misogyny, emotional labor, Mama

Hey, I notice the new year keeps going. My friend had a sparkle sword of fireworks, new year’s eve. I said it was cutting through the illusion of years. The scam of the annual.

Also I looked at my window because rainbow colors were fountaining–so bright, I could see the firework through my closed curtain. It must have been next door. Our curtain failed at keeping outsideness outside. Not every day our curtain fails.

holiday

I wanted to tell you I recorded a minute of Holiday by Weezer. Just me singing in this bedroom where I now stand, typing to you in the middle of the night. I listened to the blue album a lot, when I was young, working at the software store. My coworkers liked it, and I grew to love it.

The combination of harmonies and wall of electric guitar is kinda weird, huh. They feel so bro-ish to me. “I will crush your pretty toenails to a thousand pieces.” A thread of misogyny-violence through everything.

I learned to love them when I was living in Goleta and working in Santa Barbara. So I associate them with privileged clueless white guy surfers who see women in one way.

me

So how can I like them? Confusing, huh. Part of me wants to forgive or overlook the misogyny, since it used to be inside me too.

Sure, I’ve been hurt by women. It happens all the time. The pain of rejection mixed in with the need for the womanness. The pain gets twisted and wrong. It’s really not about the rejection, the woman, or needing what you can’t have. It’s actually about the self, feeling lonely and broken, which is much bigger than one interpersonal incident.

We all should have enough love and support in our lives, so when something goes wrong in a relationship, there’s ample backup–those other people who know and love us step up, so we get cared for in other ways. Nourished abundantly, to heal us on our terms.

But how many people actually have that? Capitalism means almost everyone is overbusy, working too much, to meet basic needs. A culture of misogyny means men don’t get nurtured by men a lot. So if you don’t have an attentive mom, aunt, sister, or women friends, to do emotional labor for you, unpaid and mostly unacknowledged, how are you going to get healed? The needs go unmet, and the misogyny cycle continues.

Good luck finding trustworthy family and friendship. Even at the best of times, with tons of loving, kind people in my life who I talk with often and can be honest with, I can feel alone. Even with the best partner in the world, I can suffer like a wounded animal, in more pain than seems possible, panting in the shade of a rock.

Mama

Wait, what was I talking about? I miss my mom really bad. Every holiday feels like a bomb. Being in the new year without her panicked me. I thought New Years didn’t even mean anything to me.

Ming came to me when he was done with his shower and comforted me. We shared a great conversation about what’s trustworthy. But I did that suffering animal thing for a while.

I wanted to show you this song portion I recorded. Part of a favorite Weezer song I was singing this morning: Holiday.