It\’s August. You know what that means. It\’s that time of year when I\’m thoroughly fed up with it all and want to put my boots that were made for walking on my itchy traveling feet and get the hell out of here. Disatisfied with it all and I want to run away instead of working on it. Longing for the new, the interesting, the more appealing and far less emotionally frustrating. A place of independence instead of arguing about who showed up for dinner. My own rules, my own time, my own space.
After spending the past two weeks trying to track him down, I spent an hour on the phone with Mark last night. He\’s the only person so far who questions my motives behind going to Australia and who thinks it might not be a great idea. Is everyone else so blind, or is he just wrong? After last night I\’m inclined to agree with him and myself on all accounts, no questions asked, no second guessing or alternate theories. Four months until the plane takes off for the other side of the world, but I want to get out of here NOW, and away from myself and from Will and from all the things that I can\’t figure out such as what the fuck am I doing with my life? I\’m so goddamn angry with the situation that I can\’t express it, can\’t tell him about it without it seeming like immature and misplaced blame. After years of floundering around here, small steps, baby steps of progress without going much of anywhere at all in terms of life on the whole, and it finally gets figured out: write, real estate, urban planning at school, move to New York in 2005. That was the plan we were living and breathing for months after literally years of hemming and hawing and trying to decide. I was in New York and it was eating me alive and I was loving every minute of it, only to come and be told that sorry, change of plans, I\’m moving to Australia… do you want to come? Well. FUCK.
Yeah, of course I want to come. Australia, that\’s incredible. That\’s the chance of a life time and then some. It\’s amazing. I\’d be a fool not to do it. But I just spent the past year and a half building up to where I am now and thinking that this time next year I\’d be doing it all after all this preparing, and now I\’m going to be in fucking Brizbin, which appears to be practically dead in terms of the culture circuit that I would like, who\’s oldest buildings and neighborhoods are only a little over one hundred years, a place with almost no community history, no gentrification problems, no \”revitalization\” taking over, no current troubles with population displacement, and a very equal society in general in terms of the haves and have nots, so WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THERE?
What\’s taken me a life time of coming to terms with my interests and talents, two years to accept it and one year to agree to it, and now it\’s completely obsolete. Oh sure, they have urban planning at the University of Queensland, but it\’s all based around Brisbane society — tourism. I don\’t get a rat\’s flaming hemmoroidal ass about tourists. Tourism pisses me the fuck off. I don\’t want to learn about where to put hotels and how to keep the state\’s income afloat by awashing it with tourist\’s dollars. I want to HELP people and help neighborhoods and communities — not encourage non-locals to come booze up and get out without noticing what\’s around them other than the going rate for a XXXX or a Power\’s.
Oh sure, I could go back to ye old stand by of feminism and sexuality. Sure I could. We all could. It\’s the big thing to do in Australia, seeing as how it\’s still a very misogynistic society. It\’s still radical to be a feminist there. All the young pretty angry girls do women\’s studies like it\’s circa 1992 in the USA. But you know what? Take away my equality card because I could care less about \”furthering the movement\” by having a \”womyns centre\” where there is a \”safe space\” to share. Hello? You want equality? That doesn\’t come with reverse sexism. There are still men\’s-only clubs in Australia. Wouldn\’t it be much more helpful to infiltrate those clubs, to gain legal admission, than to create female-only spaces? How can we be safe if we cannot learn the other side, accept the other side, get along with the other side? How can we be EQUAL if we continue to seperate ourselves by choice?
And then there\’s sex. Oh sure, sex. The world\’s oldest sport. My blister raising obsession since I was old enough to form a cognizant memory. The problem with sex, on the whole, is that I hate it as much as I am fascinated by it. Once I start, I just can\’t stop. I\’ll whack it all day. I\’ll fuck anyone that will let me. I\’ll disclude all else in order to do nothing but read studies and literature pertaining to sex. I\’m not talking erotica here, and I\’m not talking porn, except when I mean reading about the various effects those two have had upon the furthering of the \’liberation\’ of our \’advanced\’ culture. SEX unto itself is utterly boring. Orgasm or not, it\’s the most indulgent, time consuming, frantic race to a finish that never comes, or cums, depending on your predicament. Whether my earth shatters or not, all I want is another quake. It\’s a fucking addiction, an addiction to fucking, that constant search for another rush of physical adrenaline and emotional surge of power. The idea that sex is power, now that\’s a hell of a lot more interesting than whomever I did or didn\’t sleep with last night. Robert Mapplethorpe sticking a whip up his ass and then taking a picture of it is not unto itself interesting until you take into account the way people were appalled by his willingness to be open, to push the boundaries of what is acceptable. To play with gender as what gender really is, to play with submission and self-flagellation. Sadism and masochism, triumph and defeat, breaking and entering into the places where we all think we can hide — now that\’s interesting. But also all consuming.
About a month ago some friends were over, someone made an offhand comment about taking it up the ass, and I got severely excited and ran to get the then latest edition of Step. I flipped through the pages until I found what I was looking for and then triumphantly displayed the glossy images. \”There, check that out! It\’s that design awesome?! Look at the chrome! And it\’s fully functional!\” The reaction from all three of the other parties was a group \”Uhhhh…. that\’s great, Cass,\” and then the two guests promptly excused themselves for the evening. I tried with Will: \”Look, check out these vibrators! They\’re not hideous anymore, they\’re actually high end design. You can put these on your coffee table as art and no one would know the difference, then actually use them! And they\’re quiet! It\’s amazing new innovations in sexual design — it\’s not to be hidden away anymore, it\’s to be a part of life!\” \”Umm, yeah… so how about that local sports team?\” was essentially the response I got. My ideas, passions and interests are like social anathema among my acquaintances and friends. I dropped most of my friends again this year because I\’m just so sick of being the one everyone likes to turn to for comparison in fucking up.
Do I have to have a million dollars in the bank and two PhDs before I am no longer considered the premiere expert on ruining one\’s life? I\’M FUCKING TRYING, OKAY? I\’m fucking busting my ass and all I get is a \”yeah, sometimes you do okay but then you just go back to your half assed ways.\” FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. In the past year I\’ve paid all my bills on time, I\’ve got a fucking savings account, I pay for my own car, I pay my entire social security check to rent and all my earned income goes either to savings or bills, I rarely go out anymore because I\’m trying to save up, I don\’t buy entertainment shit, I work three different jobs, I run a public server, I try to take care of this household as well as helping out at my grandfather\’s household, I chaffeur my sister and my grandfather and sometimes my boyfriend\’s daughter when she is in town, I got out of the doctor\’s circus and stopped abusing pain medicine, I plotted out what I\’m going to do — or what I thought I was going to do for the next two years — I\’m fucking responsible as all fucking hell these days, but sometimes I don\’t unload the dishwasher and sometimes I forget that I was supposed to pick up a six pack of beer and sometimes I\’m still binge eating like mad, but for christ\’s fucking sake, I\’ve gotten so much better at absolutely everything, and all anyone can say is that I am still too half assed. In my eyes, I\’m doing okay, more than okay, but in the eye\’s of everyone else I am still just a needy fuck up. A weirdo with no future who won\’t get her nose out of The Trouble With Nature: Sex in Culture and Science long enough to go schmooze with a bunch of people I have nothing in common with who will only look down on me as a piece of meat.
What\’s that word, not a starfucker, but when an older guy takes a younger woman as his partner, a woman with no discernable skills, no career, no education, and seemingly \”keeps\” her? Nevermind that I pull my half, that I pay for all my shit plus the rent, that I\’m fucking trying, but I\’m still the young flesh that is apparently only kept around as a fuck piece. He says it\’s just in my mind. Sure, sure, it\’s just in my mind. That\’s why no one ever bothers to talk to me, get to know me, converse with me, until I butt in on your conversations with them by offering some freakingly weird observation like \”children playing with guns in Baghdad is not all that different from the territorial desires of local turf wars in American cities, or of alienated youths in suburbs,\” then suddenly I have a brain, albeit a weird one because I won\’t just say that things are better in America and we\’re lucky here and everything in lesser developed countries is fucked up and we\’re all doomed.
Yeah, we may all be doomed, fine, but why aren\’t you interested in WHY we are all doomed, and how we all arrived at this place by our symbiotic relationships over the thousands of years, and how we could possibly prevent a total social apocalypse by casting aside our twisted western world ideas of \”evolution\” and how we\’re supposedly so much more advanced? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Fuck fuck fuck. What the hell is wrong with me that I can\’t just shut it off and be an ignorant lefty like everyone else I know? I don\’t MEAN to be devil\’s advocate, I just am. I don\’t see the point in bitching about the current without understanding of all the underlying pasts and the probable futures. I don\’t know what it\’s like to be so turned off, so shut off, so happily oblivious to the rest of the world and concerned only about what kind of job you do and how much rent you are paying for what kind of space, and oh god, yes, the government sucks, and Bush sucks, and the war sucks, and I need to go get another beer and listen to another bad indie rock record.
I\’ve had so many positive things that I want to write about, things in my head that have been floating around for weeks, months, but I\’m afraid they\’re never going to come out because I\’m too busy trying to be responsible and pull my weight and if it\’s not making money then it\’s not work, it\’s not important, and it\’s a waste of time. I\’m still waiting for when I get to take off for a week to some out of the way place with nothing to distract me, no internet access, nothing but my laptop and my split keyboard to pound away with nothing to bother me until I can get it all out of my head. And maybe I\’ll get published, and maybe I won\’t, but in the end, what does it matter if it\’s making me money or a career as long as I\’m happy and sane instead of a prisoner to society\’s ideas of what is socially desireable as a future? Artist friends don\’t get this kind of shit from our mutual friends, on the contrary they are encouraged and praised. Friends go to their shows, listen to their records, buy their works, read their publishings and their drafts and generally just support. I\’m not on the track to share with the world, to make money off this, to build a name for myself, and so I\’m just a hobbyist, and a hobbyist gets no respect. It\’s unworthy of time. It\’s detrimental and anti-social and unproductive. Nevermind the gigs upon gigs of text only documents — it\’s still a waste of time. Why don\’t you make some money off it if you\’re spending all that time on it? Why don\’t you just fuck off? It\’s not about talent, money, publishing, contracts, fame, making a living, being an artist, contributing, community… this is what keeps me fucking sane. SANE. And I\’ll take sanity over societal accoutrements any day.
I just need some fucking encouragement. Shit, I don\’t know. I don\’t want to be a mother, or a homemaker, or a careerist. I don\’t mind holding my own and financially supporting myself and being proud of what I do, but shit, I want to have a life as well, not just a living. I want to enjoy life. Do the things I enjoy as well as the things that I don\’t in order to get by. I\’ve settled for that. Can\’t you see? I\’ve sold out, I\’ve bought in, I\’ve agreed to join the masses on the road to contentment through physical possessions and the direct opposite of poverty. I refuse to get a credit card, but I\’ve got a lease and a car and that\’s just as bad. Now can\’t I just relax and do something I enjoy? Please? Please, just let me be me, let me enjoy what I enjoy and encourage me to be me instead of running away from me. \”Oh yeah, she\’s pretty cool and all until she starts going off on one of her little things, sex, politics, design, whatever…\” Sure, you go hang out at the Hirschorn and be content that you like art and go eat sushi and consider yourselves enlightened. I\’ll even play along, or maybe not, maybe not anymore. I\’ve played along for years, played by your rules, played fucking Risk and beer pong and all those other games that you adore and I detest. Not once have you ever asked to join in or accepted my invitations to try something to my liking. Not once have you reached out to me. Does anyone know? Does anyone care? I\’ve tried to stop caring myself, just wash my hands of all of it, of all the youthful pettiness. I have more to talk about with my 90 year old Republican grandfather than I do with just about every liberal under the age of retirement that I know.
To go to the other side of the world and start fresh, that\’s tempting. That\’s real damn tempting. But other than the climate, how\’s it going to be any different than here? I\’m still me, and I still stick out like a sore thumb. I can\’t run away from me, and no matter how much I\’ve changed and grown up, I\’m still me. I\’ve come to realize that it\’s not just an inferiority complex, it\’s a complete lack of understanding how to interact with others. What the hell am I going to do with myself if I don\’t stay here and work on community development? How can I work on community development in a place where I don\’t even know one neighborhood from the next, let alone the history, the customs, the problems? Oh god. What\’s the goddamn point of trying so hard when I\’m still as unskilled and wet behind the ears as I was when I was a naive 17, moving to Pittsburgh on my own, thinking I could fix it all by getting out of here. I\’m still undisciplined, still confused, still scared, and still without determination or focus. So much has changed, but maybe it\’s just all on the surface. Maybe the core problems haven\’t changed at all, and I\’ve just learned to fix the symptoms to become a mostly acceptable drone. But then, I hear that insecurity and losing one\’s self to conformity is the way one\’s 20s goes until the midlife crisis hits around 40 and you realize you just spent the last 20 years fooling yourself into thinking you were doing okay and happy. You hit 40 only to realize you sold out your youthful dreams in order to get by. I just turned 23 last month and I\’ve been cognizant of this for years, so if I\’m freaking out about this now, what the hell am I going to be freaking out about when I\’m 40? I\’ve been reading The Culture of Narcissism and it\’s so frighteningly true. It\’s easier to be self-involved than to reach out, but it\’s also scarier.
You\’ve got to tell me what to do so that I know whether to do it or rebel against it. To build off it or destroy it. To elaborate upon it and branch of into other directions. I\’m utterly lost without a guide to fuck with. Now I\’m the guide, and I\’m fucking with myself. I need a holiday. Some encouragement on a stick to keep in my pocket. Someone who lives nearby who can discuss alternative energy sources for an hour only to turn around and attempt to touch both feet to their nose. Someone weird and delightful and as in sync with my strange delights as I am as out of sync with everyone else that I meet. I\’m still not on the same plane as my peers, and now my plane is going to take me to a place where I don\’t even know who my peers are. Why can\’t I just shut off and do this? Do ANYTHING? Stay here and do my shit as planned instead of running off at the first opportunity — no matter how great an opportunity, no matter how rare and special and once in a life time. To stop pulling up my roots before I grow any flowers. To stop being a perennial and start being an annual. Someone to rely upon but not abuse. To give to as well as to receive from. To befriend and to be weird with but not weirded out by. Pat me on the head and tell me it\’ll be okay. Scratch me behnid the ears and offer more than a lecture of wisdom. Tell me I\’m wonderful the way I am and that I\’m not just a half assed burden. Help me figure things out, research with me, try new things, push me out into the world when I\’m too scared to get my butt out the door on my own. Six degrees of separation and help me find my way into a door that I don\’t even know exists. Referrals instead of regrets. I don\’t need you to wipe my ass but I\’m not adverse to letting you wipe my tears every now and then if I only had the gumption to show them once more.
I let it all out. I took the day off to let it all out. And I feel better now. But jesus christ, I know there\’s still a volcano in here waiting to burst one day. What the hell is it going to do, and where, and when, and with what?
I\’m listening to Gonzales for the first time in years, and damn, I haven\’t felt this good in a while. I miss him. I wonder what he\’s up to these days. I wonder if he ever goes to Australia, cos I know he sure doesn\’t come to the states much. I miss being brave, brave like I was back then… but these days, it doesn\’t seem like there\’s anything to be brave about, just things to suck it up and be adult about. And damn, that\’s boring.
