Goodbye to all that

Dear Dave,

#Fuck2016 is trending on Twitter, and I agree.

I can't believe you are in the ground.

I can't believe you are the second ex from high school who appears to have died of suicide.

I can't believe we never talked about these feelings of hopelessness. How did we hide them from each other?

Because I was there too. I wanted things to just stop hurting. I wanted to not feel like I wanted to die anymore. I just wanted the pain to go away.

Things are far from perfect, but it was worth sticking around. I'm so, so sorry you found it too painful to do so.

I wanted to lose my virginity to you. We tried, I got too nervous, it didn't work. You were patient.
You never knew about the subsequent assault, in between times we went out. 

I didn't realize how significant a role you played in my healing. You were the first guy I went out with who never pressured me, who let me do things on my terms. I went back and forth on you, I saw other people and then went back to you when I felt like it, and you were always OK with it. And when I decided I wanted to just be friends, you were OK with that too.

I wish I had known the kind of pain you were in. I wish I could have comforted you. I wish I would have thought to reach out to you and say hello, instead of having you simply occupy a fond space in my memory.

Your obituary read, simply, "At peace, in Monterey." I hope so. This song is all I can think of.

Dear potential dates~

Dear potential dates,

I don't remember dating being such a pain in the ass, or perhaps I just have selective memory.

From our holiday bag project at work...we got 2,000 condoms donated...I love my job!

Here is a list of conditions/dealbreakers I never thought I'd have to make. FYI:

1. DO NOT request anything involving pee. Ever. Period. I do not have any interest in anything in this area EXCEPT PEEING ON MY OWN, WITH MY DOOR CLOSED, WHEN I NEED TO. Why the hell does this keep happening?!

2. It's not a moment of brilliance when you feel compelled to say, "I like the woman to have her orgasm first" ... out of nowhere, when we haven't even kissed. (Yes, more than one person has done this.) And...Really? How fucking generous of you! Only one? I have vibrators that can do better than that.

3. Before you request anal sex, I require you to have experience it first, on the receiving end. Pun intended. Then tell me how you feel.

4. If I say I don't want to go out again, don't ask me. Especially don't ask me five more times.

5. If you feel the urge to send flowers to my office after I say I don't want to see you again, refer to condition #4.

6. Don't ask me about how your dick stacks up to anyone else's.

7.  Really. Don't. Ask.

8. I told you not to ask.

9. If you have a stash of Viagra, tell me about it. I date older guys, I get it. There's no shame. Don't spring it on me by surprise and leave me wondering if I'm going to be there for five minutes, and be like, "What?" or an hour, and have to limp home.

10. Speaking of which, if you need Viagra, FUCKING GET SOME.

Surfacing

Thanks to all of my blog and offline friends who have been so supportive during my divorce and the other shit this year. For the handful of people who have simply stopped communicating with me since I announced this, I have no interest in your husbands, you idiots!

I'm incredibly thankful for all of the rest of you. I wanted to give a shout out to my cyber buddy Matthew Williams, whose online insights on dating and divorce and living with depression have really resonated and gotten me through more than one bad day! Plus he's just a cool guy and good writer. I encourage you to check him out.

 I'm going to try to make the rounds and catch up on your blogs a bit over this post-apocalyptic holiday. I still feel, as one of my colleagues put it, that I woke up next to Rod Serling's corpse.

Instead of focusing on that, I choose Snoopy. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

PS The dating adventures continue...but that's another post. No one else has asked me to give them a blow job while they pee, thank God!

Of warrants, sex toys, and peeing

If you haven't figured it out from the subject line: I went on an online dating website. I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and meet new people, because even though I meet a lot of people through work, I don't want to shit where I eat.

WENT. As in, past tense. As in...oh holy fuck, I have to get this out of my system and share it with you people.

First off, sorry for the long absence. Just when I think I am turning the corner from depression this year, I am right back where I started. I really appreciate the support from my friends in blogland who have been checking in on me, especially as I get ready to go over the hill next week. (More on that later.)

So, I was married for 11 years, and needless to say I'm out of practice at dating. I missed the whole online thing and the smart phone revolution (read: naked pictures) happened while I was married.

I get that in dating as in life, you have to meet a lot of idiots and creeps before you meet people you like. It's a fucking tall order, trying to find someone who 1. isn't a creep, 2. isn't an idiot, 3. DOESN'T OFFER TO SEND YOU NAKED PICTURES OR ASK YOU IF YOU'D BE UP FOR GIVING HIM A BLOW JOB WHILE YOU PEE.

Um. WAT. You say? It's true. I had that come up as a "theoretical" question.

Some of my favorite doozies:

1. A message from someone who looked at my online profile. "I have no wants or warrants out for my arrest." Oh really? Glad we got that out of the way...

2. Sexting etiquette. Two people messaged me offering naked pictures "on request," because "I'm a gentleman" and wouldn't send them unsolicited. Oh. My. GOD. How about never? Does never work for you?

3. People who wax poetic about things like architecture and books in their online profiles, and then message you with questions like, "Are you into anal? How about beads?" Not making this up.

4. 25-year-old idiots who ignore the age filters. I am turning 40 next week! I am old enough to be your mama!! Not only that, you're probably living in your parents' basement, don't have a car, and won't be any good in bed, because you're 25. End. Of. Story.

A tip for the uninitiated: women don't ever have to go online for sex. If we ever get truly desperate, there is always an ex or a friend waiting in the wings. And we know better than that anyway. Most of us have invested in products with batteries.

So there you go. Stay tuned for part 2...because there are more horror stories to make you laugh.

Hope all is well in your worlds.

Celebrity fuck your way to wellness!

As I've mentioned here I have been in therapy recently. One of the things my therapist recommended was a workbook with some mindfulness skills.

Even though that was the section I was supposed to read, having OCD, I like to finish things (like books) from start to finish. So I started reading from the beginning of the workbook. Topics included "pleasurable distractions" when moods crash.

Among these suggestions, and I kid you not...

"Imagine the top 10 celebrities you want to have sex with. Write detailed encounters."

Um. Really? As a guy friend told me, "Writing about a fantasy with a celebrity who doesn't know I exist would make me even more depressed!"

At this point in the book, I wondered aloud, "I wonder if all of the authors are male?" (Yep.) I suppose they could rebrand this book, or at least this section, with "how to use your shitty moods to inspire your hidden talent for writing erotica."

Now, mind you, the book was worth $11.99 just for the amount of laughter it has generated for me and for friends!

Another "pleasurable distraction" was to "have sex with someone you are interested in and care about."

Yeah, if I was that person, that motivation would make me feel good. "Hey, RK! I was reading this psychological workbook and it told me to go have sex with you as a distraction." Goody.

Or, better, "And I'm choosing you, RK, because the book said to pick you, because I care about you and am interested in you. As opposed to the hot blonde down the street that I'm just screwing for fun." 

How do you distract yourself when you're in a bad mood?

My hometown rape culture

Since the grief, triggering and rage that was Monday, learning about the verdict in the Stanford rape case, I've written and re-written this post in my head.
*A ninja edit: I love Joe Biden!*

Like millions of other people, the emotional rollercoaster between those three kept going around and around. And I don't want to be silent about it. Not anymore.

Stanford is in my hometown. The judge that is now up for recall was elected in the county where my family still lives.

In high school, we were warned not to go to Stanford frat parties because we heard girls got raped there. We stayed away. It didn't protect us.

Apparently the law still can't, either.

Even after decades of feminism, of advocacy, of public awareness campaigns, it is being argued that "alcohol and promiscuity" are to blame for a violent crime.

This rape culture existed in my hometown in the 1990s. Some things, apparently, don't change.

More even than the ridiculously light six month sentence are the ludicrous objections to any sentence at all by the rapist, Brock Turner, and his family. His father, it seems, is more interested in whining about him being so "depressed" that he no longer craves his favorite steak, than showing any concern whatsover about the woman he treated like a piece of meat.

This tells us what we have always heard before: don't tell. 

No one will believe you.
Your name will be dragged through the mud.
It isn't worth it.

And our internal voices told us: just blame yourself.
Which is what so many of us have done.

The longer I am involved in advocacy, the more people come to me and disclose that too many of us - far, far to many of us - have been suffering in silence.

Brock Turner's father wrote in a letter to the judge that his son would never be the same. Turner himself complained that he had already lost two jobs because of "this." This, bucko, is the fact that you raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. Clearly he thought of her as trash.

Try living with PTSD for 25 years. Try burying things that happened to you when you were 14 because the handful of people you tried to talk to 1. didn't believe you (therapist), 2. couldn't handle it and changed the subject (family), 3. groped you and tried to get it on with you when you just needed a hug (male friend. Yes, really. He's a district attorney in upstate New York now.)

Try living and reliving this in your nightmares and having lifelong trust issues and only recognizing it now.

My boss said he hadn't signed the petition to recall this judge because "it's not here, I can't vote to recall him, so I really can't do anything about it."

I disagreed. I told him what I thought: expressing outrage, protesting, sends a message around the nation and the world that this is fucking unacceptable. That no one should be afraid of coming forward because they're afraid of being humiliated. That rape is never, never the victim's fault. That it is a violent crime that should be punished like any other violent crime.

After the triggers, after the hot, angry tears all through my drive home Monday, I decided that I am not going to be silent anymore, in hopes that other people will believe it should be OK to speak up.

If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Sexual Assault Helpline at 800.656.HOPE (4673.)

Surfacing to say...

Go buy this book! My friends over at A Beer for the Shower have been kind enough to check in on me throughout all of my symptomatic shit, even though they are busy as fuck with their new release, and so I am sending a big hug towards Colorado. (Did I swear enough in that sentence? I fucking hope so.)

Humor is how I get through the day, and it probably saved my life these past few months. And I don't think I know anyone funnier than these two. So, Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now? Go buy this e-book and they'll send you a signed copy free of charge, because apparently they don't want to make any money. (Hint: you can always buy the Kindle version and offer to pay them for the hard copy.) At $2.99, it's cheaper than a trip to Starbucks, unless you're one of these people who waltz in there and ask for a venti iced water with light ice. (Yes, I have seen people do this.)

I hadn't planned an extended absence but between getting divorced and my grandmother's cancer, my brain kind of went splat. I'm feeling much more like myself this past week. I found a great therapist who took one look at my intake form and said, "Wow, there's a lot of mental illness in your family, isn't there?"

Nothing like validation!

Fortunately, one of the things I live with is OCD, which, no joke, allows for great organizational skills. It allowed me to pull off an event like this without an assistant, during a week I was debating a trip to the hospital. 

Seriously, thanks to all of you who have been checking in on me during my time of hermiting and licking my wounds. If you or anyone you know needs help, please reach out. Help is available.
It does get better.

Words for Wednesday: for reals

First off, I'm hoping this time around I'm not getting any more lecturers from prudes. Thanks to all of you who supported me during that fuckery!

This has been a week where I've been presented with situations that cause me to ask, "For real?" (Or more honestly, "Are you fucking kidding me?")

My ex has a sleep study tonight to see how bad his sleep apnea is. He was given a printed list of instructions of what *not* to do during said study, including:
- Taking sleep aids
- Bringing guests (reminder, this study is done in a sleep lab, not your house)
- Masturbate

Which means that enough people have done ALL of these things that it necessitates such an instruction list!

Meanwhile, a friend who is an attorney is banging his head against the wall because a jury is coming out with questions like this: "Was there a dashcam in the undercover cop car that captured the drug sales?"

Yes, really. I reminded him that dumb people can make it onto juries. Given the current mistrust of law enforcement, he said these days everyone wants to act like they're on CSI.

Another interesting tidbit: volunteering last Saturday, I saw a guy who I hadn't seen since my first night volunteering back in September. It was good to see him - he said he usually doesn't come on Saturdays, which is the only night I can get out there - because when you don't see people for awhile, you wonder if something bad has happened to them.

Anyhow, I was wearing a Beatles t-shirt and he said back in 1965, he bought a ticket to see them for $1.50, and decided to skip the concert and go to the beach instead! "And," he said, "I've been regretting it ever since."

I'm thinking about starting another blog with stories like this from the people I meet volunteering. A lot of people don't think about homeless individuals having stories, lives, etc. It helps take some of the stigma away if you chat with a person.

So my words for Wednesday are:
Beatles
undercover
instructions
dash cam
ticket
stories

Words for Wednesday (idiocy version)

I'm sorry to say that event season can be idiot season. Or as a friend says, "I'm afraid I think that every season is idiot season!"

*A ninja edit for those who feel they need to correct my language. If you can't handle the word fuck, don't visit this blog. I don't appreciate lectures. I'm going through a divorce and have a loved one with terminal cancer, and I am entitled to say fuck, thank you very much!*

Case in point. Sunday, I get an email from someone that has our 5,000 person event name in the subject line and he says, "Hey, RK! I'll be there. Let me know any details I need to know."

I thought, since he got my email address from the event website itself, that no one could possibly send an email so moronic...so I asked if he was the one from his organization hosting their table.

"No, I just plan to show up. What do I need to know? See you there? "

Yes. Really. Because there are only, like, 12 of us coming.

Another call. "It says to enter my fundraising goal. What should I put?"

Maybe I should give you 50 cents to call someone who gives a shit?

In addition to being the IT whisperer, I am also expected to be the idiot whisperer.

Then my least favorite person in the organization (and we have about 2,000 members in our state, so that is saying a lot) keeps calling and emailing with questions like, "Can you send me the direct link that shows this information?" (Tip for the uninitiated: he created the link.)

So my words are:
Idiocy
Fuck
Platypus (someone else suggested that while I was typing. Please don't fuck platypus.)
Painful
Crying
Fuckery (this shit deserves two fucks, methinks.)

Have fun. 

PS I will visit blogs as soon as the fuckery dies down a bit.

Words for Wednesday (annoyed version)

Hello! First of all, I *love* all of the contributions from last week! I'm still catching up on blogs and will check out the ones who posted on your own pages. Once again, I am taking over for the wonderful Sue of the Elephant's Child blog.

And just for the hell of it, because it made me howl with laughter and prompt a family member to see what the hell was going on, I'm including this amazing illustration from my friend She Who Seeks' blog post about Bunnies Behaving Badly. Don't you wish there was a Little Golden Book like this when you were growing up? Maybe I'll write one.

My words this week are ANNOYED. Because, once again, it's event season. Did I mention that I am the first person in this role who does not have a full-time assistant (no assistant at all, actually) for this event? Which is the largest one in our field of advocacy in our state? OCD works for me! Seriously, I told my boss everyone who has this job in the future will require that (my) diagnosis to get all of the details taken care of.

Some of the things going on daily...

1. People who have no business trying to register online expecting me to be their personal tech guru. Use a fucking paper form! Really, this is an option! You don't have to join the 21st, or even 20th, century for this event.

2. Said people bitching about why we can't make the website easier, telling me how they loved the last website, when they bitched about the last one too!

3. The same people emailing all of their team members about me, telling them I'll fix any technical support issue they have.

I truly love advocacy work, and I don't mind the fundraising. But for the love of God, I'm not IT!

So here are my words for Wednesday:

Shoo
Irritable
Bother
Whine
Voodoo
Scream
Fuck
Off

I am allowed six to a dozen, so there you have it.

Words for Wednesday

Hello! I'm at least temporarily out of my cat cave. I'm sorry for the absence and will visit your blogs soon.

My good friend Sue at the Elephant's Child blog passed the torch on to me for Words for Wednesday.
The skinny: I give you words, you run with (and write with) them if you so choose.

This has been a trying time, so I am choosing words that represent things I take solace in:

Coffee
Profanity
Cats
Flowers
Cards
Writing

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Sure, buy me a muffin. Who are you?

Is it me, or is way too much texting done for work these days?

As a general precaution I sometimes exchange cell phone numbers with people in case something comes up DOE.

But it's a bit weird to get a text like this, from an unknown number:

"Sorry about all the emailing you had to do to make sure I had the right time. Will make it up to you Friday. Will BUY YOU A MUFFIN!"

Really? How about telling me who the hell you are first? And...who capitalizes muffin? Ever?

It's just about event time, which means 1. I will have PMS that week, and 2. I start to get unreasonable requests.

I got this meal request from someone the other day:

Mind you...she has come to this event every year for the past 8 years and had no restrictions. Also, what is with the "no soda or chocolate or MSG?" Does she think we're going to force feed her soda and chocolate Chinese food? Just curious.

Update: Today, she called to un-RSVP. In lieu of attendance, she wants me to write up a synopsis of what each speaker says. Since we're going to have 300+ guests, that should be no problem, right?

Anything ridiculous going on in your lives?

People I would like to tell to fuck off

No, a complete list cannot fit in this very small space.

I'm sorry for the long absences. Mr. RK and I are getting divorced. Although it is the right thing, it sucks. I have slept well about one night in 2016, which makes it difficult to do just about anything else that isn't absolutely necessary.

We're very lucky to have awesome friends who are like adopted family supporting us through this - and to those of you who are reading this now, big hugs from Oregon.

To the random people who know us only peripherally and have been giving us advice, two words: FUCK OFF! And to the people who have started flirting (or worse), you can fuck YOURSELVES.

And a few questions.

1. I'm the same person I was a few months ago. Why do you (guys) think it's suddenly appropriate to A. Flat out ask me to sleep with you, or B. Start paying me lots of attention and think I won't figure out why?

2. Why is it that suddenly some of you people (even ones who are currently in shitty relationships) see fit to give personal advice? I have been told A. To never give up! (As if two consenting adults realizing that they will be much happier apart than together, even though it will be temporarily very painful, is giving up or taking the easy way out.) B. To not start dating immediately, but stay home and be celibate. I should just tell all of these people I have a very expensive/very effective vibrator. (Yes, when it comes to those, you definitely get what you pay for.) C. Generally insert opinions where they are not wanted, when they have not been invited. (I can think of a place they can be inserted, let me tell you.)

3. Religious relatives emailing me and telling me why there is, in their opinion, a Biblical justification for the split (even though I am not a Christian and not their brand of evangelical) when I didn't ask.

4. Religious relatives offering vitamin supplements to help the stress go away. (No, I am not making this up.)

I miss everyone in the blogging community. It has just been a struggle to do the basics (work, daily obligations) and try to make sure everyone involved comes out intact. I will visit as soon as I get unburied from some of this load.

Yours truly,

RK

I have eaten the communication breakdown burger, and it tastes terrible!

There are more stressful than usual things afoot here. Sorry for the hiatus and I will visit you all soon!

In the meantime, here is a big, open FUCK YOU, POTTERY BARN!

I have a marketing background. Obviously, whoever you hired to do your marketing is smoking crack. Or pot, more likely. Because only someone completely stoned would have this brainstorm:

Hmm, someone ordered a comforter from our website.
I know! Let's sign them up for EVERY EMAIL LIST FOR EVERY COMPANY WE OWN! And let's make them unsubscribe INDIVIDUALLY, EACH TIME, FROM EACH LIST! Even though she may not have heard of some of these places!

Fuck you, Pottery Barn! I may just send your marketing department some edible penises, or used sex toys.

Get thee the fuck out of my state, Vanilla ISIS!

Can I just say, it's really demoralizing when the state you live in makes national news for a) shitty weather, b) your Governor thinking with his dick, and c) Caucasian terrorists from out of state camping out in the gift shop of a park in your state, "defending" two people whose families don't want Caucasian terrorists defending them.

As Ebony magazine points out, there's a whopping double standard in the fact that these armed jackasses aren't called terrorists (read: they're white.) Twitter put it well: "Armed black people are called thugs. Armed brown people are called terrorists. Armed white people are called militias."

Meanwhile, I have been laughing my ass off about #YokelHaram, #VanillaISIS, #YallQaeda, etc. These jerkoffs don't deserve any respect. Anyone who needs to storm a gift shop (yes, they're in the gift shop), armed, has got to be hung like a peanut.

In other news, the rest of the country is *also* laughing at us, because a few inches of snow shut down our entire metro area for the better part of today. Did that stop anyone from driving like an idiot? Come on! This is Oregon, after all.

I plan to catch up on blogs very soon. What's going on in your neck of the woods?