#1300

Running what essentially boils down to an arty, pretentious sex blog is a privilege. I mean I have the resources (monetary, leisure time, a decent computer and internet access) and an overpriced (but dearly treasured) liberal arts education.

This realization isn’t something I take lightly. Thus: every fiftieth post I take time out to firmly re-contextualize the arguably frivolous nature of what I do here within the broader geopolitical reality of current events.

To be entirely honest: I’ve been avoiding keeping track of the news and current events of late–between my chronic struggles with mental health, my pervasive sense of alienation/aloneness, feelings of uncertainty, insecurity and desperation at not only my life but the growing sense of doomed despair I derive as a direct result of engaging with the news is overwhelming.

To say it like that sounds melodramatic but the current president of the country of which I am a citizen claims without a shred of evidence that the previous president wiretapped him. The same man who continues to claim that the truth is a lies and that lies are the truth; who also maintains that sexual assault is a good way to pick up women when you’re rich and famous. Now pretend you’re a girl who was forced to perform oral sex and have oral sex performed on her at the direction of the pastor of your parents’ church with his son and daughter–all while he pleasured himself to the proceedings.

Imagine enduring this persistent gaslighting when for your entire life, those people who have told you they loved you have used those words as both a carrot and a stick but never as anything else.

Imagine realizing you’re a non-binary trans girl with no desire to medically transition at the same time that both the right and left are throwing trans people under the bus.

Consider what it’s like to spend the better part of a year–so sick that any process with more than three steps, you’ll forget whether you were on the second or third step and have to start over again. Then to find out almost by accident that marijuana makes it so you can go from 15% functionality back to 85% functionality. Thrill as the tide of the country you live in turns in favor of legalization. And then a racist ass white piece of shit takes over as attorney general and thinks that marijuana is actually worse then heroin. (Add the guilt of knowing that despite not being white, knowing you pass and because of that face little if any recriminations for acquiring and using marijuana illegally–as opposed to PoC who probably are struggling with the same conditions and who would benefit from pot but stand very real and damaging reactions if they are caught using or in possession.)

Think about how my countries Vice-President believes it’s inappropriate for a married man to have dinner with a woman he isn’t married to. And what it’s like to be a woman in a world where decisions regarding your health care are made in a room that looks like this.

Cross reference with the fact that your abusive shit hell of a father just had a “massive and devastating” stroke is on his death bed and the hospital is calling your mother because there’s no one left in his life to make medical decisions. Despite the fact that your mother has been divorced from him for 20 years. (They’ll let her make decisions based on having once been married but gay and lesbian couples won’t be allowed to visit their partner in the hospital?)

Be dealing with the fact that although your father is a terrible person, he’s one of those people who believes he’s a good person. Think about how you’ve lived your life convinced that you’re a terrible person and be constantly trying to do the right thing, to be supportive and helpful of those you love for fear of doing great harm to others in much the same way it was done to you. Know that your father had the stroke and then lay on the floor of his shitty apartment for 3-5 days before anyone found him. Realize that despite living your life in a completely different fashion, that your fate will probably be the same. That in death there is no distinction between monsters and the angels of our better natures.

Realize that when he passes–and at this point its only a matter of time–that your mom doesn’t make enough to support herself without his monthly alimony payments. And that with the shift that will have to be made, that you can only support yourself for 4 more months before everything collapses. Watch everything you’ve worked for for years–photography, getting out of tech support, moving to California. None of it is going to happen now.

Have your ex–who has attempted to commit suicide four times in the last eight months–confide in you that because her parents watch Fox News believe that the librulls are coming for your guns, buy a semi-automatic pistol that they keep loaded and accessible in their house, she attempted to kill herself. She only survived because there wasn’t a round chambered and after the first trigger pull and dull click without a report, the second attempt somehow resulted in a misfire. Now she’s convinced that it was a sign and she wants to live, to get the help she needs and to figure out how to get back together with you. Despite the lies, gaslighting, manipulation and abuse. But she’s the only one whose ever wanted you. Even if she persistently misgenders you and treats you like a glorified fixer.

And watch video of Syrian civilians including children suffocating and dying agonizing deaths due to deployment of chemical weapons.

It’s Tuesday. Early afternoon. Sunny. This is the most helpless and hopeless I have ever felt in my life but it feels like that point on a roller coaster right before the bottom falls out.

EDIT: It’s Friday. Early morning. The incompetent idiot fuck who banned refugees is now (ironically) upset that they’ve been gassed and has essentially declared war on Syria–while completely oblivious to the complex situation on the ground. This is a nightmare.