Dear Sugar (a rambling thank you note)

This is a bit of a thank you note to Cheryl Strayed, aka Sugar of the "Dear Sugar" advice column at The Rumpus. It won't seem like it at first, but I assure you it is, if you stick with it long enough.

First, though, I have to talk about mental illness, artistic ennui, and "The United States of Tara."

Hey, I guess I never really ever could say
That I saw it coming
But when you push a feeling far away
Still your body's humming
And I held it in
Long as I could then
But now all that's changing

This story starts during the holidays last year. I was in a less than awesome place, as I almost always am at that time of year - on top of the usual holiday chaos most folks deal with, my day job goes completely overboard with work and stress for year end....but this year there was the added layer - as there had been a couple years prior - of a major child rape "scandal" weaving its sick way through news and blogs and pop culture. Cue sleeplessness and anxiety and emotional volatility and all the fun that PTSD can be. It got so bad that I stopped looking at my Twitter feed more than a couple times a week. I only logged onto Facebook to message back and forth with a friend who shares some of my issues around anxiety and abuse. The "Mark All Read" button on my feed reader got a serious workout almost every day. I couldn't watch Rachel Maddow or Jon Stewart or any of the other sources that I count on to stay informed about current events and politics and activism and most of the things that shape my world outside work and music. I distracted myself with cookie-baking and holiday music; sometimes it almost worked.

It got so bad that, when I sat down with my guitar and a notebook and a pen, I would stare at the blank page and nothing would happen. I would play the same covers - George Michael's "One More Try," The Eagles' "Take It To The Limit," "Somewhere Different Now" by Girlyman - over and over, trying to find something of my own to express. Night after night, nothing.

So, I guess you never truly ever can know
Where on earth you're headed
You just barrel on down that road
Till that road starts bending
Here we are again
Not a bitter end
But the end of something

My therapist sat with me in her office, and we talked about going back to two visits a month. I'd been really happy about cutting back to one visit a month after starting out at two a week way back in the day, but I knew things were getting rough again. I hadn't regressed back to daily panic attacks yet, but I could tell that the basic functionality I usually maintained pretty well was wearing a bit thin. We talked about deep things, heavy things. I told her sometimes I felt like my entire life was built on top of a bottomless black reservoir of rage, pain, despair. I told her that, yes, I had been much better about letting myself feel my feelings; if I felt like crying, I went ahead and cried....but I never felt better after. It wasn't cathartic, it wasn't cleansing. It was just one more way of being in pain. The reservoir never seemed to get any less deep.

I'd come home from work and try desperately to turn my brain off. I watched the entire series of "The United States of Tara" in, probably, less than a month. I felt drawn to it - seeing so many sides of my own experiences...having been a child of a parent with significant mental illness and knowing the incredible unfairness of that, the constant internal battles and the inevitable, horrible mindfucks; standing on the inside of my own mental illness, and watching how it laid down challenge after challenge not just for me, but for anyone who cared about me, too. Then, of course, there was the part where we learn (spoiler warning) the root cause of all Tara's issues: she was molested by her stepbrother as a very young girl.

My first reaction was: well, I'm doing great, ain't I - at least I haven't dissociated! My next one was: the world of pop culture thinks what happened to me is bad enough to cause a person to shatter their identity into seven different people. That's how fucked up the world thinks I am.

That is how fucked up the world thinks I am.

Well, I guess I know a thing or two about hell
It's when you lose your fire
You go back to the same old well
Without the same desire
I've been treading earth
From the time of birth
You can't stop this turning

That's why it took me so long to dig into the work of trying to heal this bullshit, that's why I didn't talk about it for most of my life, that's why it was always this thing that I knew, in the abstract and in my gut most days, was not my fault...but I still had to be ashamed of. Thirty years I spent (mostly) silently bearing the pain of something that was so awful, so horriffic, it could justify massive dissociation - because silence was easier than bearing that pain openly and adding on the spectrum of bullshit that comes with that openness. Because that's how fucked up the world thought I was, and I didn't want to let them know they were right - because, on some level, "that" was how fucked up *I* thought I was, too.

In the very last episode of the show, there's this moment when Tara's husband (played by the always fantastic John Corbett) totally loses his shit. He breaks down in a screaming rant in the middle of a family dinner. He throws a turducken across the room. I can't even describe to you the sound I made watching that moment. I was instantly crying the kind of sobs that hurt. He says: "It's not fucking funny, and it's not fucking fair, and we deserve some fucking mercy!" Exactly, something in me was screaming: we deserve some fucking mercy.

Life, though....life doesn't care about fair or mercy. Life marches on right over the top of pretty much everybody, and no matter how sad or tragic or deserving or horrible, the options are simply and starkly: keep living, or don't. I get furious that that's what it all boils down to, but there it is, whether I like it or not: keep living, or don't.

So gee, I guess anyone could've been me
Staring at my reflection
Wanting just a little bit of relief
From my self-deception
There's nowhere I can run
This is how it's done
You just start all over

So: Dear Sugar.

One afternoon in May of 2010, I followed a link on Twitter (tweeted by the also inspiring and badass and fucking fabulous Shannon), and read this column through tears ("This is called fuck yes!"), and then another and another, until I'd read all of them. There were twelve.

I happened upon Dear Sugar at a time of pretty intense transition. I had recently moved into a new apartment, alone. My job situation was super complicated and stressful. I still wasn't really "over" the massive triggering that started with the whole Polanski business. I was having panic attacks every morning before work, and really struggling just to get through every day. Two months later, I Nervously Broke Down and spent three months off work getting my head on straight. To encounter Sugar at just that moment was a little bit like a beacon for me. It was amazing to me to see someone giving such radically compassionate advice - to see someone hold both the precious fucked-up-ness and the everyday amazing-ness of the human condition - while also pushing people to be fucking real with themselves and others - while grounding in gratitude and joy and beauty - while acknowledging the gravity of the truly terrible that sometimes must be lived with. I don't want to say that Sugar's the reason I eventually got some professional help, but I would be lying if I said that the tenor of her advice didn't give me hope that there was a chance I'd find help that would actually help, without making me feel like total shit.

I wrote Sugar a couple different letters over the months after finding her column. She didn't answer them, and I'm frankly glad. They weren't the real questions I wanted answers to, anyway. I bet she knew this when she read them, hearing the empty places of the words I didn't write just as clearly as the words I did. I could totally be projecting, but I just get the sense that Sugar has a really good bullshit detector.

Earlier this week, on Valentine's Day, this dearest of Sugars came out as Cheryl Strayed. I had never heard of Cheryl Strayed, but I immediately went and read all of her work I could find online. Then I ordered both her books. Because Cheryl is Sugar (the second one, anyway) and Sugar (the second one, anyway) is Cheryl - the writing (I could find) isn't really all that different, even without people asking for advice. Because, for some people, telling their life story is the best advice they can give. And - maybe I'm projecting again - because it seems like maybe there might be someone else walking around creating joy and light, and carrying a bottomless black reservoir of rage and pain and despair, and not pretending otherwise. Not pretending those things are mutually exclusive.

And that's some shit I want to read. And also, you know, vote with my dollars and support indie artists and whatnot.

"Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it’s one thing and one thing only: it’s doing what you have to do."

- Cheryl Strayed, Love of My Life, The Sun, Sept. 2002

I've spent most of my life ignoring, bottling, denying, and suppressing my emotions; it wasn't perfect, but it's how I survived and managed to grow into someone reasonably functional who I didn't totally loathe. This process over the past couple years of, like, stopping that? Has been incredibly challenging on many levels, but I am fucking doing it. Even when it's not fun, even when I feel like it's pointless, even when it turns out I am a goddamn cry-er. Even when it's all bottomless black reservoirs and no fucking joy. I'm strong enough to handle all that now, I think. Maybe I can do enough meditation and yoga to find some kind of peace. Maybe I can take enough deep breaths followed by more deep breaths to find a still center from which to move through the rest of my life like a serene Buddha.

I think probably not. I like the word "fuck" way too much. And besides, I'd just be happy with getting to a place where dinner out with friends doesn't make me want to hide in my bedroom for a week.

Because I'm an artsy type, I tend to look to artsy types for inspiration and comfort when I'm feeling overwhelmed. There are a few artists whose voices have been hopeful, twinkly lights during my own personal dark nights: Girlyman, Patricia McKillip, Van Gogh, even (don't fucking laugh, assholes) John Mayer.

And this time around, a wee little advice column written by Cheryl Strayed, for which I am grateful beyond my ability to express. But:

Dear Sugar,
Thank you.
Love,
Tari

* Lyrics quoted are from "Empire of Our State," from Supernova by Girlyman.

Shitty economy? Not exactly hypothetical.

The economy sucks. I've seen I dunno how many posts and articles and graphs showing how much it sucks, no matter what Washington or Wall Street might want to tell themselves and the rest of us.

The housing crisis? Still crisis-a-licious.

Unemployment? Still sky high. (And then there's the "speedup".)

...and so on and so forth. There's plenty of information out there.

The numbers are irrefutable and stomach-turning for me, and all things considered, I am incredibly lucky - I still have a job, I still have health insurance, I still have time before retirement for my 401k to bounce back, and I even have a small pension that took less of a hit than my 401k. But, even for me, a single woman who doesn't own a home or carry any debt, this shit is not hypothetical: the awful economy has been like a repeated punch to the gut. What does it say about the horrible-ness of it if someone like me, who ought to be relatively insulated from the crisis, is still feeling it significantly?

What do I mean, though? How has it hit me?

Well, first, let's talk about the fact that I work for a big multi-national corporation. In the past five years, we've paid cash to acquire two other companies and sponsored one of the world's most popular sports franchises to the tune of $20 million. Every quarter, our shareholder return grows. This year, my CEO got $6 million in bonuses alone. Meanwhile, hundreds of jobs here in the U.S. were eliminated and then replaced by offshoring operations in India and Mexico. That small pension, which should've been growing more every year, was frozen last year. My health benefits decreased, my deductibles increased. My salary, unlike shareholder returns, didn't increase enough to keep up with cost of living increases. On my little six person team, two of us have taken leaves of absence for major health reasons. I'm pretty sure all of us have been on anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety meds at some point, and we're all working harder than we ever have, trying to keep up with expanding workloads and decreasing support. We're using outdated hardware and software that further challenge our efficiency, and management has become more and more draconian, because we're all supposed to be so grateful to even have jobs anymore.

So, yeah, I am luckier than a lot of people have been in this recession. I still have a job. But it's becoming less of a blessing every day, and I don't see much of a chance that trend will change anytime soon. I'm still holding on, but I'm not sure how much longer I'll still be able to say that.

"Conscious tending to well being."

I had a hermity weekend last weekend. The previous two had been spent away from home, so this was a bit of catch-up on housework and downtime. I’m being pretty careful about giving myself plenty of downtime these days, having recently recognized just how very toxic notable parts of my life are….and since they can’t quite be jettisoned just yet, I’m walking a very fine line in trying to balance the burdens they create in me.

(It turns out that spending 40+ hours a week in an establishment that is a poster child for everything that’s wrong with capitalism, corporate greed, and patriarchy…..um, reallyreallyreally sucks. If you can imagine.)

So, yeah, I’m being super gentle with myself, since I’ve decided to carry on with the corporate day job for now.

Saturday morning, I tried a few new yoga routines. I have one I cobbled together that I’ve been working for years, but sometimes I like to see what other poses and techniques might be out there. During one of the routines, the lady running it was really explicit about keeping poses comfortable and making adjustments as needed for the yogi’s particular body. She kept coming back to that in each pose, talking about “conscious tending to well being.”

Boy did that phrase strike a chord with me. It’s become my whole modus operandi these days, trying to always be conscious of where I am and what my needs are – and then to actually make those needs priority enough to take care of them properly. This seems like a no-brainer, but I have found it pretty challenging in surprising ways. Like…I am so very tired, but rather than sleep, I can always come up with something else to do – some book to read or list to write, some show to watch or chore to take care of. Or I’m super thirsty, but can’t get a drink till I take care of just this one thing. It’s fucking stupid, and it pisses me off when I see myself doing it…but these are patterns I’ve spent my whole life creating, and they’re not going away without a fight. So, you know, I walk that fine line…compassion, gentleness, comfort….and pushing, stretching, shifting.

Sometimes my life feels like a yoga pose, like I’m balanced in downward facing dog, feeling the stretch in my hamstrings and calves, balancing on my arms, feeling my spine opening and stretching, breathing and holding and pushing just that tiny fraction further into the pose, and breathing and holding again.

Darkness, Darkness...

Darkness, Darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep


You know that scene in "Good Will Hunting" where Robin Williams' character tells Matt Damon's character it's not his fault? And Will has this gut-wrenching sobbing breakdown?

It wrecks me, every time. Just thinking about it right now, I'm all teared up. Despite cultural narratives about bootstraps and the inherent moral superiority of this or that "kind" of person...life just isn't fair, and people who are overflowing with virtues and have done nothing to deserve a karmic ass-whooping and who spend their time trying to make the world a better place often get sucker-punched by the Universe. It's not their fault.

It's not my fault.


Darkness, darkness, hide my yearning
For the things I cannot see
Keep my mind from constant turning
To the things I cannot be


When I was a little kid, my dad used to talk about "starving kids in Africa," as a way to remind me that my life was really all right and whatever I was whining about was, in the grand scheme of things, not that serious.

That is totally true. On a global scale, there are people whose suffering dwarfs mine, who deal with horrors on a daily basis that I will never encounter or experience. By virtue of circumstance, I have a whole litany of privileges that make my life easier in ways I don't even know about ('cause that's how privilege works!). No matter how rough my life gets, there are probably a billionty people who'd trade me in a heartbeat. Objectively speaking, I'm very lucky.

The problem is that life is not lived objectively. I carry around all this cognitive dissonance, essentially frustrated with myself for feeling hurt or sad or angry about what's going on in my life...because it could be worse. I won't let myself really, truly get angry or sad or hurt, because I ought to be cool with it, I ought to be grateful for the blessings in my life, I ought to be able to access cool reason and logic and keep it all in proper perspective.

Just because things could be worse, though, doesn't mean that they aren't awful. Right now, I'm working very hard on figuring out how to keep things in a global context without trivializing my pain. I've been trained so well to disregard my own feelings that this has become a pretty challenging endeavor.


Darkness, darkness, be my blanket
cover me with the endless night
Take away the pain of knowing
fill the emptiness with light


Sometimes I wish people really did have stuff tattooed on their foreheads, like "abuse survivor" or "clinically depressed" or "born with six fingers" or "writes horrid poetry" or "wants dad's approval and never gets it" or "in physical pain every day" or whatever.

I think it would be enlightening and equalizing to see how every single person had a whole bunch of tattoos on their forehead. If we were faced with the undeniable fact that merely being human meant dealing with these sorts of complexities, might we be kinder or more compassionate to each other? Could we ditch secrecy and shame and fear? Would it be so easy to perpetuate stigma and oppression?

Don't get me wrong, we'd find a way. Humanity is talented like that.


Darkness, darkness, long and lonesome
Is the day that brings me here
I have felt the edge of sadness
I have known the depths of fear


I thought I had learned long ago that if I didn't give myself what I wanted, nobody else would. I've always been good about giving myself opportunities for art and travel and music, for experiences and beautiful things I enjoyed. It's why I put time and money into my home, why I invested in my wardrobe and experimented on my hair. I firmly believe that doing that stuff for myself is a gift that nobody but me can give, and that's important.

On the other hand, though, I have started to see how there are so many ways I completely disregard what I really want. It's like I indulge my superficial, material needs and wants, but let the visceral ones be completely overrun. It almost scares me to see how little I have cared about myself in really vital ways.

Is it even possible I could have a self esteem problem? Maybe. Ugh.


Darkness, darkness, be my blanket
Cover me with the endless night
Take away this pain of knowing
Fill this emptiness with light


There's a reservoir of purified rage that's been simmering down in the depths of my wee black heart for most of my life. It's tinged with despair and loneliness and fear, and sometimes it screams about how unfair life is. Mostly, I keep it bottled up and silent, but I've been trying to pop the cork recently, in hopes that it won't always live under everything I say or do....because right now, I'm pretty sure it does.

Lyrics from "Darkness, Darkness" by Jesse Colin Young.

It's like a sampler pack of actual blogging.

I was watching this movie, part of which involves this group of folks hacking their way through a jungle. It's one of those romantic travel movies where some kid from the suburbs randomly falls into global adventures, and where it's never explained how he manages to pay to get from point A to point B or, you know, beer and food. This film was an alright example of the genre, which I have an incredible soft spot for. I sometimes feel like the older I get, the more boring my life becomes. I mean, most of my ridiculous stories involving crazy shenanigans come from damn near a decade ago.

Anyway. This film tweaked my Macchu Picchu lust something fierce, but also made me laugh at myself when they showed this kid wielding a machete all day on his first day, no gloves, no nothing. The color commentary voice in my head was all, "What? That guy would be crying 'cause of all his blisters." My next thought was, "Well, Follett, when have *you* hacked your way through a jungle? How do you know?" And then the one right after that was, "Well, except for that one day you worked as a Christmas Tree trimmer and spent all day hacking at pine trees with a machete, and were crying 'cause of all the blisters you got 'cause you didn't wear gloves."

After which I drove a 4x4 down a mudslide. True story! I was an idiot when I was younger.

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I've been off work for awhile, trying to recover from a nervous breakdown - specifically, a pretty fierce panic disorder. I tried to handle it in bits and bobs, and it just got to a point where I couldn't take it. The good news is that my treatment team (yeah, I have a team) is awesome, and things are improving, though not exactly "better," whatever that means. I'm down to an average of only one panic attack a week, which is a huge improvement. Of course, the idea is to get rid of the dang things entirely.

I comfort myself with the fact that the litany of bullshit that has landed on my doorstep over the past few years (both through my own jackass choices and through the blind nature of life being rough all over), when compressed into a twenty minute recap, has been shown to drop the jaws of professionals. So, you know, I guess I have some stuff to be legitimately stressed and depressed over.

I vacillate back and forth over whether to be really transparent about what I'm going through, in the hopes that it will help break down some of the ridiculous stigma associated with these kinds of mental health conditions (not to mention save me awkward explanations down the road)....or whether it's too much work to try to express my experience effectively. Plus, I always have a vague worry that I contribute nothing but whining to the internet...then again, what is the internet for? Besides porn, obviously.

I still haven't exactly decided one way or another....so in the meantime, I'm just posting what I feel like and that's that. I go to therapy, I do a lot of yoga, I read about anxiety disorders (self help books, woo hoo!). I play my guitar a whole bunch. It's been hard to write much, my brain has been so scrambled and restless....but that's starting to be easier again. I take naps, I take walks, and I spend a lot of time thinking and processing my feelings. Sometimes I have rough days where I can't talk to anyone or do anything without feeling like I'm the Universe's Emotional Punching Bag.

It seems like this much time off work ought to be more fun.

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I picked up Rob Brezsny's Pronoia the other day, for the first time in yonks. Since my wordy brain is starting to come back, I though it would be nice to try that book, as an alternative to the whole twelve-step way of doing things (and put a pin in *that* for later). I flipped to a section at random, and read:

Teach them the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control. Awaken in them the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing.

It was good to read that, and I am reminded how much I dig Brezsny. I totally recommend that book if you're of a spiritual bent, particularly if you like your reverence significantly irreverent.

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So, at my therapist's recommendation, I went to a handful of different Al-Anon meetings. (I know I'm blowing the Anon part by talking about it, but here's me not caring.) The short version is they didn't really work for me. And I'll tell you why!

I hadn't ever read the twelve steps before going to a meeting, and when I did, I was really shocked. I didn't love the religious overtones (especially when 3/4 of the meetings I went to were in churches), but I could actually handle the Higher Power bit alright.

It was the idea of powerlessness that rubbed my fur the wrong way. I mean, I've been powerless. I know what that is, and maybe it's one of my issues, but I am not interested in accepting that state of being in my life now. Sure, there are things I can't control, but that's different from being powerless to me. I don't always have a good choice or a comfortable choice or a convenient choice or a pleasant choice or a desired choice....but there's always a choice. I would rather put my energy into recognizing the choices I have made, making better ones where I can, and having compassion where I'm still making less-than-ideal choices.

I totally get why a lot of people really dig the Anon meetings. They're obviously a powerful tool for so many people....but I just couldn't dig it. So, as often happens in my weirdo life, I find a different way to get there. Good times.

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I've been learning a lot of covers in my time off (since I haven't been doing much writing). My favorite so far (and who knows if this will ever see an audience other than my cats) is Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" smooshed in between verses of Queen's "We Will Rock You." I don't know why I think those songs sound right together, but I do.

So far, the cats agree.

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I blew my health insurance deductible for the first time since I switched to a high deductible plan, lo these many years ago. Considering this year has put me through pneumonia, persistent back-related bullshit, and a nervous breakdown....it makes sense. Makes me grateful for the luxury of insurance. And wish for actual universal health care. Le sigh.

I cut my hair off. Like, more than usual. I will post some pictures at some point. Probably.

For anyone who's sent me a message or note of encouragement....I'm grateful, even if I haven't acknowledged it. I appreciate the thoughts, though I am pretty much total shit right now at dealing with anyone but my therapist. That will change, and - depending on whether I wind up on antidepressants in the long term or not - drinks are on me sometime over the holidays.

Thanks for being patient with the crazy girl, y'all.

The Post I Wasn't Sure I Would Ever Post.

I can't remember a time when I wasn't a survivor of sexual assault.

Literally, I can't. I was three when it happened. I'm one of those girls you hear about on the news, and everybody is shocked and grossed out by the whole thing, and talks about how incredibly fucked up some guy must have been to do something so awful. Sometimes, they talk about how incredibly fucked up the girl will inevitably be, too.

There's a chance she won't remember it at such a young age, though. When my parents found out about me, they consulted some child psychologists and learned this, and took the gamble that I wouldn't remember. This means there was no media coverage, no court battle, no horrible testimony from a toddler. There was no counseling, no painfully uncomfortable explanations, nothing that would make the incident bigger or more traumatic, and thus more likely to stick in my memory. This is all very logical, and I can see why the choice was made.

The problem in my case is that I did remember. Everything (or at least a significant enough chunk that I could've recounted gory details at any point in my life). I remembered what happened and where and how; the awful conversation with my mom involving anatomy books, where she put two and two together; the visit to the doctor that was pretty much just as traumatic as the actual abuse. I remembered it all, right from the get go. I remembered it so well that until I talked about it for the first time with my dad a few years ago, I always thought I had to be five or six, the memories were so clear.

So essentially my whole life, I have borne the fact that I am damaged goods. Before I was even really goods, I was damaged goods. (Thanks, Patriarchy, for making sure I learned that my value was mostly as a pristine sex object, which - of course - I could never be!) This has, not unsurprisingly, been the biggest, thorniest, most painful challenge of my life - which, if you know me very well at all, means something; my life hasn't exactly been devoid of complicated and ugly challenges.

I learned later that my dad had talked to the guy's mom (he was a teenager from across the trailer park where we lived at the time who would sometimes babysit me and my sibs) and made her promise to get the kid into some serious counseling. I wonder sometimes if that ever happened, but mostly I just hope he hasn't ever hurt anyone else....and feels the black mark on his soul. I'm not above wishing he bears the weight of his actions for his entire life the way I have to.

And that, right there, is the thing that really rankles for me - that I will bear, for the rest of my life, the wounds from this stupid fuck's choices. My personality, my sexuality, my ability to trust and love and form intimacy - even in non-sexual contexts - have all been shaped by this baggage, and I am, nearly 30 years later, still stumbling into new triggers and new fears and new issues. Despite over a decade of work to shed the shame and fear, I still have trouble talking about it. Despite working very hard to reclaim and engage with my femininity and my sexuality - and feeling generally very good about where I am with both those things - I still have trouble sometimes with wanting to deny parts of them, either because being too "feminine" (or what feels that way to me) makes me feel too vulnerable, or because I spent the greater part of twenty years developing a habit of shoving both femininity and sexuality into a metaphorical closet, tied up and gagged, and that's a hard habit to release.

Part of me gets furious at how unbearably cliche it all is: the fat girl who was sexually abused as a kid. (I mean, it's a fucking Oprah's Book Club book plotline!) I hate nothing in the world so much as being typical.

This, then, is why I was triggered so hard when the Roman Polanski business came up last year. Since my brother went to jail for his own statutory rape conviction a couple years ago, I had slipped back into a place of denial. The anger (among other, darker, emotions) that came up during my brother's hooplah, I just didn't want to deal with - because part of it was genuinely about my brother, and part of it was about a jackass teenager from the early 1980s in Wyoming. So I didn't deal with it, employing the aforementioned metaphorical-closet-shoving technique. It reared its ugly head again during the glut of Polanski stuff, though, so much so that I pretty much couldn't think about anything *but* that denied clusterfuck of conflicting, gut-wrenchingly raw emotion.

I have been sitting with it, consciously and unconsciously, during the chaos of my life in the past few months (this is one of several reasons I've not been posting much). I'm still not sure I've parsed out everything I need or want to parse out, but I at least feel like I'm not denying what's there.

Here's what I know for sure: I have been shaped in undeniable ways by someone else's selfish, cruel actions, and I will spend the rest of my life dealing with the consequences of those selfish, cruel actions. Sometimes I feel like I've made my peace with that fact....and other times it pisses me off beyond belief and I am practically withered by my own bitterness. I imagine that the victims of my brother and Roman Polanski - and any other person dealing with the harsh reality of child rape - may, whether or not they're conscious of it, deal with something similar.

My brother got out of jail this morning. He's going to have a pretty tough time, between the economic climate where he lives and the fairly severe parole restrictions for sex offenders. I don't really feel sorry for him, in some ways, because I believe it is just for him to suffer the consequences of his selfish actions. Still, I'm glad he's out, and I am very hopeful he can get back on his feet and make use of this second chance he's been given.

2009: I've had just about enough of you, mister!

Every year, I suppose, holds some challenges. I'm sure if I went back and read prior years' penultimate day entries (for some reason I tend to reflect on that day), I suspect most of them would start with something akin to "This has been a hard year." And, well, inasmuch as life itself is filled with challenges and that's just the nature of the beast, I suppose it's true.

All that said, I don't know many people who didn't spend 2009 dealing with a heaping helping of obstacles, with a side order of heartbreak and/or grief. Between political, economic, and cultural wtf-ness, I just think a lot of Americans are generally in pretty rough shape these days - and even if they aren't objectively sucking wind due to bad luck or shit happening or whatever, I think there's an energy permeating our cultural landscape that just weighs on us all, particularly those who already carry the heavier burdens of oppression.

Among the foibles of my life this year, I have felt more and more battered, with less and less refuge. Can you say burnout?

As usual, with the year drawing to a close, I have many more questions than answers. I've been struggling to hold a center of gratitude, as I wade into the anger, fear, impatience, sadness, and despair that have been coming up again and again. Circumstances and choices have converged to push my buttons in shocking new ways this year, and I've been struggling with old reflexes.

I recognize, like many before and after me, that I really am getting older, and that means more than getting rid of all my heels and not wanting to drink my weight in tequila five nights a week. I'm getting more honest with myself, and I'm kicking even more bullshit I entertained for the benefit of other people straight to the curb. Some of this year's revelations:

* I don't want kids. I used to say I wasn't sure. I used to say, "Maybe someday." Fuck that noise: I just don't want to have kids. I can barely make a commitment to a hairstyle, and I'm gonna jump into a lifetime of inescapable connection to another human being? I love that there are people out there who are totally into it, but that is not me. And I don't want to hear that I just haven't found the "right person" yet...if finding the perfect partner changes me such that I suddenly *do* want the child-having lifestyle, I'm not so sure that's really the perfect partner.

* I don't actually love the holidays anymore. I used to. I have fond memories of carol singing and tree-decorating and family gatherings and whatnot...but for the past ten years or so, the holidays have coincided with the busiest, most stressful time of year for my day job. December, for me, is almost always a marathon of ten and twelve hour days, and when I'm not chained to my desk, I pretty much just want to sit alone in a dark room with a drink. Also, toss in my anti-consumerist politics and the fact that I'm not a Christian, and we have a recipe for further complications. This year, as I was sitting in my dad's living room, gritting my teeth at casual bigotry and feeling more out of place than ever...I just gave up. I don't love this time of year, I endure it. I take a vacation every January to congratulate myself on not losing my shit in December.

* I am tired of compromise. I know that I won't be able to escape it, what with the nature of the universe and all....but my only New Year's resolution is going to be to compromise as little as possible, to stop being the guy who sacrifices my own preferences because I think I can handle disappointment better than someone else. Fuck that. I work fucking hard, I am getting what I want every time it's possible. I deserve that, and if I don't give myself what I want, who the hell ever will?

In other news, I have been sitting on a blog update about the whole rape thing. It's pretty intense, and I'm not sure I'm ready to go there. But...I also kind of want to put it out there. We shall see.

In happier news, if you're in Chicago during the month of January, you can see me play shows on January 5th (at Uptown's fabulous Wild Pug's "Unpugged" acoustic night) or January 16th (at the New Moon Music Showcase at The Leadway in Andersonville). Both are free shows, with great acts joining me on stage. Hope you can make it out!

And if you can't, well, I hope 2010 brings you exactly what you want, whatever that may be.

Why reading about Polanski sucks for me, in particular.

The phrase "child rapist" is being used a lot lately, and it's starting to really get to me (and not just because its current ubiquity in the feminist blogosphere is getting to be kinda triggery for me). Roman Polanski is, obviously, a convicted rapist who would very likely be years out of prison, had he served his sentence instead of fleeing the country and using his wealth and fame to evade justice. His choices are clearly despicable and it is pretty sad to me that so many public figures are leaping to his defense.

Unfortunately, though, I can understand a little bit of where that's coming from. See, my younger brother is currently incarcerated for a similar crime.

When I first heard of the accusations against my brother, I didn't want to believe them. My brother is certainly no angel, but I just couldn't wrap my head around the possibility that he would rape a thirteen year old. Lie about tons of shit, steal, cheat, get involved with drugs or fistfights with his wife....I can see all that. But to rape a girl who's only barely a teenager? I had trouble even calling it rape at the time, and it's still hard now.

Ironic, actually, since you'd think my own personal experience with childhood rape would make it pretty fucking black and white.

And yeah, it does in some ways...I know that what my brother did, regardless of the level of violence or "consent" or whatever allegedly mitigating circumstances exist, will unquestionably mess with how that girl relates to sex and men and power dynamics and intimacy and a whole host of other seemingly unrelated things. I am consistently surprised by how often I have to face yet another shadow of The Ordeal, even now, more than ten years after I started actively acknowledging it and working on healing some of the damage (and well over twenty years after the actual incident). I have no doubts that my brother's actions have done incredible harm to that little girl - not to mention the present and future impacts to his two young daughters, his (now ex-) wife, and his family and friends (plus, you know, the way he's pretty much fucked his own future prospects).

When I finally got to a place where I accepted that he'd actually done it...I lost the ability to sort out how I felt about him and what he'd done. No, that's not true - I condemn what he did with every fiber of my being, and when I think about it, it makes me so angry I want to hurt him. I want to hurt him for what he's done himself, and in proxy for the sonuvabuitch who did it to me, and in proxy for all of the motherfuckers that do shit like this to people, who have such unconscionable blindness to the way their instantly gratified urges wreak havoc and pain and misery on others. It makes me furious.

But this is my brother. I know he's imperfect, and that he has many flaws....but I love him anyway. We have almost the same face. I spent most of my childhood getting in trouble for shit he started, like happens with little brothers. He can be incredibly sweet and surprisingly smart and genuinely accepting and kind. For as many times as he's hurt me directly, and done things I find despicable, and used me or our family members...I can't not love him. I don't know how to stop that.

And that's maybe what I'm most angry about. If he were anyone else, I wouldn't have a problem condemning him and his actions and not wasting another iota of my energy on it. But I love him, and I believe that what he's going through in prison is awful and inhumane in many ways (since I believe that the whole prison-industrial complex is inherently awful and inhumane, for lots of people besides my brother). I can't just write him off, and so I have a lot of trouble reconciling my love for my brother and my hatred of what he's done. So much trouble, in fact, that I have spoken to him only twice in the two years he's been locked up, and still agonize over whether and how to maintain our connection. It's easier to avoid thinking about it, to get lost in my own life stuff and pretend that I'm not the sister of a rapist.

I'm not even going to get into the fact that he, by all accounts, still doesn't think he's done anything wrong.

So, yeah, I guess I can understand why so many people are jumping to Polanski's defense...it's really tough to grapple with the idea that a person you love has done something so categorically wrong, has left behind a devastated human being who will likely spend the rest of her life trying to overcome the aftereffects, has committed a heinous crime. The difference I see between my brother and Roman Polanski? My brother's in jail, going through rehab, and suffering the consequences of his prosecution. I'm not saying it makes him the better man, I'm saying it makes him the one who's serving justice.

And now I am going to do my best to stop reading about Polanski.

ETA: All good intentions set aside, I am really not interested in getting feedback on how I have chosen to deal with my brother's circumstances. This post is more about acknowledging the complexities of rape, and how it affects victims, perpetrators, and the people close to them.