Gay on gay violence is real and it’s not okay.

It was really sad.  We hadn’t been apart for more than a week since the weekend after we met and even though I knew this was probably going to happen at some point, I was hoping it wouldn’t because it’s dumb, stupid and ugly.

I miss my lady and it makes me lash out.

I’m trying to take moments like these and appreciate them for what they are – appreciate the sadness on not being together because, in all reality, several years from now we really will be sitting in bed at night saying REMEMBER WHEN YOU USED TO LOVE ME SO MUCH YOU WANTED TO DIE BECAUSE WE COULDN’T BE TOGETHER THAT ONE WEEKEND!?  And then she’ll say *snore* because she falls asleep sometimes when I’m talking to her about how many feelings I have, and since I have a lot of feelings, Valerie sleeps a lot.

We’ve finally moved into that space just beyond the bliss of a new relationship and what that means is now we’re free to stop being so nice and pretty and perfect all the time.  Now we’re free to talk about our morning breath and all the annoying shit we do and maybe occasional farting.  I think this is where the real work starts, because now we’re hooked and we have to figure out how we’re going to live together for the next 50 years without killing one another.

Relationships are challenging but the beauty  is that you get to work hard every day with someone you love.  Sometimes you want to scratch their eyes out and others you want to stare at them endlessly until they get so creeped out they lock themselves in the bathroom for hours and when their mom calls you tell her Valerie can’t talk right now because she has been  shitting for the last three hours, should I be concerned? I think the realization that relationships aren’t these neat little packages where two people never fight and disagree – that they’re dirty and messy and involve occasional knife fights in the garage over who gets the last Diet Dr. Pepper – will be important for me to remember so I don’t get caught up in the notion that I shouldn’t express myself for fear it makes too many waves.  So when I want to tell Valerie that I hate it when she doesn’t tuck in the top-sheet when we make the bed, I won’t worry.  And I know that Valerie won’t hesitate to tell me to go to hell because THAT’S THE WAY SHE LIKES IT.

We are going to grow so old and angry together and it’s going to be awesome.

Back in August, I purchased the e-book of my friend Jane Devin – a memoir titled Elephant Girl.

I was introduced to Jane’s blog by a friend and easily became entranced by the way she wrote.  Lyrical, gorgeous, emotional and heartbreaking.  Thoughtful…thought-provoking.  Over several months, we became online friends via Twitter and Facebook and would have good discussions about beauty and life’s purpose.  I was excited as I followed her progress through writing and self-publishing her memoir.  I didn’t know exactly what was coming but I knew it would be beautifully written.  I was not disappointed.

I’ve been lucky, I thought to myself again and again as I read this book.  I’ve been lucky to have a family to love me,  a community that supported me and friends that listened and judged very little.  I’m very lucky because this book was a heavy reminder that not all people are afforded such luxuries.  Some people don’t have loving parents and are failed by their community again and again and again.

Elephant Girl is about one woman’s struggle in a world often dominated by the idea that women are meant to be small and quiet, where strength of character is seen as a flaw, fighting back means you get hit harder and love is not offered easily, if at all.  But Elephant Girl isn’t just a story about a hard life, bad luck, unfortunate circumstances and cruel treatment at the hands of strangers and family.  It isn’t just the story of one person, but about each of us together – about the challenges we face in growing up.  Not becoming an adult, but that constant, life-long growing up that is oftentimes confusing, painful and overwhelmingly difficult.  There is no manual and there is no how-to.  We’re just out here, walking a path, sometimes struggling to make it one step further, sometimes bounding along, sometimes alone and later, crowded by others.  It’s about how we’re all here, trying our best, and succeeding and failing all at the same time.

Elephant Girl is as much a memoir as it is a conversation about what it means to be human.  Jane Devin shares one belief, one perspective, and offers a road-map of how she arrived at her own truth.  She doesn’t force us to believe it ourselves, but offers herself up as an example.  Here is one human life, precious and perfect even in its imperfections.  It’s about how life can leave us feeling like there is no road left to travel, no more heart left to break, no more will to propel us forward and when we’re at the bottom of the deepest and darkest hole we have ever known, we can reach to a place deeper inside us than we knew existed and find a sliver of hope that compels us to grab on to the walls and start our climb again.

As I read Elephant Girl I found myself becoming overwhelmed with feelings of deep sadness.  My heart ached for a little girl, a teenager and then a grown women, for society, for each of us.  I was devastated that people could behave so cruelly toward another human being.  It read like a tidal wave crashing again and again in the same place, and it left me wondering…how much is too much?  How is this even possible that one person could survive all life’s cruelties and still have the strength to relive it?

I am still stunned that for as emotionally difficult and raw as this book is, it was a fast and fantastic read.  I devoured the words at every spare moment – lunch breaks, stop lights, in waiting rooms and before bed.  I cried myself to sleep several times because the sadness was palpable and overwhelming.  When finished, I felt a sense of relief because a life so filled with moments of destruction and despair coupled with the beautiful and complicated love between a mother and daughter and moments of resurrection led Jane Devin, this beautiful Elephant Girl, to one of life’s simplest and greatest truths: we are who we are – and the relationships worth our energy and effort are with those who accept us just as we are, sharp bits and all.  If I found one piece of my own truth in this book, it was just that.

I got a new hat when I was in Portland this weekend, just in time for Snowmageddon 2012 here in Seattle.  And for the record, I was in full (unintentional) rainbow colors on the way in to work this morning.  Red windproof pants, orange winter jacket, yellow crime scene tape themed scarf, green gloves and my blue hat.  GAY!

And just like that, it’s Christmas! Hanukkah!  ChristmasHahukkah! Christmakkuh!  HOLIDAYS!

I can hardly believe it, really.  This year has flown by, but also it hasn’t.  It’s like…every day is the longest day ever but at the end of the week I think…That’s IT?  I thought there were more days but it’s the weekend already?  Are you sure we had a Tuesday? I know that’s crazy and doesn’t make any sense but HELLO!?  Are you new?

I’ve not been very funny lately, I know.  (And, seriously.  Fuck you for pointing that out.  God!) I’m trying to figure that out and I’ve got it narrowed down to two options 1) I was never really funny before but I just didn’t realize it until now or 2) It’s the medication.  Medication isn’t funny at all.  I’m leaning towards number two because if I went for number one I’d just drive off a cliff already because HAHAHA…SO FUNNY.

I don’t really know what I’m doing.

Once I made my girlfriend throw up a little bit from laughing.  Not only is THAT funny, but obviously I AM FUNNY ENOUGH TO MAKE SOMEONE PUKE.  Even if it was because my iPhone auto-corrected something and it looked like maybe I referred to her as a “fatty.”  Only slightly related:  Can someone help me fix it so my phone stops changing “hahaha” to “asses”?

And just like that, it’s time to discuss what gifts I think you should be handing out for the holidays.

Sometimes people don’t understand nature and basic facts like hedgehogs are meant to live in my house and cats do not understand the phrase GET OUT OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE no matter how many times you scream it.  That’s why I’m glad someone came up with this t-shirt – as a reminder that bears…yes…they will eat you.  Because sometimes we forget.

 P.S. My birthday is December 29th.

★★★★★

This is the ideal gift for a white elephant exchange or that one person who when you ask what they want for Christmas says Oh nothing, I can’t think of a single thing!  Maybe just a card?  and you think Oh really!?  Well, DO YOU HAVE THIS HORSE HEAD MASK!?  And you walk away satisfied, leaving them in stunned silence.  Because no.  No they did not.

 Also, maybe a perfect gift for your neighbor.  Get it?  NEIGHbor.  NEIGH-bor.  NEIGH! NEIGH! NEIGH! Fine, just nevermind.

Neigh-vermind!  HAHA!

★★★★★

This wooden radio retails for $300.00.  Because it’s wood and it’s made by Indonesian villagers.

Look.  Here are two things I want to point out before you click to purchase.  This radio is VERY pretty.  That’s why I put it here.  And maybe you’re rich and you need ridiculous things to spend some of that money on that you have too much of.  I won’t judge.  Whatever.  But listen.  1) I can go to RiteAid down the street and buy an AM/FM radio for $6.99.  If I feel particularly high-class I can get one with a built-in CD player for $12.00.  2) Also, that drug store radio will be made out of plastic by some 5-year old kid in China, so when I drop it (I drop things a lot) it won’t shatter into a million slivers.  Just sayin’.

★★★★★

Look, sometimes you’re so desperate for a baby that you’ll do anything.  One day you’re sitting at home with your broken reproductive organs crying while you watch the evening news because LOOK AT ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO USED TO BE BABIES! and the next thing you know, you’re looking online for fake kids who have been put in time-out because the only thing sadder than not being able to have a baby is not having a toddler to punish.  Don’t judge me…you don’ t know my life!

But seriously.  What. The. Hell.

★★★★★

Look.  I like art as much as the next person who doesn’t really care about art.   I understand that there are things about artistic expression and deeper meanings contained therein that I will never EVER begin to understand.  But I also know when things are…you know…fucked up.  Look.  We all like it when people make paintings out of reclaimed objects, like cardboard or wood or that one time, my garage door.  Garbage sculptures can be fun and send an important message about recycling and whatever, I don’t really know because I don’t care.  But when you start making art with your own feces, I believe you’ve gone too far.  TOO FAR.  But maybe you have an art lover on your list…someone who can wax poetic about Caravaggio or Bernini for hours upon hours until you want to stab your brain through your ear with a horse hair paint brush.  Well, for that person, I can only recommend one thing…

This “REAL POOP Cubist Painting” of a toilet.  Lovingly retitled “Shart Exhibit” by our friends at Regretsy.  FREE SHIPPING, you guys.  FREE!  Also, it comes with an amazing artist statement about which portions of the painting have more shit than others.  “Though is I had decided to switch the fecal concentrations and made the top less concentrated, I am positive the result would being [sic] interesting also.”  Okay.  Sure.  But really.  NO ONE BUY THIS.  We shouldn’t encourage this kind of thing.

★★★★★

I wanted to get this for Valerie because she loves Harry Potter (and Twilight, but let’s not discuss the things that are wrong with my girlfriend.) and it would be kind of cool if one day we had a house and people walking by looked in our living room window and saw us having hot sex shaking a stick at the television.

If you’re willing to spend nearly $100 on a completely superfluous household item that you can get a less fancy and probably more functional model of at your local drug store for $15 then have at it, wizards.  But please note…this will not make your enemies develop rickets or scurvy at the flick of a wrist no matter how many hours you spend trying to train it.  NOTED.

★★★★★

In 2012 I resolve to drink more wine.  Specifically I resolve to pretend to drink more wine while Valerie drinks an entire bottle by herself but doesn’t notice because she is too drunk.  You guys…Valerie is an AMAZING drunk.  She’s giggly and silly and her cheeks get all red and she says things that are absolutely retarded.  One time she bought a bottle of wine at the Grocery Outlet and it was awful so I didn’t drink more than a few sips and she just kept drinking and drinking and suddenly she’s sitting on the bed with no pants on telling me ” This wine is DISGUSTING” and then she poured herself another glass.

I’m going to keep all her solo drunken escapade wine corks in this trivet - labeling each with a date and notes of behavior and wardrobe – unless she keeps making regretful alcohol purchases at Grocery Outlet in which case I’ll do the same but with screw-caps.

★★★★★

 The week before Christmas, the point in the year where I generally feel most stressed out and emotionally fragile, I decided to go off my anti-depressants because I  really wanted ratchet up the insanity and do things right this year.  I decided that I’d get this garland and evenly distribute my leftover pills between the two bottles on the end and in all the others I’d whisper all my overwhelming feelings of despair and holiday rage.  I thought the pills would keep them bottled up, like a gatekeeper to what Valerie likes to call the Crazy Bitch Train.

Well, I can’t tell you if it worked or not but I can tell you that I cried on Christmas Eve for several hours and then again on the way to Salem the next morning and the way to Portland from Salem two days later.  Valerie has not known me un-medicated until now and she told me she still loves me when I visited her in the basement storage unit of my condo building where she is tied up.  SHE WILL STAY WITH ME AND MY FEELINGS FOREVER.

★★★★★

A while back I saw this sweet video of a little girl who found a squirrel to keep as a pet.  She was stroking it and cuddling it and swinging it around like it was her best friend.  Her father was video-taping her because the squirrel she fell so in love with had just been killed by her dog.  Well.  Valerie has been saying she wanted a squirrel for as long as I’ve known her, which is five+ months in human time but in my mind it’s been at least 13 years because we are good enough friends to talk about pooping and farts like it ain’t no thing.  But I digress.  Trapping squirrels in hard work when all you’re doing is sitting on the patio making clicking noise and calling out KEVIN!  KEVIN COME HERE!  I HAVE PEANUTS!  Turns out that squirrels, specifically Kevin from the block, is on to me because I haven’t seen him in weeks.  Once at a park we saw a fat squirrel in a tree and I tried to catch it by screaming HEY SQUIRREL and then chased it into a garbage can near the swings but then it bit me on the face and ran away.  Then I got rabies and went all Cujo on my neighbors, trapping them in their car until the drunken wife who keeps dropping Bud Light beer cans onto my patio came at me with a baseball bat and knocked me into unconsciousness.   None of this is real except the part about the video and Valerie wanting a squirrel, I just got carried away.  Anyhoo…squirrels, it turns out, are not so good as just appearing in a cage in my house so I decided instead to get Valerie these terrifying squirrel paw earrings.

But mostly I just keep them hidden until she falls asleep and then I gently caress her face with them.  I think she’ll really enjoy the tasteful nudes I’ve taken of her and the paws while she naps, too.

★★★★★

FETAL PIG! FETAL PIG! FETAL PIG!

This is what I now repeat to myself when I start to feel things.  Feely things.  And then the thinking starts.  It’s my new non-medicated way of dealing the THE FEELINGS.  I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before my anxiety gets ramped up and I repeat it so ferociously in my head that I accidentally scream it out loud at a staff meeting and then pass out.

Valerie is teaching me to knit and crochet.  She lent me some yarn and sticks and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be knitting fetal pigs  in NO TIME AT ALL so that I can supplement my income with fetal pig sales.  But until then you’ll have to settle for this one.

FETAL PIG!

★★★★★

Hmm.  I just…umm…I don’t…yeah.

However…I CANNOT WAIT until Valerie opens her front door to find me wearing these “handmade boneclaw rings” and one of these horned skull masks.  This is exactly how I plan on proposing marriage one day unless she beats me to death out of fright before I get a chance.

★★★★★

HAPPY BELATED HOLIDAYS!!  I love you all..even the stinky ones.  Let’s make 2012 the best last year before Armageddon EVER.

Amen.

UPDATE:  SUCCESS!

UPDATE 2: I’ll be working on a new design theme over the next few weeks so if you come over and find that things are fucked up or missing or working improperly, it’s likely due to that.  I’m hoping to liven things up a bit and if you visit from a reader you won’t care at all, but if you come by the site and poke around from time to time, you’ll notice things will be different.  I’m continuing to try new ideas and projects to spark my creativity which, as we all know, has been sorely lacking.  One thing I can promise is that my next post is the annual holiday gift guide and is coming soon, so LOOK OUT FOR IT.