This is a very bad way to start a new year. I need to burn some books and let go of some ghosts. Nothing makes me feel better like being able to say goodbye to the past.
The problem with movements:
They aren’t taking you anywhere.
I was kicked out of a store today for trying buying tampons.
I grabbed a box of tampons and a woman asked me if I thought that was appropriate. I said yes, of course. She stormed off and the next thing I knew, she was storming my way with a manager in tow. I was told I couldn’t purchase feminine hygiene products because it was insensitive to the disposition of female shoppers.
The female shopper being referenced was probably in her early 20’s. A kindly elderly woman was passing by and stopped to see what all the ruckus was about. She said it was “bullshit.”
An old woman bought my friend tampons today because I’m not “allowed” to do things for the people I care about.
The fact that I have white skin and a prostate does not make me a criminal by default.
“most people would rather get paid something. we used to pay nothing.”
There needs to be clarification that this publication is looking for inexperienced writers trying to break into the business. Not only are you offering an insult as payment, you’re looking for people that already have experience in the business of writing. It’s completely unreasonable to ask someone to do a job for you, especially if its writing, for $2/200 words.
Let’s be completely honest: You get what you pay for. You’re obviously going to attract writers that are looking for work, but any of these writers with a moderate amount of freelance experience are going to see that the potential paycheck isn’t worth the effort. That leaves you with inexperienced writers that are worthless. If you’re looking for quality work, you have to shell out a little more money.
Really, tell people what you’re looking for instead of taking the shotgun approach to the market. You’re looking for young, inexperienced writers who haven’t got many options in breaking into the industry.
I’m starting to realize how fortunate I am for getting paid to write rather than getting an allowance to do a chore for some random magazine.
Mandy.
We have an understanding. It’s not my dog, it’s her dog. She brought it home the afternoon after the same morning she said she wouldn’t get a dog because she realized it was a bad idea. So I don’t walk the dog because it’s hers and we agreed. He’s cute but we agreed, I said ‘Don’t’, she said ‘I won’t’ and then she did.
Unless, of course, she’s having a day when the endometriosis, fibromyalgia or type III and the other type I can’t remember of EDS has made her too sick to walk the dog.
So every morning—half the mornings?—when as soon as she realizes I’m awake she asks me to walk the dog, this isn’t just like a cute thing: Oh it’s your turn to walk the dog. I don’t walk dogs. Asking me to walk the dog is saying ‘I’m dying and this part of my life now has to be lived for me by someone else.’
The dog is dying too. The stair steps are the same length he is. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t trust whatever part of his body gets him from one step to the next step. A step for me is, for him, a leap and it’s long.
So this is morning: standing in the palm trees on a sidewalk in Hollywood with a dog no-one without a girlfriend would ever own (let’s be serious: I would not only never own this dog, but a dog and it is disturbing to me that I am talking to you about a dog on the internet—I am with Clayton on this one—“I’ve had a few pets but I prefer to let Penthouse handle their publicity”)—thinking about death.
It is not one of those deaths where you die a body part at a time, it’s parts of her life die one at a time. Can’t work Tuesday, can’t walk Wednesday, can’t read Thursday, can’t watch TV Friday, can’t eat Saturday.
So yes, I still make art about sex and death. That’s what’s what we do here: sex and death.
I wonder: how fast is she dying? And this is a good cliche: live each day like it was the last. But the slow death forces you to idle it, in underdrive, sit at the light. Not do whatever.
And here’s the thing: you look around and those idling bad days and look at everyone else’s awesome days—the days they aspire to have. Oh how nice it would be to walk in the park or have a dog in an apartment and draw a picture and watch a show. They have whole days with no death at all in them are not taking any advantage of it. They want maybe a couch or flatscreen, maybe work a little harder, steal a little more from a neighbor for that—this guy Franklin hit with her car: he has 3 cars and the one she hit has a limited edition bumper. I won’t say there’s no-one worth sleeping with who won’t be impressed by your fancy car, but the other two are just years of life collecting dust in your garage. And seriously there is no Riviera supermodel alive who is going to get any wetter for you on account of you shelled out for a bumper. You get to drive down the highway and remember it’s there. That’s way you traded that part of your life for.
Whoever he is, and whoever is on the other end of the line, on the phone, saying I should not or cannot have or no-one can do this or that other thing today—most of them I bet can’t even point to one single day in their entire life that they used and if you gave one to them they’d sell it—they look all around at everything there is in the world and aspire to quiet days of bullshit. Take it, take mine. I have shit to do.”
(picture)
The absolute worst thing about my experience today wasn’t the fact that I was attacked by some random woman. It’s the fact that everyone on the bus was immediately on her side and supported her attacks, with some claiming they would call the police if I even said another word.
It’s getting more difficult to take anything that has to do with feminism, equality, and social justice seriously when such ideologies support the marginalization of a human being.
I’m sick and tired.
I don’t know why exactly I’m seeing so many articles coming from women describing the experiences they’ve had with men saying hello to them or greeting them in some way. They’re easy to avoid, I know, and reading the titles gives the immediate impression of what the article is about. Yet, I read these articles, knowing full well that it will just destroy my faith in humanity. I punish myself sometimes, I suppose.
There seems to be a trend that pervades in every article that I read. Most of the articles detail some incident which occurred on a bus or a train or in a grocery store in which some guy was verbally or physically abusive to some girl. Now, obviously, anyone treating anyone in an abusive fashion is barbaric and appalling and that should go without saying. What I notice in these articles, however, is that basically every incident begins with the random guy greeting the random girl and then having his interaction met with immediate hostility.
I get it. If you get on the train and get all engrossed in a book and don’t want to be bothered, no one should bother you. Random guys should have the common sense to leave people alone if they look busy. A lot of these guys don’t, of course, because they’re idiots and have no concept of the importance of social ques. Sometimes, though, these guys are just normal people that want to find other normal people to be normal with. So, they take a chance and try to talk to random girls they think might be interesting.
I went outside today for the first time since heart surgery. I wanted to walk and see how far I could make it without having to stop every few minutes. I made it pretty far before realizing that I couldn’t turn around and go back home without passing out, so I decided to take the bus.
When it comes to public transportation, I generally keep to myself due to the mild disdain I have for everyone everywhere. Every now and then, people try to talk to me and the manner in which they want to engage me determines what my response will be. If they want to talk about something and I don’t feel like talking, I tell them I don’t want to talk. Yes, this often leads to some random asshole being an asshole, but there’s no reason to be ambiguous or pretend to be polite as that would send the wrong signal.
Anyway. I reach my stop and go to get off the bus just as a young lady is getting on. We do the awkward dance trying to get by each other and, because this sort of thing is always so silly, I smile and say “hi” and “excuse me.” Apparently, this was not acceptable behavior.
The man puts her hand on my chest and pushes me back, glaring at me. She begins raving about how inappropriate it was for me to make unwanted sexual advances toward her and how she felt threatened and abused. In no time, the rest of the passengers on the bus, and even the driver, are on her side, with one older woman claiming that she “saw the whole thing.”
Before this tirade, I never said anything to the young lady, apart from “hi” and “excuse me,” nor did I touch her in any way. The first time she pushed me, I told her not to touch me again. I repeatedly asked her to describe to me how my interaction with her could be construed as any kind of abuse. The only answers I got came in the form of more incoherent screaming and a final shove.
That was the last time she put her hands on me and the last time she said anything about the matter. I told her, in the most impolite manner I could muster, that if I felt like she was going to put her hands on me again I would stop her. While she blustered, face reddening with rage, I asserted that I did nothing but greet her and move aside so she could pass and that her behavior was childish and disgusting. This went on for some time and I berated everyone on that bus for their stupidity and eagerness to jump on the band wagon of championing this young lady and her imagined slights.
There’s a point to this. I’m seeing more and more women talk about how they’re afraid to go shopping etc. It’s terrible that there are people out there that would take advantage of these women and hurt them. But, it’s equally terrible that many women are treating other human beings like pariahs for crimes they have never committed. Not everyone that attempts to engage you on a train or in a store wants to fuck or rape you. Some of them do, but not all of them. Feminism is cool and all, but the psychotic illusions that this mentality has created concerning patriarchy and the so called “rape culture” doesn’t mean you, as a woman, have a license to treat another human being like they are less than what they are: Human.
You shouldn’t have to be afraid. If you are, don’t let your fear turn you into a poor example of everything you believe in.
Honestly, I wish I’d died on that bus so I wouldn’t have to live knowing the harrowing direction the world is going, all under the guise of equality.
To the women that have been abused by a man:
I am not that man and you don’t have the right to treat as though I were. If you get to generalize me and lump me into a category inhabited by bad people just because I have a penis, I get to treat you with utter disdain on the sole basis of your stupidity.
I am not the one that hurt you. If you want to act like all men are personifications of that horrible experience, I will dismiss you as nothing more than another crazy person that has lost touch with reality.
