Monthly Archives: November 2013

Embrace the Crazy: Behind the Scenes Photo Shoot

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So, I had put off this photo shoot for a few weeks because at the time it was supposed to happen I just didn’t have the energy to go through with it. I just was not mentally there. So, fast-forward to the morning of November 17 and I am feeling really self-conscious and nervous about the shoot so naturally I ate a piece of cake for breakfast to boost my self-esteem and calm my nerves. I was in line at the CVS buying the thickest pair of false eyelashes I could find and suddenly aware that I was about to be half naked in front of two of my closest friends. Was there any way out of this?! Whose idea was this, anyway? …oh, wait that ‘s right, it was my idea.

I am happy to report that I not only survived, but my friends Angela and Justin survived. I wanted to show the Behind the Scenes stuff just to sort of give more background AND to show that I am fully aware that I am not a model. I was far far and away from my level of comfort.

Why the Straight Jacket, You Insensitive Bitch?

I feel like I’ve clarified the purpose of this blog enough that I don’t want to go overboard with it. Everything I write about is internal, it’s about me and it has nothing to do anyone and their personal experience but if you can’t get with it—that’s cool. The jacket is a serious piece, it represents how stifled and censored I feel when I am attempting to live up to the standards of others. The concept of a straight jacket was fascinating to me—it’s purpose to detain and constrain and the positioning of the arms hugging yourself. I appreciated the symbolism of feeling confined by the standards of most people and looking inward to find the strength to break free of their expectations and marching to the beat of your own drum.

If you want one they’re like $30 on Amazon.

Where are my pants?

In my bag somewhere—in order to just dive into things I shed them immediately when we got there. It was nerve racking and took me so far out of my comfort zone I almost called it off. However, when I am compelled to do something I am driven and I can’t stop or let it go—and that’s why I have so much trouble in dating and life in general—but I digress. I feel it was important for me to be as exposed as possible because that’s what the blog is all about. After harboring so many secrets about my well-being and hiding who I truly was from the world I developed a deep fear of exposure so I’m always trying to push myself to be open and to accept myself as I am because I’m fully aware that most won’t. Kind of a “be kind to yourself because no one else gives a shit” thing, or however that saying goes. Furthermore, it’s been no secret my struggles with my weight. I am the largest I’ve ever been and I continue to be so hard on myself because of it. Embrace the crazy… embrace the fatty, this is me pure and unadulterated (besides a face full of makeup!)

Photoshoot? You are definitely no model…

Exactly.

How do you feel now?

Incredibly silly. This isn’t my thing, I just wanted to try it for once if not only for the fact that I’m a woman and want to feel pretty sometimes, dammit! Promo is a necessary evil—and I started off doing the blog just for me because I have to write to maintain my sanity, but now I’m interested in pushing things further and seeing how far it can go. I’m only 6 months in but I do wish to establish a brand that I can feel good about—because of the subject matter, that brand is ME. Only now I will have a drawer full of about 20 shots of me in a straight jacket struggling not to look goofy and cross-eyed in front of the camera. But as I continue to challenge myself by doing random things that put me out there, I learn more about who I am and I have become more comfortable in my skin.

Anything else?

I really and truly thought that straight jacket was going to be so much longer! :-/ I’m showing a lot of leg!

Just for Laughs…

One of my tags for the YouTube video is “BBW” and to me, this is the funniest thing on Earth 😉

Stay tuned for the official post to celebrate my 6 month “blogoversary” and the final reveal of the photos!

Thanks for Reading,
Your Homie

An Unlikely Husband

Posted on by under The Crazy

There is the saying “Careful what you ask for because you might receive it,” and it sounds like the stupidest threat.  Of course I want to receive it, it’s wtf I asked for! However, I do understand the sentiment behind it. In reviewing my virtual list of things I want from a companion, I came to the realization that most of my needs are actually being met.

As a divorced woman I can’t pretend that I don’t miss being married. Relationships can end badly but there are always good times to reflect back on even if it’s just the feel of never having to worry about being alone. I know what it feels like to be married so everyday I am very aware of what I am missing. On some level I do admit to being a liar in the dating game. Of course ultimately I just want to chill with someone and see where things go in sort of a loosey goosey carefree way—but I also want someone to help carry my groceries, to take out my trash, ask me about my day, and talk to about which bills to pay and whose turn it is to go to the grocery store. Functioning solo and always having to “hold it down” is fucking exhausting! Dating makes things harder because you slowly open yourself up to another person who initially just cares about you and doesn’t really give a damn about your children or your commute or your annoying boss. I met a guy recently and I remember feeling so relieved that he was a father. I smiled as I looked at pictures of his little son on his cell phone, but I didn’t even bother to show pictures of my girls because for men that’s cute—for women, not so much.

I have an overall feeling of tiredness in my body—and I’m seriously just going take a break from dating for a couple of weeks. Making eye contact and putting yourself out there to a practical stranger is more trouble than it’s worth to me these days. When I come home from a long day at work there is dinner on the stove, and my 7 year old is usually at the coffee table doing homework while my 2 year old plays nearby. The trash is taken out and sometimes the kitchen is even clean. If I need to run to the grocery store I have someone to consult with, and I can do so without having to pack the kids up and take them with me. Finally, I have some stability at home.– though it’s from an unlikely source.

A few months ago, my brother decided to move out of the house he shared with his roommate. It seemed kind of a hasty and ill-planned decision, so to make sure he didn’t have to move into some sleazy hotel somewhere I volunteered for him to stay with me until he figured out where he wanted to move. It goes without saying but it’s looking like he’ll be staying with me for the long haul. It is probably one of the best and healthiest rash decisions I’ve ever made in my life. We share finances, he cooks, he helps me take care of the children  and even watches the baby during the day—which saves me so much money on daycare. In the rare moments I am not in my introverted shell, we talk about our days and current events and the children and sometimes I get to veg out on the couch and drink beers with his friends and watch the game on Sundays.

Do I wish to have romantic companionship from the opposite sex? Well, of course but there doesn’t have to be a big rush about it. I think this arrangement makes my dating life so much easier because there’s no subconscious pressure coming from me to have whoever I’m involved with to fill a certain role. In the beginning stages the truth of the matter is: no one cares about you. Sometimes people just want what they want, then as relationships grow and progress that’s when they start caring about the other person as human being and not the “weird-eyed chick with the big ass”.  I am also fortunate that I have male friends who are invested in me as a person and love my children enough to ask about them and actually care enough to look at pictures while murmuring about just how cute they are.

The look on a man’s face after he finds out you have two children with different fathers is just plain taxing on my little heart and pride. Also, I like to deal with being totally up-front and honest with people and most are not on that same page. I’m going to take some time and spend it with the men who love me and accept me for who I am—and maybe in a few weeks or so I will resurface with some fun dating stories and experiences. As for now, I’m done.

 

 

 

Intertwine: A Tale of Casual Sex

Posted on by under The Crazy
ETC - Intertwine Image

Image from: atlantablackstar.com

I’m nervous but I’m calm. My breathing is even. My thoughts center around my stomach—I don’t want him to touch it. But you can’t censor others while in the throes of passion so I watch as his hand travels the length of my side, caresses around and finds my belly and squeezes the fleshy substance there. I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying something overly self-conscious and perhaps ruining the moment. I am calm on the outside but too shy and afraid to touch him just yet.

I usually like to offer a full body massage—it’s a way to familiarize myself with someone’s body for nonsexual purposes and it clears my head and relieves tension. There is something about the feel of someone’s skin underneath the palm of your hand or directly against yours that is enough to be a complete pleasure overload. But I’m not massaging, I’m being touched and the sexy, confident woman I felt like I was just hours before has disappeared. I’m on my back and I can’t keep my mouth closed. I’m loud and moaning and panting—the stuff of porn stars because I don’t believe in holding back or holding in. The stress of the day, of the weeks, all frustrations, loneliness, business, happiness are mixed together on that mattress and expelled into several ear rupturing howls.

I don’t know this man above me, on top of me, inside of me. I know his body now and how he feels. I know the hard lines of his flat belly and the sound of his breath against my ear and the feel of his soft wet mouth against my neck. I know the twinkle in his eye when he laughs at my jokes and I know he’s been hurt before and doesn’t want anything serious. We’re in the same boat that way—adults acting like children, afraid to connect with someone and afraid to attach only to be hurt and devastated by abandon. I’m not looking for a boyfriend, I’m not looking for anything; I am a liar. Spending time with him makes me more familiar with his soul and I find myself wanting in deeper. Fear paralyzes me and maybe him as well, so we give ourselves physically because we’re just so depleted emotionally. This is a mistake…

Desire robs me of free will. I’m in this thing now—can’t stop. I can’t decide if I want this but  I want this and I know I don’t need this in my life, but I need it now. My legs act independently—wrap themselves around his waist as he enters me. Absolutely.no.turning.back. I zone out at this point…my body finds its own rhythm and my mind becomes a random series of thoughts and phrases. No,  too soon, not enough, what next, how, when, yes, yes…YES!

Then it’s over and I comedown from the high. I lie in a pool of our sweat and my own euphoria. I am vaguely tense, aware that so much changes for a man after he ejaculates. Sometimes so much lies at stake in that one deposit of semen—out flows his desire for you, his urgency, his interest in you as a person. The ultimate prize has been collected, it’s time to go home. My eyes are wide open and I wonder how I allowed myself to change my view of sex so much that I am here in this place with this virtual stranger having shared so much of myself. I was a virgin until I was 20 and I feel like that hymen has since ruptured a thousand times. Sex used to be “making love” for me—now it’s an act of cowardice. A consolation prize. I can no longer give you my heart, it’s been shattered to pieces, but here; take all of my body instead. I will lie with you and listen to your dreams, I will stroke your naked body and your hair, admire your potential and believe in you, fall into you…in love with you—but I will never tell you.

I lie next to him, my body rigid and I’m close to tears. It must be so easy for a man to use women this way and have it mean nothing—I’m nothing! I feel myself give in to hysteria as I struggle not to unravel right before his eyes. My body stiffens even more as I feel him reach out and touch the small of my very naked back. His voice is unsteady and he trails his hand up the path of my back and up and up to cup my face, “I think I’m falling in love with you….”

That’s A Wrap!!

Posted on by under The Crazy

That's A Wrap!!

That’s a wrap!!! I just finished the official Embrace the Crazy photoshoot with my dearest homie, Justin (Facebook page: JusPose’ Photos)! He did a great job working with this awkward girl– and special thanks to makeup artist Angela with Classically Beautiful (www.clasicallybeautiful.com) ! Stay tuned, the full shoot and blog post coming soon!

…on Validation

Posted on by under The Crazy

Anyone who knows me personally and very well knows the following story:

I was enrolled in the University of Phoenix and lasted maybe a whopping 2 semesters. I was newly married and a new mom so I was on a roll of accomplishing shit and decided I may as well get my education as well. I won’t knock anyone that has attended or graduated from UOP but I will say—I hate that fucking school and everything they stand for! Perhaps I will share all my reasons for the hate in another post, BUT the main reason I just could not get with it is because their curriculum was bs. Your “facilitator” teaches you everything in a whirlwind fashion, then they rely on the end product of group projects to determine your individual grade. (Did I mention that I think that’s bullshit—because that’s bullshit).

Long story short, I hated my group. There were way too many of us, only one other woman and myself were even remotely interested in producing good work, and there was no rhyme or reason to how we operated. Because my grade was at stake, you’re damned right I took charge. I did my best to try to bring structure and make sense out of whatever the hell we were doing. I felt like it was me against this tiny little dysfunctional world, but the alternative was to just leave things to chaos and let my grades suffer. In the end, as we moved on to another class, the “facilitator” tried to keep us together but one by one the group members raised their hands and publicly announced their desire to remove me because of our interactions from the previous class. In the previous class, I did 75% of the group work and I had to ride ass hard to even get the collective 25% from the rest of them. I put in the work, and I still don’t care if they didn’t like my methods—they should have had the balls to speak up! Come the next class they kicked me out of the group and shortly thereafter I withdrew from the school—group work is not for me.

To this day I still feel like I did everything necessary to carry the group. No one else was stepping up as a leader and no one seemed to be able to work cohesively. We all tried to contribute portions of the work and compile it but if 7 out of the 8 people contribute shit, you’re going to end up with a pile of shit as your final product. I sound really tough about it now, but at the time it really broke my heart. I was 22, I had missed out on the college experience and I was really looking forward to having a decent one at the University of Broken Dreams Phoenix. For weeks I would check my email nonstop, just waiting for at least one member of the group to send me some kind of apology at least for publicly embarrassing me by kicking me out of the group. That email never came. This is SO SO sad—but I still look for that email, hoping that maybe someone realized that I was simply doing my best and perhaps my intentions were misunderstood. I tried way too damned hard to be accepted. I put in too much work and effort for people who ultimately did not care and I had absolutely nothing to show for it.

So…as things go with my very favorite musician friend. I feel as if I put in so much work and time and patience and I really expected to yield something good from it. I’ve never really been that ambiguous with a person before, either. It didn’t matter to me to necessarily be with him, but I just liked the dude enough to want to function with him in some kind of capacity: friends, acquaintances, relationship—whatever. Perhaps it says something about me that most of my relationships with people in general have to end in one big dramatic, knock-down, drag out fight. It was epic and draining, and while I got say what I wanted to say and I feel like there was closure—it bothers me that things had to end that way. However, sometimes you just aren’t compatible with people, or you don’t want the same things and you have to be sane enough to stop fighting for it! I was fighting for someone who didn’t even bother to show up to the war. I am really not all that sane, but as things came to a head I just had to drop it AND my incessant need for validation. Just as I still monitor my emails for a note from the University of Phoenix group, I still stalk my email and texts from ex-love interests expecting them to say to me, “I didn’t get it at the time, but I do now.” I don’t want to hear that I am right—just that someone understands me.

Justify me, vindicate me, validate me…

You Better WERK!!!

Posted on by under The Crazy

Working Girl

It is with great relief I can finally say, I am working at a full-time job once again! Take THAT, US Government—because contrary to popular belief, it is not my wish to live under the thumb of government assistance forever. I do admit that it will suck having to pay for my own groceries (like some kind of ANIMAL!), but I’m happy to regain my independence.

Unfortunately, working again is going to eat up a lot of my blog time. No more late nights writing whilst spilling Pringles crumbs all over my keyboard…However, this job does give me access to more sources that pertain to the subject matter of the blog which will eventually help me to take things in a more broad direction. I appreciate talking about myself immensely, but I do plan to learn and grow enough to start providing more resources and practical applications as well as entertainment for those who follow the blog.

Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe

ANYWAY, I titled this entry the go to mantra of most drag queens everywhere because I just wanted to pat myself on the back for once, dammit! I’ve thought long and hard about my goals and life direction and I finally feel like I am at least in view of the path that’s going to lead me in the right direction. I am fully aware that I am not perfect; I am poor, indulgent, irresponsible, messy, selfish, I snap at the kids when I’m tired, I cry in the bath tub, I drink too much and I should probably re-evaluate my sex life—I HAVE ISSUES!

Be that as it may, I am an adult that knows where I am lacking and I am working—however slowly—to get my shit together. I think the worst thing anyone can do is pass judgment or make a comment about your progress just at the moment when you think you have it all figured out. I had a family member come to town and (I won’t drag this story out) she basically gave me a “talking to” and told me that I was too old to have a messy house and that I needed to get myself together for the sake of my children. Ummmm…excuse me? (…not to mention that the apartment was particularly messy at the time because I had just thrown a birthday party for my brother the night before). I confess, I am messy. People who are sort of anal retentive about keeping things neat and clean don’t understand the lives of people who just don’t give a shit about that sort of thing. As a good hostess I always have things clean for company, but when it’s just me and the kids my peace of mind is more important to me than a vacuumed floor. PLUS, there is nothing more disheartening than constantly having to clean up after two small children—I am convinced it is the lost chapter of a cycle of hell in Dante’s The Inferno. You can walk into the house of a devil worshipping crackwhore prostitute and assume she has it together simply because she puts her Swiffer to good use—who are you to judge? It takes concentrated effort for me to keep my apartment immaculate; effort I just do not have at this time. BUT; it is just that: MY APARTMENT!

I can’t express enough what a struggle it has been for me to simply keep from being evicted from aforementioned apartment while making so little money on unemployment. It also hasn’t been that much fun looking for work, wasting time in ill-fitting suits and wondering if something is in my teeth on job interviews that ultimately amounted to nothing. Even with landing this job, for me, the transition back into the workforce has been stressful and managing my fears about being mentally able to even keep a job is full-time work in itself. I am positive that somewhere in America sits a CEO that used to be a homeless woman in Alaska, barefoot in the snow and living in an abandoned igloo with her 17 kids—but whatever! That’s her story of triumph, not mine. You can never evaluate someone’s hardships and come to the conclusion they should “get over it” because there is no way to determine just how a particular situation can adversely effect the outcome of someone’s life. I am accused of being dramatic all the time (-_-)  and it has been insinuated by more than one person that I use mental health issues as a crutch to keep from doing better– but none are qualified to say as much because no one but myself is even aware of what my definition of BETTER is…I’m not letting any more bitches kill my vibe. I know what I’m doing.

Babe, I’m Working

Sometimes people come into your life and examine it from the outside looking in and proceed to project their own personal beliefs, experiences and successes onto you. I cannot handle this. My initial reaction to the, “get your shit together” talk was to be sensitive. I retreated into my feelings, opened a beer but was too emo to drink it, and I cried. Will I ever be good enough? I’ve been fired TWICE, living off unemployment and the government—but I managed not to lose my apartment and not even a year later I am working full-time again—is that not enough?!

As it turns out: it is for me. When I lay in that bath tub at my parent’s house a few years ago (what IS it with me and bath tubs?) absently swiping at my wrist with a razor blade and daring myself to go through with it, I never imagined that I would be here. I feel like I have completely imploded and I’m now in the middle of the rubble slowly picking up pieces and rebuilding. I don’t need any outside construction companies to come with their heavy duty machines to try to speed up the process and “help” me along the way. I got this.

As I told a concerned friend a few weeks ago, don’t worry about me. I am definitely taking the the long way around but I’m positive I will get there. I am employed again and I am constantly working on myself to be healthier and stronger for my children, to be happy, and to be able to proceed with my life without getting derailed by the negative perceptions and comments of others. I think I’m ok if my kids grow up and say, “The house was never clean but Mommy sure worked her ass off to provide what we needed.” I eventually wish to go back into Super Mom status with home cooked meals, soccer practice, clean floors and cupcakes at the PTA meeting—but I’m not going to rush things and overwhelm myself at the moment. There was a musician I semi-dated, and whenever I would go to his gigs I could never understand why he wasn’t more social and ready to party after the show. He would sometimes calmly say to me: Babe, I’m working. It really didn’t seem like it to me, it looked like he was having a nice, relaxing time doing something he loved but what the hell did I know? From the outside looking in I may appear idle or unmotivated or as if I’m doing nothing at all, but I know that I have a plan; I’m working. 😉