it's nothing to them.
"It's fine."
"You're fine."
"You're just being too hard on yourself."
"I don't expect you to be perfect."
Those things feel good for a second, and then they hurt. Why do I expect myself to be perfect? Who am I trying to be perfect for? Certainly not you, who can't care enough about what's making me sad to not sweep it under the rug and pretend it's not there.
I'm sad. I feel like every time I try to get close to somebody, there are open wounds on me...and the wounds hurt...and I try to show them the wounds...and they say those things and they pat my head and tell me I'm overreacting...but...this is my life. This has been my life. This is me...this is what makes me...how can you just toss it aside like an unimportant detail? How can you not care what I feel about myself, how I see myself because of how everyone else sees me?


I don't want to care. But that's the problem. I do care.
I care about having people around me. I care about being involved in peoples' lives. I care about being more than an object, taking up universal space.

Dr. Phil would blame my weight.
I would blame the world that blames my weight.

How can they laugh at the plight of my gender? To my face? Easily, of course. It doesn't hurt their feelings.

I keep forgetting that fantasies don't come true.
I keep wishing that I was more than I am.

I wish that I deserved what I have.
I wish that I wasn't being settled for.
I wish that I felt some kind of worth.
I wish that I could be thankful for what I have because I should be.

I've turned off comments on this post.
This was just about being fucked up.
Thanks anyway.

Bad girl

It's been a trying time since I last wrote.
Christmas went alright. I made a table for my parents that was a little more than embarrassing in the final product, but they seem to appreciate it. I got a whole bunch of stuff from everybody, but the more I experience it and think on it, I'd just as soon do away with the whole notion of gift receiving. I generally have a grand ol' time giving gifts to people I'm close to, but I'm increasingly uncomfortable giving gifts to those I hardly know, and receiving gifts from everyone just on the principle of traditional obligation. It's a bunch of shit that I don't need. I appreciate the time and thought and effort of it all...but it just feels awkward to me.
Still working my dead-end job at Burkettville. I love being there, and I hate it. I know I need something better, but it's just so heartbreaking to leave something I've been so committed to for almost three years.
I tried to get a job at T-Mobile, but was shot down in the last run of the race. Dee, a woman who visits the store quite often, mentioned to me that she works at T-Mobile and suggested that I put in an application. The call center is much closer to Albion. The pay would be better. There would be benefits. I figured, what the hell, and went for it. I felt especially confident, knowing that Dee would help me through the process. So, I went in and she gave me a tour of the place, I took the special testing (it was math and typing, nothing major), and had an interview, all in the course of a week. The interviewer told me that I'd hear back from them in 7-10 days, and her utterly perky demeanor had me fooled into thinking the whole thing went well.
I saw Dee the next weekend and happily told her the outcome of my week's worth of efforts and trekking back and forth to the facility. She sadly told me that I was not going to be referred. She had talked to "tanya", the interviewer, and she had refused to divulge an explanation. I was a bit broken-hearted to say the least. Dave's done customer service representation before and told me, "A blind, retarded monkey could do that job." Nothing makes you feel more worthless than when you can't get the job that the blind, retarded monkey was qualified to do. I understand that the whole thing was out of Dee's hands, otherwise she would have hired me on the spot, but the whole thing has left me as crushed as the other 50 interviews I went to this summer, where no one at all would hire me.
I cried in the kitchen the rest of the night. I was lucky I found out after the kitchen was closed so I could just hang my head in the sink and pretend to be busy washing dishes while I was upset. When I finally got home that night, I just felt angry that "tanya" had put on such an accepting, happy face, had lied right to me by telling me that she looked forward to seeing me again, that she had deemed me so unworthy for a job that I was more than qualified to perform. I guess I have a chance to re-apply in three months. I'm hoping that doesn't mean that I have to do all that bullshit all over again, but I guess I will. It's not like I really want the job, I just need what the job has to offer.
The whole experience left me feeling that familiar pang of unworthiness and led me back to the familiar thoughts of submission. I don't understand it really, but when I'm at a low, I just want to feel even lower. I reconnected with someone who shares this passion, and whom I still find very attractive. I didn't do anything harmful, but I'm still not proud of it. I wouldn't appreciate it if Dave did it with someone else, so it is technically cheating.
I'm not proud of it, too, because it goes against so much of what I'm trying to learn about feminism. These strong, feminist women have let go of those notions that they need to be submissive, that it's the only role open to women, and yet I seek it out. It's part of the reason I don't reply to ginmar's blog; how can someone speak against something she actively seeks?
It felt good, though, in the wrenching way that it does. For all my inner struggle and turmoil with even the concept of d/s, it's something that's very natural to me, and is very satisfying in the right experience. I feel so insatiable, like it's so wrong to want it this much and to not be satisfied with what I have. But at the same time, I think I am genuinely sexually frustrated.
I hate only doing it late at night just before we go to sleep. I'm tired then. I want to sleep. I want to fuck in the afternoon, in the morning, when I'm conscious and alert and really enjoy it and don't just want it to be over so I can finally get to sleep. I hate wanting to be dominated so bad, but not liking when Dave does it. Lord knows he means well, but I just can't see him that way. I hate that sometimes, he won't touch my vagina at all, except to be inside me. I hate that it's just fucking over when he comes and that's it, and I take too long and he wants a cigarette, so he's not going to even stick around and help out afterward if I want to come too. I hate feeling like I ought to just be thankful that I'm with somebody. It's not that bad, I know it's not, but it's not really that great either. I feel lost, really unvalued and uncherished, like I've just been settled for. I feel disconnected from everybody in a way that I can't repair. I want to feel special, I want to feel needed, I want to feel like I'm worth everything in the world to somebody, but I fear that I'm not ever going to feel that. I think, in a large part, that I put myself out of the circle I'm so desperate to be in. It's hard to judge whether I'm just being an emotional, self-destroying wreck, or I'm really in a bad place at all. I'm feeling pretty bad right now, but in the same run, I'm feeling slightly justified with all the inner confusion.
Sometimes, in my wildest fantasies, I think I could do it all without anybody. Think of it. I wouldn't have anybody dictating how many cats I can have, where I should put my dripping ice cup, how I sit on the couch, where he puts his jeans, how much of the bed I'm taking up being too much, how I'll understand what responsibility is when I have to pay some bills on my own, how I don't understand what really happens to men and women when couples get divorced, how my notions of feminism and true beauty are radical, when I should do the dishes/laundry/cleaning, what's a good show and a bad one, whether or not I really want children, which frivolous kitchen appliances are really necessary, whether or not I weigh too much, and when and where I have sex. God, when I write it down like this I make it sound like I'm trapped in a loveless marriage of convenience and girl, you better get yourself a hero and get ridda that zero. I'm smarter than that, aren't I? I know when to get out. I'm not trapped by anything. It's not really that bad, and that's why I'm still here, right? There's a lot of inner argument there that I don't want to share because my fingers are tired enough as it is. I love him. It ought to be enough for me to just leave it at that.

My birthday is approaching fast. I'll be hitting the big 2-1...and surprise of all surprises, the party girl doesn't want to party. I just feel worn out, and like I said, disconnected from everybody. Why have all my friends over here when I feel like I'm so far away from them emotionally? That's no kind of fun party. And I love Julie, but I don't even feel like getting together with her. I think I just want to be alone on that day. I wish I could afford to do more, but I think I'll just go out shopping on my own. Maybe not even that. I'll just be by myself, and try to enjoy myself. I think after 21 years, I deserve to appreciate myself a little bit.
I ordered Sailor Moon: The Doom Tree series box set from Amazon yesterday. It was an impulse buy, but I think it will make me feel a little better. I've really forgotten how much I love that show, and how much it empowered me. A little blast from the past can't hurt, right? I made a wishlist on Amazon.com, too, of all the more recent videos (1-10, 14-19) put out by another company. I'd love to get them and have a complete collection through the second season, instead of 10,000 tapes with non-corresponding episodes. Call me a child, if you will, but my inner ten-year-old is really grateful that I'm not denying myself something that has always brought me a lot of joy.

The comic is not going much at all these days. I'm depressed. I have trouble concentrating. There's a plethora of reasons why, but it's just not getting done. I'll try to pull myself out of it because I think this is what I want to do with myself, comics. Wish I knew.

Ginmar has an amazing post up today about "manhaters" and the concepts around male privilege and the reality of women's roles.

More later...or maybe next month. We'll see.