Survival Mode

The “Friend Zone” Versus the “Fuck Zone”

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Gonna start this new season or episode or whatever with a few random things I’ve been considering that are in no way related to each other:

1. Let’s give a moment of silence for my ex boyfriend who majored in communications but that ended up being the very thing we were incapable of. The irony.
2. If I WERE an object–which, while I won’t get into it right this second, the way marriage is an economic proposition for women and how we can legally enter a long term contractual agreement with an emphasis on sex and financial coercion under the pretense of “marriage”, but in the USA ACTUAL sex work (which is really just shorter term agreements with similar possibilities for complication) are still illegal– but anyways, if I WERE an object (a topic brought up from the Ali Wong Netflix special segment about trophy wives) I think I’d be an eerie cursed artifact.

   Hear me out– terrifyingly all-powerful to some, worshipped at times, albeit somewhat fearfully. To others, a world-ending horror. It fits.

   Maybe if the Cara Delevigne “Enchantress” villianess from Suicide Squad hadn’t been such crockshit, I would have identified more with her and less of Harley Quinn. (Probably not, though.)

3. The new season of The Handmaid’s Tale from Hulu is here and it hits a little different when your neighbors are Amish and you see a group of 6 women walking in their garb across the field on your drive back from town. I am literally not making that up.

   Also, I once told “Strider” that he reminded me of Nick from The Handmaid’s Tale and we’re not gonna dissect that any further but let’s just say the little monologue on stubbornness and stupidity is really fucking with me.

4. Spring has sprung, the greenery is out, and my seasonal affective disorder has been released like a cape, safely tucked away for the summer. I just came back from Arizona after being fully vaccinated and hiked all around Phoenix and Scottsdale with one of my best friends. This woman is basically a mother fucking champ because she is essentially a single mom in a lot of ways and by herself because her partner travels a lot for work right now and is in a very sensitive career spot, so I got to hang out with her and her child, who is only 15 months old but essentially is a full toddler already (because what else would you expect when his dad is actually 7 feet tall). That baby is SO smart. We don’t give enough credit to methods of communication that differ from our norm in adulthood, and the intelligence of babies reflects this.

   We took him hiking almost every day and talked a lot about anxiety, the state of the world, raising children in this social climate and time of uncertainty, naivety and innocence, and women in sports. Lots of fun rants coming at you soon. 

Back on topic for the day– A theme near and dear to what I’m sure is almost every woman’s heart.

To those who may be unaware and live under a questionably larger rock than Patrick Star from Spongebob, the “friend zone” is a mythological creation by misogynistic men who think it is every woman’s obligation to inherently be drawn to fucking them. Apparently, humanity’s purpose towards collaboration and social or emotional support MUST benefit men sexually in some way, else they consider it “rude” and a “slight” if you can see value in them beyond, and excluding, their reproductive fitness. 

Forgive me for not giving a shit. 

The “fuck zone”, a response to this so called “friend zone”, first introduced to my by the “Fuck the Patriarchy” feminist splendor of an Instagram account run by several feisty women in India, is therefore the zone in which your friendship and value to another person has become useless, because they concentrate your appeal to them based solely on whether they’ll be able to sexually penetrate you or not. Therefore, they place you in the “fuck zone” if the only reason they seek out your companionship is for sexuality. 

Go purchase a sex worker. 

Oh wait, you can’t…. Because even though you’re from the USA and politicians and police access, utilize, and exploit sex work, it’s still “technically” illegal. Fucking corrupt political hell hole of a nation. 

The “fuck zone” is a topic near and dear to my heart, because I lost my most recent “best” friend to this. 

The Fellowship (4:16)

My former best friend and I always jokingly referenced each other as Sam and Frodo, just adventuring around the world together, figuring out this thing called “life”. Alas, it was not meant to be. Let me walk you through a timeline of our friendship.

We met in the Spring of 2017 during the end of my first year of graduate school through one of my best friends from graduate school (also while I still had a long term boyfriend). He had also gone to UF and had taken my friend on fraternity functions (just as pals) in the past, and she warned me that he has a tendency to romanticize friendships, but said he respected her boundaries and they still hung out after she had to turn him down, so I didn’t think anything of it. (To be honest, this is a pretty common theme as a conventionally attractive, intelligent woman anyways.)

We’d soon go on to just kinda “get” each other, and he’d frequently come into town from ~an hour away to go out to bars with me, come to my own graduate school functions, and just continue to live the semblance of a college lifestyle, even though he was managing his family’s businesses elsewhere.

Now, this guy comes from a lot of money. How much? IDK, because it turns out I am naive as fuck about the concept of money, coming from financial insecurity and having relatively no financial support from my parents who refuse to understand or even research what economic burdens millennials are encountering and they can’t seem to grasp how overwhelming cycles of debt are and why I keep postponing my next schooling over financial concerns. 

However, because he came from an astronomically large amount of money, he had an apartment in town (literally just unused for when he visited), and did not like to wait in line the few times a month he’d come out with me, he’d always bribe the security with a couple hundred dollars at the door. Mind you, we usually drank for free (we knew the bartenders) at these dive college bars. The scenario, frankly, was great for me because I ALSO hate waiting in lines (but I am a broke ass bitch who will do it if I have to). We got more “fun” time together inside the venues, and I got to realize how “the 1% (or close to it) lives”. 

He’d sleep over my house, usually on my couch or this giant cushion, after these nights and we never, I mean NEVER hooked up. This seemed natural to me, as he drove an hour to get there and we’d been drinking. Why would he not just crash there. Plus, I lived in a four bedroom apartment alone in graduate school because I worked for my apartment complex and had the least popular, yet most expensive and least spacious floor plan. I enjoyed having company at night, even if it was from a different room. It felt so much safer not just sleeping alone, and in September of 2017 I had the incidence with gun violence with the guy within my apartment complex, so the extra presence, especially a masculine presence, was welcome.

A few times, I went with him to Miami to meet some of his old UF buddies, and we did share a bed, but still nothing sexual. He is a big snorer and I just wasn’t attracted to him.

…Which will turn out to have been a great fucking thing by the end of this story.

Now, the first time I was in Miami with him, we went to see DJ Khaled at STORY, and apart from when I randomly got pulled in to get front row seats for a Lil Dicky concert courtesy of a promoter who saw me walking past, this was only my 2nd time in STORY and first time getting bottle service with a group I actually came there with. (AKA: Not a group of guys who pulled me in because I was hot.) 

Now, normally, I like to just get a light buzz when I drink, but for some reason I got WASTED. Like, embarrassingly throwing-up-after-we-got-back-to-his-friend’s-apartment wasted. (Which, relative to how often he went out with me, he knew this was not the normal occurrence so I didn’t actually end up feeling that guilty.) I usually do not black out when I drink at ALL, as I typically have always thrown up WAY before I get anywhere near blacking out, so it’s rare for me to even be drunk beyond an arguably heavy buzz. But I have almost no memory of even being at the club. Granted, it’s a bit harder to track drinks when you have bottle service and unlimited refills before you’re even done. Or maybe it was not having watered-down-liquor at a college bar.

Ya win some, ya lose some. All DJ Khaled might do is win, but I undeniably lost this one.

Honestly though, thank goodness I was with him and his group of guy friends, because otherwise I would have no idea what would have happened to me. I barely remember the club at all, I blacked out before DJ Khaled even came on, and then there are just splattered memories of him waiting while I used the restroom and that’s all I remember before being back at his friend’s apartment and sleeping on the bathroom floor for a few hours until I could get my shit together, shower, and climb into bed. It makes me question whether I got drugged, honestly. I’ve never experienced that level of memory loss from alcohol. 

A different night, I went to E11even with him, which is where he and his best friend introduced me to strippers. And OH MY GOD DO I LOVE STRIPPERS. My first lap dance ever was paid for by his best friend who got us a “dual” lap dance, because if there’s anything better than hot strippers in Miami, it’s hot women ENJOYING hot strippers in Miami (especially for the first time) ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY’RE JUST TAKING MONEY FROM MEN. E11even is truly a paradise. He’d hire a masseuse to just massage our neck and shoulders while we watched the women, and the extent of acrobatics, dance, and theatrics at a place like E11even is truly amazing–especially for a former gymnast to appreciate. It is the Cirque du Soleil of night clubs. He taught me how to make it rain by handing me a stack of cash (literally more than I paid for my rent). I was with a big group of his guy friends, and this was over New Years Eve when someone like Lil John or G Eazy and Halsey was performing or something. 

Through him, I also got to experience what getting a table at a nightclub is like. And again, since I am a broke ass bitch with student loans, I don’t do this on my own. The fact that he’d always get us a table, so I could people watch and dance by myself happily with my own space and air, was awesome. This is literally the only way I enjoy nightclubs now, and I simply will not go to any without it. As someone who has been sexually assaulted before, it is a HUGE win to not be in confined quarters with random strangers who will use the opportunity to cop a feel.

On several other occasions, I met his brother, his extended family, his friends from his hometown, you name it. I went out to bars with his cousins or family friends, our lives were just intertwined (we ran in the same social groups). He came to most game day celebrations with me, my second year of school, as well as my “Woodser”, which in Floridian terms is an excuse to get fraternities, sororities, or any other group (in this case, it was the graduate school’s associated with healthcare) on buses, trek everyone out to a random farm in the middle of the woods, and have a band, mechanical bull, dance floor, and campfires for everyone to drink and collaborate around. 

We did all of this as friends because friends are allowed to be a part of each other’s lives.

One time we went for a weekend in Miami, just the two of us (I had thought his friends were also coming but nope–not how it worked out) and went to E11even alone. I got better at making it rain and was actually confident enough to wave off the girls I wasn’t interested in. It’s a special flick of the wrist motion, not everyone has a knack for it, okay.

Over graduation he met and partied with my siblings, well aware of the tumultuous relationship. His own family was incredibly close, though with difficult standards for “success”, so he never really judged me for needing the boundaries that I needed with mine (or so I thought) and would let me update him (or he’d ask about my relationship with them periodically). He also met my parents (as did most of my friends that weekend).

We had an awesome time, always. No matter what we were doing. We were honestly just wonderful friends who (I thought) really got along and appreciated each other’s presence in our lives. He was one of several men in my group of friends from there, so we all basically had the same mutual friends anyways and I hung out with them just as often, if not more, than I hung out with him. 

I’ve grown up playing on male and co-ed sports teams and I graduated in a male dominated field from my undergrad, so I don’t really think twice about male versus female friendships. (Unfortunately, general society places a huge pressure on such because of the patriarchy and heteronormative assumptions.) Emotional support is normal, humans are social creatures (when they find their niche). Quality friendship is awesome and something I truly value above all, in part because my friendships were able to show me unconditional love when my family didn’t really teach me it. My friendships understood who I was and didn’t need me to tailor my personality for their comfort.

I moved back to Maryland for a brief period after graduation, then in August of 2018, I got into a car accident and had terrible PTSD. Still, I ended up trying to pick up my life like nothing had happened so I could pretend like I hadn’t just accepted I was going to die and totaled my car in a freak accident. Since I was physically fine after a few days of being relatively immobile from the muscular fatigue and adrenaline surges, less than a week later I packed up my mom’s second car (perks of having a truck on the farm), moved to North Carolina to live with a friend (at her suggestion) who needed help with an ice cream store I had managed in undergrad, and restarted sessions with my therapist from the area.

Him and I remained friends, best friends even, and facetimed and talked constantly despite him remaining in Florida.

He helped take the anxiety of buying a new car off from me by telling me to find whatever model I wanted and then he contacted dealerships, haggled pricing, and all I really had to do was show up, confirm and test drive the car, and sign the papers. For someone who had been having absolutely unreal anxiety, recurrent nightmares, and flashbacks around buying a new car–every new web page or model just caused me to relive the events of the accident, this was huge. I also don’t know SHIT about cars, so to me, I just needed something reliable that would last me through the next ten years and my last degree (hopefully), that was as cheap as I could get it. I thought it was funny that he told them I was his girlfriend and the dealership literally was not allowed to discuss pricing with me or “we’d walk” (financial insecurity, remember), and we openly joked about it when he was the first call I made from my new Subaru. 

He also helped my sister buy her car similarly–the guy is a great business man and offered, why would she not take him up on that. 

By our third year of friendship, he had met my parents and my siblings (because of graduation), along with several friends who visited me, we had extensively overlapping friendship circles and I thought we were just two humans perfectly compatible for friendship.

Hindsight Bias is 20/20 (15:01)

Now, if you ask me whether there were a few indicators of his feelings for me, I would say “yes”, but I also am gonna point out that as a relatively conventionally attractive woman with intelligence, a LOT of people would hit on me??? 

And need I remind everyone that women are not obligated to be sexually attracted to anyone at any given time just because that person may serve another purpose in their life???

I was always very clear about my boundaries. I literally hooked up with one of his friends. I started hooking up with my German love affair when he approached me from across the bar, only to hesitate seeing my best friend chilling between my legs (as I was sitting on the bar looking out at the crowd and he was also facing outward, just positioned with his back between my legs), and I waved my German love affair forward to let him know that I was not “with” him.

Occasionally, he’d reference passing flings or people his parents wanted him to date but there were a lot of cultural considerations and he just didn’t seem that interested in any of them.

There were, however, a few moments now, that do make me sit back and be like “oh…maybe I am just an idiot.”

EXHIBIT A (16:12)

The second time we went to E11even, just the two of us (despite me being under the impression that we were meeting up with people, his friends all had to work the next morning supposedly). He’d gotten a hotel for the weekend, and planned to share the bed. Again, we’d shared a bed before, I thought nothing of this weekend being any different from the other ones. 

This time at E11even, he bought us a dual lap dance (again, normal). And I’m not sure what he told the girls, if he said anything, but those ones literally untied the top of my dress and I don’t know if this is normal protocol or what, but if I had wanted him to see my tits I would have shown him them myself. I very quickly re-tied my dress and enjoyed the rest of the dance. Maybe they did this on their own and were just feeling me, I don’t know.

After we came back from E11even, again…one of the places I’ve felt most “free” and happy, back at the hotel he walks into the room, looks at me and was like “do you want to fuck I am SO horny.” 

Man, do some men have a way with romance???

First off, literally the biggest turn off ever. Not “you are an amazing beautiful princess and I adore the ground you walk on everything you do just amazes me oh wonderful goddess who allows me to be in her presence, PLEASE let me worship every inch of your body and soul in the way my heart yearns to.”

Just an “I’m so horny” BECAUSE OF OTHER PEOPLE?!?!?!

Not even because of MYSELF?

Do you EVEN know me?!

Second, You are my best friend and you imply that you want to be sexually intimate for the first time, let alone with someone who has been raped in her sleep by an ex boyfriend, sexually coerced and assaulted multiple times, and YOU’RE AWARE OF THIS SEXUAL HISTORY, yet you imply you only want to fuck her because she’s physically there and OTHER PEOPLE from the club we were just at got you “so turned on”. 

What the fuck, dude.

I went into the bathroom, locked the doors, and made myself a bubble bath and cried for like 45 minutes at least.

Honestly, it pretty much ruined the night. 

I felt like an object.

We didn’t talk for like a month after that trip and then one day he just kinda picked back up the conversation as normal.

EXHIBIT B (18:30)

Remember in Friends when Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey are going on about having a “back up” in case they aren’t married by the time they’re 40?

Well, any friend who, at 25 years old, makes only a FIVE YEAR marriage contract “back up plan” that you respond to with “only 5 years? LOL of COURSE I’ll still be single in five years”–it’s not their “back up” plan. You’re their actual plan. They just don’t think you’re mentally “there” yet, but are convinced that you will be. 

EXHIBIT C (19:00)

Imagine this “hypothetical” scenario.

Your friend has told you about this gal he’s hooked up with, VERY consistently since October. It is now May of the following year and he is still with her, but they’re not “actually dating” (though they have been exclusively hooking up).

When you stay with that friend for a few days on your way to work on coronavirus in Florida, he ends up texting you about how “nothing happening” between the two of you AS IF YOU SHOULD HAVE WANTED????? SOMETHING TO HAPPEN WHILE HE IS SEEING SOME OTHER WOMAN EXCLUSIVELY AND SEXUALLY INTIMATE WITH HER? 

PLEASE tell me in what fucking world I look like an “option” for you to “choose” to be available to you? LOL NO. 

I am THE choice. Not “a” choice. 

And I DAMN sure don’t give a flying FUCK about hooking up with anyone and screwing over some other woman who thinks you are exclusive. Fuck you. 

I do not care about the dating “norms” these days–it’s why I do not get physically intimate with people I don’t intimately know emotionally already. I do not trust men, rightfully so. You EARN trust. You are not “granted” it. Surprisingly, this is a strange concept, which, I get it, because (ESPECIALLY white) men are just “granted” this baseline of respect where if they learn to speak with conviction, most of the time they will not be publicly doubted or questioned and are immediately granted authority and respect because of the historical figures and representation throughout every culture’s history ever. That’s fine, but I don’t buy it.

My friends have gotten STDs (sometimes lifelong ones with no cure), both from random hook ups and boyfriends who were scared they’d “lose” them. I myself got one in undergrad from an idiotic ex boyfriend who reassured me he was “Clean” (he had literally never been tested but that should show you the state of sexual education in this country). Thankfully, one pill and one week later, boom all cleared. That was nothing, as an earlier boyfriend had tried to get me pregnant so I wouldn’t be able to go to college.

Men in their 20’s are largely emotionally incompetent because of the patriarchy telling them to bury their emotions into everything except for sports or machines so they can’t healthily process them and most haven’t started going to therapy yet, and relationships are frankly, dependent on emotional competency. If you can’t emotionally support me, you’re literally just a walking, adjustable dildo. I’d rather just deal with one who wasn’t also going to try to control me and wasn’t attached to a brain that will try to take advantage of me or screw me over.

Physical touch is my love language. Because I’ve been abused, physically, emotionally and sexually, I withhold physical touch until I am typically VERY comfortable with anyone now. Even with friends, I’m not great on it–I struggle with hugs and simple gestures of touch. I don’t like dancing in crowds and would literally go to the “townie” bar in Chapel Hill called “The Library” which was notoriously “ghetto” (read: literally just the black students or locals liked to go there) during my gap year because I knew the DJ and bartenders and could dance and nobody would TRY to dance with me.

White men, and especially white college men, in bars LOVE to just appear, like the fucking reverse Houdini, behind women dancing without introducing themselves, without asking if they WANTED to gyrate on them, they just jump in and assume they’re welcome.

Every single time I would dance at The Library, not a SINGLE person just “tried” to dance with me. They’d always come up and ask in some respectable way and just FULLY UNDERSTAND AND RESPECT ME WHEN I SAID NO. I loved it. I hadn’t realized how fucking annoyed I was at the former scenario until I experienced actual respect of my personal boundaries.

So fuck you for having the absolute AUDACITY to even imply that I WOULD have hooked up with you if you actually were capable of making a move (which, again, you weren’t, because even when you sat with me on the couch to watch Tiger King, I was on an opposite end and covered by a blanket with no overlap.) Nor would I have let you??? Which is why I think you knew not to?? 

One is the Loneliest Number… (23:15)

We literally have not talked since this conversation for the most part. It also coincides with around the time I started my blog, and despite supposedly being my “Best” friend (which should mean growing with me and allowing me to change my mind on things like life goals without being disrespectful or judgmental), he was very adamantly anti-blog. Said it contradicted with my life goals, which is clearly how he didn’t know me growing up because everyone who has actually gone to school with my entire life has almost been COMPLETELY UNsurprised by my recent trajectory and plan.

It also made me appreciate Strider that much more, because he would ask me to cover certain topics or entertain my train of thought and was attracted to it. 

Yet, in one day, I lost my best friend, the person I talked to almost every day, about everything including how I was struggling with my PTSD. Which, it turns out, is cPTSD and the “recovery” from that has just TRULY been a delight. (Insert eye roll here). 

What they don’t tell you about mental health, is that it takes a whole lot of fucking courage to admit what has happened to you. 

Even just to yourself. 

Even without stigma.

Even with a support group.

Even with love and progress and new surroundings.

It hurts like hell to recognize the lack of emotional support and love you received as a child. It hurts to recognize how your pattern of dysfunctional relationships, which, granted, got less and less dysfunctional as the years passed, were the result of being taught “unconditional love” meant “forgiving people who were physically and emotionally abusing you”. Dangerous precedent to set for family, because that becomes what you expect out of relationships (and friendships) as well.

I don’t know though, I gotta say there’s a hell of a lot of validation in it for me that I never fucked him or did literally anything.

I don’t really care that he walked away, bitter, because to me a legitimate friend wouldn’t have cared that I only could provide friendship for him.

I got placed into the “fuck zone” and he got mad because I actually, genuinely valued his friendship and needed him in my life and couldn’t afford or mentally think about complicating that–especially not with the gravity of my self reflection over the last ~2 years. 

It’s a bit frustrating, mostly because I worry that it’ll happen again.

Why is it so hard to just be friends with the ladies in your adult life? (25:36)

I had another friend who recently admitted they had feelings for me. Which, I gotta say, I was really happy in the way that they approached me about it…BUT only after I felt really uncomfortable in their physical presence for about 3 minutes and they knew and, had they been honest with themselves, I don’t think they would have had to question the scenario at all. (Or I think they would and should have saved themselves the initial encounter).

I’ll circle back to their approach, but for the record, they definitely were misreading things, which, maybe for people who don’t see me interact around others (and thus don’t realize that’s just who I am), they might take my friendliness and cynical wit as “flirting”, but I still don’t see how that is my fault. Who I am is who I am. I’ll be upfront with you, but you have to ask the questions. And then you have to ask yourself if you’re scared to ask me them because you’re intimidated by me or because you know I’m not going to give you the answer you want.

I think a lot of men think about the attractiveness of their opposite sex friendships and, because they might find some of those ladies sexually attractive, they don’t actually consider whether they would be good partners. Sure, they might be compatible at base value in a relationship…BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY FRIENDS. But if they would stop to ask, or even THINK, about what relationship values look like–what family dynamic they expect, religion, whether they’d be open to children, the familial trauma they’ve endured and health considerations moving forward, how maybe they just need a fucking friend right now and not a “boyfriend”, ways they like to spend their time, I think a lot of discrepancy would be adjusted. 

Just because you want to stick your dick into someone and you get along with them on face value doesn’t mean you’d actually have a good relationship. 

And maybe this is the detriment of the typical “male” versus “female” friendships. I’ve had an extensive array of both.

With reference to my “male” friendships, I’ve sometimes been the first woman who they’ve actually been able to emotionally open up to–simply because I myself am so emotionally open. That’s just who I am. I connect with everyone like that (unless you are scared to confront your own shit…in which case I probably make you very angry). I am sure it is alluring, especially to those who otherwise lack that emotional support. Please don’t conflate this with “romance”. This is literally friendship. You are allowed emotional support in your friendships and emotional intimacy IS intimacy, but it is not inherently sexual. Learning about what makes the people in your life who they are is part of being their friend. 

Maybe because so many “male-male” friendships are dependent on sports and specific hobbies, but you can be emotionally dependent on people outside of your relationship. You can talk to your friends about the shit you’re struggling with. If they don’t stick with you–it’s not always a reflection on you. Sometimes they’re just shitty friends (or maybe it highlights a reality in their life they can’t address at the time and maybe never will.) Sometimes you’ll realize a lifestyle change means losing friends who were using you for access to things (drugs, alcohol, a party house, rides). Those aren’t your real friends. And real friends are out there, but you have to have the space for them. 

Female-female friendships talk about EVERYTHING. We describe things in detail. Men, if you think your women don’t tell their best friend every little detail, you’re delusional. Or your woman is lying to you. Get the fuck over it. Life is not always some big secret and you don’t need to be embarrassed about things that make you HUMAN. Even if society in this masochistic patriarchal world has told you to suppress your emotions publicly, be the provider, be the “strong” one (read: not vulnerable emotionally), be the “alpha male” as if we haven’t read about the difference in chimpanzee and bonobo culture and seen exactly why alpha males are NOT the future, expressing yourself as a human is necessary for actual happiness.

And there is so much repression in the USA–emotionally, sexually, artistically and creatively (because of “professionalism”) that we have literally moved away from what it actually means to be “human” in favor of simplistic lizard creatures who lack emotion in favor of “simplicity” and “productivity” and the guise of an ideal public image. It’s disgusting. 

Personally, I like being able to provide an objective female perspective for my male friends. I’ve helped a lot of them figure out ways to approach their way of thinking or understanding where their spouses or partners are coming from when both of them were otherwise lacking in the communication range. The idea that you are only supposed to be close with your partner is a toxic mentality perpetuated by controlling, abusive relationships. Yes, in the olden age before the internet, social media, and affordable air travel this might’ve been the case due to physicality limitations. This is not that world, anymore. Your support network should have layers. Of all sexes and different types of people. 

I have, however, noticed the difficulties of maintaining these friendships in adulthood–likely in part because I am conventionally attractive and formal education is less strictly scheduled and involves more nontraditional outlets for meet ups, such as in a bar setting. I know some of them think about me sexually. I do not care. I don’t think about them like that. I don’t give them any cues or indication that I’m into them and I make it clear I don’t mentally have those expectations if they do approach me about it. 

Completing the circle,

My other friend I referenced ended up texting me after I hung out with him about “wanting to ask me a question”.

Now, I have stated SEVERAL times I do not like physical contact. (Not just with him, on this blog I mean). I know some friends like hugs, but I do not like being walked out to my car and EXPECTED to have any physical contact of any kind. Wanna keep me safe? Watch me from the driveway several feet away. Please don’t invade my personal space. Rick & Morty should’ve made that clear. It’s not about you, it’s about the extent of abuse in my past. I know it’s just a nice gesture that he does because it’s him, but it was just a lack of awareness for a personal boundary of mine that he ignored mainly because he wanted the opportunity to present itself. 

Naturally, I hugged him, had a very awkward “okay, bye!” as I turned away abruptly, got into my car, and shut the door before I could feel any more uncomfortable, and then of course I later got that text.

I’m not an idiot, I knew what it was gonna be about. 

Granted, he had a lot going on the rest of the weekend so it took him a few days to follow up (also because I didn’t respond until the next morning), and when he did he texted me and asked if he could talk to me about something. THIS is about as close to the “right” scenario as you could get, I think, so we’re gonna give him a kudos even though the whole awkward hug-at-the-car-thing happened. When I said, “sure, ask away” (or some variation) he called me (a little annoying as I personally don’t like phone calls, I either like facetime or texting but in this context understanding tone of voice and delivery is important) and asked how I felt and whether I saw this in any romantic context. And even though I know he was disappointed that I was very clear I did not feel the same (nor was I in a place in my life where this was helpful in any way, shape, or form as I had explained how I was moving back South and spoke about a guy while we were hanging out), he completely respected my answer and let me explain about the aforementioned fuck zoning incident, my concerns about it affecting our friendship or similarly happening going forward, and frankly the response and his patience in listening to me made my respect for him go up. He also hasn’t let it affect our friendship, that I’m aware of. 

In truth, I think if he actually saw me with other people more frequently, he’d “get” it.

That I wasn’t treating him special, that this is just who I am with everyone, that I connect this well pretty easily because I’m so open and honest and WILLING to talk about the harsh shit because life isn’t a highlight reel.

And granted, I don’t look or have an interest in “partners” that I can’t see myself growing old and experiencing the highs and lows of life with, so I get why that opening would be alluring and can’t really “fault” him.

It’s easy to be around for the highs and when it’s convenient.

What I value above all is being there when it’s not.

But the connection I feel with a VERY select few individuals isn’t like any of my friendships. And I can’t really explain it. I just believe in it. (TBH me being a closet romantic shouldn’t be strange to anyone, ya gal is an artist and watched The Notebook almost every night for a year my freshman year of college.)

I know it’s really hard, especially when you’re worried about opening up to someone because you perceive doing so as being judged (whether it’s for mental health, familial concerns, etc.), and when you finally get to, it seems like it’s cruel for them to not reciprocate your advances. Might I remind you that women all over the world are constantly being murdered for this. If this is THAT intimate for you, please just start getting a therapist who can remind you, professionally and objectively, that this is ~just friendship~ and that friends AND partners will not and should not judge you for these things, especially not if you’re committed to growth and learning.

This is also why we need to be able to colloquially discuss sex in less repressed terminology. So men won’t get confused or over assume when you talk about this that it has to be in reference to them, or its some kind of “advance” versus just a question to understand the male mentality even if I go out of my way to specify this and you know all my favorite comedians. (And so men in my DMs won’t ask me for advice on their current relationships while also saying they “wish they had tried harder” with me as if they’re the type of person I ever would’ve been into?????????? Or as if that’s not completely disrespectful to their actual current relationship and myself for thinking I would find that a compliment???) Because a lot of men take “rejection” as “failure” instead of “women are their own whole ass human beings and their sole value as human beings on a floating rock in space should not be tied to their sexuality in reference to YOU” and if you use their lack of sexual interest as a reason to exile them from your life, you never actually cared about them in any beneficial context. So by all means, good riddance.

Instead of placing me in the “fuck zone”, be like my friend Dylan from undergrad (and MTV’s the Real World Season 38) who would have LOVED to fuck me (along with most women on the planet) and made that obvious, but also was literally never pushy, never creepy, was an actual friend. He sat with me, talked track with me, respected my boundaries and talked relationships and never took it as an insult to himself that I wasn’t into him and I fully attribute this to his own self confidence and colloquial views towards sexuality. He is actually a great example in a lot of ways how you can be sexually forward or comment on appearance in ways that are literally just objective statements without expectation, not creepy and lingering stares. And I think it comes down to how casually he speaks about it, his delivery, and his responses to your reaction.

All in all, the “fuck zone” sucks, but there really is not greater validation than a man who desperately wanted to fuck you and made it blatantly obvious that was your only contribution to his life (because when the option was removed, he’s nonexistent), and you never did it.

Thou shalt never know the touch of my hand, mouth, tongue, or interior on your penis. 

Now you all can go fuck yourselves, because I sure as hell won’t.

Survival Mode

Promising Young WomEn

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“Promising Young Woman” is the 2020 “American black comedy thriller” film written, produced, and directed by Emerald Fennell and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment production company. It’s only a “black comedy thriller” in the way that it “epitomizes being a young woman in the USA and the reality of that is terrifying for most American citizens who prefer to sweep the horrors of society aside and off their news screens in an effort to embody “good vibes only” mentality.” We’re a country that prefers to pretend our wars overseas are universally for “democracy” and hide the reality of our capitalist exploitation of the globe from the majority of citizens. Dunno what I would expect from a country whose education rankings are now below the global average, yet whose last president ran on an “America First!” platform. 

Before I dive in, I wanted to specify that I really appreciate, though am simultaneously constantly anxious about, the slow growth of this blog both within the United States and internationally. My life has essentially been one long Shonda Rhimes’ masterpiece, so I enjoy knowing it is being consumed by others. I also enjoy knowing I’ve provided enough Tiger King style quality of writing for true crime podcasts to dive down the rabbithole and uncover the truth if I were to be murdered by some random internet stalker who became enamored by my feet. (Yes, I should probably stop watching so much true crime.) I don’t do much advertising outside of my instagram and a random reddit account where I post to shamelessly plug and occasionally browse popular subreddits from pop culture I also consume (everything from Lord of the Rings memes to politics and My Favorite Murder to Sofia with an F and Berning In Hell), so if you share it with anyone and they get something out of it, feel free to let me know. My website is www.survivalmode.guide and has a contact section. I’m not very good at coding, so it’s incredibly simple, as I wasn’t really allowed to ever have a myspace or anything (overprotective fathers are all the rage, amiright Britney? #FreeBritney). But I do enjoy knowing what you get out of it…when it’s positive. I’ve got enough negativity on my own, clearly.

I also like connecting over topics that people might need to first process by themselves, or in a detached state. It brings me joy being able to put into words things other people struggle with because it hopefully helps them to understand themselves. I should probably put trigger warnings before each episode, honestly, but I also think that is implied by who I am–thus, it’s redundant. I know it helps the people I’m close with to hear about my own vulnerability, and I think it highlights important things we should be considering more frequently.

This piece in particular is going to cover sexual trauma in a fair amount of depth. And how it relates to my relationships. My navigation through the world as a young, promising woman in the United States.

I hope that, whether you read it for yourself or to understand someone you’re in a relationship with or to just be a good friend or to share sympathy and experience with someone and know you’re not alone, that it brings something good to you. It’s my personal belief that it’s more important to be transparent and to embody openness and personal anecdotes. I know it’s uncomfortable for my biological family and previous friends. I don’t expect them to enjoy it, but I no longer can live my life with the culmination of experiences, events, and knowledge that I have and remain silent. 

I don’t think the horrors or awful things that are done, said, or happen to you should be hidden. I’m not discomforted by it, nor am I “ashamed”–it’s a part of “me”. And frankly, I love myself. So I don’t want to hide it, or who I am, or WHY I am this confident, secure, powerful woman who refuses to give a damn anymore and wants to speak my fucking mind because not doing so doesn’t help anyone. Nor does covering it up help the world or myself. I would argue that I am more humbled, more driven, and more determined because of the negativity I’ve faced, seen, or been a part of over the years more so than the positives. I might wish I hadn’t had to go through it, but I’m also happy with who I am as a person and what I care about. So maybe I love myself a little *too* much, but Angelica’s mom in Rugrats put it succinctly, “if Angelica (me) is ever going to make it in a male dominated world, she must eat, drink, and breath self esteem”. (We’ll ignore the fact that Rugrats cast the only working/corporate mom as a neglectful villain…*representation matters*) 

The past few weeks have been a bit different creatively, for me. I go through waves of absence or artistic passions based around my mood–and I’m an Aquarius so I like my alone time in quiet solitude to regroup. Plus, actual art becomes inauthentic when it is mass produced and rushed. I understand that for larger scale productions there should be more consistency, professionalism, schedule, but this is a strictly one woman show and I don’t want to push content until I’m actually satisfied with the quality. Mentally healing yourself is work. It’s exhausting, but rewarding. And I vowed to be transparent. Is it the masochist in me that needs to remind myself, revisit, and reanalyze the bad, along with the good, because all that I am, I am because of these experiences? To be honest, maybe. Who knows these days? So many confounding factors. Impossible to tell.

Some of you may know that I paint and draw, which I’ve been doing more of. Having something to be busy with constantly and multitasking, like doodling, helped mask my ADHD as a child. I didn’t formally get diagnosed until I stopped running 85 miles a week in college and began to struggle to pay attention in 3 hour lectures versus the 45 minute segments switching from subject-to-subject in high school (and having daily repetition). And women are often mis or under diagnosed for ADHD and many learning disabilities, so I like to plug it. It’s okay to be 21 years old and a junior in college and get diagnosed for the first time. It’s also okay to be in your 30’s before you actually have the stability or healthcare or money to start therapy, see a primary care physician or psychiatrist, and start or try different medications at their recommendation, even if “you don’t think it’ll do much” (especially in the USA who won’t even get their shit together on universal healthcare in a pandemic). Case in point, it’s never too late to improve yourself. Or care about yourself.

Coming from a family that didn’t really “talk about stuff”, I often still feel guilty accessing and seeking healthcare of any kind, but especially therapy. Living next to and often being taken care of by my grandfather, a colonel in the US army, who was taught that mental health was the stuff of psychological warfare and you had to keep quiet and never speak of the evils you witnessed–you’ll just wake up screaming in the middle of the night for the rest of your life and place WAY too much emphasis in the Washington Redskins–combined with a bunch of alcoholism in my family tree and a narcissistic biological father–it’s pretty obvious as to why I am who I am. 

I also truly love my current routine. I almost feel guilty for how much I enjoy quarantine. (Albeit, with an epidemiology background and coronavirus contract work, I would PREFER if 500,000 americans didn’t die and half the population didn’t still think they should be allowed to access night clubs “for the economy” which is so imaginary and subjective it’s like The Big Short, The Wolf of Wallstreet, or any of the 3 economic recessions in the last 30 years didn’t teach you this was a failing system and symbolic of late stage capitalism…but by all means, continue to PROVE ITS FAILURE OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND DENY THAT GDP DOES NOT DEMONSTRATE ANY GENERALIZABLE MEASURE FOR THE AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD, instead of just making life easier, happier, and healthier for everyone. 

The only thing that could make this time better was if I lived with some friends, had health insurance and could stay on my mom’s farm and continue to not work (because I’m unvaccinated and I don’t actually WANT a cardiorespiratory illness that could scar my lungs even further than my chronic bronchitis did 2 years ago because we don’t know the surely serious latent effects and I refuse to downplay them), or if I had a gym group of workout buddies that weren’t 40 year old dads trying to be the cool kid they wanted to be in high school staring at me run on the treadmill from across the gym. What I miss the most about a college town is being able to workout around people my age. I guess these men must not realize I had high school geometry (and up through differential equations and quantum chemistry calculations) so I know what mirrors and angles you’re using to get the best view of my ass. I am the same age as your daughters, if you have them. And I clearly don’t reciprocate.

Why do you think I have perfected the “resting bitch face”? 

Part of why I started writing is, apart from my Lady-Gaga-esque motivation to be fueled by spite, I recognized that I truly loved having the alone time on my mom’s farm. The time and space with the animals. The safety. The connection to the earth.

This is something that is often missing from my life when I’m working in medicine. Or in the public education system. I’m often resigned to work in a metal box with harsh fluorescent lighting. Varying degrees of sterility throughout my time within the box. Maybe a window to the outside if I’m lucky. 

At the middle school I taught at, I actually felt glad that I was placed in the detached trailers. That way, if a school shooter came in, I’d probably be okay. My mom, in the first door next to the office, likely wouldn’t be as lucky, though. But, I grew up with the DC sniper lockdowns in elementary school. This wasn’t “unusual”. 

The sense of security I’ve felt, being at home, having my mom and step dad account for me, guns, security alarms, multiple locks on my doors, dogs and other animals that alert with any sign of movement, is novel. Having a multilevel security system, so I’m never at risk of being so tired from my work week and after-hours of studying for the MCAT that I leave my keys in my front door overnight and the door ajar when I lay down to take my scrubs off and fall asleep. (Noodle is such a good boy he just stayed right by my side. Thank goodness nobody came in…Or, maybe they did, idk.) Without currently working, I also don’t have harsh alarms to wake up to, anymore. Jarring me from my recurrent nightmares and further reducing the inevitable shortage of REM sleep I already don’t get. This is honestly what I miss most about dating, too. I (usually) sleep WAY better with a man in the room. If I can fall asleep next to you in a bed, that means I have fully accepted you would be able to kill me and I actually trust you not to. A RARITY. Wear that badge with honor. 

For the first time in a while, I actually feel safe when I lay down in bed at night. I wasn’t aware that I’d forgotten what security felt like.

Maybe this was just a factor of my PTSD, but to be honest, I don’t know how any woman in the USA goes to bed at night in an apartment or house she lives in by herself and feels safe, frankly. When anyone with your phone number or first and last name can look up your current address, and when a lot of men feel “entitled” to you. And I have a taser, baseball bat, wasp and hornet spray (more effective than mace because it can spray up to 30 feet away according to law enforcement and their recommendations on effective uses of excessive force are probably pretty well-researched), and grappling experience, but I don’t want to have to need it. 

Something to keep in mind is also the harsh reality that healthy relationships will dramatically highlight how fucked up the previous ones were and may bring random memories flashing back as if it were a parallel dimension for whoever knows how long. It’s almost guilt-inducing, re-experiencing the events to recognize and fully comprehend just how fucked up they are after you actually experience healthy, full, love. And a lot of women look for explanations in themselves to explain the shitty behavior of their partners because we are taught to do so. 

We are taught that “boys will be boys” and “women are typically more mature for their age”, but not in a way to highlight the reality that over 12,000 men have served in Congress and less than 350 women EVER and for the 117th Congress, only ~a quarter of “representatives” are women. If women are so mature at 13, then why are they not trusted throughout their lives to evoke such authority? Why do we not teach men and young boys to look to females for their role models? Why do we allow men to doubt them publicly over and over again, bullying them through the media, yet then wonder why women don’t come forward?

Kanye West’s mental breakdowns are viewed with positivity for his next album and Britney Spears’ end with her being labeled “psychotic” and in a 12 year conservatorship with a man, her father, who she has no personal or professional relationship with but is allowed to control essentially every fiber of her being. Every move she makes. In 2001 she sang about being “Overprotected” with the lyrics literally saying “I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am / And I don’t wanna be so damn protected” and “ I can’t believe what I hear about the world” and “What am I to do with my life? You will find it out, don’t worry” and yet people label Kanye the “genius” and Britney Spears “psychotic”. I wonder why that is. (*misogyny*) Instead, “boys will be boys” and “women mature faster” should really be reframed as “women will be responsible and publicly accountable, not only for their own decisions and actions but for the decisions and actions of others that affect them, more seriously than men and thus must be more emotionally intelligent because men will capitalize and exploit that naivety and innocence in a variety of ways whereas boys will essentially just be excused for their actions nor will they be socially shamed for those same actions.” 

It feels good to channel this power. Though, I’m always weary as to whether it’s powerful in the “brink of madness scientist way of incredible intellect” or the “crazy witch lady who lives in the woods”…until I realize they’re the same people. I’m fine with that. Let’s dive in.

So my topic today is inspired from watching “Promising Young Woman”. Of COURSE, it was produced by Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment film company, because I loved every second of it. I won’t give out any spoilers, so don’t worry. Though it would be worth it to have watched it beforehand. Carey Mulligan stars as a 30 year old woman who dropped out of medical school and lives with her parents. She goes out at night, pretends to be drunk, and waits til guys ignore her (faked) intoxication to take her home and sexually assault her, to “sober up”, sit up, and confront their behavior. It’s also a bit of a romantic comedy. Makes a great date movie in a “Gone Girl” or “Shutter Island” way, but hey–I’m into all of that. Every guy should at least watch it, because the reality of being a woman in the USA is that 1 in 5 are or will be attempted raped in their lifetime and over 80% are sexually assaulted. Sexual harassment is the norm. We’re “lucky” if it’s “not rape”.

If you want to date women, and have sexual encounters WITH women, then you must consider the emotional trauma that MOST women now have.

And yet, men still wonder why I get so disinterested in dating that I simply won’t do it. I’ve gone through two multi-year celibacy phases…and I’m only 28. The first, honestly, was impressive because I didn’t even masturbate. But, I was in undergrad and still didn’t really “do that” because it “felt like I was intruding” (on myself). Latent effects of purity culture, ya know. I was fine letting a guy who smoked cigs, watched me dance with now-NBA players from across the room, and dressed as a cow for Halloween fuck me in the anex of his fraternity house, though. Barf. The current phase is because I FINALLY invested in sex toys and why would I worry about dating when, 1. It’s a pandemic, and 2. I can just watch porn and figure out what I like so the next guy I date, who at this point will have to propose just to ask me out because I’m not going back to casually dating ever again, can fuck me the way I want him to. 

And yeah, I unfortunately think I’m gonna date/marry a man out of practicality for feeling safe. Which may seem contradictory with the following stories, but less so when you consider other men respect another male’s presence to back off of me, more so than my own wants or desires. It’s self preservation.

My Knight in Shining Armor

The first “real” boyfriend I had, I started dating the summer going into my sophomore year of high school. We dated off/on until the New Years of my freshman year of college. What started as your typical teenage love affair of first time obsessions (for him, I was the more experienced one, naturally) gradually progressed into knifepoint accusations, threatening me with a gun “as a joke”, stalking my house daily to make sure I was “where I said I’d be”. He’d scour my phone for proof I was cheating. To be fair, I had kissed a guy once about six months in. So I thought his anger and insecurity was justified. I felt like it was my fault. It didn’t matter that it continued for years, got increasingly violent and controlling. My parents didn’t let me have a myspace, and my dad deleted all 3 that I made, so my boyfriend’s ban on social media didn’t seem out of the norm. His ban on me going to parties or talking to my male friends seemed normal too. After all, it was my male friend at my brother’s winter party that made me, at 15, justify all the horrendous shit my boyfriend would go on to do for years to come, because I “deserved it”. (And he kept me from “being distracted.”) My parents also hit me growing up, and my dad screamed at my mom in front of us all the time. My brother chased me with knives and broke down my door and arguably tried to kill me on regular occasions. That was just how people communicate, I thought. 

To be clear, I wouldn’t act that way. I would just watch. Observe. Learn.

So when we spoke, I wouldn’t be at any level of anger my boyfriend was at–I outsmarted him enough that I was cunning. I could talk my way out of his rage. Reason with him. It became a power. Natural, yet crafted.

I would argue I’ve liked control from birth. As I grew up, that turned into learning how to navigate situations within the realms of my control. And how to gain back power when I seemingly had none. Luckily, I was used to being multifaceted and my natural talent made satisfying this superficially easy as a child. I was also used to answering to an all powerful man. But everybody was Christian, so this was the norm. Our public high school’s varsity soccer team prayed before every game and if you didn’t, you looked like an outsider. I went to youth group as an atheist just so the terrifying popular girl wouldn’t bully me as much if I was her best friend.

I had long ago learned how to be quiet and reserved, stoically passing my time. Waiting for the moment to strike, if ever. Yet, I also feel I was uniquely confident and talented enough that I never felt like failure in one thing was “the end”. I always had other things to fall back on. My intellect. My art. My athleticism. I could generally afford to weigh my circumstances and figure out how to engage and know what benefitted me best. 

So what happens when you’re no longer in control?

What happens when “failure” could mean “death at the hands of your significant other, your sexual partner”?

You just… adapt. You adjust to survive.

By my senior year of highschool, I led two distinct, separate lives. I had tried to break up with that guy several times, but he kept showing back up, pleading for forgiveness, apologizing. Promising that he was sorry and it would never happen again. And TECHNICALLY, the exact same stuff, didn’t really? I grew up learning forgiveness. The faith that things would improve. People are virtuous. He did so much good for me, at any rate. His presence kept me from being labeled a slut for exploring my options and enjoying keeping my many, many options open (my freshman year) when I first started enjoying my sexuality. He kept me from being distracted by social media by not letting me have any. My grades were perfect and I rarely had to study, so it must’ve been working. He also played for DC United’s Youth team, so the hours he spent playing soccer with me in our front yard just gave me someone better to learn from. My siblings didn’t play soccer, and they liked to be indoors a lot more than I did. 

If you’re confused as to WHY I didn’t know this was an “unhealthy” relationship, we had a basic sex ed talk in 5th grade, then the bare minimum and what diseases you might get as a refresher once a year (if that?) in PE in middle school. But nobody listened to our gym teacher because the popular girls heard she was a lesbian from their parents and made fun of her. Then I think we had it once more in high school freshman year. 

But we didn’t ever learn about consent. 

We didn’t learn about the emotional aspect of sex. 

We didn’t learn about how misogynistic slut shaming was and how related to Christianity’s purity culture it is and the overlying narrative towards female sexuality around legality of prostitution. 

We didn’t learn about coercion or biochemical attachments or anything of that nature.

Maryland is one of 11 states in the USA that still allows sexual education exemption under “religious freedom”. 

Just a heads up–you can still have religion and teach comprehensive sex ed. The Northeast USA has done it, most of Europe has done it. It’s possible. The idea that you shouldn’t is routed in ideology about children being parental PROPERTY versus THEIR OWN INDIVIDUAL HUMANS WITH THEIR OWN PERSONALITIES. I don’t care if they’re “living under your roof”. You decided to have children. The literal BARE MINIMUM parental responsibility is for you to provide housing and food/water. They should have a choice and education and upbringing that empowers them to make their OWN choices. The first time they get to decide on something shouldn’t be when they magically turn 18…Especially not in regards to their HEALTH. Instead of being raised in cycles of fear and submission over whether they’ll be worthy of what is supposed to be your unconditional love. The USA not requiring this does NOTHING to protect children and also assumes parents are always beneficial. That abusive parents don’t exist. That children can discuss their lives with their parents rationally. That’s simply not reality. If you don’t like that, don’t fucking have children.

So it took me a while to really understand how fucked up it was. The way he tried to get me pregnant so I couldn’t leave for college. Laughable in theory and everything. The abortion would happen INSTANTLY if my birth control failed. Would not think twice about it.

…I couldn’t blame him though. His older sister was 19, living at home after her boyfriend got her pregnant and his mom had gotten pregnant by his dad similarly. He saw it as a way to keep me.

 Or that it wasn’t okay the way he grabbed my arms and bruised me with his grip. They blended in with my bruises from soccer and football anyways, no big deal. It’s not like it hurt. It wasn’t technically abuse. Only once did he swing at me.

Granted, I let him hurt me and choke me sexually, so he got out his aggression, but a lot of people are into that.

I’m still into it ~*~consensually~*~.

The only guy who noticed any of those bruises, by the way–my freshman year homecoming date–has gotten multiple DUI’s and has a heroin addiction now so I’m pretty sure he identified it because of his own home. My dad and brother got in actual fist fights constantly. My brother tried to beat the shit out of me on regular occasions. Watching my dad scream and mock my mom emotionally was a regular occurrence. Did it matter if my boyfriend did it? 

How about the way he held my male friend up at knifepoint at soccer practice for kissing me? It was my fault, though. I shouldn’t have kissed him. My ex’s favorite song was Eminem’s “Kim”. I should’ve just stayed at my grandparent’s house–banished so I could actually “get some rest” for my soccer tournament in the morning. As if midnight rendezvous ever affected my athletic performance the past year when I ran away multiple nights a week. I wasn’t a good little girl, though. Just wasn’t my nature, I guess.

 How about him having his neighbor hold me and my best friend up at gunpoint “as a joke”? Even though fairly recently, someone in his neighborhood, who he played football with, had gotten stabbed in the abdomen and had tried running home, holding his intestines inside? And an active shooter was frequenting the area? 

So why did you date him for so long?

WHY DO PEOPLE STILL ASK THIS QUESTION. It doesn’t start out that severely. Ever. In fact, it often starts out the opposite. Exceedingly nice, polite, rewarding. Go watch Disney Pixar’s Soul or the FKA Twigs interview if you don’t realize how problematic that response is. Even the most confident people can fall under the guise of fear, failed mentors, and slowly increasing control tactics and tying manipulation into your trust so you were conditioned over time to distrust YOURSELF. Within your mind, you have insufficient proof that they’re not the person they tell you, repeatedly, that they are. ESPECIALLY if you’re taught, from childhood, to look for a male savior, to ALWAYS love and forgive, people are good and redeemable no matter what…

It’s more complicated when you factor in that he was the one there to console me after I stood next to my grandma, the matriarch of our family, and watched the last breath she took. He knew and understood the true strength of our familial dynamic and the farm. I stood next to her bed, looking out to the barn, the magnolia trees, watching her breathing become less frequent and more labored. And he was there to help me process that pain. He knew the intimate details of my life.

He was also driving the car when my friend Cliff pulled up to us on his motorcycle at the stoplight. Molly was there too. I’d finally convinced him to take me to a high school homecoming (my senior year), and that none of the guys at my school would steal me from him. We never made it to the dance, because after saying hi to Cliff, I then watched Cliff drive his motorcycle into the back of an SUV parked on the shoulder and die on the spot. I guess that was my fault too, though. I was the one who had insisted on going to the dance, which is why we were at that stoplight or on that road in the first place.

So by senior year, after sports, my boyfriend would come by my house. He went to a high school further away, so he’d just assume he could come over after his practice ended. I should be home, after all. He wouldn’t leave until I fucked him, so I got used to pretending like I still enjoyed being with him even though I had long shut off my emotions. It was a nice hormonal kick, the daily orgasms, though. I figured, if I had to get through this hell, I would at least figure out how it was most enjoyable for me. And he was physically a reliable source of relief for the mental stress he put me through. Like I said, he had a pretty nice dick.

And truth be told, can you really blame my mental health on just him? I mean, I think I manage my mental health pretty well, for the record. Saying I’m “mentally unwell” is actually insulting, because I think this is a perfectly rational response for the things in my life to date. Let’s get that straight.

 So, I’d get on top of him, and fuck him on the floor of my bedroom–having to be sneaky and quiet enough not to annoy my various family members. He’d cum, be reassured that I loved him and all was well, then he’d go off to smoke weed and fuck some freshman from his school while I went off to hang out with a bunch of nerdy track guys one county over, playing Mario Party and Just Dance or even charades and irrationally feeling like I should feel guilty the whole time. 

Eventually, by the spring of my senior year, I started fucking other guys too, but I’d at least break up with him for the day. So I justified his control and incessant obsession with making sure I was staying “in line” and “his”. He never found proof I was also fucking around, I was far too clever (and busy) for that. (Plus, I had learned my lesson telling him the truth the first time.) I grew up with a father who did counterintelligence, after all. Who only found my myspaces because I never really tried to hide them. Who never knew about the sneaking out until I decided I was okay with him recognizing it. To be fair, I never really found “proof” that my high school boyfriend was “fucking around”, either, but if the shoe fits, walk a mile in it, right? I’ve heard enough stories.

I didn’t register, know, or understand what I didn’t like about dating him. How was I to know? 

We didn’t learn about domestic violence in school.

We didn’t learn about sexual trauma or abuse in general.

Or pedophilia.

We didn’t learn about consent in sex education or sexual dynamics of coercion.

We learned what sex was and a few diseases you could get and how you might get them. 

It was a public school in the way that most girls wore their purity rings (even after they did anal, because everyone knows that doesn’t count) and prayer circles were common. You lost your ability to play sports if you got “too confident” as a teenage girl (read: slutty, biochemically assertive and confident) or had to provide daycare for your younger siblings. My neighbors are Amish and everyone goes to a one room schoolhouse. There’s a JUNIOR naval academy less than an hour from me. I told you, it was a weird place to grow up for as much good as it offered me. 

It’s only in my adulthood that I’m learning sexual power has been used both artistically and as a survival method to topple authoritative power structures, government regimes, unhealthy marriages, “perfect families”, and the power struggle by nature in that men are often physically larger. What “misogyny” and “the patriarchy” is, and how it’s perpetuated in symbolic Christianity throughout the USA and related to republican policies? Why do we condemn people to learn about something so prevalent in our societal culture and so unaddressed that most women can and will go through something of similar variation and yet, it’s “taboo” to discuss? That CHILDREN can and will be going through because that’s just life in America, but we don’t want to talk “socialism” because handouts are bad. “Save the Children”–but ONLY if they’re unborn or if we think Hilary Clinton was involved and they’ll take up our religion. 

Rihanna loses speaking engagements because Chris Brown beat the shit out of her and they were worried about the OPTICS of having a “domestic violence SURVIVOR” and “accountability” is apparently “cancel culture” for Trump supporters these days. 

That was our lives. We’re a rural farming town. Everyone beat the shit out of their kids. It’s mainly military, agricultural, blue collar, or law enforcement to some degree for parents. My mom couldn’t condemn how my boyfriend treated me without exposing or even being aware of and honest with herself about her own marriage, her own upbringing, her own parenting method. She didn’t have the 8 years of schooling that I’ve had since. She didn’t babysit for the families and watch the parenting styles of minimal financial stress. How would I expect her to? She had three children by my current age. And they didn’t have “the internet” at home.

I knew I didn’t like the way my boyfriend treated me. He knew it, too. But he always apologized. He found different ways to hurt me. So I just never hit back. I may have thought often about slitting his throat, mind you. But never when he knew it. Maybe in his sleep, when he couldn’t overpower me so easily. When the text messages from the middle school girls his dad coached in soccer would come through in the middle of the night. I remembered the times I sent the same desperate array of messages as I read them, quietly, listening to his breath softly continuing sleepily behind me. Confronting him and being talked out of believing yourself because “he loves you” and “he would never”.  (He was 18, that would be gross.) The reality that maybe “she does this with everyone” (but not being able to admit that without also admitting you know the “but I never respond” is a lie. Men always respond. Such feeble, feeble creatures.) 

I would always forgive him. I reacted with love, and swayed him with sex until he was gentle with me. I biochemically trained him to my advantage–my desperate ploy against the rage from his triple x steroid protein powder shit he guzzled down on the reg. I may have been picturing myself orgasming on his cock right as I slit his jugular and finally freed myself of him, but I didn’t have to. I knew I was going to leave him behind soon. That could stay a fantasy.

I knew there was an escape. 

It didn’t matter if he tried to get me pregnant so I couldn’t go to college. He wasn’t able to. 

It didn’t matter if my homesickness freshman year–for my mom and people I knew and my animals, everything I’d ever known and loved–threatened to compromise my physical separation by 4 hours and 3 states from him, during a weak moment over winter break. Don’t get me wrong, even though I LOVED UNC, it didn’t feel like “home” yet and I didn’t really have a “place”. I knew nobody. It was only 16% out of state. The majority of people came in knowing their entire friend group–much how I imagine my high school peers experience at UMD was. 

But where was the room for me? 

So, thankfully, when I had to get my tonsils out in an emergency surgery over christmas break of my freshman year–same as my older brother also had, because it turns out college has a lot of germs–my ex blew off coming to see me, even though he had been texting me and capitalizing on my loneliness and the opioid regimen of my surgery. It was the nail in the coffin I needed, thankfully, because I never spoke to him again.

 I also later found out he started dating the bitch who would foul the shit out of me from a rival high school’s soccer team. I do not fuck with inappropriate fouling–I broke a collarbone that way. One time, it got so bad and blatantly obvious that I turned and raised a fist. She left me the fuck alone after that. It made sense that she would start fucking my ex boyfriend. They were engaged for a while, I’m pretty sure. I wonder how it compares to the multiple promise rings he got me. It’s no wonder I hate jewelry, these days. I would love for her to actually tell me how much he ended up fucking her over. As messed up as it is, I would love some validation that it wasn’t just me. Even though I know it wasn’t. She used to follow my old instagram but never slid in my DMs so idk if it was hate following or a “I get it now” type of thing. Maybe she’ll find my new instagram and let me know. 

I’ve seen my ex only a handful of occasions since. Both times were when I was either in the Target or the Safeway (our grocery store). Both times I turned and walked abruptly away and avoided him quite obviously. 

My mom taught his younger brother while I was away in college. She also cared for my boyfriend like a son the entire time he dated me. And my brother has some psychological concerns related to aggression and how my parents raised him, so we can’t really say her limited knowledge (because there was no way I actually told people the full extent of this shit), made him out to be that bad. She may have been terrified he would kill me–revealed to me very recently–so she would always let him into the house …because what if she didn’t? She would talk to him in the hallways at school–where she taught math…because what if she didn’t? Sometimes I wonder if his friends look back and realize how dangerous he is/was? How unhealthy that is? Good riddance.

All I’m saying, is if I had to go to like ten different funerals before the age of 18 for overdoses, drunk driving, and suicides, because of my public school, then we could at least have covered the REASONS for substance use, the normalcy of depression and anxiety and ways your body is changing REALISTICALLY without it being “hilarious”. We had 3 high school teachers get busted for sexual relations with underage students since I’ve graduated and hired a homeland security analyst to our schoolboard to get rid of the predators AND several of the girls I went to high school with immediately became strippers but we can’t learn about or just finally fucking legalize prostitution so we can stop ignoring when sex workers go missing and end up murdered? So we can stop saying they “ran away”. And so we can stop sending children to juvie and succumbing them to the sex offender’s registry because of “child pornography”? That ENTIRE punishment is literally PUNISHING CHILDREN FOR NORMAL SEXUAL PLEASURES OR INTEREST IN THEMSELVES. Which, yeah, should be addressed so we can protect them from pedophilic culture, but this SURE AS HELL ISN’T THE SOLUTION. When the part of their brain responsible for judgment isn’t even fully developed yet and, again, why the fuck would it be developed when we aren’t teaching or talking about this stuff in a healthy and realistic setting? Who the fuck can tell themselves this is logical.

North Carolinaaaaaaaa

Physical separation was my saving grace, though. Out of sight, out of mind, right? And I flourish with that. If I decide I want to forget about something, I can. As I said, I long ago mastered controlling emotion.

I never use it for manipulation, to be fair. Only my safety. I can just hear Holly Flax and Michael Scott singing “let’s get eth-I-cal, ethical”. Or in the new Star Wars generation how Rey was cognizant of both forces but actively chose to do good. The dissociation is a learned skill but so is communication regarding the mental depths inciting my amygdala. I’m working on being okay with vulnerability, ya’ll. In my defense, Americans in general are terrible at that.

When I went back to UNC for the Spring semester, tonsil and abusive ex-boyfriend free, I was still vulnerable. Mentally, emotionally, and physically. I never had therapy, throughout any of this. I had to look out for myself out of necessity.

The thing, above all, that brings me power at any moment, is trusting myself to be okay alone.

I know that I have so many talents that SOMETHING in this body has to be of worth and will pull me wherever I’m intended to be at that moment. That no matter what I’m facing, it’ll all work out. How could it not? At this point, I seem to have a lot of quantized energy on my side. My intuition has kept me alive thus far. Thriving, even, if I dare say. In regards to relationships, I’m sure my exes knowing I’m fine without them, better, even, is hard. Nobody likes to admit someone else’s life will be of a higher quality without them in it. 

Flash forward a month and I met one of the great loves of my life when he chased me down in the Lenoir dining hall. Nothing like an alpha male capable of subsiding power and begging for your time. I never dated him, formally, and he transferred the following year, thus, the timing, ya know? He’s fairly irrelevant to this story but I went on to date him on/off through several moves in and out of NC and I’m gonna call it dating because I don’t give a fuck–we were mutually exclusive (at his request) for 8 months at one point and sleeping over 4 nights a week while I worked in MEDICINE AND DID NOTHING ELSE BUT WORK AND HIM. The audacity of men these days.

My sophomore year, I spent a year and a half being celibate, not really drinking (the ~1 year I did it was enough for me. I’ll sip the occasional drink but I’d rather just watch) and running 85 miles a week just to focus on myself and channel my anxiety and energy. Plus, my parents didn’t expect me to get a job (and maintain my biochemistry degree) if I was also doing a sport. 

Junior year, I fell in love, got my heart broken…on Valentine’s day, in fact…How topical. I didn’t even think about the timing of this when I started writing. 

The summer following Junior year, I grabbed a butcher knife and ran outside my house, screaming at the two 40+ year old men who walked up our driveway and were peeping in our windows when I lived with 3 girls. I held the knife up, and aggressively said “if i EVER see either of you over here again you will not live”. I never saw them again. It was VERY effective.

November of my Senior Year I began dating a guy who went to University of South Carolina with my younger sister. He was with me that New Years Eve when an asshole preditor reached under my legs, in a bar, fingering me while I was literally walking across the dance floor.

I was wearing a tight little red dress, and 4 inch wedge heels. So I bet you think I was asking for it, right?

Never mind the fact that if you aren’t wearing a helmet down a street it doesn’t give me the right to bash your head in with a baseball bat, does it? It’s the same logic.

Cause I “should’ve known” that I’d be sexually assaulted mid stride at Top of the Hill, a prime Chapel Hill landmark on the corner of Franklin and MLK. The bar pictured in every historic photograph of Franklin Street after one of our many national championships or Duke victories. He was sitting on an ottoman that is around a pillar. He was not a student. Hunched over, pretending to be drunk or tying his shoe etc. I walked, he reached out, into my underwear, and put his fingers into my vagina. I turned around, thinking it was my boyfriend, who was right behind me–prepared to scold him on how inappropriate. Time and place, buddy…Only to realize he had my drink in one hand and his in the other. There was no way. My mind did 2+2 whilst seeing the guy recoil, and my skin got this weird sensation and I knew it was him. My body just knew. 

I jumped on top of him, pinning him behind the table and beat the living shit out of him for as long as I could until my VERY confused boyfriend got me away from him. The guy didn’t even try to stop it. He knew he deserved it. 

I left in tears. Got in the shower immediately, crying for hours when I got home. I didn’t know to call the police. I didn’t think to preserve evidence. I don’t know if I would’ve even felt confident that I got a good enough look at him to identify him later on in different clothing. Who was going to believe me? The security footage was shotty at best. I had been drinking. It was New Years. I was in a tight red dress on a crowded dance floor. I was a skinny, pretty, young, blonde, college girl. Who I am is just “asking for it”, apparently. 

I’d only been dating the guy from South Carolina for a month or two at that point. Truth be told, it’s probably what kept us going long after we should’ve broken up. Trauma bonds people. 

So, is it really my fault when his sister spent the ENTIRE day the night before her wedding asking me why I was with him and telling me how much better I deserved? Or how, later that night, when his friend “Matt” texted him at 2 am asking him how far he was from Charlotte, even though he had been living in New Jersey so the only way this “Matt” would have known he was in the state was if he had been planning to meet up with them? Why would you need to do that if you had your girlfriend coming to be your date? And why would you then have the audacity to lie to my face when I saw the fucking message and knew it wasn’t “Matt” and could see your pathetic attempt to formulate any thought other than the truth even after saying “you have one more chance before I leave”. And THEN you STILL had the audacity, KNOWING the intimate history of my relationship abuse and my worry over my parent’s divorce (because I stupidly opened up to someone YET AGAIN), just so he could then corner me in the very tiny bathroom, shutting the door behind him and towering over me like Gandalf when he screams at Bilbo Baggins with his 6’4” frame, somehow finding a way to yell at ME, calmly backing my belongings quietly, even though HE COULD’VE JUST BEEN HONEST 5 MINUTES BEFORE FROM THE BEGINNING.

So did I give a flying fuck if his screaming woke his entire extended family filling the rest of the suites in the five star hotel’s hallway? No.

Did I have too much pride to wake his mom so she could have his dad physically restrain him so I could leave? No.

Do I feel bad that I drove to Chapel Hill 45 minutes away at 2 am and hit up the aforementioned great love for the first time in several years, fucking him and crashing on his friend’s couch he was couch surfing on? nah. “No ragrets.”

I figured his family and him would thank me in the long run for not being present in the memories of the actual wedding, nor would they blame me. Especially not after the way he handled it. Sucks I met his ENTIRE extended Italian family at the rehearsal dinner earlier in the night, but, maybe you shouldn’t have hoes in all these different cities when you’re in a committed relationship. Idk. 

Less than a year after that, while once more at Top of the Hill on Valentine’s Day with my best friend and her boyfriend, an NBA player and Chapel Hill great, disaster struck. My best friend was roofied and we are almost entirely certain it was her boyfriend’s best friend, a former Chapel Hill football quarterback, who did not like her and spent the entire night trying to convince her boyfriend that “he shouldn’t be with someone who gets so sloppy”.

A few months later, the maintenance guy from my apartment complex in Shadowood, a popular (cheap, old, shitty) student housing option in Chapel Hill across from the Carolina North forest, crossed 5 feet of pavement between us as he approached me while walking in the downtown area on a night out, felt up my body from my knee to my tit, and proceeded to continue down the street like nothing happened while I turned around and screamed at him and my roommate identified him as our maintenance guy.

I will thank my shitty complex. Not for keeping an eye out for my safety, but for refusing to revoke his access to my apartment until I had secured a temporary restraining order from the Hillsborough courthouse. Not to mention, when the management told him that I notified the complex, he waited on the stairs outside of my apartment and screamed at my friend who also happened to have long blonde hair as she was leaving. Still not enough to take his keys away, though. Or when he sat in uniform at the pool after seeing me present, on the clock, one chair away just staring at me, in a bikini. He was technically also a resident of the complex. They didn’t want to take away HIS rights or violate his lease in any way. 

Florida Man

When the issue with my maintenance guy happened, I was dating the ex from Florida who would eventually go on to try to buy me a house. At 24, it was a nice offer. But if someone has a 10, 15, and 20 year plan including exact timelines for marriage, kids, etc. before they actually meet their spouse, that’s not really a “partnership”. That’s you planning your entire life and just walking down the aisle at the grocery store and choosing whichever spouse is on sale.Whatever, he bought my dog for me. 

I don’t feel bad for dragging him to hell and back in my “Religiosity is to blame” Donald Trump piece, because after 2-3 months of us not having sex (because I had caught him compulsively and inexplicably lying to his friends about me, my friends, and my grad school program, including some rhetoric around his friends talking about stopping in and “servicing” me when they were in my college town for work) I woke up in the middle of the night to him fucking me. In his defense, he’s a good ole Catholic boy and marital rape wasn’t even illegal until 1993. I love waking up to some sexual play, too, under normal circumstances. We’d been dating for like a year and a half at that point? However, I think even the biggest idiot should know that 2-3 months of no sex because I emotionally can’t stand you is not grounds for “start fucking her when she’s unconscious and hope she’s into it”. 

And teaching women they must forgive and teach men how to treat them makes it so even when stuff like this happens, if they’re apologetic WE OFTEN EXCUSE THEIR BEHAVIOR OVER OUR OWN SAFETY. We reinforce or feel obligated to answer that “it’s okay” when it SHOULDN’T be. We convince ourselves they really couldn’t have known better and they weren’t thinking about it like that. And you don’t see why this is a huge fucking problem that we as a society are not talking about enough? 

When I called him out on the fact that he raped me, which I have proof he admitted should I need it, he started slapping himself and trying to get me to hit him. I guess me confessing about how I started therapy in college after finding tinder on my ex’s phone while blacked out at a Valentine’s day cocktail and punching him in the face made him think that was how I wanted to solve my problems? Do you know how disturbing it was to watch someone say they love you, but try to get you to feel as guilty as they feel instead of just learning how to absorb the emotional pain? Or how fucked up it was that you could confide some act of drunken response and the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your life, which is saying a lot because of all the above and the medical injuries, and then have someone TRY and WANT to bring you back to that mentality? Do you know how confusing it is when societal expectations for success point to him as a “good person” and “everyone makes mistakes”? How that further compounds your (unreasonable) guilt and natural attempt to reason or explain the situation with logic, even though the logic is just that a lot of men suck? 

I told you all I wasn’t fucking around. I may be “mean” but it’s never unprovoked.

How is it fair when the statute of limitations expires before you learn that what happened is “wrong”?

Or you lack enough proof to convict and rape kits are expensive and often cost THE VICTIM thousands of dollars–not to mention all of those still untested (#endthebacklog)?

How about concern over financial kickbacks because he managed your IRA?

His best friend sent me three pages of texts mocking me for saying Trump was going to try and undermine the election back in October so honestly I don’t give a flying fuck about whether this makes them uncomfortable or whether his identity eventually gets exposed. Maybe don’t be so afraid of accountability that you do things and pray for forgiveness later because that’s all you’ve ever been taught by your holy priest.

Cause it’s your reckoning day, bitches. 

How about a few months later, after you have broken up, when you finally start hooking up with someone regularly again. You’re honest with them and that’s all you expect from him. He’s a 5th year senior which is kinda nice, because as a 2nd year grad student it gives you a little bit of an edge over his cockiness, because he knows you’re smarter than him and can’t deny it. (Why do you think I chose the majors I did?)

So when he’s super rude to you and pretends you don’t exist seeing you in person on a gameday–after fucking you that morning, all because he’s with a girl who is also in a similar grad school program and lives only a few houses down from you, you wait til they get back to his apartment, (also in the complex) before you send her screenshots of all his messages asking me not to tell her. But I’m the messy one. When Taylor Swift said “I never trust a narcissist, but they love me”? I fucking felt that. And that definitely “deserved” him coming, coked out of his mind, to my apartment, screaming at my door, threatening to shoot me, pacing up and through it for hours, wrecking some of my stuff and punching multiple holes in the wall. I’m the one to blame, sure. 

He’s in Sigma Chi at UF, by the way. Nasty little fraternity. One of my friends was raped by a sigma chi at uf and her sorority told her to not press charges because it may affect their date functions and partnership with them. But you wonder why women don’t come forward?

After several continued days of intimidation, I confided in our security guard police officer who lives in the complex and thankfully, because of Floridian law, he was immediately removed and processed. 

Did it stop him from telling and insisting to all of his little friends that I was “Crazy” and lying? No. I didn’t expect it to. 

Did it stop him from coming into the pool area, choosing the location directly adjacent from me in the largest pool complex in Gainesville, only to sit and stare at me the ENTIRE TIME he was in the pool? No.

Did it stop him from manipulating that stupid fucking girl into dating him for over a year? Also no. I hope he learned a lot from his domestic violence group and court mandated anger management. 

When he broke the restraining order several times and was seen stalking my house, I didn’t call the cops, though I did speak to the boys across the street about looking out for me. I was scared to escalate the situation. He was already mad enough that he had to leave the pool or a bar if I showed up. What happens if I had taken away his education? His housing? How would that have wired in my favor? Remember–I lived alone. And he had a gun. I had to tread carefully. 

I’m not saying people can’t change, either. I get it. You can do crimes and unspeakably awful things and decide to be a completely different person eventually. You can also decide to be a good person from the beginning, fyi. It’s not actually that fucking hard and ethics aren’t that subjective, despite what the GOP would have you believe. 

However, you also can’t expect your behavior and decisions to not follow you when they actually hurt people. You don’t get to decide how someone else responds to it or how long it takes them to heal or what that looks like. Especially not when that pattern of behavior is problematic on a larger scale and was definitely not an isolated incident. It’s not enough to make your friends cut you off, to be fair. They won’t really like you, but they’ll never tell you that to your face and they’re too cowardly to be lonely as an adult to expand their social circle outside of their small Tampa highschool-turned-college-fraternity-pipeline. 

I’ve been a big part of sorority/fraternity culture, despite not being in one myself. I like the parties and themed functions. Most of my friends from both colleges are in some version of one. And I would go out with a group of 4 guys every night who were in the same fraternity (one was from my grad program), who would literally encircle me and keep people away from me, make sure I was safe, make sure I always had my card and a buddy, when I went out for the rest of the year. I’m not saying Greek life is universally bad…But it IS universally bad at actually drawing the line for problematic behavior or setting up a system to actually help and address truly problematic behavior and not just behavior that bitchy girls embodying Chanel Oberlin find “uncool” because it’s “dorky”. Did none of you watch Amanda Bynes in that “Sydney White” movie? The Hot or Not version of Mark Zuckerberg’s facebook that rolled through in Sara Paxton’s post-Aquamarine Barbie doll days? Have we not learned anything over the years? 

While we’re on the topic–I do want to give a shoutout to OX at UF. My best large group of friends is from there and they seriously made me feel so safe, so included, and so welcomed in Florida. And Skyler and the bouncers at Fats and Rowdys never made me pay and always kept me safe from being roofied and let me sit on the bar so I could watch the crowd and the guys could stand in front of me and keep me from being touched undesirably. 

If anyone has seen a video of UF girls dancing on a bar, it’s typically at Fats. 

These are not bars I recommend you bring your family to, either. (Though I have.) These are bars that don’t have doors on the toilets or a lock on the main door and the men’s line can literally just look in and see you pee on game day so you better hope you’re not wearing a romper that has to practically come all the way off to pee. You have to love college towns and game days. 

In case you wonder why I never feel safe, let’s not forget when I moved back to Chapel Hill and was working in surgical dermatology, and had to move into a new apartment. My internet technician from AT&T, while in my 1 bedroom apartment, alone, with just me. Who was standing in my bedroom doorway, while I showed him the ethernet cable plug, in the corner of my fairly darkened bedroom, blocking my way out. Who mentioned in passing that he knows who I am because he follows me on instagram because of my ass on a pizza floatie being posted to Barstool’s account. I understand he was maybe 30 years old max and men might not have to think of how unnerving that scenario can be. Setting up my internet. Knowing, seeing, and accessing my apartment and knowing I am alone and live alone all the time. Implying you’ve followed me on social media for years even though I just moved back to Chapel Hill for the first time in three. Blocking the only escape route I have so I’m mentally contemplating what I could use as a weapon if needed while keeping a straight face and pretending not to acknowledge how weird that is for me. All the yikes. 

These are all random and unrelated events that compound the severity of needing to address and requiring teaching consent.

Requiring people to stop glorifying the purity of innocence in children like we live at Disney World and start teaching them how to healthily handle actual life so your sons grow up and don’t molest and rape and assault women. So drinking culture is not so normalized that you think the only time you should and can function hooking up is when you’re uninhibited, instead of prioritizing sexual connection when sober or when you’re with someone you trust to at least wear a condom when he fucks random girls from dating apps on the nights he isn’t seeing you. I’m kidding…They never wear condoms. They’ll throw a fit about you asking or imply you’re unreasonable for expecting it. 

I also study infectious diseases. Rick and Morty’s “Anatomy Park” episode is what I based my epidemiology graduation cap design around. Only now there is drug resistant super gonorrhea, just an fyi. And many states don’t have laws that prevent or protect you from someone knowingly and purposely giving you a sexually transmitted infection. Birth control is not freely available or over the counter. Women’s rights all over the globe are apparently up for discussion and some states in the USA still don’t seem to grasp that abortion is fucking healthcare. Or that healthcare shouldn’t be tied to jobs and that 33 of the 34 developed countries in the world have figured out universal healthcare so maybe we could get on that. Or maybe the worst country in the developed world for worker’s rights wouldn’t function without healthcare being a GOAL for employment. A way to keep you in the workforce, because god forbid you need paid time off, sick leave to actually be sick, your mental health could be threatened because of your work environment, but you can’t quit because then you won’t have access to affordable insured mental health care. Don’t even get me started on paid maternity leave or how we think it should be legal for politicians to be ignorant to progress and science in a country that forced itself as a dominant world power on a universally large stage so other nations and people do look to us as examples and use it to justify their continued ignorance.

Our current culture and the influx of ignorance in administration is a danger. 

Not just to our societal infrastructure. 

Or the world. 

But to women especially. 

We are not protecting women. We keep prostitution illegal and go fight wars overseas on account of “freedom” and refuse to actually protect those within our borders. We prevent regulation on account of “small government” and refuse to demand public transparency and for government officials to ignore the lobbying bullshit and work for the healthiest environment. We don’t even assign law enforcement to most sexual assault cases or empower victims or create a social safety net to where they’re able to leave without months of devious, quiet planning and anxiety. Without further risking their lives because of “survival of the fittest” and threats to how legalizing prostitution will prevent capitalism from exploiting how easily sex sells and the purging of innocence for not-yet-legal teenage girls.

So as a 28 year old very cynical blonde lady living with my parents after leaving the healthcare field, watching Promising Young Woman struck me.

And the biggest way was it felt like justice, as tragic as it was.

And that there truly are no victors.

Nor is anybody innocent.

It felt real.

Every single woman I’ve ever met has some variation of a story like mine. Watching HBO’s “Big Little Lies” was hard to have seemingly long-forgotten scenes flash back, paralleled on screen. It’s overwhelming. And most of them never reported any of it, so I don’t think twice when I see that the already high statistics are likely underreported.

But in an age where this is common, what does one do? Dax Shepard had Carey Mulligan on his “Armchair Expert” podcast and mentioned how he isn’t surprised anymore when women come forward because that seems to be the norm. Why aren’t more men saying things like that?! Why are men, instead, confident enough to doubt the women and then also wondering why their friends have never opened up to them about a time they were sexually assaulted? Where porn addictions and violence through sexual trauma are normalized for men because of our porn industry, yet we keep prostitution illegal and women are taught they should keep themselves “pure” and “ladylike” because their physical body and sexual pleasure is always framed in reference to someone else often within the bounds of reproductive purposes only. Where dating is hard because men will laugh at how suspicious you are of them and you don’t know how or when or why you should even have to launch into this explanation. When I’ve gotten screamed at on a third date by a guy who was 29 who was upset I wasn’t as emotionally invested as he was. 

One of the guys who has since confessed his pregnancy and twin fetish for me, almost choked me out the first time we hooked up. Truthfully, he should be GLAD that we have most of the same friends (we ran in slightly different circles before). After he walked me home, which was an idiotic move on my part… I was half convinced he wanted to kill me and yet I still let him walk me home over a mile in the dark because my logic was I wore sneakers and was pretty fast if he tried anything. However, that did not stop me from telling one of our mutual good friends, the house dad of this kid’s fraternity, that he was a “liability”. Rick and Morty included Summer’s helpful line of “Nobody chokes me without consent!” And I KNOW he loves Rick and Morty so even if a fucking cartoon had to teach him to ASK WOMEN BEFORE YOU CHOKE THEM BECAUSE THEY WILL ASSUME YOU ARE FOLLOWING A POTENTIAL PATTERN FOR THE SERIAL KILLERS WHOSE TRUE CRIME STORIES THEY FOLLOW DILIGENTLY, I’m still glad it’s there. He may claim he’s a highly sociopathic introvert but I know he’s just an INTJ with dark familial history (this is the Confederate slave family one) because unlike MANY of his Floridian friends, he openly criticized the GOP and is adamantly communist and votes democratically. And he goes to therapy. Which made me really happy that he felt he would tell me that. He has a strong, feisty mom who defies her family’s traditions, though, so between that and my friend’s reassurances I’m slightly less skeptical he’ll Ted Bundy me one of these days.

Our current society makes the people who are trying to make the world a better place seem like the crazy ones–The people who value human life over money. Where alpha males are flaunted through sporting culture and legal issues and character are negated “for the love of the game”. Where most men have likely had encounters like the far too many examples above and may not think anything of it because we value women and children like property and chess pieces for men to move around the board of life at whim. To sacrifice as needed.

In 2020, the USA didn’t rank in the top 10, or even the top 50, for the World Economic Forum’s gender equality.

In “The Genius of Dogs” by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods, the field of evolutionary anthropology is explored. Particularly highlighting the behavioral differences in two of our closest primate relatives: bonobos and chimpanzees. The authors explain

“the highest ranking bonobo in the group is always a female, and females are close friends. Male bonobos do not beat up their mothers…male bonobos do not use physical aggression to control females. These tight bonds between female bonobos are the secret to their success. Although one female is less powerful than any male, if one female is being harassed, all of her female friends will come to her defense. In this way, females work together to protect one another from male aggression. Male bonobos can no longer force females into mating with them. Female bonobos have more freedom in choosing with whom to mate with as a result. Instead of bullies, females prefer to mate with more gentle and peaceful males.” 

Who wants to explain to me why the USA is so insistent against progressive policies that make it easier to live and our males and military choose to resemble the chimpanzee relatives instead?

“Gangs of male chimpanzees cooperate in patrolling their territory borders, opportunistically kill their neighbors, and subsequently take over their territories. These gangs typically target males and infants when they attack. Females are normally spared… ” (If by spared you mean, forced into servitude.) “All chimpanzee groups have an alpha male, and it is the aspiration for every male to reach that position. The main prize for alpha males is sexual control over females. Unfortunately, males often force females to mate with them and prevent them from mating with other males by severely biting and beating the females.”

Empowerment through feminism is necessary for global stability, and the USA needs to address the violence towards women and stigma towards sexuality of females across the country. We can’t afford not to. Emphasizing sexual fluidity and empowerment, as well as its exploitation through pop culture, is important. But empowering women to try anal for fun when they’re actually ready, instead of as a “loophole” or to try and desperately keep a sub-par boyfriend from cheating, or how Call Her Daddy’s host Alexandra Cooper endorses choking someone out haphazardly without the consent, awareness, and intent behind healthy BDSM culture and is going to get women killed and traumatized irreparably and her audience is largely college aged females in the midst of drinking culture. It also includes the generation that ate tide pods so we can’t expect them to know better. Not with our public education system. From a platform whose main public figure openly makes rape jokes, I wouldn’t expect anything less.

Female sexual empowerment is undeniably imperative to combat purity culture and conservative mentality. 

However, it cannot be done without also:

– addressing unrealistic standards for professionalism and misogynistic mentality towards sexual freedom negatively impacting women

– the necessity for comprehensive sexual education BEGINNING IN YOUTH AND INCLUDING CONSENT in all 50 states and territories REGARDLESS OF RELIGION

– restructuring our law enforcement and public defense budget so we actually prosecute people who are a danger to others, testing rape kits, not charging or relying on victim’s health insurance to process one to begin with, mental health being regularly accessible and a norm of society

– exploring and developing birth control and hormonal monitoring that doesn’t solely target women or treat single moms as the “problematic ones” riding the “alimony pony” instead of “providing valuable and necessary education and care to OUR children”

– abortion is healthcare. We need to stop “debating” this, it’s 2021. Get rid of the fucking billboards lining the highways in the south. Stop “protesting” outside planned parenthood which is really just harassing and intimidating people seeking affordable medical care. 

– Accountability for rapists. Actual education and reform programs for social welfare over the current prison system. Chemical castration for multiple offenders seems reasonable.

These other topics are just as important. A holistic approach is necessary and national government regulation and emphasis is needed.

Maybe one day in the future, I won’t be afraid to be labeled a “radical liberal” or “drama queen” for listening to true crime podcasts and scouring documentaries so, in the likely reality that someone next follows me home, down the street, or while I’m running, I will have had every method of defense possible to give me the upper hand, should I need it. 

People following me running is a common occurrence, by the way. You don’t know fear until a 45 year old 6’ + guy starts following you on a wooded trail in the Umstead forest near Raleigh, matching pace as you speed up, pushing with you, just for you to stop and jump off the trail to face him when your lungs are burning and for him to smile and say “good work” because he just enjoyed being pushed. SIR. We are IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS. WHY WOULD I JUST BE COMFORTABLE WITH YOU CLEARLY FOLLOWING ME WHILE I’M IN A SPORTS BRA AND SPANDEX. This is why I got a mace bracelet. 

Disney attempted to make Cruella de Vil the villain by her phrasing of “more good women have been lost to marriage than war, famine, disease, and disaster. You have talent, darling, don’t squander it.”

So what happens when these men, who society tries to tell women are marriage material through its rose colored glasses, are the greatest threat to squander the talents of these promising young women?

Women need to work together. We need to protect ourselves. And we need to start holding men accountable. At every step. Because it’s not just you that they do it to. And they did know better. They chose not to do better. There’s a difference. 

Maybe the lady who yelled at me outside my freshman football locker room for sending a nude to her son should’ve taught him how to respect women. Maybe if they’d done that, instead of placing the blame on “respect”, they wouldn’t have had to pay off 2 of his underage victims years later who he drugged while partying with them. 

But you know what they say… karma’s a bitch. And thanks to Tina Fey, we know “bitches get stuff done.” 

Navigating this shit SUCKS. Having it impact my emotional and sexual expression and having to choose every day to not let it affect me because someone else chose to not care about how it made me feel a long time ago, SUCKS. Trying to date in the modern age and knowing a guy can look up your address with just your cell phone number or even your last name SUCKS. And seeing people try to downplay it, deny that it actually happens to this extent, excuse and proclaim how and why the MEN are being treated unfairly or demanding evidence when often nothing concrete can exist SUCKS.

It doesn’t mean I can’t love. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a healthy relationship or learn to build a life with someone. It just takes empathy. Which, apparently, is learned. Please start educating yourselves. 

Next time a partner or friend or coworker, whoever, mentions difficult relationships passively, don’t respond with “it could always be worse” or “but they’re still your parent” or whatever variation of essentially gaslighting that is part of the already extensive web of reasons people do not come forward or report trauma. Why they do not seek help. 

And if you’re a guy, who is insecure and trying to date, just know that the bar is on the actual ground. And let me remind you we still loved Stanley Yelnats in middle school and he dug further into the ground. Women want someone who will not murder them, or abuse them, who will not body shame them or make them feel “unlovable” because their weight fluctuates with hormonal changes and just aging. Every single woman is capable of being a sexual freak to some capacity, but don’t push BDSM or assume they like to be choked without clear consent. I GUARANTEE you, if a guy asked me if he was allowed to do something, like pausing right before he went down, I would be MORE turned on if he clarified consent. Women need to feel confident about themselves, about their bodies, about what they fucking want in any setting and they need to know it’s okay to demand that from who they let in their lives, mouths, assholes, vaginas, and body in general in any capacity.

I won’t date again until someone actually wants to date ME, not just “to date”. So yes, my friends are aware they are responsible for setting me up in life with their friends later in life. This is mutually beneficial for all parties involved. They get a hot, educated, crazy gal to conversate with about literally everything and convince them to finally go to therapy because everyone can talk about SOMETHING, and I get set up with their just-as-well-educated friends who don’t claim to be “apolitical” on Bumble just to really be a Republican disguised as a misinformed libertarian…You’re all liberals if you like drugs. You can’t have decriminalization of drugs and improvements with reference to crime and violence without universal healthcare, criminal justice reform, and ultimately more regulation of dangerous corporate practices and disregard for health in the name of ~*~capitalism~*~. 

Stay focused on your studies, ladies, and just remember, all men are murderers or rapists until proven guilty. If they’re not, they’ll have no problem recognizing the state of the world for women and respecting your pace accordingly. If they are, well let’s just be grateful for true crime podcasts who will do the work law enforcement agencies haven’t devoted funding to for ages. (I guess you can’t really police your own, after all.) While that is a tactic that will help your safety, I will say I’m tired of the outrage of “what if men are falsely accused”. The aforementioned great love who transferred was involved in a national scandal for his false accusation and it involved his father losing his job and all. Yes, some men are falsely accused. We need to do things like preventing your mug shots from being printed until you’re guilty, castration and severe enough punishments to deter multiple offenders, not letting universities charge you for the honor code without also requiring actual courts of law to also be involved, not victim blaming and denying.

Men–consider this perspective next time a partner wants to share a previous experience in a relationship and your insecurity cries “comparison” instead of “sharing”. It’s not “bringing it into your relationship”. That’s a shitty and immature and senseless view. Healing is not linear. And it is not simple. Build a friendship with women with genuinely no sexual pressure, even if you “would if you could”. Either way, you’ll be introduced to more women and gain emotional support that male friendships often lack because of “the patriarchy”. And for the love of all the gods, don’t ONLY hit on them when you’re drunk and then also ask them why they only fuck shitty guys. Or the first time you hand them a stack of money and teach them how to make it rain on strippers which is QUITE POSSIBLY my new favorite hobby, don’t take them home and then ask them to fuck “because you’re so horny” versus “because I’m your best friend and you’re in love with me”. It’s hypocritical.

Enjoy your week, everyone. Sorry I keep dropping bombs on you. Must be that military family background, guess it’s just genetic. 

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9620292/

https://www.verywellmind.com/add-symptoms-in-women-20394

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country

https://www.thebalance.com/the-u-s-is-losing-its-competitive-advantage-3306225

https://genius.com/Britney-spears-overprotected-lyrics

https://www.rainn.org/about-national-sexual-assault-telephone-hotline

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/sexual-violence/index.html

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-and-worst-states-for-women-equality/5835

Survival Mode

Amanda Pt 2 - Daddy Issues, Domestic Violence, and Sexual Trauma

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Amanda (@whereisamandaplease) is back for part 2. We discuss our history of long term relationships a bit, covering our issues on “father figures” and how “daddy issues” affected our ability to have healthy relationships when we were younger, domestic violence escalation, how purity culture and the patriarchy in general affect relationships. Amanda discusses cheating, drug use, ending a long term relationship, growing up an only child in a single mother household. I discuss being raised by a narcissist and the guilt from success I feel as a strong woman with previous history of familial abuse and sexual trauma in relationships. We cover substance abuse and prevalence of alcoholism within the drinking culture of the USA, my love of strip clubs and female sexuality within the nightlife industry including bartending culture. We end on how a conservative social structure built around shame and guilt negatively effects public health concerns in low socioeconomic areas and keeps people trapped in cycles of abuse.

Survival Mode

Amanda Please! - Childhood Trauma

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Amanda Walters, a strong lady I went to high school with (though I did not know her at the time), and I discuss some of the more difficult aspects of our upbringings, high school life and when we first started partying (surprise, surprise… I was a huge nerd.), what it was like being liberal from such conservative areas during the 2020 election, and much more.

Part 1 of an inevitably recurring series

Survival Mode

Matt Zanellato - Penn State & NFL Football, CTE, and Jerry Sandusky/Joe Paterno

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Continuing the conversation released last week, my friend Matt Zanellato, a Penn State football alum, discussed what it was like being a freshman when the Jerry Sandusky/Joe Paterno scandal broke, “football” and “sports” culture in the USA, CTE and concussion protocol and his own concerns moving forward, along with my normal array of healthy cynical criticism of American society and our selfish consumerism habits.

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Matt Zanellato - My Aunt the NASA Astronaut

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Matt Zanellato, former D1 Penn State Football player, talks about how fucking awesome his family is, while I talk my dysfunctional family. We address strong women, particularly women in STEM and Matt discusses his aunt, Serena Auñón-Chancellor who is arguably one of the most bad ass women alive, as well as his mom.

We discuss 9/11 and living around/growing up in D.C., toxic masculinity and having younger sisters, and then of course, he fires me up about epidemiology.

We also touch on football culture and athlete star power in general, which will be built upon with the next episode released in which he is featured.

Hopefully he will let me include his entire family in future episodes because this was honestly so much fun to record. I was fed a delicious family meal MADE by a man (10/10–they belong in the kitchen) AND got to participate in a holistic family discussion amongst educated, civil minded folk who genuinely know what they’re talking about. It was glorious.

Here is the link to information about his Aunt:

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Donald Trump is a Terrorist & Religiosity is to Blame

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I started writing this on January 6th, a particularly tragic day in United States history. If you’re just tuning in, my name is Zeda Grace. I would kiss your asses a bit more if I cared about catering to the masses over getting to the important things, but right now, on my farm just outside of DC, I’ve been listening to military aircrafts flying overhead all day from the various bases (way more than usual) and I already had the patience for humanity’s stupidity that Ezma in The Emperor’s New Groove had, long before I started this show, so we’re just jumping in.

A few episodes ago, I opened with the introduction of how podcasting in quarantine felt like the group of radio sleuths conducting “Potterwatch” in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Unfortunately, with the current situation of death eaters (white supremacists) led by Lord Voldemort (Donald Trump) that is storming Hogwarts (the Capitol) and being ALLOWED IN BY FEDERAL OFFICERS… all the while the President of the United States, our incorrigible cunt of a dictator (again, Donald Trump) has denied the DC Mayor’s request for mobilization of the National Guard. It’s important to point out he previously denied coordination of a police force for this rally in general, spoke in front of these domestic terrorists and QUOTED THAT HE WILL NOT LEAVE THE OFFICE DURING HIS SPEECH AT THIS RALLY IN AN ATTEMPT TO OVERTHROW AN OVERWHELMINGLY SECURE ELECTION IN A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. Yet, he mobilized federal police and the entire police in the DMV, along with the National Guard, for remarkably peaceful Black Lives Matter protests over the summer in 2020. Not to mention, because DC is not a state, thus they do not have a governor, only a mayor, they cannot mobilize the National Guard on their own. The department of defense, and thus, Donald Trump, as most officials who disagreed with him over the last four years have resigned and left their posts honorably, only to subsequently be replaced with “yes men” who endorse and support his policies, was therefore responsible for mobilizing the National Guard at the Mayor’s request. Which, again, Trump DENIED. This is just another reason to discuss validating the statehood of DC. 

Where is the “no taxation without representation” crowd from the 1760’s and 1770’s? 

It’s almost like revolutions were started around that. Wild. Last I checked, the Virginia Governor had deployed the Virginia National Guard to distill the Trump supporting crowd that was effectively let in to the Capitol and through the barriers by the same police force who tear gassed and shot rubber bullets at peaceful BLM protestors all summer. I guess that $750 billion defense budget doesn’t protect our nation’s capital or the validation of a secure election. 

Every single one of the members of his administration, every single judge he’s placed, every single federal agent he put forth, every single person who has voted in favor of his maneuvers or continued to support him in any kind of political position needs to be temporarily removed and for full-scale investigations to take place, along with questioning and reassessment of their ability to continue in their duties with sound judgment for refusing to condemn his behavior. For actively supporting it. For encouraging it. For stoking the flames. This is disgusting.

You all are unfit to uphold the Constitution or “democracy” in any way. There must be consequences and WHOLE SCALE accountability.

…Let’s start with Amy Coney Barrett.

Kidding! I’ll get to her. Just not today. 

Which reminds me…I know January 20th is less than 2 weeks away, but are we really gonna force ourselves to continue to carry to term and not late-term abort Donald Trump immediately? We cannot afford to wait. Get this megalomaniac the fuck out of his position. RIGHT NOW. I’m pretty sure it’s only around 1-2% of all U.S. Presidents as is and it’s (conveniently) also medically dire. The statistics look good.

The worst part is that this is the first time the U.S. Capitol has been breached since 1814, when the British attacked and set it on fire during the war of 1812 (shout out to the director of scholarship and operations with the U.S. Capitol Historical Society). However, as a DMV native, you KNOW that DC is NOT your playground. The police force and security is excessive. If people are getting into those buildings, it’s because they are being allowed in. The federal police were SMILING AND POSING IN PHOTOGRAPHS WITH WHITE SUPREMACISTS WHO THE FBI RELEASED STATEMENTS CONDEMNING AS THE GREATEST THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY OVER THE LAST YEAR.

The police shot Breonna Taylor in her fucking bed inside her own home and white people across this nation had the audacity to try to justify it.

Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down in the street by white supremacist vigilantes, “Get Out” style, and my ex boyfriend, a good ole Catholic boy from Georgia, had the audacity to post about “creating a better world for our children” as if he didn’t vote for Trump for a second time and also endorse things like the NCAA or NFL being considered “essential”. Or as if he didn’t get aggressive with a cop in Alabama, pull the “my daddy is a lawyer” card and refuse to follow directions on our way to his father’s condo in Auburn. Which, yes, his dad bought for his season ticket Auburn football games. Or as if we didn’t break up once I moved to Florida (we were previously in an LDR) for graduate school and thus spent significantly more time with him, (he’s a financial planner and advisor based out of Orlando. He has like 4 degrees and is fluent in Mandarin) only to also find out he was a pathological liar (and casually an aggressive racist). 

Actually, let’s dissect this ex boyfriend for a second.

He’s a particularly relevant example. I wasn’t planning on introducing him to the blog yet, but domestic terrorism calls for adaptation over “tradition”. I think, without a doubt, it’s blatantly obvious that historical support for whatever the fuck is left of the Republican party ultimately comes down to one thing: religiosity. Particularly, religiosity rooted in government officials not being required to actually work for the benefit of the people they represent and to merely exorbitantly benefit personally from holding public office.

Religiosity in general will be touched on QUITE A BIT by me. I will disclaim that I have NO PROBLEM if you choose to partake in religion for your own spiritual needs. I personally feel it’s pretty selfish and egocentric to assume the humanity is the center of life and the universe and all that–very “the sun revolves around us” if you ask me. I prefer to not characterize or pretend to know universal predictability in the way the world works because the most intelligent people are aware of everything they do not, and can not, know. 

However, I am also going to point out a series of flaws built in religiosity that have impacted nearly every aspect of our political and societal culture, so they simply cannot be ignored or unacknowledged any longer. Apologies in advance to everyone of Christian religiosity. 

Plato once proposed that “he who speaks the truth is the most hated“. Unfortunately, the concept of “haters” has become so misconstrued that people use it to fail miserably at introspection. 

“Gabe”

We’ll call my ex boyfriend “Gabe” because I’m pretty sure I knew the relationship was over when I watched an episode of “The Office” with him and realized he reminded me a LOT of Gabe. “Gabe” was a D1 cross country runner and highly ranked within the NCAA by his last year at a large state school whose football team has been running shit for the last few years…unfortunately for my siblings, who both went to South Carolina. My brother even won a National Championship.

As someone who is a Tar Heel AND a freak athlete, oh boy do I get the “school rivalry” thing, okay. 

While I’m thinking about it, Fuck you to Austin Rivers. Also speaking of Duke, The Plumlees once came to “La Rez” in Chapel Hill, a bar (back when it was still a thing, RIP)  and I had the humble pleasure of enjoying cynically sadistic banter that, when whichever one it was (I don’t care enough to tell them apart to be honest and don’t want to have to see their faces by a google search and then get targeted on Amazon for Duke merchandise…the horror) tried to buy me a drink, I said “Duke Sucks” and walked away.

I have no shortage of similar stories.

I think it turns me on, to be honest. Being this much of a bitch.

Anyways, back to “Gabe”. Gabe went to Tigertown USA in South Carolina for 3 years, then went to Tigertown USA in Alabama for 2 years. During his short 28 years of desperately trying to live up to his straight-edged Catholic man of a father’s expectations, he is the youngest CFA or CPA (or probably both) in Florida, has 4 degrees (3 of which he earned while being an NCAA All American), is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, as aforementioned, and has lived in China for extended periods of time on multiple occasions. 

Now is probably a cool time to plug, unrelated to this, I have babysat for the former Ambassador to China and Senator of Tennessee for over 20 years. I credit them for showing me healthy, loving familial dynamics and being major influencers in changing how I was exposed to the world. I’m really slumdog millionaire-ing it through life, I tell ya. I feel like that meme of Charlie in Horrible Bosses every episode, connecting all of these weird facets of my life into the puzzle pieces I’m constructing to explain the world. 

Gabe was, on paper, quite brilliant. Incredibly well achieved and financially successful. He was also, however, INCREDIBLY insecure. But not with me. He happened to mirror the people he was around. When it was just him and I, he was fine–which I credit to it being my personal goal within any relationship I have that the other person should feel 100% comfortable being inherently themselves around me. They can’t expect me to not voice my disagreement, at times, but only when I expect them to uphold certain “moral guidelines”. He could, therefore, be so much himself in my presence, that he had, for the first time in his life, fulfilled the expectations of someone and been able to exist without questioning his worth. When we were around his friends, though, (who he would preface telling me things about by talking shit in a way that just really confused me because, bro, you’re an adult…you literally don’t have to be friends with people who you don’t respect) it became scarily evident what a pathological liar he was. Being in a long distance relationship, it also took me a little longer to recognize this. 

Hindsight bias or whatever, should I have known that when he drank so much our first date, the ACC college football championship game in Charlotte, North Carolina, that he had to have an ambulance called for him? Probably. Did I make the stupid assumption that he was just nervous and it was college drinking culture as is because alcoholism is treated very differently from every other drug in the USA unnecessarily? Also probably. 

As someone who enjoys personal time (as one usually does with dating) I only had a weekend or so every month to really spend time to with him. I didn’t get to see the difference in how he treats or acts to others that I wasn’t around in his presence.

Truth be told, I’m pretty sure he just has ADHD and severe social anxiety that he uses alcoholism and chewing tobacco to mask in adulthood. Idk, maybe it was related to being raised on a religion centered on guilt. A religion that reassures you you’re inherently good, not so that you can be proud of who your soul actually is and pursue what it craves in love, but so it can expose you at your most vulnerable, tell you that all can be fixed and you’re still loved (but not holding you publicly accountable outside of your relationship with “God”) while reinforcing heteronormativity in a way that actively prevents you from realizing you’re at the very least bisexual–you had way too much fun at the drag shows I pulled you to (a bunch of my Chapel Hill friends were GLAMOROUS drag kings and queens).

Are you really “happy” when you have to deny yourself of loving and accepting your entire identity for public acceptance? 

You run just like Mike Pence, this should not be a surprise. You really think a guy with an arguably worse response to HIV/AIDS in Indiana compared to Ronald Reagan’s during his presidency, isn’t projecting some kind of biased hatred towards the gay community because he’s actually just jealous that they can express themselves and he can’t? He’s been told it was disgusting behavior since birth, so now, even though he’s innately curious (because the “Default” of humanity should probably just be “heteroflexibility” based on the deviations in heterosexuality across the animal kingdom as well as anthropological studies, which we use to base our version of the “expected” behavior for humanity around) AND men biologically have a prostate gland that, when stimulated, supposedly enhances sexual satisfaction and orgasmic enjoyment, he won’t even CONSIDER the possibility that he might be gay.

…No matter how many times he liked “dressing up” in my lingerie as a “joke” (it was not flattering on him and I found it weird, creepy, and terrifyingly accurate for Catholicism how his go-to “persona” was a baby doll version).

Now that we’ve had the wonder that is Zendaya’s phenomenal presence within Euphoria, on HBO, and I’ve been romantically involved with a handful of white Catholic men, I can assure you, they’re ALL a little gay. Even if their own religious leaders didn’t dominate them like Hunter Schafer as Jules got dominated by Eric Dane as Cal Jacobs, they still spend every Sunday diligently praying to a white brunette man chained almost nude, to a cross (very “50 shades of Grey”). They’re indoctrinated with the fixation on a white man to save them and “Blind faith” and of ONLY confessing their deepest, darkest fears and desires, including completely normal biological predispositions that are flaunted as “taboo” and “impure”, to the church. They have classically conditioned themselves to enjoy male authority, but the Catholic church, their supreme overlord, has only this past year voiced support for same-sex civil unions. And Pope Francis is considered excessively progressive. My ex’s Alabama based family is gonna take a few generations to come around–and that’s ONLY if they’re forced to become educated on it.

You’d think a religion that prides itself for existing as tradition through the ages–you know, when civilizations were at constant collapse because they lacked the technology to communicate effectively with each other, benefitted off continued exploitation of other cultures through physical dominance and hypocritical assertions of knowing the “right” way to do things, would be more capable of adapting to reassessing and re-examining their knowledge on the things they thought they knew.

…ESPECIALLY given that they re-read and re-examine the same scripture over and over and over again and find new meanings in that. 

Ya’ll do know you can just like, hang out with your friends, every Sunday, for fun. Not for some societal indoctrination for appearing “morally good” in the community. Or replacing that with a sport only the USA plays when you’re no longer religious. You can sleep in… you can go to brunch! Take a hike. Treat your body as the temple it is, instead of a vessel to transport you from man-made temple to man-made temple, with what little free time you may have to enjoy the natural world around you before you die.  Your little tithe payments of asserting moral value for acceptance (even though they SAY “whatever you can give”)? It’s no WONDER our legislative system, you know, from the Supreme-Court-ruling-in-the-1800’s that we are, in fact, a Christian nation, and criminal justice system, both effectively excuse crime for the wealthy because “everything[/one] has its price” AND doesn’t tax the churches. Despite, you know, many churches being BUILT with state taxes, collected from all regardless of the citizen’s relevant religious preferences, (thus, no religious exemption THERE). 

For the record, if churches funded ~10 homeless people in the United States, we could very likely END homelessness. Why are you hoarding wealth like some dragon in its lair? You know they send valiant characters on quests to slay those…right? Maybe we just need the right white, blonde women to birth them from the fires, sacrificing one life for her dragons’, taming them and ultimately serving as symbolism for how the only ACTUALLY important thing at play, in terms of conquest, is that of the impending winter. The WHITE walkers. (*Cough* Proud boys, Trump supporters, and white supremacists who spent their day gallivanting around the Capitol Building in, again, an open domestic terrorist coup d’etat encouraged by the American knock-off version of Hitler, sorry, I mean Donald Trump.) And, ultimately, the effective zombie apocalypse otherwise known as the impending doom of brutal, premature mortality. (I’m telling you–go listen to my Game of Thrones episode.)

No matter how many references to being “gay for pay” and “$20 is $20” he made, it took me until I recently reconsidered my own sexual fluidity (honestly, “pansexual” is just the medically logical term IMO) to reflect on why he thought that offered so much entertainment value. He said them as clear jokes, too. Idk if he was “testing the waters” or gauging whether I’d have a certain reaction to him liking men (I don’t, LITERALLY I JUST WANT FUCKING HONESTY FROM THE BEGINNING), but it was a FREQUENT joke. I never laughed either, so I’m not sure why he repeated it. He DID only do it around his pathetic group of friends, though.

He, and the rest of Barstool Sports’ predominant fan base–you know the type. The now semi-grown man children who watched American Pie, Jack Ass, and any Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly movie over and over and over again so much in their childhood that they for some reason fail to see the flaw is glorifying Dave Portnoy masquerading as Euron Greyjoy’s desperation for power through brute force and entitlement, despite existing in a universe highlighting Theon’s character arc of growth, mutilation, and redemption. I don’t understand the refusal to grow in your behavior. Of why you’re so adamant about NOT moving on from your immature childlike behavior or why we can’t try to improve our societies holistically (so that you don’t NEED to cling to the past).

People change! Life moves on! The things that bring you pleasure evolve!

I used to find the stupid fucking spinning tea cups at Disney World “fun” when I was a kid, and I have since realized that type of “humor” doesn’t really land very well with the adult world, in which I am no longer actively practicing gymnastics and therefore MUCH more susceptible to motion sickness and mental flashbacks as a lovely side effect of PTSD, so I am decidedly more picky about my taste. I’ve EVOLVED. Instead of the spinning tea cups, or in Amerikkka’s case, the crude and distasteful rape jokes by American comedians who turn out to be actual rapists…surprise surprise. The public outrage over things like sexual assault in the Amish community–who likely doesn’t use the internet enough to defend themselves–even though over 80% of women in the USA have been sexually harassed and 20% have or were attempted to have been raped. Insinuating condemnation of predatory pedophilic culture without acknowledging its creation, birthed from their own religion centered around themes of “purity”, female submission, and thus, hypersexualization of the innocence of youth and the condemnation of sexuality (particularly that of women). 

A monster of which we all wish had been aborted. 

Speaking of abortions…Those billboards lining every rural town in Southern USA, claiming “your baby could be the next Einstein”, because they’re “doing such a big favor” to the world (again, DRAMATICALLY AND UNSUSTAINABLY OVERPOPULATED) by preventing comprehensive sexual education and holistic medical knowledge and reverting to the basis of guilt, not hope. Not any kind of focus on the mother’s health, mental or physical. Those “pregnancy clinics”, like the one my best friend, Mina, from the ENTJ Women Episode, did a journalism story on in Gainesville, Florida, which promotes itself similar to Planned Parenthood, prey on women seeking education and options, then bombard them with forewarnings of how “they’re going to hell if they go through with abortion”. 

Did any of you stop and think about whether those babies could also possibly be the next Adolf Hitler? 

Let’s dive a little deeper…

Why is YOUR first thought “Einstein”? 

Scratch that. Why are ANY of your thoughts “Einstein”? 

You do realize Albert Einstein was a scientist, socialist, and all around humanitarian, right? AND JEWISH. He denounced his German citizenship in protestation of Hitler and the Nazi party’s rise–he didn’t conflate “patriotism” with “white supremacy” and march on the Capitol Building. He founded the International Rescue Committee to help save European Jews from persecution, facilitated cooperation between international conflicts (including the Israeli-Palestinian historically tumultuous tug-of-war), and led a public crusade to end lynching in the USA in public condemnation of the mistreatment of anyone deviating from white heteronormativity BUT PARTICULARLY BLACK LIVES. He didn’t separate families seeking asylum from drug cartels and mass corruption, throwing them in cages for months on end with no communication and subjecting them to surgically invasive, likely experimental and medically negligent in procedure at times, *technically* meeting the medical “requirements” of genocide and being funded by the federal government. He didn’t mobilize the National Guard against BLM protestors who were LITERALLY BEGGING TO NOT BE FUCKING SHOT BY THE SAME PEOPLE SUPPOSEDLY “TASKED” WITH PROTECTING THEM?! He didn’t enact a Muslim Ban, a U.S. “Peace Deal” disrupting foreign policy in North Africa and continuing to STICK OUR POLITICAL AGENDAS IN PLACES WE HAVE NO BUSINESS STICKING OUR POLITICAL AGENDAS BECAUSE WE SHOULD FUCKING ADDRESS THE ISSUES IN OUR OWN COUNTRY OVER POINTING THE FINGER ELSEWHERE FOR ONCE, or sell bombs to fucking Saudi Arabia…

Honestly, I don’t know at this point whether I fucking hope, for our international relations’ sake, that whatever Trump sold to Saudi Arabia is legitimate (and only furthering the already excessive international sale of firearms and weaponry that has come back to bite US citizens time and time again), or whether I hope they are similar to the ADE 101. Name doesn’t ring a bell? It’s just the the fake bomb detector, produced by British company Advanced Tactical Security & Communications Ltd (ATSC) and the creative design of UK businessman, Jim McCormick, who made MILLIONS of dollars during the invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan by selling knowingly fraudulent devices, as legitimate bomb detectors, to Iraqi government officials after bribing them–ultimately being responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilian lives, because a plastic sphere with an antenna on one end had no magical powers of engineering animation and was never intended to work. It was intended to turn a quick, easy financial profit from a device that costs under $20 to make, but can be marketed and sold for over 10K, in a time of “supply and demand”. 

Does it really matter who we sell weapons to at this point when the Morocco-Israel deal included $1 billion in arms for Morocco. The surveillance drones, precision guided missiles and bombs?

One of my step brother’s is fluent in Moroccan and Jewish. My step dad (not related–different step family) flies, builds, and engineers Navair drones. This is why I take an interest in all of this stuff.

As an aside–that stepbrother (sorry Josh) is my favorite. He’s such an introverted observer and is very fun to watch. When we went to Hawaii for my biological father’s second wedding, where I met him, my other stepbrother, and my stepmom, he took us on the Mount Olomano Hike (just the first peak). The second one includes a fair amount of rappelling and a lot of the Army men around the island climb it. Anyone who prefers to be active and isn’t afraid to commit their lives to study the dark tresses of the world peak my curiosity. 

Back to the Christians in the deep south and then also my convenient small town in rural Maryland with billboards of pressuring pregnant women into guilt line the roadways. 

 What about Mussolini? Fidel Castro? In whatever reality you apparently live in, this is just as plausible. Can we please, PLEASE, stop placing more societal value in an UNDIFFERENTIATED MASS OF CELLS WITH POTENTIAL OVER THE ACTUAL HUMAN LIFE IN FRONT OF YOU. EVEN AS IT BECOMES MORE AND MORE DIFFERENTIATED, WHY THE FUCK DO YOU ALL PRIORITIZE IT SOOOOO MUCH OVER THE FUCKING HUMAN BEING GROWING IT. WHY DO YOU FEEL ENTITLED TO ANY FUCKING OPINION OVER IT!? 

Gabe grew up in the deep Catholic South. Or, as I like to call it, that scene in Game of Thrones where the High Sparrow, yet another white male “leader”, arbitrarily points the finger at someone else he enabled and encouraged, forcibly exposing their own corruption and villifying them to suffer guilt and embarrassment on an incredibly vulnerable exhibitionist walk of shame (of their own concoction), as distraction for their own flaws, criminal behavior, and lack of answers.

I can’t imagine how creating an entire country’s culture around being publicly ridiculed and ashamed for who you are, lest it deviate from white conservative Christian-influenced heteronormativity, might create significant repression and emotional unhappiness and only hinder human growth and progress? Whoever could have predicted THAT. At least we allowed for a slight escape from that repression–the confines of a dark confessional–such that we then flood them with a sense of relief in their place of worship–you know, because there’s at least SOME reassurance they’re still “loveable”–so that they biochemically condition THEMSELVES to enjoy the release, the security, the comforting embrace of the church. 

It’s clear to all why I attribute myself to “Lucifer”, correct? Maybe it’s that scene from Lilo & Stitch–where Lilo is praying for an angel from heaven, a best friend. What does she get? A maniacal alien meant to wreak havoc on the Earth. Cast down from heaven, switching from private to public schools, relearning the reliability of the beliefs indoctrinated in me from my birth, The “Bill Nye the Science Guy” of heathenous females intrigued and helplessly intertwined in the United States political structure because of that same pressure from birth, and confused as to why everyone has seemingly forgotten that the entire premise of Scooby Doo was to convey the “Bad guys” were usually people we knew and also always logical? 

I’m obviously the Hades in this production of Hercules. You, all of my humble listeners, my noble followers, my valiant soldiers, in this instance are the tweedle dee and tweedle dum minions, Pain and Panic. Seems an appropriate characterization for those who actually enjoy listening. I prefer to call it “realism” but baby, this is showbiz. 

Gabe was a people pleaser. He, like so, so many of us in this patriarchally dominant world, just wanted to be loved. Desperately so. He just wanted to be rewarded with the virtuous symbol of purity–a white, blonde angel fluttering unexpectedly into his incomplete life of living adamantly by the Bible, in the Catholic (and businessman) way of doing first and praying for forgiveness (or hoping it works out in your favor) in the long run, told him it would happen. As long as he showed up to church every Sunday, no matter what, he was redeemable. He was worthy. 

Ohhhh, he was worthy alright. Worthy enough for me. Lucifer cast down from Heaven to roam freely from the fiery depths of hell (which, doesn’t exist, by the way). Thermodynamically speaking, “heat” is just energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, according to the First Law of Thermodynamics–first proposed and tested by Emilie du Chatelet. Who, might I point out, WAS A FEMALE FRENCH PHILOSOPHER AND MATHEMATICIAN IN THE 1730’S. Drawing it back to my “Horse Girls” episode, she died in childbirth.

The only fucking people we learn about this in reference to, in any significant detail, in the American public education system is Isaac Newton–surprise, surprise…an English white male.

Her contribution to the law of conservation is conveniently branded as “Newtonian Laws”. Very “Watson and Crick and Rosalind Franklin” of us, I would say. I wonder why that would ever be the case… in a society that places excessive privilege in the “Default” leadership of white male imagery… in an economy whose intellectual distribution of knowledge is controlled by companies controlled by, you guessed it, white males… how would that EVER be the case? (Insert extremely exaggerated eyeroll here.)

Thus, if the total energy in the universe is constant and cannot be destroyed, merely transferred in a variety of forms, it serves logical that “Hell”–commonly depicted as a fiery cavern of chaos (*cough* Florida) merely contains a significant amount of heat, and thus, energy. Extrapolating on that, if you take away energy, or heat, the alternative is “cold”. If “Hell” exists in the same universe we do, and contains alllllllll the energy, or significantly more than anything in the rest, then does that make us, our human souls, energetically “cold”? Do you consider “life” less energetic? TECHNICALLY, that would make “Heaven” ALSO devoid of “heat”.

I mean have we ever stopped to consider this was just a random rich dude’s book of poetry?

His Shakespearean prose?

I had NEVER considered going a “legal” route in life because

(1) I’m not morally ethical for “Christian” life. As an atheist / arguably spiritual (but I just really don’t see the necessity in seeking identity in something for an afterlife so much that you forget to live in the now), this brings me life.

(2) I had no intentions on ever swearing on a Bible for my JOB and I didn’t know that wasn’t a requirement.

(3) the idea of working for a system that prints national imagery with symbols of “God” just displeases me.

I feel like Scar when he’s lounging around by the hyenas, muttering “I’m surrounded by idiots.” 

Not to mention, it’s the very idea that Hell, the so called “punishment of souls whose lives on Earth are sinful” IS LITERALLY SAYING THEY DON’T NEED TO ANSWER FOR THEIR SINS ON EARTH BECAUSE THEY WILL IN THE AFTERLIFE. That entire logic is saying they don’t need to be publicly accountable in THIS life on THIS Earth, and it doesn’t really offer “redemption” by theory because, even if they’re tried in a court of law, complete the societally subjective criminal length of punishment, does that constitute them still being “immoral”? If they go to this so-called “Hell”, in the afterlife, isn’t that “double jeopardy”? I thought their God was all loving and just and everyone could be saved? What, then, constitutes “sin” to you? How do you justify failing to open your eyes or educate yourself on the very clear and apparent signs for literally years when in doing so, you contributed, because of this so called “faith” and subjective versions of “sin” that are based on societal constructs and if you don’t know that by now, I honestly don’t think you should be able to vote, to a sedition and domestic terrorist attack in the United States that is globally embarrassing and publicly humiliating and YOU’RE TRYING TO NOT LOOK AT YOURSELF AND SKIRT THE BLAME WHEN YOU FUCKING DESERVE THE BLAME!

Damn me to hell, I don’t care.

I think I’d get along pretty well with the devil. 

I do not mind religion at all, to be clear. I get the community, the trust, the hope, blah blah blah I just don’t need it. Call me the Grinch. It’s your fault. I do, however, think our political system is so corruptly conflated with religiosity that it needs to be legislatively removed from decision making, effective immediately. 

Back to my ex-boyfriend. “Gabe”.

I know you’re curious how anyone in their right mind who was a “good Catholic boy” could be so swayed by the devil. I’m good at my craft, bitches. We dated for like, two years.

She Really Ain’t Nothin’ But a Golddigger…

Gabe, being in charge of a Fidelity related investment firm–where my own biological mother opened an account under him AFTER WE BROKE UP (uggggghhhh)–was really good with money. As an adult with ADHD and with a familial background of financial insecurity and parental disagreements, verbally abusive more often than not, centered frequently around money, I get very uncomfortable about the subject. Gabe had an excessive amount of generational wealth in the deep South, which, for the record, I did not know when I first met him. Or I didn’t grasp the extent of what that meant, rather.

Gabe is from the kind of family where his grandmother wrote him out of the will when he went to the Tigertown in South Carolina for undergrad over the one in Alabama. He was only written back in when he got two Masters degrees from the one in Alabama for grad school. I wish I was joking.) 

I know what you’re thinking. “Golddigger. We knew it all along. First she “jokes” about being open for financial domination and international sugar daddies who can pay her 150K a year to just physically exist on lavish vacations with literally no sexual expectations (a gal can dream, right? Isn’t that “influencing”) But it also seems practical to establish international contacts, particularly in this precocious charade. Those contacts may be *INCREASINGLY* helpful for escaping Gilead, I mean the USA, so am I just manifesting new, creative ways to leave avenues for survival open, when worst comes to worst? Obviously. Am I concerned that Trump refusing to attend Biden’s inauguration means he’s going to attempt to harm them and doesn’t want to be there and wants a plausible excuse? Maybe. RIP Margarey Tyrell. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so. (For legal reasons this is clearly a joke and hypothetical but it’s also considerably plausible.) I’m sure the CIA is already on this but we also can’t really rely on their ethics. They’re just human, after all, and institutions are just governed, ultimately, by humans. As I said, the rioters in the Capitol should have been gunned down, military training exercise style because they are actual domestic terrorists. I don’t get why any of our federal agencies are just sitting back and allowing it to continue. Or why our federal police waved them inside. 

Call me crazy for endorsing policies that restructure how we tie every aspect of a human’s value–life (healthcare), liberty (freedoms facilitated by money), and pursuit of happiness (again, travel, studying what you want, time to enjoy your life)– to either productivity or dependence on another human being. It’s almost like it’s a method of controlling cultural mentality to prevent progress because progress will call into question the method of control you planned your power and life choices around. Call me crazy for being open to financially capitalizing on my current position, based around the reality of the economy and the resources at my disposal, which does actually value me transactionally so I don’t understand what the dilemma is. 

Case in point: I am not a gold digger.

I was just a broke ass bitch in grad school who: 

(1) genuinely enjoyed a long distance relationship because it removes the pressure of having to always be available or accessible for someone else, something I struggle with as a fiercely independent (read: traumatically complex) character, from the beginning of the relationship. My education and thirst for purpose and mental growth is always going to take the highest priority. I’m an ENTJ. I find joy in achievement. 

I’d expect any partner to NEVER try to hold me back from any experience in life (within reason). THUS, someone who only had 10 vacation days a year, lived out of state, planned out 5 years of their life at a time, and set clear expectations for scheduling was compatible because he also lacked the time to prioritize me and conveniently couldn’t have any disdain for my innate busy-ness, because he was the same way.

(2) I appreciate people who make my life simpler, in any way. Since my work has typically been so heavy, and I get consumed by my educational passions and talent endeavours, I tend to live a “high pressure” life. The two things I tend to lack are: regular company that doesn’t expect much (other than enjoying co-existing) and financial security (I’m a chronic student in the USA paying for school with federal loans. If I go back to school, I can ignore them for a few more years. By the time I’m done, unless this blog somehow becomes profitable, I will likely be worth HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars NEGATIVELY. For YEARS. Someone can pay for the occasional plane ticket. Help me I’m poor.)

Having someone remove the financial stress when we were together (it’s amazing how much more apt to spend/throw around money people with financial security their entire lives are…Or maybe it was people who didn’t have grandparents who lived through world war 2 and the great depression) and always be willing and HAPPY to pay for me was something well within Gabe’s ability to contribute to the relationship (and something I think he genuinely enjoyed doing, because he never felt “equal” and always felt like I was out of his league. Which, I was… just not for the reasons he thinks.) 

Plus, my parent’s marriage was constantly disrupted by financial insecurity. I mean, we all watched “The Big Short”, economic recessions and terrorist attacks are apparently commonality these days. Elder millennials have lived through like, what now, three? Having a partner whose ACTUAL JOB was to understand every aspect of financial planning and could thus alleviate any burden (or even future burden of having to be tasked with) in a partnership was SO NICE. I’m nothing but pragmatic, above all. Could I deal with a little social awkwardness and immaturity if it meant, down the line, holistic knowledge of this was always going to be available, handled, and accessible to me? Absolutely. 

(3) Gabe also took me to Iceland for about a week as a present for overcoming my anxiety and applying to graduate school on impulse a week before the deadline, (though that’s for some other segment.) I don’t care very much about owning materialistic things, but I genuinely prioritize experiences and actually “doing” life with someone. Which, at times, involves traveling. 

Iceland has phenomenal landscape akin to other worlds, with their natural environments virtually untouched and harness of hydropower. My science-loving, farm-lady self THRIVED (apart from it being like 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the “summer”). I’m also gonna point out, as much as I love travel, that shit (outside of the US and especially if you don’t have access to a car) is EXPENSIVE. Honestly, the most freeing travel experiences I’ve had, were the ones where someone else was funding the events (even when I was working with the families) and I could just tag along. 

In Gabe’s case, I got to completely curate a meticulous itinerary, someone else funded it, AND I had a male traveling partner over 6’ tall and white who made me at least appear safer than solo travel (though, I am without a doubt the one who would’ve been responsible for any defending should whatever situation arise. Lmao. Have your lawyer daddy get you out of a hypothetical Liam Neeson’s “Taken” style kidnapping, buddy. This is why you should stay in sports, ladies.) Lucky for him, he was 6’4” and could run a mile in like 3 minutes and 53 seconds or some shit with his lanky ass legs so despite not being “dominant”, he was infrequently in physical danger. But WHAT PERSON WOULDN’T ENJOY HAVING A LIFE PARTNER LIKE THAT?! 

HOW IS THAT GOLD DIGGING?

Hot girl privileges are a thing. As Chris Brown would put it, “quit hating from outside the club. You can’t even get in. ahahahaha.” Don’t brand it as “gold digging” just because you’re too afraid to sign up for an only fans, as a “cis”-hetero male with low self esteem, even though random men on the internet would ALSO happily pay you to be their sugar baby. It’s called “acting”, baby. You might have to wear a skirt at their direction, compromising your integrity within the Candace Owens-delusional crowd (who are really just scared their wives are gonna leave them for Harry Styles in a dress), but you can do it too. Shut the fuck up and stop being jealous when the opportunity exists for both of us. Even if it’s more “societally acceptable” for one of us to do it. Why do you even want to date, or concern yourselves with fixating on, women who are solely into being a “trophy wife” anyways if you hate it so much? 

Maybe it’s because I’m from a rural background and was constantly dirty or outside, but I do not give a fuck about the more materialistic aspects of life because, again, I’m not fond of the public eye (shocking). Almost like I’m aware of how “controversial” of a person I am. Imagine that. The whole “Ursula was a sea witch with incredible power to transform her looks at will and chose to exist as a fat, ugly septipus” mentality? Yea. I’d say that’s me, but I also just enjoy NOT spending the hours to perfectly straighten my hair (it would NEVER), or do my make up, and I don’t think we should view our comfiest, most natural states as “a fat, ugly septipus”. The less you wear make up, the more comfortable you get with how you look without it. If you find yourself staring at your insecurities, maybe get rid of the mirrors for a while so you can focus on fixating towards the things you’re good at that provide internal validation. 

It’s fucking exhausting how much time people spend on things that ultimately don’t make them feel good about themselves just for the external validation from others. It’s EXHAUSTING how much we cater towards “softening the blow” on ourselves emotionally like we didn’t drop an atomic fucking bomb on a Japanese city and create generations of hatred towards our country globally for years to come. And what that’s ultimately rooted in is a political and societal structure based around conservative, Christian-based values. 

ACCOUNTABILITY

So, what do we do? How do we combat an entire country’s culture founded around a religion that only requires accountability behind closed doors? Can we even get around it? 

We can’t get rid of the young girl’s on TikTok are so desperate to be “Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving” that they look OLDER THAN ME AND I’M 27 because they’re CAKED in layers of make up and desperate to prove their “maturity” for the approval of some nonexistent parental figure they needed when they were younger without addressing that ageism in Hollywood exists and we have 27 year olds playing high school roles for their entertainment, so why would they NOT think that’s how they were “supposed” to look then? 

Or how about the religiosity and fraternal culture of (mostly) Southern or private sorority life that creates a foundational barrier for not calling your friends out on their criminal behavior when it negatively impacts others. The mentality of “always supporting your brothers or sisters” capitalizing on the assumption that your leadership will be virtuous. It’s literally allowing 20 year old adult children govern themselves and only in the women’s houses (at UNC at least) do you require a fucking parental figure. Yet, we wonder why there was a kid in DKE at UNC, who didn’t even have it’s charter associated with the school, whose dad, also a member of DKE, threatened to divorce the mom if she sued the fraternity for her son getting hit in the head with a 2 x 4 during a hazing event? Or how about the kid who fell off the construction site in Carrboro on his way to an ADPi fundraiser, and his body was found DRAGGED almost a football field length away from where he fell, and when the police got to the fraternity the next morning upon discovering his body, they were already lawyered up and had the exact same story?

It’s lack of accountability and failure to acknowledge that we are not preparing children for the reality of life by perpetuating naivety under the guise of “purity” in its various forms. 

And why do people feel the need to feverishly protect the institutions they once held sacred SO MUCH that they REFUSE to listen to reason? This is our BIGGEST gap with addressing religiosity in the United States, because doing so condemns us to a political campaign of hatred and probably public threats to our safety. 

The main reason it’s important to call out Trump and all of his enablers for fascism, sedition, and purposeful misinformation resulting in domestic terrorism is that every day the female leaders and anyone who isn’t a white male Republican ultimately are at an increased threat for their physical safety because of him. 

Calling people to question the realities of their world is scary. We all saw Dolores’ walls crumble around her with disdain. I don’t expect you to “enjoy” it, to “like” me the entire time, or to find it easy in any aspect.

I do, however, expect you to face reality.

To quit expecting people to dim the harshness of the world to fit your comfort level. To stop expecting your friend’s lives to cater around YOURS in such a way that you’re inherently disregarding whatever is going on in their own lives.

I know a girl in Texas, she’s based out of Austin and I BET if you had to guess what generic white girl name she had and how many siblings you could. This girl hosted a birthday party, on a boat, in Texas in like, July of 2020–you know, height of the pandemic you only turn 25…and every other fucking birthday… once. Well, while her little bachelorette-esque birthday tribe was going on, which she bullied most of the girls to continue attending and not cancel their flights for, by the way, another boat with one of her friend’s boyfriends was on it. Cue several hours later when that same friend finds out her boyfriend DROWNED after he fucking left partying with them, and what does this girl do? SHE TELLS THE GIRL SHE’S BEING SELFISH FOR NOT HAVING THE TIME OR ENERGY TO DEVOTE TO HER BIRTHDAY PARTY AND FOR WANTING TO GO TAKE CARE OF THE CONDITIONS SURROUNDING THE DEATH.

I know MULTIPLE PEOPLE from graduate school who are partying in fucking Mexico, have been freely flying from Houston to Miami to Colorado to Mexico to the Bahamas over and over again the entire past year, because they could and genuinely don’t see how it’s bioterrorism? 

This is because we pander towards lack of accountability.

Which segues perfectly into my next rant. 

On top of being a domestic terrorist and organizing a seditious coup d’etat where, every day that passes and he is not forcibly removed from office is a day the rest of the world assumes the door is open for fascism, for ignorance, for intolerance, Donald Trump and his entire administration is responsible for global scales of bioterrorism that, regardless of the origins of the coronavirus, Sars-CoV-2, Covid-19, whatever you want to refer to it as, we have almost single handedly been responsible, as a nation, for. 

The Donald Trump Administration is responsible for facilitating global bioterrorism over the last year so why are we surprised at domestic terrorism? 

If you’d like to learn more about a brief history in warfare, please continue on to my part II of this rant, labeled “Donald Trump is a (Bio)Terrorist”. It’s something I would’ve expected more Americans, particularly WHITE Americans, to have more knowledge on, honestly, given our prevalence for “supporting the Troops” and military value and all that. 

Why condemn our country to generations of other civilization’s hatred for former leader’s decision making skills (or lack of communication skills) across the globe just for the majority of our citizens to also turn a blind eye to it BECAUSE we haven’t experienced personal bloodshed from war in our own country? Why ever would other countries even need to shed their own blood when we’re capable of taking it out on ourselves? We’re like #1 in the world in the most inconsequential categories but at least we look sooooo good at the Olympics. Fucking christ.

Anyways, it’s available for you to listen and read. I recorded it at the same time I recorded this. I wrote them simultaneously, a bit of a “George R.R. Martin “Feast for Crows” and “A Dance with Dragons”” rabbit hole that ultimately connects and should leave you with absolutely no question as to what a fucking idiotic piece of shit you are for failing to see the threats of Donald Trump prior to the 2020 election, but whatever. Take it as you will.

Survival Mode

Donald Trump is a (Bio)Terrorist ft. Coronavirus

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Hope everyone’s having a great 2021. I’m just here to be the sparkling ray of sunshine you surely look forward to listening to as I bring ray after ray of good news into your life, seeping under your skin, giving you that warm tingly feeling you just enjoy so much.

Masochistic fucking society, I tell ya. It’s clear it’s a patriarchy, that’s for sure.

Speaking of the patriarchy, a subject near and dear to my heart. The premise of allllllll of my daddy issues, let’s go into some war history.

WORLD WAR 2

World War 2 – Quick summary. Lasted from 1939 – 1945. 

Allied powers were Britain, France, Russia, and the U.S.A.

Axis Powers were Germany, Japan, and Italy. Germany which, of course, was ruled by the Nazi supremacist fuck that our own President, several congresspeople, including new ones like Madison Cawthorn from North Carolina who quoted Hitler or “The Father” on instagram. (Yet again, another problematic issue with the Regina George bullying style tactics of the Call Her Daddy brand.) Not a great year for dads in the media, honestly. Maybe if you stopped traveling internationally to fuck during a pandemic would be the root of better PR. What do I know?

Other notable historical figures in play involve Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, FDR, and Winston Churchill.

End scene for World War 2.

THE COLD WAR

The Cold War, lasting from 1947 – 1991, involved an array of geopolitical tension after the alliance between Britain, the USA, and the Soviet Union/Russia began to precipitate out of solution because of Soviet instilled “communism” while Americans were providing aid. Nothing we like more than an excuse to pull out of an alliance on account of “handouts”. I hear that was when Mitch McConnell’s first term started. (Kidding.)

In 1948, the USA and European allies formed NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 

The Soviet Union was able to explode an atomic bomb, Chinese communism started, and North Korea backed by the Soviets began to invade US-occupied South Korea. 

THE KOREAN WAR

Enter the Korean War.

This signaled the first military action of the Cold War. It was American democracy versus international communism. 

That guy I allude to occasionally, I think I called him “the Farm boy”, he’s half Korean so this is kinda awkward because now I’m thinking about him.

5 Million soldiers and civilians lost their lives between 1950-1953. It’s often referred to as “The Forgotten War”. 

Is that why I make sure to let that guy know I’ll never forget him just so he can be annoyed with how much he loves me? Yes. It’s true. I like history. And compartmentalization for recall. 

Korea had previously been part of the Japanese empire, before falling to Americans and Soviets. You know, imperialism. That thing male leaders in particular like to do because they feel the need to assert their dominance over everybody else (probably to avoid the issues going on at home and exploit military positioning globally). 

The Korean war was largely underrepresented in pop culture, which is weird because back in the 1950’s, the National Security Council recommended US military force to quell “communism” whenever necessary. 

You wanna know what American soldiers ACTUALLY encountered in Korea? Dangerous intestinal diseases from unsafe drinking water. Infectious Diseases. Imagine that subject being important in warfare. 

President Harry Truman wanted to avoid all out war because of the threat of Soviet aggression in Europe with the confirmed atomic bombs. Turns out some US presidents believe in preventing millions of senseless deaths.

He also had to fire a war-hungry general and created the 2-mile-wide “demilitarized zone” which apparently still exists today. Apparently my AP World History professor, Karl Kraton, moved to Korea in recent years to teach. I would like to credit him for going against the status quo of the US public education system and not being so ethnocentric. He also probably saw the historical projection of US history with Donald Trump’s rise to power and was like “absolutely not. Peace.”

Back to the overall “Cold War”

Doomsday

Intercontinental ballistic missiles. Plans to aim them at U.S. cities in historic nuclear attacks against civilian life. Naturally, we began to prepare for “Doomsday”. 

Both the USA and the Soviet Union realized nobody would support their leadership and they would live an awful life of exile should they continue on that path, thus they finally agreed to the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty of 1963, preventing ABOVEground nuclear weapons testing. 

What do you think my biological dad used to do when he’d disappear into an undisclosed location in the ocean for a few weeks? How are American citizens too stupid to realize the greater forces at play being designed, constructed, and tested all over the globe at any given moment. 

“Doomsday” has always been a looming threat. Physics, Engineering, Mathematics were the focus of science and especially the focus of the national government.

Laugh all you want about the Obama Administration releasing a zombie apocalypse scenario, but why don’t you realize it’s literally the reason we have governments to be prepared and defend ourselves from mass casualty events? In the USA it’s certainly not for things like healthcare or human rights so what’s even the point, I mean, really? 

A lot of what I’m getting into is collected from Annie Jacobsen’s book, “The Pentagon’s Brain” and various historical sources across the internet because this shit is freely available to verify and it’s not a conspiracy theory. 

In the reality of a “Dooms Day”, from a Soviet Era bomb threat, tell me if any of this sounds familiar. “Over 50 million people would be estimated to need medical attention, health resources would be in a critical state, the doctors and nurses who survived cannot begin to handle what is now being asked of them, communicable diseases run rampant.”

The CIA even had a classified mission CALLED “Corona” during the Cold War space race. It was only declassified in February 1995 and involved a satellite reconnaissance program, not an infectious disease, though. (I’m kidding…that’s the type of allusion that actually makes me sound “conspiracy theorist”…although it is true.)

VIETNAM

Moving on to Vietnam. Keep in mind the conflict in Vietnam officially lasted from 1955-1975.

William Godel, one of DARPA’s strategic visionaries, predicted guerrilla warfare involved psychological components. Psychological destruction was, ultimately, a necessary component for victory. 

In the 1950’s, the scientific fields of neuroscience and cognitive behavior didn’t exist. Biology, chemistry, genetics, and computer science in general weren’t logically defined fields that influenced our government’s priorities.

William Godel went on to become the deputy director of the Psychological Strategy Board (PBS) which coordinated psychological warfare between the Department of Defense and the CIA. 

William Godel began to focus his attention during Vietnam on one method of warfare: Agent Orange. 

As I’ve said, my grandfather was on the ground in Vietnam and I watched every time he coughed up blood clots on his lungs for years to come after exposure to Agent Orange. How he devoted his life to relearning his history. His anger at the world. 

In 1961, the use of biological and chemical weapons was prohibited by the Geneva Convention. Herbicidal warfare, however, was still legal. 

Fort Detrick’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) toxicology branch with the Army Chemical Corps Biological Laboratories thus developed and marketed Agent Orange as a “defoliant”. They claimed it would strip the foliage and poison the food crop. That’s it. The enemy would eventually be starved into submission. That was our goal. 

President John F. Kennedy’s administration was eventually responsible for over 19 million gallons of “herbicide” being sprayed over the jungles of Vietnam exposing nearly 5 million Vietnamese, along with thousands of our own soldiers. 

You remember how we were fighting so-called “communism” in Vietnam? Two US Defense Department sponsored anthropologists, Zasloff and Donnell, interviewed Vietnamese fighters and discovered most had never even heard of Karl Marx. Leon Gouré, a political scientist employed by the RAND Corporation in the 60’s and 70’s was the one who helped press Lyndon B. Johnson to understand that most of the Vietnamese were neutral and had no strong political views. Most people, it turns out, are not obsessed with masked imperialist policies for self expansion and colonialism in the modern day and are instead more focused on just fucking personal survival. Imagine that. Imagine having a competent administration that would listen to and understand that. You can’t? Me either. Tis but a dream. 

The RAND Corporation, important to note, was largely responsible for “soft science” within ARPA. The “hard science” was the “Jasons”. Physicists and mathematicians only interested in quantifiable data because the rest was too illogical to be confident in. Magnet, electrical, and sensor technology. The kind of technology Black Mirror showed you for years that you somehow didn’t realize was in development privately? Do you all truly not know that US citizens get research years after our military has when they can sequester it for their own uses first? It’s just practicality. Look at the fucking robots being built in Boston. You really look at those and don’t imagine how our military is probably using them, drones, and other AI to deliver lethal blows to “terrorists” around the globe who are ultimately just fucking pissed because we won’t let them live their fucking lives and focus on the issues within our own soil? 

Later on in the 1970’s, President Carter’s secretary of defense, Harold Brown, claimed “technological superiority was imperative to military dominance” and “advancing science was the key to economic prosperity” so I WONDER why the fuck the United States, in 2020, has had to live through several economic recessions of increasing severity as if we don’t have an entire foundational backing on religion that actively denounces science. 

By the 1980’s, the Cold War was breaking down. Mikhail S Gorbachev, Soviet leader, tried to democratize the Soviet political system. Democratic governments in Europe, facilitated by NATO influence, also continued.

The 80’s were a weird time for the USA, anyways. Ronald Reagan is accountable for over 80,000 deaths with the AIDS epidemic and failure to act over stigmatization and political party affiliation was responsible for it. I mean, only 40,000 American troops were killed in Korea, an actual war overseas, but fuck the twice as many people who died over government negligence rooted in religiosity.

Chernobyl happened in 1986 and it was pretty clear soviet destruction over their own nuclear development was apparent so we slacked off a bit and just assumed technological dominance. 

Fast forward to the 1990’s.

Satellite-based global positioning became available for civilian use. We soon got television, the internet, you name it. The invention of the internet, by a US military scientist hired to help create a defense network, and engineering feats in general are so significant because previously, war stories or written word “were the only record of battle.”  

The Gulf War

The 1990’s also brought the Gulf War. My stepfather, career navy man, flew drones in it. 

The Gulf War was situated around Saddam Hussein’s military command fortress of Baghdad, Iraq. A highly sophisticated air defense network, second in the world (after good ole Moscow). Americans often portray the middle east as huts in the sand and lack of anything technological. They saw “Hidalgo” once and were like “savages! Cheats!” I don’t know if it’s just Hollywood’s way of erasing and justifying cultural force or trying to reduce entire civilizations down to barbery, as if our own background checks pass so cleanly, but it certainly dehumanizes and asserts some US “superiority” complex over them. 

Mind you, the Gulf War was a united effort between 35 nations and led by the USA against the invasion of Kuwait. President George H.W. Bush led Operation Desert Storm for 42 days after the Saudi Arabian King Fahd, Kuwait’s government-in-exile, and ⅔ of the 21 members of the Arab League turned to the USA and other members of NATO for support. 

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, tried to harness holy war based in Muslim support (religion, a common theme to wars) and then temporarily agreeing to peace with Iran in order to embolden his military strength. It was routed in Palestinian conflict and liberation through revengeful force and military occupation. A tactic, as we all know, that works *so* well. 

By the end of February, 1991, Iraq promised to get rid of all nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry. In the process of invasion, we had discovered scientists were working on nuclear weaponry, one of the sources for continued aggression in the region. Saddam Hussein was effectively left in power to suppress political uprisings and they resisted on all weapons inspections and the United Nations were just like “it is what it is”. 

In 1993, the Battle of Mogadishu, more commonly known as the “Black Hawk Down” incident led to hundreds of Somali deaths. Eighteen Americans and 2 UN Soldiers died. Ratio-wise, this was fairly typical, it seemed. The Gulf War had almost 10,000 Middle Eastern deaths and only around 300 coalition troops. Our KD is fairly positive. 

But technology enabled dead American pilots and soldiers to be dragged, semi-naked, bloodied through the streets and broadcast on international television to be made a mockery of. We still waterboarded and tortured their warlords behind closed doors. We just didn’t broadcast it publicly. We were vastly better. More just. 

Slightly over a decade later, President George W. Bush would lead us through the second Gulf War, the “Iraq War” in 2003. Don’t worry, ya’ll. It’s 2020. I hear people in the Middle East LOVE the United States. I’m sure this Saudia Arabia arms deal won’t come back to bite our own civilians no big deal. 

Let’s backtrack slightly. 

In 1972 the Biological Weapons Convention Treaty was passed and everyone pinky promised to give up bioweapons work and we “believed” humanity to “do the right thing” (yawn). 

Instead, Biopreparat, a Soviet bioweapons program, was known to exist by both British and American intelligence operatives. Biotechnological innovation, spearheaded by the mass destruction of Agent Orange and growing fields of science, was key in militaristic expansion. Biopreparat was revealed to be involved with “chimera”–”genetic material from two or more organisms combined to produce more virulent germs.

One goal was to create a hybrid of smallpox and Ebola, for reference.

Speaking of Ebola...Remember, how Americans were depicted as these great feats of engineering for focusing on the Ebola outbreak–almost as if the Democratic Republic of the Congo hasn’t had Ebola endemically since the 70’s and we only got involved once political strife and refugee movement through the area meant the USA was also susceptible to Ebola entering our country? Almost like we largely don’t care about the spread of disease until it also impacts white people and the globally rich cultures and as a society don’t invest in biological science in general to prevent our civilians from reassessing the development and ethical dilemma of our military culture. 

Speaking of smallpox…Remember how Americans successfully eradicated smallpox in 1972 because of, you guessed it, VACCINATIONS. Remember when states could FORCE VACCINATIONS ON PEOPLE WITHOUT REGARD TO YOUR STUPID FUCKING FREEDOMS AND HOW ARE YOU QUESTIONING THE LEGITIMACY OF A VACCINE YOU WERE A BIO MAJOR AT SYRACUSE FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR GOD GET THE FUCK OFF FACEBOOK.

While biological pathogens were temperature-fragile, they did offer the novelty of being biochemically engineered or developing naturally–in part due to humanity’s existence on this earth vastly accelerating environmental destruction.

It makes sense, intellectually, why they would be a bioweapons facility’s target. It naturally offers an excuse from corporate responsibility. A tendency for doubt. For lack of accountability. It’s political and militaristic gold.

Then, in the 1990’s when Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, a Soviet scientist, came to our unbreachable capital for diplomatic tradition. He was trained as an infectious disease physician with a specialty in epidemiology, so naturally we escorted him with officials from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (US-AMRIID). He eventually confirmed Soviet sources sold biological secrets all over the world. DARPA, directed by Larry Lynn, recognized the lack of US intelligence into biological sciences. 

Unsurprising, for a country that fails to embrace universal healthcare 30 years later and is weakening their own population by failing to provide very simple remedies to very simple problems before they exacerbate and spiral out of control into very complex problems. Think of the amount of genius lost to misogyny, unplanned pregnancies, lack of stable healthcare in general and increased chronic diseases, poverty, etc all because someone screams “communism” and you refuse to invest in your communities. 

Soft sciences also involves mental health and we all know it will apparently CRUMBLE our military regime’s to recognize that something like PTSD, which helps highlight the brevity of life, is not actually a universal “negative” and could actually be a benefit as it should ultimately be the responsibility of the military to focus on preservation of human life. Health conditions probably shouldn’t just disqualify you from certain positions nor should needing to talk about them or not being available to society half of all waking hours 5 out of the 7 days a week when we live in an age of technology make you “useless”. By the way, it doesn’t make you some uber tough military gladiator to be all war all the time and not value human life. 

Arthur Cebrowski was the one who first stated “you have a moral obligation not just to limit your own casualties and casualties of nonparticipants but also those of the enemy itself.” But what does he know–he’s only a decorated Navy pilot, after all. 

Failure to address how deep this shit goes is the exact fucking problem our entire country has because it’s all fucking related and it’s all centered around creating a Disney World of a country that pretends everything’s happy-go-lucky as long as we can avoid it on our news cycle. The political elitism. The almost necessity for religious foundational political campaigns.

President Bill Clinton was debriefed on biological weapons programs in 1996 involving North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Syrian facilities. The knowledge politicians are privy to is also why we refuse to alienate former presidents even when they start wars over things like oil and other consumeristic policies of U.S. expansion, military strength, and civilian comfort. You don’t have to respect these people, but you do have to figure out how to work with them. And you ARE supposed to be able to trust them. We wonder why nobody of value stepped forward to fill the position and a reality television star was erected? 

I personally think it’s significantly detrimental to the Democratic party’s continued legitimacy every time Hilary Clinton tries to voice her support. I get it, you tried to warn the country about Donald Trump. Your own failure to recognize why that election was lost is rooted in misogynistic patriarchy, sure, but it’s also rooted in your own lack of transparency and failure to adapt or recognize a new age of politics. Your own goals in politics prevented opening the door for other women and you just expected women to universally not recognize that? Not that the Republican party’s legitimacy is any better, obviously. Fuck them all. We should have like 800 political parties with fair representation and it should be easily accessible–HAVE YOU SEEN HOW BIG THE UNITED STATES IS?!

We then enter the new millennium. Things were looking up. We had transitions from grunge pop to Zenon-esque platinum attire, space culture chic.

September 11, 2001 and Modern Warfare

Until September 11, 2001 happened.

For the “Bush did 9/11” crowd–I want you to understand how terrorism works. They flood our communication channels after years of generational hatred for military occupancy and societal exploitation and we hope we can distinguish the one real threat. We knew an attack was imminent. It’s plausible to assume we knew an attack was occurring, but we didn’t know which airline, which state it was flying in from, and in 2020 you proved that our society frankly doesn’t care enough to shut down airports and prevent an event where over 3000 American lives die in a single day, every single day with the current situation so this is a moot discussion anyways.

The morning of September 11, 2001, David A. Bray, a 24-year-old information technology chief for the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program at the US. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia–you know, the institution half of Americans and the President of the United States have spent the last year ignoring–established under Bill Clinton administration for counterterrorism was preparing a spiel involving the way people get information and what they do with it. (Turns out, misinformation has been a big issue for a long time and all of you libertarians who cry about “freedom of speech” because you think well-researched, educated speech is somehow going to be restricted are as fucking stupid as your trust in Joe Rogan. If you really mistrust the government so much, why don’t you fucking get involved and stop endorsing the exact reason we said he shouldn’t give right-wing radicalists a platform.) 

The CDC also predicted biological events would also be a subset of this new age of warfare. So far, they’re 2/2 and yet 0/372,000 and counting at the same time. 

Network-centric warfare in general provided a “new relationship between operations abroad and homeland security.” “The lines between homeland security and fighting foreign wars would become intentionally blurred.” And yet… Americans just want to keep their vacations to Mexico as if the revelation of a massive Russian-backed cybersecurity attack on the United States government and Mitch McConnell refusing to support immediate impeachment of Donald Trump or allow the new presidential administration to enter and begin working only serves to prove to me that we need to remove literally every single person who has supported or endorsed Donald Trump’s actions in the last year. They’re either too fucking stupid to be aware of the compromise to national security and therefore are unfit to hold political office or they are involved with the opposition and are therefore terrorists. Take your pick, Mitch McConnell. 

In 2004, Congress was concerned with a research study involving chemical or biological weapon development. But if you one-day want to develop a jamming device that can locate IEDs in fast-moving vehicles through chemical vapor technology, you also need to develop the chemical vapors! What does congress not “get”? Why did American civilians remain so dumb to the reality that technologists had long replaced ground-scale combat? Is this because half of you grow up playing a stupidly excessive contact sport that ONLY the United States plays in the hopes for athletic glory because sports are the only thing the US ACTUALLY is #1 globally in (hooray for gold fucking medals), even though it’s probably the LEAST FUCKING IMPRESSIVE SINCE WE’RE UNHEALTHY IN EVERY OTHER FUCKING WAY, and now your brains are all creative goo too idiotically proud to recognize the bounds of your knowledge and how little your small bubbles of white privilege actually reveal about the way the world works?

Robert Scales, a Vietnam War veteran and retired major general, spoke publicly about a potential future space force and wars being fought overhead with network-centric methods of incapacity, political propaganda and cultural sway, and bioterrorism related to infectious diseases and y’all just play fucking dumb in 2020 because you can’t see the physical enemy?

You fail to see how facilitating the spread of a highly mutable virus, regardless of its initial origin, is now fully the responsibility of the USA and the Donald Trump administration, because we didn’t even make any minute attempt to reduce transmission in reality, because we lacked any kind of a nationally coordinated response, and thus accelerated the possibility and rates of mutations, constantly undermined transparency of data including refusing to reveal the legitimacy of the threat to the public in the first place and ignoring warnings from scientists, refused to mandate masks (even though Asian cultures well aware of the looming threat of infectious diseases wear them as precautions within the public out of societal habit…probably a solid policy for the USA to start adopting), and CONTINUES to ignore it while every passing day is A FUCKING MASS CASUALTY EVENT THAT MAKES 9/11 PALE IN COMPARISON AND YOU PROMISED TO “NEVER FORGET” ABOUT THAT AND SUPPORTED AN ENTIRE MUSLIM BAN AS IF WE DON’T LIVE IN A COUNTRY FOUNDED ON CHRISTIANITY, UNDENIABLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MAJORITY OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPREAD GLOBALLY AND A CULTURE BASED AROUND ASSERTING ITS UNFOUNDED DOMINANCE ON OTHERS. Yet, you fail to see how this is bioterrorism? 

The war in Iraq focused on how “cultural ignorance can kill” –a thought first routinely circulated by DARPA Social Scientist Montgomery McFate. I honestly didn’t think the USA had condemned itself to so much fucking cultural ignorance that you just excuse the President of the United States from creating a society that ignores its contribution to global bioterrorism because we refuse to “show weakness” in any way and subsequently condemn ourself to weakness for decades to come. The same laboratories that engineered the atomic bomb now create artificial brains and an entirely complex organ, the human uterus. North London hospitals have “grown noses, ears, blood vessels, and windpipes in a laboratory as they attempt to make body parts using stem cells.” The “pro life” crowd rallies in disgust and only hinders scientific progress. Our Army research facilities are responsible for it yet our government officials refuse to condemn that repetitive rhetoric and latch onto it to grasp desperately onto power. Outlawing it will not keep you from it’s development. The world has grown far too quickly for that. 

Pretending the opinions of the religiosity matter in general, as far as government policy of a “Free” nation are concerned, is clearly problematic. 55% of white women voted for a man who brazenly conducted a seditious act and who some congresspeople are refusing to boldly condemn and immediately remove from office because of it. Keeping an outdated electoral college in place that places the opinions of rural areas with more white religiosity at a higher voting weight only further increases these problems.

In 2014, DARPA Scientist Dr. Paul Zak ensured the public the CIA’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency aimed on manipulation of trust was a GOOD thing. I’m going to say now, which should not come as a surprise to anyone, that I see the benefit in government’s being prepared and understanding scenarios and natural aspects of human behavior. Call me unethical. That man, mind you, is a leader in neuroeconomics and morality–a field involving the economic decisions based on trust. He was trained at Harvard. And yet, the manipulation of trust is something every person of religious background has placed excessive faith in, fairly blindly. In 2020, it ultimately proved (on a global scale) to be the American people’s deficit. 

Carl Sagan, an American astronomer and astrophysicist, one of the most famous of the 1980s and 1990s, once said, “It is suicidal to create a society dependent on science and technology in which hardly anybody knows anything about the science and technology”.

I’d go so far as to say it is far more “suicidal to create a society dependent on science and technology in which [the majority of people eligible to vote and elected government officials] know nothing about science and technology.”

Math team is not social suicide, ladies. I know Gretchen Weiners really wanted to convince us all of that in the wonders of Tina Fey’s “Mean Girls”. 

However “controversial” this may be, the reality of the world in 2020 is an age of cybertechnology and biochemical warfare. The ignorance of United States citizens to take and demand effective measures to curb the spread of coronavirus, the lack of cultural emphasis on access and prioritization of healthcare, the national negligence, not only towards government support for its own citizens but knowledge of the implications for additional biochemical attacks of further increased virulence is something we should take immediate forewarnings of. The fact that we place a higher priority on being able to fly to vacations in Mexico or skiing in Colorado is straight up pathetic. Get a fucking grip. 

Donald Trump and his entire administration and the coronavirus is bioterrorism and you all are fucking idiots. We’ve known something like this was an expected reality for a LONG time. Failure to contain it was not inability to. It was in failure in the ability to lead. Is it uncomfortable to look at yourselves and go “wow, I’m a fucking idiot how did I not see this?” Yes. Obviously.

What do you expect when white people are labeled as “mentally ill” instead of as “Domestic terrorists” so your ski trip to Vail is “for your depression” instead of “bioterrorism”?

I mean, obviously. Get a clue.

We now have an entire country that will question science and distrust government officials even more than they did before, including the blue collar labor workforce. We have a white supremacist insurgence of fascism that is propelling hatred across the globe and feeling emboldened to emerge from their dark caverns of secrecy. 

We have over 20 million cases within our country–surely underreported because my neighbors with their handmade “Stop the Steal” signs definitely don’t have health insurance and wouldn’t seek out testing no matter how long their coughs persisted. We’re going to have insurmountable cardiac deaths from stress on cardiorespiratory systems for years to come, mental fatigue of health care officials (which we already have), addiction rates skyrocketing, and yet YOU DON’T SEE HOW THIS IS BIOTERRORISM AND TRUMP’S FAILURE TO RESPOND OR PROTECT AMERICAN CITIZENS IS WEAKENING THE ENTITY OF THE UNITED STATES? 

Hold him fucking accountable for the love of whatever fucking Gods ya’ll pray to. Bioterrorism is the release of viruses, bacteria, or other germs that sicken or kill people/livestock/crops. PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW YOU DO NOT CONSIDER WILLFUL IGNORANCE (OR RATHER PURPOSEFUL NEGLIGENCE) TOWARDS JUST EXCUSING AND FACILITATING GLOBAL SPREAD OF A HIGHLY MUTABLE VIRUS WITH OVER 2 MILLION DEATHS WORLDWIDE NOT BIOTERRORISM? 

Michelle Carter was convicted in a Massachusetts court of law for cyberbullying her boyfriend to commit suicide as a teenager yet you claim to not want to hold the president of the united states accountable for an attack on the Capitol that he encouraged moments before and helped orchestrate? You claim to not want to hold him accountable for the months and years of cyberbullying build up in the name of “politics”?

Fuck your sense of justice.

As I said, I know this episode was going to be EXCESSIVELY controversial, but doing the
“Right” thing is never necessarily “popular” or “easy”. Stay the fuck home and quit being so ignorant and selfish and LEARN how to contribute positively to the world while also being aware.

There’s a lot of fucking work to do.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-claims-israel-morocco-deal-brings-peace-reality-it-could-ncna1252161

https://www.npr.org/2017/03/28/521779864/inside-darpa-the-pentagon-agency-whose-technology-has-changed-the-world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/apr/23/somerset-business-guilty-fake-bombs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphoria_(American_TV_series)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Albert_Einstein

https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-policy

https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/persian-gulf-war

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-38808175

https://fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/agency/bw.htm

https://www.nap.edu/read/18512/chapter/1

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/3/140316-carl-sagan-science-galaxies-space

https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war

https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War/Toward-a-new-world-order

https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/persian-gulf-war

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“Horse Girls” Aren’t Weird… You’re just an American

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Hello one and all, welcome to the New Year, 2021, which most Americans probably used to facilitate the spread of a family of highly mutable viruses and we just want to pop champagne and forget that we’re permitting global decimation and bioterrorism in the name of “Celebration”.

VERY, VERY American thing to do, if you ask me. 

I love the USA, too, guys. I was just raised by a colonel in the US army who fought in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. Experienced the beautiful skirting of the Geneva Convention that was Agent Orange in the name of “Democracy”. He went to / taught at West Point Military academy as well as achieving the status of a “Knight of the Italian Republic” while at the Italian War Army College. My grandpa spent his entire later years devoted to endlessly researching everything he was taught. Our farm land, once lived on by the Zekiah Tribe, he used to regrow the Appaloosa horse population. Every time we plowed those tobacco fields, he unearthed arrowheads and other signs of civilized life (you know, from before mass organization by the federal government of rehoming/virally murdering entire populations) and built a historical trust to relearn and re-educate the people. Specifically from a non-white and solely pro-USA viewpoint. 

In fact, he went through this huge phase where he bought $2 million worth of stone from a company going out of business and hired my uncle’s construction company to build patios, roads, whatever we wanted (I asked for a castle, unfortunately I did not get it). When he learned the swastika had been used for hundreds of years by the Hindu and Buddhist faiths, amongst others and was a symbol of “good luck” prior to Hitler’s pathetic cultural appropriation 101, he built several stone sauwastika’s all over our farm. He enjoyed the idea that people would be confused, ask him, and he could explain. In a “reclaiming the tradition” type thing. All this ACTUALLY did was make people think we were Nazis.

…You’d think someone who was a rooftop watcher during the Blitz in London would’ve thought about that. 

I believe true “patriotism” means always wanting your country to be the best version of itself.

If this is what you all think is the “best” version of the USA? A country so focused on individualism and personal achievement that we don’t care when those people are assholes climbing out of the pits of their despair by stepping on the heads of those around them, versus working Patcha and Kuzco style to propel each other out of the pit? Do fucking better. You might not always know “right” from “Wrong” but you DO know when something ISN’T “right”. Stop defending the 100 different failed ways you tried to design a lightbulb and how about we work towards achieving the way that’ll work most efficiently and pragmatically, while also being environmentally friendly. How about that? 

Anyways, weird intro. You all should expect that by now. 

While this is very meta-, (I think that’s the word) talking directly to you, I also want to give a special shout out to my listeners or readers in Germany and the United Kingdom. Let’s all have a moment of peace for the people who come across this and think it is representative of the average “American” woman. While I may have matched my Kirsten the American Girl Doll and gone to one room schoolhouses in full cosplay, I have since accepted it is my purpose on this earth to wreak havoc to all of the indoctrinated beliefs we once held near and dear. It is how I channel my frustration at the lack of accountability or acknowledgment for the mass casualty events occurring daily with seemingly no awareness for the weapon of biochemical warfare that is the coronavirus. Do you all not think the wealthy leaders globally discuss population control behind closed doors? How do you enjoy being so naive to it? 

The topic of today’s post is one near and dear to my heart, as a horse girl, and it’s that I don’t actually believe horse girls are crazy, I just think they are connected to the circle of life, nature in general, and emotions more so than the average mind-numbingly dull American person who has blindly agreed to not express completely reasonable thoughts or feelings in an attempt to be more socially acceptable, lest they be labeled as “Dramatic” by those with lesser minds.  

I am going to weave you a tale involving a brief synopsis of my youth and random anecdotes that my ADHD riddled brain decides are particularly important and relevant. You understood how it related after Elle Woods brought up ammonium thioglycolate and how it impacted the texture of the perm, so just bear in mind that even if my musings don’t immediately appear to be relevant, they are. Also, this is my show and it’s my thoughts so TECHNICALLY, everything is relevant no matter how divergent it may appear.

Growing up on a farm isn’t something that I reference on my resume, though I arguably should. Anytime someone finds that out, they say it’s clearly reflected in my work ethic, which is just “normal” for me, because if you’re going to do a job, you better do it “right”. However, the scientist in me also uses every opportunity for improvement as I see fit, so clearly this does impact how much I enjoy incompetent leadership resistant to change. My grandparents started our family farm, where my house, my grandparent’s, aunt’s, and uncle’s were all on their own 4 individual acres. Then, the roughly 70 acres of sprawling farm, rolling hills, and swamp or wooded terrain extended behind my grandparent’s home into what was called “The Valley”. My grandfather bought my grandma “Two Spot”, the Appaloosa who began the breeding registry and eventually we had anywhere from 20-30 horses at a given time. 

We also got the farm because my mom was born in Italy about 15 years after her three older siblings. She was a “mistake”. “Mistake” holds such negative connotation too. She was “unplanned”. It’s not that she wasn’t WANTED, she just was a “surprise” is all. So when she was born, my grandparents moved back stateside from Italy and thus birthed the farm she’s grown up on her ENTIRE life. She went away to college, found a husband, brought him home, and stayed there until moving to the farm my stepdad owns. 

While I was growing up and competing, we usually kept about 7-10, including some of our boarder’s horses. Now that we’ve moved to my stepfather’s farm, with my mom shedding the weight of divorce to a narcissist, we’re down to 2-3 at any given time. My mom obviously no longer has child labor to feed them, clean the stalls, bail hay, etc that we provided in our youth so she has to take care of them singlehandedly. The smaller amount is significantly more manageable. In fact, my (mom’s) new horse just came in from Florida last night around midnight, which puts us back up at 3 for the time being, since my childhood pony passed last month. 

Now, I WILL acknowledge, there are different types of horse people, but that’s a follow-up discussion. The overarching “horse” person, or equestrian, is someone who is connected to an animal that is generally physically larger than them, requires potentially a 30+ year commitment, is EXPENSIVE as fuck. And no, I do not use my horses in the “resell as an investment”, although we have at times when they weren’t a good enough “fit”.

Horses are similar to a “the wand chooses the wizard” Harry Potter moment.

A good equestrian can ride many, and bond with many, but they still have their predominant favorites. Every so often, you get one that connects with you spiritually in a James Cameron’s Avatar style of spiritual understanding. Sandy was my spirit. Before her, it was my pony Nicky. Now? Who knows. I’m back in the market for animal menagerie for my personal zoo collection of creatures that understand why I walk the earth.

I grew up riding my pony through the woods–solo at times, but mainly with my other horse friend who lived up the street at her Grandparents’ house. Lindsay’s pony, Brandy, was white and larger than Sandy, but the two mares loved keeping each other company. We would go out for 8-10 hours during the summer–wandering the power lines as far as we could, looking at the houses in the front of the neighborhood, encountering deer in the woods behind our hay fields. We swam the ponies in the pond I grew up swimming in. Sandy even dipped her head fully underwater–a rarity for horses to enjoy getting their ears wet. We took off our saddles and rode bareback, jumping 3’6” posts with ease on ponies smaller than the jumps. When Lord of the Rings came out and the hobbits had to embark on their long journey, I was like “finally! Representation of who I am in pop culture!”

If my future partner does not propose to me in New Zealand as if it is the one ring forged from the depths of Mordor that I deserve, I will not marry them, simple as that. 

I spent most of my free time in the saddle. Who wouldn’t? I had my own ponies, pretty much as many as I could want or need because my grandparents would buy them for me if I wanted to try a different outlet. Maryland is beautiful and the colors of the leaves, changing with each season, coupled with the farmland and seclusion from the dredges of humanity reflected in the crystal oasis of the pond, framed by lily pads, was the epitome of a dream. I had an amazing childhood. And yes, I still say that even with some of my other references to my familial life. My life has been undeniably free, reckless, passionate, wild. I race with the spirit of the wind around me, winding through the trails like Pocahontas. I ran a 5k race in my heptathlon for pony club–which I qualified for Nationals with and won my division the first time I ever tried–barefoot. Because “it felt better”. My feet, hands, and body have been immersed in the earth, it is more natural for me to be outside, to be amongst animals, to be amongst trees. I feel as if I belong. 

Anyone who studies animals to a degree probably understands the mentality of “horse people”. The horses were our methods of transportation. Is it also completely logical and probable that we have a horse farm in the off chance we need to escape on horseback from something and gasoline has been rendered obsolete? Yes. Speaking of all things gasoline, crazy how Trump has rolled back so many environmental protection laws, pardoned war criminals who paid for his own personal business, and sold bombs to Saudia Arabia. Yet, that’s somehow not front page news. Why are you all not more concerned about this? When you said you wanted a “change of pace” and “businessman” I did not think the Godfather was who fucking came to mind?

“It’s just business”… NO, it’s people’s lives, Eric.

Horses are working animals. They carry you. They’ve carried people into battle. They’ve carried wagons across mountains to move our civilizations westward. They carry the plows across the fields to allow agricultural expansion and “greater society”. When you combine that with a personality of someone who wants to work, to perform for you, you get a magnificent creature that taps into a new level of humanity. 

Humans are, ultimately, animals. We can plead all we want with the fact that we’re so “different” because of our special thumbs, but we have always only made sense of the world around us with our own perceptions. Which means we only explain things in ways we know how. It’s why our languages are expanding, constantly fluid. It’s why the invention of the internet and dispersion of education disrupted the fabric of the GOP and general political system in the USA’s ability to control public perception. Humans anthropomorphize everything such that we’ve convinced ourselves humanity is somehow different from the other mammals that roam this planet. That we DESERVE to have a stronger foothold, to ignore the species we live amongst and move them at our whim, using them almost exclusively for personal gain, because we have physically harnessed ways to be stronger than them. Ways to destroy their environments. Ways to force them into starvation, seclusion, and loneliness. 

And Americans are the fucking worst.

We have veterans who will open “animal rescues” and exhibit wild, exotic species to the public for profit as if they are doing the animals a favor, but won’t work or devote any time to volunteering in homeless shelters–also overrun with veterans treated like wild, exotic animals. We rescind environmental protective orders and mobilize Native American land as if we should be entitled to destroying the earth on one side of our country for the sake of “development” on the opposite coast–without a care for those actually affected by the degradation. We permit SeaWorld to profit even after Blackfish, in the name of “science” even though we should be directing funding into EVERYTHING science related for the sake of curiosity, knowledge of the world around us, and how to rectify the horrendous things we have done to this planet. Anyone who wants to study this world should be able to and be able to live comfortably and should know how to make that a reality. Why the fuck do so many people want to come out with new swimsuit lines that aren’t sustainable, paying American workers a living wage, or using recyclable plastic? There is SO much engineering opportunity within every single industry in the USA and our government somehow won’t encourage the American youth to be more conscientious, to seek out studying the planet? Instead, we let killer whales live in a shoebox, biting themselves and injuring themselves in desperate bids for freedom. Great white sharks can’t even live in captivity, they’d rather commit suicide and just stop swimming. 

Yet we really think we’re doing a favor to the world by putting animals on display in conditions like that? We have technology at our fingertips. People don’t need to be “attracted” to these rescues, studies, or parks any longer. We should be creating dramatic documentaries of what it means to actually work with these animals,

a little less “Tiger King” and a little more “Steve Irwin”

… in fun ways so people can learn about them from afar, and understand WHY we should be respecting the natural environment.

Say you’re into trail running (which I also am). In the middle of the mountains, on a trail winding through rock faces and pine trees, your man made inventions may not matter. Your gun is good, sure, but is it enough? Your bear mace may fall out, inaccessible, or your fingers may fumble at the latch. You may slip on a root covered in an aqueous layer of moss, tumble off the path, break your collarbone again, and die, alone, away from humanity. Horse people are similar. TRUE horse people–people who actually know how and can care for their own horses, are identical, only connected to an animal that could easily kill them, purposely or accidentally. (By the way, “true horse people” does not refer to the rich city girls who take lessons and pay for horses already well-trained. You can buy your connection to solitude, you can’t buy understanding it. Your racehorse means nothing to me when you’re scared to ride it but thanks for funding it I guess? What a sad life to live collecting everything without regard to its soul. A hollow shell of a life for a hollow shell of a human in too many instances.)

Some people would argue what kind of “sane” person would get on a creature that could kill them and place their trust in it, fully, to not do so? A lot of those people also drive a speeding metal box on wheels at tremendous speeds amongst other people also driving speeding metal boxes on wheels at tremendous speeds and entrust those people, whose languages they might not speak, to not kill them as well, so…

The wild is scary. It is intense. It requires a level of awareness, of perception, of clarity. Acknowledgment of humanity’s place on this Earth. Actual “horse girls” are connected to the brevity of life. They’ve probably been thrown from their horse, alone and forced to walk miles back dejectedly, while their horse gallavants around running in circles back at the stables, more times than they can count. They’ve probably made several emergency room visits for “protocol” even though the medics will just reaffirm we bandaged everything correctly and “nothing else appears to be the problem”. That, or they’ll tell us what we already knew by my sister’s 2 week memory loss, that “it’s a concussion”. (Seriously, it was on her birthday and my mom was worried we’d have to re-wrap all of her presents…) City slickers may never understand that. People who confine themselves to the architectural safety of engineering are either not engineers themselves (who would NEVER trust everything fully) or they are unaware of their connection to the primal drive of humanity to explore the unknown and interact with the natural world around you. I honestly view those people sadly. 

It must be hard to have always grown up in the confines of a concrete jungle. The biggest threat to your safety wasn’t the random coyote or wolf sightings on your farm, the snakes that would lose their hold and fall from the rafters into your arms while you were scooping feed, the possibility of taking a hoof to the head while breaking our colt, Finnegan, like my Grandfather once had. Never having to REALLY provide for yourself or rather not even knowing how to. Only studying the way the world works from books or movies. Secondhand. Your version of a day’s work never breaking a sweat, outside of fitness class, most minutes planned around someone (likely someone else’s) schedule over your own.

Basic rules of thermodynamics involve the knowledge that spontaneity is predisposed to increase. Chaos is a ladder, remember? (Shout out Peter Baelish–go listen to/read my Game of Thrones post).

You can logic through life all you want, but there will always be unpredictable things sent to wreak havoc and create chaos in the timeline we’re familiar with. Why would you want the only animals you interact with to be humans? Have you met other animals? Some of them are really cool and won’t pass off their unsolicited opinions on what female dolphins should or should not do with their bodies while you observe them in admiration.

All I’m saying is that, no matter how smart Elon Musk is, the very fact that he isn’t TERRIFIED by the reality of what awaits us in space, when we can’t even fathom the ways that dogs SMELL, is fearful. Men are so fucking one-track minded sometimes, I swear. We arbitrarily ascert there “isn’t intelligent life in the universe” but only look at “life” in humanoid representations that operate on the same chemical scales we operate on. It’s a lack of imagination, truly. 

Actual horse people aren’t afraid of getting messy, either. First, farms don’t exactly smell pleasant. My sister probably got teased at some point in school by her prissy bitch friends who were jealous, because she used to HATE feeding the horses in the morning and would spray all of this Victoria’s Secret body spray on immediately upon getting back into the car. Don’t get me wrong–Cotton candy delight is a tasty surprise, but I honestly don’t understand why some people hate it. Do you just hate the earth? Are you scared of nature in general? Please tell me why you expect life to not have a wide array of scents? Not all of them will be pleasant. We don’t necessarily need to acknowledge them, apart to characterize their identities and ensure no inhalation of toxic sludge detrimental to our survival. Maybe it’s also because I’m an athlete, so I’ve always been CELEBRATED at my sweatiest, messiest, and dirtiest, but it doesn’t phase me. All it tells me, if you complain, is that your life has been so cushy that you are literally not used to displeasant AROMAS. And to that, I say, grow the fuck up. Grow the fuck up. You can’t sit there and want to do anal and not consider that aspect. Do you know most women shit themselves when they give birth? Which, for women, by the way, childbirth and pregnancy in general is one of the MOST DANGEROUS times to be a woman, so you better DAMN SURE be next to that fucking bed. I don’t give a fuck how “unbecoming” it is to sit there and see your wife in pain. That is accountability 101. It is YOUR fucking fault. YOU caused that. You better be next to her for that. And the women who don’t want their husbands to see them like that? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK A LIFE PARTNER IS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE FOR?! Get that internalized misogyny out of here. I have HAD it with society. …If you’re allergic, I get it and fully apologize. 

It also wasn’t until college that I realized it was weird in any capacity to be a “horse girl.” Coming from a rural, farming area, a LOT of people are either into 4H or pony club. My mom and aunt get to judge the public speaking for 4H and animal shows–basically which horse, cow, or sheep’s hindquarters and chest ratio are exquisite marks of the breed. It’s eugenics and the Westminster Dog Show for country folk. Like I said, my mom was once Queen Nicotina, the queen of the county fair, named after the tobacco plant. No, I’m not kidding. Nor do I wish I was, it’s been quite the adventure of a lifetime. 

I also, being a HUGE nerd and top of my class with perfect straight A’s, athletic excellence in any sport, and a thirst for knowledge that made me want to read constantly and prefer my quiet solitude over team atmospheres, never doubted myself. I was bullied SIGNIFICANTLY, but I honestly didn’t give a fuck about the opinions. Did I wish people would leave me the fuck alone and mind their business? Absolutely. Did they have ponies? No. Thus, the point of their jealousy. I had every tangible method of asserting I was “better” than them in ways that actually mattered to me–character most of all. (As I say during this most humble statement.) People bully you as a result of their own inadequacies. Some people do it because the people in their lives, the ones who are supposed to show them unconditional love, think putting someone down for the things that bring them joy when they’re harmless is somehow “playful teasing”. If that’s how you choose your time to interact with this world, I honestly just feel bad for you because it shows me you want to take however little time you have on this planet and negatively influence it. 

However, I was still conscientious when I had to wear my riding clothes to middle school. The boots were much more eye-drawing, clattering across the hall than my normal sneakers. I never much had an eye for fashion–it neither interested me nor was it practical, as I was always in a different uniform or on the move as is, so my riding apparel was a stark contrast from my usual attire and made me stand out in a way I didn’t enjoy. My mom was going to pick us up early, instead of us riding the bus that day, so we could make it to our lessons in Virginia. I know it may be “surprising” to people who see the confidence in my thirst trap of an instagram and take it to mean I’m a gigantic narcissist so full of herself, but I do not “enjoy” the spotlight. I am aware that being illuminated in a spotlight only means there are shadows hidden in the depths of the darkness around you. Our planet is a good reminder of the cyclical nature of lightness and darkness. A good ole yin and yang. You do not have one without the other. With enough time, even the darkest nights pass. Stay in the spotlight long enough, and your flaws become illuminated as the makeup caked on begins to melt with the transfer of heat. I do not wish for it. Like being extroverted, it is simply a facet of reality and living amongst “society” as who I am. I hopefully share more of the darkness with you all, so you may understand it does not come easily. That I make no false assumptions of “perfection”, but I do see inherent flaws in our current societal structure and have all of the tools at my disposal and cannot silently watch as they perpetuate. I wish to make the most out of my time on this earth, however that may be in each and every moment.

Truth be told, by high school I wasn’t competing as much. By my sophomore year, travel soccer predominated. Most of my fellow horse friends were homeschooled by high school–it made sense for the traveling and time commitment. Most of them have horses involved in their professions, now, though. If I had been more serious about equestrian things, I might’ve taken that route. However, my love of pushing my own body physically predominated over my desire to push another’s, and team sports looked better on college resumes. It was also easier for my father to showcase his genetic dominance over others within the community. 

In middle school, when my mom started working again and my parents realized they had never really liked each other and my biological sperm donor of a father was never interested in a “partner”, he was interested in a house wife who did all the work for him to do the “fun stuff”, it became more and more apparent that divorce was inevitable. He had never been involved in my horse events, to be fair, nor did he ever help us out with the physical work of the barn, so we didn’t expect him to. He wasn’t a “natural” with horses and I think animals have a grasp on narcissism and “Bad” people more so than humans. Although, he was good with our family dogs, so I don’t think my biological father is a full blown psychopath, but you can have many of these traits that serial killers and war criminals also have. There’s a sense that animals develop. It’s part of what makes riding so intense. The truly skilled are able to tap into a mental connection in a way that understands the beast beneath them. It’s a transfer of energy between yourself and the creature. They can sense your movement, your blood flow, your emotions. The way your body tenses that you may be impervious to until your instructor points it out.

To be a great equestrian, you must know yourself as intimately as you know the horses. 

Most people, in my experience, don’t like themselves and aren’t willing to admit that in order to change. That, or they aren’t willing to compromise the walls of the houses built around them to live their freest, fullest life of adventure. A life of calculated risk, of learning and understanding and exploring the earth. Of embracing the beauty, grace, reality, and risk of “nature”. Of humanity just being another animal. A cool animal, nonetheless, but just another. Being connected to the earth is something that comes natural to actual horse girls. It only makes it “Weird” in the impassioned existence of East Coast USA mentality. An area that fetishizes the use of riding crops on horses as if a LOT of people who have NEVER had exposure to horses, aren’t as equally interested in BDSM. Horse girls get a bad rep just because they’re able to put a creature physically larger than them in its place, and our society does nothing to protect women and tries to eviscerate strong women at every step. Look at how we replaced RBG with Amy Phony Barrett, who will probably succeed in repealing and undermining every fucking contribution of that woman’s life.

I did not intend to die on Capitol Hill but if I must venture into public policy because of the sheer incompetence and pathetic charade of our current choices, so I will. It’s kinda surreal, the preclude to Gilead, but every tale has a beginning.

Horse people have seen, and been able to take, some of the most abused, neglected, and saddened animals you’ve ever imagined. Feed, nourish, love, and explore with them. Giving them back their purpose of wandering amongst the trees, bathing in the waters, wandering the sand, that their primal origin belongs in. Before humans began trading them for show–yet another method of weaponizing ornaments to society. Of admiring the beauty, the strength, the magnificence, yet wanting to confine it to their own terms. 

Studying any animal species, particularly ones who have been “domesticated”, if you treat something like a wild, feral animal, it will act like a wild, feral animal. (Cough, REFORM OUR PRISON POPULATIONS. What the fuck are even “for profit” prisons? WHAT ARE YOU PROFITING FROM!?) If you’re hesitant of certain creatures, if you don’t respect their space, if you don’t learn the patience and that you may not be “entitled” to its trust, if you don’t learn how to enjoy “observation” over “experience” as appropriately, you will not succeed in the animal kingdom. Yet, we deviated from natural selection a long time ago. We use penicillin so much we’ve created SUPER gonorrhea and multi-drug-resistant bacteria once studied by Soviet Union era scientists hoping to create a chimeral weapon of biochemical warfare. Childbirth is coming so far that C-sections may be medically safer and the “default” method OVER NATURAL BIRTH in a hospital setting soon. We label poisonous substances with warning labels and have national hotlines to prevent worsened morbidity or increased mortality rates.

Yet, then you just want to disregard listening to scientists arbitrarily? You think you can just pick and choose when science matters because the reality is we can pick and choose when the things you’ve tied YOUR identity to, matter. 

Most of you fail to interact with any other species of animal on a regular basis. And you wonder why you have so much cognitive dissonance? Why, no matter how much money you sequester, you can’t fill the empty void that there must be “more” to life? You convince yourself it’s worth it to work entire lives in barren buildings under artificial light. For me, it honestly was. I loved working from before sunrise to after sunset in a surgical setting because I genuinely enjoyed the work. However, I always knew it was temporary. I also was immediately working in the aftermath of my car accident and the monotony of the days, working on my feet, learning of new skills was soothing for my recovery, even if my seasonal depression was a little worse than usual. Seasonal depression isn’t so intense after full scale depression takes over though, so tomato tomato. 

My love of medicine likely stemmed from a few things:

1. Alcoholic farming family
   Which, I’d like to point out, alcohol was often cheaper and safer to drink because we don’t require the federal government provide methods of safe, potable drinking water so alcoholism and bottle of choice is related to class structure, cultural implications, and systematic legislative cycles.
2. My second pony, and one of the loves of my life, Nicky, having squamous cell carcinoma skin cancer. He had it when we got him, it was two glorious years of friendship and love, and we took him on a monthly basis to an animal hospital in Leesburg that used chemotherapy, likely in a way tied to a research university to test prior to trials in humans, come to think of it.
3. Growing up with three generations of my family constantly around each other, I watched both of my maternal grandparents die. My grandma’s palliative care journey as lung cancer turned to bone cancer, which caused her to be bedridden and ultimately succumb to pneumonia.

   Did none of you fuckers crying out about coronavirus being listed on death certificates ever ask questions at funerals? Did you just avoid the funerals?

   It’s no wonder I spent my undergrad doing oncological work at MD Anderson and the lab that helped influence the GlaxoSmithKline partnership with UNC’s research hospital. (We were on the third floor of the newest building, it was a BEAUTIFUL set up for a first lab. I was truly spoiled. Not to mention published in Nature Chemical Biology with my first work. Where does a girl go from there? Peer reviewed journals? Fuck it, I’ll start a podcast. Then, focusing on cancer epidemiology in grad school. My German professor who competed in the Olympics for high jump–predictable by his tall, willowy frame, said he wasn’t sure where my place was in science, but he was excited to follow it.

   …Aren’t we all?

4. The many, many funerals of classmates who overdosed, purposefully or not. Who were unfortunately capable of completing suicide. 2 of which, again, were in August. One of whom was one of my horse girl friends, actually. The second of my small pony club circle to shoot themselves out of existence. Horse people are more likely to be country people and also more likely to therefore own guns and/or hunt. The concept of mortality is often overwhelming without access to proper and affordable healthcare. Guns are quick, easy.

   I’ve also seen patients who managed to blow off half of their faces and not die. They spend their lives searching for a new meaning, and are almost all thankful that they lived. Did it take them coming to the brink of death to maybe realize that? Sure. Western medicine can be incredible, though. But we have to know people are hurting, and we have to be able to reach them. We also have to be able to welcome them into a warm society and make life easier when it’s well within our abilities to do so. 

Living on a farm is the “nature is metal” reddit page brought to life. As much beauty as there is, it’s the culmination of every minute of physical labor, every moment of attention to detail, every day of building on repetition. I experienced a lot, living on a farm. I slept in the barn for two months on a cot, because horses typically give birth at night and Nancy, our experienced broodmare (yes she was named after Nancy Drew, my true crime and strong independent female obsession started in my youth) would likely give birth quickly before the vet could be called, unless there were any complications. Watching Finnegan grow into his Irish Draught glory was remarkable. Even if there was a period where he would rear and buck and potentially kill us while we were weaning him. Toddlers, the terrible 2’s, am I right? I also watched Skunk, our boarder’s horse, get his eyelid caught on his water bucket. It was dangling off. It was as disgusting in person as I know hearing that was. 

So no, I’ve never understood hiding reality from children. I don’t get the benefit of it, personally. Maybe it’s because I never had the option of whether I could grow up and not learn about death–military family and all. Maybe it’s because even when I was in France with Ella and Atticus, we had to calmly explain why the military patrolling the train stations with their AR-15’s were normal and Atticus was 2. Maybe it’s because I later also had to pull off into the doorway of a Parisian apartment as riot-gear-clad military police marched towards the protests we were trying to evade our third year back for summer vacation, when Atticus was 4 and we celebrated Ella’s 7th birthday at the carnival in the gardens across from the Louvre. Why go to the trouble of hiding them from the horrors of the world, of keeping them naive to it, just so it further oscillates those their age who might have to go through it silently? What good does it do to tell them to focus on only the “good” in such a way that they never learn coping mechanisms for the inevitable “bad”? You can’t have one without the other. 

Dulling that reality only benefits yourself. It makes it easier to parent. They learn a false comfort with the world. Their perception, skewed, crafted, for comfort. That isn’t reality. 

Horse people, but particularly horse women, are strong. They’re usually a little wild, yes, but I personally don’t see the negative in refusing to succumb to the meticulously elite and corrupt standards for “elegance” we glorify as “desirable”. Sorry that I have no interest in people who appear so bland they don’t live. Whose bodies aren’t covered in scars because they’ve never had to push their bodies, or just fell on a quarter in sheer bad luck? Priding themselves on “purity” in various forms. Who can only understand mental solitude in a room full of people they claim to know but don’t share anything of meaning with? Who are scared to face the reality of a combination of mental and physical solitude in such a way that you could disappear from the earth without a trace, deviating from all of your plans with some unexpected accident, and it may take a while before anyone were to go looking for you, if ever?

It’s weird to imagine people can find actual enjoyment in the fine arts, the result of channeling thousands of hours of pain and raw emotion, into performance, when they themselves don’t truly know struggle. Is this why people seek out art? It should evoke emotion, sure, but do you lack emotion otherwise? How sad a life it must be to only feel release during special weekend date nights. Why do you shun the things that make you feel? 

My unwillingness to ignore finding a range of emotions every day, and not dismissing the overwhelmingly morbid because it makes my highs that much more appreciated, should not make me “weird”. Being connected to the earth like Pocahontas singing “Colors of the Wind” and embracing the beauty of nature and fighting fiercely for more sustainable, conservative lifestyles of less consumerism should not make me “Radical”.

“Horse girls” is just an overarching way of saying “independent women who don’t accept inappropriate behavior for their own safety and take it upon themselves to address it” which, obviously, is “WEIRD” in the United States with our fucking Sunday sermons reminding women to be submissive.

Our tax systems that allow singlehood to be financially treacherous and almost unattainable. Our method of policing which is incredibly invasive and psychologically devastating and the statistics are skewed against us so most people in general, but women especially, never come forward with sexual assault or domestic violence accusations. They excuse them because “he’s a good man in the community” and “he’s under a lot of pressure at work” as they pray away the guilt and fear and hope with time it will sting less. That, or they refuse to acknowledge it is problematic because they’re scared of being labeled a “victim” and associating that with “weakness” (Bullshit. It requires a lot more fucking strength to confront your abusers than it does to excuse them. Forgiveness, now, takes even MORE strength but some of us just aren’t quite there yet OR think “forgiveness” can also entail holding them accountable, speaking about it freely BECAUSE it affected you, and continues to, NOT because it makes the abuser feel like a piece of shit to realize the extent of their actions, which…FUCKING GOOD. Actions have consequences. You can’t just pray them away.) Or acknowledging that you were a victim subjects yourselves to victim blaming. People want to find the good, and in doing so discredit the reality or ignore the truth until its beating down their door and someone has to constantly REPEAT the WORST things they’ve faced because they’re tired of people not fucking believing them. Saying their “life isn’t hard” because they see these perfect outward products, glimpses of happiness, and their search for life to ultimately be “good”, because it HAS to be and they’re too terrified of the alternative, is so limited that they failed to realize the entire premise of Inside Out was you can’t have those glimmers of happiness without the hell. You can’t have the joy without experiencing the caverns of loss, of sadness. Acknowledging sadness doesn’t have to be met with disdain. Even if it was your hand that dealt it. It’s fucking hell to live in this country and watch the stupidity surrounding me with access to proper education, a holistic world view, and the awareness. Your guilt, because most of you know that you’re either wrong, or have committed horrifically wrong acts that you’re now worried will catch up to you, slowly but surely, is clouding you from growing.

True freedom is running wild and not letting your own ego interfere with your growth, which is not an easy task. It’s CONSTANTLY learning from the world around us, which can be very exhausting. It’s knowing that, across the animal kingdom, certain species belong amongst their own kind. Certain species are more submissive. Certain species are dominant, alpha, but in refusing to adapt, have destined themselves to lives of solitude. (Didn’t we all see how Kerchak ended up in Tarzan? C’mon.) Certain species mate for life. Others are destined to roam. Others forming symbiotic partnerships in harmony as a product of being transplanted into unknown territories or just unexpected friendships. Others observe, far above it all, following the wind and feeding off the carcasses of the dead. 

“Horse girls” are connected to it all, because they’re constantly connected to a living, breathing being that is physically larger than them, but can be taught to move in unison. They’re more in tune with the Earth. With the knowledge of humanity’s place on this planet–the small blip we are in the grand scheme of life. The perspective of how small humans are, how insignificant. Yet, also how destructive. 

American men just don’t understand emotion. They’ve only been allowed to outwardly care about cars and football. Football, a sport ONLY other US citizens play (very ethnocentric, I know) that encourages predominantly black men to exhibit brute force to maul each other on an illuminated stage for their entertainment, with absolutely no regard to the reality of how they’re damaging the one organ that supposedly sets us so apart from other species? And you don’t see how football is completely dehumanizing and the NFL is a modern day slave factory content on putting out and SHOWCASING actual violent offenders on a national stage as ROLE MODELS, all because they can catch a ball in a really cool way, re-examine your beliefs. Yes, fantasy football has allowed your friends to get together each year and pretend to have power over people so you can stomach your bullshit capitalism jobs a little better for a few weeks, but it’s JUST A TRADITION. Care about each other as men and male friends that much NORMALLY. We have been completing autopsies on players from 40-50 years ago (you know, since a lot of football players only live UNTIL THEIR 50’s) AND THEIR BRAINS ARE JUST MUSH. Do you know how dangerous this is for our society? When multiple head traumas are tied to violent crime and particularly serial killers? We have people who actually host DOG FIGHTING RINGS and parade them with multimillion dollar contracts as ROLE MODELS FOR OUR CHILDREN. We have people who abuse their spouses over and over again, including publicly. If they’re that rough in person, they’re far worse behind closed doors I say that from experience. We have people who drive drunk who we just continue to give a national platform for. We have people who would never do any of the community service the teams do if it weren’t organized by someone else. These brains we’re examining? Those are before helmet protocol changed, too. Before we started ducking heads and made the head the hardest part of your body, so you should just use it as a battering ram in a real “trust the equipment” mentality. The NCAA and NFL would realistically go bankrupt if actual studies were able to be conducted, from a third party who could not be intimidated into submission and was backed by the national government, for everything that is SURELY to come related to head trauma and concussions. 

We don’t need to point the finger at lead in gasoline when we actively encourage unsustainable sports that deviate so fucking far from the Olympic mentality of fostering togetherness, although it DOES highlight a certain aspect of “specialization” (the “there’s a place for everyone) that really encapsulates how your skills may transition into corporate America structure. Functional fitness is cool. Fitness and team sports in general are cool. When they facilitate the basic things sports are supposed to facilitate. Crazy things like teamwork and facing adversity and, ultimately, HEALTH.

Don’t even get me started on the cars thing. Men love to name every automobile, missile, nuclear weapon, and war machine after WOMEN. You understand the intensity, the strength, the power. Stop kidding yourselves.

Go play lacrosse if you want to hit level someone with a purpose. (Also, what the fuck is woman’s lacrosse. All of the midfielders from soccer who enjoy running just dominate. Please give them shoulderpads. They can handle it, I promise you.) 

Better yet, play lacrosse on horses like I do if you REALLY want a challenge. Nothing like the threat of onward collision with a thousand pound animal of sheer physical strength and stamina to heighten the experience. This is why I’m not scared of you men. My nonchalance and dissonance is the result of that, coupled with my own history of sexual assault and related trauma. I’ve literally been knocked down and stomped on by a GIANT BLACK DRAFT HORSE THAT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING SAURON WOULD’VE RODE INTO BATTLE. I don’t think I’m “weird” I just think I’m not the submissive type of woman we encourage with our Christian repression and undertones in this country. As much Christian background as my own family had, at least they were military transplants from Missouri, so we had the midwest gender role breakdown that encompasses farm work. Doesn’t matter who is bailing the hay, just matters that it gets done. 

Maybe, just maybe, if more American men were actually connected to the Earth, capable of being vulnerable and handing someone else the reigns to guide them, knowing doing so may enable the adventure of a lifetime, MAYBE “horse girls” wouldn’t seem so fucking weird.