Zoe E. Whitten's Blog, page 84

What I see in the mirror…

 In Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, there is a scene where, after Harvey Dent is repaired by plastic surgery, he still goes mad and stages another crime. His face was fine, but all Harvey could see was scars. He tells Batman: "Go on and look at me, if you can stomach me. At least now both sides match." And this is the moment when I could most readily identify with Two Face.

When other people look at me, they see only the other aspects of me. People who see my pictures notice my smile. They note how happy I look. Yeah, I'm really good at smiles. I've been faking smiles for a long, long time.

When hubby looks at me, he sees a beautiful woman, and he thinks he's lucky to have me. When people look at my pictures and hear how old I am, they see a person who they think is aging amazingly well. On the outside, yes. In the inside, I'm falling apart. My doctors predict I've got until my 50's. I've been trying to fight this with exercise and such, but exercise can't fix plaque scars in my head. It also doesn't preven relapses. I'm drifting from my point. No shock there.

What none of you can see is what I see when I look in the mirror. Then I see all the scars, and I see the sheen of madness in my eyes. I'd swear everyone can see it, but they don't. I see this fractured, broken and ugly thing.  I see a tired, broken monster slowly growing older and picking up even more scars because I can't stop sticking my hand in the bear trap. I should just keep to myself, shut down the comments and stop visiting forums again. But I get lonely. I go out and I want people to know me, and to understand me.

Only, you don't. You make me so mad when you project a story onto me that isn't true, and correcting you with the truth makes you angry in turn. Maybe I'm not really as scarred on the outside as my internal image suggests. But I know I'm not the good person that others have called me. Not this month, of course. This month, I chose to show you my darker and angrier side, to remind you that it is there. So a lot of you are pissed to discover that I'm not a good person. It always upsets me when you say I am, because it reminds me that you don't know anything about me, and you don't really want the truth anyway. You want me to lie and pretend I'm hiding for all the right reasons. I have to keep upsetting you to remind you that I'm not what you think I am.

I'm asking for something complex, and I'm sure I'm going to run off a lot of people for asking or expecting anything. But instead of seeing a good person doing the right thing, I want you to see me as me. I want you to acknowledge that I'm not good. But I don't want you to hate me simply because I reacted badly to a few years of torture. I would like to be friends with people, but I would prefer if they could see me and not put me down as someone with low self-esteem. Because yeah, maybe I do have low self-esteem. But I've got great self-control, all things considered.

I know it's hard to accept someone when they're asking, "please, see me as a monster and understand me in this frame of reference." I know your tendency is to downplay negative sentiments. But scars can't be healed with positive vibes, and no matter how you project your views on me, it still won't change what I see in my reflection. The scars run too deep.

I can't be sorry for the past that shaped me into this, and I won't just cheer up and get over it. So if it upsets you that every few months you have to put up with signs of my mental instability, you don't have to hang around making yourself upset by reading my ramblings. There's plenty of safer forms of crazy for you to interact with.

More "vulnerability"

The word pedophile was first applied to me when I was twelve by my brother, who had me seduce a girl for him, and then blamed me for the fallout of his request. He flung that word at me for years. I moved away from him, and away from everyone else. I have always managed to avoid making trouble with kids, but I was never so good with teens. When I had to come back to Texas to visit my family, I learned that my brother had started a relationship with a 13-year-old, in her parents home. They got married and had a kid. They're divorced now. In my time, I turned down a couple 12-year-olds, a particularly insistent 7-year-old, and a messed up (abused) 5-year-old boy who both tried to stroke me off and to "entice me" by fingering himself. His parent walked in at that moment, and I was spared from further humiliations. But I digress, in both cases where I failed to make the right choice, the girls were both just turning 16. I've admitted to both of these relationships before, here, and to the police.

So, as you can see, I have some background with incest and sex at an early age. You can also see that despite my early sexualization, I'm fairly consistent in turning down anything I'm really not supposed to play with. This is not me having morals, though. I'm just afraid of prison and would rather avoid it. So, comparing an evening of pleasure with a long sentence of rape and humiliation, the one night stand with the stick girl isn't looking so good.

In Austin, I met a woman who was actually more messed up than me. Cherry was abused from the age of three, raped by her father until her anus and vagina were one hole. She had to have surgery to make them two holes again, and the state turned her over to her grandmother, who ran a dog farm with a crippled vet. The "step-father" (they weren't married) violated Cherry with his stump. He died, and Cherry still had to suffer abuse. She was made to eat her own cat raw when she was 5. She was attacked by dogs, for her grandmother's amusement. When she reported her grandmother to a counselor, he called her grandmother to ask for Cherry's rates.

Cherry became a prostitute when she gained her freedom. She later fought her way free and became a body piercer. While in the shop, she met a men who convinced her he loved her, and he wanted to have sex without a condom. He did this to infect her with HIV, and he had already infected his own sister, knowing he was infected. She started stealing from everyone, including me. She took my rent money, and then told all my roommates that she suspected I did it to buy drugs. I still let her stay because I couldn't let someone hurting so much become homeless.

Cherry suffered from flashbacks and nightmares, and I wanted to help her, but I just made her worse by sharing my past with her. Then, she saw me only as a potential sex partner. For six months I kept her at bay and denied her sex. But then one night, it happened, and we clicked, like we were meant to be together. But Cherry thought about sex all the time. All the time. We had sex three times a day. I had to stop because my body couldn't handle her. And when I couldn't perform, Cherry asked me if I wanted her to recruit a child and bring her to our bed. Because she thought I was a pedophile, and that's what I wanted.

That's why I had her committed to MHMR's care.

I'm saying this because I want to make this perfectly clear. I do not support pedophiles, now do I want people to think I'm promoting it by telling sotries about pedophile. But I feel like someone needs to be telling their stories, and not just as the evil monster that gets killed by a writer's righteous hero. Maybe they aren't morally inspiring stories, but they deserve a chance to be told. Cherry's story is terrible, and I don't really know how it ended for her. But I think about her all the time, and my depiction of Peter was my effort to show readers how messed up she was.

I'm sorry for anyone who reads Peter's book expecting him to be good. I wrote a book with a monster as the protagonist, because that's what Cherry was. She was a terrible, beautiful monster, and a pedophile. And someone should tell her story to explain why she ended up so messed up. That's the motivation where Peter comes from, to explain Cherry.

This did not meant I wanted Peter to be taken as a hero, only a study in the effects of extreme sex abuse. Let me assure you, it does happen, and although the book is upsetting, I don't feel there's anything unrealistic about Peter or his motivations.

Bad review for Peter

A 2 star review from Michele Lee, who feels that a person fantasizing about sex all the time is ridiculous as well as every facet of Peter's personality. Anyway, here's the bad news at Goodreads.

I'm sorry Michele hated Peter, but I still thank her for making the effort to read it. I just hope this doesn't end up being the popular opinion of Peter.

Yes, I'm mean. I said that already.

It's come out that I'm being mean by attacking normal people with words. It's true, I've thrown no punches or kicks at anyone, paid no money to harmful lobbies, or suggested any legislation to make normal people more vulnerable to attack. But me pointing out "the condition of this society is fucking terrible" is seen as an attack so awful that many people are irreparably angry at me. They want me to go back to being happy, funny Zoe, who didn't talk about all this bad stuff like it was everyone's fault.

Except, it is everyone's fault, because every problem that is brought up that needs to be confronted NOW, you procrastinate on and ask for more time to keep your focus on your wallets. But even when those wallets were fat with cash, you yelled me down and told me it wasn't the right time to talk about this stuff. People, there is never going to be a right time to spoil your mood and bring up unsavory topics. It's like shit. There's never a time when it won't stink. But eventually, you have to do it. It's not healthy to try putting it off. And the same thing is true of civil rights issues. It's unhealthy to put these things off. It's best to just pass this shit and move on to other bills after you're cleared out this nasty civil rights stuff.

I keep talking about civic responsibility and civic duty, and no one wants to hear it. I can write to my elected officials, but I can't lead by example in doing so. You don't see that, and when I point it out, you resent me and say I'm being judgmental. I can't point to the problems using links without comment and get a response from you. I can't yell at you and get your attention. In short, you're the deaf unreachables, every day.

You don't want to be reminded that there's an ugly side of your world. Please, don't point to me like I said I was Snow White. I start out conversations all the time reminding people that I'm a bad person and know it. (And every time, I can count on someone to dismiss my statements and tell me I'm really a good person and just won't admit it cause I've got low self-esteem.) I admit what I am and take personal responsibility. I practice civic responsibility too. Vocally, financially, and physically. I help with causes outside my T group. I'm opposed to racism, I'm willing to support pro-choice folks when they call for allies, and can be counted on for Atheist causes though I am a believer in God. I'm committed to my principles and beliefs, and I work to help others. But saying so doesn't inspire anyone. It just pisses you off because I expect you to try something similar. God damn me for asking you to have more empathy.

Some of you come to me and say, "Hey, wait a minute, Zoe. I AM sending letters to my elected officials. I'm donating to causes too, and I'm doing my part." Then why are you telling me this? Why are you jumping up to speak if you're not the target I need to reach? Do you feel a need to defend the people who don't do their part in society? If you're already in the choir, and you're already doing what you can, why is what I'm saying offensive to you?

But there's another side of this. My enemies use a form of vitriol to attack me, but my allies NEVER understand my rage at being hit, nor am I allowed to return that anger with an equal emotional reaction. AND YET, my so-called allies CAN express their bitterness with me for being angry. They can't understand my rage, but they can bitch at me about not taking the right tone as a victim, even if they're not the targets of my outrage.

If it really bugs you so much when I express myself, I can go back to not talking at all. After all, talking hasn't really accomplished anything has it? Me talking never convinced anyone to change their mind about any prejudice they hold. Me talking has never turned around a bad policy, never swayed allies to do the right thing. So I shut up and peddled my stupid books. I erased all my worst posts because they were too bitter and honest. But muting myself has never changed anything either.

So I'm sorry that I'm a crazy person as a result of a childhood of constant abuse. I'm sorry I'm bitter and disillusioned with people now because you still won't listen to anyone who can't sum up their problem in a slogan. I dealt with your worst little shit bullies all my life, and I dealt with "good people" telling me I deserved their torment. All my life, I've shouted, "Why can't people stop this?" And every time, the answer I get back is a question: "Why can't you ask for help nicer?"

Six years of almost daily torture. Sexual assault from my best friend. The love from most of my family is STILL conditional, and rides on the premise that I don't "rock the boat" about the past. My family forced me into a church that told me God hated me and would send me to hell to burn as an abomination. I was even denied an escape into a peaceful afterlife. Every time I tried to confide in someone as an ally, they either walked away because I was just a mixed up queer, or they used me.

And then I got to my adult life a shattered animal with no clue of what to do with myself. Every facet of what I am as a person has to be suppressed and controlled, because I'm not fit for this world. I'm not allowed to express my opinions, my faith, my sexuality, or discuss my gender without someone attacking me for not having a good attitude.

When I snarl back in reaction, I'm going too far. When all that has been done to me comes pouring back out as animal aggression, even people I'm not talking to rear back and go "What the fuck is up with all this rage, bitch? You need to tone down your act for my benefit, pronto."

Fuck you. And don't whine at me that I'm not being a good person. I never said I was a good person. You pretended I was because it was easier than admitting you'd befriended a crazy person. But I tell you all the time, I'm a bitter, broken, abused animal, and I am god damned sick and tired of people who put a pretty mask on me and then rear back in shock when they discover that the lie they made up isn't true.

Just because you like my jokes and my comedy persona, don't you ever assume that happy bubbly shit is the real me. It's the mask I invented to avoid being hurt as a child. Bullies don't hit you if you can make them laugh. It worked then, and it works now that I'm an adult. But it's just a mask, and what lies underneath, you can't love or understand or comes to terms with. Because all that's left of me is scars and anger. Everything else is a lie.

And that's why I sell stories instead of talking about me. Unfortunately, you kept insisting, "But Zoe, I can't just buy your books. I have to know something about you first." Well, now you know. Aren't you so fucking glad you asked?

FGM > Molest

So, over on Twitter today, I got into a discussion with Becka, who talked about female genital mutilation, and how we can't just go in and bulldoze a culture to make this go away. Which got me to talking about how people cannot do anything to cultures that practice FGM or honor killings of girls. But if a person molests a child, they are thrown into prison, and EVERYONE celebrates knowing that a former sex abuse victim is now being raped for completing the cycle of shame and becoming an abuser themselves.

People in many cultures will cheer on the destruction of thousands upon thousands of molesters, but won't broach the topic of little girls set on fire for going to school, or religions that cut off the clits of girls. You'll hunt down every last molester and make sure they suffer a thousand times worse than their victims to vent your righteous wrath, but you're not so keen to go into these organized religions and tell them to stop doing worse things to their children.

We live in a world that celebrates violence and shames itself about our most intimate act. Society has created a long term target for all of its hate, the molester. But when it comes to the real violator of children, violent patriarchal religions, you're mum on the topic. Wouldn't want to seem oppressive and uncivilized. (Pay no attention to the pedophiles being raped, though. They had it coming to 'em.)

I've seen a lot of people conveniently forget that most abusers were abused in their childhood or teens. There's no attempt at empathy with these victims, because now they're not victims. They're this generation's crop of monsters, ready to be cut down and fed to the criminals in prison as rape fodder. That these are former rape victims now being raped again isn't even considered a detail in their cases. It is a detail easily forgotten by a bloodthirsty culture eager for a new piñata to be strung up

But a person who says his god told him to cut off little girls' sex organs, and who does it over and over? That's a different matter, and people can't do anything about that. Same goes with the widespread problem of honor killings. It's a damn shame, but you know, we got to respect religious rights and foreign rights and alla that stuff.

But your government is still hunting Polansky. You will not rest until that vile molester is brought to justice for his one crime, but the religious dude who has mutilated a few hundred girls will never feel the same heat of persecution. WHY?

I'm not saying open the prison and free the child rapers. I'm saying, get the victims out of the prisons and put them in a separate asylum to treat their problems instead of making them worse. I'm saying, if you're so committed to stamping out one form of corrupt behavior, why are you not as raring to go attacking the religious zealots who do far worse harm to their kids?

Why? Because those are hypothetical kids in another country, and you don't see them. Those are colored kids, so they aren't as important as a white girl getting molested in America. I'm not going to compare tragedies and say the white girl isn't suffering. I know she is. I know that she will be shamed into hating everything about her sexuality, because people won't just make her feel ashamed of her attacker, but of herself, and for anything she may have discovered about herself in the process. There can be nothing good in what happened, so it must all be hated and shamed. Period. But her molester will be destroyed to satisfy society's sense of justice, and she will be forgotten. People move on, even if the victim never can.

But she's just the victim of another victim, and the girls attacked by men in the name of a god will never even know this bitter form of justice. No one will go in and prevent another crop of girls from being harmed there. Taking care of domestic molest is more important than saving foreign girls from worse harm.

Society pursues sex offenders with so much hateful venom that you're blind to who you're persecuting. Sometimes, when I'm reading through my feeds, someone pops off with "We should really take all these people to an island and let the worst prisoners rape them all day." Uh, that happens already without the island part, and thanks for reminding me why I don't consider you a close friend. People never once think that they are happy about taking former sex abuse victims and feeding them to even worse monsters. So the little boy who got raped by his dad and later touched a little boy can now be raped daily by a man who killed people. Sure, that's a great way to balance the scales and redress the issue. Or, maybe not. But it's okay, because you're doing something proactive about the problem. Even if it's destructive and actually perpetuates the cycle of violence.

BUT, you won't apply that same level of vitriol to people who kill children and carve their genitals.

And…go ahead and ask me why I'm bitter.

NINJAWORLD

My first, and possibly only true bizarro story is up on Smashwords. Here's the blurb for NINJAWORLD:

Timothy Cooper, unluckiest man in the cosmos, trips into a wormhole and across the multiverses to plunge into an ether filled world of ninja octopodes and cephalopods. Timothy tries to adapt to his new home despite their prejudices and soon learns of the pirates above the ether who fish for the ninjas. Will Timothy rise to fight the pirates for his new home, even after he's betrayed by an ally?

Being that the book is only 40K I'm charging $1.99 for this bizarro sci-fi superhero adventure.Fans of Goku and superman will both notice the references to their big guys, and I hope y'all see those a loving references to both heroes.

So, there it is. I'm off to shop for black clothes and think about death.

A little girl who hung herself in Round Rock…

True story: During the start of my transition, I learned of a trans suicide in Round Rock, a teen who started "dressing queer" and who had already been tormented for acting like a girl. On the final day of her life, a group of boys gathered round her, pushed her to the ground, and urinated on her. This was the final straw. She was so humiliated that she went home and hung herself with a wire coat hanger. Her bullies were never dealt with, never had detention or counseling for their inhuman behavior. A little girl died, pushed into death in her closet, symbolically perhaps. But nobody cared because she was supposed to act like a he and learn her lesson about being queer.

Her little brother found her body. I could just leave you to think on this one tragedy, but I want you to look at that little brother, and I want you to imagine telling him, "Your sibling died because they weren't good enough for our kids." You think he might need therapy after finding the dead body of a close family member?

This is one trans child of many who have died in the following years as a result of bullying. It is rampant, it is unchecked, and in some cases, it is even condoned by the adults in charge because the child in question "had it coming." Before this urination attack, she'd been tormented a number of times, held down by many bullies and beaten. She couldn't sleep at night because all she had were more flashbacks that woke her up screaming for help that never arrived. She couldn't focus on her classes because she was always drifting in and out of reality. Sleep deprived and lost for answers, she began to feel paranoia creep in, and she felt alone with her problems, like an alien that had been forced to live among a violent race of similarly shaped natives.

And, there's no "rescue scene" to make this better. This story ends in a soul crushed, not good enough for normal people. It ends with a little boy looking at the dead body of his sibling, in the destruction of one innocent life with the tragic end of the other.

This is daily torture and persecution, and not one other group is willing to stand with us and pull us out of this pit. You're all too busy nursing pet peeves to notice when we lose another to suicide. (Or to murder, or when we're sent to male prisons and raped to teach us a lesson.) Some of your lobbies are pushing first world complaints while ignoring us. Many of you claim that you aren't against us, that you really care. But day after day, kids like this slip through the cracks of the bible belt without you making a peep about federal protection, and there's no national attention paid to this ongoing tragedy.

It doesn't matter that another trans kid hung herself in Texas. Shit, like that's anything new. And the sad thing is, we don't even know how many trans suicides are erased by police reports that cover up the victim's queer status. But we do know it happens a lot in Texas, and in many other states.

As humanitarians, you civil rights folks failed my generation because you wouldn't speak up for us to your elected officials. Not in prosperous times,  not in "moral times," and not in a "queer loving" Democrat-controlled government. Never. You said you woulda, but somehow, you never did. It only takes a few concentrated whiners and bullies to sway our government against us because we are a tiny minority, and while we have a lot of vocal allies who talk to us, said allies often forget to talk to the people who NEED to hear this. Because of this continued silence, it's easy for the elected officials to overlook us.

If every person who ever said "I support diversity" committed to emailing one letter a month endorsing a trans and gay-inclusive ENDA, we would begin to see federal reform on civil rights issues that are long overdue. I'm especially looking at you folks who vote GOP, but then say you don't support anti-gay and anti-trans bullying. Don't tell me that you're against hate. Tell your Republican officials to support human rights and ignore a collective fringe of wealthy hate groups. Please, for the love of God, attempt to have some empathy for the survivors of this world's worst persecution, and commit to really doing something instead of telling us you care. Show us you care, please.

But instead of committing to sending one recycled 200 word email a month with CCs to all your elected officials, many of you who claim to support diversity turn around and attack us, the most vulnerable people in your society. So you enable the the religious right, who attack us with laws, with their bully kids pounding on our most vulnerable members. And you…say nothing to the people who need to hear you say, "Maybe these people do need federal protection." Instead, you tell me I'm not doing enough to support my own people. When our many advocates angrily point out how horribly you're failing us, you attack us as ingrates.

Now, ask me why I'm feeling bitter today. Go on.

On losing a friend…

I lost a friend of almost four years last night. We'd been engaged in a heated debate on Twitter about trans assaults and suicides when he decided to say that I had betrayed my people by leaving the US and abandoning the fight. Then, I guess deciding that wasn't a real wound, he said my writing is pro pedophile.

So people, when I say "you" in this, I'm not talking to you. Please understand that I am talking to the friend who ended our friendship of almost four years so he could win an argument.

Dude, I would rather be associated with a pedophile than I would with you. You think you were putting me in my place by cutting me down, but you've just revealed that you don't know anything about me in spite of all those years I was talking to you. I heard you when you talked about your illness, about your abuse. I hurt for you and your problems. But I don't think you really listened to me, or you wouldn't have made the comments that you did.

Or maybe you would, and you were just looking for a way to win points in the debate that you were wrong about. We have an epidemic of hate attacking us from the moral majority already, but instead of attacking the hate groups, you attacked me as an ingrate. Then, you didn't just demean me by saying I abandoned my own people. You had to rub salt in the wound by saying something even meaner.

And now, you're free to wander away and complain about how mean I am, how I can't appreciate your help, even though you've done less than nothing as support. Did you write letters endorsing ENDA? Did you talk to gays who were against trans inclusion to try and change their minds about betraying us? Did you send donations to try in vain to get Juin Baize into a private school? Have you had to choose between paying an electric bill and sending a few hundred to a starving ally in Texas? Have you donated to the funds of murdered trans women, spoken publicly about our plight, or spent nights counseling abuse victims in private? Do you have any idea of how involved in this fight against ALL bullying and abuse I am?

No, of course you don't, because I don't talk about the work I do as an advocate. There's no point talking about it with you people anyway. Even when I said repeatedly, "We have a 40% suicide rate," you shrugged it off without acknowledging the number. If 40% of white men committed suicide, you'd be concerned. Less than 1% of white people have been mugged by black people in flash mobs, and that got media attention right away. But it's only 40% of trannies killing themselves in reaction to abuse and persecution, so we just don't matter. J, what number of us need to be committing suicide before you see that we desperately need a fraction of the national spotlight taken away from straight people and their financial woes? Or will you now at least admit that we will never get the spotlight off of straight white people and their first world problems? No, of course you won't. You'll tell me I abandoned the fight, and I'm pro pedophile.

Instead of acknowledging any of the numbers I presented, you told me to be grateful that straight people were being less prejudicial and oppressive than they used to be. And when I refused to show gratitude for people committing to discriminate 10% less, you cut me down to being a pedophile lover. You, who should know how my sexual history has left me scarred and feeling sub-human, reduced me to a sub-human position to make yourself feel better. But you don't care. You showed it with everything you said before ending our friendship, and that one sentence was the final nail in the coffin.

So please, go tell your privileged friends that I was being stupid and you had to put me in my place. I thought you had made an effort to see the real me, but on the last day of our friendship, you proved that you never cared enough to see me. Do you remember way back when you said that I was too wary about trusting people? Well you were wrong, and I was right to be wary of you. You were only a fair weather friend, happy to see me when I'm happy. But when I displeased you, you cut me loose with a broken heart in less than 140 characters. Good job.

And for what it's worth, I hope R and you both find treatments to help stabilize you. I don't hate you, but we are most certainly done. Sad thing is, I loved you, or I thought I did. Guess I was wrong again.

You're no fun! (With apologies to Monty Python)

Today's ramble may be angry. I'm going to try and keep it toned down and see if maybe I can reach my target and convince them to pay attention for the full read. My target today is my Facebook friends who have lately made statements that they're "only online to have fun."

On any given day, my social experience can be ruined by someone posting something. It may be a news article about a disaster, or about a victim of sexual violence or gender policing. Or it may be someone posting what they think is definitive proof that global climate change is a myth, or another round of "this food/animal/substance/concept/straw man is the Atheist nightmare." I'm not even an Atheist, and those videos can make my eye twitch because of the glaring stupidity that these people talk about, and still get global attention for it.

Meanwhile, trans folks can't even convince the media to stop using the wrong words in describing our murder scenes in the "liberal" papers, nor can we convince our allies that it's in their best interests to push a discrimination bill that doesn't push us under the gay bus. And yeah, being reminded by certain straight people that in their eyes I'm sharing social caste-space with pedophiles and NAMBLA members is also likely to wipe the smile from my face. Some days, Facebook is no fun at all for me. Some days, Facebook leaves me with a really bitter taste in my mouth.

And then, sometimes I lose my good mood because in the same stream, I've got five "friends" all chastising their friends not to talk to them about anything negative, because they just use Facebook to "get away from the world." Yes, and they say this with no sense of irony either.

The idea is, one should never talk about bad things or be a grumpy Gus because it's bringing down folks who are only online to have a good time and escape reality. I think people who are always negative probably could be avoided, but if you're skipping out on all the bad news on your social feed just so you can keep a smile on, you're ignorant, and intentionally so. There really is no justification for your behavior that doesn't boil down to entitled thinking. Which may be okay if you're a right winger who agrees with Rush or the dudes on Fox. But I see a lot of people claiming to be lefties, progressives, or moderates that are just as willfully ignorant. They can't be bothered to learn anything online, because they only want to have fun.

No one in life guaranteed you the right to have fun. You have the right to pursue happiness, but that doesn't mean you have the right to get it 24/7. And really, you shouldn't try to remain in that happy state all the time, not with the condition our world is in. We need more people plugged into the social world to do something, and not just to goof off. And don't get me wrong. I love my video games, and I'm addicted to a TV show. I LOVE to gab on Twitter about all kinds of stuff, and despite what my blog might have you think, I'm not always pissed off…just, mostly pissed off. BUT, that's why I keep myself in a room, people. Cause I know I got issues.

I talk a lot about personal responsibility, but not as a hollow libertarian message about how no one should be on welfare and we should all be self-sufficient. Because that's bullshit, and we, the human race, were meant to be co-dependent. In my version of personal accountability, I mean we all accept that yes, we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, and we commit to help each other a little at a time. Fuck waiting for the government to propose a solution against hate and poverty. Fuck the corporations and their attempts to distract and divide us. I commit to worry for you, and you do the same for me. Instead of joining the crowds saying they don't give a fuck, let's start a counter-revolution and try to give a fuck for more than just ourselves. Let's get out there and tell other people "You SHOULD give a fuck, and here's why."

This means some of you will have to cut back some of your fun time online. You want some incentive to make that a deal. I got your incentive. When you help another person and really connect with them, it doesn't just make them feel good. It makes you feel good because you accomplished something real. So sometimes, go wade in the sea of negativity, even if it isn't fun. There's all kinds of people asking for help, and many just need a sounding board or a sympathetic ear. Others might require more work on your part.

You may have noticed that in the wake of the Japan quakes, I've made two donations of my own and then turned around and promoted the charities to my folks on the social networks and here. I don't know anyone in Japan besides one ex-pat bizarro writer who was apparently safe from all the harm during the disasters. I sometimes read manga and watch anime, but that's beside the point. Watching the tsunami carry away whole city blocks, I knew that the people of Japan would be facing dire times. They would be homeless. I've been homeless. I know a little of what that feels like, but they had a HUGE shit pile dropped on them on top of being homeless. I only had to be homeless a for a few weeks, and they have to deal with a lot of long term problems. So looking at this disaster, I knew I had to do something, and not just as a one-time tithing to my conscience.

My donations take out of my entertainment budget. To help the Japanese, I needed to give up some of my fun. These people need help more than I need another good time. I have lots of good times. I also have lots of bad, but I cannot fairly say that I do not have enough good times that I can't spare a few.

And that's what I'm appealing to you folks with, the understanding that you really should sacrifice some of your fun in exchange for educating yourself on the plights of others, and then, going one step farther and stepping in to actually do something. You do lose time and money in the process, and yes, sometimes helping other people doesn't feel fun, or rewarding. But when you help, your sacrifice puts something back into your community or social site. You sacrificing your fun can help improve lives, and helping people is its own reward for how it makes you feel after the good deed is done.

It IS wrong of you to shut yourself off from the world and declare that only your fun matters. Far too many people tune out the world, and the conditions of our planet and our societies are the result of their willful inattention. We've all been told for a while now "think globally, act locally." But the vast majority of people are acting locally and thinking only of themselves. Which is what leads to the shitty state of the world we have now.

When I call you to arms to fight for other people and you shoo me off, I'm the ant warning you of the oncoming Winter, and you're the grasshopper laughing and declaring that having fun during the Summer is more important than working for anything.

And you're wrong. But in this day, you can be wrong your entire life in a crowd of lazy grasshoppers. Or you can lose the attitude that your fun is really that precious, and you can learn to put up with some bad vibes every once in a while. Stop acting so sheltered that even mild debate or negativity makes you squeamish. We weren't put on this planet to entertain you. Even if I am a writer…shut up.

So, grasshopper, are you ready to help prepare for the Winter yet? Or do you still just want to have fun?

About food courts…

A few months back I did a guest blog post about the prominence of couches in my stories, and how in any living room, the couch was one the few pieces of furniture I describe with more detail. Today, I'd like to talk about a location outside the home that has factored prominently into my stories, the mall food court.

I've spent a lot of time hanging out at the mall as a teen. This is not hard to see why, either. It's a safe place with a guard within running distance in ANY direction. Being that I was also a habitual shoplifter working over the high-end stores routinely, you would think this would be something I'd dislike. But it meant bullies who spotted me in the mall let me go. The mall guards aren't like teachers, who don't "see" queer kids get hit on the school yard, even if they're the recess monitor looking right at the fight. No, a guard sees a customer being roughed up, and that's different. They step in, they apprehend the bullies, and they write citations and take pictures and issue lifetime bans…which last 6 months, but still, it's a better effort than I ever saw out of people paid to "care" for me. And even the threat of the ban kept me safe. Which was why I became a loyal mall rat, because it was one of those places where bullies lost all their powers.

I'm drifting. The point is, I stole a lot of stuff at the mall, and I fenced out the toys among the nerdy kids for spending cash. Or I hustled drivers at the stop lights for bus fare, or I sold Blow Pops, an actual contra-ban candy dealer. Sometimes, during the summer when scamming got old and fencing wasn't possible, I went out and washed cars…not well, but then I only charged two dollars. For washing it well and adding wax, I charged five. And every day that I had money, I made my way to a mall.

And no matter which mall I went to, I ended up at some point at the food court. When you have a metabolism like a hummingbird, food becomes scarce in the tummy shortly after you've had it. Such was the case with me in my teens, and I could eat a lot at the food court, walk around to window shop, and then go home and eat a full dinner with mom (or dad when I lived with him) never being the wiser that it was actually my fourth meal of the day.

That's a tangent too, but we're circling the food court already, so my goal is in sight.

Even at a young age, I was struck by how every food court has almost the same food choices, even if the chains running the places are different franchises. So sometime you might go in and there's no Chik-Fil-A, but there is a Cluckers, or a Church's. There might not be a BK, but there will be a Burger Barn. There's a pizza place, a Chinese place, and in the more upscale malls, a sushi place that might also serve some steakhouse meals too. There's a fish place, a salad and soup place, a hot dog place, a coffee and donuts place, an ice cream place, and then usually nearby, a candy store for those folks who just want to nibble something sweet from a small bag while they wander around.

Food courts are like a study in pleasing everyone at the same time, briefly. We all come together for this one thing we love, food. And for this one span of time, we're trapped in the joy of the scents, in the flavors, in the wondrous thumping beat of some familiar and poppy 80s tune, and into the Zen communal calm of consumers consuming.

I'm not above this powerful pull either. I may be a genius, but once I'm in a food court, I'm fully under their power and in that zone with everyone else. The food, oh, lord, the torment of the choices! Because they're all good and there is no wrong choice, just today's choice. So it's a sweet torment, a good pain. It's the pain we actually like to linger in for a little while. What does the tummy want? What looks most appealing today? Fried food? Or perhaps today something from the Wok-In with broccoli and other veggies to make up for yesterday's fried food?

Then once I'm down at my table with the food choice for today, the rest of the world temporarily vanishes as the food on my plate becomes my whole world. I'm a devoted foodie, and this is a deeply romantic love that sometimes even transcends my love life with hubby…often transcends…okay that's just mean. So let's move on.

When I got done with each meal, I looked around me while I sipped the last of my extra large Dr. Pepper, my eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses to reduce my risk of getting caught staring. Back then I wasn't a writer, just someone looking out on this sea of people and noticing how this food court thingie was one of the safest places I had ever been in my entire life.

Illogically, a part of me hopes that heaven has a food court.

It's this sense of security that draws my mind back to the food courts time and again. So when I need a quiet location out of the house for my characters, I send them to the mall food court. Unlike couches, though, I never describe a food court. I don't feel I need to because I've been to a food court in Thailand, and to a food court in Sheffield, and to two dozen food courts in America. And I'm not being a food courtist. Some of my favorite locations are food courts. I'm just saying, all food courts look alike to me.

Because I don't put much detail in the food court scenes, I didn't notice the trend until I'd just finished writing a new food court scene while at the same time doing proof reading for Little Monsters. And then the light bulb went off, and I thought, Hey, that's another recurring theme in my work!

I have a number of personal stories I could tell to illustrate why I think the food court makes a great setting, but the one that comes to mind starts off on a bus, and is actually used in a story of mine in an altered way with Job Interview with a Vampire. I was riding the bus to the North Star mall in San Antonio. I sat in the front row behind the driver, and a pair of big black women in church clothes sat across from me. Pretty ladies, real easy to remember. One in lavender, one in light purple. Matching pastels. If they weren't sisters, they were lifetime friend to coordinate outfits that closely. Beside me in the first forward facing seat was a man with his leg sticking straight out. I kept glancing over at it because I wondered why it didn't hurt him. He didn't have a cast or anything, so I thought maybe he had on a brace.

He waved to get me to look up and said, "I don't have a knee." Then he patted down the wrinkled in his pants and knocked on his leg. "It's all one solid bone from my hip to my ankle."

I was searching for anything to say, so I went with, "I just thought you were happy to see me."

Church ladies go off in twin bombs of laughter. I was working an easy crowd that day.

A woman in the first row of forward facing seat on the church ladies' side looked at me and said, "You know, you bear a strange resemblance to Jim Morrison."

Before I could comment, the man with no knee said, "Really? I think they look kind of like Janis Joplin."

Which prompted the church lady wearing lavender to comment, "I think they look like River Phoenix."

And I became highly irritated and said, "Can someone please pick someone who isn't dead, please?" This made everyone burst into laughter, except me. But after that I calmed down and started cracking jokes. It really was an easy crowd. And yes, I really did "act out" in public. It's one of the great things about my flavor of crazy: I can often convince others to join me momentarily in my warped little world.

So anywho, we got to the mall and I got off, and I went to the food court. No, first I went to the shirt stall where my friend Ken worked. Ken was a big guy, formerly trained in Muy Thai. The kind of guy I would have normally avoided in school, but who didn't act like a jerk to me. In fact, he even invited me over to have sex with a friend of his. Good memory…

I digress, I was complaining to Ken over my resemblance to dead people when a girl approached Ken because she recognized him. She seemed not to notice me at first, but as she's talking to Ken, she turns halfway and looks at me, and then she went pale. Then she calmed down and said, "I'm sorry, I thought you were a friend of mine. They died in a car crash six months ago."

She was understandably confused when I started glowering and Ken started laughing.

This is not the punch line. It is a punch line, and yes, it really happened. But this is not the punch line.

I got on the bus exhausted from walking around all night, and I noted only that I had the same driver. I sat down in the same seat I'd left four hours before, and I closed my eyes and set my head on the window.

And then I heard a familiar laugh. I looked across the aisle, and the church ladies were right there. The chick who said I looked like Jim Morrison was right where she'd been before too, and she was grinning at me. I snapped my head to the side to look for the man with no knee, popping my neck in the process. The man with no knee was not there, and as I melted into my seat, the church ladies went into an epic harpy laugh.

I grinned back at them and went, "Well for a second there, I thought I'd stepped into a paradox."

The driver said, "No, it's just a bus."

I don't think he understood why the church ladies almost died from laughter.