flashback: guess who is coming to dinner: round dos

so my brother didn't bring home another cougar but i revisited this piece and did some flip and flopping for a writers conference app and i thought i'd bring you a new version. this was a fav on a blog and in my class the first time around so let's hope you like the changes. i took into consideration questions such as how can the reader know what you look like kate in comparison? (unless you know me) or what did you parents think?- them being born agains made it all the more interesting. sorry i haven't been posting regularly the end of grad school and the end of the school year caught up with me. i am going to get back to my more regular posts! i promise! thanks as always for stopping by and your support.

What do you do when your brother tells you; he is dating someone closer to your age, someone closer to the age of your stepmother, and also your father? You have two choices after the surprise falls out of you again, to either: 1) throw judgment out the window or 2) judge, judge, and judge some more. Well I wish I could say I did one, but that just isn't part of my older sister makeup. I still want to protect my brother even if he doesn't think he needs it. So I opted for two, plus some lectures later, and to get through some herbal sedatives, lots of herbal sedatives. If I knew what I had in store, I would have gone to the doctor and begged for some prescription freedom. Lesson learned.

All I see is three to four inch heels, well manicured feet, jeans with sequins on the bottom and little on the rear just to make sure you are paying attention, they glisten in the light of the hotel bar against our overpriced champagne. Then the boobs, huge obtrusive boobs, cleavage that makes Pamela Anderson stalkers even swoon. No, it keeps going when I see her face. Her face is covered in makeup, makeup like you used to wear when you couldn’t be comfortable in your own skin. That was when I was 15. She is 42. Very tan skin, almost too tan, and hair, her hair is perfectly done, almost bleached but still shockingly pretty. Not one knot, not one hair out of place. The OC embodied in one woman is sitting next to me, next to me as my brother introduces her to me and me to her.

My younger brother, my brother is 20 years her junior. She tells me as she speaks with her half-British, half-Laguna Hills dialect about her surgeries, “I have had two boob jobs, my ears pinned back, a nose job.” Holy fuck, I just met you 5 minutes ago I think. If I had all that work done, I hope I would be hotter. More unique. Less Barbie, more exotic.

The older sister. Me. Melting in this fancy hotel couch. Mental music plays of why me and fuck my life on repeat. I want to take my brother under this wing to shelter him from this storm of his undoing. I helped raise him for God sakes don’t I get to partake in the all-important role of badgering him and providing unsolicited advice as all parents do. I was once upon a time a child raising a child – a mother role left to a motherless child, me then, and me now.

As we sit next to each other- we are the polar opposites of femininity, of womanhood. My skin is pale and pasty from the fog and mist of winter reality against her fake and bake orange. My body parts all real. My breasts still perky even over the age of thirty without a doctor’s help or assistance, but my lips are fine markers of lines. And no personal trainer to perfectly sculpt me. My dark hair dyed only to hide the gray of an early grayer and it is done up because I didn’t wash it and barely brush it.

It wasn't just our looks, which left us on opposite sides of the line drawn so regularly in womanhood. There was more. The more part never stopped pushing my limits of needing prescription freedom or needed to regress into the fetal. She worked up to the important things when we had known each other a little longer like 24 hours or something. “Have you had your boobs done? They are very nice.”

“Excuse me. No, they are real.”

“Well I’m thinking of getting mine done again,” she sings in a high pitch.

Shoot me. Please take me to my dead place. Whatever I did universe, God, Buddha, in my former life please, please forgive me. I will do whatever penance required, live more simply, be kinder to my neighbor, get rid of material possessions-just make this lady go away. I spew, “If you make them any bigger, you are going to fall the fuck over.” Aloud. Not in my head. She laughed her uncomfortable laugh. Can I vote her off the island of my genetics? This is a joke of the worst kind. She tells us how she renamed herself. Renamed herself? Because too many women in the salon, too many women in the salon had her name. Is anything about this woman real? Anything at all? What does my brother see in her but her boobs her huge boobs? I can barely avoid my eyes from glancing there. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else.

She liked to flash her goodies to all. Even to my family. She wore a nighty around my uncles and parent’s homes, homes against their own judgment they welcomed her in, and didn’t pause for one moment to evaluate the appropriateness of it all. Here is a tip- black lace and silk and seeing the top of your thighs or maybe your thong not so good for the family visits especially not the first one.

The cougar didn't just advertise she took it to the next level. With my brother as a willing participant of course. While we try to act “normal” around the wildlife dating my brother, she and my brother cuddle like teenagers so much my parents had to intervene. See my parents- my father and stepmother are born again Christians so they are not really down for making out or semi-dry humping on their couch. In their home, they require a prayer before meals and the four minute discussion/lecture entitled: Why don’t you go to Church as part of their list of duties as Christians. “I don’t want to be speeding up around in heaven and not see you,” preaches ever so subtly my father. My father has given himself a timeout in his bedroom listening to his peace of blaring Fox news and flying airplanes on his computer. As my brother and the cougar rest on each other’s bodies upon the coldness of the leather sharing a square reserved for one. My stepmom has to request backup from my father to deal with their inappropriateness; my father yells from down the hall, annoyance reverberated against the walls of our family home.

No one tells you how to deal with this, no one writes books about what happens when your brother or son brings home a cougar. Maybe I should write one. It would include the following topics in the series: How to deal with your brother when he brings home a cougar, or becomes part of the conservative movement and is on the O’Reilly Factor before he can drive or gets deported from Africa and you are notified by the Drudge Report and Huffington Post not your next of kin. The cliff notes on my brother are as follows: this isn’t the first stunt he has pulled- and it most defintiely won't be his last. I am in shock. In shock about myself. Why am I as surprised as much as I was at his first attempt at oppositional defiance disorder?

The surprise of me, his mini-mother, is fueling the fire of this rebellion. I want to protect him. I want him to be okay. I want to know my attempt at motherhood was not failed. Even if it was a result of circumstances beyond my control that I became his mother. And as this visit ends, something changes inside of me. I grew distaste of course for OC woman with fake tits who are orange, but also I need to let go and realize the shock will keep happening. If it isn’t a cougar, it will be something else and it will be soon.

So next year, next Thanksgiving, I’m going to my local coffee shop or nursing home or senior center or maybe I’ll just make a house visit to Hef’s mansion and really take it up a notch. I mean I might not be the girl next-door kind of girl material- me being a brunette and all and don’t forget with no silicone or saline to call my own. Hey it is worth a try. I hope to find my own boyfriend to borrow, to rent, to fall in love with and to take home. He might be 70 or 80, but it’s my turn to be the talk of my family.

the freedom in being a woman, so i thought. another judy blume moment, are you there god- it's me, kate

Freedom. The freedom I thought I would have in getting a period. I would be free from feeling different, free from the feeling that I was the last one standing in childhood among the budding femininity, free from the lack of breasts, free from the feeling I would be a child forever.

I was one of the last girls, last girls to start her period in my population of girlhood in junior high, Rohnert Park, CA. At least out of the ones who told the truth. I would listen to all the talks, the first one from my mother, then later in 5th grade, then in 7th. All the same. About cycles and what to use and expect. I remember looking in my mother’s face- thinking this is all very gross. But by the time I reached the age of 13 and almost all my friends had started. I wanted the drop of femininity. In 7th grade, I was shocked again but not because of the period talk but during the discussion of baby blockers, prophylactics, condoms, contraception- a girl in my class said it’s too late for me I have condoms under my bed. My mom found them. Me without a period. Me without a proper make out. Pretended not to looked shocked in these children becoming adults in ways I knew I wasn’t ready for.

But I wanted that period. Badly. But be careful what you wish for. On the day of school, 8th grade sometime after Christmas but not before my birthday not yet 14, I sat in the portable classroom while my teacher tried to teach us American Democracy. When I felt a wetness that just didn’t seem right. I didn’t know if it was my period. But I knew I needed to get to a bathroom and fast. There was the asking of the bathroom. Remember when we had to ask permission to pee- I don’t miss those days. And the long walk to the closest bathroom. Far away from this black top scattered with portable buildings of public schooling in California. I walked.

And once I found the proof I was a woman, I was woman, I was full of exacerbation because I didn’t have any womanly protection on me and I would have to do the dreaded, dreaded mammoth pad from the school office. First, there was the death of having to tell a grownup I didn’t know that I had my period. Part of my junior high life was on the line, I had to be strategic in who I asked and how. I wouldn’t want someone to hear. And then the box of mammoth grandma pillow pad was in my hands and before anyone could see it was shoved in a pocket-rather gracious fully-rather clumsily. It was hidden.

Starting your period at school the first time was not the freedom I had hoped for. The good news was my dad had remarried and I didn’t have to tell him. I couldn’t face my father and ask him to buy me pads. Freedom to be a woman already felt more limiting than I thought it would. So I tried to walk graciousfully while sitting on a huge pillow through the halls. I was a woman. I would get boobs. I would no longer be the last. I thought. Freedom to be a woman- little did I know that this freedom I had longed for would cause me more problems than I would like ruined pants, made playing sports not very fun, an ER visit, cramps so bad I would throw up, regularly. And the boobs I desired took multiple years to appear. The idea of freedom always seems to play out better than you think.

alcoholic bones- by accident napping on a a black and white checkered kitchen floor

What she heard. Are you okay? She opened her eyes. And realized the ceiling was above her. A face was next to her talking to her. Are you okay? He says again. Around her black and white checkers evidence that she is on the floor of her kitchen. What am I doing on the kitchen floor? You passed out. Twice. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It had been awhile since she was awoken and jarred awake and found herself on a floor. Napping but not knowing how. How she had laid down for a shut eye. The last time it was a bathroom one. A public one. Gross she knew. But she was sober. And that was 5 plus years ago.

So as he is piecing it together for her. The lean on the corner of the cabinet and then the sliding down. Down to the ground. Gracefully passing out. She did. So she starts to rolodex through the reasons as to why she is sleeping on her kitchen floor and when she should get up. Probably soon. This isn’t the first time. Should she go to the doctor?

She felt lightheaded she remembered that. Something about closing her eyes and making out for the first time in months while intoxicated on a tolerance that would make her ancestors and relatives wince- not good enough for her irish alcoholic bones like hers. There was a half glass of wine served in plastic and beers not sure how many because the guy she just met and his friends bought them from her- the never empty glass of beer gets her every time. She has blacked out once before because she was drunk when she was still in the beginning of her tenure of drinking. She has passed out twice after making out with someone once sober, once intoxicated (this very time). She has passed out once because of stress. Should she get off this black and white floor? Should she die of embarrassment? Should she see a MD? Should she get herself to a meeting? Or just her bed?

She knows, knows something is going on but she isn’t sure what. The heart beats too hard too fast sometimes with or without the help of alcohol. The tingling reaching up higher to her head, felt upon her ever moving hands. Now lay still. As she got up taking his hand, she wasn’t sure what was going on inside of her. But she knew it was better to pass out on her kitchen floor than in a public bathroom in a bar while sober. What she heard. She heard. She heard she should wake up. Wake up and stand on this black and white floor. Stand on the black and white square smudged kitchen floor.

born again, by accident

Calculating. It wasn’t a calculating choice. Like I need this to happen. I need to be born again. I am born again by accident. No rain has poured on my soil in months. This might seem misleading because I have dated, dated more men this summer than last. But somehow along the way I forgot how to seal the deal. There was a calculating choice of slowing things down. Getting to know someone before I show them my world of my vagina. But I didn’t intend for it to go down like this. But you see this isn’t the first time.

The isn't the first time I have fallen upon such a drought. California baby I must be. Because it either a monsoon of sorts or just a drought. But somehow this born again by accident status is different than the others because I am still getting some moisture, some perception, some 90% chances but somehow it does come down in a full rain. The last time I had the opportunity to play we had a bout of passing out and asthma attack- not in the cards I’d say- no rain just a drizzle.

Sexuality and how we decide to play in the game of it is and always will be personal with a dash of political. See I am bad at the casual with sex. Almost my all my too quick encounters had landed me boyfriends, which have landed me heartbreak because I am in too deep with someone I probably shouldn’t be. Someone I should probably get to know beyond the perfection and acceleration of beginnings. So what is a woman in her 30’s who have needs beyond her own mind but biological left to do?

I don’t know but I do know when I hit this mark. It becomes to a point where I feel like a teenager boy. I start to undress bartender and baristas with my eyes. Men who sit next to me in somewhere on the stop in life-in lines, in cafes-I start to smell them and they smell good. My sexual energy steps up a notch so much I know I can’t be born again for long. I try to embody the lady gaga that this is a choice I don’t want to lose my creativity through my vagina. But a lot of creativity has come from my affairs and escapades with my vagina.

Born again I might be for now. But it won’t be long. It never is. And then you remember how to do it. Like last year around this time when sun had shone but no rain had fallen and you do what any normal woman would do and found a Halloween costume just revealing enough. Just enough skin. Just enough super hero. All you have to do is take off your clothes in a tasteful way. It is easier to do it on the Halloween. And I don’t break all my patterns and I just can’t. So as I walk out of the door American Apparel on the fateful haight street, last year leaving with wonder woman gear, this year with a scantly clad cat woman outfit. It isn’t calculating, it is just the reality of someone who is born again by accident.

confessions of a hoarder in training

hello my friends-thanks for reading. i am shooting for two posts a week now that i am grad school (again) plus other fun stuff i am signed up for so it's the best i can do. but am i writing and will keep doing so. please keep reading- i will try my best to keep it interesting. all my thanks always!


What I found under my bed during my move does warrant a visit from the TLC hoarders show. I have a few friends who observed the aftermath and they might be talking to the producers as we speak. I might be in training or so I think since you could still walk in the room without a mask or a gps but a mix of intervention and hoarders might do me some good.

I used to hide things under my bed when I was younger, homemade lunches I didn’t want to eat, treasures I found in my adventures through the neighborhood, myself during times of hide and seek. Now it would seem underneath my bed has taken on a life of its own and I don’t have the faintest how everything got down there. Sometimes baggage is behind us, sometimes it is just underneath us.
Disclaimer- if you already love me I’m sure you will be okay with this laundry list of imperfection. If you think you might like to- love me or date me or like me this might be a show stopper. But here it is. I am human.

After 1.5 years living in my house I found the following under my bed (make sure you have time this list is embarrassingly long):

6 water bottles varying in side, 3 cups- 2 glass, 1 plastic, tons of feathers from a un-cooperative down comforter- no time outs worked on this one, a pair of slippers (covered in those fucking feathers), 5 socks all mismatched, tampons (ob)all unused., condom wrapper (no contents- it was used but I don’t know when or with who but I have some guesses), 2 books (sederis and chabon), 2 magazines and newspapers- natural health and the guardian, one tupperware, one rice bag (for the sore muscles made for Christmas), one syllabus for a photo journalism class I dropped, vicks vapor rub( from my bout with bronchitis and heartache and applying for grad school, again), 2 business cards for a hair stylist and a chiropractor, change (some unlucky, some not), bobby pins, a package of birth control with just the last row left, pens: 5, candy wrappers: 3, 2 from england one from these states (kashi healthy bar or something like it to make you feel better and then the good stuff two cadburys- european chocolate is the best), receipts, 4 lotions all half full, homeopathic medicine wrappers (the stuff I give to peps to feel better- I am dealer of the natural shit), a bank receipt (don’t read- you might get scared), unknown items: a pill that is undetermined, a pumpkin seed maybe and a ice like looking glass thing smallish, a piece of mail, a parking voucher from downtown where I have therapy when I am too lazy to ride my bike, another plastic cup, one earring (no match), a bottle cap, boa feathers, more feathers, a cranberry pill for my bladder, brown paper bag, lighter, tag from clothes (crossroads), makeup sponges, small brown box, and finally with much ado hand sanitizer, the natural and lavender flavor.

Currently what is under my bed: nothing. But I have only been here in my new place for 2 and half weeks. Give me time. I wouldn’t want those camera crews to have nothing to film once they get here.

sin of liberalism #211: judging armpit hair in yoga

thanks to nancy for sending me this link to this wonderful uk commercial for a razor with trimmer. we need better commercials here- someone get on it!

Shame on you I think. Shame on you for the false advertising. When the woman next to me at yoga lifts her sweaty arm against her leg twisting in the standing pose and I am welcomed with a huge not small even masculinity worthy armpit of hair- the hair of the armpit- it is coming towards my face. I don’t care normally I don’t. But shame on her for false advertising. When I placed my mat next to her for a moment. For the moment of class. I saw a typical yogi in the sf-any city for that matter. She is white. Curly hair a top her head. Short tight spandex shorts. Tank top with the sports bra exposed just enough. And two nicely cleanly shaved legs, perfectly done. False advertising. I say. See why you would shave your legs and not your pits is beyond me. Completely beyond me.

See your legs are hard to shave. The shape and curve of a woman’s leg-I am sure a guys-are hard to maneuver without a nick or miss of spot of hair. I remember once a guy I dated told me I had bristles on my legs. Don’t girls shave everyday? No I said. Not every day. It’s not as simple as a face and a dude can get away with out shaving that at all. So I don’t know why you would spend such time on the legs and say screw the easy part- the pits.

Because shame on you. I think you should own it and have hairy legs so that I can know that in the preview of looking at you that armpit full of hair might be heading toward my face when we are in yoga while you have a good sweat abrewing. It is just common courtesy. To let me know. You are a card carrying liberal but sometimes say non pc things when in the solitude of your home. Or you eat non organic on sundays or something. I guess shame on me to judge someone else’s armpit hair. All I could think was- wonder what she had going on downstairs. Because of her false advertising of her legs and the puff of sweaty hair at my face. I wonder what she does for her womanly area. If I was a dude and found two nicely shaved legs and then happened upon the 1970s show I would be pissed.

Shame. I guess body hair makes us feel shameful and judgeful and everyone is full of advice of how and when to shape it and shave and get rid of it and to grow it. I get it. We don’t have to wear bras. We don’t have to shave. We don’t have to marry. We don’t need to procreate. We can work. We can play. Women’s liberation still might have limits. Limits I don’t want to know or say. Aloud. Or in my head quietly yelling.

As I shamefully judge the pit next to me. I wonder what is it really about. The smell, the shock, the false advertising, the uncertainty, the not fitting in the box, or me not getting why you would shave your long whitish curvy legs and forget those pits. It doesn’t matter why because I have done my own examination of my body hair. And how I keep it.

I am a terrible shaver. Of my legs. I still miss spots and cut myself it doesn’t matter if I am over 30. I shave my pits more often than not-my pits have never gotten bushy like my mr. rodgers friend of the moment. And for my danger triangle. It depends a lot on what I have going on in terms of extracurricular. If I have a regular visitor, I keep things trim and shaved my own little personal triangle of love. I have tried shaving it all but it just got itchy from the shaving- kind of a buzz kill past the first day. Red bumps all you’re your vag not cute. Plus I felt naked like a 12 year old. I have waxed but never the whole thing that includes in between the checks of my ass- it freaks me out to have a stranger up there under bright florescent lights- saying open up more- might be worse than the gyno. That is saying a lot. And this is an open call to those in the universe in charge of the waxer and gyno services- please serve a cocktail at both this affairs from now on-thanks.

I remember once a guy who I dated told me you should trim and I thought I had. Fucking pornos and girls who shave it all the time that makes it hell for my little bit. A little bit or a little bit more a travesty. See I believe if you are lucky enough to be there you shouldn’t complain. Not at all. Just enjoy the ride. Because we all have bigger worries than how to shave this and that. We just want someone who loves us either way. But know know if you have taken a vacay from the shaving, you will in fact find someone to bed. When you least expect it. It happens. Every time. Maybe I should stop shaving.

jumping trains- from the bullet to the slow

enjoy your weekend- i hope this amazing weather holds. and as always thanks for stopping by- all my gratitude. . .

Comfort. I left the comfort of the bullet train of endeavors of love recently. It was a conscious choice. Not like many I have made in the love department. But I was once comfortable in the quickness of the fall in love or lust or like and it was so fucking exhilarating that I just kept doing it. I didn’t care if the moments didn’t stretch out. I wanted more. Just another hit. Maybe I just was meant to have moments and brief love affairs and the happily ever after would just be reserved for me in mini infatuations or relationships and my I do would happen more than once.

But as I started thinking, as I do, I realized, the comfort of the bullet train of heartbreak was starting to wear on my soul. Wear me down thin. I started taking in the research and the facts for I was once a researcher. Lapsed maybe. I was once a sociologist- not sure if you can retire from that. But an analyzer of my own life as well as others might be my favorite pasttime. Sometime. So once I begun to realize that the movement was too quick I kept on falling and then forgetting to put out my hands. I started to review the scratches and scrapes and bruises. Not just the ones on the outside but the inside.Those are the hardest to look at it and understand.

So after 2 plus years in San Francisco after my east coast tenure: 1) I had survived-not used loosely-dating a married man- I didn’t know and just to make it extra creepy he was cop. So when I broke it off with him he actually had a gun on his person. Not the best scenario for safety emotional being the least of my worries. 2) I survived dating a man who most definitely had something going on in the mental department for he and I broke things off and not soon after he tried to swim to angel island. 3) I dated a man who I thought liked me enough to be pleased by me. He wasn’t. I found out I was one of many. And then he got back together with his x right after he made me met her. 4) I fell in love with someone, someone I thought I knew. Until his once in awhile habit of cocaine became a binge. And I tapped out. Well not right away I tapped back in and jumped back into the ring until I couldn’t anymore.

So needless to say the bullet train has stopped working for me. I decided to get on a slow train that makes all the stops and doesn’t leave on time and sometimes sits and idles for hours because someone tried to cross the tracks at the wrong time or it was too hot or the acela was slowing things down. There is time to walk around and write. And look around and see it all. I can even grab a beer or some bad food-overpriced of course. It’s nice.

Because the slow train for me meant that my heart couldn’t jump into something until I actually stopped and saw it. Because I just kept jumping on and off the train not paying attention to the stops or the signs. I just kept going. The slow train can be lonely and not as exciting of my love for the train of the bullet. I miss that train. Slowly I travel. Slowly I begin things. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly. Still I miss the quickness of falling. Falling. But maybe I can fall more slowly. And pull the stop when I am ready to get off. Get off this train.

alcoholic bones: playing the game of alcoholism

Playing the game. I was so very good at playing the game of an alcoholic. I once was. And it wasn’t until I recently tried a repeat offense-I realized I am a lapsed alcoholic as I am Catholic. There is no way of denying it. You can’t deny you used to be good it. But now one bottle of red puts me so far in the remission of a hangover-it’s depressing.

I used to play the game so well. So after I decided to have a liquid dinner of red wine-a full bottle and grabbing my emergency cigarettes-packed away randomly in the shared bathroom under the sink. I was trashed half way through. I used to drink a bottle of wine for breakfast and then go on to do the sobriety test of work. But not now.

I wake up to my computer that I fell asleep more like passed out to- it is on the ground. No big deal right until I look down and realize it’s on a broken plate. A broken plate that held my midnight snack-scratch that dinner of the poor woman’s quesadillas- find what you can in the fridge and voila white woman’s Mexican skills tested and served. Left over cheese from my roommate, abandoned corn tortillas and salsa that salsa is mine. No sour cream so I pretend by using plain yogurt to be healthy again. I am not. Then I find 4 jalapeños floating in mia jar in the back of the fridge. It filled me up and I forgot about it until. Until of course I woke up and found that I had passed out and pushed my computer to break my quesadilla plate into two. I am laughing. Maybe I am not as lapsed as I had thought.

I used to play the game of alcoholism so well. Finish work and the put it straight into my vein, whatever alcohol would do. Would do. No dinner. That would complicate things. Make me less drunk. And then the bumming of cigarettes from randoms. At that time I was a good drunk with the assistance of doses of anxiety meds I wasn’t supposed to drink on but I didn’t heed any attention to such warnings on labels too tiny to read, too tiny to care. I needed that iv drip to deal with me. To deal with my life. To keep going.

I was good at playing the game of an alcoholic by hooking up with randoms and not remembering exactly how and waking up to-oh shit how do I get out of this. I was good at hooking up with friends. I was good at stumbling and spilling and fighting when I needed to. Never physically just with my biting tongue. I was good at the apologies the next day. There always are. I was good at being a drunk. I never wanted to leave. Just keep drinking. Drinking and drinking so I could keep going. Going nowhere fast but not caring as I blew my high paid salary of miserableness on being miserable.

I was a drunk with the best of them. I used to have a tolerance. I used to slur but now now I try but fail. I used do the textbook things like miss work because of being hungover- actually I think those are the only times I called in. I would roll into work reeking of alcohol and I knew I smelt. I knew I might still be drunk.

What saved me other than my weak stomach? What saved me? Was a fight over chips I had one night. One night the fight over chips made me less of a social binge drinker and face the reality of being a drunk. A drunk. Playing the game of alcoholism- I was good at it- I miss it- I miss the simplicity of washing it all away.

the make believe of adultness: round 500- the hipster art show

have a great weekend and thanks so much for reading! i am in the fuzz of advil pm i took at 4 am because i couldn't sleep. note to self: sleep aids work so well i might still be asleep while posting this.

Make believe of adulthood has transformed into forgotten super heros costumes and play fights and lava around the bed into pretending, the faking it until you make it mantra. We all make believe but somehow the creativity of our younger wonder years can be lost in the this thing call adultness.

Being an adult is overrated. If I had only known what was to come I would have stayed in the tree house of childhood longer. I might not had rushed so hard to be an adult and make adult decisions. I might had taken longer to get through the connection from being the child to the adult of college. I might have done a lot of things. But one thing I do know is that I might have built to stay in the comfort of simplicity and lightness of being kate b. in school written upon my books. Because a whole month I was late exiting the womb. And still didn’t want to get out. They had induce my exit into the world through medication pleading me the little one to enter, enter the world of adults. Idealist I was from the beginning.

Adulthood is is the responsibility that weighs you down. The inability to give the task to someone else. So as I make believe in my own way, putting on the right dress, and making sure I look the way I should. I am making believe that I haven’t been couch and bed surfing this last week. I am pretending that stress didn’t stop me from eating and sleeping. For I am in an abyss of the solitude of fear and anger and uncertainty all occurring in my home. My landlord nightmare. Monday I was swimming in lake tahoe and by Tuesday I was calling the cops on him due to his threats. Bookmarked the week with an art gallery and a few beers.

Because I have to make believe that I am okay. That it will be okay. I got to fake it as I make it. And as I walk into the hipster flat turned into art gallery, I look in the faces most with unruly beards and eyes dilated, as I scan down to the tats art within itself, then the fanny packs, and tight jeans, and biker hats turned upward. I know we are all making believe. In the best way we can. I look around the room of art. Random photo of boobs and butts and beds and scenery and birds all lined up in neat rows. I make believe to look and really understand. Instead I am thinking what if that was my rack upon this wall? And I didn’t know until. Until right now.

We walk outside through the house that is part of the installation. We are out. The air feels good upon my face. PBR and Tecate cans in one hand and burrito in another is the uniform at this party. A dude actually pulled out his balls in the bathroom line to show his friends. Forgetting we are no longer in elementary school of privates comparison. My friend recognized him as her neighbor. And once she said something to him, he promptly replied as he put away his balls one and two, well you recognize me then. Making believe we are grown-ups, some of us are just better at it than others.

One man with a beard that needs a trim with a hoodie and burrito double fisted with both his hands interrupts my conversation and says as he sways, have you bought my book yet? No what is it about? I inquisitively respond. It’s about being fucked up on alcohol and drugs. How original- no one has done one that before-comes back up like bad milk spewed upon his face. I start laughing too loud. He laughs too. I am making believe. Believe I belong here. Here.

sin of liberalism #7- i went to wal-mart. and bought something. a pregnancy test.

Don't tell me twice. Don’t tell me twice. That it is stupid. I know this of course. Of course I know this. But it’s not something I need to be told. Out loud. For I already know. I have known. Known all along. So. I only told someone as not to lie anymore. To myself. To you. To anyone. So how does one get this the first time around? So how does one get this a second time around?

Don’t tell me twice. It’s stupid to have unprotected sex. I know that of course I know. And it usually isn’t a problem. A problem for me. Me it isn’t. It isn’t something I do. Do until I usually know someone. Someone. But how well do we know anyone? Anyone. So I had unprotected sex with someone. Someone I probably shouldn’t. Shouldn’t have. Don't tell me twice. I already know. I already know. Now it was someone I knew. Someone I had been dating for awhile. But it happened. And the good news was. The good news was it was only the beginning. Not the end. The end could make all the difference.

Don't tell me twice. I know I could still be pregnant. I know about the possibilities- and the pre-ejaculation stuff- and all the things I am supposed to. Because those are easy to know. But to actually take them into consideration, consideration all the time, all the time is hard. Hard it is to be rational during sex. During sex to be rational is like to ask a woman to stop her love for chocolate or chips or good conversation when she most needs it- yay right.

So I fear pregnancy. Not because I really think I am pregnant. Because not once have I been. Don't tell me twice-I know birth control works-for I almost always use it. Use it. When I tell my acupuncturist that I am feeling emotional and she asked me could I be pregnant. I say well yes but no. And then as I lay back as I am poked with the needles in the same spot to calm my mind, to ease the pain in my mouse hand, to stop the possible headache, and to ground me. I wonder, I wonder what if I am pregnant? What if I am pregnant?

When I hit IKEA later with my friend and she drags me literally drags me to Wal-mart. Because I stopped going to Wal-mart- I am a good educated liberal of course. It is a sin, a sin one must not commit. Killing someone might be okay- but going to Wal-mart unforgivable. I decide instead of allowing this to play around in my head on the ping pong table or pin ball around, that I will find out in this Wal-mart, this Wal-mart bathroom in Oakland if I am pregnant or not. Pregnant or not. How white trash? How worth writing about? Producing material while going through the motions as not to freak myself out. Freak myself out. Because peeing on a pregnancy test on Wal-mart isn’t scary. I don’t feel alone. Think how many women have peed on the test and waited and waited and waited. Wait I did. Wait I will to be pregnant that is.

the narrow escapes of sex

i blog usually from my bedroom, living room, or a coffee shop. today i am blogging from bernie's. great story of a local noe valley girl running a coffee shop after tully's was to close down. http://www.yelp.com/biz/bernies-san-francisco

prompt of sex and lies and narrow escapes. you have been deprived too long of a sex post- so here it is my friends.

Sex and lies and narrow escapes. Narrow escapes of love. Narrow escapes of hurt. Narrow escapes of procreation. The narrow escape to lie next to someone after the commingling of sex. Because everyone needs the escape of sex. We lie, lie about how we might like it or who we want it from but sooner or later you will crash into each other. Crash narrowly escaping each other but finding each other nonetheless. Sex the quest to get it, the desire to have it regularly.

Once you have found it, found it, you want to hold onto it. It as you hold your childhood blanket to your chest. You don’t want to let it go. Because what if there is no more rain for you and you awake to the dreaded drought of sex again. The monsoon how I live for the regularity of it. I long for the good stuff. You desire a combination of athleticism, creativity, slowness, passion and most of all some connection other than the penis and vagina repetition. A connection of something more than just sex. Sex lies to us though it does. You can have wonderful amazing sex with someone but nothing else will be on your menu of shared meals between lovers. You are indeed under the spell of sex.

The spell of sex- I have been under it more than once. The spell made me see in rose-colored glasses and cotton candy and ponies and chocolate all day long. The spell of sex erases the ability to see. See the lies of narrow escapes. The narrow escapes of safety. I pull away to my side of the bed breathing deeply- feeling better- holding my lovers hand.

The narrow escape of love. The narrow escape of a future. I keep narrowly escaping what I want, what I think I want. It might be the spell of sex, the smell of it. It might be the lies, the lies, I tell myself about what I want. Maybe it is the narrow escape, the narrow escape of commitment. Commitment. Committing to someone. I think, I think the commitment phobic like me, the serial monogamist only mongamize others. But really, really the spell of sex, the spell of sex is me, me seeing maybe I can’t commit either. Can’t commit either. What happens after? After. The relationship reaches longer than I can stand. I have stood. What happens when my breath is shared? Shared. The sex, the sex, the sex, how I live for it. The narrow escape of love-from love-I can’t escape it. Narrowly. Spaciously. Not at all.

Sex lies narrowly escaping again. Again. Stop lying I say. Say to myself. The spell of sex I am under again. The spell of love I desire. Desire beyond the temporary. Beyond this. But how I forget, I forgot that I am alone while you are inside of me. The spell. The spell. The spell. The spell is my own.

the home sweet home search on craigslist

for my readers who only choose to read one or two paragraphs- i would read paragraph 3, 4 or 5.

It was a test. The test of finding the right fit. The right fit for a roommate. A roommate in an urban area. A test. It always is. Because it doesn’t matter how well you read the craiglist ads or find a friend who has a place or use your guts to decide you can in fact live with someone, live with someone. The test of urban living is one no matter how long you do it, is a test within itself. I started to think about the other day about the passing the test of being chosen as the roommate. The roommate- I have passed the test- the initial smiles, and interview like questions, and the formality of the first date of cohabitants without the cocktails without food in the formal dining room or one room bedroom. Some perfectly cluttered others messingly clean. Still awkward always is. I have passed this test, test to be chosen. Because I seem to have a good first impression. I am chosen they will write or call. And always I have thought this time it will be different. Different. Because I passed the test. But the multiple choice of city college or community college of roommates is easy to pass and study for but the blue book essays of graduate school no way you can pass through without studying, without trying, without making concessions and making friends.

And after living in urban domain for the last few years 14 to be exact- I have lived through the test and trials and tribulations of urban roommates and what you will accept for a place to live a place to live in the city, the city of new york, or san Francisco, or boston, or dc. What you will put up with to have a place to live. Live. Fuck the suburban space of conformed spaces. I want to live in the city and swallow what I will to have my own room in a victorian or on the upper west side or on the u street corridor.

I have came home before to find, find my roommate an older jewish woman walking around the house at 3 am after my night of drinking she stayed in. Braless in an oversized t-shirt- leggings with holes in the crotch and not just kneepads but also elbow pads on her walking around, around the house. Now I if she had a guest and they were being adventurous in the bedroom that would make sense but no she was just walking around the apartment like that. But for an apartment on the upper west side for under 700 dollars you will accept crotchless leggings and kneepads.

For my first noe valley apartment- I accepted notes, emails, and requests from a man, a man who was a self-proclaimed fashion designer but not once did I see him make anything. Anything except maybe a bowl he perpetually smoked or the “love” he made to a different lady each night. See he was also a narcissist and a possibly closeted gay man. 4 black and white pictures of him framed in dramatic poses around his room. Throughout our apartment sorry more like his he hung his dresses- with attention to detail and work of a child around the house. He wrote me emails I needed to put down the toilet seat- I am a female- no one needs to tell me. Or I should wear flip-flops in the shower because I have dirty feet- well you have a dirty crotch. Or my dirty laundry caused ants. Ants to come in the house. And I should return from Sacramento to fix it. Or how he awoke me with his lady friends who thought my room was his more than once. They were lost. Lost. See we take what we can to live in a good neighborhood for good rent.

So finally finally I got to my current residence. Which is great except for the white board. The white board- I wanted to take the passive aggressive token and break in two. People would write shit like whose dishes, whose compost, who took my, who, who, who. It drove me crazy. I never played the white board game and finally it went away. Away. Relief. But the other morning. Went I went to the bathroom first thing in the am and not only peed but took a shit and I saw that someone in fact had not replaced the tp again- again- and no one was at home- to help me, as I walked around the house with my panties and pj bottoms around my ankles, with an ass that needed a wiping. I thought about how much how much I wanted the white board. The white board to say who took the last of the tp. But the white board was not longer. No longer. I found toilet paper wiped my ass and accepted it. It.

champange hands

so it was not intended that i would write /post about cocaine twice in a week but this is the piece my teacher choose to post on creative caffeine as my best piece written last week. another ten minute quick write- so without further ad0. . . champagne hands.

http://creativecaffeine.blogspot.com/2010/06/bubbling-over-kate-bueler.html

lies we tell about sex

We all lie about sex. We do. Usually women lie about if they have in fact slept with someone. Sure we just made out. Men usually exaggerate. Yes we slept together. The hive fives of high school and college still find it’s way into the years of manhood. See I have paid the price more than once for someone lying about sleeping with me. Once faced with did you sleep with him- I will tell the truth- but I might not offer it all up on a platter without an ask. Because even I have secrets. Because even I sometimes edit. Rarely. Rarely but I do.

So twice I have been caught in the he said she said bullshit. Once in college. Which is just indicative of that time. People hook up. People drink too much. People lie about it. So it shouldn’t have been a shock to my eighteen-year-old self when there were rumors I was sleeping with a guy on the baseball team. But it was because I was a rookie. It was particularly surprising since I hadn’t had sex yet. Yet. A technical difficulty of sorts. And I didn’t want to admit to the said guy or the baseball team or anyone for that matter. Because my college was like high school once a rumor got back to you it had spun around all social circles and when it hit you it was already a cold lead. I was shocked. I was sad. I was a dramatic 18 year old who thought her world was falling on her head- chicken little as an adult. But eventually I got over it. So guys on baseball teams sometimes lie. But I knew the truth. The truth was I was still a virgin. So I sucked it up and kept my secret to myself.

I would lie that I had sex. Sex. In college I lied. By omission, by not saying anything because I didn’t want to feel different or odd or like a weirdo. I wasn’t like everyone and I knew it. So in the library while studying someone asked what my favorite position was. I lied. I said on top. Because I had never actually done the deed. We lie about sex. We all do.

Later, later when it happened again- the guy lying about sexcapades- I was in my late 20’s it shocked me. Again. But this time for a different reason. I would hope in 10 years the same thing would in fact feel somewhat dissimilar. This time I had been causally dating someone, someone who who was in an extended group of friends. Now this said man told everyone we slept together and then I hooked up with someone else. This was a lie you see. This was a man rewriting history. Rewriting history he should have kept to himself. Because of the truth. Because yes I did make out with someone outside a bar on st. patrick’s that wasn’t him but it wasn’t before, after, or during a romp with him. Because you see. We lie about sex. He lied about sex. And I let him. He did in fact try, try he did to have sex with me. But it was a failed attempt. I wondered what was going on down there. In fact nothing. Nothing at all except the movement of the condom rolling off onto my bed. And although how much I wanted to say aloud look beyond my possible drunken transgression, transgression and look at this liar, a liar, who didn’t sleep with me but tried. I said nothing again. Because we all lie about sex. We lie.

I thought it made me a bigger person not to tell the truth. That he had in fact lost his erection and the attempt was failed to say the least. But I said nothing. Because we lie about the truth of sex, we lie about sex itself. I took one for the team. I looked like the slut and the bitch and the whore and the one tearing up this group of friends. I was yelled at. I was called names to my face and behind my back. People stopped talking to me. Grow up, I thought. Because we are still lying about sex like we did in high school and college. But the truth was I did make a mistake. I did in fact make out with a friend of his not so close. But I didn’t sleep with him. I didn’t. But I let him lie. He also lied about dating someone else at the time. Edited out that one too- fiction writing expert. Lies I let him tell. Lies I told. Lie until now of course. Because lies, lies we tell about sex, we don’t have to. So this time I decided not to be silent but tell the truth. Its a few years late. I know. Late but it’s never too late to tell the truth. About sex. About anything. Anything at all.

perfectionist's show and tell of imperfections

Imperfection. Imperfection. I am in fact imperfect. Of course I am. I used to pretend to be perfect. But now I stopped. Stopped pretending. My imperfections are odd to me. I can barely clean my room without a babysitter but I can manage and balance the lives of multiple kids and sometimes their parent’s without blinking, not much. I do things that are embarrassing and things I should have outgrown for instance. For instance, every time I shave my legs- usually with a new razor- I cut myself. Not a little nick-we are talking a serious gash of a novice almost always on the same ankle. Oh shit. Again. My roommates call it back to me. Oh shit. There is a scar there but I never never do shave perfectly. There is always one gash, gash that needs tp for me to wrap around it. Wrap around it. Then I always miss a spot. A spot somewhere along my ankle or knee-a mini forest resides. I sometimes get out of the shower and have to do a second draft of shaving. I have been shaving since I was 12. I have years and years of practice. I am imperfect. Imperfection.

That’s not all. I still get period stains. Yes, period stains although I am not a teenager anymore. You would think I would know how to deal and understand my flow. But no, not me. I am teenager trapped in 30 something body. I am. Once when traveling, I walked up a hill. My friend saw my butt and assumed it was a leaf. No I promptly returned and she realized it was a huge period stain. She thought it was a leaf. I was 23, I was in Spain, no one knew me. But I knew. Or one time in DC. I was standing in my non-profit office in a above the knee skirt tight around the waist flowing out. Down my leg came a drip of blood trickling down. I felt coldness from my thigh to my knee down to down my mid calf. Two co-workers- women- were there. Thank God they were women. I was 28 and had to toss my underwear in the garbage and go commando for the rest of the day. Whenever I have my period and I stay with a guy we share a bed, I pray and double up everything in the hopes I don’t stain his sheets or mine. Imperfect. I am imperfect.

I am messy but can find anything in my own chaos of organization. I don’t write things down. I just remember my schedule and the kids and the classes and the deadlines and the appointments all in my head. No planner, no i-phone, just in my mind. I’ve only missed an appointment twice in years. I can’t figure out shaving or my period but I can tell you how to talk family about DNR or ICU rules or how to pay rent once the house you live in is foreclosed or how to move across the country via only the post office. Or getting kids back and forth to activities the city with minutes to spare, still finding a spot in time, still having snack in time. I am imperfect. I can’t do the simplest things and laugh at myself. Shaving and periods have been mine forever why so hard for me to figure out? But there is something about this imperfection, this messy spilling holding it all together running into things embarrassment that must make me loveable. Loveable. Unique. Imperfect. Imperfection. Easier to love someone else’s. But your own, own imperfection. Imperfections. So. Much. Harder. To. Love.

living up to the title of kissing slut

another 10 minute quick write about you guessed it-kissing- enjoy!

Kissing. I was once a kissing slut. Yes I was. It probably had to do a lot with the fact I didn’t have sex, at least not much beyond the dry humping or sometimes the oral. But I felt safe with the kissing, kissing randoms, kissing boyfriends, kissing friends, kissing guys at bars -in front of bars-in bars -sometimes in bathrooms- in pizza lines without talking first.

Kissing oh how I love kissing. If you can’t kiss, you most definitely can’t do much more well. Be it dancing, talking, loving, holding, cooking, holding a job, whatever. A bad kisser who shoves his tongue down my throat looking for my stomach, or a darter in and out, I hate to touch snakes in or out of my mouth personally. Or the closed mouth, tight lipped kiss of family from the holidays. Passion absent from the equal sign. Oh kissing. If you do it right, it feels like I might faint a little, spinning, a lot, the kissing of each lip, both and once in a while a good suck. The rhythm of quick and slow and quick and slow again. That replicates what might come. I understand how the kissing mirrors other things, know I do. Because I did cross the line to the sex. I had to.

Now kissing, I am a kissing slut. Once my friend told me my ratio to kiss to sex was low. I mean I had only slept with a few guys and kissed well I had forgotten the number. Where she has only slept with a few guys but also only kissed a few as well. She looked at me in all honesty and said. See if you kiss you, you might just give a kiss but with me you most definitely will get laid. We all laughed around the circle of the coffeeshop brought together by the table and childhood melding us together.

Kissing. Once I had a Cuban teach me how to suck lips. I thought I couldn’t since I had smallish pinkish lips of the Caucasian make but no he taught me the way. Latino men do have some things figured out. But I hadn’t had lessons in years. Years when I was first kissed in my parent’s house while I was watching my brother. I tried following the man’s lead of a real French kiss. I don’t know if I followed well enough. Me about to turn 16 him 19. I didn’t know what I was doing but it felt good. So something was right. Until my younger brother walked in.

Kissing. It used to be my favorite pastime-the making out. I could do it for hours and truth be told probably still could do it. But something about crossing into the arena of sex speeds up the making out and sometimes erases it in ways I am not comfortable. I like kissing. Just making out. For the preview. For the fun. And the good part is it is okay if it anonymous, it is okay if I don’t get his number, it is okay because I won’t worry about being a slut. A kissing slut maybe but a real one not so much.

my cultural exchange of the korean massage- an anatomy lesson of a different kind

Now I have done the New York massage in tent of a room full of strangers. Acupressure melded into an Asian dialect-I am not sure exactly which one. It’s singing and loud in a rhythmic beat. It is cheap and I can walk more straight once I leave out the side street up the stairs onto the well-beaten path.

Now I have done Calistoga. The massage of politeness and English and crisp whiteness still near the mud. In your own private room of politeness. The mud. And the naked ladies. And then the spa last time I went to that it seemed you had to obese to work there. Which made me and my friend feel like they must be saying I hate them, those skinny bitches.

I have done the yoga massage studio massage. Which is a zen haven with the correct emblems out, smell of openness and acceptance, as you hear the yoga class next store in the yoga room. The jumps of the poses. The let go and breath. Then the telling of me how I walk wrong and I should work on it. It. Thanks ohm lady for that. How do you re-teach yourself to walk when you are in your 30’s? Namaste I say.

It all started in college. In a basement of my college surrounded by the fellow sweaty college athletes where I tried to relax amongst the baseball and soccer players. My table next to theirs. I closed my eyes to not see their ogling. But I could still hear the snickers. The bright florescent lights blinding and beaming. As I turned the corner after, I heard nice ass and tons of laughter.

So that is to say I am somewhat of a veteran at this massage thing. Massage thing. So the Korean massage. The Korean massage was unlike anything I have yet experienced. I gave over my clothes and received a pink oversized top and long cotton shorts stopping at my knee with an elastic waistband for ladies over 60’s. It left red and white indents around my midsection. I felt like I was in gym class in jr. high. No at a spa. There is a women’s section and men’s section.
Women go around naked in their section. I am assuming the guy’s room bottomless on their side.

We meet in the middle-the common area. The common area has small tinyish tables and food menus in Korean and English not proofread, group saunas clothing not optional, an ice room, and a room full of burberry pillows on a refrigerated floor with a huge plasma tv where people lay. I don’t know where I am but there is no windows, no whiteys but me oh and my brother, but he will be on his side, me on mine. I hear the background noise of languages I don’t know and the looks of others sometimes the quick look away and then the staring. Staring. I’m exotic again. In a windowless spa, in a common room with food and pillows, in my gym clothes of years past. Time to relax.

I walk into the women’s locker room to go the bathroom. The women who work there look at me like I’m lost. No, where can I find the food I ask. Where’s waldo I must look like. They smirk. I eat too much kim chi and spicy things I have no idea what they are which I will pay for later of course.

I went into the warm pool, which was the hottest pool I have been in. It is time for the treatment. Everyone is naked here and what I learn is- okay-I learn a lot. First of all, I am thankful for my body. And being comfortable with it, in it. Second, vital information such as observing others pubic hair regions occurred. I see there is a range of hairiness of the danger triangle from somewhat normalish hair to 1960’s freedom funk to the mohawk. I learn that although most Asian women are not hairy throughout their whole bodies, like us whiteys that they do in fact make up for lost ground downstairs. Now this might just be middle aged or older women of Korean decent or Asian decent. Not many youngins were there for my sample size of my research study. I was shocked by the amount of hair so distracting that it was hard to not stare. But I forced myself to look away. Away.

Another thing I learned was that nipples really vary. I know my own well. I know my friends sort of. Guys will love that. Ladies change in front of each other. And sometimes on spring breaks in Mexico maybe shower together not for an sexual revolution in the making but to get ready more quickly, to save water, to take advantage of the group shower. But some of this nipples were shocking. Shockingly big and wide and long, one woman almost took me out with hers. Yes sir, I was taking out by a massive nipple to the eye. I was in a Korean spa. Oh good, to hear, this happens a lot. My ER visit plays on the reel of my mind. I look down-mine felt small and pinkish and childlike in comparison. But they are mine.

So the massage, the massage was kind of sort of out of this world. I told you I was a veteran but never, never did I ever experience anything like this. First of all you are in a group room, room with drains and water and tubs of water in huge plastic trashcans. There are towels and smells and constant movement. Bright lights. Tables-plastic-are grouped together in a sardine fashion and the ladies taking care of you wear black bras and underwear and don’t speak English. Now I’ll be honest but little was left to the imagination and this wasn’t a dream sequence out of a western man’s fantasy, no these ladies weren’t. They start with the scrub. The scrub I thought would be relaxing hurts like hell. It’s like someone took a brillo pad a brillo pad to your entire, I repeat ENTIRE, body. I close my eyes and smell the smell of my own dead flesh. Gross. Water rushes over me. I turn over and over and once I start to get used to the burning until the brillo is going for my crack my butt, I jump, and scream, and clench my cheeks and my lady laughs. We are laughing, the universal language translator, the laughter. Every time I would laugh, everyone-workers and clients all laughed. When she was scrubbing my bikini area or my feet. The laughter again and the rounds would begin.

So the actual massage did little to relax me. After the skin was scrubbed off my body and washed off my table and down the drain it went. Round and round. Yes now for the massage. But I had a
preview of what was to come and it wasn’t pretty-no it wasn’t. I’m fucked. The woman next to me is the largest and in chargest Asian woman I have ever laid my eyes upon. Her areolas are the size of my one breast- they are huge. And they are shaking next to me. Back and forth they go. She has been shaken by her masseuse next to me. The flesh back and forth. Her breasts shaking rapidly. I close my eyes tight.

Now it’s my turn, the oil is rubbed, rubbed all over my body actually splashed and thrown. Then the shaking and the intermittent pounding. I need a seatbelt, a sports bra for this ladies technique. It’s so slippery I am fearful I might slide right off the table. The shaking, the constant shaking is making me nervous and I might have a panic attack. This is the polar opposite of relaxing, this is cultural exchange gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Then there is the flipping back and forth. And a mask that is making my face itch. But I can’t tell her softer or what is the strange stuff you put in my face. What I would do for a waterproof pocket Korean dictionary or as the modern folk would say a waterproof I phone or droid, what I would do. She takes the mask off and all she keeps saying is irritation, irritation, irritation and pours milk on my face. She knows irritation. Does she understand stay away from my butt hole, or bikini area or please don’t tenderize me like meat. It’s over and I feel strangely relaxed or relieved I’m not sure which.

Off to put on my gym clothes and try and find my brother who was banished to the male section. He probably has lost his shit and returned to his mobsteresque car for relief of his womb. No he feel asleep the only white man in sight in a sea of yellow and brown- he was easy to spot, he looked like a giant with long curly hair. He had a burberry pillow under him, he actually was asleep. We went into the co-ed sauna- there in Korean letters and in English-no talk here-which means whisper. And grade your papers here. Yes, I saw a man, a professor, grade his papers, final exams for a college class in a co-ed sauna with a blue gym suit, spa issued on of course. I started laughing so hard I had to leave. It made me think about all the weird places my professors might have graded my papers. So I left soon after my green tea bubble tea. It had been four hours. Day almost over.

When I told people I went to get a Korean spa people laugh and ask about happy endings. The happy ending didn’t come in their over-sexualized hasty generalized racialized assumption of a question or a statement- I am sure it would cost more than 70 dollars if that was the case-no my happy ending was the end and I was happy.