The New and Improved Manifesto, with 50% More Swear Words!

The new manifesto:
Perhaps you've heard this before, in one way or another: where your wound is, that's also where your blessings come from. It may be the font of much pain, whatever your wound is, but turned around, expressed creatively in poetry, art, music, political essays... that's where your blessings will also come from. If you ignore your wound however, if you get too much attention for it that nurtures the pain and encourages festering rather than healthy expression- it will kill you. Not can, will. Put simply, another way- If I don’t write, and soon, my head will explode. Or, as I am more worried about, my heart. Now, I look forward to it all day actually, being able to sit down, alone, in this cool poorly lit rented basement, and write.
That never happened before.
Proof of the wounds killing powers: When I don’t write, all the rage and even cleverness inside me turns to bile and pus and hot blood that boils up and up- so when I DO write, it’s like popping that boil- not pretty.
On the bright side, For once I’m glad that one of my cock-and-bull rationalization theories came true, that having a kid would actually make something “click” as Bruce says, and the bullshit wars inside me would come to end, and I would stop procrastinating, and write.
Not a healthy pattern though. I did the “Artist’s Way” exercises ten years ago- I still remember them. Write every day, no matter what. Don’t think, just write.
This is how to unblock yourself. But what with moving, not being able to find my journals, working full-time, trying to make time with the kiddo quality, etc. etc. Yep, I got lost in all that. Getting lost is dangerous like this- it puts my marriage in trouble, actually, when I don’t take time for me. Hell, it puts ME in trouble- the depression threatens to come back, in a hurry.

To be totally up front, I have to tell you - this is rage management for me. This is not a mommy blog. Not even "anger" management-no, rage. Apparently a lot of us Adult-Children-of-Abusive-Parents-Who-Still-Totally-Suck have this phenomena, and many of us can't afford therapy, so we do other things.
If anyone has a problem with that, well, I don’t really give a shit so, quit reading I guess. I had a poetry teacher in college throw up his hands, sneer and snivel in disgust in the middle of a student’s reading of her poem, about how she’d been incested by her father, gotten pregnant as a result at age 13, gave birth to the baby on the bathroom floor, watched as her father immediately killed the baby, and buried it in the backyard- and the old professor’s reaction to her telling this story for the first time was “Jeeeeezus Christ! This is not your goddamned therapy session! Can we all STOP using poetry as an outlet for all this psychodrama!“ All of us were too shocked at his grotesque reaction to say anything at the time, but let me tell you, I’m beyond all that “Shock and Awe” we’re all supposed to be experiencing in the face of the crumbling patriarchy’s ugliness and hate (which we all know now is mere bluff and bluster, right?) and I’m still not above verbally emasculating or bitch-slapping stupid, insensitive people, in public.


So here I am, finally writing. I probably need to scribble in my journal as well, for there are some things which aren’t ready for prime time yet. See, I just want a manifesto that will allow me to post writings, essays, etc. without self-censoring too much. Without stifling my creativity before it even starts. Because this bottling up of everything, it is making me sick, and old, and tired, methinks. Either that, or I have a thyroid problem. (*I don't, darnit) See, I wrote that first manifesto because I didn’t want to turn into the leftist version of those right-wing hatemongering pieces of shit*******, who encourage readers to do their worst and pretty soon it’s just a big ol’ pissing contest . There’s so much hate out there, you hardly need to encourage it. Also I wanted it to be a safe place, where people could feel like they could post a comment or opinion without getting skewered by some numb nut in return.
But mostly I did it because the font of my wound turns me into a human volcano sometimes, and threatens to destroy me. To prevent that- even if just for the selfish reason of, if my rage overwhelms me, I’ll never get to do what I want to do, be who I want to be- gotta write. No way around it.
Put very simply, I will speak my mind. At the same time I realize there's a fine line to be walked between speaking my mind, and turning into a blowhard. My saving grace may be my total inability to tell lies very well. This blog aims to "walk the line" though, in defense of everything I love and hold dear, which ain't much. Thank you Johnny Cash, for giving us all permission to flip the double bird at the man, and to do it in an extremely public, extremely visible medium. I also aim to do it using lots of sarcasm, irony, and humour. Apparently this is a hallmark of Generation X, my generation, which of course I didn't really want to be a part of for a long time, because we don't like being a part of anything. At the ripe old age of 37 I've come to realize, I'm so Gen X I can't even see straight. Better to be self-aware than not aware at all, eh? :)

I’d like to encourage readers to do the same, (speak their minds) but still hold off on the ignorant hate parts. Or, if you do talk shit, you better be able to back it up. Same goes for me. I talked to my friend Betito, who was raised by mental health professionals ;) for 2 hours on Friday night, and as she put it with characteristic equanimity, “calling yourself a judgmental bitch is a bit harsh, but you are opinionated, and it’s good to realize these things so we can work on them.” Yes, as you may have realized, my friends are a helluva lot nicer than I am- who would put up with me but really nice people?
Issue Example: the health care crisis, widely varying viewpoints, one fueled by insurance companies and the corporatocracy in general, others by people who are just trying to make sense of their situation with some scrap of dignity left. As she also put it, so wisely, if you actually want people to change their minds, or just think a little bit, then telling Republicans who fear “socialized medicine” that they’re really just selfish greedhounds who want poor people to die is probably not the way to go about it.
See, there’s a balance to be struck.
If you don't get the humour of Al Franken's book, "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot: On the Decline of Civil Discourse in Modern America," and don't see why the title is hilariously ironic, then you probably won't get the humour of me telling people to "mind their fockin' manners for pete's sake," or similar. So this probably isn't the blog for you. If you don't get a giggle or glimmer of new-found self-awareness when I tell anyone advocating violence done on their supposed behalf but not directly by them, or affecting them, that they need to be smacked upside the head, this blog isn't for you.
***** like that, perfect example, calling them yada yada p.o.s’s. I do realize I’m not going to get anywhere by calling them names like that, but at the same I do believe that most of those pig-fuckers have never had a single piece of truth spoken to their faces, and I believe in calling people out on their ignorance, ignorant hatefulness, ignorant lemming attitude, ignorant attitudes, period, especially if they are racist or sexist or rank-ist or anything-ist, and seem to think that’s “just fine.” I’m not even going to single a gender out, much less a group (that would be hypocritical of me (cough) {yuppie men}) because this is all a result of living in a society where the totally insane has been normalized for about, oh, 50 years now. Maybe 150, depending on where you go. But we’re definitely all livin’ in this stanky, tepid soup of insanity and actin’ like it’s totally fockin’ normal. Welp, maybe it’s just because I grew up in a household that was basically a microcosm of everything wrong in our society, where seriously insane bullshit was normalized, ignored, swept under the rug, etc, but I’ve come to believe it’s a healing thing, calling people out on their shit. If you say nothing, you are just helping perpetuate it.
There’s also a TON of people out there these days, fueled by the asinine corporate media or god knows what, who apparently had no mamas to teach them to mind their fockin’ manners, or were raised by a goddam pack of hyenas- I’m not sure which- but if you have the opportunity to teach them manners, I believe you should.
This comes at a good time, because I’m also finally writing that letter to my parents that I should have started about 5 years ago, sent or not, for my own purposes. And it occurred to me this morning that if I take the same old angry, “accusatory” (their words) tone with them, they’ll just throw it away like they do everything else that hints at the truth of their wasted, miserable lives, and it will do more harm than good.
I need to take a different tack, to reframe this story of mine for my mental health if not theirs, and that tack is minus a helluva lotta anger. At least at first.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my story, Sacred Stories, and the story of America- how we can all reframe those, given enough practice, given the right tools, and gift-ing ourselves the time to do so. Because it’s important. Barack Obama’s on to something when he tries to engage the whole country in writing that story, being a part of it. Don’t discount him as just the new “rockstar” or “green meets brown” marketing trend that a bunch of sycophants and groupies are clinging onto. You do that, you discount humanity. For all my rage at the machine and the things humanity does, I won’t let you do that. We are better than that. For all my bitterness and unexpressed grief, jeezus gawd, I have so much in love in me for us silly humans, for this country, for this beautiful planet that I’ve only begun to explore.
I’m not saying my anger will go away, but what I’m trying to do is hone it into a warrior’s skills rather than flailing self-destruction. I’ve been watching lots of warrior movies lately, like “300” and “Apocalypto” - I think for some mental practice. Should also dig out Braveheart and watch it with mi esposo again- he’s a Scotsman, he understands the whole part about ancestral anger. Here’s to the journey, the practice, and yes, the “smackening.”


More later-