notes to ryan commerson

i don't plan on changing your name. commie butt is where it's at. wazzup! ya dig!? cuz, like, if all you did was act like a fucking asshole a few times and have a lot going on with me most of the rest of the time, and if you were one of the people who got me so set on leaving clif no matter what that i have done most of my shit morally correct--

--then i figure you shouldn't be ashamed of yourself or what you've done. i will know, though, if you think y/our friends are worth demanding that i not draw my story BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE HAVE STORIES and i know i'm not the only one guys smack down and get it up for...and whose family says she better stay right where she is because she's already ruined at 16.

life is big and the Deaf world needs to accommodate that. we can only have pride in ourselves if we become the best we have room for or die trying. right? audism is our common enemy and can fracture healthy self-images...the Deaf and deaf worlds carry the weight of everything the hearing culture does on a more concentrated scale.

anyway, right, my approach has been interesting. the assholes who don't even acknowledge my rape when they are notorious for 13, 30, 300--so big with all the stories wrapped papier mâché around their cocks--oh, they walked it all right--and blame me after apologizing for being bad to me cuz i really am marriageable and a catch, right, and want me as a friend--they don't get their names used but their reputations and my time at gally will weed out the usual suspects.

because i may not want to forgive someone but life has its time and mistakes. so it's the best thing to do if someone really has stopped being a shit directly to me and agrees that other women need better. but, really, who WILLINGLY wakes up during sex with the guy who's now Indian Corn Teeth of Quasimodo? and goes OMFG YES I MASTURBATE TO THAT EVERY TIME I SEE A PROACTIV AD TOO THANK U MMMMMMMMMM CUTE BABY

anyway. note two is simply that I really do like audism. it just  isn't that ugly anymore. i also see that no one is going to combine the forces of audism and racism even though it would make a bigger, stronger one for everyone...be an awesome national party...so i have worked on myself and my view of history and what people want and why, and why audism and racism really have to be separate causes despite causing the same hurt and classlessness, hehe, and etc et al eg ie and all

note "reason i'm blogging in the tub and wasting my morning before fucking classes AUGH"...

rimshot

not pancakes yet. 4 stretch marks per up from 1. over the shoulder view still fantastic. head on the 99% of guys who don't hit me for having the stretch marks talk about them a lot. my last FWB decided to marry me over them (and my brain)...but i turned him down twice.

he's almost the right guy--the sex and cooking were incessant and so yummy--the last two months i'd have to tell him it was great that he was still fucking me for an hour after he got too tired to keep it hard but after 100 more orgasms i knew it was a little selfish of me to keep going. i'd lamented that we no longer had as much sex because of his new schedule so i was not having as many intense, releasing orgasms and was getting short with people because of how irritable i was. masturbation doesn't give me the same kind of orgasms.

like, almost perfect. who doesn't want a good 20 hours of great sex a week? but i burned that bridge to hell. i'm not dealing with his wife ever again, and leaving her for me is lacing my coffee with arsenic. if i don't like your orgasm faces now that you've decided to show me how much you CARE ABOUT ME and would marry me but haven't turned down any sex you better quit while you're head, boyo!

man, i deliberately and cruelly burned that bridge. i may miss him but now he'll really live in a prison or learn how to rely on himself.  but, you remember, rycola, i never let a guy tell me what to do. except in dark sad corners, after they had to hurt me to get me scared. fuck that noise, you audist!

squabbling with scrabble

so, heh, true story.

i told therapist lady about a third of what happened with floyd and it's not so bad to live. i'm still dealing ugh a few really bad anniversaries this summer and right now it's all the break-ups with joe last august. all the violence and me just sighing and trying to pry his hands off, then remarking occasionally that loving him was really the reason i had to be so rational and detached: if anything got to me he'd use it for more violence and oppression. not my bag.

never been my bag. since i was young i've been observant and knew from a single-digit age that girls look like fodder and that girls wear pants, and that my pants only get paid for with a sassy mouth. employing it is, she has said, which is what i've been saying is true, and everyone's been assuring me is a stack of lies i need for manipulation--

--why all this rape and beating has been going down. and that since it's what i've chosen, to face the onslaught and stand strong...all that's left is figuring out ways to stand strong no matter how many people turn against me and break my heart.

and she understood why i found the whole thing with floyd funny, why i think it's hilarious, why it really did go down the way i say it did. being new to me again and kinda freaked out and scared and still tachy from being raped and all--and being told by my therapist that i couldn't choose the healthier option because it wasn't good for him...

she knows he's not seeing it how my past led up to it and that it's still okay that i did what i did.

so everything's calming down. he's not on my mind at all, until just now, as i was processing the last month of sessions. i'm glad we're untangled enough for her to put together all the pieces.

she's saying everything i thought was true and people were trying to threaten and push and beat and rape me out of my convictions about. so it's okay--

--and we have to go back to fatso. i hate calling him that but the years i spent cutting--some of the cuts were his name, to forget it for weeks on end, to see it in my mind as a slur of sljnkied coils. what he did to me was torture and make me eat and eat and eat myself fat. so what do i have to sling back? his reason when he started abusing me back when we were teens...he was sad that he'd been picked on: "fat!"

and that isn't really the reason you beat and yank and push and lob heavy objects at and steal from and make fun of and rape and enjoy raping, enjoy it with a drooling smile, your "first love."

toothpick thorns: soothsayer swarms

finally we have a good tempo, finally i'm remembering enough that i jot down to mention it in sessions. finally i'm starting to feel like myself, and marci is a little like me, not wanting to believe people can say and do such shitty things.

it's the only way to become a good psychiatrist, anyway--but now nurses need a PhD to practice psychiatry...and nursing has so many other options i'm curious! still...marci agrees that what is key is to focus on my ultimate goals, and she doesn't want me committing to nursing until we know it's the best way to do what i'm passionate about. she isn't seeing the passion and isn't keen on me doing something that really could take time away from my art.

but, ha, today she said something that i've been waiting to hear from another flesh&blooder: it's probably because my memory is so exacting and so long, just so fucking good, that i'm so easily retraumatized. i told her that i had to do whatever it took to forget after floyd and i had our song&dancd of dissonance, forget forget forget, but that it's all muddled and stuck in my body instead.

so i like my original idea of being a radiology technician. no need to worry about not getting a well-paying job because nurses need to communicate with their patients, and i see myself working a normal, integrated job. BECAUSE ALL I GOTTA DO IS POINT&SHOOT

which is not true

because i see details so quickly and so clearly when other people say AIN'T NOTHIN' THAR

but i don't see why i shouldn't do what feels best

we are, after all, possibly no longer cocooned by glitz. we might get some fucking action like every lost soul--gaza isn't the only warrior in town--across the sea.

and i really wish my pussy rings would sell

and

and

and

but i really like living a quarter of a block

from one of the most beautiful parks and

i even think i don't just have an amazing idea for a novel

i have more than just a few fleshed-out characters and a plotline

i have a better knowledge of the history surrounding this thing

the other idea is so badass but it eludes me, the setting, so I can research--

--NYC, huh? it does seem the only city in this country willing to overlook a deaf person working a normal job prior to the last half-century. *cough*chicago*cough

and whatever clint does in life

hopefully in mine

i'm on a bookshelf.

Everybody's Love, Love, Love

Everybody's Love

When a pair of lips murders

Some old song

On its way out, the handle

Laden in your hand out of politeness

And you police your thoughts

Lest they become haughty

Or haunted with the harsh light 

In the corner dim

Every nanosecond, like a cockroach

It just keeps twitching 

The eternal dying, like a champ...

...it is then, you find, that compassion

Has a reel: the way it unwinds

Each cool weight drags

Out a bicycle chain without a pocket.

Concerts roil in you

Despite not wearing sunglasses

On your way

Into the slippery grip

Of this white tile linoleum 

(To buy a pop.)

Manufactured to endure billions of toddlers

The scrape is shallow.

the serenade in the soliloquy

i have to talk about floyd.

we made it through to the meat.

marci's been talking about how all the weird shit people pulled

just got to me. she's finally starting to agree that i clearly reached a stage in my life when none of it got to me; i'm all: lalala, yep, but what nobody really knows is how much i love floyd. and i won't let myself touch it. i can't think, work, function; i'm trying to be me without allowing myself to be me. my most authentic self was while we were pals. he didn't treat the blonde pink-tufted fauxhawk like i was being fake. or like i'm not pretty enough to pull it off. what i did for myself like losing a little weight, eating more healthily again...that was well-received. actually, actually wearing makeup--he was all, that's for me? sorry, girl, i ain't into you like that.

which was what i needed. wanted. he's the left half of the rorschach. none of the mr. rights line up exactly, but they have lined up in one way. with him and the others. greg is so cute i could have fallen for him but i'm ugly right now! anyway, greg, the monster. i was petrified for months.

then jenny was sage. floyd was sweet.

and greg was awesome. i thought he seemed stable. not prone to violence. after. after everything. it's like a poem. he peels away. he's beautiful when it shines.

the diamond.

so floyd was amazing but everyone who raped me about the autobiography said they were doing it to save floyd from the autobiography.

so if i die he's fine. if not, she hates me, she ruined my life, is what they say they need to rape me to teach me--to save him. to teach me that men will stop women from ruining other men.

and they don't even rate the book. hah.

one of them was really mean afterward about how fat i was, which i laughed off because we had met several times over the weekend, and he was the one who was cool about it until he could text how fat i was. they always say they can't believe how incredible the sex was or how i was fuming the whole time and that me spitting hateful attacks to try to get out of having sex didn't make it fun at all. kind of the point. ruin my night, yours is just as ruined. so it is always guys who really like the sex and the conversation but hate that i won't do everything they demand. they kick me out and wait until i'm too far away to text me that i'm fat and a pity fuck. i had a pretty great body when i saw greg but his number got blown away and i was too drunk with my camera in my hands at 3:30 in the morning.

and the kid was all, no, don't, leave it! don't you like me? he was taller and lithe, and could have grabbed the paper.

instead, the kid, only 23, someone I was fine sleeping in my jammies with talking up a storm with at 32, got ultra-jealous, and i was like, it would be gross so no, and greg was cute and normal. he had been kind of angry when we 'd first met. my burning quest wasn't for a kiddie set of loins. over it!

it was to ask "what's changed in your life to make you so happy?"

and that's when I start fluttering. his eyes are--

--but the fucking kid. and after 15 minutes of elbowing him in the ribs and not wanting to kick out some stupid nerd at 4:30a...

it's all ruined again.

fucking blind tiger! every time i have a nice encounter there some jerk fucking rapes me. 

i do not need 23-year-olds who know nothing about life. Insecurity isn't good for sex. i wanted to give greg the magic 8 ball book.

it's about him being my magic 8 ball.

and the outcome rocked.

the strangle squad

so i was putting on eyeliner and mascara for my 92 of shame back to adams morgan, since jon b.&john-boy usually escorted me to parties. i felt pretty so experimentation with contact lenses led to prettier eyes. anyway. we had a weekend routine. party together and separately friday, crash, meet saturday night, party together and separately, split up sunday until monday for partying and crashing.

so i was applying purple eyeliner. and they slammed in. stormed in. I ignored them because jon was always like, they are just bitches, skanky asshole fuckers, let me call them whatever i want!

and i draw the line at sluts but whatever. i just stopped him at that line. we maneuvered it icily.

so they came up to me in his communal bathroom and one grabbed me by the neck. slammed me against the body-length mirror by the exit as someone kept an ear. and three were threatening me, really making me laugh inside with their mean comments about how i'm too ugly to deserve him. which is why my best friend is keeping an ear out, pretending she doesn't see. she's cracking up inside too.

if you don't keep laughing at the absurdity of a meat face your best friend is always saying he has to push out of his and find time to bitch to me about over a pizza...you'll freak out that she has a hand around your neck.

when you tell him he flips the fuck out. when you tell him not to do anything he fucks the pretty one win the two first names. she looks at you like "i stole your man." this is the last day. i meet his parents  half an hour later.

he looks at me sheepishly and then we realize he was hoping for one last good time. but he's out of time and admits as much. he blinks too much when he's ashamed of himself and you almost appreciate that more than anything he's said all year, all the sexism and all the times you smirk that you're not the one he's with when he's particularly rude about some poor girl, a girl you love and respect, a girl you're glad he's telling you about because his secrets are theirs to keep. so you do.

and you're glad there's nothing to wring out of. no end-of-year kisses to make up for a romance you both hated for its tie to this glamorous blonde he thinks has an inner bitch lurking in me. so there, your eyes dance all lit like sun-glazed rosettes when he comes out in tears: "she stole my brotherhood jersey!"

and that is when he nods. he knows his friend has raped me and that he waited a scholastic year per some agreement. that he hit me for being afraid after his friend tried to fuck me and i flipped out for three nights crying as much as seven tiers of bridal chocolate fountain. he knows everything has been a charade, that we talked when alison said i looked at him so disdainfully it was like i hated him. that we talked about being in love with each other but having a friendship. it stayed that way and i didn't want to be bitter. before the internet there were perfect endings.

so he was like, yeah, i thought i'd get revenge on you. fuck you, you only get 30 minutes of my time. but looking at you, i have so much to say and there's never going to be time to fill that gap.

and then at the end he ran out crying, right, at me, and stopped short. by his shithead expectations he was stopped shorter than a bus.

he never was the right choice, but he really knew what he was losing then.

flank by flank

floyd is nothing but a gentleman. i can't just pretend he wasn't someone essential because when i do i forget what's most essential.

and it is quintessential.

but john-boy and jon b. were my best friends.

and john-boy was honestly hotter up close. i was freaking out thinking he would try and i knew i'd be exposed as someone totally heartbroken over it--jon b. hit me once and said really mean things about my looks, and i remember the girls choking me in the bathroom once. one of my best girl friends just pretended she didn't see. thanks, girl.

ain't you got my back.

and thankfully it was the boys' bathroom. they didn't know he'd left for practice. i left before he got back to go home and shower and change and eat and give him time for nookie with a new cookie, since we just slept in the same bed so we could be a bitter married couple early on.

so years later:

"you know, that was the first time had orgasms from sex, almost."

"what!? you never told me!"

"why? i was 19! no way was i gonna tell you you were going to be my first yummy he's favoritest sex! you already were! i was just getting my g-spot stroked at the perfect angle--"

"but i thought i wasn't getting through! it'd been two and a half hours, four if you count everything!"

"oh, another thirty seconds--trust me, i know now--"

"you never told me! i thought i just sucked for you!"

"so i ruined everything?"

"yeah."

twice. the second time was really fun and i so, so close.

but he was all, never mind, i can't fall in love again, this is going to turn out worse than bad; i need to party hard and forget someone, not do this, you know? i've been dying to do this the second you left and now you're back, but i've just gotten used to fucking around--

--and being with you

i would never forget.

but let's have a date.

so he hit me to make me remember one night, and that night

i knew i should have taken a chance on john-boy.

listen.

sometimes the whisper pierces deepest.

but that night it was just me, the b

and my complete innocence when he said we should make tacos.

he has never liked my face.