35 Minutes and a Car Ride.

My oldest daughter is a good kid. She has not given us very much of the teenage angst we were expecting to get from our teenage kids, but I guess there's still time, she's only on her way to 15. 

She get's A's and B's although last marking period she did get a C. We actually really came down hard on her because of it, and not because she got a C really, but because it coincided with a trend of  general "I don't really give a fuck" we had noticed. Honestly though, she's a wonderful daughter, sister and person.

This weekend she had one of her life long friends stay the night, another girl who my daughter has known since they were both in preschool. Where my daughter doesn't wear make up regularly, has never dyed her hair and prefers jeans and t-shirts this girl's face is thick with make up, she wears flowing dresses, often with skulls on them and currently her hair color of choice is lime green. All of which is fine. I dyed my hair when I was a teen and wore skulls and all of that, we're ok with artistic punk rock kids, we can relate. Her friend also doesn't have a lot of parental supervision. Her dad always seems to be away on business and from what I can tell her mom works a day job AND is in a wedding band on weekends. The girl has a 3 brothers, 2 younger one older, but she often seems to be "on her own", which again, both my wife and I can relate to.

So I was in the breakfast nook area and my daughter and her friend were in the kitchen, I won't get into all the details, but at one point I heard my daughter's friend say, "that would make an AWESOME drinking game, could you imagine?". The good news is my daughter's only response was to laugh nervously, and NOT to respond with a wholehearted, "HOLY SHIT LET'S GO INTO THE BASEMENT AND PLAY RIGHT NOW!". Either she knew I was right around the corner and realized her friend's slip up, or she was genuinely uncomfortable with the comment but didn't know what to say.

I didn't say anything. I didn't burst into the room and scream, "AH HA!", I just filed it away and went about my day with the intent of bringing it up when my daughter and I were alone.

So last night my daughter needed to return some stuff her friend had left over our house. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to have some alone time with her and bring up the topic. It went great. I had her crying, or more accurately sobbing, within minutes of broaching the topic.

She didn't drink. She didn't know if her friend drank. She wouldn't drink. She doesn't want to drink. No drinking whatsoever is going on. So I pressed further. Pot? Cocaine? Prescription meds? No. No and no. But she kept on falling onto the fact that she didn't know if her friends were doing these things. She didn't BELIEVE they were, but if they were, they weren't telling her they were or doing it in front of her.

Now, I didn't attack her, I talked. I tried the "I know what it's like" angle, but she instantly burst into waterworks. So then I took her own words and used them as the basis for my next approach. She's too nice for her own good. If her friends aren't telling her they're smoking pot or drinking beer, or popping pills, THAT in itself was bad enough to get her into trouble. If she's in the car with someone who has a dime bag on them and they get pulled over, guess which one is going to the police station in hand cuffs? ALL OF THEM. It didn't even need to be her, it just needed to be in the same car and if she didn't know if her friends were holding, she better damned find out.

I let her know that if she tells us she's staying the night at her friend's house, but they secretly sneak out, get in a car and drive 20 miles away to Westland to see a boy and then it turns out the rest of the kids are also going to get high while they're their...she needs to feel comfortable calling me. Waking me up at 2:30 AM to have me come pick her up from god knows where even though she knows I think she's at her girlfriend's house 2 blocks over. 

I told her tales of me getting arrested for trying to be the sensible kid who would go with my friends on their errand just to make sure they don't get themselves into trouble, but then ended up ALSO getting into trouble just being there. Being the nice friend doesn't always work out. She cried a lot on this car ride. I must have said, "pot, beer, blow job, cocaine, prescription meds, sex and fuck, fucking and fucker" about 3-dozen times each. I most definitely raised my voice. I told her I KNOW all of those things are going on all around her, I'm just hoping my daughter is smart enough and self confidant enough to not make bad decisions. 

I didn't outwardly accuse her of anything aside from being too nice and being afraid to stand up to her friends. I let her know that unfortunately tears no longer convince me she's being honest. This was a big event to me as a parent. I hope it was for her too. I hope she was scared shitless a little bit, her hyperventilating / sobbing / crying would suggest she was. 

About 35 minutes. That's how long this lasted. I love my kids more than life, but at the end of the day, this is really all I have, 35 minutes and a car ride to protect them from the outside world.

random.

This is going to be a very disparate entry.

I am always unsettled. Always. I have a great life. I have a marriage that is more honest than anyone's I've ever known and I don't think there's anything I could do or say that would end it, I have 4 very well adjusted, smart and confident daughters, my wife is supportive, gorgeous and smart. I've been running the same business for 15 years now, make a great living and have 180% job security. There should be no problems, I should be doing nothing but stopping and smelling the overabundance of roses that surround me....and yet, I am unsettled.

I am not good at letting well enough alone or letting sleeping dogs lie. I am the consummate squeaky wheel. I also don't forget anything, ever, especially problems. I am so antsy right now my skin is crawling.

In addition, I think I want to run away. Not from my family, with them, but still...far away. I know there's no way to escape my feeling of being unsettled, because I know it's inside me, but I'm still on the verge of running.

Hilariously I'm always too nervous and too pragmatic to ACTUALLY rock the boat so hard it falls off of the cliff...and yet I'm always wanting to do just that, so it's this perpetual state of uncertainty.

As of today I told my wife we're done talking to or helping my mom. She only hurts me and never helps me. I'm done.

fuck.

I don't talk to my dad. It's only been a few years (this time) but I don't believe I'll ever speak to him again unless we accidentally run into each other. I do speak to my mom, but infrequently, she prefers the conversation of my wife, less baggage I suppose. They were kids when they had me, that's what I've always been told and what I've always told myself. She was 17 and he was 18. They didn't know how to handle life itself at that age let alone being a parent. No coping skills, no life skills, for my mom no parental support, nothing. Kids having a kid. I have always been told that when my mom told her Catholic parents she was pregnant her dad threw her out of the house. She had to move in with my dad and his folks. I've never really asked her if this was true or not but I do know I came home from the hospital to my dad's parents house and that's where I lived until I was about 3 years old. 

I had my first child when I was 27 years old, 10 years older than my mom was when she had me, and I admit it scared the shit out of me. 14 years later and I have 4 children now, still married to the mother of all of my kids. My folks split up immediately after I was born, then did a good 10-years of on again off again, my little brother was born out of this craziness, then by the time I was 11 years old they had divorced for good, soon after my dad remarried and my brother and I were awarded to him, full-custody, her with visitation rights only. 

When my parents were becoming parents, my dad's parents stepped up and took us all in. Paid for us, helped us, supported us. We eventually moved into a house my great grandparents had lived in because my grandpa let us move in for free. They gave us furniture, they gave us food and they watched my brother and I all the time for free. They were totally there to help my parents, ALWAYS.

My little brother and I went from the insanity of living through an unstable marriage filled with violence and absentee parents in their 20s to living with a violent, angry, bitter sociopath. He always used to say he couldn't wait until I had kids of my own, then I'd understand, then I'd know he wasn't crazy, then I'd appreciate everything he'd "done for me". He was wrong.

Whenever I am going through something with one of my four kids, I think back to how I was raised, or not raised, I am dumbfounded. We have a teenager, a middle schooler, a kindergartner and a baby...we know stress, we know frustration, we know kids. What we don't know is how anyone could beat one, could tell them they'll murder them, tell them they're less than worthless and will amount to nothing but filler for state prison. In addition, I don't know how my mom could take the abuse from my dad like she did for all of those years and then eventually give up and leave us to him and his anger. I was 11, my brother was 7, she knew who my dad was, she knew what he'd do. She had every excuse in the book why she couldn't fight it, couldn't win. I have kids of my own now and I don't get either of their behaviors at all. By the time they were in their 30s they weren't kids anymore, that tried and tested excuse had run it's course. 

I don't know what having supportive parents (or now grandparents) would be like, so I don't know what I'm missing. I don't know what kind of hole in my kids lives exists because there is not doting grandpa or grandma. I'm not complaining, I simply have no idea. 

Right now I am dealing with a health issue with my 4 year old, not life or death, but life altering none the less. The stress this event is exerting on our family is immense, yet it's making us all be more supportive of each other, not more angry with each other, and I certainly am not taking out my stress on my kids. 

I'm pretty sure the next time I see my dad and utter a word to him he'll be laying motionless on his back in a suit in a fancy box I'll be getting the bill for. As a parent, I can't believe this is how a parent would want his or her relationship with their child to be.  

Y You're Nothing Special.

So my mom.

I realize so many of my blogs are about her effect on my life, and no shock, so is this one, but in a different manner. It is because of my mom, my lack of relationship with her as a child and her total coldness and lack of emotional attachment that I have developed the way I have in regards to how I feel about women. I think that's fair to say about all men, we learn how to treat women and what to expect from women from our primary female role model that we had while we were growing up. In my case, that means women have a lot to prove.

First let me say I love women. Women are my best friends and the sexiest creatures on earth. I relate, for the most part, more with women than men on almost every level.

Secondly let me say that I was raised by a man who told me daily that I was a worthless piece of shit who would 100% end up in prison or in the military if I was lucky. He did nothing but beat down my self esteem and my body continuously. I was stupid and worthless and a failure, he literally told me this from the time I was 8 or 9 until the day he kicked me out of his house at 18. I am saying this here because I was not raised to think I was god's gift to women, I was raised to think I was a stain on the fabric of life in general and should be discarded.

Now, I need to say I get very frustrated with women who think they deserve a man's love, who deserve to be treated like princesses, who think they're a prize to be won and right all of the time and shouldn't be contested. I don't like women who think that men should come to them.

I feel as though anyone is lucky to find and have anyone else, I am just as much a prize to my wife as my wife is to me. She is sure as hell is lucky to have me and to keep me. I don't really care what women reading this may think, good PEOPLE are hard to find, not good men or good women. 

 

I also think that women lie, cheat and are all around untrustworthy just as much as men. There is no difference. People are people and a soft and pretty doesn't equal unquestioned faith and honesty. The moment I hear a woman say anything along the lines of, "but I'm a woman" or worse, "I'm a girl" I cringe. You're an adult human like me, we are equals. 

I do not think women get taken advantage of more in relationships, I do not think they're helpless and I think any problems they've faced with men are of their own makings. "Men" aren't out to get them, we don't have meetings and come to a consensus to ruin the self confidence of carefully chosen targets. You make the bed you lie in, as with anyone, most of the time if you're experiencing reoccurring issues, take a look at the one constant, usually that constant is found in the mirror.

I do not treat women special, I treat them exactly the same as I treat my male friends. Women get my honest opinion on everything, they're not emotionally retarded or incapable of hearing the truth any more a man is, people just act like they are. I don't. Some women don't like this approach because they're used to being treated with kid gloves, usually for some very negative reasons; either people actually treat them differently because they're a woman after all or men treat them differently because they're trying to get into their pants.

Some people are stupid, some are mean, some are insane, some are unlikable and some are insufferable. These are human traits that apply to women and men and should be acknowledged whether it's a woman or man, you shouldn't get a break on being a demanding entitled asshole because "she's my princess", that's bullshit, she's an arrogant douche, and should be treated as such, who gives a shit about her nice tits, there are other nice tits out there and if you're going to put up with her shit because you think those are the nicest tits you'll ever get to touch, then you're an idiot as well.

When I'm watching a TV show or a movie and I see an older couple and the man is kowtowing to his long time spouse by saying the equivalent of, "yes dear" to everything she says,  it just reinforces my frustrations with how our society has presented "the battle of the sexes", someone wins and someone loses. That's bullshit. If you have a partner, you're equal or it's not going to work, "battles" don't lend themselves to long term relationships, "battles" end and someone loses. Always.

I will never treat a grown woman differently simply because she is a woman. I will never pull a punch with my observations because you're a lady. I will never treat you any different than I treat anyone else, everyone is equal. Women should get no special treatment because of a chromosomal difference determined during gestation, just because you don't have the Y.

The Unsympathetic Man

I am an unsympathetic man.

Chalk it up to whatever you want, my parents, my upbringing, my life in general. I am unaffected by your dilemma, by your situation, by your trials and your problems.

We all have problems. We have all had tragedies in our lives. All of us. We have all faced adversity. Some of us have let it stop our lives in their tracks. Some of us have let our experiences stop us from experiencing more. Some of us pull up our pants and get on with it.

I guess you'd call me cold. I'm too direct. I'm an asshole. I don't know when not to say something. I always have to say something. 

Even though this in itself is me bitching, I can't stand you whining about your life. Set aside the blatant triviality of your complaints, set aside the amazing self gratification that comes along with your squeals of just how unfair the world is, focus in on the pure ego it takes to howl to the world of your misfortunes while your friends struggle with Herculean trials you've never had to deal with. 

If you are an adult, over the age of 18, I am going to scrutinize you and your decisions if you so chose to put them in front of me. If you're over 18, you're an adult, on your own, 100%, how you deal with your problems is your own fault and the consequences of your actions is your own fault, period.

I know it seems much easier for me to judge you than it is for me to judge me, but believe me when I tell you I am 10,000 times harder on myself than I am on you.

Excuses mean very little to me, your excuses me virtually nothing. Seriously. We are all adults here. You get what you deserve, so do I. 

I don't need friends, I don't need fans, I don't need sympathizers.

I jokingly complain about everything I can. I bitch and moan about the most mundane things, the every day things. This, is called, "mockery". I am mocking those you out there who truly take your bullshit "problems" so seriously that you paralyze yourself and you convince yourself your issues are real, they're valid.

I don't know what to tell you, life isn't that bad. Life is an experience that everyone should be fucking amazed with, everyone, always, until they die.

Sticks & Stones May Break My Bones but Whips & Chains are Old News (Part 2)

So my new routine was pretty awesome; I would work in the daytime, go to Community College in the afternoon, then a few times a week after 6 PM, I'd become a chauffeur. 

The arrangement was simple; she'd page me and say she had an appointment, I'd pick her up and drive her to the location, she'd go in and I'd find someplace close by to either eat or sit and study for school, in an hour I'd come back. She would either come back out and we'd leave or she'd come back out and say she'll be another hour. She never worked more than 3 days a week and never more than 3 hours a night, but I was getting paid $75 an hour cash, under the table, so best case I was puling in $675 a week, or $35,100.00 a year in 1989 and her? She was making triple that.

We never talked about what would happen if she had a problem, we never talked about what I would do if there was a problem. Occasionally she'd say, "In an hour I need you to come knock on the door and get me", and I would. I'm not a big man, and back then I was probably 135 lbs and 5'8", but it was my job, so I did it. 

In addition to all of this, there was her and I. I don't think we were ever boyfriend and girlfriend. We never held hands, we never acted like anything more than best friends aside from the random sex acts. Sometimes, after the appointments for the night were over, she'd have me reach over and masturbate her until she came while I drove home. Sometimes, she'd blow me while I drove her home, one time, we tried to fuck in the car...but I don't think we actually accomplished our goal. 

While this was going on, she lived in her house in Detroit with her roommate. Her male roommate. Her male roommate who practiced nude yoga, shot up heroin and was always in the house. They had been friends since high school apparently, and although she said there nothing more than friendship between them, I don't think he felt the same way, and boy did he not like me. IN addition to him not liking me, there was her ex-girlfriend who also DID NOT LIKE ME, in fact she wanted me dead. There was a lot of hate going around for someone who wasn't even dating the girl.

I, was still dating my high school sweetheart all this time, she was away at college and non-the-wiser. I was pretty sure she was getting her rocks off with some college boy up at school all the while so I didn't feel too bad not telling her, we both had our secrets.

The Girl and I kept this arrangement going on for a year, I even took on other girls (just the driving, not the masturbating) at the agency that set up the calls. I was making good money, I was falling in love with the girl, everything was going great. That's always a bad sign.

In the summer of 1990 I got accepted to the University my girlfriend was attending. Suddenly, I was moving away to college. My band mates didn't take it well, my friends didn't take it well and the girl? If I said she didn't take it well, that would be an understatement. She left over 100 messages on my answering machine describing how she was going to kill me and mutilate my corpse if I left her, every call not returned angrier than the last, every threat more detailed, every gory scene more psychotic. Until, they stopped. They stopped, I moved, and that was that. 

I didn't talk to her again. We were over on every level. That is, until 1997.

In 1997 I was flipping through a coffee table book of fetish girls, I drew fetish girls, and I loved these bog glossy photo books. In this particular book, deep within its pages, I found a memory. There, in her dreads, with her piercings, posing with a man in bondage, was The Girl. I was literally dumbfounded. It had been nearly a decade and here she was, right in front of me.

This was before we all had cell phones, before there was Facebook and email, so I made a decision to draw The Girl from the book and mail her the drawing with a letter to the address of the house she lived at when I knew her all those years ago. I included my phone number. I didn't speak of the past.

About 2 months later, she called me. She called me, and when I heard her voice I was so happy I laughed and she in turn giggled. I had an art exhibit coming up and she agreed to come to it. I was so happy. She was so happy. This was all so fucking bizarre.

The night of the show I was nervous as hell. She showed up. I didn't even recognize her. She had short pixie like hair, she was thin and tone and not at all the vampire she used to be. She explained that her roommate, her best friend from high school had died of a heroin overdose, lots of her friends had died. Now, her body was a temple. She was a personal trainer. She was happy. 

We are still friends to this day. Not hang out kind of friends, but friends still. We run into each other at local art events occasionally, we're keep track of each other on FB (she is blocked from all of this) and we've both moved on and grown up. She is still amazing, she is still awesome, and she was part of one of the most memorable periods of my life. 

PS: She never actually dominated me :) 

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Sticks & Stones May Break My Bones but Whips & Chains are Old News (Part 1)

I've written about this before, but not on this blog and I'm feeling nostalgic today, so here goes.

In the fall of 1989 I began my illustrious collegiate journey at the prestigious Henry Ford Community College.  Being of the scholarly mind set, among my plethora of intellectual challenging course studies, was Art 101. I needed an easy A. 

I attended class with my closest and dearest friend, let's call him "Bob". The class was filled with a wide array of people, lots of very run of the mill normal looking folks of all ages, Bob and I were of the "everything we wear is stone washed denim and hey look at our mullets" school of fashion and then there was "the girl".

The Girl was something I had never witnessed before. She was petite, no taller than 5'4", very thin, pale white skin, with very long black dread locks. Her clothes were all black and either skin tight (like her tights) or too big (like her black leather biker jacket and army boots that made it look like she got into her dad's clothing, and her dad was Andre the Giant). She was gorgeous, seriously, simply beautiful. 

All of these features though was not what made her stand out, no, she had something else that I had not seen before in person, it was 1989, so I don't think many people had seen it in person; she had piercings...everywhere. Each ear had a half dozen or so rings plus ones through parts of her ears I didn't realize you could pierce and her nose was pierced, which, back then, was not common. This was so exotic and so beyond the norm for me I had no choice, I didn't know her, and she wasn't exactly exuding the "hey I want to make friends with you people" vibe, but I had to talk to her. So I did.

She was amazing. She was friendly and warm and most of all she was giggly. She had a Bettie Rubble style laugh that I shockingly didn't annoy me, but just added to her charm. Within a day she had invited Bob and I stop by her home in Detroit to "check out her beat off mags". Yes, you read that right. I was in heaven.

The day we supposed to stop by the girl's house, Bob had something come up, so I went alone. I was nervous. I was 18 and from Redford which meant "suburbs". My self image as a long haired guitar player in a rock and roll band meant nothing here, I was so blatantly NOT cool or cutting edge it was laughable. She was the real deal. I knocked on her door, she opened it, smiled and let me in. The smell of incense filled her house, it decorated in gothic horror which again, in 1989 wasn't in the media, wasn't on MTV and wasn't seen ANYWHERE. There was a nice naked man practicing yoga in the living room, we walked right by him, I wasn't introduced and his presence wasn't commented on. She took me right up to the attack and we sorted through an old box of Cherry and Hustler magazines as we talked and I tried harder than ever before to make her giggle, we were just getting to know each other and hanging out over some nice beaver shots. Suddenly my life seemed beyond perfect.

Over the the next few weeks the girl and I hung out more and more, we became really good friends. One day she called me and asked if I could come over and drive her somewhere, I asked if her car was broken, she said no, she just needed to be dropped off somewhere I said, "of course". 

When I got to her house she was waiting, she came out and got into my big old blue Buick looking more bad ass vampire chick from hell than ever before. She had black thigh high lace up boots on with what looked like 17" heels, she had make up to rival Elvira, a tight, tight, tight, tight latex corset on and was carrying a large black purse/sack/body bag. We hugged, I smiled, she giggled, we drove off. She pulled out paper with directions on it.

When we arrived, she casually, without looking at me, asked if I could come get her in an hour. One hour exactly. I said sure, but what are you doing? She smiled, leaned in and kissed me, just a peck, but a kiss still, smirked and got out of the car without answering. One hour later I was back in the exact same spot, she got back in the car, fumbled around a bit, then handed me $75 cash and said we could go back "home" now. 


So began my year-long adventure as a driver (and  occasional lover) for a professional dominatrix.

More to come in part 2 of the series, "I've Done Every Job on Earth Except Worked in Fast Food Because I have Standards"