Tiptoeing through the tulips

Every year, I visit the tulip festival in Skagit Valley. I even went this year, even though I live three hours away now.

Every year, I take about 300 photos of tulips. These photos look remarkably similar year to year. So this year I decided to spice things up by adding inspirational quotes to some of my photos.

Below are my pictures with inspirational quotes. Click for bigger pics. Enjoy!

The fastest Uber ever

I live in a rural-ish area without many Uber drivers, but whenever I head to a largish city I use the app to summon strangers to take my drunk ass places. Some people are terrified by that prospect, but I love it because it's cheap and fast and so far I've had nothing but good experiences with drivers. I was recently staying overnight in Everett and travelling up to see the tulips in Skagit County, because when I lived in Bellingham I went every year.

I like the wine-colored ones because they remind me of wine.

For dinner I took the boyfriend each night to AFK Tavern, a nerd bar in Everett. I love it, though it's a bit on the pricey side. We broke $100 our first night. About 75% of that was my fault, between drinking and drunk munchies. They have a sweet cocktail called "Still a Better Love Story than Twilight" that boasts "still has more facial expressions than Kristen Stewart". It's an accurate description (and a tasty drink).

If you've never used Uber, the app has a little map app that shows where your driver is once you're matched. Wednesday night, it said our driver was 6 minutes away. I watched the little car icon travelling up Evergreen Way.

Me: "We're good, he's still dropping off his current passenger, we got six minutes....damn, look at him go. He's hauling ass. I don't think it's gonna take six minutes...holy shit he's really flooring it. Let's go outside. Hurry up he's two blocks away he's practically here at the pace he's going!"

Once in the car, we were off. Our driver, Najeb, was swearing at the other cars going "Faster! Faster! Damn it go faster!" He also kept swearing at his GPS, who tried to take him back down Evergreen Way. He got on the interstate instead. Surface streets are too slow for Najeb. I couldn't see the speedometer, but I am certain we were going much faster than law enforcement would approve of.

We got back to our motel safe and sound. Upon our departure from the car, a flock of semi-sober people descended upon his car. Najeb wastes no time between passengers.

If you're in Everett and want to get somewhere fast, Najeb takes care of you.

Awkward high school social moments

My last series of posts were dark and depressing. Now for something amusing. I'm gonna write this quick though 'cause I'm in a hurry.

High school was full of awkward social moments. Two of them in particular come to mind. Both of them happened in the cafeteria at lunch. Both were about sex.

The first one, we were sitting with our regular group. I don't remember what we were talking about. Two of our group were looking at a magazine while the rest of us were talking about cars or some crap. Suddenly, one of the gals peeks up from the magazine and asks, very loudly,

"WHAT'S AN ORGASM?"

Cue the surrounding tables in our immediate vicinity going dead silent as all eyes turned to us.

"You...you don't know?"

"We live very sheltered lives. It's a word in this magazine. What does it mean?"

As a sexually inexperienced virgin, even I knew what an orgasm was. I didn't want to answer though, so I looked to the most sexually experienced friend of the group. She was too doubled over in laughter though, and everyone else at the table was refusing eye contact. So my BFF and I attempted to explain.

"It's with sex..."
"...when a guy makes you..."
"...happy?"

That was our awkward teenage explanation to explain to our sheltered friends what an orgasm was. When a guy makes you happy during sex. Which...I guess that's a fair explanation.

The second awkward moment involved getting a version of "the talk" from the vice principal. It was the same group at the same table, I think even during the same school year. We were talking about something we had read in the news. I don't recall exactly what the news article was, but it involved a younger girl and an older guy.

Friend 1: "I don't know why they didn't charge him with statutory rape. She's only 17!"
Me: "Well, the age of consent is 16, so they can't do that."
Friend 1: "No, it's 18!"
Friend 2: "In the state of Washington, it's 16."
Friend 1: "No, it isn't!"

This was an era when we didn't have information right at our hands; the most advanced things our phones could do was play Snake. So Friend 1 decided to call over the vice principal as he walked by.

Friend 1: "Hey, Vice Principal, what's the age of consent in Washington State?"

The vice principal gave us a concerned look. He had zero context for the question, and he grossly misinterpreted our reasons for asking, because he actually sat down at our table to give us "the talk"...

Vice Principal: "Well, it's 16, but you know, you girls should understand that there are a lot of factors to consider before you get involved with older men...."

I don't remember all of what he said because I was doing my best attempt to rip my soul away from my corporeal body and hide under the table. It was cringe-worthy. We politely listened to his lecture until he moved along, and then shot glares at our friend for dragging him into it. It's bad enough to get "the talk" from your parents. It's worse when it comes from the vice principal.

My abusive narcissistic ex-husband -- Part 3: Climbing back up and moving on

When my ex left me in August 2015, that triggered a set of the lowest set of lows of my life. Every time I hit rock-bottom, it was as if the floor would fall out from under me and there would be another rock-bottom right below it.

I was already at maximum stress level.

Between us, we had three vehicles. Over the summer, the transmissions in two of them died and required rebuilding. I had been trying to save up money for winter and spring quarters when I knew I would have to do full-time unpaid clinical internships, which was going to mean I would be taking extended time off from my day job for three months (each internship was about seven weeks), which meant affording bills and life was going to be challenging. The money I had been saving up in preparation for those internships was wiped out in one summer on car repairs, so I was stressing about how I was going to rebuild those savings in time for January.

Then, he dumped me. I felt like I was up to my neck in stress already, and all of a sudden I found myself underwater.

He played a bunch of mind games when he left me.

The reasons he gave for leaving were vague and unfulfilling, and they shifted with each day. Between me demanding he move out or fix things and him actually moving out was about a month, and it was a month that was stressful as hell. I don't understand those couples that go through divorce but live together for months and sometimes years as they go through the process, because that one month was awful for me.

He gave me several reasons. He just didn't love me anymore and he didn't know why. He vaguely stated "Perhaps I'm making the biggest mistake of my life, but I have to do it."

He also tried to spin it around on me. I didn't like his smoking, so I didn't love him anymore. I pointed out that while I didn't like his smoking (he was a nonsmoker when we met, but he was up to smoking half a pack a day by the end of the marriage), I wasn't the one leaving.

As I mentioned in another blog post, he interrogated my friends to try and scrounge up any dirt he could on me to justify his leaving. He looked for anything he could to make it my fault, somehow. The best he could do was complain I was too busy for him. This was somewhat valid, as I had a very full schedule with two jobs and school, even though I had warned him before going back to school that we weren't going to have as much "couple time" as before. He had been on board back then.

At one point, as he was struggling to find an apartment he could afford to move into, he said "Well, I'm at the point where maybe we can fix things, maybe not. I'm not sure; I want to stay until I can decide." I told him that wasn't good enough and my initial ultimatum stood: either we go to another marriage counselor and fix things or he moved out. He hemmed and hawed and said maybe we could fix things. I told him I would look into finding a new counselor, as the one we'd seen before admittedly hadn't been a great fit. The next day a property manager called him back to let him know his apartment application had been approved, and he was back to being all about moving out, surprise, surprise.

Since we had no kids and no major assets, we had an online company prepare the divorce papers. They came to me first. I told my ex I would take them to a notary and get them signed on my next day off, however I was bombarded with almost daily texts asking when they would be ready and when he could pick them up. When I told him there was no rush (because I know he didn't have the money for filing fees anyway), he blew up my phone with messages along the lines of "You're a hateful bitch who's incapable of knowing love and never will be," and "No one is ever going to love you stupid bitch." I didn't respond to those texts because I knew they were bait to drag me into an argument. I had that much figured out at that point, at least.

My emotions were all over the place.

We've all heard about the five stages of grief: denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance. We hear about them as if it's a nice linear path to travel through, with the end prize being we get over it.

It's not that simple.

The reality is more like if you took a five-sided dice with each side representing a stage of grief, and each hour you rolled the dice. That's more like what it's really like. I was all over the board. One minute I would be laughing, the next I would be crying. I think on one of my drives home I actually counted 40 distinct different emotions I cycled through.

One of the interesting mixed feelings I felt was that I missed him, but I didn't miss him. I missed the companionship, the financial security, the cuddles, the good times, but at the same time I had zero desire to get back with him, my ex, specifically. I wanted the marriage back but I didn't want him back, if you can try and grasp that. It was a weird feeling to have, and even weirder to attempt to express.

It took time and multiple resources to heal.

One of the first things I did was find a counselor who would take my insurance. I was fortunate to have a plan that covered 90% for mental health visits, so it was affordable for me. It was very awkward to set up the appointment. I was like "Hi, um, I'm going through divorce, and it's hard, and I don't know what I really want, but I just want to talk to someone."

What I got was perspective and education on setting boundaries to help in the future. She actually had me read the book Boundaries, which I actually found surprisingly helpful.

I didn't have to see a counselor for long. I only saw her for about six months. I was not done with the grieving process, but I felt I was able to carry myself the rest of the way from there.

I also went through DivorceCare support group. It was cheap ($15 for the workbook) and it was another place to vent and learn strategies to heal. Surviving Divorce Podcast was also helpful, free, and the host is a former DivorceCare group leader.

There were also friends. The thing about friends is that after a while, they stop wanting to hear about it. A lot of people feel you should just "get over it" already, with no respect for the time it takes. I did have some friends I was able to vent to, who I can still vent to, but my advice is don't rely too long on them.

All in all, it took about nine months before I felt comfortable to start dating again. Even then, I was in a situation where I was starting to look for job opportunities outside of my area (there were no local jobs in my field), so that may have sped-up my feeling dating-ready: any relationship I started had a built-in deadline, so there was no risk getting too serious.

(Whatever you do, don't start dating too soon after divorce. I was careful not to, but everyone who has tried it has assured me it's not a good plan.)

Friends will say things that are true, but you don't want to hear them.

One thing I heard again and again and again was "Don't worry, things will get better with time."

It's true, but when you're struggling to get through the hour, let alone the day, it's not something you want to hear. Especially because things are probably getting worse before they get better. Your ex is sending you taunting texts, or you discover he already has a dating profile up on Craigslist of all places, or you just got your tuition bill and have no damn clue how to pay it. It's like the floor keeps falling out from under you.

Things to get better with time, believe me, but in the moment, anyone who says that you just want to punch right in the face.

Another thing that did not help was hearing "You'll find someone better than him." Even though that was also true, in the moment my brain hated these words. In the moment, my brain thought if he's that much trash and I can't even hold on to that, how am I going to ever make it work with someone better?!  This is flawed thinking, but it's how you think when the wounds are that fresh.

I think the best thing anyone could have done was just to distract me. If someone had pulled up outside my apartment and shouted "Bitch, get in the car, we're going shopping!" that probably would have been the most helpful thing. (My therapist actually prescribed audiobooks and podcasts to help distract me.) Just getting out and not dwelling on shit was the best for me in those times, I think.

Turned out he was cheating on me for a good portion of our marriage.

Our divorce was finalized at the end of February 2016. I had a miniature "divorce party" with some friends. One of them let it slip my ex had asked her for nudes...years ago. When she saw my surprise, she exclaimed "Oh crap, I thought Friend X had already told you!"

I confronted Friend X, who told me my other friend "wasn't supposed to tell" about it. Turns out that during the last three years of our marriage, my ex had requested nudes from multiple friends (Friend X had received multiple requests over the years) and had also professed his love about certain other women, including a coworker he apparently was now seeing (the same coworker I mentioned in Part 2. He even proposed to her a month before our one year divorceversary). Friend X hid all this from me until after the divorce was final. That's one (but not the only) factor Friend X is an ex-friend now.

I actually remember my ex telling me a few years prior to the end of our marriage "Hey, just so you know, there's this rumor that me and [coworker] are having an affair. I don't think it will reach you, but just know it's just a rumor some people are spreading." At the time, I thought it was touching that he was warning me. Now I realize it was more than just a rumor....

It was actually a bit of a relief to find out. Suddenly, all his lame excuses for leaving suddenly made sense and I realized it really was his fault, not mine.

When I started dating again, I found guys who were willing to date me.

Remember back in Part 1 where I talked about how guys never showed interest in me and I had zero self-confidence? Yeah, when my ex left me, I was terrified of being alone.

Turns out, that wasn't a problem.

I got on dating sites and in no time I was messaging a lot of guys, went on first dates with a lot of guys, went on multiple dates with a few guys...and most of these guys seemed pretty darn decent. There were a few out there who threw up some "weirdo" red flags, but for the most part, it was a pleasant (and surprising) experience. It was actually a huge boost to my confidence.

I actually remember messaging five guys simultaneously while on my break at work. I told my coworkers "Just call me a Five Guys Burgers & Fries." By messaging five guys, I mean I was messaging about a dozen overall at the time; just those five were online while I was on my break.

The world of online dating can be wonderful and magical, is what I'm getting at.

I still worry I might be the crazy one.

I've been seeing my current boyfriend for eight-going-on-nine months now. When things started getting serious, I warned him that I had a habit of blowing up when I get irate.

So far, I haven't blown up. I keep waiting for it. So far, he hasn't done anything terribly insulting. Sometimes he gets annoying, and I feel those emotions start to build up. I tell him to back off and that I need space, and I wait for the explosion...but it never happens. He apologizes and stops doing whatever it is that's pissing me off. The argument barely happens, and doesn't get even close to atomic. It's bizarre to me, to be completely honest, because I keep bracing for impact and it never even comes close.

It's also strange to have a more egalitarian relationship. Whenever we go out I keep reaching for my wallet, and he keeps making me put it away. Sometimes he'll suggest going somewhere and I'll respond with "I don't think I can afford that this week," and he will be all "no, I'm paying for it." With my ex, I payed probably 95% of the time for every outing we went on.

It's also strange when my boyfriend wants to do something and I say I'm too tired that he's okay with it. With my ex, it always meant I didn't love him enough or appreciate him enough or whatever when I was too tired to do something. My current boyfriend is just "That's cool, I'll go by myself/we can do something else." I'm not complaining, but it's also a very new way for me to be treated, so it's bizarre.

The best advice is to live well.

Part of what really hurt was that my ex was going off and getting his "happily ever after" while I was left picking up the pieces. I was facing unpaid internships and had to find extra financing. I suddenly had to figure out how to take care of just myself while working an internship plus two jobs while simultaneously studying for my licensure exam. I felt like I was left with all the mess while he got off freely.

Things do get better with time, miraculously. It's less than a year later. I made it through my internships and graduation, and now I have a new job that makes more than my previous two incomes and my ex's income combined. I live in a house instead of an apartment. I have a new car. I have a new boyfriend. Life is treating me rather well right now.

A couple months ago I went back to my old hometown for my friend's "dirty thirty" birthday, and I accidentally ran into my ex. When we were together, he was an armed security guard. When I saw him, he was working security at the mall. That's exactly the same job two of my friends in high school did on the weekends to earn extra cash. It's very entry-level. I don't know what happened to his armed job, but mall cop is a definite downgrade.

I saw the ring he proposed to his coworker with. He didn't appear to have actually bought her a ring; she just moved her pewter claddagh ring to the other hand. I presume he couldn't afford it; back in November I received a phone call from his credit card company looking for him after some missed payments.

It seems like the "happily ever after" I thought he was getting instead of me wasn't so happy after all.

Karma has a funny way of working things out.

Some resources for domestic abuse

If you think you're a victim, here is a link to some of the warning signs of domestic abuse in general.

The phone number for the National Domestic Violence is 1−800−799−7233.

My abusive narcissistic ex-husband -- Part 2: In the Pit

My ex never hit me. He came close, but it was mostly emotional games he played with me.

It started off with small, innocuous comments. He would make some comment regarding how I looked or a comment about my family. It would be something offensive, like "Are you sure you want to wear that?" It would be small, but it would sting.

When I tried to tell him I was offended, I would be met with a line I would hear many, many, many times, over and over again throughout the years:

"It was just a joke; don't be so sensitive."

That right there. That was how it started, with complete disregard for my emotions and well-being. A blunt dismissal of whatever mattered to me. His words were never wrong because they were just a joke, after all.

It's hard to remember specific examples, but I remember one "joke" he made about my priest. As a Catholic who also enjoys watching shows like Family Guy and South Park, I've seen all the jokes about Catholic priests and little boys. I can take those. But one day, he "joked" about the priest at my church specifically. I got upset, because that's going from satire about a broad issue and focusing it down into a libelous comment about an individual I respected. I got defensive and upset.

Him: "Gosh, I was just joking."
Me: "I don't find it funny. I think you crossed the line."
Him: "Quit being so sensitive."
Me: "Don't you see how that's offensive? Why can't you just apologize?"
Him: "It's a joke. It's not even about you. Get over it. You get offended too easily."

This would continue in a loop. Eventually, he started figuring out how to really get me going. His M.O. was as follows: (1) Make an offensive comment. (2) Dismiss my protests as "just joking". (3) Keep making offensive comments to rile me up. (4) Wait until I rage-explode. (5) Wait for me to apologize.

Sometimes he wouldn't even have to say anything. One thing he commonly did was "hover" behind me on the computer, whether I was studying or scrolling through Facebook or paying bills. It was highly annoying. He would never back off. "What, do you have something to hide?" he would always ask in an accusatory tone. He would press further and further into my personal space until my polite requests for him to back off snapped into angry demands.

He got off on the apologies and made me think it was my fault.

He knew how to push my buttons and would make me angrier and angrier until I just blew up on him. I would start calling him names, telling him he was hateful, all sorts of stuff. Then when I cooled off, I would feel bad about the things I had said, so I would go apologize. He would tell me he forgave me, then there would be cuddles and all that feel-good make-up stuff.

He never apologized for riling me up in the first place, though. It was always my fault for blowing up, my fault for losing control, my fault for everything. It was never his fault. He was always just "joking," after all.

I remember one argument we were having about current events in the Middle East. He always had very black-and-white thinking, and was arguing for essentially carpet-bombing the entire region, innocent civilians be damned. "It's their fault for living there," he argued. I remember getting more and more frustrated at him and his close-minded argument, and at some point I looked over at him and he was grinning.

Me: "What are you laughing about?"
Him: "I love it when you get all pissed off like that."

Yes, he knew exactly how to push my buttons, and he did it very intentionally. I didn't realize it at the time, but "crazy-making" is a type of emotional abuse.

He never hit me, but things still got physical.

I was feeling bad about the blow-ups, so I started looking for ways I could avoid blowing up. Attempting to calmly explain my feelings wasn't working, because it just turned into the argument cycle where I blew up, so I decided that when I started feeling that angry rage building up inside me, I would instead remove myself from the situation and go somewhere I could calm down and think rationally. This seemed like a very mature, adult thing to do after all.

It actually worked. I stopped blowing up. I still never got apologies from my ex, but I wasn't rage exploding anymore.

At least, not for a while.

I'm very sure my ex was addicted to me apologizing to him because my new strategy didn't last very long. He figured it out, so when I tried to leave by heading to another room, he would follow me. Our bedroom door didn't lock, so he would just barge in and get in my face.

Him: "No! We need to settle this right now!"
Me: "Look, I can't talk. Give me some space."
Him: "I'm talking to you now!"
Me: "Please, just leave me alone! Just go away!"

I could feel the anger rising, and sure enough, eventually I would rage explode.

I tried locking myself in the bathroom. It was the only room in our one-bedroom apartment with a lock. He would pick the lock and burst in on me.

Eventually, I tried leaving the apartment. Just to go sit in my car and cool off. He would start barring the door or even physically grabbing me to prevent me from leaving.

I remember one time I got the front door open, but he grabbed me and pulled me back in. I saw my neighbors watching us as he slammed the door shut. I thought about screaming to them for help as he dragged me back inside, but I was afraid of what would happen if the police got involved.

After all, he wasn't actually hitting me, so it wasn't really abusive...was it? (Yes, yes it was. Yes it definitely was.)

There was a bookshelf in our bedroom, and while he never hit me, there were a few times he cornered me up against it and started punching the bookshelf right next to my head. He would later follow it up with "No, I would never hit you. Stop worrying about it." He would punch furniture and throw things and be very physically intimidating, and then tell me I was crazy for worrying about him hitting me.

The cherry on top is that after I tried to leave and he forced me to stay and escalated the argument until I exploded, he would then get in his car and leave. Sometimes he would make vague insinuations about killing himself before he left, which would then make me furiously try and call and text him to figure out where he went. He would not respond for several hours at times. Eventually he would deem my grovelling sufficient enough to respond and he would eventually come home. That was his game.

He made me think I was the selfish one.

I spent most of that relationship and the whole of the marriage working two jobs. I had a full-time job and a part-time paper route in order to make ends meet. I was working 55 hours a week at a minimum.

He spent the better part of a year of our marriage on unemployment. When he worked, it was only one job. His favorite way to spend free time was to sit on the couch in front of the TV and watch reruns of cartoons until he fell asleep.

When I decided I couldn't handle "just getting by" and went back to school, it was in an online program so I could continue working both jobs. I had very, very little free time. I told him "Look, we can't live like this forever, especially if we want kids someday. I want to go back to school, but it's gonna be hard. It's going to cost money and it means I'm going to be super-busy. Is this okay?

He told me he was on-board.

A sample day for me looked like this: get up at 3 or 3:30AM, deliver papers until 5:30, back in bed by 6, get up at 11AM to eat lunch and study, start getting ready for work at 1:15, head out the door by 2PM, work 3 until 11PM, get back home at midnight to go to bed, lather rinse repeat the next day.

That barely over two-hour window from 11AM-1:15PM was literally the only free time in my day to study, and because it was an online program I had video lectures and such to watch. so it would be highly distracting when my ex would be sitting on the couch watching his cartoons. I would ask him to either put on headphones (the little headphones for my PC were too short to be efficient and I could still hear the TV; he had big noise-cancelling headphones with a specific jack that worked with our TV set-up) or to go into the bedroom.

He would stomp his feet and whine that I was kicking him out and not letting him enjoy his free time. I was the mean selfish one, even though I never actually told him he couldn't watch TV. He had an excuse for why he couldn't just wait until I left for work, too.

Him: "I was going to take a nap this afternoon."

That was it. That was his excuse for days he had off when I had to work for why he had to watch his cartoons, without headphones, in the living room when I was trying to study during my small two-hour window. I mean, how dare I interfere with his afternoon naptime.

I bought it all, too. The tone of voice he said it all in, he made me feel guilty for taking time to go back to school.

There were other things, too. He blamed me for not doing my "share" of the chores, even though I literally did not have the time to do them. I pitched in where I could, especially during school breaks, but it was never enough. He was always the martyr, doing it all, while I was just his lazy wife doing nothing. Nevermind that I was working my ass off and paying all the bills. He made me feel guilty for not doing enough.

Toward the end of our relationship, he would ask "Do you really love me?" I would say yes, of course, and he would demand "Prove it." He could never tell me how to prove it because "if you really loved me, you would know how." So I would stay up late doing extra dishes, or buying him whatever gizmo he'd been hinting at lately, or whatever. It was never enough, because the next month I would have to "prove" I loved him all over again, and again, and again...

My friends pointed out the red flags, and I ignored them.

On Facebook and social media, I of course posted a sanitized version of us, full of cute couple shots and smiling faces. Only a small handful of my friends knew some of the reality behind the curtain, and at the time none of them had all the puzzle pieces. Some of them tried to point out how my ex was really kind of a dick. Due to a mixture of denial and Catholic dogma making me feel stuck, I tried to shrug it all off.

I remember one year for our anniversary, I got him a card and some chocolates. He had forgotten, so he re-wrapped the chocolates and re-gifted them to me. I shared it as a "hah hah look how funny he is" post.

The replies I got instead were "You know, that's really kind of a dick move."

I was like "No, that's just how he is, it's a joke, get it?"

My inbox was flooded with messages of concern that no, it was a real dick move. Deep down, I knew it, too. I saw the same things. I saw the things they didn't see.

But dammit, I had married this person, I was stuck with him, I had to find a way to make it work. So I shrugged off and tried to ignore all those many little demeaning things he did.

He tried to rape me and then made me feel like it was my fault.

About two years before he left me was the real turning point for me when things really started to break down in our marriage. (I later discovered he had been cheating on me for the final three years of our marriage, but I didn't know it at the time.)

Spousal rape is a thing that can happen, despite what some people say. I know because it almost happened to me. Here is what happened:

It was a sunny afternoon. I had the day off, and I was actually a little horny at the time. My ex was at his computer and I came up behind him, wrapped my arms around him, and started flirting. He responded with something that pissed me off. I honestly can't remember what he said, but I know it made me really upset, so upset that I told him "Well, nevermind then," and I stormed off to the bedroom to go cool off.

That day he followed me into the bedroom. He didn't say anything, just pushed me back on the bed and started trying to take my pants off.

"No, I'm not in the mood anymore," I said as I pushed him away. "Go away and leave me alone."

He did not go away. He grabbed my hands and pinned them onto the bed. With his free hand, he kept going at my pants.

"Stop it! I said no!"

I tried to kick him away, but he just pinned me more firmly.

I started to panic and feel trapped. I began to kick and squirm furiously, and he pinned my legs to the edge of the bed with his knees. He worked to undo his belt buckle, then went back to trying to pull my pants off while I kept asking him to stop, each time more pleading than the next.

This went on for what felt like an eternity. Really it was probably only a couple minutes, but it was far too long. Eventually, I managed to get one of my hands free and I hit him across the face.

"I said STOP!" I said.

That stunned him. I didn't hit him super hard, but it was hard enough for him to finally get the message. "Fucking bitch," he muttered as he stood up and rezipped his jeans. He stormed out of the room.

I laid on the bed crying as I tried to process if what had just happened had really just happened. I was hurt, confused, and didn't know what to do. After half an hour, I finally worked up the nerve to go out and confront him about what happened. Pulling myself together, I headed out to the living room to see him playing on his computer again.

"Look, about what just happened...that was really not okay."

"Fuck you," he replied. "You don't know how to show love. I was just trying to appreciate your body."

"You...you just tried to force yourself on me..."

"Oh, whatever," he scoffed. "It was just a game, and you rejected me."

That's right. He was mad and felt he was the victim because I rejected him when he was trying to fucking rape me. He thought that it was "just a game" we were playing. It was inconceivable to him that I might now want to have sex with him right after he had insulted me and pissed me off.

He also loved that term, "appreciate my body", as his term for sex. When we went to marriage counselling he used it every session. "She won't let me appreciate her body," he would tell the counselor. It was a fucking weird term.

As a footnote regarding my ex thinking it was "just a game", I would like to mention that after he left me, after the divorce, after I was healing and rejoining the dating world, I was actually briefly in a bit of a BDSM dom/sub relationship. The guy was the dom; I was the sub. It was kinky and freaky and hella fun and awesome. During my time with him, my dom would push my boundaries, but he always, always made sure I was okay with whatever we were about to do. If something was too much and I said so, he always backed off. Now that is how "just a game, just for fun" is supposed to work. You have consent and understanding and respect for boundaries with the other person.

Forcing yourself on someone and then after the fact saying "I thought we were just playing a game" is not consent, is not understanding, is not respectful, and IS rape. Just making that extra clear to people out there.

I never went to the police about it. I mean, we were married and had consensual sex before, so what could they really do about it anyway? I was afraid of what my ex would do if I had reported it. Plus, I wasn't working two jobs for fun; we were fucking broke and on the off-hand chance they would send him to jail, I would have been in a world of hurt without his paycheck.

Plus, Catholics don't believe in divorce.

So even after that, I stayed. It was never the same after that. Let me tell you, it's really hard to be intimate with someone after they try and force themselves on you like that. Everything after that day, there was a definite rift between us. It had always been there, but that's when I was able to really see it.

I'm not sure he ever even thought he did anything wrong.

To this day, I don't think he fully realizes the extent of the harm he did. I think he really was upset he though I rejected him and that he didn't think about how forcing himself on me like that was wrong. I think he was so selfish and narcissistic that he doesn't realize how abusive he really was.

He thought he was too perfect to ever hurt me. That's why, in his mind, it was always me that was overreacting, it was always me not finding his "jokes" funny, it was me who rejected him, etcetera. In his mind, he can do no wrong. We're always the heroes in our own mind, never the villain. In his mind, I'm sure he sees himself as the martyr for putting up with my "crazy" rage blow-ups. In his mind, he's blind to the fact that he always pushed me to my breaking point.

I didn't leave; he did.

Two years later after the rape attempt, we got into a fight about parts of the blender missing, and that morning he told me he wanted a divorce. Our sex life was dead by that point, and communication had broken down. I was at the point where I was just holding my tongue whenever he tried to engage me in an argument and basically stonewalling him, which pissed him off immensely as he wasn't getting the rise out of me like he used to. We had gone through marriage counseling to no avail. The blender fight was the straw the broke the camel's back. He wanted to still be "roommates," however, because of the aforementioned financial issues.

I was stupid and agreed initially. That same night, he went to a party and came back complaining there were not enough single women. I got mad. He said "Well you're naive to think I wouldn't be looking." That's a direct quote. Two days later he spent the night with his female coworker "just as friends." He spent eight hours with her and didn't get home until after two in the morning. I was in tears and told him either we were going to fix the marriage, or he was moving out.

He moved out, and a few months later made it "Facebook official" he was dating said coworker. Just friends, my ass.

Ultimately it was a blessing he left, but at the time, it didn't feel like it. After six and a half years of marriage, and nearly a decade for the overall relationship, I had a whole mental, emotional, and financial mess left to untangle...

Some resources for domestic abuse

This is the darkest post I've ever had to write, but I wanted to get it out there and get it off my chest.

If you think you're a victim, here is a link to some of the warning signs of domestic abuse in general.

The phone number for the National Domestic Violence is 1−800−799−7233.

At the very least, find a confidant. I had a small handful of friends I vented to. My ex made me think it was my fault and that I was the crazy one. Those friends helped me put things in perspective that no, it wasn't just me. Even though I never left him, having that perspective helped me cling to some semblance of sanity, and I am forever in their debt. They were just there, an open-minded, nonjudgmental shoulder to lean on, and I think that helped more than they even realize.

My abusive narcissistic ex-husband -- Part 1: Falling in the hole

A few of my friends who have suffered and survived abusive relationships have been opening up lately, so I feel that I should share my story. I feel there's a stigma associated with women who end up in abusive relationships and who stay in relationships; that they're dumb, helpless, weak. I don't particularly associate those qualities with myself, so I am sharing my story to show what it was like for me. This is going to be a three-parter: how I ended up in the situation in the first place, the sort of emotional abuse I went through, and how I recovered after.

Maybe someone will read this and recognize all the red flags I chose to ignore, and they'll heed the warning. That would be nice, though I think if I went back in time and made Past-Me read this, it wouldn't change a thing. If Present-Me went back in time to warn Past-Me, I'm sure Past-Me would be all "Fuck you, we're different, we're going to make this work!" That's an ignorant fucking mindset, however Past-Me, Present-Me, and Future-Me are three stubborn-as-hell bitches, let me tell you.

Having had time to look back, I see the hallmarks of a narcissistic abuser. He never hit me, though things got physical in other manners which I'll detail in Part 2. But most of the damage was in the form of his mind games. It was primarily mental and emotional abuse, with a dash of sexual abuse for good measure. More on that to come.

So I'm going to start off detailing exactly what my mindset and background were that got me into what became a toxic, mentally and emotionally abusive relationship, and why I stayed in it for so long.

He was only my second boyfriend (and I thought that was as good as it would get).

As I have mentioned before, my ex-husband was only the second guy I ever dated. Throughout high school, I was bombarded with everyone being in a relationship and dating everyone else. I already had body-confidence issues and related myself to a fat, shapeless lump. No guys ever took interest in me. I briefly dated one of my male friends for three months, but that was the entire prior extent of my dating experience.

When I met my ex, I wasn't sure at first why he was suddenly showering me with attention, but it felt good. He lived a state away (we met through a mutual friend), but he sent me gifts, and when I visited he took me around town. He told me he loved me. At the beginning, things were nice. I had never had someone treat me with that attention. In fact, he eventually moved just to be with me. That meant love, right?

Now I realize how stupid it was to agree to marry only the second guy I ever dated, and how naive it was for me to think that just because guys in high school didn't pay attention to me that meant they would never pay attention to me, but at the time, it felt like I had found something rare and needed to hang on to it lest I never find it again. I was afraid there would be no one else out there for me, and that fear was crippling.

Catholic dogma played a big role as well.

I was a good little Catholic girl. Catholics believe in waiting until marriage for sex, and they certainly do not believe in divorce. Both of these factors played a role in why I never left him.

I wasn't a great Catholic girl, mind you. I waited until engagement, the first time. That's right, he proposed to me, we had sex, he dumped me, and I felt devastated because, according to everything I was raised to believe, I was now a tainted, used-up piece of garbage no one else would want. I should have let him run then, but instead I pursued him and basically begged him to work things out. I had given him my virginity after all, he had to be the one or else I was damned. We ultimately got back together, he proposed again, we went through all the pre-marriage counselling the Catholic church requires, and we got married from there. 

When things started noticeably heading south a few years into the marriage, I stuck it out due to the second factor, which is Catholics don't get divorced. If I got divorced, I felt I would never be able to get married in the Catholic church again. I'm honestly still kind of pissed off about it, really. I had heard about annulment (where the church basically says your marriage was never valid in the first place), but the criteria for it were brushed over because it was just something that happened to other people. I felt trapped in a permanent marriage. I was like "Whelp, I'm stuck with this, just have to stick it out I guess." I figured that I was stuck with my choices and I had to live with them, and I resigned myself to that.

For other Catholic women out there, I would like to share a statement from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, entitled "When I Call For Help: A Pastoral Response to Domestic Violence Against Women" which states in part:

"Finally, we emphasize that no person is expected to stay in an abusive marriage. Some abused women believe that church teaching on the permanence of marriage requires them to stay in an abusive relationship. They may hesitate to seek a separation or divorce. They may fear that they cannot re-marry in the Church. Violence and abuse, not divorce, break up a marriage. We encourage abused persons who have divorced to investigate the possibility of seeking an annulment. An annulment, which determines that the marriage bond is not valid, can frequently open the door to healing."

(Note: While the bishops were focusing on violence against women, I am sure they intend the same to apply to men as well. It seems less common, but I've known multiple men who escaped from abusive women, so it goes both ways.)

I wish I had read that before. I might have gotten out sooner, instead of sticking it out as long as I did until the point where he ultimately dumped me. I really wish the church talked more about domestic violence and different types of abuse, and made more resources available to people going through it. When marriage counselling failed and my ex had moved out and it felt like my world was falling apart, I turned to the church and found zero resources to help me, just more talk about the permanence of marriage and hopelessness for my future. It was actually another church that helped me, but more on that in Part 3. To this day I still feel a bit betrayed by the church for all of that.

It was these two factors -- my low self-esteem and religious dogma -- that helped me fall into the hole. The angsty, teenage low self-esteem made me latch onto the first guy to really pay attention to me, and the Catholic dogma kept me there.

The first few years things were okay. We went on dates and adventures and worked on making a home together and it was all very hunky-dory. But after a few years, the honeymoon period wore off, and by the time I realized where I really was, I was already settled in...

Breakfast and a free show

There is a construction site next door. They are building a four-plex. It being built right next door.

I have a big window in my kitchen that looks out over the site.

It's a kitchen/office deal.

They got an early start. IDK if they appreciated the view of my fat ass stumbling around in a very short nightgown attempting to get coffee going, but they got to see it. Enjoy, boys.

That time I got caught objectifying a cop (and gave my coworker an awkward social moment)

I spent 8 years working at a cheap motel, working various roles from housekeeper to guest services to management. This motel was in...not the best part of town. Cops showing up was not an uncommon occurrence, to say the least.

We had radios so housekeepers, maintenance, and the front desk could all communicate. Our front office was small, so the radios were right there for anyone to overhear. You had to be tactful of what you said. If the front desk asked how long it would be for room 210 to be cleaned, you don't want to reply with "It'll be at least an hour; they managed to get the blood all over the walls and even the ceiling!" If a guest overheard that, you probably lost a sale. (That was an actual example of a room I have cleaned, btw. It beat cleaning the one covered in feces, trust me. True story.)

I have had my own radio faux pas, however.

So one day I am cleaning a room on the far end of the building, facing the laundry room, when a few cops show up. They were yummy looking. So I get on the radio to objectify them with my friend in the laundry.

Me: "You seeing this?"
Friend: "Yeah. Damn they are hot."
Me: "I know, look at the brown haired one."
Front Desk: "Um, ladies?"
Other Coworker: "What is going on?"
Me: "Hot cop alert at room 216."
Other Coworker: "On my way!"
Front Desk: "LADIES!!!"
Friend: "Look at that ass."
Me: "He can put me in handcuffs any day!"

Apparently at that comment, my coworker at the front desk turned off the radio, where unbeknownst to us there were more officers standing in the lobby, and they overheard everything. The cops thought it was funny; they were laughing and trying to figure out who, specifically, we were talking about. My front desk coworker was horribly embarrassed. My co-workers and I got in zero trouble for any of it.

This is why you watch what you say on the work radios, kiddos.

Using boobs to get back into the U.S. (while smuggling a live mouse)

Before I begin, I looked up the federal statute on limitations for smuggling. It's a felony, but the statute of limitations appears to only be five years. Not that I think the feds really care in this instance anyway, but this happened more than five years ago, so I should be in the clear. Just saying. This is my felony smuggling story.

I have a friend whose family is a bit dysfunctional. By "a bit", I mean that when she was a kid CPS was getting called out to their place on a monthly basis at least due to all the fights and drama going on. So when she started high school, she decided to get away and head up to be with her aunt, uncle, and grandma in Penticton, BC. They actually lived on a vineyard, so she lived in the picker shack by herself. Pretty sweet for a teenager.

It only took Canada one year to break her and make her move back stateside, though. Seriously, her school was weird. She showed us the courtyard that had a big yellow painted square which was the dedicated space for alcohol and tobacco use, and a smaller white rectangle next to it that was the dedicated space for MJ. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. (I tried to find it on Google Maps, but it seems they've since redone the courtyard.) It existed. In a high school. I swear.

I went up with her mom and sister to help her move, partly to hang out with her, and partly because her mom was bringing up wine and needed a third body to bring the booze across the border (1.5L of wine per person).

To set the stage: this was post-9/11 (I want to say 2003 or 2004), but pre-passport requirements. Currently, you need either a passport or enhanced driver's license for land crossings. Back when this happened, you could get by with a regular driver's license and birth certificate. In the post-9/11 world they were ramping up security though.

It is also important to note that my friend and her sister have dual American/Canadian citizenship (American parent, but born in Canada). Their father is a full-blooded Texan American, but when he married their mother took his assumed name instead of his legal name. Their mother was either also dual citizenship or was a Canadian with a green card at the time; I can't really remember. These details are important.

Going up, we discovered at the border that friend's sister had her driver's license but no birth certificate. She argued it was enough. We argued it wasn't. When we got to the border, the Canadian customs agent informed us it was not enough. It was good to get into Canada (they just let anyone in), but she let us know we might have trouble getting back to the US side. Okay, that's fair. Her driver's license lists her US residence at least, so it's not gonna be totally devastating when we go back across, right?

We get up there and are loading up the SUV with all of friend's belongings. This includes her pet mouse. Now, her mouse had no vet records, so bringing it across the border was a no-no. In fact, knowing how crazy said friend is, and the fact that she lived in a picker shack in the countryside, I doubt it was so much a "pet" mouse as a wild mouse that wandered in and got caught and became a pet. So, like, this was not an animal that was going to be welcomed at the border. So we hid it's cage underneath the rest of her things.

On the way back to the border, we were bracing for the fact that friend's sister didn't have all her ID when suddenly...

Friend's Mom: "Friend, where is your ID?"
Friend: "You kept it, Mom."
Friend's Mom: "You don't have it?"
Friend: "No, you took it back with you last time, remember?"

So my friend only has her Penticton, BC high school ID, has been living in Canada for a year, was born in Canada, and is trying to move back into the US. Her father's passport was left in the car, which is the only proof of her US citizenship we had on-hand, but since she took his assumed name rather than his legal name at birth, the surnames don't match.

This, plus her sister didn't have the right documentation either.

Plus, we're smuggling a live mouse.

It looks bad. It looks very, very bad.

We're fucked.

Friend: "Mom, take that lane. Quick, pull the shirts down!"
Friend's Mom: "Oh, come on!"

Despite her verbal protest, she went into the lane that had the youngest and tired-est looking male border guard. We all pulled down the shirts. I was wearing a low-cut blouse of course.

We pulled up to the guard shack. Friend's mom rolled down the window. We all leaned forward. She explained the situation and handed over the ID we had, including Friend's high school ID and their father's passport. The guard hemmed and hawwed, and told us he'd "be right back". He vanished into an office.

We looked around in silence. Surely we were going to get pulled into secondary screening. There was no avoiding it.

Finally, the guard came back. "Okay, I'll let you guys pass this time with a warning. Just be sure and have all your ID paperwork next time. Can I just check the cooler in the back?"

There was nothing restricted in the cooler, so obviously we let him go check. We looked around at each other, nervously smiling. We were gonna make it. We were gonna make it. We were...

The guard came back to the window. "Well, the cooler checks out, but do you know what's beeping back there?"

Fuck no, we didn't know.

It was almost on the hour, so my friend punched me in the shoulder, hard, and exclaimed "Katt, that's why the alarm didn't go off! We had it set for four PM instead of four AM!"

"Oh!" I replied. "That makes sense!"

We were teenagers who slept in all the time. We never set an alarm for four in the fucking morning. But the guard bought it and waved us through.

Slowly, we drove ahead. As soon as we were confidently out of earshot of any lurking audio-monitoring systems, we burst out laughing. We had made it through the border!

I think our border guard was tired and near the end of his shift and didn't give a fuck, but I also think the boobs helped. We were four well-figured women and I think we would have had a more difficult time without the boobs. I hope the guard appreciated the boobs at least.

To this day none of us know what was beeping in the back of the car. Best guess was the mouse making noises buried deep under the luggage.

Happy Easter! AKA Zombie Jesus Day!

I hope everyone had a good Easter! I had to work. I did dress up in Easter ears though and handed out eggs to my patients at work. They were full of sugar. Don't tell the nurses. I told all my patients today that I was the Physical Therapy Bunny. That's the Easter Bunny's less-well-known and less-loved cousin.

I even made some patients do Easter egg hunts. You got mobility tasks, dynamic reaching, cognitive skills...it's therapeutically justifiable. Because I said so. Plus it's fun so why not?

I also kept saying to my patients "Let's hop to it!" They all glared at me for that one.

Dinner was with the boyfriend and his mother. I made Pizza Rustica, which is a tradition I stole from a former boss at some point. It's like a Chicago-style deep dish, but with a crust on top. I added a playboy bunny on top because Easter and bunnies and I think it's funny and I literally do this every year so shut up.

Hoppy Easter!

Drinking coffee

I love coffee. I probably average about five cups a day. Espresso or drip, light roast or dark, latte or frappe, flavored syrup or straight black, I don't care. Just stick it in an IV bag and hook it up to my veins. I run off the stuff.

It's very funny because my parents are not coffee drinkers. They actually got a little four-cup coffee maker and bean grinder just for when I visit. (FTR, my personal coffeemaker is a 12-cupper.) When you live in the great Pacific Northwest though, you grow to worship the sacred bean regardless. It's the birthplace of Starbucks, after all.

In high school we had a cappuccino bar, and that started my love of coffee. It was also very trendy to visit Stuart's Coffeehouse for open mic nights at the time, though I never went (the coffeehouse is no longer open; the location is now a decent Cajun restaurant). I suffered the instant stuff at home until I got the 12-cup coffeemaker that I still have to this day. I don't think my mom was pleased that her teenager added such a kitchen appliance, but she digressed (I don't think my dad really cared). I mean, it beat drinking beer at least.

I hated it at first, but I kept drinking it black until I loved it. I remember my friends being slower to adapt to coffee. Every morning before catching the bus, I would go across the street to my BFF's and meet up with her. After I started drinking coffee, so did she, and one morning she shared.

BFF: "I just made the best coffee! Try it!"
Me: "You...uh...like a little coffee in your cream and sugar, huh?"

It was like drinking liquid candy. I got five new cavities that day.

I'll always remember when she went to get coffee for her favorite teacher. She made it the way she liked it. The look on his face when he took a sip was one of confusion, shock, and perhaps some pain. He was a black coffee drinker. He was careful to specify black coffee every other time someone fetched him coffee.

I'm happy to report my friend no longer ruins coffee anymore, as far as I know.

I actually drank so much coffee about three years ago I had to take a break from coffee. I was drinking at least eight cups a day, plus caffeinated breakfast smoothies and sometimes I would drop a caffeine pill in my coffee for extra measure. I was not getting wired; I was just barely getting awake, and I was getting stomach cramps from coffee first, then from ingesting any sort of food in general. It was tea for me from there on out for two months until my stomach got under control. I never got a formal diagnosis that it was the caffeine's fault, but I think it was the caffeine's fault because things got better after my coffee hiatus.

It's interesting how much our community environment has an impact on us as our parental upbringing. I remember my parents giving me all sorts of stories about how caffeine would stunt my growth and weaken my bones and all sorts of lies. (I'm a bit above average in height and my body's taken a fair share of beatings and never broken a bone save for my wrist once, and that's when I was 10 before I ever touched coffee.) When you grow up in a coffee culture, you adapt to the culture.

My parents probably wonder where they went wrong with me (it's not just the coffee I adopted from the culture...raised in a west coast Blue State and parents are from midwest Red State...we have learned to agree to disagree and not discuss politics when we chat). I can safely say coffee didn't stunt my growth or rot my bones. I think they did okay, regardless of what I drink.

How I got over my fear of boats (by getting thrown off of one)

My boyfriend has a phobia of spiders. Not just a fear of spiders, a full-fledged phobia, to the point I'm not even really allowed to joke about it. I still give him some shit for it. Because c'mon, tiny spiders.

I think it's a stupid fear, but I can't throw stones, because I had my own stupid fear. I recovered from it, but it was a very stupid fear. I was afraid of boats.

The smaller the boat, the more afraid of it I was. Big ferries were okay; you drove right on and if you didn't look out the windows too much and just stared at the snack bar you could pretend you weren't really on a boat. Also, ferries have lots of safety signs and the little safety presentation at the start of the route and all that stuff that is really essentially the same as what's on smaller boats, but it made me feel safer.

Little boats though just tip over and fling you into the water to drown and I wasn't having any of that. Nuh uh.

I remember as a kid when the Lady Washington was in port. She's my favorite tallship, and she sails up and down Puget Sound and the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, usually with her sister The Hawaiian Chieftain. I first saw her as the Enterprise on Star Trek: Generations. She was also the HMS Interceptor on Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jolly Roger on the show Once Upon a Time, and she's in a Macklemore music video.

(Pro tip: If you ever visit these two ships, ask one of the crew from the Lady Washington to go over her filmography, then immediately turn around and ask a crewmate from the Hawaiian Chieftain what fame their ship can claim. Most of them will roll their eyes and walk away from you, but the really defensive ones will enthusiastically explain that that Hawaiian Chieftain was once filmed for a commercial that never aired, but dammit they brought out a real film crew and everything for it so it still counts!)

Here is a picture of both boats I took a few years ago:

Hawaiian Chieftain in the foreground, Lady Washington in the back.

I've since been on both these ships multiple times, but my first encounter I was too afraid to go on the boat. My parents were super-confused. I refused to go on that boat, though. The bilge pump was pumping water out, which my mom explained is a perfectly normal thing boats need to do, but I was absolutely convinced it mean the boat was leaking and was going to sink into the harbor just as soon as I stepped foot on it. So I stood on the dock with my mom while my dad and brother paid the suggested donation to go up on the boat and take the tour.

A few years later, my fear of boats was only worse, and my Girl Scout troop was going on a whitewater rafting trip. No fucking way, no thank you, go have fun, bye. That trip had everything I didn't want: tiny boat, rough waters, getting wet. Ick. Nope. Hell nah.

My troop sisters refused to leave me behind, though, so they played on my fear of missing out. What about the road trip over the mountains? What about the camping? What about exploring Winthrop? What if...what if...I just sat out the boat ride and did all the other stuff?

I was still like "nah", but I think my mom was fed up with what she thought (rightly) was a stupid fear, so she basically made me go. I think it was something along the lines of "Go on this trip, or dust all the cupboards in the kitchen" or some shit like that. So I went.

Here, I need to back up and explain a few things about my old Girl Scout troop (and then copy-paste this for all the future stories to share about them). You see, we were not the goody-goody well-behaved girls. Totem Council, as it was known at the time (now it's Girl Scouts of Western Washington), actually tried to disband our troop. They took one look at our roster and were like "Hell no, you can't put those girls together, they'll cause mayhem!" and did everything they could to try and make our troop no longer a troop. See, we're the troop that would go to a weekend encampment and ditch the planned activities to go off and TP cabins and shit like that (actually, fishing line cabins, but I'll explain that another day).

We ultimately drove our first troop leader to quit. When one of the parents took over, they discovered said leader had left our troop several hundred dollars in debt. We were a high school troop with maybe a dozen girls at the most by that point, so we weren't cute enough or large enough to raise sufficient funds just selling cookies. We needed bigger fundraisers, so we did stuff like throwing Halloween parties and tea parties and larger-scale events for the other troops in the region. When the council discovered that we could, in fact, act mature and throw on cool events for the younger girls, they started to get off our case. My BFF actually runs the old troop now (she has about 40 girls) and she organizes most of the events for the region as well, so the tradition has continued. At the time we still were shit-disturbers, though, but we were tolerated shit-disturbers (and having been to fundraisers for BFFs troop and meeting the girls, I'm very pleased to say the next generation is following our footsteps well).

Back to the rafting trip. Somehow, fear-of-missing-out pushed out phobia, and I ended up on a raft going down the Methow River somewhere near Winthrop, WA. I was seated right up in the "splash zone", which was the first two rows. I was nervous as hell when we set off.

I had a blast, though!

Our troop was on one raft, and there were two other groups rafting with us as well. It was a full-day affair, with a stop for lunch halfway down. Our guide was a young, laid-back guy who at first did not seem thrilled to be assigned to the raft full of Girl Scouts. He started off on his best behavior, because Girl Scouts and rules and all that. How little he realized then...

We were nice to him, at first. We kindly asked if we could get closer to the other rafts "to say hi to them". Our guide shrugged and began steering us toward them.

I should also note that our troop was more of a "high adventures" troop. At the time, Girl Scouts were trying to improve dwindling enrollment among older girls with a "charm" program where instead of badges, you got a charm bracelet with charms for shit like fashion design, crafting, writing, and that sort of stuff. Our troop was pissed about that program, because we wanted to go camping, hiking, climbing, etc. There was lots of canoeing and kayaking, not by me, but by others. Our troop leader also knew how to steer a raft. We weren't into that other stuff. We were into outdoor adventure, big time. That is what we lived for. (A quick Google search seems to indicate that the charm program, thankfully, seems to have died as well.)

So our shit-starting troop let our raft guide take us up to one of the other rafts to say "hi". We did this by grabbing our paddles and splashing the fuck out of them, then we turned and paddled the fuck away. Our guide was shocked, to say the least. We were paddling hard, and our leader took over steering, and our guide was like WTF?!?!  He didn't know how to cope, but the devious grin on his face told us he was getting a kick out it too.

Yes, the guide started getting in on it. At one point, he decided to start splashing us, so we threw him off the raft. That really shocked him. "No one's ever done that," he said with a dumbfounded stare. He simply couldn't process that had actually happened.

With the guide off the raft, there was a lot of shoving and pushing as we started throwing each other off the raft, and in the fray, I ended up going over and into the water.

Here's the big thing: I was fine. It was a calm, non-whitewatery portion of the river. I bobbed around floating downstream for a bit, then climbed back in the boat. My greatest fear had been realized, and it was absolutely nothing bad.

That ended up being one of the most fun weekends of my life. If I had given into my fear, I would have missed out on all of that. Going on that trip was absolutely worth it. I wasn't afraid of boats after that, and I've been on several since. Here's some photographic proof from a year and a half ago when my class chartered a sailboat after summer finals:

That's me. On a boat.

Scorpions though, those fuckers are scary. Don't get me started on those.

Haikus I wrote while drunk

I went to the Tailgater in Selah yesterday. It was the last bar in Selah I hadn't been to, and also the newest. It's less of a bar imho and more of a restaurant that has a bar, but I digress. I was trying to think of something to write for a post and decided to write haiku. The problem was I was sampling the cocktail menu at the same time, so you're stuck with drunk writing quality. Enjoy.

This is a haiku
Five syllables, then seven, then-
Shit I fucked it up

This booze is tasty

And it is very pretty.

This bar is alright.

My old job sucked balls

But my new one I enjoy.

Life is pretty good.

My dog's farts are rank.
What do they put in dog food
To make him stink so?

Autocorrect sucks.

I do not text about ducks.

Duck you to hell, phone.

Should I photograph

This food, or shouldn't I do it?

I'm gonna do it.

It was pretty decent food.

This place serves Coors Light.
That tastes like pisswater shit.
Do not drink Coors Light.

Macro beers are gross
But micro beers are heaven.
Hops make me happy.

Hurry eat the fries.
The boyfriend's busy texting.
Quickly eat them now!

We are all a little fucked up and broken

The other day one of my good friends thought he was in the Truman Show. Not just speculating a what-if scenario, mind you; he literally thought that I and everyone else he knew was a paid actor and his whole life was an orchestrated fabrication.

I love this friend dearly, because he's smart and compassionate and funny and a really, really great guy. He also has a host of mental health issues, like bipolar and Asperger's and God only knows what else. Apparently, he woke up with Truman Show Delusion the other day. It's not in the DSM, but enough people have shared the experience for it to have a name.

So I sent him a link to the Wikipedia article in the hopes that he would see that this is a thing that other people have and he's not the only broken person to have what he was experiencing. He instead told me that I was only trying to appease him because I was "one of them". I replied that if I was really a paid actor in his life, then someone owed me for some serious backpay, so please complain the the show's producer when he had the chance, please and thank you.

Man, you cannot talk someone out of Truman Show Delusion when they're in crisis mode.

He's not the only one, though, which brings me to my point: we're all a little fucked up, but the good news is we're all in it together. Even when it feels like we're alone in our struggle, there's someone out there who understands and has been through exactly the same thing; we just have to seek them out.

When I was going through divorce, 99% of my friends didn't really want to hear about it. They put up with a level of my bitching, but then they started drawing away. One night I was having a crisis breakdown. I called three different people and all of them basically said "We don't want to hear about it; you need to get over it already". By the end of that night, I wasn't even upset about my divorce; I was upset because I felt had nobody left to turn to. It was a huge relief when I discovered the Surviving Divorce Podcast and found someone who understood. I remember one episode specifically where the host was talking about the fear of being alone after divorce and I was like this guy gets EXACTLY what I'm feeling right now! I later found a DivorceCare support group where I was able to meet others going through similar circumstances. It's the only support group I've ever gone to, and it was amazingly helpful. There was also a therapist, and an online support group, and a lot of shit to wade through, but the help was there. I had to reach out and find it though. That was the hard part, the reaching out.

Around that same time, I also had one of the most fortuitous chance-encounters of my life so far. My ten year high school reunion was a mere week after my now-ex-husband told me he was leaving me. I was heartbroken and depressed. So obviously at the reunion I. Got. FUCKING SHITFACED!!! Of course, at a reunion you're reconnecting with people, so we were all sending Facebook friend requests to each other. I was drunkenly hitting "Accept...Accept" on my phone and in my mindless state, once I got through accepting everything, I accidentally started sending out friend requests to strangers Facebook was "suggesting" for me. I was like oh fuck how long have I been sending out random friend requests? Time to put the phone away! and left it at that for the night.

A couple people actually accepted my drunk requests though. One of them was posting a bunch of inspirational quotes every day, so I messaged her like "Hey, I don't know you and just randomly friended you and this is super-awkward, but I'm kinda going through some shit right now and the stuff you're posting is really speaking to me, so thanks."

Through the conversation that ensued, I learned that she had recently broken up with an abusive narcissist, which is exactly what I had just done, and the more we talked the more I realized she totally understood the pain that I was going through. I still have not met her in person but I consider her a very good online friend because she was able to support me through a time in my life when my "real-life" friends weren't able to. It was the best drunk friend-request ever made.

So no matter how fucked up you are, there's someone just as fucked up, in the same way, and you're not alone. You're never alone, even if it feels like it. We're all broken in our own ways and we're all careening through life together. So go find that other fucked up person who matches you and talk it out. It'll help. I promise.

My absurd encounter with misogyny

The other day when my boyfriend and I went out for breakfast, the waiter did something that is so minor, but in my experience has so much significance: he put the bill directly between us. No assumption of who was paying.

I always notice and appreciate this. With my current BF, we're pretty even; it's a 50/50 chance of who ends up picking up the tab. With my ex-husband, I paid 99% of the time. I had to pay for all that shit (that's a rant for another day), and nothing was more annoying than when the server would hand him the bill and I'd have to reach alllll the way across the table to get the check (what, you think my ex was polite enough to hand it to me?); then when they returned it they would hand my credit card to my ex husband. My credit card, that said "Kathryn". That's not one of those names where mayyybe it could be a guy or a gal's name. That's a straight-up gal's name, and they handed that credit card to him. (If you know men named Kathryn, please share in the comments.)

That's a subtle, systemic sexism that is apparent in our society, though I've noticed it seems to be on the decline. But one day, I encountered straight-up, in your face blatant misogyny in the food court. It was so blatant it reached the point of being ridiculous and absurd, and here is that story.

Back when I was with my ex-husband, we were wandering the mall and stopped to get some pretzels. Of course I was paying. So we waited in line and when it was out turn, we walked up side-by-side to a pimply-faced teenage cashier. I found that interesting, because I think of misogynists as being old white men, but this was a young white man. This is why we need marches btw. This kid is the future and we need to stop it from spreading. Let me explain.

Ex-husband: "I'll have a pretzel dog and a medium drink."
Cashier: "Okay, your total is $X.XX."
Me: "Wait, I'm also having a jalepeño pretzel and a small drink."

The cashier looked at me with a confused look, as if I had just appeared out of thin air. As if, how dare I should be able to order my own food.

(As an aside, I've never been on a date where a man ordered food for me, but I have heard of this happening, and if it ever happens to me, I am so walking out on the date right there. It's my stomach, and I'm gonna order what I want to feed it!)

Cashier: "Um....okay, so $XX.XX."

I get my wallet and I hand the cashier my debit card. I mean, I physically handed it to him. The cashier took the card from me and looked at me square in the eye while he took it, then he looked directly at my ex husband.

Cashier: "Thank you, sir."

I'm thinking why the fuck is he thanking my husband when I'M THE ONE WHO HANDED HIM THE GODDAMN CARD TO PAY WITH?!?!

So this kid swipes my card, and then he tried to hand it back to my ex-husband.

I stepped in to take my card. "No, thank you" I said as I took my receipt and card and positioned myself directly between the little fuckwad and my ex.

The kid just looked at me with a confused frown. It was like he could not process why I was interacting as part of the transaction and not my ex.

It was so blatant it was truly absurd and ridiculous. It was also incredibly rude and I gotta admit it pissed me off. Even my ex was like "I can't believe the way that guy treated you," and my ex was a narcissistic douchenozzle so for him to notice someone being rude to me says something right there.

As I signed the card slip, I tipped $0.02. Enough to know that I wasn't absentmindedly leaving the tip line blank. Just enough to get the message across. I don't know if that thick-headed twat ever understood it. I never saw him working there again, though, so there's that at least.

Get lost

I got lost yesterday. Well, lost-ish. I went hiking up in Yakima River Canyon. It was my first time driving up there, and it's gorgeous! I'll be making many, many more trips up this season. But I got lost. I found the trailhead for the hike I wanted to go on, but I missed a junction. I knew it was the wrong trail, since it veered away from the canyon I wanted to hike and instead ascended up a ridge near a distinctly different valley. But I kept going.

This is a thing that is not unusual when I go hiking, though now that I live in a desert climate in a more rural area I have to be more careful about wandering. This time of year is cool though and the mystery trail was well-trodden and easy to follow, so I felt comfortable exploring something unplanned.

To give a bit of background into my decision to go off-route: I bought a new-to-me used car on Tuesday. Yesterday I woke up late, had to drive to the gas station to fill up the car, went into the gas station to buy a snack to see if I could get cashback for the $5 parking fee I would need at the trailhead, discovered this convenience store does not do cash back, find an ATM to get cash, find a store to break the $20 bill into appropriate bills, and then, as I headed into the canyon, my tire pressure light went on. So turn around, call the dealership to see if they can look at it, have the tire pressure light turn itself off mere blocks from the dealership, wait in their waiting room while they check tire pressures and sensors and ultimately find nothing wrong, and then I was able to start heading toward the trailhead. So when I finally started hiking and discovered I was on the wrong trail, I was out of fucks to give; I had found a trail so why not hike it? Also in hindsight, the reason I missed the junction for the trail I planned to take was because it was underwater, which I figured out after surveying Google Earth later to figure out where the fuck I went wrong.

Over on the west side, I got lost in the woods all the time. Usually, these were semi-rural hikes; I knew that if I did ultimately get lost, I could walk in any direction and eventually reach civilization again. I also have maps in my pack that I study before I go, but usually they stay in the pack unless I get really desperate. There's something about just reading the landscape and exploring the unknown that appeals to me.

The first time I got lost was in an area that would eventually become Lookout Mountain Preserve outside of Bellingham, but at the time it was just woods with zero designated trails. As a kid, I would bike up the active logging road to an old, overgrown road that served as the "trail", and hike up the hill. The further up you followed the old road, the more wild and less defined it became. Eventually, I hiked up it so far one day that the path simply faded into the forest. So I gave up and turned around to head back...only to discover I was unable to figure out which direction I had come from.

I knew I was not far from civilization and that worst-case scenario I could hack my own path downhill, and eventually I rediscovered the trail, but it was a bit unnerving for a moment. Since then, I've always stayed on clear paths that I could backtrack, but I have still gotten lost.

My first time hiking up Chuckanut Mountain south of Bellingham, I didn't pack a map that time but had a vague idea of where I wanted to go. Then I saw a sign that said "Waterfall", so I followed the arrow to what turned out to be the barest trickle of water creeping down the rock. Next I followed a sign that said "Lookout", so I followed the arrow to something a real estate agent would refer to as a "peekaboo view" that was disappointing. By the time I ended up on top of Raptor Ridge on a rocky cliff where the forest fell away and offered a real view, I was well off the original path I intended to hike, but discovering that final viewpoint was worth it.

The second time I hiked up to Raptor Ridge was with my ex. I packed a map, but stumbled across a newly-constructed trail that hadn't made it on the maps yet. It headed the general direction toward the ridge, so I was like "Let's just follow it and see where it goes!" My ex complained the whole way and kept asking to go back to the mapped trails. I persisted, and it turned out the new trail really was a shortcut to the ridge.

He also complained when we got lost on our honeymoon. We ended up on some random highway heading south. I was like "Oregon is south of Washington! It says we're going south! We're going the right way!" The ex wanted to turn around. I was the driver. I did not turn around. It was an adventure, and in the end we got to where we were going, so I don't know why he was freaking out so bad.

When I hike, I have basic survival skills, and I say on clear paths, but I'm open to exploring off my planned path. I accept the risks, and often get rewards. Adventure comes from stepping outside comfort zones. So I go out and wander unfamiliar areas, whether it's a scary dive bar or a wrong trail that becomes my new right. That's how I roll.