Un mil besos.

Joy

Saying things like, “Hey being given away, HURTS” or “Having my identity being against the fucking law hurts” or “Adoptive Parents as a class fail to look out for our best interest hurts” Just to be clear, I am not the one cussing here, I am just imitating those naughty ladies like Linda. So naughty that one.

I tried to reason with her, but as you know, some men just cannot be reasoned with.

Bitch doesn’t know her place. I am just saying bitch because that is how she talks, it has nothing to do with google thinking I have spent the last six years trying to adopt a baby, why don’t they just give me one already, or how google also thinks I breed dogs because bitch shows up on my blog like I think I am the awesome Jesse Pinkman, who I am sure was adopted.

So one of my amazing arguments with the very mean Linda was, Hey bitch, adoptive parents are tired of getting stigmatized and being told they are not perfect. Because they are, they go to heaven for adopting and sure most of them are hostile to adoptees, (There are some inspiring exceptions) but for the most part, adoptive parents hate adoptees, but who can blame them. We are all fucking with their “I am a saint” narrative. That baby never wanted her identity anyway because it was like gross.

Trust me, I feel ya. Both the very mean Linda and myself are part of another group of parents that have to deal with tough stuff. I tried to be really patronizing and APs as a class-like when I tried to splain to Lucy, I mean Linda. Both the Mean-Queen Linda and the Bully-Girl Me were teen moms. Oh if you want to get stigmatized, try that out for size.

It doesn’t come with the same adoptive parents must be awesome and amazing and glitter like stars line. Like Tomtom is not obligated to say, “My mom was a child and she is amazing! Everything she does is amazing and yes her shits do smell like roses! How incredibly loving it was for her to fuck my dad when she was 17 and not bother to figure out she was pregnant so I could spring into existence, every little toot-toot that comes out of her rear is a miracle!” SMILE!

So we do not get that part.

Tomtom did say to me, while I was driving around in my awesomely loud Dodge Dart and he was five, “I wish you were older and had more money” So I quick pulled the car over and started to cry. Oh I am kidding, I said, “I didn’t think this conversation would come so soon” Oh I didn’t, I burst into tears and said, “What about all the things I did right, like feeding you!” Oh I said, “You are hurting mommy’s fee-fees and I am the only person with fee-fees here” Well okay not that but I did say, “Look I may tap into your biggest fears of being given away again if you don’t appease me” Well not that either because he was never given away. I said, “I am so weak, you must take care of my emotional needs at all times!”

Actually, he did say that and I thought, it is probably hard for him, to be surrounded by so many kids that have so much when we have so little and said, “I can’t say I wish I was older but I do wish I had more money and your life was easier”

He said lots of things like that growing up. I remember his friend mugging on me and a friend when we caught up with him walking somewhere in high-school. I was sensitive to things like that. “What is Vince’s problem?” I asked later. He shrugged, “People can’t figure out how you are related to me, you are too young to be my mom, too old to be my friend”

So yeah, I get it, back when I posted on the SOFA, people who hated me, and they were legion, used to like to make digs at me, that teenage parents were more likely to abuse their children and I freaked out every time. I screamed and ranted and raved. I fell apart. I fell on the floor and rolled my eyes back in my head, my tongue came out and made scary swishing sounds. Oh except, I am funning with you again.

This bitch didn’t give a shit. Because I didn’t abuse Tomtom. I adored him. I was devoted. I changed every aspect of my life for him. I sucked at times, don’t get me wrong. I was no saint. I am not a fan of child abuse. I do not believe teenage mothers are inherently abusive. I have known lots of good ones. I think they have extra stress due to the stigma and quite often the grandparents will withdraw support that would be their if their child was in their twenties, because they are dumb and embracing the stigma.

So anyone telling me that teen moms are abusive. I don’t scream and fall about, I think why? What can we do to support them to be better mothers. I guess I was funning about the title of this post. I look in my little mean heart and think, oh there is really no pity at all for the adoptoraptors that melt like Dorothy’s wicked witch when met with the formidable opponent of water.

I think of the really mean Linda that I have seen give so much of herself, be so generous with her resources, her time, her shoulder to cry on, her humor, her powerful creativity. She is changing the world, making the world a better place for bastids like me.

So that the new-school bastids don’t grow-up like me, or my friend that killed himself. So they are allowed their feelings and don’t end up with shaved-heads in beautiful cream-colored dresses bringing you break-downs sponsored by the magic of adoption. If I had a friend like mean-Linda in the 90s, I would not have ended-up on the wrong side of a locked door. Tomtom would have had a better childhood. Everyone that knows me or ever cared about me, and people did care about me, would have had an easier life. What a bitch she is. My adoptive parents would have had an easier but no less amazing life.

God, what a self-pitying bitch Linda is! I would have not been the destructive, confused, don’t take my word for it, ask my 500 ex-boyfriends who are trying to understand their overlap. I would have been the me I am now, the capable me.

Let’s get all syrupy sappy and dedicate a song to that bitch Linda:

I talked to him last weekend. I forgot, I forgot how much of his stamp was imprinted on me. Somehow Cool Hand Luke, one of my all time favorite movies, one of the movies I watch for solace was brought up. Me too, me too, one of us said. “People used to always tell me I looked like him when I was younger too” he added. “Yeah I know” I said. I didn’t tell him Tomtom was one of those people. That I used to buy Tomtom Paul Newman’s lemonade which he as a very young child called, ‘grandpa-hat-juice’ and then as grandpa’s memory started to fade, just “hat-juice’ and eventually lemonade.

What was poignant to me, is after the initial joking around he started to apologize, explain my adoption, just go over it again and again. It is soooooo many years later. “You don’t” I tried to explain. He said “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and I hate how they effect other people, I wish they could just effect me”. “Well me too” I offered, “that is kind of what people do and no one has the luxury of only effecting themselves, that would be lovely but it just isn’t and that is why it hurts so much”

I was afraid to talk to him but it was so good. I forget so often that I didn’t lick it off the ground as he made comments about situations in his own life and said things like, “Where do people get off being so weak?” Which I have said myself about the many fainters and people who believe they have the right to mock adoptees and expect reverence from us for that.

He also made a comment that I found rather insightful about dealing with others and he is so like me about the coming to the world with a sense of perennial strategy. He said about something completely unrelated, “You know, so what if you are educated that is not intimidating, you want someone to worry about have them be street AND educated, they know how things work and they are not afraid of the educated. You want to scare me, man? I have worked in South Central, try to scare me man” To which I said, “I resemble that remark”

I mean I do. The things I got involved with before I turned sixteen, I am lucky to be alive but really people think they can cow me or scare me by calling me a cry-baby-bitch. Um, no. The thing is I am alive, I didn’t disappear into the Mexican desert. Luck played a part in that to be sure, but so did my sense of self. I know about more things than white-people problems. If you think calling someone a cry-baby-bitch on the internet is a real problem, I can only channel Mr. T and say, “I pity the fool”

It was refreshing, his sense of justice, how he has taken up for those less fortunate than him without concern for his own ego, which is plenty big. His pressure to talk, his ideas, his critical thinking. His humility side by side with his cockiness. Hearing his beautiful voice, and both my parents have very beautiful voices for some reason, saying, “So if they think I am an asshole? So what? I am” sounded so familiar, “Doesn’t make you special” I teased.

His easy claiming of me, “Well that is just because you are an XXXXX” the x’s being his last name, and when I said things like, “Well my identity is more complicated than a lot of peoples” he un-defensively said, “Well, yes!” instead of defending or gas-lighting. He so gets it, I am part of him that he seems happy to claim and part of my adoptive parents which he easily acknowledges.

I haven’t been kind enough to him. “You have to understand” I tried to explain,”When I was a kid, when I met you, I had been given one life story consistently by the culture I lived in, I am not blaming my adoptive parents, but the culture I lived in had ONE story, that my parents were feckless and unloving, they made no allowances for people in tough situations, they made no allowance for adoptive parents being less than saints for taking me in, they made no allowance for the industry that was taking advantage of us all”

I mean really, they made no allowance for the fact that my adoptive parents “bought” me because not that they were saints but they wanted a baby. No, I don’t blame them, I love them so very much, I am so happy they are in my life, which is part of the mind-fuck of adoption for me. I CANNOT wish them away. I love them and feel connected to them, but I also love and feel connected to my natural parents and they have allowed me to know myself in a way that would otherwise be impossible for me.

There is no question though, that had my adoptive parents, had life been kind to them, that I would have never known them. I know that, they didn’t do it for me, they did it for them. That being said, they did their best and far more than others once the task of me was undertaken. Then again, life wasn’t kind to me either in that way. Life isn’t kind to most people in that way. As I said to a dear IRL friend of mine, one of the few that I have been semi-open about the role of adoption in my life trying again to get me to see my adoptive parents point of view, which thanks to the profiteers, NCFA, American Adoptions, Adoption Law Network, HOLT, etc. have worked so effectively to brand their baby-selling business.

She asked me, “What if you were starting out in life and couldn’t have a baby” and I said, “What makes you think that didn’t happen to me? I just wasn’t rich enough to have choices” Which is true. Yes, getting pregnant wasn’t a problem for me, having enough money for a child was. Where are the blogs about the fecund poor women who want babies? Where are they talking about it being a fate worse than death? OH nowhere. That is saved for the “infertiles” white people problems sung in soprano.

But anyway, yes to my father being affirming and then I had to go and he said easily, “I love you” and I said I love you back easily and I was happy and then I thought of and tortured myself with the song that he said reminded him of me when we first met. The lines in it, the acknowledgment of his own faults, so like me, the honesty. How I made out like I didn’t understand him when he told me.

I have thought many times, if I was not his daughter, I would have never lived through this, if I didn’t inherit his xxxxx spark as he calls it, I never would have.

I had very long hair back when I met him, I remember how shy he was about it, and me being all, ‘whatever’ oh it makes me cry now. I was so unforgiving.

Okay so to start off, this local girl has made good and blown-up the internet.  I am not going to link her song because I can’t imagine you haven’t heard it, but here she is talking about it: Maybe you haven’t.

 I showed it to a friend of mine recently,not this vid. but the original one that she is talking about.  I first got interested in her because you can hardly open a paper in SF without seeing an article about her and she is close to Tomtom’s age, just a year older.  AND she said, “My mom was in a punk-rock band” and I was like WTF?    Your mom was in a punk band? That is what first piqued my interest, if your mom was in a punk-band, then she is probably my age, in my area, I have probably seen her mom if not met her. I don’t recognize her mom or her mom’s band at all, but there were very few women I ever met who were living that young-mom going to punk-shows lifestyle.

I mean before the 90s there were not a lot of women in punk bands and no, the Go-Gos do not count. But yeah, I was in those places living that lifestyle to a certain extent. I wasn’t free then, I was all into buying couches as in my last post. I was still trying to please my adoptive parents, and really still am. But yeah, her mom is my age, and she is my kid’s age and so got interested.

I wasn’t in a punk band, I was into school and working for the women’s resource center on campus and giving lectures, and dressing up all kinderwhore, which is kinda why I got on this topic on the first place, that is not mentioned anywhere except by people who totally don’t get it, understand it or portray it accurately who actually claim Courteny Love was the innovator and I do want to write about that as that is a piece of history that should be recorded. Damn, I am old.

But so while her mom was being all punk-rock, and whatever else she was being, like I said I don’t know her, I was being all serious student-feminist. I was reminded of this recently as I stumbled across a blog of a radical feminist, forgive me if you know this but there are many different schools of feminism when you go into it academically. Radical feminists, when I was more well-versed in this issue, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt because I have never identified with radical feminism. In the 90s at least it meant that women could never be free of oppression while living along side men. That women should separate. Which I thought, wow, now they can with the advent of the internet, so I asked this person in a very respectful manner, what is their goal circa 2012, when separation is more than possible?

I got back a very hostile answer, surprise! Criticizing women that don’t adhere to the idea that men are our enemy. O.K. I think to be fair I have interacted with this person before under a different name and she hates me, so in no way do I want to represent this as a reaction of the radfem movement. I don’t know that much about it. But still that whole I am a feminist who criticizes women and yes that leads me back to Kreayshawn.

But before we get back to that little cutie, and I mean that with all sincerity, there is nothing wrong with being cute. I was trying to research my own identification with feminism, the school I belonged to, which was Marxist feminist, not that I was a Marxist because he wanted all chicks up in one big whore-house, but you know the whole who owns the means of production thing, has the power.

Then I thought, maybe, progressive was more like it and then I thought NO! None of them and that is why I lost patience and that is why I left the “movement” The ladies bending over at fundraisers, the LADIES, the FEMINIST ladies, saying to Cara and me after ignoring us in favor of ladies that were old with money, “What can I do for you girls?” When we had been invited to speak at the event.

Okay, so back to Kreayshawn. So like I said, she is all over the place with commentary Here is something kind of awesome from her again:

But what I am reading is, “skinny white girl” “I’ll give that she is better than Kesha and move on” “We were surprised by skinny white girl” “oh we don’t really like it” “Oh she is too cutsey but we kinda like it” “Oh we are much smarter than her but you know we will deign to like it in the most patronizing way”

So as I said, showed it to my friend who is supercute and his first response was, “I’d like to fuck her” I looked at him and said, “Well, I would suppose I would feel the same way if I was a man” I mean she is super cute. “She gets a lot of shit because she is cute and white”, I continued,”she is doing something transgressive”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Well if you are cute-white-girl, that is all you are allowed to be, and harshing on you is fair-game. You are not allowed to act, you are only allowed to be acted-upon” I am thinking, not unlike adoption. Kreayshawn is breaking the rules, she is acting.

“Well is she really street?” he asks because the assumption is if you are white and cute and female you had everything handed to you and are not street. “You can’t lie to the street” he continues. I think, you have no idea who I am, but say, “You know, she was raised by a teenage mother in O-town, I don’t know her language, but do I believer her? Yeah, My son knows her language” I continue totally shameless “I don’t know her mom, I don’t know what she has been through but I can tell you on average it isn’t easy, for my kid, it was not easy”

Which was kind of huge for me to admit, so freely, yeah for Tomtom, life was not easy. I wanted it to be, and in someways it was wonderful, in other ways, not so much. Because of me.

But again back to feminism, so researching it and not being happy or identifying with it the academic schools of thought so much or all the ridiculousness like saying, women should be spelled womyn. I mean wtfever. Women who have real problems, like rape, like domestic violence, like being stoned to death. The Y? not such a big one. I mean are we going to change human to hymen? I mean wtfever. As if men get all this agency in corporate America. As if men aren’t very kind most of the time.

Back to me, being forced to sit as a rep. from the Women’s Resource Center in a table, while I watched a middle-aged woman stand -up in an ugly-ass suit and nervously speak to the student body about how to prevent date-rape. ” Um, um, you ask the female in question if you can kiss her and get an affirmative consent before kissing her” I was sitting there with my fire-engine-red manic panic hair and my pink shirt and mulberry jeans thinking “fuck-no” this doesn’t help women at all. Sex is not a crime committed against women, rape is.

If you are a feminist, empower women, don’t infantalize them! They thought I was radical! lol, being the captain of your own ship is radical.

The other problem with most lame-ass feminism is that feminists have an agenda, not unlike many adoptee rights activists have an agenda AND they want to speak in the most pathetically insecure of academese, you know, I am so desperate to seem smart and convince everyone that I am smart, I want to speak in a language they can’t understand in hopes they feel stupid. Sad again. I want to show up and talk in the least understandable language and then be confused when people don’t get it. Confused and indignant. I mean really sad activism.

What do you think is going to make the bigger difference to the little bitches growing up in Richmond? You figuring out how we should spell women or this song?

Who is the transgressive feminist here?

Oh you deign to like her? You deign? This little girl has more talent in her little finger than all you academics combined.

She isn’t talking about it, she is DOING IT. That is more liberating than anything ever. Better than Kesha and I move on? srsly?

Bitch you aint no Barbie, I see you work at Arby’s , number 2 super-size, hurry-up I’m starving

That is some tight writing. Sorry if she is younger than you, sorry if she is cuter than you, sorry if she is more alive than you.I could write 10 thousands pages of academic bullshit about her song. But she did it, she changed the world, she takes the shit.

That is what I want to be a part of the doing shit. Not her shit, my shit. I am so effing sick of the Claggarts and I am sorry if you have embraced that ideal, that I will be jealous and petty and mean and not fabulous ideal. I know there are a lot of people who read my blog who have, who want me to trip up, who want me to suffer so they can say see? See? Joy is not perfect and she thinks she is whatnot but she is not and we can hurt her hurt her hurt her and we so want to.

Maybe you can, but all I can say is at least I am not you. At least I don’t do shit like that to people. You know what you could do instead? Be fabulous, stop being petty and up in my grill, stop playing your pathetic games. Have respect for other people, listen to other people before you start writing magazines for dumbasses.

Anyway I think everything about Kreayshawn is the big awesome “I’m rolling up my catnip and shitting in your litter” That is how you empower women, you speak their language not your stupid, men think they are better than you and so do I language.

You teach women that even if they are cute, they can do shit. It is like that whole door-opening thing back in the day when stupid women were fussing at men for opening doors for them. Yes it is nice to have the door opened for you, you want your “power” back? Don’t insult people doing nice things for you, open doors for men, it works perfectly, it is even fun.

So yeah, invented the Joy-Joy school of feminism last weekend it is called the we-do-shit-and-get-off-our-tits school of feminism also known as the tcb, taking care of business feminism. Yay us. The cutting the road school of feminism and you go on ahead and take all day deciding how to spell women but don’t bother us while we are working school of feminism.

These people are hating on this woman is doing more for other women than they could ever dream of, her meta-message is even if you are a cute white girl you can be an actor and not subject to corporate demands and be in charge of your own expression and just like in adoption that makes PEOPLE HATE HER.

I love her. She has the official stamp of approval of We-do-shit-feminism.

One of those was Mr. Blaze, he laughed with me, he made huge allowances when I would do things like show up for the final 5 minutes before time was up, the changed the schedules for the final week, why I have no idea. That was more planning than I could handle at the time. Who I made tell me over and over why would Claggart do that to Billy Budd, why, why, why and there is no good answer, but there is always a Claggart.

Anyway, Mr. Blaze got stalked this one time by a crazy student. So he showed campus police and they read the letter and asked him quite srsly, and who is this e.e.cummings? Because crazy student made reference. Which is sort of so divinely something e.e.cummings would do. We would laugh and laugh about that.

But this post is not about that, this post is about then and now. Then when I decided that the pain was just overwhelming and I decided to take every pill in my house. I am talking about the night my boyfriend and my ex-husband and another male friend rushed me to the emergency room, the night my baby-daddy ran up the stairs and carried me out of the house.

Then they locked the doors behind me and even though I screamed at them to let me out, they wouldn’t and I was alone in a cream colored beautiful dress and a shaved-head. How even the crazy people I was locked up with told me that what I had done was “very bad, you should never do that” I am talking about the night I almost abandoned Tomtom. Forever.

I am talking about the night I traumatized every single person who cared about me. That made people say things like, “It hurts to be your friend” “I am afraid you are dead when you don’t tell me where you are” Who came and pounded on my front door if I didn’t call them back right away.

I lived in a studio/loft at the time. I had giant paintings downstairs and we slept upstairs. I had giant red paintings and people came over and said things to me like, these are fucking amazing, and I couldn’t even hear them. I couldn’t, but I could hear the criticism of my bossy neighbor bitch. Who dropped by and told me to “grow-up and buy a couch” and I did. And I told my friend Sam because she was asking what I was doing that aft. and I was going to St. Vinnies to try to buy a couch because that I could hear.

I could hear the values of my aparents, couches, being tidy, being conventional. Sam was horrified, “Why are you listening to her?! Stop!” and how could I tell her? I didn’t even know myself. How could I tell her I judged myself so harshly because I didn’t have genetic mirroring, because I tried all my life to be tidy and sit and couches and not dance inappropriately and I just couldn’t do it. And that made me not good enough to live. That made me rejectable and my own mother didn’t want me around as she had learned to sit on couches and wear pink bermuda shorts and not have random bastard kids.

Sam was pissed and told a bunch of other people and they made a point of being passive-aggressive to bitch neighbor. They were better looking and more popular than bitchy neighbor and reveled in bringing up couches to hers and how relieved they were to get to rid of theirs. And who needed a couch? Why to watch television, how suburban, how utterly pedestrian. L. even got rid of her couch in solidarity.

I had all these beautiful creative people supporting me, and I couldn’t even see that, I could only hate myself for not thinking about couches because duh, everyone wants a couch and why didn’t I even think about it? I felt so alone. Abandoned.

Valkyrie told me when she first met me she hated me because she had never seen anyone so taken care of in her life. “Everybody wanted to make you happy, you are such a fucking doll, you have to know that” No, I didn’t know any of that. She said that, after she had come to know there was no reason to envy me.

I remember my friend R. who was never locked up because she got away, she succeeded, she never reached her 25th birthday. Her saying to me, “I always know how you understand” Magisco inscribed on my next birthday card, “So glad you are here” Which always rings in my head, when I say how glad I am to be here, I almost wasn’t.

Wow, tough stuff. But not today, today I have learned to live and am still learning and doing wonderful powerful things and I can know that now. Yesterday, I was out and about and in a shop run by a woman about my age with really sassy hair. Her shop was full of the best stuff. Her friend came in and started riffing with her. I chimed in because I think of funny stuff to say, and they smiled and laughed and said, “Tight!” which is a compliment.

And then I checked out and these two women that I was looking up to thinking are really awesome looking with sassy outfits and hair, the one leaned forward, I thought she was going to tell me I looked familiar and start asking me questions about where I am from, Hell, lol, no just stuff I hate to answer.

But she said, “I just have to tell you, you look so bad-ass, where are you going?” Which bad-ass probably doesn’t mean in my neighborhood what it does in yours, but it is a compliment of the highest order. I love she asked me where I was going vs. where I am from. “Here” I said and smiled. And I could hear her, I could feel her support and appreciate it.

I walked out happy and clear and I thought, wow there are people who never wanted me to have this moment, who told me that I was making it all up, that the Primal Wound doesn’t exist, that I am hysterical, a woundie, worthless. I can’t hear those people any more, but wow, what kind of fucking animal does that?

They just wanted to get on top of me and hump my leg to feed their egos. They wanted to be the experts and write about their experiences. And mock adoptees. Wow. What kind of fucking animal tries to harm an abandoned child and tell them that they are not only not allowed their name, but their own pain?

I am so lucky I survived. I am so sorry I put people through that.

But yeah, to mock an adoptee’s pain, hmmm, mmm don’t get that, I don’t care what your reasoning is, how big or fragile your ego is, or how guilty you feel for whatever you have done in your life. Don’t get that.

I do, I look at people who inspire me and think how do you do that? like Eartha Kitt, like Nina Simone, like Mark Twain, Harvey Milk, Gloria Steinem, I mean I could go on forever. But I think you get the picture I love to be inspired by people who kick ass. It is full of gooey-goodness.

There is a part of me that truly, really believes that inside every person, no matter what they have been through is protected, safe, and very alive, I can see what it looks like in my minds eye, and I can feel it in me strongly. I have been living in that place about all the time now. I think that may be my religion, that lovely spark or light or whatever it is. I mean of course there is work stress and people talking to me about things that are very important and me wanting to say, “Oh you are making being a grown-up lady feel so boring” and sit on the carpet but I don’t. I say to myself How would fabulous Helen Mirren handle this? And then I follow her lead.

Here she is handling a very awkward interview

She is so lovely and real and he is so boring and only has one moment that is interesting and she loves Eartha Kitt!

So then later I was talking to another wonderful friend who is an adoptee and how much pain comes with that. I was telling her how shame-free I feel. She has a more difficult situation than me, in that her mother’s biggest agenda seems to be proving to the world that she is a “good” mother and not so interested in her daughters well-being. In real life there aren’t really “good” mothers. There are mothers. Mothers fuck up because all we did to have a baby was fuck someone. Mothers love their children, unless there is something pathologically wrong with them and do all kinds of things to them, good and bad. It is one of those great ironies in life that while you grasp for ideals that are unreal you miss lifes lovelies.

You have to be real to have the lovelies, to have the awareness to see them. To free yourself from trying to be and just being. If that woman could just come to grips with hey I fucked up and it feels awful and I am ashamed and there is no way to fix it but I am sorry and I love you. She could heal her family. That is possible.

It reminds me of the type of person who “tries to be interesting” you know they know a little so they try to be in charge of everything, look at me, I am an expert. Grasping for control when life isn’t about control, trying to feed off other people’s insecurities and MAKE MONEY off them. The trick on them is the very key to be interesting is be INTERESTED. That is how you learn stuff, by listening, not telling. By letting go of your desperation.

So yeah am not feeling the pain but I remember it, it is exquisite, the only way I know how to describe it. Unbelievably dark and alone and the side-effects of everything else can make the world very confusing. I don’t want it back, but I am kind of inspired by something a young man said to me once we were at some healing workshop and on dinner break I confessed to him, “I can’t relate at all, I don’t feel like what these people are saying they feel like, most of the time I feel really happy and really excited to be here” He said, “that is beautiful” and I said, “Not that I haven’t also known tremendous grief” and he said, “That is beautiful too”

Which made me think. It is hard to be grateful for pain, and probably not necessary. But it made me more perceptive and aware too.

So my spark is my religion I think I will call it Vor Freude Schreien, because what else would I call it, and there will be no tithing.

So Idk, was watching the seductive YouTube again and came across this:

Which by far is not my favorite Eartha Kitt song musically, but the only one that makes me cry. I can’t get through this song without crying.

I think this song was recorded before I was born. Why wasn’t I shown this? Oh and watch it, I know it is a pain to click on links, but look at her, look how beautiful she is, how real her pain is. One of the reasons this video makes me cry is because although I wasn’t raised in a traditional religious experience, I have been overly educated, annoyingly educated. I have been to churches in all kinds of countries.

It never occurred to me that there were no black angels. I never even thought of it, though I have looked at many pictures of angels and passed tests in art history and whatnot. I have been to rarefied places that consider art. But no, this is the first time I have stumbled across this.

I live in a very multi-cultural community, I have seen Santas who are black, and yes I say black, the only reason is I am related to some black people and they told me, I am not African and what is wrong with being black? They told me, not all black people are from Africa, some are from the Caribbean, and also, just don’t call me colored because that makes me sound like an Easter egg. Which is weird because it seems now that the dominant term in “Person of Color” which by definition means “not white” I mean kinda fucked-up no? I mean why define yourself as being un-white? That kind of seems not empowering. You are either white or not-white? Idk, not loving it, but following what those who are not-whites experience. I mean I don’t want to define myself as “person of not-male” or “person of vagina” I mean it has an inherent racism being “person of color” vs. “Person”

But yeah, back to why Eartha was such a blessing in all our lives. No, I never in all my studies of art, noticed that there were no black angels. I did notice the black santas and the first time I noticed, I thought they were “funny” I mean wtf is wrong with me? Nothing is wrong with me, I just didn’t get it, how could I? I didn’t live it.

And this will make me sound like a total jerk but am going to say it anyway, I have always been grateful for being white. I think it makes my life easier. I have been discriminated against in very real ways for being white before, but they are so far and so in between. I do not in any way think it corresponds to an American who is clearly not-white. I have never been told that someone wouldn’t date me because I was white, which my much cuter younger sister has been told. Not because she is white, but because she isn’t.

Oh that broke my heart, like her playing with my hair and saying, “I want her hair” when she was little. Oh no. Yes, it happened. I fainted, well not really but felt all bluest-eye, Toni Morrison and GUILTY.

But I look at Eartha and think, “How did you have the strength to do that?” when I have done so much less and suffered so much from being transgressive. Where did you get that fabulousness from? and THANK YOU, thank you for opening my eyes. I have no doubt she suffered more than I did. I have no doubt that she was stronger, sexier, more alive than I am. Where did that strength come from? Idk, but she is dead now. She is still helping me, she is making me watch videos and think, “Holy Shit, I did not know,and now I do, and I am sorry”

I didn’t have the vision to see it. She gave a part of the vision to me. I can never really see it, because that is not my experience. I can respect it though. I can appreciate though. Which is what adoptees are asking for which apparently makes people shit their diapers. We are real people with real feelings. Being able to talk doesn’t make you real. Being alive makes you real.

So like if someone spoke in a language, lets say Chinese, that makes you less real? If you don’t understand it? That is what happens to us.

So all I can say is yeah, try not insulting adoptees and see how reasonable we can be. Try not telling us whatfor and see how reasonable we can be. Try thinking about us as people and see how reasonable we can be. We can see things you non-adoptees cannot. They are things that my dear Eartha could see that I could not but when she shows me, I have the impulse to say “thank-you” rather than “fuck-you” and why is that?

Do what I do, cheer yourself up by listening to Cocksferry Queen by Richard Thompson, and we won’t get into the whole not giving proper credit to his wife thing and think of his deep sexy voice singing,

“People speak my name in whispers, what higher praise can there be?“

Then you can also dance, and the song is about being transformed by the renewing of your mind which feels excellent, even if you find as Einstein warned us all:

“Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds”

I walked out to meet a friend before going to work, a homeless man who keeps his position close to my house, saw me and smiled, “I love you Joy!” he called out, “I love you Mike” I called back which is our regular routine.

So last Friday I was hanging-out with a friend of mine who is gay. That is just relevant because he doesn’t understand the male-female dynamics of us breeders. He was complaining about a client of his who owed him a significant amount of money and seemed oblivious to his pleas to send it in. I looked at him, “Is he a straight man?” I asked. Yes, he said. Give me his number I said, “I’ll take care of it” He trusts me so I did, I called him up and started my “Hi, um, yes, I am just a bit confused…” routine.
We had a coffee this a.m. at one of the crazy-best-breakfast places I have ever eaten at. He has his money natch, “What did you DO?” he asked. I lolled, “nothing, it is the voice” I explained, “esp. as an unknown over the phone, I don’t believe I have ever had a man say no to me if what I am asking for has any possibility of happening. Scratch any straight-man and you will find a little boy who wants to be a hero, and they think I sound so sweet”, I laughed. He looked at me startled, “You ARE so sweet!” he exclaimed. “You only say that because you don’t see my bitchy postings on the internet. I answered. He laughed. I really am the same person irl. Honest, in touch with myself.
Then he wanted to know if it worked with gay men. He was so wide-eyed and innocent about the whole experience. I paused, “Yes but only with tops, bottoms hate me” He laughed and clapped his hands.

Just irl, my whole persona is soft. I say the same things but my timing and delivery along with my physical way of being in the world give me a pass. It also makes some people hate me, usually other women, but I am used to that and know how to win them over, by taking extra time to show them that I do care about them, because that is my natural state, to feel connected and caring about other people.

All kinds of people, that is why I have known so many suicides, I would see their brokenness and think, “Maybe someone can just make them feel happy and good about themselves and they will heal” but I learned the hard way that sometimes you lose. You just do. That is the thing about being a risk-taker, sometimes you lose. Which makes me think of that line from Perfect Kiss:

Then I knew it from the start:
This friend of mine would fall apart
Pretending not to see his gun,
I said “let’s go out and have some fun” New Order, because that describes so many of my relationships, you know, seeing the other person and their imperfections and loving fun and wanting them to love it to, and the healing power of laughter. But sometimes you lose. Sometimes fun will not be had and you have to say good-bye.

Then I had to dash—- and it was a beautiful day and I was in a sassy fun outfit and I noticed how kind everyone is to me. Which reminds me of Emerson and his magic eye-beams:

“We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. The whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth”. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love Emerson.

I ran down the stairs to catch the train, a man who was intent on vending to other passer-bys noticed me and smiled, “Look who is here! It is our favorite friend!” he smiled heartily at me and seemed to forget what he was doing. I smiled back and kept walking, “don’t go!” he called after me. He doesn’t know me, and sometimes I hate people talking to me but they do all the time and for the most part it is with incredible kindness.

I was thinking how excited I was to go work on an important project with another friend of mine, but as I was walking was reflecting on my experiences in adopto-bloggo-land and thought about what an interesting thing the internet has been for me, how many wonderful people I have met. It has also exposed me to people who I would never know irl, our lives would not intersect. We would have cordial relationships, but not “here is my most intimate experience” relationships. Which we have had on the internet and some of them have ended badly. I was thinking on this and how I miss my friends at the forum since I quit to take a break, how I love them. I miss the daily interactions.

But how much giving was involved. So much. Outsiders really have no idea the personal cost being transgressive comes with, freeing yourself, so others can free themselves, the process is not easy but the rewards are out of this world. But I am free. I thought of the people who continually make they assume “masked” by anon. name comments, so desperate to get at me, so desperate to hurt me because they are so offended that I will not let them tell my story, that they will not tell for me, that I dare to reject their objectification. That I dare to not be just the acted-upon but the actor, and how sad and victimized they feel about it. I know I hurt their feelings, and I know they don’t have the capacity to see why what they did was so hurtful to me, to adoptees everywhere. I know they want me to be sorry, to feed their egos and make them feel better for wanting to objectify us. I know that. Okay,I will disengage. I will send them to that summer camp in my head where I just don’t think about them anymore.

Have fun, ride a pony, I really don’t care. I have a life that I have carved for myself that is full of beautiful people who are so kind to me. Every once in a while, people irl will say to me, “I am so jealous of you” and I can only respond, “Bitch, I am jealous of me too” Because I have known some intense suffering, so I know that my goodness is something to be grateful for.

When people read inspiring quotes to me, like my friend did later making me guess the quoter, Whitman! I shouted out, Lincoln! I shouted out, quotes about living a life you are proud of, got to say, “So already did that!” You are right, you are right he said. And then I told him that I thought Helen Keller never said any of those things and we laughed and forgot our important project and he asked me if I ever wondered why so many people are so stupid. I paused. “No, I try to look at other people’s points of view, their experiences, what shaped them”

“Then do you wonder why they are so stupid?” He lolled. I said, “No, but sometimes they look like this to me”:

“I hate when other people look like that to me” I sighed. He made me laugh so hard I had to reapply my make-up. He owns this really high-end shop where each item is about the price of a mortgage. He has my sense of humor so it is hard to get stuff done. Because we do things instead of working like saying don’t you know that song? You know I said, “Let’s Get Drunk and Throw-up in the Car”? and he says no, and I say it is better than “I’m in Love with a Stripper” and he says that is srsly good and the next thing you know we are dancing around some high-end, most glamorous real-estate in the country to:

When some customers pop in. Ooops, he deals and then comes back and says, “That was awesome, you were really jamming” And he says, “the Click, I love the Click! I used to listen to them all the time” and then we abuse you-tube some more. So then work, work, work, and then live jazz, listening to “God Bless The Child Who Has Their Own“Just the beauty of the song! and dancing, by myself with my eyes closed and feeling so free and thinking, “Yeah have my own”

Then a bubble bath in a footed-tub. And yes, I am living a wonderful life. I am living a life full of adventure, oh forgot to say also had awesome meeting about Chi-town protest, I am so blessed. I know there are people who want me to help them, to get involved in their dysfunction, all I can say to you is bless you, I love you, and release you. I have given you so much and if you can’t do your own work, that is not a problem I created, nor is it a problem I can solve.

I am surrounded by beautiful, loving people who would be horrified that you tried to speak for me, and then were so oppressive to get offended that I said NO! to you. I am going to turn my attention away from your grasping egos and focus on the creative and powerful. The protest, the people who overcome. The shooting-stars. The thing that strikes me as very sad is when you are ego-grasping, me, me, me, about other peoples narratives, you are so disconnected from others. You are so protective and defensive and that is a high price to pay in our short lives, that is missing all the good stuff. But that is not my problem, you figure it out.

Love, Love, Love my Liz Phair, one of my fav. adoptees, I think this may be my anthem, but I don’t want some people swinging this way.

And yes, Thank you me, for taking those risks, and thank me for helping people and thank me for not getting involved with people who make anon comments, And God pls. let them look to Dr. Stephen Brule for advice in the future. He will make sense to them, I do not. I am transgressive and yes, am wearing tights.

“Writing is like inviting someone into your whole heart” Dorothy Allison (don’t quote me on that, I may have bastardized her quote, couldn’t find it easy, but it seared itself into my brain when I read it like 20 years ago)

Recently as I was catching up on the lovely-nastiness in adopto-blog-land, I came across a comment from one of the infamous Correcters which I won’t name because that causes them to faint and feel ill because in their world it is perfectly reasonable to criticize and correct people who are doing things that they don’t even have the slightest nerve to do. I think that makes them think that they are our peers, the risk-takers peers, the people who are transgressive I mean the first definition that I linked.

I have been ridiculed, attacked, have websites made about me, had other adoptees, hello Bastard Nation, attack me around the most delicate and exquisitely painful events in my life in order, with knowledge that this was going to happen, to save other adoptees lives, what have you done? What the fuck have you done? Nothing. We can live without your $35.00 you owe me an apology, yes will hold my breath

It called bitches like me the “dominant discourse” because well, I guess that she isn’t paying attention. I know everyone is struggling in the current economy so I can understand why she finds herself short, BUT NO, we are not the dominant discourse. That is why I reblogged my post from 2006, Icarus.

I had been blogging for several months by that time, as long-time readers know what inspired me to start this blog was two things, one of course being my own attempts to heal, to face what I was so afraid of, two, was my irl adoptee friend had just blown his head-off. I feel things deeply, everyone knew why he did it, his own adoptive mother screamed, “Why did that bitch mean so much to you?” as they were lowering his body into the ground. Painful? Oh yeah.

Me, being me, who had her own adopted-sponsored break-down in my 20s, who knew him, who he came to help for with his issues, and I failed to deliver. Painful? Painful. Oh yuppers. Yes, yes, yes. And did I feel helpless? Very much so. Very much so. So I did what I always do, I thought, what CAN I do? I can tell my story. My story isn’t your story, but it is real. I made a commitment to tell my story with all my flaws, all my selfishness, all my guilt and shame, allmy ugliness. Because I believe in story-telling, because I believe that while my story is not yours, it gives you permission to have your own.

Because I had seen so much damage irl, so much pain occur in people’s lives that didn’t have a choice. No, not all adoptees, but way too fucking many. We are often told to get help, which sure we need that, but where is it? WHERE? I have heard stories about adoptees who were sent to adoption-specialist-counselors whose first words to them were, “You know your real parents are your adoptive parents” meta-message, let’s not forget who matters here and it is not YOU!

I have seen so many adoptees who cannot mature past the emotional level of a twelve-year-old because that is about the age when you start to form your own identity and for us that is AGAINST THE FUCKING LAW Sorry to bust out all caps on your ass, but it makes me angry. It makes me angry that we are not seen as real people. It makes me angry.

On transgression, the dominant discourse, that Bestie or whatever she is calling herself nowadays is missing, is the dominant discourse is, “Hi my name is Joy and I am really glad to be a living abortion that my adoptive parents saved out of the kindness of their infertility and allowed me to be alive. Super!” That is supposed to be my life story.

I linked the Icarus post because when I made it I was shaking. I was, telling the truth about my own life, getting to know myself for who I was and not a response to how other people wanted to act upon me, not a response to intense shaming I was subjected to for my whole life due to the circumstances of my birth, I was a commodified child, you know what commodities are? Objects, you know what objects are not supposed to do? Talk.

I am an object in most people’s mind, I am an orphan-saved. People say things to me like, “Would you have rather been raised abused?” Um, with no evidence that my natural parents are child-abusers, with no evidence that my adoptive-parents were not child abusers. You know how many adoptees are raised abused? A fuck of a lot. We are easier to abuse, we are aggravating, we don’t make sense in the family dynamic. We don’t have the safety of blood, if you fuck your adopted cousin it isn’t really incest is it?

I was asked this by one of the correcters, a natural mother! I need my smelling salts. Really though, true story. We are such toys to these women. I was teased-out, oh please tell us, we are so interested why you wanted to die so much when you were 23, how it feels to survive an adoptee-suicide and feel like a failure. We really super-much-care and then are going to turn around and try to profit off it, and then are going to turn around and tell you that you need a second-opinion. You didn’t experience what you did. You are mistaken.

Then they have the nerve to call me abusive? To call me “angsty-girl” No. Some of them even comparing themselves to saints but they aren’t even educated enough to know that the saint they are comparing themself to is a fucking mobster? Oh but they want to lead the way and flatter their fat egos. When they have no fucking idea.

How many of them know what it is like to cross that line, to tell the truth? How many of them know what it is like to cut the road? How many of them know what it is like to do things that you know can have the consequence of being thrown out of your community? Isn’t that why we were given away in the first place? Because being shamed and thrown out of your community is stronger than a mother’s love?

The correcters, and I do have to laugh at their weakness. In the world I live in, the world is tough, if you lack substance, you will be eaten alive. You see, that is why I don’t faint when people attack me, because I know that I am telling the truth and because I am adopted, my story is part of the story of adoption. It hurt more than anything I have ever known, and my life was not easy. There has been a lot of violence in my life. I have known poverty. I have overcome, yay me!

I have created a space for adoptees to speak, not alone, to be sure, I need community as much as the next person. But I have done something powerful and creative. What have you correcters done but criticize? That is not activism, that is not reform, that is not risk-taking. You call that abusive? School yourselves, you are in desperate need of it, the world is a big place, you fragile-egos are not so important.

The other reason I pity you is when you are so self-concerned with your egos, you are letting your life slip away, you are not connected, you are not truly alive, you are the wormiest of the worms, not one of Winnies glow-worms, and am so happy to know freedom, to live a beautiful life, to know I gave it my all, that I am a passionate and lovely if imperfect person.

Yeah, I’ll take that. Onward and Upward, and yes to transgressive adoptees, yes it feels like death to defy the dominant discourse, but think of this inspiring line:

“He blew away every crew he faced until he reached my block!” Yes we are worthy people and Jam on it!

And if you are feeling like you gonna dance all night go ahead and flaunt it!

Flaunting it.

* oh and p.s. being a transgressive adoptee in my case does mean I dress up in women’s clothing, off to do that atm. Lolllers, I crackamahsef UP