The biggie toe on my right foot is infamous.

Specifically the toenail. It has fallen off so many times from random spectacular injury it’s a wonder the nailbed matrix still allows for regrowth.

The first time I ever injured the toe I was nine, this was also the first time I ever passed out incidentally. (I have passed out so many times it’s impossible to know the number, 300(+?) and if you think I’m exaggerating…I’m not.) We were on our annual family vacation, one of, if not my favorite place in the world: Lake Powell. With 2900 miles of shoreline, it is a massive lake with breathtaking views, bright burnt orange rocks shooting up out of the water 600 feet in the air, waterfalls, and warm water that is begging to be swam in, middle of the night or middle of the day. Home to one of the largest natural arches in the world and it is nothing short of magical to see in person. (Better still back then when you were able to ride in a boat right up to the bridge, now it’s a mild and flat one-mile hike. Global fucking warming doesn’t exist right?)

We were staying on a houseboat for the week, with two other families (sleeping on the top, under the stars is simply unmatched!) and on this particular night we’re having hot dogs. They’re being cooked, and after a day of swimming, skiing, boating, sea-dooing and tubing I was ravenous, and in no mood to wait! I grabbed a hot dog bun, thinking I’m being funny, running out of the kitchen area with the mom’s hollering behind me I run down the gangplank and onto the beach. Success! About to stuff my face, my friend caught up to me on the beach and she lets out a high-pitch scream. I jump in response, looking at her face thinking she’s injured, but she’s staring at my foot and pointing; she hasn’t stopped screaming.

I look down at my foot and see blood. Lots of blood.

I feel the blood drain my face and I’m falling. My dad was there in the nick of time to catch me, already running when he heard the blood-curdling scream. I wake up back inside the houseboat on the couch, no idea how I got there. I was just on the beach..?!

“You’re alright, you’re alright…you just passed out. …But this is going to hurt.”

Before I can react, my dad flips my toenail, that was all the way back, touching the top of my big toe…in the wrong direction, and holy bejeezus he was not kidding!

“Yoowwwww!”

He already had a bucket of water ready, mixed with Epsom salt and he placed my pulsating toe and foot into the bucket. The bucket quickly went from clear to red.

“I feel funny aga—”

I wake up a second time with a bandaged toe, elevated on pillows. I’m sweating like a ran a mile, but I’m cold and clammy at the same time. To say I was dazed and confused is putting it mildly.

What just happened?! A blur of blood and beach: the beginnings to a very cursed toe.

Now, let’s jump to the future, many faintings and phalange fiascos later.

Just another night at home, like any other—I'm cooking dinner while putting groceries away and my son decides it's skating time. One of his current favorite pastimes is putting on old school-style skates that are I don't know? 4x too big for him? Large, Bigfoot-footed adult skates.

This night he's got them on and he whizzes by me—so I holler at him to get out of the kitchen while I’m cooking, or go in the front driveway, but I'm busy in the kitchen now. Maybe 10 minutes goes by and he's back, desperately needing to ask me something. I turn towards him, and in the same motion, the big clodhopper skate rolls right over the cursed toe!

Not only did pasta sauce end up on the ceiling, but a newly purchased, unopen bottle of vodka goes down! Crashes everywhere in the kitchen! All of this happening so quickly…a true domino effect.

Then the sick and diabolical twist—my toenail flips off completely, toppling onto the rug. Not even a second later our dog laps it up and fucking eats it...as a damn snack! This shitstorm of chaos all unfolds within literal seconds. But no, that’s simply not enough. Where does the sauce on the ceiling have to go? Nowhere but down. I'm trying to keep our nasty-ass toenail-eating favorite dog away from the glass, along with my skating child, and my injury-prone-self, while gravity does its job. The pasta sauce falls down from the ceiling, splatting spectacularly: right on my fucking FACE!

Cursed toe or cursed life? Debatable.

There are more Cursed Toe Chronicles to come my clandestine cronies!

Toenail snacks for all!

Buy me an espresso, please?!☕

(Much better than toenails.)

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A love still, but it’s not the same now. It’s also a loss.

Like any other love in life it has the potential to break your heart just as much as it has the potential to make you great.

I was driven, because not only did I love everything about the sport, I was good; I was passionate, and it showed. When everyone left practice, my dad and I might stay another hour or two practicing perfect penalty kicks, ball control, and the pass that always gets to my teammate, the most important play of the game: “the assist.”

There’s no indecision in my head about my skills, it was earned. In fact, my club played Alex Morgan a couple of times, and we beat her team (let’s be honest, she’s a striker…we had to beat her to win) and we did, both times. Not because we were “better,” but rather, consistent as an atomic clock.

I spent my summers at sleepaway soccer camp at a university that allowed us to learn from professional footballers from the UK, and beyond. Still to this day I might get an itch and start singing out loud, “She’s got a pineapple on her ‘ed! She’s got a pineapple on her ‘ed!” A joke the trainers poked at our huge buns on top of our heads, bouncing around as we played in 110 degree heat, having a ball!

It wasn’t just the fun, physicality I needed to keep my neurodivergent mind in a state of stasis, or “nowness” (not that I knew I was neurodivergent), but it also gave me a community of accountability. Leadership without having to be a leader, just fitting into the roll as natural as air. My domineering and determined dad; my interrelational mother, and me…somewhere in the middle. Yes, I was captain of my club for years, on the same team for 9 years, consistent as an atomic clock. I didn’t ask for it, it was given, my entire team unanimously voted for me. I took the honor as seriously as I took the game itself.

My father will still tell anyone who will listen his favorite moment, the championship game of our home-hosted tournament one year. It was memorable. The other team’s best player, their forward, couldn’t get past me. Every attempt: failed. The first half she head-butted me in the back of the head jumping up for a head-ball that I won, she received a yellow card. The second half, I was back in the game, and she was so frustrated that her every attempt was outplayed, every juke—junked. So embarrassed and frustrated after I won the ball from her, towards the end of the game she slapped me across the face. So. Fucking. Hard. Like she meant it. The whole tournament stopped, hearing the slap like a whistle, but with a helluva lot more drama behind it! I did nothing. Well, not nothing. I actually smiled and started laughing with the reddest handprint blazing on my right cheek. She got the red…we got the win, from the free kick I scored from the offense. It was cosmic karma, and my dad thought it was the best thing he ever saw. “You didn’t retaliate.” So proud.

My mother was proud for an entirely different reason. My coach ended up making a speech at the end of the tournament, congratulating us on a well-deserved 1st place tournament win, but then he did something he had never done before. He turned attention to me, directly. He said he couldn’t understand how I could be so rigid and determined, the playmaker, and at the same time, be the fun, laughing, sharing center of the team, never taking the spotlight from anyone. (Other than the slap, obviously.) He then looked at my parents, both there, for once, and it all made sense. A split of the two, right down the middle. He gave me his coach’s award, saying I did more for the team, for our girls, than he ever could. I’m still tearing up thinking back on it now.

But, that was not my reality outside of my club. In school soccer was politics; horrible politics. Our rival team’s trainer was the head coach of our varsity team, and no, even though every single girl in my school knew I had the skills, I was not chosen. In fact, I wasn’t even allowed to be on the junior varsity team, because his second in command was the coach of that team. Other schools nearby were trying to poach me, telling me they’d gladly put me on varsity as a freshmen if I switched schools.

To add literal injury to insult, the best player on the fuckin’ [Arsenal] team was my bully. Quickly: she invited me to a slumber party one year, which was suspect, but I went. She was always mean, so I usually kept my distance. When I refused to freeze her sister’s bra she told me she wanted to talk to me. She lured me into her closet and suddenly scratched me from neck to non-existent breasts (at the time) with both hands. She said through gritted teeth, “You will never embarrass me again like that you stupid Bitch!”

The game I loved became a lot of things that had nothing to do with the game.

Honestly, if I had the confidence, I was just as likely to make it to the “big show” as anyone else. I had bested Alex Morgan after all, and anyone else for that matter. My mind was capable, and my love and passion drove my skill. It was ultimately an injury, that the healthcare system didn’t notice, that ended my soccer career. But I was broken long before the small “bone mouse” was chipped from my ankle, hiding in the destroyed tendons and ligaments, and that perfect little groove every single time I took an X-ray, evading podiatrists.

Politics and power destroyed my passion.

I had dreams, nightmares really, up until I was 34-years-old of me on the pitch, playing for my dear life, but I’m doing nothing; I’m going nowhere. I run in place with ball. No matter how hard I try, I cannot move from this place; stuck. Sometimes sinking like quicksand, but always immobile. Always some version of this dream.

I don’t remember my dreams at all anymore, but I know now that I am capable of making any dream I’m passionate about a reality.

Football is the lifeblood of my learned discipline. I’m not broken; I’m battled.

Congratulations to the world, for coming together rather than tearing apart. I’ve seen beautiful, compassionate/passionate persons celebrating, and the politics isn’t winning on the pitch…it’s the passion.

More hope, less harm. (And football forever!⚽)

By me an espresso, please?!☕

I’m not looking to ‘absolve’ myself. I’m not even sure that’s something most people need to do. I’m not out here committing felonies: I’m writing. With audacity. A whole bunch in fact, when society has told me “I don’t have the sauce,” because I didn’t follow the playbook.

I decided not to care one day.

I decided it was about time I started living for myself. I’m not living my mother’s life. I’m certainly not living my dead grandmother’s.

I’ve been living echoes of their expectations long before I was audacious. You might have labeled me bold, even brave maybe, but you would have been seeing a glimmer, trying to surface. Trying to break free, when it doesn’t fit. I don’t fit.

It wasn’t a negative thing. I don’t naturally go to a “hate myself,” or even dislike myself place. I tend to think positively in my natural state, about myself, and others. Toxic positivity was probably a bigger problem: feeling like I can do anything, even when I have very real limits.

• Confession #1: I’ve never completed a single college course. Not a single one. I’ve started at many different colleges, trying different courses, professors that were highly recommended and remembered, by using ‘unique teaching styles.’ The only ‘unique’ thing I witnessed, a professor allowed us to play with fidgets or playdough (kinesthetics), long before the word ‘fidget’ was coined for the term. It made no difference. Yes, there was a mildly humiliating event (mild by my standards, but the article ‘Psych’ has this detailed quickly—I passed out in class, in front of a whole 150 students, NBD.) I’ve tried courses based on passions, interests, curiosities, and again, Pulitzer-prize-worthy professors. None of that mattered. If I were paying attention to my ‘body of work,’ I would have noticed the pattern started long before I attempted college of any kind. If you have my focus (and no, this does not mean I’m focused because I’m sitting quietly, obediently in my seat), I can remember what you say, and I will pass a test on it, with little to no effort. What I’m interested in, and some things I’m not, are retained. My brain might have been off in Fantasia for all you know. Failing due to assignments/homework not being completed, rather than not understanding the lesson. Or being entirely absent. If I were bored…I would just leave, find something else to do with my precious time. My brain was already absent, why not my actual body as well? A professional career became my obvious reality, knowing my track record, and fail after failure, needing to provide for my son as the sole caregiver/breadwinner/give a fuck-parent (whatever you want to call it, I needed a fuckin’ job as a single, and only parent). 52-hours (one week course) and I passed the professional test immediately, while my coworkers had taken the test, and failed, up to 7-times. I say this because I saw more than 15 different people fail, and fail the test more than once. (The average test passing happened on test #3.) I didn’t even study. I retained. I somehow can’t complete a college course to save my life. If it sounds dramatic, it is not without lack of trying, despite what I said, I always imagined myself a graduate. I expected to play sports in college, too. None of what I expected to unfold ever did, life moving, with me falling, stumbling into the position it landed.

• Confession #2: I don’t believe college was built for me. Not because I’m not a child of learning, the opposite, I’m just not meant to be at a desk. My legs wrapped around the chair, then one foot moved under my ass, lifting me up a few inches taller towards my screen, until the foot goes dead, or long after. There are four deep lines in my left palm, not noticing I had been holding my left fist for the entire time I was sat there, my nails leaving near-perma-marks. My right hand making (and don’t come for me, this was a direct quote given to me from a coworker and friend) “Unabomber scribble notes” that would not make sense to the CIA, but make sense to me. (Also, fun fact: my childhood bestie’s dad was Ted Kaczynski’s best childhood friend. They grew up together, not a joke. Wild connections.) Not that my notes are illegible: they’re tiny. They’re upside down on the page, they’re backwards, they’re melding into another, there’s a lot that is strategically scribbled over in multiple directions, with the lines making patterns rather than scribbles. Covering the secret words that cannot be seen, even by me, but the difference? I remember what was underneath, usually forever. In some capacity: retained. If music stops in the room, if there’s silence, I will naturally sing or hum to fill the space. Not because I can’t stand the silence, it’s simply because there is never not a sound in my mind, playing simultaneously to the moment, a soundtrack, a fuckin’ earworm on loop maybe, and usually a new song every day. (God, does it drive me nuts when the song won’t stop for weeks at a time!)

• Confession #3: I don’t want to be fucking medicated to live ‘normally.’ I’m not judging anyone trying, or successfully, using medication for their functioning minds. My own son has been dabbling with medication for his mental health struggles, as an adult he made this conscious choice to try. He also struggles with depression, in ways I will never understand or deal with personally. He is still struggling with PTSD, and how unpredictable it is, in a way that I will never comprehend, because societal failures forced him to live with fucked up people that didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as him. But they did breathe the same air as him, and now he retains very little from the time periods he shared with these fucked up people. I remember everything, and was humbled beyond belief when chemo took this gift from me for the first time. Not remembering is now a legitimate fear I have, and not something to be taken for granted. I confess losing my memoires scares me.

I confess my brain is brilliant, with and without the education that couldn’t retain me.

I’ve been denying my brilliance because I didn’t ‘fit the prototype.’

I’d rather build my own prototype…and I confess: I am fucking capable!

I confess: I am brave enough to be me. Finally.

I’m also open enough to know: confessing is a choice, not a requirement. I want to share, and you’re very welcome here. Who am I to judge?

I’m ‘uneducated.’✨🌀

Buy me and espresso, please?!☕

I woke on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 as any other. Waking up for school, as a sophomore in high school, fifteen years old. One of our closest friends, and neighbor, had stayed over sleeping in my mom’s large bed with her, a common practice when my father was away. My neighbor was like a neighbor, a best friend, and an older sister: she was sixteen when I was born, and ten years younger than my mom, so she was close to both of us…and idolized my mother.

Neither of these women like to be alone, and this particular morning, I was glad we weren’t alone.

I went into my mom’s room to get ready, but I was not ready for what I was about to see.

As if on cue, the moment I walked into the room, the first plane crashed into the tower. They were watching the morning news, and horror played out before our eyes. My mom and Neighbor Girl are immediately frantic!

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Did we really just see that?!” They’re both yelling, and I am no longer in the room. (I say this because my mother genuinely does not remember me being in the room with them.) I stayed in front of that TV, immobile; frozen. A single tear creeping down my face, and not fully understanding, or comprehending anything that is actually happening.

I went to school as if there was nothing wrong, but everything was wrong.

Zombies walking about campus.

The teachers didn’t know what to say, if they should teach, if they should speak at all. Most didn’t. Most of my teachers just had the news on, not bothering to ask how we felt about any of it. This day was memorable for me, for quite a few reasons, not just an act of terror that would affect my country forever, but a personal battle as well.

I was on crutches for an extended period of time right now, a soccer injury. (The final injury.)

I was used to hobbling around, carrying my single side-strap bag across my back. Making it to my 2nd period English class, and this teacher was not one that anyone messed with. She didn’t like me at all, and I was as close to a suck-up as it came! When I came into the classroom, less than a minute late, the lights were already off, with the two TVs bringing the only light in the room.

“Get to your seat.” She says curtly and coldly in the dark from her desk.

I try to speed my actions further, because this quick-command lights a natural fire under my obedient ass!

There’s only about two and a half feet, or less, between these fitted desks, and I’m me, so I catch my crutch and foot on someone’s backpack in the dark. It tightens, wrapped and bound around my ankle, like a scene from a cartoon, jumping away from the oncoming train, but the character doesn’t get out of the way in time!

POW!💥

My foot is pulled out from under me, when the crutch stretches the backpack straps, my face flies forward, crashing right into the texturized wallpapered wall. The crutches banging and clashing in two different directions, still conscious of my injured, and casted leg, it’s up in the air. I flailed, causing me to fall on the flat of my back after the textured face-smack. But I’m not flat, my body is awkwardly laying on two separate backpacks, humps, legs, cast, and LOUD AS FUCK metal of crutches clanging, echoing against the pin drop silent backdrop, that is this ‘mobile classroom,’ made of metal itself, barred window and all.

Nobody wants to laugh right now, but there are some covered laughs, enough to make my teacher give a whiplash, “Silent class!” And they were.

With the class back to silence in seconds, there is no way I am about to clammer my way out of this hole between the desks, louder, more awkward.

But, it does get more awkward, my friends!

When my teacher shot those words, my body reacted. I tried to move as quickly as she said the words, but it was a millisecond of time, and I was a tangled mess on the floor, not able to see what was limb from strap, and the shock of her words re-froze me in place.

It wasn’t just my body that stayed.

My jaw cracked, the moment I froze, a distinct knock-crack sound, and it stayed.

It didn’t hurt exactly, but I lay there, in the dark of the desk-pit of despair, and my jaw is wide open, if not slightly skewed to the right. It is not moving; it is not going back to its normal alignment as it should. I’m on the floor, never getting up, and my jaw is stuck in a perma-open lock.

What the fuck is this?! This has never happened to me before! I’ve had some jaw irritations here and there, but nothing like this! I’m panicking on the floor, quiet, probably not even breathing honestly. I’ve been heard enough for one lifetime, thanks!

That was how the remaining 45 minutes of that class went. Me on the floor, no one touching me, talking to me, or acknowledging me further (including the teacher), jaw open, mimicking the scream I would like to leave my flapping lips, but I’m mortified into muteness. I eventually got up from the floor, as the last one out, not bothering to give my teacher another look or thought. She watched (if she could see) as I struggled out of my hovel, finally.

I spent the entire day with boy after boy telling me they were going to shove their anatomy into my “welcoming mouth”. (You can guess in how many different ways and stylings if it pleases you—a new game, perhaps..?!) Trying to swing my crutches faster, but everyone can keep up with me right now. Taunting me. My virginal ass is humiliated beyond belief.

No one remembers what happened today: my open jaw is the perfect distraction! (At my school, come on.)

How does this tie into now…?

Well, I lost Neighbor Girl last year, gone far too soon from our lives, and suddenly. She was the only person that knew I was writing; that I am writing. That had read some of what I had written, as someone that actually knew me personally. I’ve been grieving her, I’ve been changing things slowly, intentionally.

Living without dimming my light. (Clumsy light or not! And for your pleasure, since we’re all friends here, and since you asked…yes, yes, I did get chosen as ‘Senior Class Most Clumsy’, out of 900 students in my senior class! What a fuckin’ honor!)

Yesterday I didn’t compromise.

We grabbed a few cheeseburgers after a busy day. I ordered through the app, which kept glitching out as we neared the drive-thru, but I finished as we were approaching. I’m allergic to onions, more so raw onions: the gas that makes you cry. It’s been accumulating, getting worse with each onion interaction. Well, there were onions on all the burgers; raw.

We brought the burgers back explaining the allergy and needing to replace them, please. The two workers somehow take it personally, the glitch in the system with the app, made it so I couldn’t pull up the app to provide the “proof” that I asked for no onions on the burgers.

“You really need to be more careful when you’re making your order, see I’m actually allergic to avocado, so I’m really careful when making my order. So yeah, you have to be careful— and you already said, you don’t need to say it again, you’re ‘allergic’.” The worker actually makes the air quotes.

My son, in the driver seat, as an automatic reaction, starts apologizing to the worker, like this is my mistake, or ours, and I now need to feel badly about replacing the food I absolutely cannot eat, and my son taking on the guilt as his own. (An unfortunate habit from growing up with his father, when nothing is okay, or right, without anger. Apologize away the problem. Something he’s working through in therapy, and something I’m unlearning every day.)

I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t loud. I certainly was not being ‘dramatic’.

I didn’t say sorry. I didn’t feel sorry. But, I was already feeling itchy. Everywhere.

I didn’t react. I held steadfast.

“The cheeseburgers with no pickle, absolutely no onion, please, and everything else is fine as it comes: lettuce, tomato, cheese, and sauce. Thank you.”

The window shut in our faces, burger bag all but thrown into the car. My son was angry about the confrontation, that I was barely even part of. Telling me I really didn’t have to get “elevated”.

“Did I raise my voice?”

“No.”

“Did I cause a scene in any way…?”

“No.”

“Was I supposed to just eat the burgers with onions, and never make any kind of confrontation, ever?”

“No, it was all fine, I guess.”

“Were the workers even a little bit rude to me?”

“Yes, he was rude.”

“Okay, then we’re fine, right?”

“Yeah, we are.”

I was not okay for most the night when we got home. A full-on allergy attack, that “actually” scared me a little bit. To the point that I felt a pop-crack in my jaw. I’ve heard that specific noise once before, on one of the worst days in American history. I took a deep breath in. I held it, purposefully, letting the feelings, the very real allergy, and now Benadryl, taking a full-fucking-30-minutes to kick in, but I calmed my own ass right out of lockjaw. My son feeling bad, remembering my slight ‘elevation,’ might just be ‘inflammation.’ (In more ways than one.) Not confrontational, just being me, awkward and annoyingly ‘sensitive’ as ever.

The clench of accepting what should be unacceptable to you.

And no, you don’t need a fucking explanation or ‘proof.’

No matter how big or small, no apologizing. This matters to me…so it matters. End of.

And it turns out, that is how you win at life. Even in the midst of an allergy attack, I’m proud of myself, because the old me would have apologized, not eaten dinner, and would have probably repaid for the items. (They did ask for the original burgers back.)

Not a complaining “Karen,” but a fuckin’ winner!✨🌀

With a fully functioning jaw. I’ll never forget, and I’m no longer mute.

Buy me an espresso, please?!☕

(Full sample below!😜🎱)

I don’t do things in the right order. I write a whole memoir, and then start a Substack. I can still do the splits, and yet, I’m more likely to flip my lower stomach muscle in the bathtub than I am to find use with that 40-and-fucking-flexible detail. Just like there was no outline for what became, there was no pre-thought before writing this.

Other than realizing that I have loads to be grateful for, by finding this outlet. Hopefully my brain won’t fail me, and this will all go to a place of understanding rather than just pure randomness.

My oxymoron life of spiky talents and missteps, a girl and woman with no doubt, but a boy to man in heart and stubbornness, and in raising my son as an only-parent. (Thank you, for the term!) I considered myself a forever single-parent before I had found the far more accurate depiction. My son is an adult now, a young man I’m incredibly proud of. We are beyond mother-son close, we are learning and growing together, and respecting each other (mostly), which is kind of a big thing for a young guy in his first year of college, living with his mom.

We even have the same therapist.

We all, the three of us, discussed that it’s not the norm that family share the same therapist, but my son insisted that he wanted her to be his therapist; she was his therapist already. You see, there was a fresh trauma he/we had just endured. One I wouldn’t wish upon anyone: someone brought a gun to our home, and I promise you, this person had every intention of harming my son.

If I wasn’t lucky enough to have my father there to intervene I don’t know what would have happened, truly. This crazed man is suddenly trying to push in through my front door, his eyes moving way faster than they should, his hands in fists but his pointer finger is pointed at nothing in particular, an inch away from my face, and a couple of times bouncing off my cheek as his leg is pressing against the door, with me pushing back not knowing how or what the fuck is happening. Moments ago I was sitting on the couch writing, my dad was already snoring to the end of the baseball game. Now, I’m watching green eyes, red with either drugs or hate-red-anger, I couldn’t tell you, but I can tell you I hadn’t felt anything that hateful in years…and there’s nothing that type of anger can’t try to ruin.

I say try because it matters. Every single time we have endured. We do endure. Survive.

But in this moment, I can’t even understand this man. Screaming incoherently in riddles: a toxic mix of my son’s name, screech-yells of something like ‘let me have him’, and kill once or twice, but who’s counting, or even hearing correctly…when you know this young man. This is the most dangerous kind of young man. You’ve seen him before; wearing a different mask.

The young man in the midst of a mental health crisis.

I have no idea that he has a gun at this point.

Touching me, pressing into me, my leg; the fucking threshold of my mother fucking house.

The gun might as well be touching my leg, knowing what I know now.

My retired-due-to-injury, 80-year-old father was magically beside me before this man can push around the corner to where my son is, all of this mere seconds, feeling like an eternity all the same. My dad presses him firmly, palms flat against his chest, an unin-fucking-vited push out the door threshold while bellowing, “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!”

He’s walking away backwards, the same way from which my dad had pushed him out, still staring at us and yelling, without connecting anything that I could meaningfully understand. My father and I on my front porch, with him just 10-feet away. He turned away from us, receding down my drive, finally. But the moment he turned away from us, he lifted his shirt from his workout pants and pulled the gun from his stretchy waistband and hangs it by his right side, making it visibly obvious to both of us immediately. (I’m still somehow thinking about how the gun was hanging to his ass in fucking stretchy pants!?!?)

My dad is hollering, “GUN! GUN! CALL THE COPS!”

I find myself yelling, “NO FUCKING WAY! NOT MY SON MOTHER FUCKER!”

I’m refusing to look away, he’s easy shooting distance to my dad, and then me, my dad even closer to what true terror looks like: rage with a gun. I’m using my peripheral vision to look at my hands for my phone, but it’s not in my hands.

“CALL 911! CALL 911! NOW!” I’m hoping and praying my son is listening to this from inside, but far away from any entry or window.

I wish I could tell you something better about the gun/terror-side of this story, but I can’t. We called the cops, but the gun was gone when they questioned him, so there was nothing they could do. His mom, someone we know, more than likely helped him, she lives right up the street, and let’s just say…he’s not the only one in that family that has caused an unprovoked yelling-scene on our porch. We were able to get a kind-of restraining order, but they argued he had no priors, and with no gun found, the other party can simply “promise” to never return to our property, and seek to be better in all things they do in the future, as ‘a young man with dreams and plans.’ I have continued to hope and pray that all to be true.

I can tell you that while it’s apparently highly irregular for a mother and son to share a therapist, and little to no secrets in general, you might be right. But, holy hell am I grateful as fuck!

Without hesitation she said she would see my son the next day, with or without me, his choosing, and I needed that so much. As an only-parent you have little resources in all cases, and the mental health-side is a labyrinth of fuckall to say the least! I was on the phone, I was on my laptop looking up options, but I can tell you honestly: it feels impossible to find these types of resources when you’re right in the middle of it, and you need help NOW; not five minutes from now, NOW!

I emailed my therapist in the morning. She responded immediately, not only in kindness and concern, but in complete accommodation for our needs. No matter what they might be.

Here we are, more than two years later, healing from a lot more than just this one incident, but we are so much stronger. So much wiser. So much more grateful that we have each other, and understand more than ever that there are more people in this world that are willing to help than there are willing to ruin.

We live an oxymoron life as ADHD mom and son, but it’s rich as hell. And weird as hell…but I feel like the winner every single day.✨🌀

I did just let the mind and fingers flow, and while the content may be random upon arrival, everything I write here is real. Nonfiction, as lived.

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A single sample for my Substack friends!

Some of my fun/weird shit I’ve been working on. Hope you have fun playing!

Soultwin Seek V2

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I understand the need for space. Peace. Silence. Clarity. Nature.

I understand the need for the village. A community of support and beyond. Not taking from each other, but sharing, using what we have and utilizing those resources towards common-growth; common-good. Each piece and person significant in their own way, with room to grow into a community purpose, because I do believe every human, every soul, has a reason for being alive. A transcendent storyteller just as important as the artist in the corner, or the person making coffees for readers in the Cat Café.

A place to rest your head when you’re so sick you can’t do anything but rest your head.

I feel the urge to explore every inch of this planet, its beauty; cultures. I am also an introverted hermit that likes to read in the privacy of my backyard.

Different needs, different health struggles, different life struggles…created these community plans. Nothing would make me happier than to hear of new ways to make these plans even better. This is an open forum.

As I’ve said, I’m no artist, but above is the very rough version of what a more “bougie” dome home community would look like. So, while that picture is a misrepresentation, because it’s meant to represent 40 acres, with 40 individual dome homes (all 1400-2400sqft), and 5 additional: a large community dome (5,000+sqft), a greenhouse dome, a barndome-minium (large around 3400sqft) with windmill (yes, wind energy, we love it🤣), the full-time community home, and Cat Café with books and nooks, actual star-shaped sit-in windows (stained glass) with comfy places to sit/lay with a book, and a cat, if they should feel the inclination. The dome will offer different levels for the cats to jump, scratch at, edible plants, textures. The second level might offer the full café, a balcony with breakfast bar and window so those with allergies can still grab a coffee, a book, or a look inside. (My utopian world would include a third level with full-time veterinarians to help community animals in need.) Leading to the inside/outside Catio. Where the kitties can do their duties outdoors and play outdoors, safely. An area with specific netting touching to a kid’s climbing jungle, the cats and the kids might lightly touch paws, while finding the next sensory-friendly thing to touch along the way.

The thing is, these are not willy-nilly plans. A 1400sqft dome home, with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, and all the comforts, even luxuries, we’ve come to expect in modern times for $25,000. Depending on how bougie you are, or aren’t, it can be more or even less. A 5,000sqft dome home can be put up for less than $100k. Not to mention, the average dome home can be completed, start-to-finish, by four able-bodied persons, in one month’s time. These are kits, but not a fuckin’ kaboodle. The result are homes that can withstand antarctica, the desert, even fire.

Not utopia, reality.

Even the massive lazy river built into the plans, that is a kit, that can be found, and implemented for far less than what you would expect. Upcycling anything and everything that can still be useful, and even beautiful.

No garages, solar-panel-covered car and/or RVports, including a small “solar farm” area where RVs have full hookups access. These solar panels can be bought direct from a reputable company, and installed on your own (still professionally) for a fraction of the price the solar companies are selling.

The walls are gardens, the gardens are walls. Special clover underfoot, so it’s gorgeously green, without the watering needs, no mowing, no worry of overgrowing.

Besides the whimsy, I have a background in insurance, too. So, the best part is these plans would be the insurance-solve that so many other housing plans neglect. Having a whole community policy, with each dome owner having their own policy (like a renters or a condo policy) keeping the premiums as reasonable and low as possible. I imagine the general dome home plans being replicated anywhere, utilizing the local resources in harmony, so why wouldn’t there be a solution for people that need or wish to move often? Alternatively, some people never want to leave, and want nothing more than a forever-home. It should be a choice, without losing anything. So, I see that as an opportunity, those gypsy-souls can find a dome in a different location, swapping scene, not equity or money paid into what has already been paid towards paying off, or already paid off dome. (A super-duper utopian world would have enough paid domes to fund domes for those that cannot pay, or need a place to safely land, even temporarily.)

That 40 acre land, with natural hot springs, and 45 dome home community would cost $1.5M total, with $100k for contingencies included. Not even close to a joke.

(Do that math= $33,333/unit and I included the land into the total amount.)

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We only know what we know.

We are ignorant to else.

That statement alone might offend people. Being called ignorant, in any capacity, might spark outrage. This unsettles me. I rarely ever felt personally offended for a large part of my life, and that lack of feeling has opened me up, and shut me down, in ways that only make sense after serious reflection. Embarrassment? Humiliation? Sure, I had those on lock. But, feeling offense, or personally attacked? Why would I?

My mom taught me that guilt-tripping and white lies, with positivity and kindness, are acceptable forms of communicating, and getting what you want. Not that she needed that, I was obedient to a fault, and I had no filter to feel offense. She also taught me to fear her. If you’re picking up on the signals, you might be understanding why that specific feeling of ‘offended’ alludes me. My parents’ feelings, emotions, and sincere issues were priority to my own; in fact, I didn’t know that there was a difference until a few years ago.

I’ve mentioned my mother, because she was my ‘stay-at-home-mom’ world, but my father is just as much an issue as he is my safe harbor. Never impressed by her, no matter what she did, or how hard she tried, it was more often direct rudeness or insult. While being a great father to me, and keeping his insults restrained by making them jokes. Poking on my stomach and asking if I was pregnant in elementary school (and throughout my life, until I was actually pregnant at nineteen) while laughing is funny, not insulting.

I didn’t have books to lean on.

I thought I hated books. What a bloody waste of time that was! Faking every single book report, whatever reading calendar Bullshit was given with weekly pages read, my mom always signed that the pages were completed. This was the one exception to my mom’s “it’s your work— you do it” rule, and the reason was simple: my parents didn’t read.

This simple fact was part of a much larger epiphany, but profound to a lover of books, who grew up thinking she hated them.

Both my parents are dyslexic. (Confirmed and diagnosed.)

My dad actually jokes about the fact that he’s never read a book. (Literally.) He’s also a genius in his own right, that rarely understands the comments he makes are unacceptable. My mom is open about her habit of falling asleep mid-first page. Also about her extreme embarrassment from being in “the red group” in elementary, which was considered the remedial group. A public shaming. My father was able to hide behind sports, a professional-level athlete with the discipline to succeed, always. My mother was able to hide under her desk, or in the bathroom, maybe, by blending in as if she were not there.

She could not complete the tests to finish the dreams she desired desperately.

She did not have the confidence to speak up, as for help, or just be the powerful woman she was meant to be.

Every failure of undiagnoses (Yeah, I might’ve made up a word. And?) now glaring me in the face. Failures of our fathers, that have nothing to do with our fathers, and everything. Our mothers, all the same. I grieve for my parents. I grieve for myself. All the years missed, books I could have read, and finding safeness within the pages.

I read my first book senior year, second semester in high school.

It was that, or I wasn’t graduating. My teacher saw right through me, “I don’t care what book you read, any book, truly (giving me that specific eyeball and eyebrow combo), and write about it, in detail, in your own words, so I know it’s written by you and not some magical reenactment from some website you found.”

I had just seen the first Harry Potter movie with my niece and nephew and thought…perfect, simple enough, and I just watched the film, so I know all the details. The first film is really nothing like the book, and yet, I still love both, equally. So, obviously I finished the book. My first. Senior year of high school…and it was Harry Potter of all books, which has a whole level of controversy, and possible offense, just for bringing up the title now.

But don’t take away one genius for one fault, friends.

The undiagnosed remain, and we have no room to judge.

You have absolutely no idea what is inside that “perfect family’s” home. ✨🌀

Buy me an espresso, please?!☕

At eighteen years old, I immediately registered as an Independent. Not only did it feel more me, there was a layer of rebellion from both screaming sides that I secretly enjoyed. I knew I cared a lot. There were points to everything everyone was screaming about, but it all falls on deaf ears. No one hears the other. No one is listening and responding with clear-headed debate on real issues that absolutely need to be resolved.

Listening has been removed from politics.

Listening, even from music, has been removed from the conversation. We are now running against algorithms, for who and what we believe in. The content you consume, all but decided for you, for the average person not living their life using a VPN(+).

I know this so deeply, it hurts physically.

I can feel the pain I felt from the failures. The promises made for community and belonging, and instead it was fucking stalking. Scary stalking. When I’ve finally gained enough courage to leave my narcissistic, abusive in every way relationship (more accurately rapist), I was trying to lean on my friends, and instead was finding him on my feed daily as “someone I may know”, as a blocked user and blocking his entire circle, too. I left that social media platform as it exploded, and now with a different name, it’s helped, and continues to ‘help’ pick the people and politics that affect our daily lives.

It wasn’t just that platform, though. Every platform a new experience of invasion that I could have never premeditated. Having my literal GPS coordinates available to a “BFF”, without explicit consent on my end, became a reality that seemed like a sci-fi film, melded in soap opera, now in high-fucking-definition HD.

I hate politics, and yet, it runs every damn thing in our lives, silently.

Not the healing silence, the deadly kind. We’re dying slowly into a reality that seems like a sci-fi film, melded in soap opera…and we’re all just watching. Or screaming without intention.

Or hating each other for beliefs that are usually more similar than they are different.

Don’t we all just want to live freely, love freely, and have the health to make it to the next day to live and love again freely tomorrow?

That’s all I want, for everyone, and apparently that’s asking a fucking lot.

I’m done being quiet. I’m quietly listening. I’m done editing [myself] for you.

One revolution. Or a small blip in the algorithm? I’m showing up anyways, no longer avoiding the hard conversations that need to be said.

Who the fuck has been happy with the political status quo…like ever?? Who is choosing the policy that changes our lives? What issues can you not stop talking/caring about? I’m here to learn and grow from the real. Let’s discuss. Kindly.✨🌀

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I woke up this Saturday morning to post after post on my Substack feed feeding into the NSFW categories, and it made me realize that this is one of those things I’ve never said. Never aloud; never written, it’s never existed before this very word I’m writing now, other than inside my head.

I’m a sexual pariah.

As much as I see people avoiding, tip-toeing-around, or devil-damning sex, it’s everywhere…and we love it! The Fifty Shades series was not a phenomenon because of the writing, it’s because we’re all that girl (yes, even the dudes), wanting to feel, see, and read sex like it’s felt. Explosive. Awkward. Intimate. Open.

Not some hidden fantasy, but the real sex and sexual feelings that most every single human feels, naturally.

I did have an upbringing that included Christian church, and beliefs. Up to the seventeen age mark, I believed, with fierce veracity, that I would remain a virgin until marriage. But, my religious beliefs didn’t actually stop me.

By the time I was seventeen, in what you would call a committed-loving wannabe version of a relationship, I was ready to have sex. I say that because it happened naturally, unforced. It was humiliating in its own right, that’s for sure (it’s detailed in my memoir), but it was real. I wasn’t thinking of how God would bless my union, I was thinking how this feeling is taking over my entire mind and body, and I love this. I need this. I want more of this.

My past did keep me from orgasming though, I think.

I’ve had less orgasms with partners (total) than I have fingers on my hand.

As an adult, I’ve been with men and women, it made no difference. Loving the act while it’s happening, not receiving the reward of breathless, thoughtless, bodyless, body-brain-utopia that lasts as long as I let it. Only alone.

I remember my discomfort. They’re touching me. It feels so good, thank you for this feeling of ecstasy. If I move this way, maybe I’ll feel the quickening. If I think less, maybe I’ll feel the quickening. If I breathe less…maybe I’ll fucking pass out.

My brain thinks when it’s with a partner, next to a partner. I don’t sleep properly, even. I lay next to them all night, hearing sounds they make, movements they make, while I remain flat on my back, thinking. Maybe allowing myself to touch their arm, the slow-motion making me calm, the touch feeling lovely, repetitive.

Most nights I spent with a partner, I would lie there until seeing the sun, and my eyes would finally allow sleep, for an hour to three. I had partner for seven years, I didn’t get a lot of sleep. (He was also a dangerous nightmare, but neither here nor there, if we’re talking about the sex of it all.) I was consumed by him, by the sex, and in those seven years I only orgasmed once. He was asleep, too! He fell asleep with a hard dick, so I rode him, started orgasming quickly, revved up from a previous session that didn’t do the job. He stopped me. Thinking I was “being dramatic”, or maybe he was sleepily jealous? He was pissed. It lasted maybe 5-7 seconds total, bliss for a blip, then anger.

The orgasms I’ve had during sex (3-4 times maybe, not even a whole hand) are similar situations, lasting mere seconds, less than 5-7 seconds, I assure you, and then gone as if they never were. Those moments usually included alcohol, making me drunk and thoughtless, and open enough to feel a window of what could be.

On my own, I have had orgasms lasting, continuing up to an hour, maybe more. I can lose sense of space and time, the plane of existence non-existent, body constraints? My body is jelly, I’m an octopus splayed. While I’m contorting at the same time, because my low stomach muscles now flip (literally) if relax a certain way. (One of the lovely side affects of breast reconstructive surgery that was never mentioned prior to the surgery.)

I love human touch, and struggle with it so much.

I need to be allowed to feel everything, and nothing at the same time, and feel comfortable in my chaos, no matter what. My partner, man or woman, makes no difference. Attraction? I used to find no one attractive it seemed. Now? I find everyone attractive, a beauty in each separate soul. I want to touch none of them sexually, because they have not touched my mind. They have not balmed my soul to feel like the Sexual Goddess I’ve been only by and with myself.

I think I want one single sexual soulmate. I’m also not sure I was built for it.

Excuse me while I go have an hour-long orgasm by myself. ✨🌀

Buy me an espresso, please?!☕

It’s Niecey-Baby’s 21st birthday. Fearless as hell, forever-smiling and laughing, full of life, my babygirl is 21! It’s a full-on girl’s trip with her bestie and our normal close-family crew. We get dressed in the next-to-nothing proper attire for Vegas clubs—but my fallen arches are already barkin’ before we’ve gone anywhere. There’s no way in hell I’m lasting through this night if I’m not wearing decent shoes. I only have tennis shoes. My sandal was just stepped on and broken, when the large ice chest was dropped, just outside in the parking lot. It magically missed my foot, but it destroyed my favorite walking sandals, that are actually cute.

Lucky for me Niecey-Baby and I wore the same shoe size. She has a flat pair of braided sandals that will work just fine for me. She’s wearing her brand new, 2-inch-wide wood block boots.

We’re going to the club now, and of course we’re on the list. Auntie pre-planned, and she knows the ropes. As soon as we get in we are handed a free drink from the bar, it’s ladies’ night: and we’re all headed to the dance floor! We’re out, we’re hot... and we’re all shaking our asses as we get closer to the huge stage. It takes up the entire front of the dance floor, with one small DJ booth in the dead center of the stage riser. So, we get all the way to the front, on the left side of the stage.

Our group of girls are all following me in a sort of train and for whatever reason a stage security guard starts pushing me but doesn’t say a word. His arm is bent and glued to his very large security guard man-body-side. This guy is damn-near double my height and ever-so-casually nudging me, with my drank in hand, the music pumpin’. We’re all still dancing—my girls behind me, all in sight... it’s all good!

This fool proceeds to nudge and push my whole ass all the way around to exactly where we were before—but on the exact opposite side of the stage.

“What the fuck... how did we even get here?!” “I don’t know but this is our song!” One chick swept away by a dude in seconds. Already grinding ten or so feet away.

And just like that, that one club song comes on. You know the one. The one where everyone jumps up and down, in unison, and to the bass of the music, maybe throwing their hands up—and just feeling it! Yeah, that one.

Everyone packed in like sardines, the lower dance floor part of the club is at capacity and we are all jumping. An organic bass on top of the bass. Before I know what hit me, I could hear my toe— yes, I said hear my toe —and definitely the toenail, too: crunching. Splitting. Ack. (YOU CANNOT TALK IN THIS CLUB, YOU MUST YELL!)

I look down and the insane pain is instantaneous. My Niecey-Baby’s 2-inch, square wood heel came down right on my motha-fuckin’ toe! Bright-orangey blacklight-highlighted blood in all its gory glory. Splaying the floor like it’s a paint party club night. My toe looks like a three day old oyster (My toes always painted with black polish, covering tainted toes.) and the toe was just a flat, mess of glow-in-the-dark blood! (Like Tapatio on the appetizer.)

Niecey-Baby has already dance-jumped away and after a good solid minute or so one of the girls notices the blood... then the toe. Seconds later, Sis is in my bloody vicinity.

“Oh, my God!”

She took a quick graphic social media snap and is back on the dance floor again! The friend that noticed goes to a different security guard in the corner.

“CAN WE HAVE A FIRST AID KIT PLEASE?”

The new large man is saying words, but I hear nothing. He understands nothing about the situation. It finally registers—we’re pointing DOWN— he sees blood. Some of the blood has now splattered more flagrantly about the floor, in my usual attempt at “running the pain off”. The guard then gives us what I can only describe as a nod of ascent and is gone. Somehow disappearing into the crowd despite his size.

20 minutes later....... “WHERE THE FUCK IS THIS GUY?!”

“I don’t know—I’m just glad I’m tipsy enough to feel no pain—and I’m not passing out!” It falls on deaf ears… she’s already gone.

She goes up to the first security guard. In the moment it truly dawns on me that this is the same dude that just pushed me all the way around this whole fuckin’ stage for what reason?! 10-minutes later he comes back. With a single pinky-sized band-aid. Nothing else.

Not a paper towel, nor a napkin... just a single, baby-bitch band-aid. Alright. I’m pissed. But I’m passive-aggressive rather than angry-pissed — and I start tearing the tiny band-aid with my teeth while dancing ridiculously. Overdramatically seductive on purpose. Slowly pulling the pieces off and fingering them down my chest. (My dance version of ‘fuck you very much’, maybe?) He didn’t like it. His eyes flash, like this is actually offending him somehow, and it seems like he wants to come at me. He looks again at my foot and instead walks away.

My friend spills the rest of my vodka-soda with lime on the toe (mostly ice) as a sudden stroke of genius, with our zero supplies. It does nothing. But to be fair, it is the first type of medical attention this concaved toe has received since it was injured a glacial 30-minutes ago!

I went to the bathroom and cleaned up the gross parts of the wound, which had coagulated surprisingly quickly, considering the alcohol levels thinning the blood. Exiting the bathroom, I bump into Niecey-Baby and her friend. They tell me they’re about to get picked up. They’re tired. What?? All I’ve managed to do is get a couple drinks, get pushed around a humungous stage and clean my wound!

I’m getting another drink, so I feel nothing!

Sis and friends want to stay anyway. I came back down to the dance floor, but the girls are in a VIP area. (3-stairs up from the dance floor, roped off.) A wrap-around deck with circular booths and tables. The bottle service is why I’m sitting here. Drink in hand, Sis is sat next to me—and getting a lap dance from the owner of this VIP table. All the money in the world and this guy can’t buy himself a belt!?

He’s facing her, straddling the outside of her legs, with his bare ass crack hanging out of his bejeweled jeans. Yes... bejeweled. Worst part is, he’s mooning the whole dance floor... with sparkles beaming the lights from his ass. It’s absolutely ass-tacular!

They decide they’re ready to leave the club for the night and Sis is already in the car. Okay, we’re going with these randos. I am not leaving my sis.

“My amazing condo you’re going to love it—it’s very nice, the penthouse—you can see the view from the balcony. And my prized possession: the canvas of Kitty”. I am barely listening to this guy; he’s background noise. I’m paying attention to my surroundings. Where we turned, what complex and garage we’re turning into. We get to the elevator and sure enough, we go all the way up, but when we get to the top—there’s an interesting surprise. A random girl waiting in the corner there, and yep, she’s definitely walking in with us, but no words spoken—okay.

Upon entering there’s a long, white hallway. It’s all spic-and-span clean, and nice, okay… that helps. I then see the beautiful, wrap around balcony view he had mentioned, enjoying it all of two seconds before Sis and I round the corner, looking to our left. In a rather barren, but nice loft: a black leather modern couch, a large flat screen of 80-inches. I know the TV is 80-inches.

“And this, my most prized possession I was telling you about—the canvas of Kitty!” Full of pride, “Yes, it’s 80-inches!” He’s telling us animatedly. It’s the same size as the flat screen but covering the entirety of totally separate wall.

An 80-inch portrait of sparkle-ass himself, holding Kitty in his arms, across his chest proudly... on the very balcony I had just looked at moments before. Like the joke Christmas cards you might find amongst friends— but this was not a joke. Holy. Shit. And not but moments after that Sis is swept away, on the opposite side of the house, to his master suite— and I think I can already hear her moaning.

There are two guys and the one chick from the elevator around a huge island. (Very bachelor high-end, but no furniture; surgical.) There are drugs all over this large island, covering it. I’m thirsty, and without anyone to tell me otherwise, I look in the fridge. It’s filled with bottle after bottle—no food. There are at least eight bottles of vodka, a few bottles of fancy cranberry and Voss waters so I grab one of the glass bottles. (Not the vodka!) While they start doing their thing, I’m on the couch with no remote, but the TV is on.

Ten minutes later the two guys start yelling at each other, posturing to possibly take a swing, but lucky for me they took their own asses outside and never came back. It’s at this point that I’m nodding off, upright and so incredibly uncomfortable on this stupid modern couch! I see that the sun is now officially coming up and I. Am. Tired.

I’ve had it. There’s a huge king-sized suite right in front of me that looks clean as hell, like it’s never been slept in! So inviting. I lock the door and immediately fall asleep in this huge, fluffy, wonderful bed!

I’m awoken to Sis knocking on the door telling me he’s going to drive us back to our place now. Thank the damn heavens! This uncomfortable outfit has got to go.

That’s when I see the cursed toe.

The Walking Dead decomposed toe looks like it’s been run over by a lawnmower!

“Yeah, so I can pick you up—your whole group of girls—we’ll go in a helicopter ride later today and get a nice steak dinner.” It’s starting to compute that he’s trying to plan our whole day and weekend, “You are all invited!” Having no idea that we had absolutely no interest in seeing him ever again. Sis can absolutely not handle this type of energy: especially when she’s hungover and hasn’t had coffee yet. She has him drop us off, a couple of streets over, so he wouldn’t come back knowing where we were staying. We’re walking at 8AM, freezing our walk-of-shame asses off.

“Damn! I’m so sorry but holy shit— you smell like cat piss! You were sleeping in Kitty’s room! That was Kitty’s king-sized bed!” Sis says to me as we’re shivering, huddled together, pulling away from me, not able to take the smell.

Hmm… I thought I smelled something amiss.

I shower immediately upon getting back, scrubbing scent off of me—and everything else from the night before—surely infecting this fucked up toe. Everyone is already off to breakfast, and I am so freakin’ hungry! We meet everyone at the diner of choice, feeling like shit ran over twice. We start exchanging stories and events from the night, rehashing the details. That’s when Niecey-Baby truly notices my injury for the first time.

“Fuuuuck, cursed toe at it again! What bitch did this to you and what kind of fucked up combat boots were they wearing?!”

“Well, funny you should mention—it was actually your fucked up boots.” I reply with a huge smile, knowing what’s coming.

Her jaw actually drops, full realization dawning on her.

“No wonder why you’re fucked up—holy shit—ungodly. Oh, my God! We were jumping— when we were jumping?! Fuuuck.” Then Niecey-Baby starts laughing uninhibited, shaking her head… and we move on to rest of the night. Up to this very morning, when I unknowingly slept in the most comfortable cat box a human ever dared.

I slept in Kitty’s cat box.

All snuggled in, immersing myself in the intoxicating purrrfume. So, we finally get Niecey-Baby caught up to the now. Fully filled-in.

“So, what the hell is this guy’s name that has an 80-inch canvas, cat in hand, on their wall—let alone has a whole ass king suite just for their cat?!” Baby-girls asks genuinely interested… this story is the best birthday gift ever, to her.

“Well, shit. Do you remember his name?” “Hell no— anyone?” Silence.

“So, you guys remember the cat’s name, but you don’t remember the dude’s name that you boned last night?”

He’s simply Kitty’s Daddy forevermore.🌀

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It would include a severely stimulating event, but more importantly, it would include my mother. She had already popped in earlier this week. My mom is the most naturally kind-hearted, caring, and loving soul you’ve never met. She’s also my secret monster. I’ve protected her, and this secret since I was a toddler, and honestly, I’m still protecting it. It’s incredibly different now, though. My protection comes from a different place; a different understanding. She no longer has power over my mind. She never did, but me truly understanding this profound detail is how things changed for me.

Now, my mother is scrambling to find the relationship she knows she hasn’t worked to rebuild, or ever taken accountability for.

Our interactions this year have remained quiet. Me speaking little, or not at all, letting others fill the space. This in stark contrast to my past, if I was quiet, no one noticed. I’ve become more and more absent in these last years, and now I’m being watched, scrutinized. The discomfort from my mother is palpable. I can’t tell if it’s because her ever-judging friend-group have been telling her that I’m more than likely “depressed”, or if she’s slowly cracking. My lifelong knack for overanalyzing her every movement and emotion tells me the latter, but I don’t live in her mind. I live in my own. We don’t guess here, so back to my observations.

I made a silent devotion to myself to be more quiet this year.

It’s been weirdly effective in understanding…and quickly. You see, this year was my 40th birthday. I had been telling my mom and closest family (that live across the country) for over six months that I have no interest in a party, or doing anything significant for my birthday. Please no gifts, thank you for understanding, but if you want to come and hang out, make some food? I’d love that.

Now, let’s dig a little deeper, because right now we’re dipping in shallow pools of pristine. Which is what my life was expected to be growing up. Pristine. Me? The girl doing rain dances in the forested horse trails, and literally bringing rain. Who knows what the forecast was that day, but it did happen, and the fact remains: a child of nature is not meant to be pristine. You expect purity when the world shows us differently everyday, when our bodies and minds reject the natural instincts within us.

My biological mother is a genius. She’s also my auntie, legally.

We couldn’t be more different…or more similar. The differences in mind are as left as they are right. Funny I should mention, she can’t tell left from right when it’s written right in front of her face, but she can, and has, kindly corrected many calculus professors when their calculations were incorrect.

I’m already staring at the cat completely checked out just talking about calculus.

She’s also a braless, no makeup-wearing, screaming-for-your-rights, independent (not the political affiliation) and comfortable that way, and truly offended by the term, “one in a million”. I can attest, there is not another her on the planet.

In these ‘healing years’, we’ve spent more and more time together. She lost her soulmate and I lost my health. Equally debilitating, fantastically separate circumstances. She’s organized chaos in a way that feels so comfortable to me.

She’s also never asked me to be anything other than myself.

I’m sure she never wanted to cross any lines, being my biological mother and all, my mother (her sister) not being able to conceive naturally herself, it could be touchy for either of them, in ways they haven’t revealed. I grieve for my mom, what she expected of life, and what it gave her. She was the girl playing with dolls and praying they would wake up as her real babies. She cared for them as such. So much so that the neighbors allowed her to start babysitting in third grade, when my bio-mom (auntie) was older by quite a few years, and was not asked. One sister was living to be a mom, the other was the entrepreneur, living to never have kids.

Not only was I an accident, I happened more than five years after she had already had three girls and was in the middle of a very mean divorce. My mom and father had been wanting to have kids for years, but they weren’t built for it. So, they forced it. Adoption is beautiful, and I’m forever grateful, but my parents were not well suited to each other, or themselves, and bringing in a child, chosen or not, does not change that fact.

Not only did my dad have a vasectomy years before, from his previous marriage, but my mom had issues of her own in the fertility department, that she had even tried to correct surgically. She sent me away to my grandparent’s for a couple weeks when I was nine, this was when she had the surgery, and she never told me until well into my adulthood. I think back now and see that as so strange, if I had ever had a daughter, that would be something I would want to share with her…as a woman. It’s not something to be ashamed of, ever.

My mom was whiplash in my life, from day one. My secret burden to bear. No one would believe it anyhow. She’s the most caring, nurturing, kind and responsible person, in a vast pool of layered friends spanning sixty years and a 20-mile radius. She lets go of no one. “You are the greatest gift of my life.” She wrote that in the birthday card she gave me this year for my 40th. It’s store bought, when I told her I’d prefer she make one…her art is great, whereas my stick figures look like words. There is also a blank check inside the card.

I start microsecond panicking, looking up to see if anyone has just seen what I’ve seen, but they didn’t, because I opened it…late enough in my birthday afternoon-evening gathering that everyone else was drunk. One of the other mild nudges, advising birthday brunch was a bust for me because it was more about the alcohol than the food when we went. Expensive, too. Cooking at home is great. The alcohol poured just as freely at home, though. I ended up having a mild food allergy attack, because my mom chose to please her boyfriend’s taste rather than truly listen to how my allergy has been developing, or simply ask if it was okay to prepare it a certain way.

“Whatever you want, Babygirl, whatever you want. You want to go to the festival? You can go to the festival! You want to go overseas? You can go overseas! Just let me know when and what you want to use it for, and you can use my credit card instead, because it’s new and I can get points. Love you so much, you’re the bestest.” My mother is petting my head the whole time she’s saying this, whispering mostly, because she’s in secret-mode, and with a slight slur, innately loud, she cannot keep her tone to task. As close as she keeps her cards, I know my mother’s finances.

I made a silent devotion to myself to be more quiet this year.

The millisecond I gave of panic was quickly remedied. My brain was ready and completely unready, because no, I’m not a mind reader, but just like I’ve learned my own patterns, I have learned hers. In fact, I think I knew hers before I knew mine. My secret monster no longer has power over me, or my reactions.

“Thank you, mom, I love you a lot.” is my response, and I do. Of course I do. Like every child loves their parents intrinsically; not nature; not nurture, just because we do. My mother does not not how to love herself, alone.

She popped in at the beginning of the week, not previously announced, and my dad was here. Her ex-husband that she never divorced, for benefits, and they’re friends. I had told her the day before that my dad was currently here. She comes in and gets us off to dinner at a local place, ordering a salad because she had come from eating a long lunch with friends, but didn’t mention that part.

She’s been quietly smiling at me, broadly, way more than usual, like I’m not out to dinner makeup-less, in pajama-adjacent attire. My dad asked an off-the-wall question about my mom’s boyfriend, he loves to push the envelope, in a teasing way. She lets it slip that her boyfriend is away this week with his buddies.

It all makes sense.

I’m remaining quiet, give her the good hug, and that’s exactly how dinner goes. I bring up a topic of music which keeps my mom thinking I’m fully engaged, while my dad eats each piece of food, separately, meticulously. Pushing vegetables aside that he can’t tolerate, and tolerating certain carrots and squash. Watching the never-ending stream of TVs playing different sports games, and ads for their ‘Shot of the Month’.

“That was great, thank you so much, family.” I say as we’re exiting the blaring bar and restaurant.

We get back home, I smile and give her the good hug. Tell her I love her as she leads me inside. My much slower father, into his eighties now, is taking his time exiting the vehicle, by not quite exiting at all. My bouncy and fit mother, fourteen years his minor has already lapped him thrice: saying goodbye to me, going to the bathroom, cleaning up the bathroom, and back at his side of the car, now the passenger after a lifetime in the driver seat. My mom and dad spoke for a couple moments, a laugh from my mom, and then my dad was up and out of the car.

“Do you need some help or anything..?” My mom calls after him.

He’s hurrying across the driveway, “No, thank you. I got it.”

He comes back with a secret stash of cash and gives her an unknown chunk. Then she was gone.

I skipped the party later in the week, this past Sunday. My nervous system can only handle so much in one week, in small doses. I give myself a micro-dose of motherly love that I deserve, and my mother the illusion of the mother-daughter relationship she imagines. I grieve for what my mother has lost. I remember I had to learn how to separate myself as whole human being outside of her. It’s amazing how lots of work with your therapist and then her saying, “You’re not your mom.” Out loud. That was the light bulb moment for me. It seems too simple, stupid even. “I am not my mother.”

Woah…I can live my own fucking life.

I can be the soft, full of whimsy, rain-dancing child, and I can be the vulgar, explaining in graphic detail, the excruciating loss of my V-card woman that earned every fucking word she oozes onto page.

I’m done editing [myself] for you.

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At any given time, my mind can be working, while remembering a weird and sudden sentence from freshman year, that still sticks with me for no known reason to me. “You’re going to be so beautiful when we’re older.” Said to me out of the blue, on the soccer field, whilst this best friend stared at me, with my soccer-driven face (less the makeup) and then she uttered those simple words, forming a rather simple sentence. And yet, it still finds a way to rattle about my brain, squeezing in while making dinner for four young men-children and seven, (yes, that’s right!) seven unique personality, in-house animals all needing personal attention, that they equally deserve, for their different reasons. Not to be questioned. To be understood, if they allow you. When they do, it just might be more profound than you compute. At least in the moment.

I used to love pen to paper.

My mind is present to this moment, to this one thought and task. Not overthinking.

And yet, I don’t enjoy this anymore. My hand is straining to hold this pen. My bones, my knuckle sockets feel stuck to this pen. This, more comfortable than average pen, is faltering after a page and a half of wide ruled paper. If it were just the stuck-ness these bones were feeling maybe I’d still enjoy this enough to continue. But, it’s also the way I feel nothing— while also feeling painful nothingness in the very tip of my thumb and pointer finger. If I didn’t feel where the lifted and hardened vein is in my hand, pulling and inflaming with every pen stroke. Eventually, thumb to wrist, to the top of my whole hand, and penetrating through the strained fingers. I can hardly focus on what I’m writing anymore.

I don’t like to write anymore.

I have to quiet her before I can say what I want to say comfortably. Writing is exactly why that very issue is my absolution. I can think, in the extra millisecond it takes to form the words. Just enough time to connect what my body, my mind and my soul are yelling loudly, “SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN TO WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS TRYING TO TELL YOU!”

The answers are always there; you just have to have the wisdom of life to understand the moment. And that is just physics. Although, I’ve never taken the course. That’s just 8th grade science for you, folks.

Two small pieces that shouldn’t go together, but they do, because our lives are not linear, but holy hell, are they connected.

I passed out in my college psychology class.

In front of a full class of 150 students, in the middle of a mid-term. Fucked up-sideways on Codeine syrup (yes, also known as syzzrrp), sick-as-hell with Bronchitis, but my mother has the syllabus for this particular college course. We were going to take this class together because “She’s the best Prof, ever!” but ironically, (or not) my mom had already dropped out of the course. Time-constraints, this and that.

“You have to go to class! It’s the midterm! Take the medicine, go—get the test done and then come back and sleep, whatever You’ll feel so much better!” She says to me, as she leaves to a social event.

So, I’m at my desk, taking the test...and it’s getting harder and harder to read. I think I stared at #29. 20 minutes before I finally got the courage to get up. I go to the front of the class, where the projector and professor are standing. Before I can even say a word...

“Are you okay...?”

I’m waking up. That familiar, but horribly disorientated feeling...and the specific taste. There are at least eight people. Twelve? So many faces circled around me and here we are—I’m finally realizing the moment. But apparently, I had to be even more ridiculous and disruptive by smacking my head (LOUDLY) against the whiteboard on the way down.

Just here to add that extra layer of flare for the audience.

By the time I was twelve, I was getting drunk on a somewhat regular basis. At other friends’ houses, or at my own house. It was always accessible, and no one seemed to notice…the kids are drunk. I inherited the ability to drink copious amounts of alcohol and then wake up as if nothing had happened the day or night before. No hangovers hanging around these parts. My mom and auntie (bio-mom) were both this way, and apparently so was my sperm donor. One of the few things I know of him is that he could take down a bottle of Jack, or kill a keg, and still find a way to be a functioning human.

There’s no doubt in my mind the functioning alcoholism was an innate trait. From 6th to 8th grade, the drinking might occur once or twice a month. My parents had separated for the first time. I had two separate homes—my mom having the perfect, steady home Monday-Friday, and living with my dad on weekends, due to schedule…and sports. My cousin was living with us at our family home during this time. She had recently turned 21, so my friends and I suddenly had a way to drink whenever we wanted, and my mom was not around to peek in and see what was really going on. Enter the era of wine coolers and “wine” that tasted like it was made for kids. Fake-fruity as fuck…I couldn’t stand a sip these days.

Sports took precedence, of course, but there were plenty of opportunities to take advantage of the ease and access to “Party like Rockstars!” There was a complete lack of consequence, in my mind. No agony of a looming hangover, no likelihood that parents would notice…but even the potentiality of getting caught, and defying my mother, was intoxicating. So was the booze. The conception of my drinking is important, because by the time I was a freshman, boozing was damn-near habitual.

I had advanced to straight vodka, and weirdly enough, it had no effect on my taste buds as it should. This fact is what created a party trick for my friends and myself, that made us wildly popular at whatever backyard party was going on—every single weekend. One of my girls, usually Rocky, would get the whole party riled up, yelling at the top of her lungs, “Come look at what my girl can do! Come look at this—it’s wild! Come see my girl!” I would then proceed to chug whatever cheap fifth of vodka we had magically materialized, while the entire party began to count, or numerically chant more accurately, along with my best friend. We’d usually make it to 14 or 15 seconds, and I believe my record was 21 seconds. It’s absolutely mindboggling thinking back and realizing I was 14-fucking-years-old! All the while my fellow 14-year-old friends were drunk off of two beers, or Smirnoff Ice’s, respectively, as they should have been.

Boys were frequently inappropriate, but with my tomboy attitude and lifestyle, and friends that were models in their own right, I was always more of a guy friend, than the girl with the boyfriend. But I desperately wanted a boyfriend. I wanted love like you saw in the movies. I was always attracted to my best guy friend, looking for that real, honest best-friend-relationship that was the gold standard of being a girl, and living the ultimate life. But boys don’t think that way. Even if I had found that type of relationship, by some one-in-a-million chance, I certainly didn’t know or understand that it was okay to be alone.

I was very content and comfortable in my own company from a young age, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling that my self-worth would have to come from finding a significant relationship—with a guy. I mean, my dad has been nonchalantly brainwashing me to elope from childhood, so what else would be natural but to fantasize about falling in love and getting married in junior high? And my parents were a piss-poor example of what a healthy relationship should look like.

I obviously wanted the opposite of their terrible marriage, knowing from very young that their relationship was not something to idolize. But it was most certainly a constant in my life and made seeking a life partner seem ‘normal’…way too young. I find it beyond weird and creepy now, as an adult. Hopefully so do all of you that are reading this. With all of that said, let me tell you about the first boy I ever kissed. Yes, of course, there is a mortifying story that coincides with that first taste of adolescent attachment! What else?!

This was a big moment for me. In 7th grade, right before my thirteenth birthday. I had mostly been ignored by any boy, let alone by a boy that I actually liked. I didn’t realize it back then, but boys considered me to more of a competition than a girlfriend. I was athletic enough to beat a lot of the boys in sports, and I wasn’t afraid to try. I did not get that hurting a boys’ ego was the antithesis of attractive. Despite my previous experiences, the boy I had liked for most of the year told a friend of mine that he wanted to go out with me!

We started talking on AIM all the time, and what I thought was relationship-building was really a way for him to push how far I might be interested in going with him. None of that mattered though, we were holding hands at school—and every girl liked him! I was too excited it was all happening to me to question any of it. Totally caught up in the fantasy and infatuation.

So, we’ve been going out for about three weeks, and the stage was set perfectly for a first kiss…a boy-girl party was just on the horizon. We ended up “macking” in a huge house-style playhouse in the backyard, and it was actually a really good kiss. (Ironically this backyard is also the backyard of my former first boyfriend from 3rd grade. He ended up being my senior prom date as well. As platonic friends. Ain’t life funny?) I was impressed at how it had gone better than I could have ever imagined, and I was absolutely swooning.

What they say about braces is Bullshit…your teeth don’t get in the way!

As soon as we left the party, my boyfriend spent the night on the phone with myself and one of my good friends. Talking about how I would definitely be down for getting fingered if he came over and we hung out again sometime that same weekend. My friend talking for me, and me shyly laughing in response. Do we see what’s really going on here, folks?

I didn’t.

We didn’t end up hanging out again that weekend. And while I can’t say with full certainty that it was directly related to me being nervous, or very unready, to get fingered right after having my very first kiss, I do think it’s telling that my brain can’t shake the feelings, even now. Well, it was all for naught anyhow. He broke up with me that following school week, after avoiding me for most of it.

There wasn’t much to the breakup, pretty typical of a relationship in 7th grade, and we had made it a whole month! I was devastated, but at least I had that. Then I started hearing the swirling rumors. I wasn’t branded a prude, but there were plenty of things being said about my previous boyfriend expecting more action, and when it didn’t happen like he thought, there was just no more reason to continue on. But then there was a worse rumor. My lifelong bestie had just gotten her braces off and suddenly every guy at the school was in love with her. Including the boy that had just broken up with me.

She was always pretty, always thin…and that magnanimous personality. She was now every boy’s dream girl, and she was not a tomboy at all. A worse rumor was that my bestie was talking about wanting to go out with my ex, too?! There was no way she would do that to me! She knew how I had felt about him; I had liked him for like 6 months before we went out…and he was my first mack!

I finally asked her about it, not wanting to believe it could ever be true, but instead she confirmed the rumors were not rumors at all, but facts. She had decided she liked him and she was going to go ahead and go out with him. I was shocked and heart sick… and so mad at my best friend! Within two weeks they were now the couple holding hands. A week after that, the local church was having a dance, and honestly, if there was any dance the kids would be there. At church or not, we could rub up on each other and feel like the young adults that we fiercely desired to be.

So, everyone is at the church dance, it’s difficult seeing them together…and I’m definitely in a fight with bestie. Everyone knows there is very real tension between us, but she is with him now, I will just hang out with other friends at the other side of the large hall-style room. The place is pretty packed with kids, it’s dark enough with flashing lights. The DJ is playing the music loud enough to just blend in, dance, and maybe even have a little fun in spite of the circumstances.

Then came the announcement from the DJ.

The most popular song on TRL, the hottest song playing on every radio at the time, and one of my current favorites, had abruptly become the anthem of my nightmares. One of our mutual friends thought it was hilarious beyond the pale to dedicate The Boy is Mine, specifically to me and bestie.

“A shoutout—this song is just for you!”

I heard the opening instrumentals, and I immediately knew what song was playing. So did everyone else. There were audible gasps, followed by “Ooooh’s!” that flooded the room. Somehow louder than the booming, stellar sound system that the church had. My jaw was on the floor, poker face defunct.

All eyes are suddenly on me. There was not a place on the planet where I could blend in to hide anymore, so it would seem, but I’m not exaggerating here when I say that the room’s energy was now directly focused on me. Even the DJ was able to see what was going on within seconds of his announcement, as he mouthed a “sorry” to me with a shrug.

The friend who made the dedication was laughing uncontrollably, finding all the humor in my torment. The real dagger was when the newly minted couple took it upon themselves to start slow dancing to the jam. It’s not even a fucking slow song, man! (In my humble opinion.) I sat and watched the room for a minute or two. I was really just too stunned to move, but the eyes became too overwhelming, and I finally walked out of the room. None of my friends knew that I walked my happy ass home, alone with my thoughts and the dark of the night. (1.5 miles up hill, but these boots were made for walkin’…or skate shoes, because that’s what’s cool right now, and my fallen arches are supported with special supports, so we’re good!)

As junior high relationships go, bestie and my first kiss broke up pretty soon after the dance, without ever kissing themselves. All was forgiven and back to normal in no time, but the moment and memory still holds very, very strong in my psyche. Maybe because I never really had another boyfriend after that until I was close to graduating high school. Not one date either. I had quite a few die-hard crushes, based on best guy friends that loved me…as a friend. I was everyone’s best friend.

Once soccer was out of my life completely, I became what could only be described as the local party girl. I was always surrounded by different groups of friends, drinking every single weekend, barely scraping by with grades. Enough to stay on the tennis team, but the season was the very beginning part of the school year, and the rest was just a playground for adolescent drunks.

A lot of my friends had gotten into sampling drugs, but the D.A.R.E. kid in me was always too scared to partake. I never saw alcohol as the drug that it actually was and is. I wasn’t promiscuous in any way, but I could…and would drink anyone under the table, and that was just the norm. A typical Friday night. A full fifth of vodka tapped by me alone, every weekend. I had a place where I could buy all the alcohol I wanted, just walk right in, they know me, might even give us some free shot bottles for being such great [underage] customers. A whole slew of free items for my eighteenth birthday, so yeah, they were aware of how old I was—but we paid well.

This worked out perfectly for me, my mom was overly present during the weekdays and was off doing her own thing every weekend, so I was able to do as I pleased. My dad was asleep, loudly on the couch, and clueless, and we took full advantage every chance we got. Some even taking pictures with him as his mouth was hung-wide, arms around his larger-than-average-doubles-as-a-bed folding chair, cameras flashing. He doesn’t make a move, other than his hangy-ball in the back of throat as his throttles on. My friends loved him. He was a man of few words and few dollars to give, but he always gave a quick, “Hey kids, have fun.” Snore-shakes-the-whole-fucking-house two seconds later. I don’t know how my friends perceived him, as us not having any money, or if they knew that he was wearing a perma-poker face. Here’s the detail: he believed every penny was likely to dissolve and acted that way every day.

I lived on 99 cent cheeseburgers 4-5 days a week and this might include multiple meals. My mom might make a traditional meal here and there but even growing up I realize this happened about twice a week, realistically. I was out at soccer practice, or dance, or gymnastics, or a friend’s house—like I said, I was everywhere. We ate at the local steak house once a week, but otherwise my dad couldn’t justify more than whatever cheeseburger special was available. Or a special anywhere else would also be acceptable. He’ll choose to sit inside to eat, every time. Where he takes his time, pulling each part of his sandwich apart, piece by piece. He eats the meat with salt and pepper, adds some sauce to dip. Eats the tomato, lettuce and onion, one by one, with salt and pepper, dipping each piece. Finally, we’re at the bread, where he peels the cheese off and eats it in small pieces off his fork. If there aren’t too many extra flavors on his bread he’ll add some butter and jelly, or more salt.

This small surgery was a good trial run though, if I was able to pay proper attention. The actual surgery went well, without consequence, but afterwards the healing result is less than comforting. My skin is kind of spitting out the thin, stretchy-plastic-feeling sutures in a way that can only be described as gelatin-ooze. The wound actual looks pretty nice, but my body doesn’t like the sutures.

It’s telling me.

Tits fully reconstructed from scratch using other cells from my body. (14.75-hr surgery and 6-8 weeks of major healing.) Holy hell the hot room. Immediately following this surgery, they put you in an ICU for 5-days, with a constant breeze of 97-99֯, to mitigate blood clots. I’m still in the full-fledged throes of menopause. (Chemo-induced.)

These tits are fucking huge!

I have to have the hospital bed tilted up to see…anything. These mounds will cover my whole head, easily. I knew I was after-surgery-swollen, but this was not inflammatory swell, this is next-level didn’t-ask-for-Dolly’s. The result of zero conversation about size or specifics…other than can the surgery be done? COVID or not, for my breast cancer reconstruction all I cared about was a competent can-do attitude, and proof of surgical proficiency.

From 2.3 stars to 5-star reconstruct-fuck…with liberties!

I’m hearing a specific saying in my head on repeat.

“When you assume—you make an ass out of you and me.”

While sweating my chesticles off. The nice nurse, at night, stocks me up with towels that she soaks in water, and keeps my large water jug full, one with water and one with ice chips, that I am dipping the wet towels in to soak up every ounce of cold. A wet towel between the mountains, one on each thigh, completely butt-ass naked besides my wound-wrapping, that covers my whole mid-section and the “V” of my vajay-top, but nothing else. I could give a flying fart in fuckville if Satan came here in this very moment—because I’d burn his ass. Satan-ass-ash. That mother fucker has nothing on me.

On. Fucking. Fire.

5-days of heat torture. Staring at the thermostat locked on the wall, it’s fucking laughing at me. I’m easily distracted by the massive holes cut out of the perfect-circle-balloons. The holes are disgusting. Just open flesh, waiting to be filled with “faux nipple mounds.” The failure of one of those faux-nips was something from a graphic novel, but this was my real flesh and blood. No, it was necrotic. Deep, black like fresh asphalt-pieces of rotted skin concaved, decayed carcass that smells just like The Walking Dead tit that it ever-so-blackly reflects.

It ultimately healed with a very thin layer of skin. With the one faux nipple mound fully-formed and the other barely-call-it-a-skin-layer-wannabe-nip with some pronounced scarring, a very large hip-to-voluptuous-hip scar, a somewhat disarming “surgeon-chosen” belly button, that can only be described as an innie-outtie: I can’t help but think that my body deeply resembles a Muppet character from my childhood…wrapped in a MILF porn-star body.

How fucking fitting.

And yet, this body can still do anything.✨🌀

Buy me an espresso, please?!☕