Zoe E. Whitten's Blog, page 67

Yeah, so I'm leaving Namecheap in February…

So, I left GoDaddy over SOPA, and I went to Namecheap because they were having a special for transfers coming from GoDaddy for a one day sale. Well the hosting side of things worked for my blog, but getting my email set up has been a nightmare, and every visit with tech chat revealed that I wasn't dealing with techs, but with secretaries reading from a script book. Even after I'd done what they asked and shown that my problem was something else, they never deviated from their script. I would have gotten more talking to a bot. I asked to speak to a tech, and the first thing the tech did was start at the top of the script again. There was ZERO communication between the secretary and tech.

I need to point out that I used to work as a PC tech, and as a help desk technician. In most every place that I worked, I entered notes on my assignments so that if the customer called back, the next tech could read my note and see what had already been tried. This is a great cheap system that wastes no paper, because the notes are attached to the customer's files on the server. The customer doesn't have to get upset by repeating the same steps over and over, and the techs deal with a lot less irate callbacks. It's win-win-win for everyone. But instead of doing this, Namecheap creates a tech script and uses untrained labor to handle a tech's job. It's because Namecheap is too cheap to pay real techs to be on standby.

Irate doesn't even begin to cover it. I've spent three days cleaning house in an effort to settle my ass down, and I'm still pissed off at Namecheap for their lousy tech support. The house looks great, but I'm sore and fatigued, and I still can't check my fucking email in Thunderbird.

I can't move hosts this month, as my money is already gone for this month. But in February, I'm changing hosts again, one which has assured me that their email server will work with Thunderbird without the headaches I'm having with Namecheap.

So, long story short, there may be another momentary outage, but I don't think the address will get screwed up. Also, I shouldn't lose your comments…in theory. If I do, know that I'm really sorry for screwing stuff up again. I really hate moving, whether in the digital or physical world, and I honestly hope this next move will find me in a good home that I feel okay with sticking around a few years. I had three with GoDaddy, and up until recently, I never had a problem with them. I didn't want to have to move, damn it, and the first place I moved to now feels like a bad neighborhood for the shitty management. But hopefully, the next stop will be the "Goldilocks host" that's just right for me.

But if I haven't made clear yet, no, I do not recommend Namecheap as an alternative to GoDaddy. Setting aside their SOPA support, GoDaddy was a great host with good customer support when I needed help. I guess Namecheap thinks they can get away with shit service, and I'm sure they won't miss me and my one little blog. But from now on when people ask me about web hosts, you can be sure who I'll tell folks to avoid first before I start listing hosts worth looking into.

A clarification…because I'm sure I'll need it…

I'm sure my last post is going to draw all kinds of wrong assumptions, so I'm going to explain why I'm pissed off about people casually tossing the pedophile label on people left and fucking right, even when it doesn't apply to a given situation or person. But the short version is, you're using the label in a broader and broader meaning, like it's a fucking catch-all for all "man problems." You need to stop that shit, because this IS a slippery fucking slope and none of you will like where the bottom takes you.

First of all, pedophilia is when someone looks at prepubescent kids and thinks of these skinny undeveloped bodies as so hot, they only want sex with those little people. They want that so bad, they can't even have normal sex with adults without thinking of kiddie sex. That's a disease, but it's often an inherited disease, passed on to them at early childhood. Sometimes it happens as a result of molestation, and sometimes it is a mutually consensual act that locks them in that mindset that this age was perfect for sex.

That's right, two kids having sex can lead to one kid idolizing sex and turning it into a life-long fetish, to an unhealthy mindset that cannot be defended as anything but diseased and corrupted. It doesn't really matter how a pedophile is made, whether under "good" or "bad" encounters, the end result is a person so fundamentally flawed in the estimation of society that the only definite form of treatment that can EVER be offered to a pedophile is heavy drugs and/or incarceration in buildings where rape and humiliation of the pedophile is routinely encouraged.

This is a dangerous, vile, loaded word, and when you use it on someone it actually applies to, you fucking doom them to be a social pariah FOREVER. They have to bear the burden of shame for being sick, and there's no humane attempts at treating the disease. Every culture uses the scarlet letter approach to treating this disease. So if every pedophile growing up sees how you treat all pedophiles, why in the fuck would they come forward for voluntary abuse at the hands of a lynch mob? It's in their own best interests to stay in the closet until you pry them out and expose them.

But what pisses me off worse isn't when you apply it to people who are sick and need of medical help in the worst way. It's when you apply it to guys for taking any interest in girls that there's a big gap in their ages. I've seen people say, "Oh, he's twenty-two and he's fucking a fifteen-year-old. He's a pedophile." NO. Damn it, that dude may be wrong for fucking the teen. You can get me to agree to that, depending on the circumstances of the relationship. He may have exploited her trust, and I'll agree to whatever other claims you want to make about his lewd sexuality. But you do not doom a man with the label of desiring sex stick thin children when he's going after someone who already looks, walks, talks, and acts like a grown woman. Then it's not him who has a diseased mind. It's you, for looking at him in such a myopic and distorted manner.

You keep expanding the label of what's sick in your society, and yet you never question if this is the right course in treating the problem. Shunning has NEVER worked at making problems go away, and the cycle of violence is perpetrated by both sides. It starts with a society that offers no humane treatment options for a disease that's created by society as well.

It's universally agreed now that wanting sex with undeveloped kids is wrong. Hey, totally in agreement with you, except I'm not so clear on why the universal treatment of a sexual disease is raw hatred even worse than if the person murdered the child outright. Murderers and rapists get less bile spewed on them, and seriously, people, I can't go a day without someone throwing out the word, usually misapplying it to someone who cannot fairly be called a pedophile. Call them perverts, jerks, predators, assholes, or statutory rapists. Pick any of these fitting labels, and then I'll not only join in the chant, I'll fucking help you light torches and sharpen pitch forks for the really guilty guys, the ones who take glee in corrupting and harming other people. For those people, I don't care what the age or gender of their victim is, because what they've done is deserving of a punishment.

I don't get mad at you people for being worried about your kids. I get mad because you've become so paranoid about this one evil lurking in your midst that this is your modern vampire or werewolf. It's why I wrote a book about a pedophile werewolf, because I was trying to show you, "This, people, is your biggest monster, the thing you fear so badly that you won't face the problem rationally." And now you're so afraid of this one monster label, you're casting it on everyone all the fucking time. This is your modern McCarthy red hunt, but instead of looking for commies, you're hunting for pedos. Even for pedos that don't exist. "Are you now, or have you ever thought of touching a kid?" — "Well, when I was a kid—" — "PEDOPHILE!" And down cometh the ban hammer of society, casting off one more male to the pit of rape and other inhumane follies. Happy is the society, for once again they can vicariously gnaw on the suffering of a filthy, lowly, dirty pedophile. It doesn't solve the problem, but man, doesn't it feel good to think about torturing someone without having to feel one ounce of guilt for having violent rape fantasies?

If you're nodding your head that it feels good, you're not healthy. And now if you're shaking your head, you're definitely not healthy.

If we as a world society are ever going to get rid of child brides, forced underage prostitution, and other forms of child exploitation, we first need to come to terms with this disease in a more rational and humane way than it has been addressed by any previous society, modern or ancient.

Obviously, if I'm against child brides, I'm not advocating sexual freedom for an unhealthy sexual fetish. But, I am not for the idea of making every pedophile a criminal simply for having the disease. Now if you do find a guy in a playground, with a doll, candy, and chloroform, that's not an issue with me if you want to arrest him. Book him, Dan O.

But after his arrest, what you encourage the other prisoners to do to them is inhumane treatment that you wouldn't allow to happen to a murderer in the same prison. You'd demand more human treatment for the cop killer on death row than you would for the dude who gets arrested without committing a crime yet. The murderer should get access to as many lawyers as possible to help in his last minute plea defenses, and he has the right to die with dignity, without cruel or unusual punishment. You know, like say, a six-year sentence with the guards pimping a person out to every rapist on every block for a little off-the-grid profit.

Sure, that's cruel and inhumane punishment…but so what? These people are the least of us. And it's not like you're in a country which claims to be predominantly Christian. But you know, I can't help but recall that guy Jesus saying something about "the least of us." Uhm…oh darn, I know it was kind of important, like one of the central points that he was making. And yet, none of his apostles got that point. None of his disciples do, either.

Oh, right, I got it: "What you do to the least of us, you do to me."

He also said, "Let those who are without sin cast the first stone." Well you people don't do stoning in America, but you do toss around the word pedophile with no thought of its impact. It's becoming your sickness, and it's just one more reason I hate looking at America these days.

You're not the land of the free, or the home of the brave. You're scared shitless of everything, and you're making accusations with labels like you're having a modern day witch hunt hysteria. "Maybe he's a pedophile." If his victim isn't prepubescent, no. If his victim is a teenager, no. Especially no if it's a teenager using makeup to look older. Because then, we're not talking about a pedophile. We're just talking about a man thinking with his dick. That's possibly still a criminal offense depending on the circumstances and actual evidence at hand, but it's a whole other shade of grey from using the word pedophile.

Just, stop trying to start a New Salem with the pedo label, because your paranoia plate is already full of terrorists, okay?

Pedo panic!

What a rotten way to wake up. First it's hubby's phone beeping every five minutes to be charged, and once I got pissed and got up to take the phone to the charger, my stomach started boiling. I don't even know why. Last night my taste buds and nose both shut off for dinner, so instead of eating the meal hubby made, I snacked on cheese and crackers. I really can't get any more mild than that.

But I get up and grab my phone, figuring I'll read on the couch, and right at the top of my feed is someone linking an article to a dude defending his interests in teenage girls. That's not what set me off. What set me off was the linking writer saying the dude was making "pedo defenses." Yes, because taking a sexual interest in teenagers is exactly the same sick fetish as finding underdeveloped stick children attractive. It cannot possibly be that in puritan America, you've finally gone too far in trying to classify every single sexual thought of ANY kind as a disease. No, it's all just the same sickness. Pedos are everywhere, and THEY WANT TO EAT YOUR KIDS. FEEL FEAR! FEEL OUTRAGE! THUMP YOUR CHEST AND DENY EVIL SEX!

Fuck you people. When you're puffing up and acting all moral, it's so you can scream about protecting theoretical kids from pedophiles. You do jack shit to protect real kids. You do a lousy fucking job protecting real kids. Oh, but man, listen to you fucking loudmouths talk about the theoretical five minutes you want alone with "those people." As if your sick violent fantasies of beating child molesters is a healthy outlet for your impotent rage.

You deluded people think pedophiles look like that skeezy playground-camping fucker with a bag of candy in his flasher trench coat and a windowless van nearby. You don't think that pedophiles are elementary school teachers, or employees at Toys R Us. They're football coaches and Boy Scout troop leaders, people you look at and think, Yeah, I can trust him. Pedophiles look pretty normal right up until they're molesting your kids. And, what you screaming assholes never shut up long enough to hear is, molested kids usually already know the pedophile taking advantage of them. They've been trained to avoid the skeez in the park, but no one told them what to do if it's a teacher or priest making the offer to fondle. That's because no one wants to admit, "Honey, pretty much anyone can be a pedophile without warning. It's up to you to be wary of contact or requests from adults that don't feel right to you."

But, that would require talking to your kids about sex, and Americans don't talk to their kids. They send their kids to school for "sex-ed" where the state does a lousy fucking job of explaining sexual predators, and how to stay away from them. Instead, sex education is that class where half of you parents fight tooth and nail NOT TO TELL YOUR KIDS ANYTHING AT ALL. Sure you could educate and protect them. But why not claim it's offensive to God to protect your kids by arming them with basic knowledge about their enemy? Why not leave them ignorant and make it easier for the predators to take advantage of them? BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT NOW, HYPOCRITES.

This is why I hate people, why I no longer want anything to do with any of you. Because all you do is talk shit about things you aren't qualified to speak on. And you know what? I would think that with pedophiles being so taboo, I wouldn't hear or read that knee-jerk trigger word every fucking day. And I wish I could say that assholes like the guy in that article are the worst problem I see in life. It's not. It's all the other so-called healthy assholes calling this jerk a pedophile. I'm not going to defend the guy and say his fetish for teen girls is a healthy mindset. But people, if you're going to say that finding a teenage female attractive is THE SAME THING as finding a prepubescent girl attractive, then you're just classifying heterosexuality as a disease.

Where exactly does this need to codify sex end with you people? You don't like when kids do it with kids, or with adults. You don't like teens having sex with each other, and even heterosexual adults can't have a one-night stand without someone deciding "that's unhealthy." If an older guy of around 50 is dating a woman of 30, you people have a problem with them. If a 30-year-old woman is cruising for 18-year-old men, you have a problem with it. You won't let gays and lesbians alone; you won't leave polyamories alone; you won't leave us trannies alone. Nothing is healthy if it's sexual, according to you neurotic fucking armchair therapists. And not once do you categorize a disease for your chronic and persistent need to shove your puritan noses into the asses of your neighbors. Oh wait, there is a name for that disease.

It's called being American.

(Edit: So we're clear, I'm not linking the asshole's article defending his views, because I'm not giving traffic to his bullshit either. He's not a healthy guy no matter what he claims, but he's certainly no pedophile. (Even if he sounds kinda skeezy to me.))

I done blowed up the blog…

Yeah, so things are changing, and the first thing you'll notice is, the old addy zoewhitten.com/wordpress/ no longer works. That's because in switching hosts, I sorted out how to install WordPress in the main public directory of my new web host, with help from the folks in Namecheap's tech support. Well, after I finished that, it occurred to me that all the books would have to be edited to show the new addy. Yay. No, screw it. I'll get around to fixing those later. The point is, I've changed hosts, and the blog is secured for another year. Any problems y'all have with the old address are my fault, and I apologize for that.

Oh, also, I was supposed to make a backup file of the old blog and transfer it over. That didn't work out so well, so I have to export a backup from the free blog. This means I lost all your comments. All your base are belong to the ether. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ahem, I'm sorry about that too, and I assure you it was not intentional. I screwed up the backup, and then the domains swapped before I had a chance to try again. I'm lucky that I thought to host a free version of my blog, or there would have been no mirror posts to take and fix my fuck up with. But yes, mistakes were made in the process of moving. I totally take the blame for all technical snafus that arise from this move. I'm a baaaad nerd. No cookie.

Obviously, this won't be the same blog as it was in previous years. What this new year will bring, I don't know. Definitely more reviews of other peoples' stuff, and definitely a lack of promotions for my stuff, even when I do release something new. Yes, I really don't plan to tell you when I drop new stories. It's not that hard to find my stores, and if you care enough to look for new releases, you'll find them. But I'm done with begging and pleading for sales. You people make me feel like a homeless guy with a cardboard sign. And let me tell you something. When I really was homeless and wrote up a sign, I never used it. I took it out to the highway, yes. But then I walked up the highway and applied for a job at a movie theater. I got that job and worked so hard that the manager let me and my roommate live there. Double shifts? sure, why not? I have to go upstairs when the place closes anyway.

I got too much pride to sit on the side of the road and beg for mercy that you people don't have. And the same is true here. I never got a real publisher, so to most of you people, I'm just a panhandler on the information superhighway, and my books are like trashy cardboard signs. It doesn't matter how I write them, or what I write about, because even if I was really good, none of you would take me seriously.

This, however, is incredibly liberating. I can accept that I'm a hack, and I don't have to write well. I don't even have to pretend anymore. Did I miss a typo? Who cares? I'm just a hack anyway. Did that last cover look cheap? Who cares? The big guys use stock photos and bland text, so if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for a hack like me.

I don't have to talk to reviewers, and I don't have to bang my head against a desk when someone completely ignores the book I wrote and instead invents a whole new story in place of what I wrote. I don't have to feel betrayed by friends after reading their reviews. I can just go to my little corner of the internet and pretend the rest of you don't exist. Kinda like Obama and Bush, but with less weapons of mass destruction and remote drones at my disposal.

And that reminds me, it's time to talk about cancelled bombs. I'm dropping all Mystical World Wars titles, and will not be releasing the books I had in the editing queue, Revival of the Magi and Wereporno. Sales have been extremely low on all the MWW books, regardless of which races or monsters I wrote about. The series has reached the end of season one, and yet most of the books rot in obscurity after getting lousy reviews once. (For shit that didn't actually happen in the book, even.)

There won't be two more Zombie Era books explaining what happened to Susan. I was going to begin that project this year, but after an initial burst of positive reviews for both books, nothing else happened. Which is pretty much the case for all my books with good reviews. Sure, I can get praise from reviewers. But after that, nothing happens.

I'm also giving up on plans to write the Sandy Morrison series, and although I'd announced beginning writing on Sandy Morrison and the Pixie Prohibition, I'm dropping the idea and moving on. I'd been told that audiences were looking for a trans-positive fantasy story. That was a blatant lie. Straight people wouldn't touch a tranny book with a tranny's dick. What they really mean when they say "I support diversity" is, "I'm hoping these hollow words will make you go away." And they do, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth and a reminder that most "good people" are fucking gutter sucking scumbags who are only watching out for themselves.

Li'l bitter there, Zoe? Oh, a touch.

I digress, I am currently writing book four of the Peter the Wolf series, Thicker Than Blood, but I will no longer be writing a companion series for Alice, which would have dealt with her coming to terms with Peter molesting her, and with her cursed nature. So the series will instead conclude with Peter abandoning everyone to turn himself over to the FBI, and there won't be any explanation for whether he ever gets better or not.

I'm releasing Penny for Your Debts as an ebook sometime soonish. I don't know when, and I won't promote the book. I've begun releasing The Marriage of Jason and Julie as a web serial on a blog of its own, but I won't promote it either, nor will I promote All Maid Up. (Though I will eventually complete the series and edit it to make a giant single ebook volume.) I won't be seeking feedback on any of these projects, nor will I be looking for beta readers on future projects. For all intents and purposes, I am done interacting with the online world.

And as we start out this new year with a more anti-social me, let me remind you, this is not a public forum. This is a private blog, and should be considered my digital home. It is not a storefront, and you are not a customer. You are a visitor only. Thus, I am under no obligation to give you anything you want, just because you want it. This is why, when you want a public venue to lecture me, you better take your entitled ass to a public forum where it belongs. I won't follow you to read your bullshit. But you can at least vent your spleen in a place where other like-minded assholes can also harrumph my decision to ignore you.

If you as a person came into my real home and started lecturing me about my opinions, I would tell you, "Bitch, get the fuck out of my house." No one else would bat an eyelash, either, because it is my home, and you are my guest. To retain the privilege of being my guest, you are socially expected to behave yourself. Break that simple rule, and you're not welcome anymore.

It's the same thing here. Which is not to say I won't entertain debates. I don't care if you disagree with me and want to illustrate a point. You can do that without being a douchebag to me and talking shit. You can debate my opinions without tearing me down or trying to lecture me like I'm making terrible life choices. I'm making great life choices. I live in a nice house, and have a good husband, and spend most of my days reading or playing games. Why? Because I retired at 30. Ha. I fucking win.

My roundabout point is, if you cannot debate without being a dick, don't be shocked that your comment never gets out of moderation. You don't like it? Fuck you, bitch, and there's the door.

I cannot make this clear enough; this is not a storefront or a platform for branding. It's a diary that you all have access too. If you want to follow the mental wanderings of a crazy lady living in Italy, welcome to the digital equivalent of Casa Whitten. But if you're here cause you want to tell me how I'm not "selling myself right," you're wasting your time. I'm not here to "brand myself" to you. I'm here to bitch and moan and make fun of rich people. If you're down with that, cool, hope to see you around for the new year. For the rest of you, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

The first emo lyric post of 2012

Hard Out Here

With thanks (or apologies) to Hayes Carll

After all these years of runnin' 'round

All this flyin' high and falling down

I gotta get back to the way I was

Gonna turn it 'round darlin' just because

And everybody's talking 'bout the shape I'm in

They say, boy you ain't a poet, just a drunk with a pen

Over and over, again and again

Lord, they don't know about the places I've been

It gets hard out here

I know it don't look it

I used to have heart but the highway took it

The game was right but the deal was crooked

Lord, make it perfectly clear

It gets hard out here

Ah, I guess there must be somethin' I'm missin'

My mama told me I should have gone into easy listenin'

Joined up with a band 'cause I thought it was cool

Lord, I probably should have just gone back to school

Ahhh, pretty darlin', it'll be o.k.

You know one of these days I'm gonna take you away

She said, oh sweet daddy, you're probably right

You know we might get lucky but it won't be tonight

It gets hard out here

I know it don't look it

I used to have heart but the highway took it

The game was right but the deal was crooked

Lord, make it perfectly clear

It gets hard out here

I know it don't seem it

I said I'd try, but I never did mean it

Nobody's listening so we might as well scream it

Oh God, we're all out of beer

It get's hard out here

New Year Funk

Well, if 2011 could have sucked any more dick, it would have taken home an Adult Video award for a record of year-long dick-sucking. Oh sure, it wasn't all bad, but every time I had something that felt like an accomplishment, a day or two later, I'd get some news that sucked all the joy out of my wins and left me feeling just as frustrated and isolated as the days when I was being physically assaulted and counselors were telling me it was my fault for not "acting right."

I'm not big on making new year's resolutions because I figure most goals I set, I'd be setting myself up for failure and depressions on a special holiday. And I can set myself up for depression any day, really. But so this year, I'm thinking about what comes next, and I kind of want to have another goal. Writer didn't work out. I don't have enough confidence in my art skills to go that route, and I fear I'm always going to be a crappy guitarist. My voice is strictly lounge act quality, and I made one rap album and promptly erased it after a decent critical assessment. I did pottery in high school and thought that was fun, but somehow I can't see running a vase shop, online or not. Plus, that scene in Ghost with all the muddy clay didn't do anything for me.

That last sentence may be a partial lie.

Thing is, I don't know what I do next. I mean, part of my plan is to play more video games, I guess. I need to do something to pass the time. But I also need something to keep my thoughts occupied. I have to stay busy, or else that gives me more time to process memories, to run back through the mental minefield for something else I have to feel ashamed of for remembering.

Writing filled that time easily, and I took to the work so well. People for years were walking up to me, complete strangers who asked, "What's wrong?" because I looked so troubled. But I looked lost because my mind was totally occupied by working over the details of a story piece by piece. I glazed out of the real world and started writing new sentences in my head, often hundreds of times before I could ever commit them to paper. Nothing else requires this level of brain power. I can fix computers using only half my brain. No trust me, I should know. I've stumbled in to work dead tired after a night of hard partying and could still diagnose a bad PC back to good health. I wouldn't dream of writing with half my brain tried behind my back, because I've done that too, and the results were shit.

But my good writing isn't working for y'all either. I've got less than a decade before my health fails and then I'll be at the mercy of the state, taking whatever they feel like giving me. Which will mostly be blood tests because doctors don't do anything to me except cause pain. My dentures need to be replaced, and hubby keeps telling me I should leave the country and go somewhere where dental is reasonable. How bad is it here? Hubby's suggesting that flying to Texas and going back to the denture center would be cheaper than staying here.

Whatever, the point is, I can't plan my retirement on my writing skills. Even budgeting for regular bills or grocery money would be unwise. Every high dollar item that I'd appealed to the kindness of strangers for, I ended up paying for myself moths later after taking a job with a corporate editing job. People who claim to support the little guy would have let me starve to death, while Teh Man paid for my couch, for my replacement cane, for anything I really needed. But no one I appealed to during my various crises could be bothered to open their wallets and buy my stuff to keep me afloat. I had to give up on you and rely on myself every single time.

And that's a kick in the nuts, that I get more support from the corporate masters I hate than I ever do from the art community I contribute to. It's a kick to know I've got all these books in my editing queue, and don't expect any of them to sell more then ten copies in the opening six months. It hurts so bad that when I try to sit down and write now, I ruin it every time by asking "Who cares?" No one else does, and now I can't either. Whole populations of characters are dying in me now, because I no longer want to follow their stories. The Internet, with its built-in cynicism and lack of empathy, has taken all the joy out of creating.

I would sooner ask for my penis to be reconstructed than I would want to appeal to people to buy another one of my books. Because at least getting my penis back means I have something positive to look forward to: I'll get blow jobs again. I can't find anything positive about marketing to you people, though. You damage my health. You hurt my emotional balance, and you drain my wallet. And every time I ask, "tell me why this story isn't working?" the answer I get back is "NO DON'T sell us your books, sell YOU. You have to give us more before we'll bother with your writing."

No, fuck it. I'm tired of your fucking riddles and lies, because you never really mean any of the bullshit you spew. It just sounds good at the time you said it. Fuck you, and I've got better ways of wasting my time than pleading for your approval.

So what comes next? What do I do to avoid dying poor and indigent in some nursing home in my mid-fifties with nobody visiting me or even knowing I exist? I don't know. Which I think is why I can say honestly that even though I hated 2011 and wanted it to be gone, I'm terrified of 2012. Because for the first time in many years, I don't have any idea of what my place in the world is.

Depression breeds rambles….

Christmas, I got hit with the crud that hubby had been incubating for about three days. Hubby's just about over it, but it's been kicking my ass all day every day. I've spent a lot of time laying on the couch, and this has led to depressed thinking.

This is not to say it's had much sway over me. I can't do anything about the problems plaguing me. Still no cure for MS, and I can't afford the fancier medications on my meager budget. My relationships with my immediate family still sucks. Mom is lubbing Jebus to deny responsibility for her past, and Bro still thinks I'm the whore of Satan.

But hey, if you folks need comparisons of real entitlement, Bro's STILL complaining about how our parents ruined every Christmas for him by not buying him more stuff. Yes, for real. Dude always had twice as many gifts as me under the tree because of his bitching, and all his gifts were the ones he asked for. (My parents had to guess what to get me. Hey, I only need to be shouted down once by each parent to know I'm not allowed to ask for girl things.) Yet despite how much our parents gave him, it's STILL an ish for him that they didn't give enough Christmas presents.

He could have chosen to bitch about Mom having him kneel in dry rice and popcorn in the kitchen, or how Mom and Dad always called me the "good son" even though Bro had higher grades, was more popular at school, and got invited to all the cool parties. (Half the time when I talk about being at a party, it's because someone invited me after inviting my brother.) He could have gone with these legitimate beefs, and instead, his biggest bitch in life is, "I never got enough Christmas presents!"

Wanna know which ish I stuck with? Everyone in my life denied me my right to choose my gender. Parents, teachers, counselors; pretty much everyone who had a hand buried in my brain during my so-called "formative years." Even after I'd made my choice, I had family members tell me, "I'll never accept this."

But peoples, I can't hold a grudge that long over something so petty like "You spoiled Christmas." By comparison, one of my major childhood problems with Dad stemmed from a doll of mine that Bro destroyed. It was the Cabbage Patch clone my grandmother had made for me. Dad had told her about my request, and she didn't see the harm in me owning a boy doll. So she made me a doll with the exact same kind of body and head as the Cabbage Patch Kids, and the only thing missing was, it didn't have the tag or the "proper" adoption papers. I couldn't have cared less. I loved it, but Bro and Dad both hated it because I hugged that doll every day and treated him like my most prized possession. So Bro tried to rip the head off of it during the summer by beating its head against the couch.

I was upset at Dad because it wasn't that he didn't care. He was HAPPY, relieved even, that the doll had been taken from me, so no one could ask him if his kid was queer. With the doll broken, I couldn't take Andy out of my room, and the problem was solved without him having to do anything mean. (Except shouting at me, "What's the big fucking deal, anyway?! It's just a stupid fucking doll!" (and now you may have some clue of why I say fucking so often.))

I COULD turn that into some kind of entitled vendetta, but let me tell you about an event over two decades later that I felt settled the scales. I'd been forced to move back in with Dad after losing my job at the theater. (for trying to strangle my boss…told you before, there's rarely anything in my life's story that comes across as normal.) He and I were fighting daily over everything I did. I wore a purse. I had long nails, even though I only used clear polish. My hair was too long, and I walked "funny."

So we're going shopping at Wal-Mart, and I've scored a major victory, three microfiber cami tops for dirt cheap. Dad already said I could get more tops for wearing at home, so I'd wandered off to grab them. When I came back, there was a man standing by our cart when I walked up. He saw me put the cami tops in the cart, and then asked, "So, who's this?"

Dad got a funny look, like I knew this was coming someday. Then he said, "Well, this is my other…uh, this is my other kid, Garron." And this dude looked at me and got real confused, real fast. Dad made a nervous chuckle and added, "He's not much like Nathan, as you can see." (Dad wouldn't call me "she" for another six months.) Poor dude didn't know how to react, so he wandered off fast.

It came out after the dude walked off that this was one of dad's coworkers. Dad was worried about going into work and getting teased over me, but no one else made a big deal out of it. It's just that from then on out, everyone knew that Dad had one straight kid and one queer kid.

I like to think that moment of delayed humiliation was proper payment for Andy's destruction.

Anywho, thinking on moments like this, I recall how much of my life felt awkward and shameful. I knew I couldn't talk about any of my past with others without them misunderstanding and applying their own reality to judge mine. And it's not just the gender stuff. When my friends were bragging about old sexual encounters, I couldn't jump in with stories of my old girlfriends. No one wanted to hear a sex story start off with, "So I was seven, right?"

I think that's what's gotten me thinking about pulling away from the public. Because these days, I feel like I want to write about my childhood. I want to write about my life with Sandy and Andy, or about my relationships with Audrey and Rachel. I wanted to write stories closer to home, and whether I dressed them up in fantasy themes or not, I'd hoped that people could try to see what life was like for me.

But I just don't believe that anymore. People can read about child brides in the Middle East and call it gripping stuff, but when I put out something that explains what life is like for the abuse victims in America, no one wants to hear it.

Yeah, that's depressing. It turns everyone into that cop who I ran into while running away from home, the one who returned me to my mother even though I'd told him what she was doing to my brother and me. He didn't care. The house seemed clean enough, so she couldn't be TOO abusive. (Clean people are rarely suspected of child abuse. So if you want to beat your kids, keep a clean home.)

I should say that I've lost my connection with my muse. She shows up sporadically and pleads with me to work, but I can't. Where she wants to go in me, there's no happy endings or easy moral conflicts to resolve. There's just the life that was forced on me by everyone else, even as I cried that it was abuse and it wasn't right. And that's going to stick in readers' craws every time. "Why didn't the adults do their jobs?" folks will ask. Because in fiction, you demand that people lie to you and pretend that "the system works." To do this you have to ignore the real world and cases like a girl got raped at school and was made to apologize to her rapist by the same people who claimed to want to protect kids. (Who raped her again a few months later.) Real life is ugly and doesn't feed your need for sugar-coated easy solutions. Real life doesn't make sense, and that's what I'm trying to write about, about crimes and abuses that don't make sense.

You don't want that. You want writers to lie and say adults will do the right thing, even if they almost never do in the real world. You want to read about bullied kids who aren't real, like Harry Potter, but you don't want to admit that real bullied kids don't get to escape their tormentors with a simple plot device. You want a deluded form of escapism, the idea that one hero, alone and betrayed by the world, can still rise up and save the day. I'm never going to give you that. I've seen too many Bradley Mannings, Gwen Araujos, and Juin Biazs to pay lip service to this lie. Even when I give you a supposedly happy ending, it's on the understanding that someone is looking away from a number of crimes and letting it happen.

Which is going to be as popular as taking a shit in the public pool. I get that, and we cool.

But in some of the stories I want to cover from my past, the story just ends because one of the "characters" moves away. In my world, adults aren't good, and in my world, kids aren't sweet and innocent. Those kids who weren't sexually active were often brutally violent, and between the physical and sexual abuse, I'm amazed I came out well enough as an adult to admit that I had issues and keep to myself. I could have come out like my brother, a parent with two kids who still can't stop talking about how everyone done wronged him and can't see what he's had and lost, multiple times now. He's had two great women in his life, and in both cases, he shoved them away with his bitterness…over Christmas.

"But what about you, Zoe?" you ask. What about me? I've got a good husband, a good home, and a halfway decent relationship with my father. I don't have a lot of success with my art, but what I'm trying to talk about runs counter to what people look for in fiction reading. To expect success, I would have to be as entitled and deluded as Bro, and that's a level of crazy I'm no longer willing to venture to. Maybe I might if I could imbibe significantly higher doses of rum, but I'm rather happy with my one drink every four to six days. And besides that, I got weed.

What I have in my life that I can appreciate is a trickle of cash that lets me send out donations to others, regardless of what their problem is, or to pay an artist or a photographer every now and then. It's not nearly as much as I want to do to help others, but I work with what people give me, and what they give me is still better than nothing.

In fact, I'm about to swap web hosts, as I mentioned earlier this week, and the funds to pay from the host will come from book sales. For the first year since I opened this blog, the fees for the web site won't come from hubby's bank account, but from mine. That's more than I had before, and I can appreciate that instead of asking "But why can't there be more?" But I can also admit, it's never going to get better than what I've got now. Can I live with that? Well, as the alternative's rather rash and abrupt, yes, I guess I can.

I don't have my health, and this is often a major source of depression, which in turn leads to a sense of dissatisfaction with everything and everyone. In the past, this kind of depression would lead me to writing again, but this time, I'm just giving up and letting the whole flood pass over me without me running to the keyboard. I just say, "No one will read it, because nobody cares." And yeah, that stings, but it helps me get back to whatever else I was doing for the day, whether that be playing a video game or reading a book.

It isn't that I don't want to write. But I write to share thoughts and my perspective. I've since learned that almost nobody likes my perspective, and that worse, many people can easily decide that I'm suggesting the things I did were a-okay. Maybe it's because I don't write with tones of negative judgment when talking about abuse. I use the same objective tone as I would with a hero doing something good, and that upsets others. To them, I should speak with shame and outrage about these things. But I can't because they were forced on me. It isn't the life I would have chosen. But then, what I wanted was to be a cheerleader and play with my friends at the mall. (I guess this was such an evil plan that neither of my parents could contemplate the sheer horror of it…so I became a sexual predator instead. Isn't that SO MUCH BETTER?)

It took me most of my life to grow a conscience, and now when I tell people that I'm evil without context, they look at scrawny little me and go "You? Please, you're not evil." Yet some of those same people who went to great lengths to assure me how good I am will no longer talk to me. Because now they're convinced of my claims.

It's hard to live down, being the kind of person that everyone knows exists, and yet, you won't acknowledge us unless it's to offer more spit. So yeah, I can keep writing stories about what it's like to feel this way. But who's going to read them? At the end of the day, who really cares about reading the ramblings of an abuse victim? Not enough to change anything.

Anybody, Nobody, Somebody, and Everybody…

An important job had to be done and

Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought that Anybody could do it,

but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody

when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

Why suicide and comedians are like steak and eggs…

So last night, I read the suicide note/final blog post of Joe Bodolai, a Canadian comedian who wrote for SNL and worked as a script doctor for other writers. (Among many accomplishments, including a walk-on scene in a Python live performance.) The post had been linked on Twitter by someone who made the comment, "He had so much left to give." Well, begging your pardon, respectfully, but it looks like the writer of the note disagrees with your armchair assessment. So you just failed your therapy entrance exam.

I've been thinking a lot how many people make these kinds of statements when it comes to people committing suicide, about how they can't grasp why anyone would get tired of life with the rest of you insensitive and unsympathetic people. I mean, sure, just today I read about a little girl hacked apart by her neighbor with a chainsaw, but just because there's near-daily atrocities like this in the news, that's no reason to get depressed.

But with comedians like Joe, or like Richard Jeni, people are more likely to completely ignore their private life and say stupid shit like, "He always seemed so happy." No, dumb-ass, he ACTED happy. It's not the same thing, but you couldn't be bothered to look beyond the surface. Because one thing you folks always forget about comedians, is first and foremost, they're actors. They act out funny scenes in every routine, and they speak in different voices and accents, even if they mangle most of them. Yet even when playing themselves, it's just another role they put on for the benefit of their audience. Comedians don't often let people inside to see the real person hiding underneath, because that person ISN'T FUNNY.

It's the same cycle for most funny folks. They start out just wanting to make people laugh. Then when they have some measure of fame, they also feel more pressure to speak out on topical problems, wrongly believing that fame also equals social clout. This is where things go downhill. It's because comedians will never be taken seriously, even when they're discussing the most grave problems facing our world and collective societies. Whole generations of comedians have spoken to the truth, only to watch the mass market laugh it all off, and never once think about the more important messages behind the jokes. And if the comedian gets mad and says "You were supposed to take that seriously," people bitch and moan that the comedian is "no longer fun." They're never allowed to be genuinely angry, because anger isn't funny unless it's faked. Carlin fakes anger, HAHA, so funny. Carlin says something genuinely angry, and watch the fucking cricket choir fill up the resulting awkward silence.

People don't care to watch comedians slipping away. People ignored that Richard Pryor, a multiple sclerosis sufferer like me, tried to commit suicide several times, including a self-immolation attempt in 1980. Why would he do it? Because his demons from the brothel caught up with him. Because the jokes stopped being funny to him, and the drugs couldn't make reality go away. So he did what the rest of you couldn't even imagine. He set himself on fire to check out.

People don't like thinking about Pryor like that. After the suicide attempt, they just stopped talking about him unless it was in the context of his sketches and monologues. This compartmentalizing denial helps you stop thinking about Richard Jeni, about Joe Bodolai, about Ray Combs. Why? Because feigning confusion about why people are depressed means you can continue on in the same fucking lifelong trainwreck you're involved in without thinking of anyone else.

When exactly did this lack of empathy become fashionable? Was it around the time that people started insisting on only reading people they agree with, who give them only what they want to think? Is it our need for filtering out "noise" that we've desensitized ourselves to genuine pain and suffering? Why do people instantly say "I just can't understand this," instead of shutting their mouths and engaging their brains?

Read Joe's note. A lot of what he's saying is true. Some of it is misguided, but shit, the man was suicidal. He wasn't exactly in a great frame of mind, was he? So instead of asking why he couldn't be happy with what he had, why can't you look at the things that troubled him? Why won't you admit that his burdens look a lot like yours? Because then your act of whistling past the grave starts to look naive. Because you pretend that you can't understand, but deep down, you have to know the right set of circumstances can put you in the same frame of mind. Then you'd have to look around and realize how few of your friends could form a net to catch you if you fell. They aren't looking for warning signs from you either, and even when you're putting them out, they still won't know to look.

Are there ways to see the warning signs? Yes. But they all require people who care to look at each other, and increasingly, people no longer look at each other unless it's to scowl over an "inappropriate behavior." We're all too busy fighting for ourselves to notice the suffering we inflict by engaging in this rat race competition.

The game is fixed. We all know it. We all know there's no real victory in the race, because there is no checkered flag or victory lap. We just collect stuff until we're ready to die. For some people, life is a fight on its own, and they will struggle for every last breath no matter what job they may do. But there are others who get weary of this world, not because of the world itself, but because of all the evil people who do absolutely nothing, and then proclaim, "Hey, I'm a good person."

No, you aren't. No one is. That's the hard divisive truth that no one wants to acknowledge. To deal with these problems, we'd have to be willing to discuss them publicly. Comedians try to do this, but most everyone else just pretends to before stating the same opinions they've always held: "Not my fault, so I don't see why I should bother working to fix it."

Comedians get up on stages and tell jokes about big problems, and somewhere in their set are the words that nobody acknowledges: "We need to talk." We need to talk. Some of us are ready for the world to really change for the better. But we're just a minority, and the people in power have the rest of you convinced that it's better to just keep plodding along with the same plan even if history shows it won't work.

Yes, you're still crashing. Yes, your leaders are trying to plot against you. Yes, they have the help of big banks and big media. There's no need to invent more elaborate conspiracies when even the black Democrat is willing to murder people with impunity using remote control drones. When even the black Democrat is in bed with the banks and signing off on torturing an American soldier, I'm no longer Godwining by comparing Americans to Nazis. Secret torture camps? Check. Kidnapping innocent civilians in countries where you have no legal jurisdiction? Check. The wholesale slaughter of hundreds of civilians using a chemical agent? Check.

And the worst part is, just like the German citizens who disagreed with Hitler, you people sit at home and do nothing. Because you don't care, and nobody can make you care. Not with impassioned speeches or a funny monologue. Nothing will get you people to look at yourselves and say "Oh, shit, I did become evil."

So here in a few weeks, someone else will check out for the same reasons as Joe, because he's tired of being fucked by other people and being unable to help others because somewhere, someone else ties their hands just because they can. They get tired of watching children being raped and murdered while politicians talk about "do it to protect our most valuable resource." Do you know why politicians call children resources? Because it honestly expresses their intention to exploit your kids. And despite the obviousness of their plans, you'll still hand the tykes off to let your political team captain kiss your kid.

It's all a sham and a shell game, and you don't want to hear the truth. You still want to believe that the system can be fixed, even though it was never working right in the first place. You sit tight and force the victims to be quiet, and you never change for the better.

That's why people commit suicide. Not because they're giving up on life. Because they've given up on the rest of you.

Music Review: Hayes Carll – Kmag Yoyo

I found this album in a roundabout way. I've just signed up for Zune Pass, and looking for new rock, I found a playlist that said New Rock 2011. Well I downloaded all the songs, and this one song irked me because it most certainly was not rock. It was pure honky tonk, from the singer's twang to the acoustic guitar backed by not one, but two fiddles. It's not bad honky tonk, though, so I decide to look up the album the song is from, Kmag Yoyo.

What we have here is a honky tonk artist who's been listening to rock and roll and said, "I might could do somethin' with that." And man, can he ever. I was blown away by how good this album was, and given that lately all my other reviews are piss and vinegar, I thought maybe I'd give a review that proves I don't hate everything and everyone.

Start with Stomp and Holler, which is pretty good and reminds a bit of All My Rowdy Friends. It's pretty basic as a theme: some people like to be quiet, but not me. I can totally relate to this. Then the next song, Hard Out Here, covers the tough life that a singer can have. I almost died on the line "Boy you ain't a poet, just a drunk with a pen." But even better is "My momma said I shoulda gone into easy listenin'." And again, I can totally relate to his message that his job is a lot harder than other people make it out. But then, all he's really doing is singing. That's not so hard. Heh.

Chances Are is a sentimental country tune about loneliness, and Hayes gives the perfect delivery here. Great pace, great tone. This is every bit as good as classic Willie Nelson or Walyon Jennings. Grand Parade pick up the pace a bit, but talks about laid back summer Sundays with friends and watching a pretty girl walking by. Well, the last verse changes to a much later summer, but the theme is pretty much the same. Still a great song.

And then we get to Kmag Yoyo, the title song of the album. Oh mama, talk about funny. Here's a guy who tries to go into the Army, then tries to make money stealing from the Taliban and growing poppies. So he gets caught and is sent back home, recruited by the CIA, and given LSD. What happens after that is debatable whether or not it happens, as it includes a flight to the moon and another battle in the desert. I've had to listen to this song several times to get the story straight after the point of him working in Dairy Queen, because the first few times I was laughing too hard to hear what he said next. Totally love this song, and this is definitely a rock tune with a little honky tonk thrown in for fun. Had this been the song on the new rock list, I wouldn't have questioned it.

Another Like You almost killed me. I think I stopped breathing from laughing somewhere near the middle and died. It's a man and woman in a duet, but they hate each other. The woman a is Fox News lover, and the man is a bleeding heart liberal, and the better part of the song is the two trading barbs even though they admit they're also attracted to each other. When the chick compares being a Democrat to being Taliban, I thought I was going to break a rib. This is like the parody of every country duet ever, and it's so awesome. It just gets better with every listen.

The Letter slows the pace and talks again about life on the road and the people one meets on tour. It's not bad, but after the two songs being so full of energy and humor, this one slips past me. I think it works better when played on random, so the song can be appreciated on its own. Bye Bye Baby is a great song, played with a guitar and banjo, and the guitar solo in this is so good, it raises goosebumps.

The Lovin' Cup sings about about loves lost, and about a cup that's gone empty, and about a life that isn't so great. This is the kind of country you listen to while drinking in a bar thinking about how you lost your wife, your dog, your house, your truck, and your job, all on the same day.

Bottle in My Hand is a little bit of bluegrass mixed in with honky tonk, and the singers are talking about the old boxcar bum lifestyle. It's a good song, but I think it's probably my least favorite on the album because it's romancing being homeless without ever mentioning winter or dealing with cops, or any of the problems of life on the road. The song concludes with "Ain't never had a home, just lucky I guess." Having been homeless, I disagree. But I may be biased.

Grateful for Christmas is a description of a holiday with my folks, and so even though the song is slow and sentimental, I ended up laughing through most of this. The line "What I'd give for one good lookin' cousin" slayed me, and right after, I admitted that was the one part of the song that doesn't match my family. Cause some of my cousins still look good despite getting up in years.

Hide Me…I'm not really sure what it's about. It's not a bad song. I'm just not sure what the lyrics mean. I suspect I may have to listen to this about a dozen times before I sort it out.

Overall, the album is fantastic, and it's one of those surprises that I might not have sought out on my own, but I'm grateful that I stumbled over it. I'll have to go back and listen to Carll's other albums but this newest album is superb. I give Kmag Yoyo five stars and recommend it to fans of country and honky tonk who aren't afraid of a little rock and roll now and then.