July 06, 2002
my first s/m party

i went to my first s/m play party tonight! i didn't play, i just watched people play. i wasn't sure what to expect really, i had actually imagined more nude people than there were. but i left early, maybe more people will be taking their clothes off as the night goes on, but what i saw of it was mainly a bunch of people talking, like any ol' other party, with a few scenes going on.

i watched 4 different scenes. i didn't watch them in their entirety. the first scene i watched rather intensely was exactly that. well, they all were. its been so long since i've experienced sexual feelings, and these past 2 weeks, being off drugs for some reason i've had a sex drive, even though my depression has been as bad and at times more intense than it has been in awhile.. i surprised myself by how much i enjoyed part of one particular scene i watched.

this particular community meets regularly just to get together for dinner and chat. i've gone to a couple of them. i think i'll try to make those dinners a regular date. explore this way of sexual expression even more.

yes, on one level.. the first level.. the outer most level that the vast majority of americans see it is disturbing... but once you get past that, what i discovered tonight was an incredible beauty. i saw intense caring to pleasure another person and i saw it done in a way more respectful than some of the vanilla sex i've had.

hmm.. now that i've actually gone to a party, after years of reading and talking about s/m i'm.. well, pleased that i have done so much talking, done so much reading, that i continue to ask questions to educate myself further, because, i'll admit, i can't wait to participate for the first time. only when i'm fully ready, of course.

Posted by brooke at 11.49.35 PM

i'm in love

i'm in love. i madly in love. with a man.

he's got reddish hair, and he's quite tall. he's a good cuddler, and he senses when i'm upset and knows exactly what to do. but he's not just a big ball of mush, he's also strong. he knows what he wants, he knows what he likes and dislikes and he's very honest about it. oh and did i mention his eyes? they aren't too big, or too small. perfect shape. and so so so incredibly expressful. thats how i know he loves me back. i just look into his eyes.

here. meet max.

Posted by brooke at 12.00.36 AM

July 05, 2002
funny

this is the funniest piece of cat humor i have run across in a long time.. via ratbastard.

on another note. today has been one of the most emotionally wearing days of my life.

Aggression comes out in indirect ways. that would be a way to define the hardest part of my day. the part that started a flood of more shit. we'll see what happens with that. i'm doubting anything positive will come of it.

my mother. an intense conversation spent yelling, and the stopping and trying to understand. and finally understanding. amazing what can happen when people don't show aggression in indirect ways... when people are up front with their feelings from the very beginning. when people are respectful of certain spaces, respectful of boundaries, when things aren't completley ignored. yes, my mother and i now have a better understanding of each other than i thought we'd ever obtain. i know i am incredibly grateful, and from the email she sent me, i know she is too. i also know because she ended our conversation with thanks for hanging in there with me... damn. *my* mother said that? yeah. it was intense, but good. the only bad thing.. she freakin' made me cry. damn her! :)

and finally now i'm back at home. not sure what the next steps are. i just know that right now i'm absolutley terrfied. and even through that terror i'm attempting to find a way to get back east at some point. i've got mom and dad to see in virginia.. i'd like to go visit zack's place (my brother) in chapel hill, nc.. head to columbia to see the dears perry and marsha for a couple of days. try to meet up with my aunt who lives in florida. maybe even head north to nyc. places i'd like to see there. a couple of someone's i'd like to visit, including a certain pug (who shall remain nameless). only problem is.. i got all the time in the world, but no more money. so, we'll see.

and on that depressing note, i'm outta here.

Posted by brooke at 07.33.22 PM

MAOI

in a few hours i will take the first pill that i never thought i'd take.

you get depressed, you hear "you should be on medication."..

you aren't depressed, but you see commercials for "paxil".. "welbutrin".. "prozac"... "zoloft"..

no matter what category you fall into you hear about the "ssri's".. selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.. the NEW anti-depressants. the ones with very few side effects.. the ones that will cure all depressions. books like about these drugs make the bestseller lists.. and, in fact, there is a movie currently being made... prozac nation.

the only time the public hears the letters MAOI is in referance to the old anti-depressants. ones that will never ever be prescribed again, cause these new ones are are so wonderful.

so.. you suffer from depression, and you play the game that i call "anti-depressant roulette"... what drug will you be prescribed? no one knows until the ball in the doctors head lands on a name. you are told its an ssri. the letters MAOI are mentioned, but you are assured that you will NEVER EVER have to deal with those.. old, too many side effects, they don't work.

if you are lucky you only have to play "anti-depressant roulette" once. maybe twice, three times AT MOST.

if you are unlucky you play the game enough to give it a name. you play the game long enough that those letters... MAOI start to come closer into focus. but, still, you are always assured that MAOI will never ever enter your body. instead you are prescribed the non-ssri's.. effexor, buspar.. sometimes 2 are combined.. sometimes you get combinations with mood stabilizers.... but all along you are assured that those letters, MAOI, will never ever have to enter your vocabulary..

until that day that you are sitting in your drs office. she looks at you, you look back and say "what now?".. she makes a motion that she's had a thought. you prod... "what, what are you thinking?" and she says "we could try the MAOI's".. and all of a sudden the reassurance you have had while playing the game for the last 5 years flys out the window and the words "parnate" and "nardil" become part of the vocabulary.

so, tommorrow. in a few hours. i'll do what i was told i'd never do. i will reach into that pill bottle, take out a little pink pill and injest an MAOI. parnate, to be exact.

and as i've joked with my therapist and doctor.. "when i get suicidal, i'll just call you up and say "i've got a big block of cheese in my hand..""

Posted by brooke at 01.05.50 AM

July 04, 2002
letter to susie

email to share that i sent to my aunt who is currently traveling in europe with her husband and 2 sons.

3 july 02

dear susie,

i swear, i opened your gift today, well. just now.. and i was crying (thus the reason to open), and i saw the shells you sent from isle of palms, xmas 2000... fuck, i started bawling even harder..... it took me about 10 minutes to realize that xmas 2000 was NOT xmas 1998.. christmas 1998 was the last christmas the 14 of us, silas wasn't there, spent together. shit. i remember we went to some fancy resturant and the old man (yours, not mine) treated us to dinner.. all 14 of us sitting 2 abreast, me ordering alcohol not because i wanted it, but because i wanted to prove (to myself) that yes, i am an adult now, *i* can drink alcohol. even though i'm a grandkid. i don't much remember much else.. oh wait, yeah.. driving emma and ben around in the golf cart.. ben and emma driving me around in the golf cart. and didn't we all get together for dinner at one of the houses that either dad and family or tom and family stayed at? and yeah, all of us, except the the two old folks, being near to the beach, and all of us taking walks, running into whomever of us might be there too.

so, fuck.. yeah.. and there are times when i simply cannot believe how much i miss him [my grandfather]. and times when i simply can't believe how much i don't miss him. we weren't a part of each others daily lives, so i attribute the not missing him to that.

the other day dad and i were talking about the summer after he left us and i didn't know what a hard time dad had with it. he talked about "that summer.." and spending lots of time on the couch watching movies and just tryiing to deal with it all.. i had no idea.

you know, i never cried much right after.. but its like the more time goes by and i'm not seeing him, like i'm supposed to every year or so, and i'm not, thats what gets to me. and then the whole infinetness of it all. that i'll never see him again. that we'll never have those times again. that he'll never drive me crazy again. or that i'll never be that little girl sitting in his lap, trying to get away, and him just holding me tighter and tighter... at the time i didn't have the words that it was one of his many ways of tellhig me that he loved me, but i knew it and now i do, and its the way i remember his expression of love for me the best. its a good memory, ya know?

i was such a blessed child. i talk to so many people who talk about their childhoods and just have the worst memories. but me. i don't. i mean, there was some shit that happened, but all normal shit. ya know? but i get to override it. i get to override it with memories of wild rose shores. those are the best memories.

as a kid i always looked forward to going to wrs. seeing baba and grandad, you and charlie, tom and janet. did you know that i thought that you and tom walked on water? and as i said to baba the other day, at times i still am that little girl who believes that her aunt still walks on water. but i was so lucky. i am so incredibly lucky to have those memories of going out on the fat tiger and the grenadine.. of silas, zack, and i all playing together.. playing poker together! swimming in the strange's pool.. and clancy coming over. this big goof of a man who whenever he came over all y'all adults always brightened up. and i remember the pottery wheel i got for christmas one year and you and i going down into the basement and using it. and then after kerry was born... he was sitting in a seat that was attached to the bar.. he was being quite fussy one day, and dad (or tom?) coming up with the idea that everytime kerry would scream, we'd all join in. i don't remember if it helped kerry, but i imagine it did help us all cope better... and then alex came along, and we were at bethany beach, with charlie's brother.. it was the first time i'd met alex, and i couldn't believe how happy he was. so different than his brother. so so different than his brother (at least from my child memory). yes, i'm so lucky to have all these wonderful memories of this family of ours. and maybe i candy coat it, and your perspective i know is far different than mine. but, i was just a kid. a kid who loved her family and was loved back.

so, your box was wonderful. it made me cry to open it. but thats okay. and that little bird that you sent, he's been attached to the dashboard of my car.. a good place, as no cats knock him down and possibly think he's a toy!

are y'all having a good time over there? seeing new terrain? revisiting old terrain and old memories?

did you celebrate the 4th? i'm not going to be much celebrating.. this damn government is doing its part to fuck up all the hard work that our ancestors put in to help create this place so its just too hard to celebrate anything.. most of america, even the smart ones, can't seem to differentiate between what OUR ancestors created and what it is now. so, they celebrate.. they wave flags, but no one is waving the constitution, or the bill of rights. thats what we should be waving. *agh* so, i'm not celebrating. i'm simply remembering *my* (our) ancestors and thanking them for what they did. and if i knew where their graves were, and if i could get to them tommorrow, i'd probably go there and sit and read the second treatise of government as a way of marking the day.

okay, i should end this, this is enough.. if you get a chance to respond, will you send it to brooke@rivervision.com ? i'm writing from here cause rivervision is not being very nice.

okay, send my love to the men and yourself (of course). be safe,
me.

Posted by brooke at 07.33.07 PM

June 30, 2002
i am so sick and tired of being just like them.

you know, i am so sick and tired of straight people saying "why do queer people make such a big deal about their sexuality? its just a little part of who they are? if they didn't make such a big deal then they'd more likely be accepted."

fuck. because heterosexuality is so ingrained into our culture and straight people can't see it. you can't see that which is a part of the background unless you look really hard.

dammit. it pisses me off. and if we are more concerned about our sexuality, why the fuck do we have to be more like straight people to be accepted? HUH? how about the concept of "WE LIKE YOU, EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE DIFFERENT THAN US." what the fuck is so wrong with that?

NEWS FLASH:::::: QUEER PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT THAN STRAIGHT PEOPLE. and personally i think it is disrespectful to ask us to be like you for you to accept us.. because by doing that you ignore our own social norms, you ignore our culture, you ignore our history. you ignore that which makes us a very very very special community. by wanting us to be like you, you aren't accepting who we are as a community. yes, there is a gay community... there is a lesbian community. there is an lgbti community. and it does NOT involve straight people.

god damn. it pisses me off when queer people use that "we're just like you" crap to try to gain acceptance.

you know, the other day i said to my therapist.. "i just adore the fact that you are so butch and that your partner is so butch. i admire that y'all are who you are, and neither of you change. you are 2 beautiful butch women, and though i've never seen it, i imagine that seeing the two of you walking down the street would make my heart skip a beat." i'd never say that to a straight woman. or a straight man. it was 2 lesbians talking about life, lives as lesbians.

straight people don't get it. when i say to another queer person "yeah, my therapist is really butch." they know what i mean. but straight people, i imagine that they might have an idea, but if they saw a butch woman, they might not recognize her. but a queer person would.

see.. we are so different that the dialogue that i have with another dyke is often diffferent than the dialogue that i have with a straight person. my values, the things i read, the movies i'm interested in, my politics.. they're different.

but you know, there's nothing wrong with different. what's wrong is that so many people are saying "we're just like you" in order for queers to be accepted. and thats a bold face lie.

again, someone tell me what is so wrong with saying "THE LGBTI COMMUNITY IS DIFFERENT THAN US, AND WE ACCEPT THEM WHOLE HEARTEDLY."?

Posted by brooke at 09.21.38 PM

andrea.

so, the other day i got an email from my stepsister announcing her new address. its a proud announcement, its her first house, house to own. of her.. their own.

it was a polite thing to do, i guess. but my gut reaction was that of wanting to throw up.

see.. i'm petty.

i'm really petty. and so, i'm jealous. i'm insanely jealous of my stepsister, because she moves out to oregon and buys a house in the first month she's been here. and she doesn't work. but wait, yeah, she's married to a man who makes plenty of money.

so, i'm jealous. she doesn't have to work, she's not on disability.. in fact, she inearly 2 months out of an mba program... and yet she gets to own a home. and this email comes to me about a month after she and i had a discussion about polyamoury vs monogomy.

see, she doesn't think that polyaymours relationships will work out. she said pretty much said that polyamoury is bullshit and the relationships don't work. that the only relationships that work are monogamous ones.

funny, a. she and i are freakin' *step* sisters. the only reason she is in my life is because monogamy didn't work.

my mother and her father were in the room, in another part of the room.. and i pointed this out to her.. i pointed at my mother and said "see her-- she's on her 3rd marriage.." and then i poiinted to my stepfather (whom i ADORE) and said "see him? he's on his second marrage."

and she still didn't get it and went on and on about how monogamy is the only thing that works.

i think she's fooling herself. i think the woman is deluded. fuck, if monogamy worked out i wouldn't have 5 freeakin' stepsiblings.. none of whom i have a close relationship too, though i do like this step sister's younger sister. and i do absolutely adore the partners my parents have now.

so, for her to make a judgement she knows nothing about (polyamoury) and then to go on and say that monogamy works and polyamoury doesn't, just confirmed in my mind that she's as stupid as i've thought all along. she didn't even get my point, even with concrete evidence sitting in the room.

but let her believe what she wants to believe, and there's a 50 percent chance she'll be proven wrong.

so, back to the email she sent out. big change in her life.

it made me think about sending out my own email:

hi, its brooke, and i just wanted to inform you all that i am still living in the place i've been living, that my phone numbers are the same, but my social class is changing. i will no longer be a member of the middle class, as many (if not all of all) of y'all are. i will now be joinging the ranks of the lower class, relying on public assistance to make ends meet. if any change in living situation or social class changes i will be sure to let you know.

i am just so freakin' petty. i know.

Posted by brooke at 01.32.15 AM