I am kind of freaking out right now. At the age 5, I was enrolled in 1st grade, at which time I was swiftly and truly schooled by my classmates. I was not normal. Period. I wasn't allowed to dance to music like I'd always done before, without getting called names and being laughed at. My teacher gave me a time out for not being able to recite the Lord's Prayer, and when we were supposed to play games that called for teams, there was team A and team "Shit, she's the only one left." It was apparent, in no uncertan terms, that nothing about me was normal. And since my family moved around a lot, I wasn't normal at any school, so it had to be me, not them. I was given the advice to ignore it and they'd eventually go away, but they didn't. This ended, for the most part, while I was working at BMG, when I finally lost it on some asshole at J Records I was forced to work with. I had one more incident of bullying behaviour just yesterday, and I reacted viciously. To be honest, I can't remember everything that happened there, but I think I just on that thin line that separates verbal confrontation from physical altercation. Thirty-two (non-consecutive) years of bullying boiled up in my body, and I just fucking exploded. But I'm not here to talk about bullying. It seems I've done a lot of that since I've been on the Internet, and finding others like myself. The Island of Misfit Toys is a real place on Teh Intarwebz, located a little further north-west of Dr. Moreau's Island, and separated from Fantasy Island by the Sea of Dreams (yes, we can see y'all from from our winders). Enough of that, though. Let's get down to bidness.

I'm here to talk about feeling paranormally different since waking up on the 14th. The doctor said he removed 17 pounds of excess skin, fat, and other crap that wouldn't have ever otherwise gone away. I'm talking about hearing the nurse softly say in my ear, "breathe deeply", and then I woke up with parts of my body that have always been part of me since I began to gain more weight than other kids my age, at four years. The midsection of my stomach is mostly flat, but the lower part, the part that hangs down to your thighs when you stand, and makes you think that you have no lap whatsoever when you sit down - - well, it is gone. Totally fucking gone. Working on my computer has even changed, because my stomach was my prop, so I could work on my writing, promotions, and blogging while Smidgen curled up on my chest or upper abdomen. Now, I'm having dificulty trying to find a decent computer spot, so I can write this. I feel as though, if I were back east with the friends I have, I would hear them whisper about me not being me, reinacting one of the earlier scenes of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

On 14 September whilst waiting to be rolled back to the operating room, I was lying on my back with my elbow and hands touching the mattress, or I had my fingers interlocked on my midsection, and my elbows just dangled at each side. If I wanted to put my arms at my side, then my elbows could touch the mattress, but my fingers wouldn't meet. I couldn't do both and I never could. It was just a fact of life for me, even after the gastric bypass surgery in 2004. Now, my elbows can rest on the bed and my fingers can interlock at the same time. The Mother Unit was amused that my discovery of this amazed me so much. I know that doesn't sound like much, but when you've never been able to do it before, it's kind of a thing. The effect on my lower back was nearly instantaneous. A lot of that pull is gone, which was the main purpose for asking to get the procedures in the first place. Total success, right there. Despite currently feeling as though I have been thrown into the Iron Maiden at an Iron Maiden concert, my back already doesn't hurt as much, and I'm hoping the pain will continue to wane as I heal. I can feel the difference in my knees as well.

Psychologically, the immediate effect has not been as positive as I would have liked, but that's not the doctor's fault. Everything he did was exactly the procedures he signed on to do, and he did them expertise. The thing for me, though, was that I went to sleep in the body I'd had for around 32 years, and I woke up a stranger to myself. I'm not doing as well as perhaps I should in respect to mentally catching up to the physical tranformation. There are differences you would never think of, such as, seeing my own "cho-cha" (thank you, Missy Elliott) for the very first time in my entire life. Only a few hours after the surgery has over, I learned the women's cho-chas were supposed to look like this. It is still quite a surprise, because most laypeople or medical personnel would never think that such a change would be shockingly phantasmagoric. It's as though the doctor pulled everything up. From now on, whenever I see some crazy person in the park talking down her/his pants, I'm going to wonder if they had a panniculectomy and abdominoplasty. Such a shock to the visual senses is bizarre and unsettling. On the other hand, I might be that homeless crazy person taking to her own privates sooner than later.

I was told that the surgery took hours because the doctor wanted to be as thorough as possible while he was working. Based on some of the surgery pictures he'd shown me during our consultation, I have no doubt he was thorough. In fact, I think he did more than was authorised, probably because he knew I might need it down the road. I was already dead to the world, so why not? After a little bit of online research, what little time I've been online, I'm thinking that that extra something was some liposuction, considering I have two balls that catch the bloody water draining out of me, and bruises that just won't quit on my lower stomach, thighs, and cho-cha. Everything is relatively level now. I had fatty bits on my back that are gone now, too. After all this heals I will appear to be, more or less, like someone carrying a few extra pounds, but nothing people would gawk or throw vomit fat jokes in her direction.

My entire dieting life, I was told to chant the mantra "there's a thin person inside me that yearns to get out!" I was conditioned to dislike everything about me that anyone could see, while striving to look like the ones who are always at the front of the line to get their kick in before the day over. I was filled with a hell of a lot of animosity by the time I was approved for gastric bypass surgery, so much so that I had before and after pictures taken in the event someone told me I looked good. My plan was to whip those pictures out and ask them what they thought now! Over a time, especially when Aunt Tudi's health started to decline, I just grew weary of my verbal fight with society, and just gave up on avenging the evil so quantumly ingrained in us all by this mockery of our exsistence.

But, the other day, I was told it was good to see me, a "much thinner" me. I didn't say anything then, because I've been feeling like every hell imagined in every dimension that could currently be calculated by any Physics Academic, and to be perfectly frank, I did not want to be in a tiff, or what have you. Now, I'm a tad concerned that, in my heart, I know I may throat punch anyone who has ever known or seen me prior to the surgeries, but still comes out with that programmed bullshit, especially if they refer to having surgies to assist me lose the weight that was killing me as "taking the easy way out." I am not above going all Jack Torrance with an ax on any motherfucker who crosses that line, and thanks to those oh so very easy surgeries and recoveries that were alllll done for cosmetic reasons and nothing else, I'm lighter, limberer, and enthusiastically motivated to shut you up by ripping your jaw bone off your stupid brainless head and feeding it to Toby. Strangers who do not know me will get you one free pass but, if a stranger proving how much of a douche nozzle they are by judging another within my earshot may very well end up in an intimate relationship with my shoes and elbows. I haven't forgotten all the Kung Fu I was taught, and I'll probably be able to do them better now. You can be my practice.

The flesh a person is in, is not that person, but it can affect them in unimaginable ways. I feel like a stranger in a strange land now. I can't quite grasp the extent of my aura. Toby caught a glimpse of mm the other day, and barked at me as though I were a stranger. I'm wondering how Smidge will handle seeing her new old bed, unimpressed that it no longer has the cushioning she requires. I can get around things a bit easier, but still move like I need to squeeze, and that makes me look like I'm up to no good. I had some of these issues with the first surgery, but the effects came much more slowly, so my adjustments were more easily accepted. This time, not so much. Not even after the gastric bypass did I have a figure. Now that I do, I don't look right.

But just because I'm struggling doesn't mean I've lost one iota of my venom for humanity as a whole. Once built, or stolen, I can just shoot my lethal laser gun at the global urban centers while wearing some dumbass latex cat suit.

FUCK THE WORLD

Love, Tin

PS: If you find any spelling or grammatical mistakes in this, chalk it up to unbridled anger combined with full body pain. Thank you.

Mood: homicidal
Where? a bad place
Music: tv noise

Don't complain about what you've been given, and always be thankful for what you have. Words of wisdom, my friends.

Also, in relation to that austere advice, behave around others in the manner you are treated, even when you're treated like fat trash from a [beyond] broken home (that was still a thing in the 70's), living in other people's homes and, later, in the projects.

Before my health collapsed, I had forgotten the harshness of those lessons, although I never stopped being grateful. Thanks to almost 20 years of making a pretty decent wage for someone in South Carolina, I was independent, taking care of others, and it was a pretty fucking brilliant feeling. I needed no one to do anything for me. Autonomy was a lovely thing, but it can be devastating when you lose it - lose everything.

I am still very thankful for everything I have, and I will always do everything I can for whomever I can - there are some exceptions. But growing up being systemically reminded that I was never going to be good enough, financially comfortable enough, socially acceptable enough, or worthy enough kind of sticks with you. All those little reminders, lessons, begrudgements, and exclusions seems to have piled up.

Only, this time, instead of casting my eyes down and just dealing with whatever comes my way, I'm starting to more fully appreciate Patrick Bateman. He looks awfully elated to have that axe. I want to experience that kind of thankfulness. I'd carve the turkey every goddamned year.

Mood: seething
Where? the house
Music: Tal Bachman - She's so High

English is the only language I can fluently speak, and even that is debateable. I know bits and bobs of other languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, German, Yiddish, Russian, Polish, and Xhosa. But there is this one language whose intricacies I began learning at a very early age. That would be Sarcasm. When it comes to Sarcasm, it really doesn’t matter what your native tongue is; rather, it’s more to do with body posture, inflection of the words, even the tone of voice that makes for a successfully delivered dollop of linguistic malice.

I began learning Sarcasm at the tender age of nine. It had been going on three years since my parental units’ divorce and, even though I was well taken care of and had no doubt that I was loved by Granny and Aunt Tudi, I still missed that connection kids apparently enjoy, regardless of culture or location. I would write them letters, and be thrilled when they wrote me back.

If they wrote me back.

One day, Aunt Tudi and Granny took me to Woolworth’s so I could spend some of my allowance money. Instead of getting a little toy, or candy, or whatever a kid with a couple of bucks could buy back in 1976, I bought two identical greeting cards. After not hearing from either Unit for quite some time when I saw these cards, it was my first crash course in the wonderful world of Snark.

Even though I was hellbent on mailing them to the Mother and Father Units, Aunt Tudi convinced me not to do it. I kept the cards, though, up until I finally disposed of them in the late 90s, because they were yellow and tattered with age. The message was ingenious, though, and I kind of wish I’d held on to them, just for shits and giggles. I’ve recreated the card here, for the enjoyment of any and all.

Very simple, to the point, and unmerciful – like all good sarcasm should be.

Mood: surly
Where? the house
Music: Scott & Brendo - Synthia

Racism. We’ve all experienced it in one way or another. That is to say, we’ve witnessed it, participated in it (either consciously or subconsciously), or we’ve been on the receiving end of it.

I’m bringing this up, because I want to share the story of my first kiss with anyone who may read this.

First, a little background, for those who may not know: I was born in Asheville, North Carolina, but most of my life was intermittently spent 75 miles south of my hometown, in the Greenville/Spartanburg area of South Carolina. I began school in SC, but moved back to Asheville for a period of time after my parents’ divorce. There was a short period of time that Granny, Aunt Tudi, and I returned to SC, meaning I spent my entire 1^st Grade in SC, prior to the break-up, as well as a portion of my 2^nd Grade, which was split between Black Mountain Elementary in NC and Reidville Elementary in SC. We returned to Asheville shortly after the events I’m writing about here occurred. But, much to my dismay and displeasure at the age of 13, Granny and Aunt Tudi took me back to SC, where I finished school and worked for over 30 years. I objected to relocating back to SC then, and I’m still pissed about it to this very day. My first kiss is one of the primary reasons why.

I got my first kiss in the second grade. It wasn’t on my lips or my cheek. I was kissed on the hand. I was so excited something like this had happened, because I was always picked on about everything, from my weight to my clothes, and everything in between. I was mocked for not knowing the correct bible verses to recite, and denied that wondrous, magical silver star sticker by my name because of my affront to god. I assumed no one liked me and I would never fit in.

The little boy who kissed me like a knight would a princess was named Sam, and he was Black. But that didn’t matter to me at the age of 7. What mattered to me was I had been shown affection by someone outside my family. Out of glee, I told our teacher, clutching my right hand to my heart with my left. I wanted to shout it to the world! For once, something good happened to me when I was around other kids. For once, I felt like a part of the outside world.

I should never have said a thing to anyone.

My joy turned into regret, humiliation, guilt, and rage when the teacher ordered Sam to the front of the class. She told him he wasn’t allowed to kiss white girls, and he was made to apologise to me. He was in tears, I was in tears, and the kids in the class pointed and laughed at both of us. The teacher then made Sam go stand in the corner for thirty minutes.

When I got home, I told Aunt Tudi what had happened. I didn’t understand. That’s when she told me about Blacks in the South, how they had been slaves and, when they were freed, some of the whites had formed groups to make sure these ex-slaves didn’t get “uppity.” This was the first time I heard about the Ku Klux Klan, and how they would not only threaten and kill Blacks, but they would also do the same to their supporters. She told me how she had seen a cross burning in a neighbour’s yard back in 1966, in South Carolina. They were Civil Rights supporters. I was advised to be quiet about any interaction with the Black kids in my class, for their protection.

I was horrified.

What’s worse is Sam avoided me after that day. I’ve always wondered if he did so because he was afraid, or if it was because he thought I had told on him because he was Black. I may never know. All I knew is that I lost a friend because of an expression of fondness. By the teacher’s example, an act of bigotry and cruelty was taught as appropriate behaviour on that day. Looking back on this, and so many other moments like it throughout my school days, I perceive it as affirmation that, although physical segregation was no longer practiced, mental segregation was very much in full effect, and has only flourished over the decades.

While we were being “encouraged” to memorise bible verses, we were also silently being indoctrinated into the categories we never chose for ourselves. Children are tabula rasa. Anything can be etched into their psyche to become a testimony to their environment and their generation. Instead of praising kids for public displays of affection, the status quo prefers to instill fear and hatred of differences. This is why our culture celebrates violence and curls its lip at love. This is why you can watch a person get shot on TV, but sex is reprehensible.

This is why racism still exists, and I doubt it will ever go extinct.

I’d like to think that Sam might somehow come across this journal entry, so the record can be set straight for him. I’d like to think that day in the classroom was his last experience with racism. But I’m a realist.

Just in case, though…

Sam, thank you for being my knight in shining armour that day, and I am so sorry for getting you in trouble. I hope you’re happy and healthy, and that you never stopped being such a sweet little dude. I hope you never shied away from your nature because our society’s priorities are so fucked up, and getting worse.

Mood: blah
Where? the house
Music: Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes

I finally found him.

After all these years, it turned out to be a missing 'E' that kept me from contacting him sooner! Sheesh!

I think the letter is pretty self-explanatory.

( Letter to Steve Longenecker )

Mood: grateful
Where? Home
Music: Daft Punk - Giorgio by Moroder

I didn't sleep at all last night. No I'm not quoting that old Rock'n'Roll song. Now, I can barely stay awake. But I'm compelled to keep my eyes open. I have a duty to perform and perform it I shall today. At least that's the general idea. Otherwise, I'm on mental health leave this weekend. Yeah, I know that's a joke. All joking aside, there's a lot of stuff I'm needing to process and staying constantly busy doing a variety of things without getting a chance to breathe won't allow me to do that. Most usually when I say "I love my job... I love it I love it," I mean it. Right now, there's not a thing in this world I can honestly say I love.

I am in a dark place and I'm trying to salvage what I can by withdrawing. I tend to self-destruct when in this frame of mind. I burn bridges. I burn everything. Later, sometimes, I regret my actions. I know enough about myself to know when it's wise to lay low before I just raze everything to the ground.

I remember once, when I was a kid living in the A-frame chalet in Black Mountain, I felt the Bleakness on my soul and I decided to cheer myself up by throwing my balsa wood airplane from the second floor loft and watching it circle slowly to the floor below. I saw where I was doing no wrong; however, Granny expressed displeasure at this activity. Instead of just stopping, I went to the most remote are of the chalet and proceeded to transform my airplane into toothpicks. I couldn't go outside and fly it because the neighbourhood was not the best in the world. I couldn't fly it indoors. What was the point in having it. And, even as it broke my heart to watch my plane reduced to tiny pile of shredded wood, I could not stop myself from destroying it. Why keep it? It was of no use to me and I obviously could not let it be what it needed to be: an airplane. The only logical course of action was to get rid of it.

Throughout my life, I've transformed various figurative balsa wood airplanes into smouldering piles of toothpicks. I've almost always regretted it later, but it never stops me from going there when I become of a mind. What usually triggers it is the feeling of uselessness or hopelessness. If the plane can't fly, just ground it....permanently. Right now, that airplane is me. I don't see where I serve any viable purpose anywhere. I'm frustrated on the publishing front and wonder why I even bother to continue seeking out an agent. One of my literary heroes, Russell Hoban, whose heavenly written voice is sadly barely known in his country of origin, had to leave the US and move to England in order to ever have a hope of a writing career. I have no such option.

The more I observe the ebb and flow of current events, the more it seems obvious to me that I'll always be here in South Carolina, surrounded by people who view me as an aberration, a freak of nature. And, what's so desperately depressing about this is, I know there are people out there of like mind, people who share with me an uncanny world view, and I will never have the opportunity to enjoy any level of friendship with these people. I seem destined to live out my days alone and misunderstood in one of the worst possible places on the planet for someone like myself.

What I have to do is come to grips with this fact of life without destroying the few balsa wood airplanes I've been lucky enough to borrow. There's nothing that I own but a handful of characters no one cares to read. And everything else is so unimportant as to go completely unnoticed at worst, or held in vague disregard at best. I'm weary of the same story playing itself out in my life as time marches on. I'm beginning to wonder if there's a lesson to be learnt from the repetition at all or if it's just some cosmic joke whose punchline is utterly lost on me.

And people wonder why it is I get excited about 12/21/2012.

Mood: discontent
Where? home
Music: Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence

While watching Smidgen play in the large cardboard box Aunt Tudi got from the grocery yesterday, I was pulled into memories of my childhood.

When I was as young as two, Granny would put me in a cardboard box and hand me a pot lid so I could "drive" around the countryside and enjoy my fancy car. I had tons of stuffed animals and other wee tot treasures, but nothing pleased me more than sitting in a box holding a pot lit. At the age of 5 Granny, with the help of Aunt Tudi and the Mother Unit, used the cardboard boxes accrued during Christmas to build me a playhouse. When I awoke on Christmas morning, I was greeted by my very own cardboard playhouse, festively coloured up and decorated. Since I got a play movie projector for Christmas, the playhouse became my own personal movie theatre and I would charge the family a nickel to come in and see a movie. They had to come in one at a time, though, 'cos there wasn't enough room for more than one adult and myself. For ever the longest that cardboard house was my haven, my sanctuary, a place I could call all my own. Despite all the wonderful gifts I received that year, the boxes they came in brought me more joy that Christmas than anything else.

When I first started working for BMG, I would often sort packages, placing them in the box that corresponded with the invoice's bmc (bulk mail center) number. These boxes were cardboard/corrugation and they were HUGE. Doing this job, my mind would often drift to the possibilities of my filling one of these big boxes with Styrofoam peanuts and jumping in for a nice long play. I'd also wonder if maybe I could mail myself in a big bmc box. Hell, I had to keep my mind busy 'cos sorting was an incredibly boring job. It was also at BMG, when I drove a highlift, I would sometimes make castles of the 30-count CD boxes high in the palletiers, and I'd hide for short periods of time. It was easy to do on 3rd shift. Sitting far above the world protected by dozens of boxes, I often felt protected and invincible and, suddenly, I was 5 again and marvelling at my beloved cardboard playhouse.

Mood: nostalgic
Music: Headline News

In a fit of spontaneity, Aunt Tudi and I returned to Asheville. We also went to Black Mountain to sing out the A-Frame chalets. There used to be ten of them, but three have been torn down and a Super 8 Motel build in their spot. The house that we used to live in though, Chalet 9, was still there and inhabited by surly hillbillies. Aunt Tudi asked them nicely if we could take a photo of the A-Frame. I was kinda hoping they'd go in, but no! The hillbillies lingered out front and gave us the hairy eyeball until we left. Le sigh.

I don't remember much about the A-Frame nor very much about Black Mountain. There are two mega-memories I hold, though, one of each. The first memory is of our visit to the A-Frame when Granny and Aunt Tudi were considering renting it. There was a mattress in one of the back rooms and I stood on it to look out the window. I was there only a few seconds when I felt something strange upon my legs (I was wearing shorts). When I looked down, I screamed one of those rare blood-curdling horror movie screams that you just don't hear except during Halloween. My legs were black with fleas. I ran into the front room where Granny and Aunt Tudi had to literally scoop the fleas off me. Needless to say, we didn't move in until the house had been fogged. Memory number two has to do with the strange Black Mountain weather. Aunt Tudi, my cousin Marsha, and I were walking home from my Uncle Larry's restaurant when a snow storm came upon us. No, not just a snow storm, a snow STORM. Thunder, lightning, snow. I learned later that this is called Thundersnow. At the time, I called it the Alpaca Lips in so many words.

( pictures be here )

We got home right before 6 PM and I feel like I've had several cans of Whoop Ass opened upon my person.

Mood: sore
Music: King of Queens

Aunt Tudi and I went to Winn Dixie for the last time today. I can't believe all the stores are closing. WD was the store of choice in my childhood. That's the only store we ever went to in Asheville. Well, occasionally we'd go to Giant, but mostly it was Winn Dixie all the way. It was from Winn Dixie I got my first pack of Space Dust (pre- Pop Rocks candy). It's very sad to see the end of an era like this. I think that's why mortality isn't such a bad thing. By the time a person reaches death, most of the time s/he is ready for it, because the world has changed so much, it's pretty much unbearable to live in it. Of course, I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who despises change.

It looks like I'm gonna make it for Battlestar Galactica. Afterward, I plan on curling up in a menstrual ball and crying myself to sleep. Bad Sith...no bone.

Mood: sad
Music: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

When I was a kid in school, I was the one who had to sit by herself in the lunch room while other kids would periodically come up and say something to make me feel like a piece of shit. Usually, it was about my weight. Sometimes, they'd pick on me about my eyes ~ how they were silver and unearthly and how creepy I was staring at people. I learned to not look up, ever. I was the kid who always got picked last to play ball, any sort of ball ~ soft ball, kick ball, dodge ball. In regard to dodge ball, I was the kid the others always took an extra effort to hurt with the ball when they threw it. I was the kid who got ganged up on and teased in public. I was the kid with no friends in school.

And I was an only child, raised around adults with very little contact with other children. And I was the fat kid...and the poor kid. I was the pariah.

I was the kid who, if given half the opportunity, would have gone into my school with a gun. I was the kid who fantasised about being Carrie White just so I could kill all the little fuckers with my mind.

So, when others see kids and they think "oh how cute!" I see them and wonder who they terrorised in school. I assume the worst with children because my entire life experience with them has been one of torment, humiliation, and ostracism. I don't think they're cute. I see the potential for suffering when I see children. I've been told, "well, children can be cruel. That's just kids for you." Yeah, well, that's why I don't like them.

And children are honest. They are what humanity is really all about. What a fine example!

Is it any wonder I long for the Alpaca Lips?

Mood: gloomy
Music: radio ga-ga