All good things

I had thought of how I might end this blog, five relationships after Emma.

It has worn me down. The TBI took a lot out of me, and the last few years with Janice have stripped every shred of dignity from me. Right now she expects me to thank her for thinking of me by having cybersex behind my back. Or maybe not, she was telling one guy how she was getting out of a bad relationship while she was sitting next to me, allegedly spending time with me. So maybe she did it by my side.

I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Every word out of my mouth is met with a challenge, if I manage to get more than one out she completes the sentence the way she wants and argues with it. I just watch and she has an argument with “me.”

I had to tell my therapist that I don’t know what she thinks, I don’t trust her. I can’t. I want to, I would love to, I give her every opportunity, practically writing a script for her, and she finds a way to argue with me. I have no idea when she was telling the truth, and when she was lying. Some analyst, everything is F6.

I would love the opportunity to be decent with her and her family. I want to help them. But I am afraid that they will choose to stay with Janice. I can’t imagine why, Gloria pays zero rent and Dustin, although a large portion of his income, pays very little.

Even if they stay I’ll lose the place without more income. We all know this. Janice has told me that if she goes they’re going with her, so she can’t leave because no one will take all of them and their cats. But she can crank up the furnaces and keep hell miserable for everyone. She has told me that I am threatening all of them. Oddly they say different, but it’s fair to expect them to lie if they really are scared. None of it matters because Janice decided to take a flamethrower to our relationship. There is no coming back. Well, I probably would try if she came back to the bedroom, but she’s more stubborn than any living thing I have known. She has to come out “on top,” but denies everything is a competition to her.

She’s very upset about what I have written about her. I have two responses.

1) If she wanted me to write nice things she should have been nicer to me.

2) I can’t write about things she hasn’t done.

Well, I could but that would be stupid. Why make stuff up? Why, may I ask, is a problem required?

I don’t need to ask. It is what she wants. I can’t know which of any number of reasons she created helped her decide to destroy the relationship. I know (now) how deep the communication problem is, how there was never any chance.

I can say something that I think is important. I hold her hands and look in her eyes. She tenses and starts arguing. I finish what I wanted to say and then return to the statements she was arguing about which I had not said. She argues that she was listening to the full statement but can’t repeat it. What it was, doesn’t matter. An intimacy that I had wanted to share, that I thought might be meaningful, doesn’t matter. But since it reminded her of her first girlfriend, I needed to hear every detail of their sex life. When I try to herd the conversation back to Janice and Blake, she is offended that I didn’t want to hear about her sexploits right now.

What I had wanted to say is lost in the adrenaline of arguing. Maybe that’s what she’s chasing.

I don’t know what is wrong with her. She has lived her life in fear. She cannot relate to reality. Oh she can tell a carton of milk from a lamp, but other little triggers ravage her consciousness. I explain that I want her to look me in the eyes and she breaks down because her mother made her look her in the eyes. Ten minutes go by while we bring her into the present, and go forward no longer expecting symbols of trust.

She is fearful that I might reveal something which she holds secret, yet continues antagonizing me when I say I would tell if she didn’t stop antagonizing me. Rabid dogs have more sense.

That could be a part of why I feel insulted. She believes I am so stupid I will believe her excuses

Nothing changes. She watches, step by step, as her arguing wears me down. She gets sick and the world comes to a stop, I get sick and it’s time to turn up the arguments. I tell her she has hit the limit, and she keeps pushing.

I tell her I hate her. She has pushed even neutral feelings away. She isn’t finished yet. Hating her isn’t enough she has to keep pushing. What good could possibly come from that?

Do I throw her on the street? Do I slap her in the face? Because it appears she believes she can keep on stabbing me long after I’m dead. Nothing will stop her. She doesn’t care if the world falls down around her, she is going to argue.

It doesn’t matter to anyone. It’s just her narcississistic ego screaming for attention. She’s in pain so everyone close to her must experience pain. I can’t share that with her anymore. I wanted to share my love, but all she knows is levels of hate.

Emma died twelve years ago this weekend, I last saw Helena before she died five years ago, so many reminders of how precious life is, while Janice does her best to convince me that life sucks. It sucks with her in it. This is a good place to stop.

The Decision

Sadly, it was inevitable. Roe v Wade was a poorly constructed decision, and today the Supreme Court overturned it.

Fortunately, several states have either amended their constitutions or passed legislation protecting the “right” to abortion. Abortion will not disappear, but it will return to back alleys in some states. I include quotation marks around the word because it is an inferred right rather than an explicit right. There never was a constitutional right to abortion, Roe was based on the 14th amendment, creating a “right to privacy” derived from the equal protection clause. As such it was flimsy and forward looking states arranged for a post Roe environment. States where abortion is vilified also prepared with “trigger legislation” to take effect in the event of Roe being overturned. Some states passed no legislation and they are the battlegrounds where the issue will be fought. Pennsylvania, my state, is one of those. The gubernatorial race just became more important.

Let’s take a moment to remember that women are not referred to anywhere in the constitution until the 19th amendment which was ratified in 1920. When considering what the framers might have been thinking, look at their personal lives. Human rights were not an issue of the constitution as much as Businessmen’s rights. Businessmen were the White wealthy landowners and their pursuits. Women had just a few more rights than slaves. Then sometime in that last century our lives became so comfortable that women had the opportunity to speak up for themselves and men slowly became aware of the differences between the sexes. I bet those guys who invented the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner never realized the affect they had on society.

Don’t conflate the previous day’s decision on the Second Amendment with this ruling. The Second Amendment can be argued endlessly, because having firearms was important to the framers and they wrote an amendment about them. Abortions never crossed their minds, so there is no constitutional issue with them. The Supreme Court created the right to abortion, and we had fifty years to pass legislation backing it up. Twenty states met that challenge. Twenty six states prepared for it to be overturned.

The patchwork of pro and anti states will allow for a modern underground railroad. While some states criminalize the act of aiding and abetting abortions, no one has been prosecuted so far. Those cases, as they rise through the courts, will be based in other unenumerated rights such as the right to privacy and the right to travel. This could be an extremely dark moment if this decision is carried to the other unenumerated rights, revoking the right to privacy or right to travel. Marriage equality will be in question.

It is important to remember, wherever you are, what the laws in your state are. Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania, but not protected by the state constitution. Today, you can still get an abortion in Pennsylvania for the foreseeable future. If the Republican wins the gubernatorial election that will certainly change, so I’ll be campaigning for the Democrat. It is legal in the majority of local states, so my opportunities to drive an underground locomotive may be limited unless the Trumpian candidate wins.

There are several states where abortion is illegal as of today. Hope it’s not yours but if it is, don’t despair. Help exists. Social media has always been a place to contact people in different situations. Specifically, ask an Auntie. On Reddit, r/auntienetwork, or on the hashtag platform #aunties, or just google the words. They will give you more information on how to stay safe, and possibly invite you for a camping trip.

For the rest of us, not having a uterus does not remove us from the conversation. If you are not in a situation where transportation is needed, help pay for that transportation. Contact the network and help however you can.

Recent polls have measured acceptance of legal abortion. The numbers for are in the low sixties. We may be “gerrymandered” and isolated but there are more of us than them. Have faith.

The Gay Agenda

I keep hearing about this agenda, but I only hear about it from straight people. The actual agenda is to be treated no differently than straight people. That’s it, the whole diabolical conspiracy to change the way straight people think.

Our insidious campaign of existing in the face of those who want us to die, horribly, is being fought against bravely by bigoted little people who spend every Sunday talking about how God wants them to love everyone. The cognitive dissonance should break glass, maybe that explains the windows.

As a “Member of the LGBTQ community,” as I was described by the press, a Bisexual man, as I describe myself to members of the community, and a Queer as I call myself in public, I am disgusted by the sexualization of children’s cartoons. I don’t care who you love, but I draw the line at the paraphilia of Cartooninality, sexual relationships with Cartoons.

It’s not that I have anything against Cartoons. Some of my best friends have been Cartoons. My first step father is a cartoon. “Mouse Wreckers“ is possibly the greatest cartoon of all time. Carl Stalling has educated more young people about classical music than any other human being. But I have to draw a line.

The latest animated feature from the house the mouse built is called “To Infinity and Beyond.” It sounds safe, but hiding inside is illicit behavior that should never be seen at all, much less the children at which it is aimed.

Two of the characters have a relationship.

I know that human relationships have been normalized for the audience, children. But these are two cartoon characters. Incredibly feeble minded children might try to emulate this behavior at home with other cartoon characters.

Fortunately, the counter programming has been effective with most children. The constant barrage of heterosexual human relationships, from puppy love to hard core graphic sex scenes, inundates most media. They can’t escape it, and good parents start asking their children about their sexual quests early. “Does Bobby have a Girlfriend?” is a perfectly acceptable question for a two year old. But Dick and Jane are just pals, there’s nothing going on.

As soon as I realized that young women were women, with all the body parts I had been trained to objectify, I lost all interest in my childhood diversions. Sex has been the center of advertising, more so when sex with unwilling participants was popular in the previous century. But my desires have remained confined to humans, despite Jessica Rabbit’s attempts to seduce me. Not to mention that slutty green M&M.

Fearing that her son might emulate the behavior of cartoon characters, my cousin decided to use this as a teaching moment. A deep discussion with the eight year old about standing up for their beliefs convinced the child to avoid the film. How those beliefs related to cartoon characters wasn’t mentioned. I don’t know. What I see is a child being taught self censorship. A child believing that some ideas are so dangerous they should not be allowed to exist. This is the seed of “Cancel Culture.”

Two cartoon characters, who in their universe are considered female but not human, care about each other. What a horrible idea to force children to endure. Poor kids might grow up thinking people are supposed to love one another.

There are precedents. Two thousand years ago a man tried to tell people to love one another. He was nailed to a cross. This is the part that can only be described as schizophrenic. His words are considered gospel, yet the fact that over two dozen times he was quoted as saying “love one another” and never said to hate anyone goes completely over the heads of some of his followers. That message of love has been twisted and perverted over the years into a perverse opposite of his teachings, otherwise known as The Catholic Church.

Martin Luther made a big deal about the inconsistencies of the Catholic gang and started churches based on the actual words within the Bible, but what worked for fifteen hundred years is hard to ignore. Everyone had a Bible at home, under glass, as a tribute, but few read it. Oh I know, every Christian claims to have read the bible, but until it is read in its entirety there is little context. When you read the book like a novel the characters come alive. When you read unconnected passages all your life you believe what you’re told to believe.

So modern “Christians,” while making up a third of the Earth’s population, have little in common with each other in some denominations. A snake handler from West Virginia and an old woman who goes to confession every day do not follow the same teachings. Some people called themselves “The Westboro Baptist Chruch” and had no clue what the book was about. I have no respect for the title “Christian” because it means so many different things, some diametrically opposed to others.

So today, in 2022, when I am attacked for being a Christian I don’t mind because I’m not like the folks they’re pissed off at. When I am questioned “What kind of Christian are you?” I confidently say “Zen Baptist.” The point of Christianity is to be “Christlike” The Zen is in knowing the message and living it, being baptized in the ways of Christ. Not the message of Churches interpreting Christ’s actions, not a message of fear and threats, a message of peace.

So anyway, back to the messages being forced on children at movie theatres. My language has taken a beating. Standing in line and paying fifteen dollars to sit in a theatre is not “forced.” Being told you cannot pay fifteen dollars to sit in a theatre sounds more like force to me. Two cartoon characters that have a relationship is not some secret message to become gay, it is a message to appreciate the people around you, love one another. Twisting the message says a great deal about those doing so.

In a children’s cartoon, to analyze the characters and assign motives beyond those presented is indicative of an obsession. In this case an obsession with homosexuality, even though the characters weren’t human, they were of the same sex (although there was no nude scene to confirm this). Because two women in a relationship screams lesbian to people who have never had close friends, the extension of the relationship of two cartoon characters to what happens off camera (when in reality they are ink in a bottle) means those drawings are having sex. I don’t usually find people’s sexual preferences “sick.” Bestiality and Child Porn are about the only things I find disgusting. And this. Because this is child pornography.

There is a world of straight people out there overly concerned about the sex lives of children. When a child questions their gender, adults think about the sexual implications. Suzy isn’t contemplating having sex, she just knows that she feels like a boy instead of a girl. Maybe when she gets older she’ll find out that sometimes girls feel like boys, or maybe she’ll become a boy. Those six hundred to one odds are not influenced by the cartoons she watched. Coming down hard about the importance of fulfilling your body’s purpose is a good way to create any number of dysmorphias and prejudices.

When a child observes a gay couple, they don’t decide to ditch their companions for members of the same sex. They may see it as bad, they may see it as good, but they shouldn’t be prevented from seeing it because it does exist. People who love each other should not be off limits to children. Talking with a child about their beliefs should not end in censorship, it should end with a discussion of whether the issue in question should have been censored after they see the film. “Did you pick up on the relationship between those characters?” is a great way to open the subject. That conversation could go anywhere.

That time of year

Amelia Mary “Emma” Aquilino-May-Armstrong-Cash 1960

This is a weird “inner calendar” thing. Each year in June I start to think of Emma, her diagnosis of Pancreatic cancer was on 4 June, her eventual passing 5 July the next year. June is both the first and last months of her cancer, 2009 to 2010.

She’s always here, elements of her scattered throughout my life.

When I look back at our lives together, it is like a carnival of moments. We had things we did every day, but there were so many unique bits, little flashes that when observed tell an entire story. A flash of her at the Race Street Cafe, and the story of the meal, the day, her annoyance with my father, his with her, capers. There were capers in one of the menu items, Emma felt the need to explain them to my father, he already knew and had no grace.

Then that story leads into his visit after she died. He had hoped to visit before she died, but it is probably better that he was a few weeks late. Walking from his hotel to the restaurant, ordering Chateau Margaux and an extra glass for Emma. From there to the night after her father had died and we dined at Deux Cheminees, drinking four hundred dollars a bottle wine, flash and we’re a few blocks over at Fogo de Chão where she didn’t make reservations, she just commandeered a table when we arrived at the height of dinner service, flash flash flash. I can read the title of each or submerge myself in the memory.

Emma’s book

I don’t cry as often. I remember crying for just about a month straight, and then Lieve choosing films in which the wife died for another six months or so. I met Lieve six weeks after Emma died and tumbled into a relationship. There was a rumor, spread by my brother, that I had met Lieve while Emma was alive. I hadn’t spoken to him for about a year before she died, he had insulted her while we were in the early stages of diagnosis. After I published her book he started up again as if it were for some reason important for him to hurt her memory, it took about five years before I tried to talk to him again. He freaked out and I haven’t inquired as to his health since.

I don’t know what Autumn thought, or if cats have thoughts. She had never left the bedroom when we had company, but a few days after Emma died the downstairs neighbor stopped by for a glass of wine and Autumn walked right up to her. Autumn had spent her entire life in that apartment with it’s window overlooking the corner, then moved to Princeton, where she got to meet two other cats. Then we moved next to the governor and she met other women after Lieve left. Autumn has been lovey with every one, now she climbs on top of Janice to relax. Autumn had her own fight with cancer in 2019, and is now the queen of the cats, Janice’s and Gloria’s cats give her space. In some ways she’s like Emma, confident of her authority in any situation.

Autumn in her window with her favorite toy

I don’t know what I expected. Initially, I had planned to stay in that apartment and write, then I met Lieve and spent most of my time in Princeton. I did not expect to fall in love ever, much less in six weeks. My grief counselor was telling me I had grieved Emma during her hospitalization, moving on at that time wasn’t really suddenly. Yes it was. My life would be radically different if I had stayed in South Philly. We married six months after Emma died. Within a year I was learning a new language and preparing to emigrate to Belgium. Another two years and I’m staying in Princeton while Lieve moves to Belgium. I met Nancy, saw Buddy at least once a week, Nancy left and Eileen was doing her “will I show up or stand you up?” bit. Samantha showed up in time for me to shatter my brain, taught me polyamory then left when I was healthy enough to be polyamorous. Janice and I started seeing each other, I had a psychotic break, and then the world went on quarantine.

I really never expected so much stuff would happen. And according to family history, I could live another forty years, although I’m sure Multiple sclerosis, Traumatic Brain Injury, and a history of risk taking probably lowers that number, and I have no intention of becoming “feeble.”

In the afterlife that I can consider, our ego ceases to exist. Our “energy,” or “life force,” or “soul,” then either harmonizes with the universe (Heaven) or doesn’t (Hell). I know it is hard to believe that Emma’s ego no longer exists, and that is part of what I am getting at. She is gone, but the ripples from her life continue. She is alive in our memories, and mine is fairly accurate. She had a stern smile that I still see when I’m uncertain, her mouth the most expressive part of her body, twisting lips and “oooohs” and expressions that can’t really be called “human.”

I will never have a relationship like that again. That’s okay, once is adequate. No human should have the responsibility of being Emma Cash, she carried with grace what others can only hope to understand. I know I’m not easy to love, I have actually heard the words “You’re hard to love” from at least three people. Emma never stopped.

Things happen

I have an optimistic streak. I keep thinking that the world is far more interesting than my life, then something in my life causes me to lose all focus. I can only write about the pain. If this triggers you bow out now. I’ve already had one friend tell me that this drama is too toxic to be exposed to.

I thought things were getting better, but it turns out she was just toying with me. She talked to a (male) mutual friend, and had him come on to me. Then they talked about playing with each other and how much he turned her on. I was their toy. She sent him nude pictures of me.

Yep, that was a surprise. On a couple of levels. One, it had felt good to have someone come on to me like that, but I had gotten enough attention at Pride to feel good about myself. Two, that she would treat me like an object to be played with, a way to bring guys into our relationship, something she condemns in other people. Three that all the time she’s been telling me she had no libido she’s sexting with other guys. Yes that’s plural, I don’t know how many but I know it’s more than one. Four, I’m pretty sure theres some law being broken when you distribute nude photographs without the models knowledge. She was sitting right beside me when she told one guy she was getting out of a bad relationship. She was probably sitting next to me when she was telling this guy about how she wanted to suck his cock.

When we went to Cannafest she got a couple of packages of CBD gummies. Two were in the shape of penises. She kept one package aside, tried to hide it. I just asked if we could eat them. Oh no, she wants to make a video of herself molesting them. I suggested that I be in it also, saying “made for a woman, but I like it too” she laughed and said it was a cute idea. The next day we ate the gummies, she had changed her mind about the video. Any questions in that area were met with antagonized mumbling. I had suspected at that point, she had been fawning over this guy for months. Oh, he’s having marital problems? WTF.

She had done something similar before, she had guys she would perform for online and wanted me to do a show for some guy. She got so involved in putting on the show that she treated me like a prop. It takes a bit for viagra to take effect but she just yanked me into the bedroom where she had set her camera to film us. Nothing in the universe of foreplay, I was supposed to perform, there and then.

So much for informed consent. I told her how cold that was, treating me as a sex toy instead of a human. She kept coming up with tangental excuses, anything to avoid being responsible.

Gee this sounds familiar. Another performance, not for me, not for him but for Janice. The Stunning Janice, Rock Star. Available on every platform she can get onto in living color.

Her mental impairments are fortunate happenstance, she can remember every detail of third grade or the story of how she knows one of her friends, but not that you are monogamous. She can cruise the internet with tabs open to every platform, and still play that she doesn’t know what’s going on.

I mentioned that she is a narcissist, in particular a Covert Narcississist, and that really seemed to touch her somewhere. She went on for days about how she wasn’t a narcissist, even asking all her friends what they thought.

Her older friends know better than to get involved, apparently this is a routine. One said “I have never been the focus of her wrath.” Any criticism would trigger that wrath, the wrath of a child denied a toy. How fucking perfect. A sex toy.

So now, she sleeps. Yesterday we took extra caffeine because we were going to be up all night, but she went to sleep immediately upon finding out I knew about this one. Not a trouble in the world, like a snoring baby. She gets up around 5, wants coffee. Says she was up at 3 and took her night meds then, has coffee and goes back to sleep. I, on the other had slept maybe two hours last night. I am trembling.

There is no nice way out of this. It has to be ugly and loud and dramatic. She wants everyone to know how she is the victim, guys come on to her all the time, this one said he was interested in me so that’s supposed to make it OK?

So what? It’s still a guy coming on to her, and her maintainings an on going relationship with him instead of off to the junk bin. It’s still an intimate encounter that she didn’t share with me, or at least tell me about. It’s no longer a secret, but she had no intention of sharing this information with me, or she would have.

She actually started using the “I was just trying to arrange something you would like” and variations on that theme. She didn’t do anything wrong, she was just trying to set up a play date for me. She was just trying to do something nice for me. More of the “you’re going to have fun doing what I want you to do” stuff. When I have suggested that we be intimate she has no interest. Maybe that would have been something nice to do for me.

When we met we were both polyamorists. I fell in love with Janice in every way, and wanted monogamy. She agreed that while we might go to parties, neither of us did anything alone. A few months ago, when arguing about her loyalty, she had slammed her fist down saying “I am poly!”

Polyamory is also called ethical non monogamy. She wasn’t being ethical.

To a polyamorist, the most important thing is the relationship, the dynamic of the interrelations. Everything is talked about. Usually too much, the stereotype talks all night and never gets intimate. Because it’s not about the sex.

Janis refuses to communicate, yet calls herself a polyamorist. I’ve listened to her justify cheating on Monte, saying that he knew about it, but I don’t know what Monte knew about as he stayed home alone with his brain injury. I do know people who knew him and Janice, and although he was a recluse the last few years they talk as if they had spoken at that time. He knew he lived alone. Faced with the same future I consider the same solution.

This last week has been informative. I was led to believe things were looking up, that Janice could look at all the effects and causes and rationalizations and see us as we are. I was hooked deep, she refriended me a few days ago and made me her partner on Facebook. Some friend of hers had torn into me because I was talking about something Janice had said. Good, Dear, Friend, who had no idea Janice was not single.

After throwing me under the bus on the 2021 center city lifestyle party, and telling me after I was introduced to the Upper Daby Pride people she never wants me to be on the same project as her, she appears to have interfered in a speaking engagement I had been invited to. She complains that I don’t like her friends, and when I do she sabotaged the friendship. But she couldn’t possibly be a narcissist.

Okay, there’s one more article. She won’t stop fighting, even when I beg.

She has destroyed this relationship and burned the remains to ashes. She knows how much damage this is going to do to each of us, all four of us, and she keeps fighting. All she needed to do was calm down, but she had to push and push and sleep in the living room.

I don’t think it’s possible for me not to throw her out. I tried so fucking hard to help

Slings and Arrows

I’m not sure how to describe how it feels when friends tell you to leave your partner. I don’t know how to describe how it feels when your partner’s friends approach you with sympathy and suggest it would be Ibetter to leave. I don’t know how to describe any of this. It’s happening and I don’t know how to process it.

I don’t know what to say when my partner spends the morning telling her friends how awful it is to live with me while sipping the cup of coffee I made for her. I don’t know what to say when she accuses me of abuse while she is abusing me. I don’t know what to say when she says I’m gaslighting her. Especially when it comes with the story of how I am an abuser. She routinely attacks me, saying I’m off my meds (mild anti-depressants) while she has not taken the prescribed dosage of any of her box full of controlled substances in all the time I have known her.

It comes with the territory. Having spoken with members of her family and people she has known a long time, this is how she is, the model Borderline Personality. She is difficult to love. Seems I’ve heard that about me, maybe that’s why I can’t give up.

I have known Covert Narcissists before, so it wasn’t difficult to diagnose this time.

There is not more I can do but fasten my safety belt. She is mentally ill, passing through various states of mind. I trust that the state in which she appreciates me will come back up eventually. In the meantime I cant blame her for being mentally ill anymore than I could blame Emma for having pancreatic cancer.

The accusations roll off a little easier these days, I hope that does not indicate that I care less. It’s just that some of them are laughable, but I don’t dare laugh. I am required to take a zombie stance whenever she flips, any expression can exacerbate her mood. I found out a few weeks ago that even agreeing with her is no shield. She doesn’t pay enough attention to know that I am agreeing with her, so she continues the attack.

She’s not even a fascinating case history. There are hundreds of thousands like her.

Why don’t I leave her?

It would certainly be uncomfortable. I own this condo and my car, if I leave I have nowhere to make coffee, she would take the condo by default. Of course she could run up the Home owners Association (HOA) bill until they kicked her out, then I might get it back if I paid all the bills. None of us has the strength for more prolonged hardship.

I can’t imagine tension being higher than it is now. If she decides to sleep on the floor it might even be better, folks would see the foolishness, I wouldn’t think I was sleeping with someone who hates me. Maybe I would sleep through the night.

Her belief is that if she says she’ll stay, she will have to stay; if she says she’ll leave it will be uncomfortable until she leaves.

But that’s not the weird part. What is weird is that she believes if she says she hasn’t made up her mind, everything will be normal. Let me explain why it is quite the opposite.

Our relationship began because of our intimacy, now she’s playing the “not tonight” card every night. She doesn’t realize that her lack of trust in me is reflected, I can’t trust her. My therapist asked me what Janice thinks about something and I don’t know. All I know for sure is that she doesn’t want me to know. I used to be able to read her Facebook page when she wasn’t talking, but she unfriended me so I don’t see what she’s saying. Is there any way to interpret that as trusting me?

I’m not sure how comfortable you are with an ax over my head, I know I’m not. That she may at any moment decide to leave does not bring me comfort. That it does to her should be one of those giant red flags wrapped around my head. Since she hasn’t decided, shes free to act like I don’t live here, and be offended when I want a say about my own home. She thinks I want to hear about her new friends so she tells me all the reasons I would not like them. It really feels like she is choosing her friends from people she is sure I wont like. This is not the environment in which relationships grow. This is what you do when you want to kill a relationship. If I’m angry she will be happier when she leaves, so she imagines I’m angry all the time. Reality doesn’t matter.

We need to talk, but that is not going to happen. Every time I try to talk with her, her voice goes up an octave and she mumbles quickly. She is in such a state of unwarranted panic that other people are noticing. They’ve seen it before.

It’s at the point I need to tell her to leave ASAP. We don’t need to live like this, keeping secrets poisons everything.

I know what I should do but it’s not what I want to do.

The Lunatic Fringe

Although there are many factors in why the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States needs to be reconsidered, the core of the problem is ignored. The one of which we have the least control.

There are a number of things the constitution did not foresee, weapons of war was not one of them. The founding fathers expected every citizen to stand up for his country and take arms. If you think it is foolish for citizens to take on an army, talk to Ukraine. With a population of around four million, the lunatic fringe of 2% were eighty thousand people in 1790. Spread as thin as the early settlers could spread themselves. Without the aid of modern technology lunatics were less likely to draw attention to themselves, word of mouth did not carry the shame of the crazy uncle very far. Lizzy Borden, a clear sociopath, is considered by many to be an urban myth.

Today, with a population of 329 million, our present 2% lunatic fringe amounts to over six and a half million individuals. It gets worse. Estimates today are that twenty six percent of young adults have an identifiable mental illness, and eight percent are severely mentally ill. The lunatic fringe is growing, you may have noticed. The growth isn’t linear but geometric, more crazy people creates more crazy people,

The larger the fringe, the more possibilities for expression of lunacy. The fringe of our forefathers may have included a mass murderer or two. We should have about eighty two times as many.

This is where we have to acknowledge the size of the problem. I no longer own firearms, but if I did I would not resist a gun ban. Not an assault weapon ban but an every weapon ban. We have been fortunate so far but our luck is running out. If it makes it harder for some kid to get a weapon, it is worth it.

As a peaceful citizen, I owned several “assault rifles.” One day I had a psychotic break, and cannot account for about twenty four hours. Testimony states I was violent. Thank god I didn’t drag out the arsenal. I can’t take the chance that I wouldn’t experience another psychotic break, I don’t want them around. What troubles me is that anyone can have a psychotic break.

Waiting periods don’t work when you already own the firearm. Nothing works when you already own the firearm. But consider waiting periods, which could only stop passionate rage. In our latest (I haven’t checked the news today) mass shooting the murderer waited until his eighteenth birthday so he could buy a rifle. Another month or even year of a waiting period would not make a difference, if the minimum age was increased to twenty one years he would have waited until then.

The American people want a remedy that will prevent all shootings. That remedy is to remove firearms entirely. Partial measures leave guns in public hands, which no matter how well they’ve been vetted and trained can be robbed. In order to reduce firearm deaths to zero we have to reduce firearms to zero.

If guns were banned entirely, the illegal gun will stand out much more. No “well, he could have a permit” hesitation, any gun is a capital crime allowing for summary execution.

Of course it won’t bring an end to violence. Americans are some bloodthirsty motherfuckers. If we removed “Firearm related deaths” from the statistics our murder rate would still be higher than our contemporaries. Half of all firearm deaths are suicides, I don’t think suicidal people will be stopped, they will find another way. Probably the same with murders. But at least it won’t be by firearm.

As a nation, we are frustrated at the lack of response. A response that violates the constitution isn’t going to happen over night, but it’s been twenty three years since Columbine, the shooters of the last two mass shootings have been born since then. The debate has been going on longer, with many red herrings.

No single solution will end shootings, all of them might. Just like with Covid, multiple protections work together. Changing the Constitution will take a few years at best. But if the goal is zero firearm deaths the path is zero firearms.

How do you overcome the NRA? Speaking as an NRA life member, I can tell you they are a ghost. The real evil is in the congresspeople that place their votes up for sale, but you don’t know who they are because you’ve been chasing a ghost, just like they want you to do. No amount of money can buy a vote that is not for sale. Start at the grass roots and elect honorable candidates. Do not support candidates who sell their vote, it doesn’t matter what they say in campaign ads, they’ll perform for the highest bidder.

The NRA doesn’t even know who their members are. I get renewal notices routinely, and I’m a life member. I’m not sure how long it has been since the NRA represented thoughtful gun owners, I cant recall any examples in this century.

The time for sacrifice is well past. It is worth the lives saved to remove all firearms. One week after the shooting in Uvalde, and there have been twenty mass shootings. So we have a simple decision, Which do we want, the constitution or our children?