Ohio

Lord almighty, this song will rip your heart out.

Fat and Ugly

The most disturbing thing, to me, about the worst of the Pith commenters is not what they say, which I am pretty much weened off of reading. It’s when people who like me read something and contact me, alarmed by what they’re reading. I’m never quite sure what to say to them. I really, genuinely appreciate their concern. I also genuinely feel sure that anything they do is as effective as spitting into the wind and could lead to needless trouble for them.

But I did laugh at this idea that I’m supposed to be insulted or hurt at being called fat and ugly. Yes, folks, I am. Been fat and ugly my whole life. Even when I wasn’t objectively fat or objectively ugly, there was always some asshole who was happy to tell me that I was fat and ugly. If fat and ugly is supposed to keep you out of the public square, I would have had to stay in my house and never leave starting about five.

I guess it’s supposed to be different, now that I’m grown, and I am actually fat and ugly. Except that now I’m fat and ugly and old, which means that I’ve been around long enough that I know fat and ugly is bullshit, a standard that has no meaning, except that the person trying to hold me to it hates me.

And I’m not sure at all why I’m supposed to care that someone I don’t know hates me.

The Question this Raises

When we look at an orangutan and imagine that it’s having human-like motivations and feelings, it’s called anthropomorphizing.

When an orangutan looks at a person and decides he has orangutan-like motivation and feelings, what’s that called?

What do we call it when an orangutan does this?

Brothers

Life is weird sometimes. Having brothers is strange. Who are these men and what do they want from me?

I feel at my most uptight and least-pleasant when dealing with them, sometimes. People think I’m a good person. They have not seen me interacting with my brothers.

But I do aspire to figure out how to work it with them. How to always be someone who is open and, if not unafraid, afraid but doing it anyway.

I don’t know. It’s hard. Most love is a choice. But the love you have the longest is for people who are just thrown in with you, an accident of fate.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to say. Just that I talk to my brother all the time and I have no fucking idea what he wants.

And part of that is because I unfairly think that he only calls when he wants something.

I think he calls, most of the time, because he likes me.

I need to go ahead and trust that, without weighing it down.

Confessions of the Squiggle

I sewed the first two rows of the squiggle together. I kind of love brown yarn. So, getting to play with it a lot is lovely. I’m really excited to see how this turns out.