Home-Schooling Plans

Wednesday, July 16th 2008 at 1:21pm

Gem,

The is so key Gem! The kids with working parents grow up valuing money and things over people and love. I think that is a very key problem and I couldn’t agree more. The children who say, “I was just fine at home by myself” often would have been happier if their parents were around but didn’t know that they would be. Not that they should be “smothered” but there is such a fine line. I also enjoyed alone time all to myself as a kid, but alone time couldn’t compare to quality time with my parents, even if there is a limit to how much time parents and kids can spend together before it becomes smothering.

Hallie,

I was late in discovering that I was happier alone than with other kids. Because they never liked me, I thought that I wanted to be around someone who would like me. And of course, it is nice when someone likes you, but I find (as I’ve written several times) that one man is enough and no friends are needed if the man is up for the task at hand.

You are one of those cases where a parent needs to take their child as an individual and realize that just because it was best for themselves growing up, or good for their cousins or friend’s children, doesn’t mean it’s going to be good for their child. I’m also a huge supporter of individualization, and I understand that not all children will thrive on home schooling like I did, and not all children will thrive on stay-at-home parenting the way I did. But I think this also has a lot to do with the parent. If you’re mother had been passionate about staying at home and raising you, then you would have been an entirely different person because she was an entirely different person, and you probably would have grow up respecting her for that instead. Not necessarily, but I would think so.

Amanda,

You are completely correct! I have no experience what-so-ever with children. However, as much as I value experience as a whole, experience does not necessarily imply justified decisions, and lack of experience does not necessarily imply ignorance (in my experience, tee-hee.) For example, one of the worst mothers I know is a kindergarten teacher (in my opinion.) Her children are the most spoiled brats on the planet and her form of discipline is completely untenable. She will very calmly say “no, don’t do that,” over and over and the child will never pay any mind what-so-ever. This may perhaps be actually because she’s a kindergarten teacher, because I know how hard it is for teachers to impose discipline without getting in trouble for being too harsh.

And one of the best parents I ever met (a aunt through marriage to one of my uncles on my Dad’s side) was a mother who took absolutely no bull shit from her kids ever. She always had a rational explanation for every rule she set for them and provided this explanation without being asked. She was strict, but she was also fun. Her children are grown up now and they all are still very close to her, and it’s clear that they all respect and love each other. She said to me, “child raising is like second nature and honestly it was the easiest thing I ever did.” Or something along those lines. I knew that she didn’t mean it was easy to do all the labor and to keep up the energy to do all the little tasks, but rather, it was so fulfilling to raise them, to watch them grow, that it gave her the energy to use all of her common sense and experience to raise them in a consistent and logical environment.

From every example of parent and child I’ve seen, I’ve seen several key things that you have to have right in order to “successfully” raise your children. First and foremost, you gotta give them plenty of love and understanding, which means taking them as an individual, treating them the age that they behave, and accepting them for who they are. Second, and almost as important, is the right amount of discipline. Too much and it just becomes abusive and harmful, too little and they become spoiled, lazy and contemptuous. Third, being consistent. No rule changing, unless there is a damn good reason for it, and in that case, it should be discussed with the child at length. Lack of consistency will also make them contemptuous, and I know, because one of my biggest qualms with my upbringing was the lack of consistency.

Fourth, inspiring them. Instead of saying, “go do the dishes,” when they’re old enough to do it, and old enough to understand what you mean when you say to go do it, give them an inspiring reason. Make it a challenge, make it a game, give a reason, give a motivation, do it with them. Nothing is inspiring if you’re not doing it with them, from my point of view. I fully intend to do all housework and exercise with my children, every single time, from birth, even when they get more in the way than help. This will help them understand how things get done, and give them a sense of schedule and togetherness and team work, right from the beginning.
Health, is pretty much included in all of those, and another foremost concern of mine, as well as education. Educating them on health and keeping their health optimum is part of disciplining them and loving them and inspiring them, and two of the most important things to keep consistent. While I may have little to none experience with real-live children to back this up, I’m quite sure my concepts are correct and that I will be able to shape them, alter them, trim them and expand them as my children grow. Also, Tina’s baby is getting older and I will be able to learn through her in the mean time.

Tater,

I hate it when that happens! I save everything before I post it, be a comment or an entry or an anything. Then again, in this house things are always getting disconnected, unplugged or a fuse blows. I’ve lost probably around 150 pages worth of typed writing over the years and I’ve learned that lesson well!

I agree that the father can just as well be a stay at home dad, but I’m not interested in a career myself so that wouldn’t end up working for me personally. It’s not something I think about much because of that, but one parent at home in general is better than a nanny or a public school in my opinion.

In terms of home-schooling, you’re absolutely right about not being half-assed! I have every intention of being as complete as possible. I have a bunch of projects outlined for them such as the following:

1. Create your own board game. Board game must work and take at least half an hour to play. Assignment should take one to six months depending on their age and should be repeated once every two or three years if appropriate.

2. 3D-model your bedroom to scale in Maya. Should take about one week.

3. Homework: One art-work each week from age two until they day they move out. Art work will be on any subject and with any supplies desired once a month. The other three weeks will be on a given topic with a given medium.

4. Homework: One book-report weekly or bi-weekly (depending on age and on book) from the time they can read until the day they move out. One assignment out of four will be on any book they choose. This should be typed from the moment they can type (which will be as young as I can teach them.)

5. Homework: One short story, poem or essay weekly or bi-weekly (depending on age and assignment) from the time they are old enough to type until the day they move out. One assignment out of four will be with any content they choose.

6. Homework: At least five journal entries a week, at least a certain length depending on their age (half a typed or so for six to eight, a whole typed page or so for nine to thirteen, two typed pages for fourteen to the day they move out. Those are just length estimates however. Perhaps a certain length for the entire week... I’ll decide that detail later.)

7. Daily exercise. May be any of the following: ice skating, biking, roller-blading, any sport, or sparring against each other or myself. On days where any sport, equipment or particular weather is not available they will resort to doing yoga with me and/or their siblings and/or sparing with me and/or their siblings.

8. Daily health. At least one thing cooked and/or prepared by themselves and/or with me each day and a review of the health benefits of the meal and/or why certain ingredients were used instead of other unhealthy ingredients.

9. Weekly or bi-weekly shopping trip. The children will get money or money-credits depending on my evaluation of them at that time to spend on their food, toys and/or clothing. I intend of them having their own budget of their expenses (not including toilet paper and other things the entire household will always be using) so they have an idea of how income and spending works from an early age. If they want to buy more of a certain juice and less of certain meal or snack, then we will evaluate the health ramifications and the budget together to see if that is logical and/or possible. This will allow them a level of control of their surroundings.

And so on, and so on, and so forth. I have a zillion ideas and those that I’ve listed are pretty much the most set in stone. I’d also like them to build their own computer, to watch certain educational programs, use certain books as a study, give them a diverse understanding of religions and take them to various churches, etc.

I believe that I will not be a half-ass home schooling parent. Do you concur?

Home-scholing vs. Public Schools

Later on in this entry:

“If those limp things called “nuggets” have any nutritional value I’ll be damned, and ketchup which contains more sugar is not a vegetable. Nobody actually eats the half-cooked broccoli or string-beans (which comes in a portion rightly-sized for a tad-pole). They don’t offer butter to the cooked vegetables which are served cold half the time. Pasta and white breads dominate the main courses which is almost as bad as the sugar. All of this leading to empty-calories with no nutritional value and this is what we’re feeding our growing children!”

---

Monday, June 30th 2008 at 7:26pm

Apparently breakup is back on the table, only this time it’s him talking about it, and not me. I feel so down... I feel heavy and empty and unable to enjoy anything. I slept from around 8:30am until around noon when I woke up while Crusifer was heading out. He said something, and I said, “no, don’t do that because...” I made some sort of sleepy joke. He got mad and I don’t know why. He left without saying any kind words to me. I fell back into a depressed sleep and my mother woke me up less than half an hour ago. I’m too sad to be disgusted with myself.

9:36pm

If I let go for even a moment... The world will sweep him away from me.

9:55pm

I dread the time passing. Days become weeks become months become years until I can look back once more and feel a failure again, and again, and again.

10:19pm

The internet is clicking in and out, interrupting my time-consuming watching of music videos to ease my soul’s aching. It seems to have clicked decidedly out.

10:35pm

The “Potential Breakup Song,” by Aly & AJ is top of my playlist right now. I heard it for the first time today. “Unwritten,” by Natasha Beningfield is my second for it’s inspiring nature. “Paralyzer,” by Finger Eleven I have as third but in a way it’s first. I heard it for the first time a little over a week ago and completely fell in love with the rhythm of the song if not entirely the lyrics. “Rockstar,” by Prima J is fourth because it always makes me want to move.

10:50pm

I have no drama left in me at the moment. I wish to curl into a tight ball now.

Wednesday, July 2nd 2008 at 12:03pm

Noon it is, and soon I shall be asleep. I’ve been awake since six o’clock in the afternoon yesterday... Not terribly long time, not like twenty-four hours or anything, but enough that I’m having trouble functioning any further at this point. I had this idea a while back that I might get up at 11:00pm (to see Crusifer when he gets off work) and go to sleep again around 3:00pm. Nice idea, allows me to work with my mom on the attic from 1:00pm to 3:00pm at least, and if I go to sleep late, no matter I might nap while Crusifer is in bed. Only problems is that I never end up sleeping with Crusifer, I just get to see him all night while he is asleep, which is fun and nice and all...

I have not actually pushed my hours that far yet, but since I got the idea I gave up on forcing myself to sleep when I didn’t feel like it, which has resulted me in staying up as late as now so far, and getting up as late as eight o’clock at night. I’ve ever split a couple nights into long four hour naps which worked quite well. I’d like to move towards that but... That requires getting up after four hours of sleep which can be difficult.

12:20pm... Off to bed.

Thursday, July 3rd 2008 at 7:40pm

I wonder if Crusifer will be willing to go to “Dance Alive” tomorrow and watch the “Blood Thirst Vegans.” I went last month (while he was at work) with my parents and had a blast. This time he’s off of work for it because it’s the Fourth of July. I hope I can convince him to dance with me. If not, he’ll just have to watch. I guess I could tell him he could bring his laptop... Though that might not console him in the least since he’s wiped his laptop and been trying to remove Vista and replace it with Windows XP for the past week. He’s been successful in replacing the system but is having trouble getting all the right drivers installed.

I’m re-reading the Temeraire series again. I didn’t want to spend more money on new books again. After I re-read the Temeraire series I’m going to read the Riddle Master of Hed, which is where my first name comes from. (I’m a princess in a book!) My mom read it to me when I was eleven or twelve or so, but I don’t remember what happens anymore. After I read that, I’ll probably read that book my Dad gave to me called the art of love or something like that. He also gave me a book on utopias which I intend to read, just not sure when.

By then I’ll probably be ready to re-read Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone by Carol Berg. I’ve come to the conclusion I love re-reading books. I love having books that I find worth re-reading. I’ve come to truly love reading, which is a complete reversal of my childhood hatred of books. Of course, reading gave me a headache when I was little. I think this is more normal than my parents realized. I bet the headache was only from the mental struggle to turn the letters to words and the words to sentences and the sentences into a story. I had more trouble with that then most kids it seems.

Anyway... Crusifer seems to be changing. He’s coming to understandings that I find truly remarkable... He’s internalizing the things I’ve said to him and integrating them into his perspective which just a few weeks ago I thought impossible and too much to hope for. I guess I underestimated the bounds of his personality. I really have to admit to the one-sidedness of my writing. I make everything out to be more than it is just by the passion I put into my writing. I can’t just say “I’m upset.” I have to say, I’m wretchedly burning from the inside out at this outrage that has come to me through no blasted fault of my own! Or, I hate how stupid this is. If only I hadn’t opened my damned mouth and made a bloody ass of myself!

Not that my emotions are overstated, but the situations most certainly have to be. Otherwise how can I be so forgiving? I think that would be an overstatement of my virtues. (Something must be overstated here...) I suppose it has more to do with my personification of Crusifer. His actions can make him appear to be completely heartless, and when I only describe those actions without the events that gave him motive, without his background that built his character and without accurate recollection of all of his compassionate actions, then it seems that he’s being stupid, uncaring, harsh and an ass-hole with no reason other than to be abusive. Yet his personality really isn’t abusive contrary to much of what I’ve written about him.

Anyone getting the feeling I have nothing in particular to write about and that I’m just wandering from one topic to another? I suppose I’m getting that feeling.

Friday, July 4th 2008 at 8:17pm

“Living for me... This is the potential break up song, our album needs one... Oh baby, please, please tell me... You took too long, you took too long, you took too long, to call back, and normally I would just forget that, except for the fact that it was my birthday, my stupid birthday. You’re not living until your living for me... This is he potential make-up song, please just admit your wrong... Which will it be?”

Saturday, July 5th 2008 at 4:42pm

Angel writes me:

HEY!

First of all, again I don’t feel in the mood for writing. Lately, I’ve felt like sh#t. You know what? I’ve been eating a lot of the foods that I’ve given up on for months so my body is reacting badly but I can’t seem to quit eating the crap… My acne and pores are slowly welcoming themselves into my life again. My weight is adding up slowly. I feel a lot less energized and all that…….

Anyway, I was visiting my aunt again for awhile so I been gone but now I’m home. I think I’m leaving with her again later on today (it’s 12:30 A.M. right now) I think I’ll be there for another week IF my aunty says yes….. *sigh* my mother gave me full permission to spend the entire month there but I’d rather go see you…. let’s hope it happens.

Hmm… I’m not as creative or as talented as you but playing with crafts sure sound fun. They all sound awesome to me. I’m excited.

Well, I’ve never been to another state so I don’t know how anything really goes… I think I’ll ask my mom’s cousin to help me out because she’s been to NYC a few times before. I think if I am still going then I should be there on the twenty-first. I’m saying, “I hope” and “I think” in my sentences because everyone’s telling my mother how expensive the trip is and how I’m going to need a lot more extra cash because “everything costs a lot in NYC." Don't feel like someone just let you down because I HATE to be one of those persons ... I'ma make this happen. =]] No matter what.

Ha-ha-ha tell Crusifer that he doesn’t need to worry about me stealing anything from him. I don’t steal; daddy raised me better than that. Well, I’ve only been called “hot” about 5 or 6 times but most people say I’m “cute” I’d have to agree with the whole “cute” statement better but yeah I’ll send photos of me… I’ll just attach them with this e-mail.

As for sleeping with your man, I don’t think I’d feel too comfortable with that. I mean he is YOURS after all………. and I’m a virgin; if I never mentioned that before. I’m not bi either but I do pass comments to females such as “You’re beautyful!!!!” Is that normal? Yeah. I’m sure it is.

No, you didn’t make me feel uncomfortable at all. You can say whatever you want and I’m sure I’ll be okay with it. I’m glad you’re slowly realizing that I’d never forget you or leave you alone. I promise you (And I only make promises I’m capable of keeping) that I’ll always be here for you. You saved me in some way… =]]

Perhaps we can be the sort of real friends that we’ve never had before and outlast all the silly changes in life which tear people apart. <-- again, I love the sound of that. I believe we can make it happen.

I was wondering, how do you "research" flights with the internet?

I have more things to write but man it's 1:19 A.M. and for some odd reason I'm tired. Usually, i'm in bed at 3 or 4. I suppose it was a long day after all. I'll write more later on but if I don't then... that means I left with my aunt.

I've attached photos.... um, my hair is actually a bit purple/red now. Well, not entirely, just the highlighted pieces.

I write Angel:

Angel,

My mom and Crusifer are willing to fund your trip here. My mom is willing to pay for your flight and Crusifer is willing to pay for your food for the week, so if that’s the issue, forget about it. My mom thinks it’s important you visit here (she reads my blog so she’s read our correspondences) for the benefit of your education and important for me since I never meet anyone that lasts as a friend. Crusifer is interested in meeting you and doesn’t mind you using the other bed/couch.

All in all, there is nothing stopping you except your parent’s permission. Since were not financially ship-shape I wanted to see if your parents would pay for the flight, but if not my mother thinks it’s important enough to reach for you. In terms of airline research, that’s important. You want the best deal you can get. I can do the research for you if you want, I’d need your address or at least the address of the nearest air-port to you if you already know where that is. Then I can connect your airport to the Buffalo airport via a bunch of different airline sites and see which one has the best rate for the proposed dates and see if any small modifications would make it significantly less.

I suppose I’d need your home address if we were to pay for your tickets regardless because we’d need to have them sent to you. (I’m feeling that sensation where I feel like a stalker, but there isn’t anyway around it...) And now that I think about all of that I’d need your full name, and possibly your mother’s name... How old are you? If you’re still under eighteen then you might need a parent to sign some papers in order to fly on an airplane alone.

On another note, New York City is a long ways from Buffalo. In fact, without leaving the state it’s almost as far as you can get from Buffalo. Buffalo is a cheap dump, and NYC is an expensive dump and most everything in between are small nice little places, except for a couple places like Niagra Falls and Rochester which are relatively big, moderately prices and not too dump-ish. Buffalo, for example, has some of the cheapest housing in the nation because it’s a city that everybody is leaving. Anybody who wants to do something leaves Buffalo for California, Geogia or Florida. Some people live in Buffalo because it’s so cheap and drive all the way to NYC (a six hour drive if you break the speed limit and go as fast as you can the entire way, which some people really do) to work for half the week or half the month and stay in their car or hotel while there.

In terms of franchises we’re alike to any other city. We have K-mart, Wal-mart, Target, many Exerds, many Rite Aids, a couple Wegmans, a couple Tops, a couple ALDIs, three large malls and two small malls, and a bunch of other standard ho-hum things like Barnes and Noble, Blockbuster, Hollywood Video and Gamestop. The prices in those places are pretty much fixed and will be the similar if not the same from one to another, unless of course you really were in New York City, because I wouldn’t be surprised if those same stores were more expensive there.

On a slightly different topic, one of the nifty things about Buffalo is that it does have a variety of small businesses that are not nation-wide and a number of festivals that are unique to Buffalo only. I suppose I’ll have to take you to Thursday in the Square just for the experience even though I no longer particularly find it interesting. In addition to Thursday in the Square there are once a year events like the Allen-Town Festival which is an art-show of hand-crafted things that goes all the way down Allen street and Delaware street... For perhaps thirty blocks, perhaps a tiny bit less. There is also Juneteenth which is the black-culture version of the same thing on the other side of Buffalo. There is also the Taste of Buffalo which I’ve never been to. And there is the Gay Pride Parade which I’ve been to a couple of times. All of which have already passed except for Thursday in the Square since that is on-going.

There are other cities that do have many festivals, but I can’t name any off the top of my head. There are a great number of assorted conventions in any big city, but those cost big-bucks in general. An abundance of free-festivals seems to be pretty rare. When I was on my road-trip with my Dad we passed through mostly cities that looked very identical to one another. I’d say about one out of ten cities has it’s own flavor that can be identified just by passing through, and the other nine are a collection of standard houses and franchises. I’d concluded when I got back that there was no point in leaving Buffalo unless I was leaving the country or moving to California.

I’m a tiny bit surprised to hear that you’ve never left the state. Plenty of people I know have never left the state but it always surprises me. I forget that I’m fortunate to have been to as many places as I have. I’m always brooding over all the places I haven’t been, like to Japan and Egypt. Speaking of which, if you ever want to go to Japan, start saving now. I’ve come to the conclusion that it would take about 10,000 for Crusifer and I to go together for about a couple weeks. 2,000 in air-fare alone no doubt, and perhaps another 3,000 in hotel bills, and we’d want to spend at least 1,000 on buying stuff that is unique to Japan, and then with the remaining 4,000 there is food to consider and the cost of attractions and navigating Japan itself. So, if you wanted to go, if you could save enough for your portion of air-fare and we ever actually go, then perhaps you could come with us. It would be a chance you probably wouldn’t get otherwise... Crusifer is very set on seeing Japan some day and I’m fairly interested in it myself, though I’m mostly interested in seeing Egypt on the way. I want to see the Great Pyramids more than anything in the world.

It sounds like a lot of money, but I know that we’re going to start saving towards it seriously very soon, and once we start saving towards it, we probably won’t stop saving until we have enough to go... It may take over a year to save that much, hard to tell. Nevertheless, if that is something you’re very interested in doing you should start saving now, and if it never happens then put it toward college. (It’s easier to save towards a trip that sounds exciting and that may possibly happen than to save towards the far-off notion of more schooling. Either way, having a lot of saved money towards a large and important life experience in general is a good policy.)

Anyway, we need to correspond more over the next few days without long gaps so we can settle some things. I need the location of your nearest airport to research the cheapest airline possible. And I need to have you let me know how much you can afford at maximum so I can budget in how much everything will cost total and where everything is coming from. It also needs to be determined (if you’re not eighteen yet) if you can ride a plane alone, and if generally not, what can your parents do to make you able to do so assuming they are willing to sign whatever papers it may take and such.

And as an afterthought, you’re very pretty. Cute and hot can also apply, but I think pretty is the term best describing the pictures you sent me. You have a face that can look a number of different ways depending on angles and expression. I’m positive you can make expressions that are cute and hot and beautiful as well, but generally I say you have a pretty face.

~Atara Phoenix

PS: I’m positively shocked to hear you’re eating junk and dealing with the repercussions. As your big sister I’m demanding that stop eating junk immediately and go on a diet of brown rice, tea, and fresh vegetables and fruits! Your intestines, brain, liver, and other body-cells should be your first priority over hunger, funds, fun and friends.

Sunday, July 6th 2008 at 8:00am

I just watched an episode of The Tyra Show that has settled into my stomach like a rock. There is a controversial topic that upsets me more deeply even than nutrition, though nutrition plays a large roll in my beliefs in this other topic. That topic is child-raising, and whether you should be a working mom or a stay-at-home mom. And that was what this episode of The Tyra Banks Show was about.

I felt that the stay-at-home moms were poorly represented to begin with. There was one European woman on the show who was the only logical supporter of staying home with the kids. For the working moms they had two specialists who had written books about how women ought to work. I felt that these two very intelligent women were not faced with an argument worth hearing except by the European woman, but no one would credit her because this same woman also feels it’s right to breast-feed her children as long as the child deems it of benefit, and in her case, it was to about seven years old in both of her daughters. They had video footage of the older daughter talking about how breast milk was “better than mangos.”

In the debate that went on through the show no one really talked about home-schooling which is the more deeper point to me. I feel so strongly about it because of my own experience growing up. Children, universally, shouldn’t be home-schooled because their parents may not have the knowledge those children may receive from school, but the school doesn’t have the knowledge they need either nine out of ten times (or more.)

I say this with conviction because of all the different schools I went to both public and private. I’ve attended a city-acclaimed public school for half of kindergarten through second grade, was home schooled for third grade, went to a private school for fourth and fifth grade, transferred to a private catholic school but dropped it after only two months in favor of another year of home schooling and then went directly into eighth grade in a public school, transferred to a different public school for freshmen year and yet another sophomore year and then ended with Junior year and Senior year at Grover the international public school. With that much experience of the local schools and even one more distant school which was private I’ve had a good taste of the local teachers and students both.

My conclusions? My parents taught me to add and subtract at home before I was taught at school. I didn’t like to read despite all my parents attempts to get me to read and refused all reading assignments at school flat-out until pretty much high school. I learned algebra from my mom starting in third grade and didn’t get to the most basic of it in public school until eighth grade by taking the high-school algebra class alongside the eighth grade math class. (Incidently I did better in the high school math class because I thought it was more fun and interesting.)

At the private school I learned some things about Norse and Greek mythology that I had not previously learned from my parents, but my parents doubled what school taught me once the topics had been brought up. My father taught me out of an eighth grade science book shortly after I dropped the private catholic school and I had no trouble with the assignments. Turns out that was the standard book and I had to repeat the same things in eighth grade the following year.

My parents taught me more on the subjects covered in school while we did homework together or while watching the History channel or while reading me books or even just talking to me. My mom did flash cards to help me learn the capitals of different states. Not once did any school teacher ever tell me that Albany was the capital of New York. Before my mother taught me this in seventh grade I hadn’t even realized states had capitals or that the city of Albany existed.

I found that the vacations my parents took with me were more educational that the school field trips that I went on. My parents took me to Texas as a child where I saw a different life-style though I was too young to absorb anything other than the different life-style’s feel. At fourteen we went to Myrtle Beach where I saw the ocean for the first time, saw a red moon for the first time (which I’d never seen before) and dealt with a particularly bad yeast infection (which is something never covered in school). My Dad took me on a road trip shortly after I graduated high school where I learned about inter-state highways, the things you need for travel and the things you don’t need. I learned about different parts of the country and how they differ and how they are alike and about different types of people. There were other trips and conventions and locations, but those were some of the most life-changing. School field-trips took me to Darien Lake (the local amusement park) and fed us ice cream and let us ride a total of two rides all in one huge group. Oh-so-fun. My parents took me to the local museums regularly as a child, as well as Darien Lake, the renaissance festival and other such activities.

I learned so much more from my parents that this is only the tip of the ice-berg. From my mother’s own personal experiences and from her day to day life I learned more about health while I was growing up in just a few weeks with my mother than Health Class ever taught me in high school. In fact, by the time I took health my senior year I already knew more than my teacher about nutrition and found the class to be and on-going debate between her and I about a number of topics. I admit it was fun to debate the numerous health-related topics with her, but in general I found it more educational to debate the same topics with my mom or her friends.

This aspect of stay-at-home mothering was never covered at all on The Tyra Show which made me rather upset. However, that’s just the beginning of my argument for mothering at home. In fact, that’s like the preamble.

I’d like to combat the socializing myth next. I’ll start off by saying that in a “natural society” with no city, and no electricity and all of that, before we had all of the resources we had today, that a social-unit was a family unit. Children learned from their siblings and parents, or in other words, they learned from their elders. In a small community they would also learn from their grandparents, the head of the village, the village elders, and when they were not busy with their family or working they would get some time to socialize with other children their age.

Some contact with other children allows for play-time, but this is by no means a way of learning to socialize in the real world. What is appropriate to say when you’re nine to another nine year old is not what an adult should say to an adult or what a nine year old should say to an adult. This is not preparation for being an adult, it’s just a healthy dose of having fun with other children who are at a similar stage in life.

Another import thing to consider when debating “how much child to child socializing should occur?” is that every child is unique. How much socializing one child wants or needs is going to vary a lot from child to child, and it’s going to vary with their age as well. Clearly babies of four months don’t play with babies of four months. Why not? This may sound like a stupid question, but just answer this question for yourself. Why can’t two babies of four months old play together? They have not learned to talk yet, or to walk yet, or to eat for themselves yet. They need adults to survive and to learn. How has that really changed by the time they are four years old? They still have a lot to learn about growing up, about what to eat, what to wear, what to say, what not to say, not to wear, not to eat. They have to learn about manners, hygiene and getting themselves up and ready by themselves in the mornings. Yes, playing with other four-year-olds will be fun for the child, but to better motivate them to grow a child of five years old or perhaps as old as six may be better, especially an older sibling. The older sibling will be protective, caring, understanding, willing to teach and willing to play all at once. How is that of less value than socializing with other like-age children in a school?

Socializing with other children of the same age from seven in the morning until two o’clock in the afternoon is seven hours of time learning about being your own age. What is really educational about that? The only things they can learn from this is how to enjoy themselves (not to diminish the important of self-enjoyment) and that other children are different not just because of their age but because of their personality. Yet both of these things can be learned outside of the school environment and neither of them has to be introduced in such a way at such a young age in order for good development of the child.

Many mothers report that the child in a public school and the child who is being home schooled have different levels of social capacity and use this as evidence that being in public school is of the utmost importance for their socialization. For this notion I have three things to say, the first of which being that adult interaction is clearly different than child interaction. Second, any parent home-schooling their child should not isolate them, especially if they are an only-child, and if they do, then shame on them, not shame on home-schooling. Third, a lot of social learning can be caught up in a short period of time. I made up for fourteen years of not being able to socialize in the last four quite well and decided for myself that I prefer to socialize with my family, but I have no problems socializing with the Mary Kay women, or the people of the Unitarian Church, or Asa and his gaming friends and so forth. I find that learning how to socialize with adults is actually less complicated than socializing with other children.

Another point I want to combat (that no stay-at-home mom took issue with on the show) is the confidence. Several working moms claimed that their child was learning confidence by spending some time alone and by spending most of their time with other children. Why on earth would that be true? And even if that’s true for a lot of kids, it certainly was the complete opposite with me. Public schools tore my confidence down to zero. The other children were harsh and cruel and silly and stupid. They didn’t give me any drive to better myself, and the teachers gave me no motivation either. All I felt was singled out, cast aside and alone. I classified myself as an outcast by first grade. Don’t you think that is a bit early to feel like you’re on the outside? I believe public schools did that to me. I was interested in learning while the other children wanted to play. I liked math and mustard whereas they liked talking and chocolate milk and that made me a nobody in the classroom.

I didn’t learn to socialize until I was fourteen, about the same time I started my online blog and fell in love for the first time, and had a house-fire and a bunch of other life-changing events. I gained confidence through a number of things all unrelated to socializing at school. I gained confidence my freshmen year through improving my grades and becoming student of the month and being called “teacher’s pet” and through becoming an artist. None of this was acclaimed by my peers and as of then I had no friends at all, but the praise of my parents and teachers was enough to start building the confidence that the cruel children had striped from me.

Oddly I gained a lot of my social confidence through sex. Having a steady partner to sleep with made me feel grown up. I couldn’t get a job through I put in a zillion applications. I couldn’t take advanced courses in school. I couldn’t be respected for my creative clothing ideas. I couldn’t find friends who liked to play board games with me or to do crafts with. And because I couldn’t relate to my peers on any of those levels and because I would not compromise my morals to behave like them I found my social confidence through having a partner. (The raging hormones was the reason I started having sex in the first place, don’t mistake me there. I didn’t say, “this will make me feel better about myself” and then start having sex. I said to myself, “sex will probably feel really good and scratch this itch that I can’t seem to scratch on my own.” More confidence just happened to be a benefit that I was unaware of at the time.)

Having a boyfrined and having an intimate relationship both physically and emotionally gave me something that outsiders couldn’t take away. Friends came and went as fast as the dandelions pop up their heads in the sunlight, and soon I just called everyone an associate or a peer so that I wouldn’t be upset when they decided to dislike me. Boyfriends however tend to be a bit more loyal to you through the closer bond that intimacy brings, bringing a lasting feeling of worth that I could not derive from school.

My point on the confidence is that it can be found in a zillion different ways, and “having friends” is not the only way to gain confidence, and school isn’t even the only way to make friends, making the connection between home-schooling, stay-at-home mothering, schooling, friends and confidence all moot.

So now that we’ve established that schools don’t always teach more than parents and that confidence doesn’t have to come from socializing at school I’d like to move on to the limitations that school actually imposes on the child.

For one thing, it limits their diet considerably. They may have a school lunch or a packed lunch. I bet you most working moms don’t pack a lunch, and if they do, I’d like to point out that lunchables do not count. School lunches offer chocolate milk alongside real milk which is a disaster in it self, as if kids are not spoon-fed enough sugar as is. (Sugar leads to candida, ADD and juvenile diabetes, all of which lead to misinformed treatments which lead back into the same conditions which caused the problems in the first place. Look up Dr. Mark Hyman via google for more information on this topic.)

If those limp things called “nuggets” have any nutritional value I’ll be damned, and ketchup which contains more sugar is not a vegetable. Nobody actually eats the half-cooked broccoli or string-beans (which comes in a portion rightly-sized for a tad-pole). They don’t offer butter to the cooked vegetables which are served cold half the time. Pasta and white breads dominate the main courses which is almost as bad as the sugar. All of this leading to empty-calories with no nutritional value and this is what we’re feeding our growing children!

There isn’t enough calcium in one of those little milk cartons for a new born baby and it is expected to be big enough for high school students. For my own part I always grabbed two while making sure that nobody was looking and often I was still thirsty. And, also as another slight to the terrible food conditions of students, the weight I lost and the improved health I experienced after I graduated high school and educated myself (by myself) about eating organic whole foods. School never taught me a damn thing worth knowing about health.

When a mother is home-schooling their children they can cook breakfast, lunch and dinner together. School never taught me to cook and I didn’t end up learning to cook until very recently. I only learned how to make rice last month. My Dad works, my mom has worked on and off and I was busy with school, and when I wasn’t busy with school or boys my parents were teaching me more important things than cooking. If I had been home more of those years instead of in school I could have learned to cook while simultaneously receiving a better balanced diet.

You can’t honestly tell me you’d rather feed your kids a school-lunch or pack them some snacks then teach them to cook, bond with them and feed them a fully balanced meal.

That there would be enough to rest my case, but actually, I do not rest my case here at all. Yet again, another uncovered topic on this episode of The Tyra Show that was supposedly all about working moms vs. stay-at-home moms was the passing down of family values and traditions. For a country that often claims our kids are growing up without values we sure aren’t doing much about it.

Public schools supposedly give an unbiased view of religion and morals. What’s funny is that the only reason it’s unbiased is because the information about different religions and about moral logic is scarce. I remember that my freshmen year history teacher covered all the different religions of the world rather hurriedly and crammed them on to one test in block of about one week. One measly little week of thirty-minute classes a day. I was fascinated, but they never cover anything in depth in public schools because the slowest kid in the class is always still not grasping (either purposely or ignorantly) the basic concept of what’s being taught.

I learned absolutely everything I know about morals and religion from my parents. They gave me a truly unbiased look by taking me to three different churches (Christian, Baha’i and Unitarian) and also talked to me about a handful of other religions. My mother once took up a one-night job as a Tarot Reader as entertainment at a bar mitzvah which served as more education on Judaism than I ever got in school. (There was also a great-deal of dancing which served as entertaining exercise which was more than I ever got at school as well.)

My mother insisted I go into Girl Scouts and with them I once toured a Synagogue. My parents also had me watch religious movies such as “Jesus Christ Super Star” so that I could have an illustrated view of these beliefs. And as many of my readers know, my parents also taught me the lore of Zacharia Sitchin which puts a different slant on all religions. (Google Zacharia Sitchin for some stunning information you really won’t believe, even though I believe his work is to be truthful and enlightening.)

And my point here is that schools do not give an unbiased religious standpoint at all because they don’t teach us enough about any of it for the kids to make heads or tails for themselves. Not that I care either way on people’s religious believes of lack thereof, but this could be a large part of why atheism is growing so rapidly.

In terms of morals and family values, nobody out there can teach that to a child except the parents. If the parents are not at home then they are teaching the child that the values of the family are to put school, work and friends before family which I disagree with whole-heartedly. Work and school is terrifically important, but neither should ever, ever, ever come before family. And friends can just be forgotten and left out cold for all I care, your family should always come first because your family care about you on a deeper level than your friends can. In amendment to that, some friends are family. When a friend is not just your friend but the friend of your parents, children and spouse, they are like a brother or sister to you and the entire family and that is fine, especially in the cases for people who either don’t have families or don’t have loving families. However, in the case of spouses I believe that hands-down your spouses needs should come before everything in your life and there wants should always be considered with high priority as well.

In the case of children, I’d say their needs should come before everything and their wants should come after the wants and needs of both parents. Kids don’t always want what is best for them or know what they need anyhow, but after all, that is what I’m talking about in the first place. Children will want for themselves whatever you show them in the most glorified manor. If you covet your ice cream they will want some, if you covet your lima beans, they will want some. It doesn’t matter what it is that you hold highly, because as a small child all they see is that it’s most important to you and therefor most important to them.

Seriously, missing-father syndrom is enough of a physiological issue for children today, why should they have missing mothers too? Just because the mother is home at six o’clock and sees her kids for a couple hours a day and perhaps one day on the weekend does not mean the child won’t be hurt by her absence. That child will latch on to someone, and if it’s not the mom, then it lies outside the control of the mother what values the child adopts. The real issue here is that many children adopt the values of other children and then bring these nonsensical values into adulthood, such as an incurable selfishness.

But never mind the physiology of it, because everyone wants to combat that with the social bull shit, and I suppose no one is going to give a damn about their health or their children’s health no matter what I say. So lets get back to my own personal experience which may hold more weight with those who do understand that an individual is, well, individual.

As I’ve already stated I spent two years home schooling, third grade and sixth grade (which ended-up doubling as seventh grade at the same time). During those two years I learned a lot about my parents and their personal ambitions. I learned a lot about my family and by learning about them I learned about me. Some of the women on The Tyra Show expressed that they felt like they were losing themselves by staying at home and that’s why they went back to work. I feel that on that point it is completely up to the individual where their “self” lies. My self will never and can never be found in a job. I find myself in my family and in my crafts and I feel like going to work is constricting my character, not enhancing it. To my bitter disappointment, nobody countered that point on the show either.

Starting to wonder what the stay-at-home moms had to say? They said that they needed to bond with their children and that leaving them off at school sometimes made them cry and that they felt uncomfortable in work situations and that staying at home was where they belonged and that they took pride in cleaning and cooking. Yippy-shit guys, you didn’t say anything that these working mothers couldn’t tear you apart for. I was completely let-down by their side of the story entirely.

Bonding, while very important, is all I ever hear as a reason for home-schooling and for moms staying at home, and the working mothers just love to counter that with how this is limiting the child and making them dependant. I can hear the weight of this argument, but children are meant to grow up and good parenting will make them do so while bad parenting won’t. If the parents don’t give the children chores to do then they learn no responsibility and become coddled. If the parents shelter their children too much they may shy from the cold hard world. I believe that a good dose of the real world and appropriate responsibility for their age and encouraging them to get a part time job as a teenager and allowing them space, time to themselves and enough social time to serve it’s purpose will allow them to separate naturally and not miserably.

I remember my first day in Olmstead 64 as a traumatic experience. I was lost, confused, upset and I felt abandoned. I remember feeling deeply hurt. I have no idea what I said or did when I got home that day, but I remember the intensity of that feeling like it was yesterday. Going off to Summer camps I found to be fun, educating and a natural way to separate from parents for a week. The trick here is asking the child if they want to go, so they are committed when you send them packing. Public school, being required, is not something the children are asked if they want to do or not, and I think that while a number of imposed things are important for discipline that a natural dose of freedom helps the child to develop as well. After all, we may know a lot about what’s good for children from our own experience and from that of others, but noone can tell you what your child feels except for your child.

I dropped the private catholic school and turned to home schooling as a desperate plea to my parents for help. I hated the school with a passion and I’m positive that spending an entire year there would have hurt my confidence to the point where I might not be the person I am today at all, but rather a timid girl still thinking herself unbelievably ugly.

That brings me to yet another point. No child should ever be called ugly because they are too young to understand “beauty is within” or that “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” and so forth. Children feel ugly when they are called ugly and that’s just the fact of the matter. Telling them that they are beautiful over and over is not going to spoil them (but coddling them because they are beautiful most likely will spoil them).

Who do you think is going to tell your child that they’re beautiful at school? Probably no one. School made me believe I was ugly because I was called ugly so many times. Kids are awkward creatures that will do all sorts of things that will make them appear “ugly” to other children, or do things that encourage name-calling which will include all sorts of hurtful slights to their appearance and other merits as well. The natural protective instincts of parents lead them to telling their children how wonderful they are so they can build a good self image. Timid children are not as motivated and are not going to do well in the world if they mature into timid adults.

Yet as I’ve already said, much of this has to do with the individual. Some kids grow a tough skin and get over it while others just feel worse and worse about themselves over the years. I didn’t grow tough skin until my relationship with Tre, and that was unrelated to school and wasn’t until I was seventeen years old. At that point the damage had been done and school was almost over and I had continued hating it to the last day. I look back on school with the utmost disdain. I was miserable and I wasn’t learning more then than I am now in the least.

In fact, all that pressure to be social made me believe I had to be social all the time, it made me believe I needed to be social to enjoy life, and now I know that I can be happy with very little socialization outside of my family. In fact, I prefer seeing my family and spending time with my family to anybody out there. (I consider Crusifer family of course even though he’s not yet my spouse. After all, he is living with us.)

In conclusion, I plan to home-school my kids until high-school so they can build their confidence at home first and then go meet the cold-hard kids of today’s world. I want to be a stay-at-home mother and wife because a family needs a lot of love and a working father is often drained after a long day’s work and he needs the vital energy of his wife to praise him and coddle him so that he can build up his strength for another hard day, and the children need her vital energy to grow and learn. If she’s giving out a lot of, or most of, that vital energy at work then she is putting her family at a disadvantage.

You probably can’t change my mind, but I invite you to leave a comment about your feelings and experiences if they are similar or if they are different. I’ll be happy to respond in my next entry. With regards,

Atara Phoenix

PS: This entry took me two hours and ten minutes to write! Yikes!

All or Nothing

Because I just posted these today (my bad guys!) you might have missed these: June 7th and June 8th. While I’m busy linking things, you may look at new pictures of me on my myspace. And now, the entry:

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Tuesday, June 10th 2008 at 7:02pm

“All or nothing,” I said as I gave him back the ring. In other words, we behave like a married couple and do all that the other wishes, everything that we can do, and not just everything that we must do, or we break up. Either this is the last honey-moon of our relationship, or this is just beginning our lifetimes together. Time will tell.

Friday, June 13th 2008 at 12:07pm

I forgot to take the Laundry out of the washer on Tuesday. Crusifer discovered this. I had completely forgotten. Since the washer and dryer is on the second floor, right beside my parent’s bedroom, on the other side of Mary’s apartment so that I have to go to the first floor to get to it... Usually my mom puts it in the dryer for me. I didn’t think I had to remember. Especially because I wouldn’t expect it to go on to other people’s laundry days without anyone saying so. Monday and Tuesday are my days to get my laundry done.

I called him to me, barely awake enough to know I was awake, wanting his affection. He replied with telling me I let the wash sit there and grow mildew because I was relying on my mom instead of doing it myself. I snapped awake. Not having anything but something like that to think about will wake anybody up and make them feel miserable, eh?

He was surprised when I began to cry. I wouldn’t have cried over it during the day or at night, but first thing in the morning...? That’s not the best time to slap somebody’s wrist... I likely won’t be able to think about anything else all day.

I hate that he’s at work. I won’t see him for eleven hours... He’ll spend all that time talking to people who... don’t give a shit about anything...

I feel so shitty and I only just got up.

Friday, June 13th 2008 at 4:01pm

Perhaps it’s not so unbelievable that the world is in shambles. In the generation of my grandparents (growing up in 1890 to 1940) being able to get an education at a large public facility was amazing. Imagine, your parents are farmers, but there is a community college in the nearest city, and you can scrape up enough money to go. Imagine that few people you know can read, and fewer still can write, and that you’ve grown up plowing fields and no you discover that you can earn a living using your brain. (I’m doing a lot of guessing here, so cut me some slack.)

Teenagers set out to do things differently than their parents, and usually end up falling in all the same ruts. But what happened between my mom’s generation and mine? When she was my age getting an education was a privilege, drugs didn’t make the world go round, and women we’re still becoming house wives. So why are girls my age dropping out of high-school to raise babies and work at the same time? What happened that people take marriage as seriously as they take... Anything else these days, right along with the flippant attitudes around sex, drugs, religion and careers.

I feel like nobody cares about anything. And the things people do care about is just disgusting... It’s hard for me to stop being down on the world sometimes. I feel like it’s not enough that I live a good life... Yet you ask me what I’m doing about anything? Signing petitions online... I suppose that’s about it... I just want to know what happened to the virtue of education... I feel like this city has forsaken it.

Friday, June 13th 2008 at 10:01pm

I have some speculations about love that I just must write down. These speculations were inspired by the following:

“Love,” says Dr. Erich Fromm, “is the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”

And, from Paracelsus; “He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees... The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love... Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes.”

Both are quite profound, and lead into things I already “know” or, more correctly, believe about the ever-illusive love.

I was thinking about these things, and also thinking about mankind, and our existence when it occurred to me that humankind is very without love as a whole. War is loveless. Weapons are loveless. Poverty is loveless. Lies are loveless. The battle of religions is so loveless that it’s plain hopeless. After all, every religion worth belonging to says that we should “love our neighbors” and to “do unto others as we would have them do unto us” and so forth, and yet we would rise up in crusades, torture, kill, taunt, and discriminate against others who have a variety of different beliefs.

Wouldn’t it be much more fruitful for everyone if all the religion stopped battling? Imagine if no one ever tried to convert you again, by force or by persuasion? Wouldn’t that make a dramatic improvement on the contentment of society and in the love of other beliefs? I have nothing against the bible, and am a believer in Jesus, and yet Christians drive me to distraction when they’re “sewing their seeds” by spreading “scripture.” If that’s all they really are out to do then they can sell their books silently! (And without the big signs indicating that we’re going to hell!)

If I believed in hell I’d say around eight-percent of us are headed their. We’re all jealous of someone, and short of that, we’ve all lied to someone out of guilt or anger or fear, and short of that we’ve stolen from somebody or taken revenge on someone, or been unfaithful or judgmental. And many of us are not repent-ful in the least. And if that was enough evidence to hell being overcrowded, how about the “fact” that only one religion (the right one!) and the right actions matched will get you a ticket into the white palace in the clouds among the saints.

What a load of rubbish.

If everyone was busy loving someone else (instead of looking for someone to love them) then the whole world might be a bit different. “Where is the love?” asked the black eyed peas. It’s a very good question. It’s certainly not in the government, and not in prisons, and not in schools, and not in churches, and not in many or most hospitals. Worse yet, it’s not even households anymore. Parents are divorced, and kids are growing up with one defect or another. If it’s not their health and weight and concepts about food and exercise (which is at least half of America’s children), then it’s due to drug abusing parents or friends, and short of that there is a lack of education, or an abusive parent or parents. And if you’re a really unlucky kid you could be victim to kidnaping or rape. What a beautiful world we’re raising kids in these days! And none of it sounds like love to me.

Now, this is going to sound really cruel, I’ll grant that. But hear me out. If you love your children more than anything and want them to not repeat your mistakes, wouldn’t you feed them the best foods, send them to the best schools, give them the attention they need, not spoil them, do the research to learn what’s best for them and sacrifice your own comfort to bring them up with a health mentality? I bet you’re saying “of course!” to these things, right?

If you know that coming to them every time they cry when they’re a baby immediately (after several months, not when they’re a newborn) is spoiling them, you’d hold back on your impulse and wait a few minutes of their tears, right? A lot of parents these days at least have gotten that far.

If you know that talking to them about sex and drugs is a good way to help show your kids your family values you’d shove down your discomfort and confront them on these issues before they’re horny and depressed teenagers, right? A lot of parents even get that right too, and this is also worthy of applause.

If you know the best way for your child to identify with male and female aspects of society is to have a mother and a father living at home, you’d try your best to work it out with your spouse or to find a suitable replacement if impossible, right? This one is a tougher one, and for the most part, where I live this is sadly lacking.

I’m not going to argue my case for home schooling, because for some families that can’t work and maybe isn’t even the best for the children in many cases. But my all-time pet-peeve?

If I told you that it’s a known fact that corn syrup (with high fructose or not) stays in the intestines relatively permanently, would you feed your children anything with high fructose corn syrup in it? And to set an example, wouldn’t it be best for you not to eat any of it as well so there wouldn’t be any hypocrisy and so that it wouldn’t be in the household?

If I told you that it’s a known fact (that is covered up as best as it can be) that refined sugar in general ruins your capillaries and increases the risk for virtually every disease under the sun especially diabetes, wouldn’t you then decide it was best to removed refined sugar from your household and especially from your child’s diet?

The sugar conspiracy makes me so angry that I could just scream. I keep seeing fat children! Children are supposed to have energy and happiness, not be tired after running half way across the room and be loaded with an extra thirty pounds and stuffing their face with candy every half hour. It’s just disgusting. ADD is a freaking lie. All that is wrong with the child is the amount of sugar he eats, and studies with hundreds of children (in independent non-government funded facilities that managed to not get paid off by the sugar industries) show this to be true. Even their hand-writing improved after changing their diet from candy, burgers, pasta and pop-tarts to whole foods like grass-fed meats cooked with long-grain brown rice or other fillers full of fiber, a large variety of vegetables, whole-grain breads, and fruits.

This all goes to show how little love is in the world. Parents aren’t even willing to change their life-styles for the little-ones they love the most. Perhaps they want to, or perhaps they are trying to, but as we all know, trying is just the non-existent moment between thinking about doing something and doing it. You might be trying to get a certain affect by doing something, but there is no “trying” to be accounted for without an action and a desired result.

Self-love is pretty much non-existent as well. While you have handful of the population who takes care of their health, mentally, emotionally and physically (and even spiritually), the majority of the population (from my perspective) is on a self-destructive path through one outlet or another. Perhaps their outlet is partying which they masquerade as “enjoying life.” Sadly and ironically enough, “enjoying life” seems to also be the same excuse used for lack of maintaining health.

I have a very sober question to ask. Are hospital bills enjoyable? What about hang-overs? What about waking up to somebody you don’t know? What about vomiting up half your stomach? Do you enjoy acid flux or constatation? Is withdrawal from drugs (legal or illegal) enjoyable? Is spending a good portion (or any portion) of your income on any form of drugs enjoyable? Is discovering that you’ve gained weight enjoyable? Is depression enjoyable?

Enjoying life means being healthy enough to enjoy it, and anyone who denies it is well... In denial. And as I’ve said before “denial leads to break-ups” and I don’t just mean in romantic relationships. It also breaks up relationships between you and your body, you and your job, and the relationship between you and your happiness.

Say you’re perfectly healthy. Say you do love yourself. But do you love your partner? Do you exercise with your partner? Do you encourage them to live your healthy life-style? Are you involved in their life? If you actually love yourself and your partner, and if you have kids and you take all the previously described steps to loving your children as well, then I fully commend you as a honor to society. But if you are indeed one of those people, then you’ll understand my distress. How few people have you met like yourself? How many others have you met who are interested in self-improvement and “brightening the corner where they are” and loving their significant other to the fullest?

What’s worse is that the few people out there like that are only the hardiest of us. Most of us had the chance to be loving creatures when we were small. But at one point in life or another something in us snapped. Was it the first-grade bullies or the high-school ones? Or did it take you until your first ass-hole boss to start to hate the world instead of love it? And how can we love the world when the world seems so determined to hate us!

I feel like I’m on that struggle right now in my life. I can take life and embrace it and love it and hold on to all of it’s beauty and pleasure, or I can let the oppressive hate in and become anther empty shell going about daily life...

Perhaps that’s the real reason why I’m so against getting a job. My frail immune system makes a great excuse, and so does wanting to be a stay-at-home wife, but more relevantly, I think a real day job would suck the life-force out of me. I might become “stronger” and I might be a bit “richer” but I might be in fact poorer and weaker on the inside, where it matters most. Day jobs are miserable. They kick you down, and then keep kicking you while you’re down. Sure, they don’t have to be like that, but from my perspective, most jobs (especially an no-experience entry-level) are heart-break, heart-burn, heart-bruise and burn until you’re a scarred mass who is open to nothing and no one.

I sigh. How can I not? I feel like my employment and my loss of spirit is inevitable. I’m fighting a battle inside myself to be self-motivated, self-inspired, self-satisfying, self-loving and to be loving to those around me. Fear is a big enemy to these ambitions, and yet I’m extremely afraid of all the technicalities in life preventing me from achieving these goals. The last thing I need is a worthless minimum-wage day job, or a heart-wrenching break-up.

I suppose I’m not really one to judge what’s best. I’m only nineteen after all, and the powers the be know that I’m reminded of that all too often. Were that I wasn’t nineteen. What age would I be? I’d be ageless, and name-less save that of love. You could call me chi for short, and beautiful when you try to seduce me.

Love is an art. It takes effort and practice. Falling in love is not an art, it just happens. Making it last is the important part.

Love is expressed by Actions

Saturday, June 7th 2008 at 2:15am

It’s times like these where I want to tell Crusifer that he obviously doesn’t love me. I asked him to call me at midnight if he was going to probably be home later than 12:30am-1:00am time frame. He assured me that he would do this. And as I quoted, he said he didn’t expect to be later than 1:00am at the very latest. Not that the time is really an issue... Rather, him saying he’d be here at a certain time, saying that he’d call me... That’s the issue.

I feel like just doesn’t care enough to keep to what he says. I can’t be certain of what’s going on when he’s out, but I can’t believe that he tells them up-front when he plans on leaving, and how he expects to get home, and why. If he did, then they have to be the worst friends in the world to agree to take him home, and then not do it so regularly.

Surely if he cared enough to keep his word to me, he’d tell them his intentions and make sure it was okay with them. That’s what bothers me. I’m going to stick to the Marriage Fitness plan, and in the spirit of it, I’m not placing down conditions all over the place, and judgements all over the place. I’m welcoming him into my soul yet again. If he doesn’t return the favor within the fourteen weeks than that’s that.

Of course, whose to say that he won’t “stop loving me” again in the future even if he does demonstrate such things within that time period? I suppose there is no way to be sure of anything. I’m tired, but I dare not try to sleep yet. If I did I’d probably just lay there awake thinking, thinking, thinking about what Crusifer might be doing.

Automatically I think that he’s drinking again, that he’s stoned and drunk and being his Cav self. The thought is bitter. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps his phone is dead, and perhaps he’s just a little high, and perhaps he hasn’t drank anything, and perhaps his friends are being dick-heads about the ride they probably promised. Perhaps he’s lost track of time...

My head hurts. My feet hurt. My fingers hurt. I guess I’ll go watch an episode of the Tyra show...

Saturday, June 7th 2008 at 3:50am

Spiders really are the sign. I asked the spirits for me to never have to see a spider unless something bad enough to warrant it was going to happen. No call. Still not here. I’m trying very hard not to assume the worst... I’m also trying not to worry, but for some reason I always think something bad is going to happen... Perhaps it’s because Buffalo is just not safe... I suppose no where really is though.

I don’t trust his friends. I don’t trust any of them to anything at all. I don’t believe his friends really care about him. It worries me that he would go be with people who are not worth his time to go smoke weed (or to drink)... I’m running of things to occupy my mind. I watched two episodes of the Tyra show and still nothing... It’s going on four in the morning, so I’m not trying to do anything but sleep at this point, but I don’t see how I can sleep when I feel like this...

Cripes, can I make it with him?

4:12am... I feel utterly alone.

Saturday, June 7th 2008 at 5:03pm

I’m nineteen. I care about my health a lot. I care about my health so much that I quit all sugar except honey (and some limited cane sugar), as well as anything with hydrogenated oils, aspartame, or sugar substitutes. I limit my meat and dairy intake.

Health is probably my second priority after having a loving relationship. Without a loving relationship I feel purposeless and find it difficult to care about anything, even my health.

My third priority is creation. I love art, and design. I love to paint, to build, to design, and am embarking on a hobby making board games.

I desperately want to get married and have my first baby. I’d like to have three to six children, but if I find the right man, I may be able to compromise up or down on that number. I want to be a stay at home wife and mother who home schools their children until they go off to high school.

My goal in home schooling my children is to be actively involved in their learning constantly. I want them to dance, and/or practice martial arts as physical training, and/or play sports. I want them to sing without classmates telling them not to, so they can learn the real potential of their voice. I want them to have alone time that is quiet so they can learn how to entertain themselves without outside influences.

I will always give them the same homework every week with a few modifications: one drawing, one book report, one creative writing assignment per week, as well as keeping a journal that they write in at least five times a week. I will teach them how to type and how to take care of a computer shortly after they are able to write fluently. I will teach them about all the different religions at an early age so that they don’t get stuck with any particular ingrained religious beliefs. I will teach them how to respect.

Public schools never taught me any of that. Everything was introduced to me too late to catch my interest. I was always ahead of my class because my parents taught me so much more at home. My goal is that they’ll know everything they need to know to enter college before they enter high school so that they can turn their attention to what all teenagers think about most: friends, sex, drugs and getting along in the real world. Because they’ll be better educated, they’ll be able to make smarter decisions than their classmates, and their grades won’t fall as a result because they’ll go in knowing most everything they need to know. I hope to give them the drive to learn everything they can so that when they discover how stupid most everyone their age is, they’ll turn to reading their text books and making older friends outside of school.

I like to dress gothic. Not because I truly have a goth state of mind, but because I like the expression of goth clothing, and I like how I feel when I wear it as well as how I look. I don’t do it that often, but I don’t want this to be an issue.

I want to share my projects with someone intelligent and interested. I want my partner to be intimately involved with all of my interests, and I want them to bring new things to the table for me to learn about and participate in too.

I have issues sleeping and getting up in the morning. Having someone to put me to sleep with stroking or talking, and someone to wake me up with tea, breakfast or music and workout or dancing changes my entire outlook on life. It makes me feel alive and happy. Without this I tend to sleep in and become depressed. This has been an issue since before I can remember.

I’m the sort of girl who only has room for one person. I put all of my love, attention, affection, energy and spare time into my soul mate and no one else. Once I’m fully in love I only want to fantasize about my lover, and I only want to do things for my lover. Anyone else can receive kind and thoughtful things from me – one a year probably. My lover may receive these things two to five times a day...

I like to caress, and massage. I like to scratch and groom. I like to light candles and wear sexy underwear. I like to cook dinner and lunch. I like to listen about how my lover’s day has gone by. I like to talk about my day too. I like to answer questions, and I value honesty extremely highly. I feel that lack of honesty in a relationship is lack of trust, and without trust, there is no relationship. I don’t like to clean, but if it’s appreciated I’ll do it happily. I’m happy to clean with my lover, even if I do most of the work, just the company makes the difference. I like to dress up in ways that please. I like to do my make up and hair in ways that please. I’ll stay as musty or keep myself as clean as is desired and appreciated. I’ll shave my hairs or grow a bush, all depending on the desires of my spouse.

In the past I didn’t realize how much these things were worth. Now I understand that if someone can’t bend for me, why should they deserve someone as bending as me? I love with all of my heart, and I don’t let anybody in the way of it. I’m loyal by nature, but when neglected, and hurt I do feel tempted to turn away, and as a young teen I did cheat several times. Each time I regretted this with everything I had. It haunted me, and it burned me. I felt I had betrayed myself more than anyone. I don’t believe I could ever cheat again because it hurts so much to do it. I’m too invested in one place to do something like that without ripping up my own heart.

Writing is how I cope. I write to be able to release my pent up emotions. All of my significant others throughout my time dating who have ever seen me write always seemed to be jealous. Not until more recently did I realize this is because I connect to my writing when I feel like my connection with my significant other is damaged. I write sometimes when I’m not feeling this way too, but much, much more when I’m angry, upset or depressed.

I’m rarely angry. My anger disintegrates into depression usually before I can ever act on my anger. I can stay angry, if I keep being pushed, but it’s certainly not something to strive for. When I get upset I cry. I don’t sit there and sniffle in the corner. I weep. This is not something alien or unusual I’ve discovered, but something women just do, and even men, just less often. Crying is sometimes the only way to let out an emotion that can’t be properly expresses in words or actions. I cry shamelessly. I don’t try to hide my tears, and I don’t try to use them as a weapon. They are what they are. I’m vulnerable as I cry, and I know this. I’m more likely to accept a promise I doubt will be fulfilled. I’m more likely to accept a warm embrace than I was for the short time that I was angry. I just want to be comforted when I cry, until I’m calm. When I’m calm again, I’d love to discuss things civilly or go to sleep and discuss things another time.

I, like anyone else, believe that I’m right. In a relationship the need to be right can be a destructive force. When fully in love I’m more likely to back down and say that time will tell, or that I could be wrong, and so forth. I’m not going to press a point unless I fully believe in it. I’m willing to change my mind, and I’m willing to listen to other perspectives, and I’m fully willing to say that I was wrong. These things don’t bother me in the least. I am always seeking truth.

Changing my mind is as simple as coming up with a more logical argument. I used to believe that it was possible to love more than one person at a time. It is possible, but it’s not possible to fully love two people at a time. It’s not possible to give yourself fully to two people at a time. Therefore, it’s something you should simply not let happen. Don’t touch people who are not your family or your spouse. Don’t call up your friends to discuss your problems, call your spouse. These actions generate love with your lover, and don’t send out love elsewhere. I don’t want to be in a predicament where I can’t choose between two people, so now that I know how to prevent it from happening, I don’t let it happen. Not that I find anything wrong with fantasies about celebrities and such, but once I’m really in love, all my fantasies circle around my spouse and no one else. Fantasies about close friends, that can be an issue, because those fantasies might be stemming from the genuine opportunity to have sex with that person, and once that line is crossed genuine emotions can seed and grow.

I used to believe that having an open relationship was a functional way to live. I thought that it would be more satisfying sexually and more exciting. From my few aborted attempts at having an open relationship I realize that it’s way too painful on both ends. Both people in a loving relationship want to assert ownership, and they want to assert that there is something special that only they have, and love is to illusive to count on, so we pin our faithfulness and ownership on the one person we have sex with. After numerous experiences I’ve come to the conclusion that sex is a dime a dozen. Sex from one person to another isn’t that different or that special. It’s the person that you’re having sex with, and the way you feel about that person that changes things. In reality, a penis is a penis, and a vagina is a vagina. The size counts, but only to a degree. How wet she gets counts, but only to a degree. And when you really love someone, you’re past these petty cares and just care about expressing your love through bringing your lover to orgasm.

Honestly, most of the time I couldn’t give a damn about reaching an orgasm. It’s wonderful to cum, obviously. It feel great, and leaves me smiling and giddy. But my orgasm only brings me moments of physical pleasure. I enjoy my lover’s orgasm more, because that makes me feel like I’ve done my job as a woman. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something amazing. It makes me feel like I have the right to want everything I want from a relationship. It makes me feel good about being the person that I am. It’s such a fulfilling experience that I can’t say there is much else better in life.

It also makes me feel useful. I think that being physically weak my entire life has made me feel rather useless. I suck at sports. I’m easily worn out. I do love ice skating, swimming, dancing and practicing martial arts, but I’m pretty much equally bad at all of these activities. I struggle with the weight of groceries, and I bruise easily. A long day of cleaning can make me very worn out. This is one of the major reasons why my health is so very important to me. Eating right has brought me more energy than I’ve ever had, even as a young child. I find that I am growing stronger over the months, and now years since my dietary changes, but I do still need to get more physical exercise. I bike and dance mostly to get my exercise, as well as doing a cross between martial-art type moves and yoga in my bed room. In short, my physical ineptitude makes me feel bad about myself sometimes, so I find it important to have a partner who is understanding of my struggle with my physical strength and who is willing to help me when I can’t physically handle something.

I pride myself on my other traits, like my deductive abilities, my vocabulary, my hobbies, and my creative ideas and projects. Activities that involve drinking, smoking or other drugs don’t interest me, and I consider that entire scene to be something to be avoided. While I try not to hold it against anybody, I prefer to have sober friends, family and partner. If you’re not a sober person, I probably won’t be around for very long, especially with all of my extremely negative experiences with drug use in the past. I’ll go as far as a few hits of weed every six months or so if I find an opportunity to have a really good time doing it, but even that is unlikely. I find little point in attending clubs, but I am willing to go if I can dance with my lover, because I love to dance.

Saturday, June 7th 2008 at 10:00pm

I’m probably going to get sick. I got sick once before when I was so upset with Crusifer. I think it’s going to happen again, since my frustration has been crossed with the heat-wave, and a rush of exercise I have not had in a long time, and sleep issues... My throat has been sore all day long. I’m miserable. My heart is just aching so bad I can’t even focus on much else.

I’ve spent the day moping. Mom and I have been moping together, being cynics about men. Twenty-some years with my father has certainly made her opinion of men pretty bad. I seem to either talk about this or cry, or both.

I’ve believed that this was the one for so long... To just throw it all out the window... Is so blatantly impossible when he behaves like the man I want... Only to show me later that it was lies. I want to bash my head into the floor until I’m so vapid that nothing can hurt me ever again!

I don’t understand why... I can’t wrap his character about my brain in such a way that I can fully understand. Right now I wish it wasn’t ten o’clock because I won’t be ready to talk to him in an hour. I won’t be able to hold myself together. I’m burning up... I’m restless and angry and depressed and... I, I, I, I! I wish I could know so much about how he feels!

I want from him less than what I’m willing to give him. This is more than reasonable... All except in the area of funds, but christ, who gives a shit about funds next to love and fulfillment and happiness. And sappy as that sounds. So I’m a sap! Want to make something of it?

Pussy. Pansy. Wimp. Sap. It’s all the same difference. I am what I am. He is what he is. I’m just so confused as to how someone so logical, so understanding...

I feel like I’m going to explode. My every thought is silenced by another thought. If I just give him the right conditions – but conditions will push him away... If I just give him enough sex – but I had sex with him yesterday morning and he completely closed himself off to me since then, and he went out and didn’t get back until 4:30am. If I could just make him see how much I care – but he already knows that I put him first. He loves me too much for me to just leave – but if he loves me so much then why can’t he do simple things like call me, and set aside time to talk without distraction. He’s better than the people he works with – but he smokes weed with them, tattoos in the same shop as them, talks to the same customers, uses the same words... I spent a year and a half with him, I can’t just throw it away carelessly – but two years with Tre was more than enough, and I should have cut that off sooner – or should I have? I learned a lot from my time with Tre.

You see why I’m exploding? I’m a run-on argument with myself. I want to cry, but crying doesn’t help, but it does release emotion, but it doesn’t resolve anything, but I don’t know what else to do. Connecting with my writing can’t replace my connection with a person, but what can I do when I feel disconnected from the one I love? Talking soothes problems and can clear the air, but everything I say seems to make no different, and I don’t want to be accused on lying, and he won’t open up to me anyway, but if I don’t tell him how I feel then how can I blame him for not telling me how he feels, and why won’t he open up to me anyway?

I wish I could summon Mort Fertel and Mark Hyman from their day to day lives to spend five days with each other and me. We’d eat organic foods and discuss the health of body, mind and soul. We’d discuss love and relationships and the paths of life. I know now why I won’t get a psychiatrist – no doctor has ever helped me except the one I never met – Dr. Mark Hyman, and no relationship advice from anyone ever made sense to me except that of Mort Fertel...

Saturday, June 7th 2008 at 10:20pm

Hallie,

I had no idea that you were a Unitarian Universalist. Did you know that I go to a UU church and that last night when I went dancing with my mom and dad that it was at that church?

I also had no idea you played Neopets. I used to love Neopets, but after I had three accounts locked I got pissed off because I never got to spend any of the NP I spent hours and days collecting before I got a locked account at about 200,000np which is about enough to finally buy some fun stuff.

I’ve heard that Age of Conan is good, but I don’t know all that much about it. I’m assuming it’s another Age of Empires type of game considering those who have told me that they were playing it. I’ve never played World of Warcraft online, since I’ve been told it’s much like Final Fantasy XI online.

I never thought about it that way... What you said about Crusifer adopting those things in middle school being okay, but still having them being preposterous. I suppose there isn’t much point in me telling Crusifer that though... Either there really isn’t much point, or I’m too depressed to see it.

Together Forever?

Tuesday, April 29th 2008 at 2:37am

Boredom comes from not being obsessed with something. I wish I was obsessed with something. I want to be obsessed with something creative, productive, engaging, and skill enhancing. I guess that’s a bit much to ask though, isn’t it? I’ve gone back to working on my computer-game-design, but it’s not very engaging. There is nothing exciting about it. It’s just a bunch of text and concept art. Tables, and descriptions and stats aren’t very easy to be obsessed with.

Crusifer isn’t here often enough for me to really obsess over him, and even if he was, he never wants anything. I could shower him with affection, attention, and doing what he wants to do, but it hardly makes a difference to him at all. I mean, he’ll notice, but he’ll say “it’s nice and all, but not really necessary.”

I have anime music blasting through my headphones right now, so that I don’t have to hear the music emitting from Crusifer’s headphones. He’s drawing, looking adorable as he does so. He’s drawing a chick out of a magazine for “anatomy practice.” This is something he does periodically, usually filling an entire page with random sketches. I don’t have the type of drive to do something like that. I’m all about a finished product, when the finished product is disappointing or long in coming I tend to have a habit of quitting.

I suppose that’s one reason why art appeals to me. Why ever quit a picture? It won’t take that long to finish it. And, it’s more appealing to look at every moment that you work on it (to a degree).

I’d like to complete this computer game design and submit it to a company... After some research on how that’s done. How do you submit something without them just stealing the ideas they want and then rejecting your proposal? I know there are ways, but of course I don’t really know much about it. Copyrighting your work and such. It would be nice if they would steal the entire thing and do it just the way I outlined it, but more likely they’d steal several key ideas and dump the rest, and then I couldn’t even prove they ever “stole” anything.

Anyway, say I could submit it without it being stolen, then there is fact that they probably won’t even give it a second glance because I have no degree or work experience in the field. Yet, there is a chance someone might look at and take in the uniqueness of the ideas presented, and see that there is a good sized market for such a game. But that chance will hang in impossibility without a complete design to look at.

I won’t consider the design complete until all aspects of the game are covered, all races, all items, all spells, all functions, all abilities, all disciplines, all realms and terrains, and maps and so on. I’d like all the concept art to be all complete too, but that’s a lot of concept art. The interface design is not a problem for me, but the concept art is really more than I could hope to accomplish. Crusifer and I together could probably do all of it, but relying on Crusifer for something like that (I’ve learned) is folly.
There is no point in asking myself if it is worth it or not to complete the design, because it most certainly is even though the chance of it ever being used for the template for a real game is slim. If but nothing but for my pride.

There is also the chance of putting together a team to design it with me with an agreed about of percentages of payoff (if and) when there is one. My major issue with that is how low quality the game would be if I managed to do that. Saga clearly took a very long time in the making and it’s coding is clearly crap because the load times are terrible for a game with low graphics and small playing fields. This leads me to believe that they have the inexperienced coders as well as average-joe modelers. And while Saga’s game concept is very good, the whole game (as it is now) doesn’t have draw after a certain point in the game for the economical strategist. I want this game to be made much more professionally.

Wednesday, April 30th 2008 at 12:06pm

I’m getting that sick to my stomach feeling again. I get it every time I start to believe that Crusifer and I might not be... Good for each other?

He said to me last week (and has written on several occasions) that he wants to quit drinking. This morning he said that he doesn’t want to quit. I think it’s over, that’s what I think. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon enough. As fast as life flies by it’ll be over and in the past before I can really comprehend why.

What happened to all of his talk of forever? What happened to all of mine? He’s not willing to budge an inch for me. Well, I guess a few inches. I don’t have enough time with him to prove my points to him. I don’t have enough time with him to really understand him, to really understand where our relationship stands.

He hardly ever admits to changing his mind, or tells me that he has changed his mind. It’s always “well I think...” or “I feel...” about whatever it is, and it’s almost always different than the last time. I don’t think I know him as well as I thought I did. I don’t think he wants this as bad as I thought he did.

In the middle of February, when I was the most happy with this relationship if he had threatened to break up with me I would have bent over backwards to change his mind. I would have given up anything, picked up anything, given him more freedoms, done anything but feel the heartbreak surely to come. I see so much of myself in him that I expected him to be the same way. I thought if I expressed that I felt it wasn’t working... If I told him I was having second thoughts... If I made it clear that his actions were upsetting me, depressing me and pushing me away... I thought if I told him those things that he would suddenly be a panic to keep me, the way I would be and have been over him.

I was sorely wrong.

He barely seems to care. I want to say that this is because he hardly shows any emotions, but perhaps it’s because he doesn’t feel things. He says things like “I’m human too you know” but how can I remember that when he hardly shows it?

I don’t believe that I’m not crying right now. That shows how close to the end it really is. I’m already starting to accept my heart cracking down the center. I’m already beginning to accept that I need to find a life outside of him. I’m already accepting the fact that I have to be independent... Some part of me (that I don’t know to well) is preparing for it, some part of me that is wiser than the part of me that has control.

How can I leave him? He’s a good man. He is. He’s a beautiful artist. He’s beautiful in general. He makes good money with his talent. He has worth while goals. He has stamina. I want to say he’s passionate, as I’ve said before, but I’m not sure that word applies so much anymore. I see it more and more as lust and not passion. Passion implies emotions, and deep emotions at that. Oddly I see him more and more as a less emotional being, and more robotic and cruel.

Why do I see that? It’s not even a logical assertion! He’s not violent (like Tre was), he’s not messy (like Tre was), he’s not a drug dealer (like Tre was), and he is logical (like Tre wasn’t)... Or is he logical? I’m having trouble with that one these days too. So have I just scratched off passionate and logical with one blow? That certainly is a lot. If I scratch those off it’s a lot harder to make a good case for him. Have I deluded myself into thinking he’s more than he is?

He did buy me a laptop. He does give me incredible orgasms. Why don’t those things matter in the face of how he speaks to me? I’m so word-oriented. I keep believing his words. Perhaps out of spite for him not believing mine?

I want to sink into being suicidal. I want to declare that my life is over!

I also want to be more mature than that.

So is maturity... Break up? It’s tempting in the way that I wouldn’t have to keep trying to work it out. It’s tempting in that there would never been another screaming fit. Christ! When did breaking up with him become tempting? My love, my future, my plans and attachments are slipping right through my fingers! I’m standing in sand. I’m in quicksand. And I’m sinking, sinking, sinking... Sinking out of love with him?

I feel the beginnings of tears. I don’t want to cry, oddly. I usually can’t wait to cry when I feel like this. Just get it out you know? But I know once I start to cry the little negative voices will chirp up. The ones that say things like, “this is all your fault,” and “it’s because you’re ugly,” and “if you weren’t such a retard, like he said,” and “if you weren’t such a needy baby,” and “you just don’t love him enough,” and “if only you’d just let him drink,” and “maybe you can settle for less,” and “maybe if you change and adapt enough you won’t feel this way,” and “maybe if you were more considerate,” and “maybe if you lost weight,” and “maybe if you gained weight,” and “maybe if you had sex with him more often,” and so on, and so on, and so on!

I’m trying to be rational here. If I keep being rational I can hold those thoughts at bay. Why is this really happening? It’s because I have needs that he can’t satisfy. I want a companion, for several hours a day, (preferably more, but three or four is a good minimum) that will give me affection, talk to me, kiss me, possibly sleep with me (at least once a week, preferably two to five times) and tell me how wonderful I am, (while I tell them how wonderful they are) who will work with me on a project (the actual content of the project not being half as important as the fact that we’re doing it together) and then another project and then another over time and years, who will comfort me if I cry, who will care for me (instead of saying I’m a pussy, or that I’m weak, or that I’m being a typical woman), and who will make me feel special. And at least one day out of the week, (really the minimum is more like two days a week, I guess I made an exception for Crusifer) spends time with me all day long, where we might go out together, where we get dressed together, brush our teeth together, hold hands along a nice walk, wash each other’s faces, take a bath together, clean each other’s toe nails, scratch each other’s heads, watch a good movie, draw together, read together, write together, play video games together...

That’s what I want, most simply put.

He has needs that I can’t satisfy as well. He wants to listen to loud rap music. (It has to be loud, it has to be rap.) In the future he hopes to have his own room far away enough from mine where he can blare his music loud as he wants. (He’ll never understand that I can’t stand it no matter what I say. He won’t believe it. I’m just being a pussy after all. (This is a moment where you’d think I roll my eyes, but rather I’m too upset to stop staring blankly at the screen.))

He also needs his friends. This one is hard to argue with really. Everyone has friends. Everyone but me. And at this point in my life it’s actually my choice. Perhaps I’m so used to not having friends that I’ve become comfortable with it?

It’s occurred to me that his quest to not being enslaved (as he puts it) is leading him to try and enslave me. He told me this morning that men have more say in the relationship, and that is the way it’s always been, and always will be. I tried not to hear him. I was disgusted, but I tried to pretend that he was kidding. He started laughing afterwards, like it was a joke, but it wasn’t a joke. He’s trying to pin me under his thumb. Once I let him listen to his blaring loud rap music, and let him drink, and let him bring friends over, and let him go out with friends, then he’ll be excited to marry me. And then I won’t be interested anymore.

I never thought these issues would escalate. I remember saying to Crusifer, “I can’t imagine what problems we’ll have,” and he replied, “We won’t have any.”

What a naive reply! And how much denial it really shows in him. Or hopefulness?

Perhaps he’s in denial that this isn’t working. Or perhaps he’s just quietly separating himself from me, the way I know I am somewhere deep inside of me. That’s that pain we feel in our chest. I’ve concluded that feeling is the soul ripping apart. My soul is slowly, one tiny spot at a time tearing away from his, and the change in energy is centering in my stomach, making me sway with uneasiness, making my chest vibrate and ache. If I cry, I’ll try to heal the tear inside of me, I’ll try to calm my restless energies. Perhaps I shouldn’t cry yet. I need to keep tearing, tearing, tearing away from a man who wants to control me. A man who wants to party, drink, smoke, blare his rap music and “chill wit da boys.”

I can’t believe my own thoughts! I’m thinking about the fact that I ought to try dating a white guy. I’m thinking about actually trying to find someone else! God help me! Someone help me!

I will. Not. Cry. Yet.

I think I understand something about him now. Why he doesn’t cry. Crying leads you back to safety. I’ll cry my way back into Crusifer’s arms and peacefully forget how I felt, and why I felt that way. Tears lead me back into my emotions, back away from logic, they allow me to let go what I’m holding back right now so that I can analyze.

Right now I need to choose. To pull away from Crusifer, or to try and mend it. Again, again, again. I’ve tried this before. I’ve tried mending it several times. We tried the compromises. Sadly it’s not even what he does at the moment. It’s the things he’s said.

I don’t want to keep being called a retard (even from the same man that calls me a genius – neither of which I am I suppose) and I don’t want to be treated the way I was this morning. The way he cut me off, the way he wouldn’t listen, the way he called me full of shit again.

He’ll never keep his promises, will he? It’s been a year and a half and he’s still drinking, and I’m still a liar, and he still won’t believe that the sound of music is really disturbing enough to matter, and I feel more and more and more alone. I feel so lonely I could burst.

I will. Not. Cry yet. Not yet, not yet, not yet.

He’s been better than Isadora’s Josh. He’s not a big baby. He started off like Isadora’s Bean. (I’m talking about Isadora Wing, from the three-book series by Erica Jong.) He started off making love to me in the most amazing ways. We were sex maniacs together, and after the sex we talked and talked and talked until the mornings. He was understanding. Our pasts related to each other. I understood him in ways he had not been understood before, and he did the same for me. We were so affectionate. Oh how I miss how he used to touch me!

I will not cry yet! Not yet! Not yet!

I miss being happy with him. I miss being sure. I was so fucking sure! I was sure! I wanted nobody but him! I wanted to marry him! I wanted his kids! I did this all over again! All fucking over again! (Not yet!)

Why is this all in past tense? I have not given up, have I? Christ, I’m not even sure about that! Please forgive me for my sins, for I am thinking this isn’t going to work, and I’m thinking that I should cut it off sooner rather than later, and my heart is pounding, and my face is contorted from holding back tears, and my lips are fidgeting, and I’m paralyzed from the neck down aside from my fingers, clacking, taping, jittering, pressing, moving, like spider’s legs across the keyboard, finding the next letter, seeking, searching, searching, searching the way I am for love, for affection, for companionship, for someone to feel the way I feel.

I want him to feel how I feel.

I just want him to fucking feel the way I fucking feel.

I’m degrading, I’m falling apart, my logic is failing me, my heart is burning. I want to curl up in his arms and I want to cry. I want him to tell me I’m beautiful. I want him to tell me he’s sorry. I want to believe that this will work... Will work... Will work... Will work...

Wednesday, April 30th 2008 at 5:42pm

Predictably, I left my entry this morning to sprawl on my bed and cry. I think I wept loudly for about five minutes, quietly for another five, stared at nothingness for around ten minutes and then I decided to focus my entry into the drawing I’m working on. It’s an anime rendition of Crusifer and I together. What I like about the picture most is that it actually looks like Crusifer, and it kinda really looks like me too. Except that we both have big anime eyes, and our heads are rather large for the bodies, and the bodies are longer and thinner, and the necks very thin, especially mine. I love how the picture is coming out.

Crusifer inspires my art time and time and time again. I don’t want to give up, but I also don’t want to “waste” my time with him. Not that I really believe it’s a waste, because after all we’re learning from each other (from the negative and the positive experiences). I still have hope for our relationship, but this morning was another punch to the tit. Telling me that I was full of shit again really socked it to me. And then bringing up the music thing again... Telling me the man should have the say in the relationship... Telling me that I shouldn’t go take a college class because one class is useless and a waste of money. Telling me that I’m spending all his money and preventing him from saving. Telling me he’s not very sure about marrying me, at all. And the real whopper, he doesn’t want to quit drinking, and doesn’t plan on it. He said that he wrote that he wanted to quit because I got the idea in his head, implying that I clouded his judgement. (As if beer doesn’t cloud one’s judgement...)

I’ve considered all the possibilities that I can, and I’ve come to a conclusion. I will take the summer college course (sculpting – mostly because that is the only art course there was that was at a somewhat reasonable hour and that sounded interesting enough and was at an entry level) and I will soon have my bike in the mail. When my bike arrives I will bike to and from work with Crusifer, which may improve our relationship, or it may not. Either way, I’ll get exercise and see the outdoors and will be exploring another possible area of our relationship. That would add another hour onto the amount of time we spend together each and every day that I bike with him to and from work. In addition, taking the course will give me something else to learn about, something else to focus on, and somewhere new to meet new people interested in similar things.

Another measure I’m taking is that I’m halting all the wedding and children talk. The man I saw this morning was absolutely not the man I’m going to marry. This morning did serious damage to my opinion of him, and this time I think the damage is more permanent than before. Previously I’ve been able to forgive him, to let him redeem himself with promises and kisses. I won’t take promises and kisses as redemption for the things he said to me this morning. I will not marry a man who drinks, no matter how little, or how often. It’s a disgusting habit and if he can’t kick it for me then I’m obviously not worth it to him, thus making him not worth it to me.

I’m in no hurry to get out of this relationship, and at the moment I don’t even feel like I’m in a hurry to have kids and get married. I’m in no hurry to do anything in my love life at all. At the moment it’s functional, though somewhat upsetting at times. If I drop the marriage talk, the drinking talk, the kids talk, and an assortment of my other complaints about video games and people and such, then perhaps the arguing will stop, and perhaps things can mend from there. Perhaps biking with him will rekindle something between us that I feel is dying. Does he feel this way about to me too? I really believe that he does, based on the things he’s said and done. He just doesn’t seem committed, or sure that he wants this for himself, and that alone is enough to make me wonder if I’m with the wrong man.

I’m not putting him on some sort of trial, and I’m not going to test him. I don’t believe that he’s going to change. I’m going to push myself to socialize and find new avenues for myself this summer.

I’m going to try to adapt. If I can’t adapt, then I guess that’s that.

You know what really makes me sick though? I don’t feel like he’s really truly tried to do this my way, even under threat of breaking up. Perhaps February was a fluke and he was really just rushing home because it was cold. The back-rubs have stopped. The giddy cuddling is down below the minimum required for sanity in my life. The conversations become more and more argumentative and less and less productive (or even funny or thoughtful.) He doesn’t compliment me half as much as he used to. I get a “you look cute today” in a standard tone, with his standard admiration look... Sometimes he’s not even looking at me when he says it.

Oh, and I forgot the other sock to my guts he gave me last night. He brought up us having a girlfriend... After all this time of having dropped the subject, after ruling it out, after mutually deciding that it would ruin our relationship he brought it up again. I don’t really think it’s that bad that he brought it up, really. I mean, so it’s a nice fantasy and all, but it’s just so impossible to bring to reality, and if it did become reality I know we’d breakup over it. How do I know? I can imagine it clearly now... I know my jealousy better now...

I can see this pretty white girl, blond most likely, sitting on his lap while he’s at his computer. (I’m imagining this in print here, for the benefit of future recollection of my point.) He let’s her distract him from his computer (the way he would get mad at me for doing) and they kiss and kiss and kiss (the way we did when we were a new couple) and they sleep together often (making me feel out of place, jealous and angry and neglected) and she leaves most of the day, comes home when he does, and then they’re all over each other again, talking, laughing... It wouldn’t work unless I loved her too, unless she loved me too. Chances of that? Zilch.

Just thinking about it makes my blood boil. I want him to behave that way towards me again, not watch him behave the way towards a new woman!

I want his love and affection and attention so bad that I’m a wreak. I’m so blasted lonely in here that I could just set myself on fire. (That would take more guts than I really have.)

I’ve been working every single day towards getting that office done in the back. And it’s coming along quite well, as I’ve said before. It’s a good project to keep me distracted. All the boxes of books are out of there. All of the boxes of papers I have sorted through (tossing 90% of it – magazines and pamphlets and other text not written by either of my parents). I kept the stuff that had their signatures or handwriting and carefully filed it into a bin. The materials for my binders about my parents that I will create in the future.

All the tools I found I put in one box. I painted over the plain soot-covered shelves that the boxes had been on. The shelves are built into what is usually the knee-wall. They’re on both sides of the soon-to-be office. On the one side I’ve finished painting them black and there is the CD player, cleaning supplies, the bin full of old papers, trash bags, an assortment of now-empty binders, a box of reader’s digest magazines (from the late 80s and early 90s) and the box of tools.

The office project brings me closer to making Crusifer more comfortable and happy with our arrangement. He’ll probably be able to play music on the whole opposite end of the attic while I’m on the bed if there is a fan going in between, which there will be in the summer time. That would allow him music time on Sundays. I’m not too happy about not being with him during any part of our time together in the house, but then again, I’m obviously not happy about a lot of things, so compromises of any kind are helpful at the moment.

I’m not going to tell him about how I feel about this morning. I can’t really see the point. He knows what I want from him. He’ll notice that the chain I gave him (where he puts his engagement ring) is missing along with the bracelet, and promise ring are missing. He’ll notice that I won’t talk of marriage or kids anymore. It’s clear enough, just like it’s clear that I’m not his ideal wife either.