I'm not sure that I would say that I fall into the category of punk, though those who don't know what true punk is might see me as so.  I have tattoos.  I have my nose pierced.  I have had close to every hair color known to hair color at some point in my life.  I'm unquestionably liberal.  Non traditional yes.  But punk, probably not.  

Punk to me represents a form of loosely organized chaos.  Anarchy represented by a refusal to blindly accept norms whether they be political, social, or artistic.  Wait a minute. Maybe I am punk.

Anyway.  As I have stated in previoius posts, a lot of the clients I work with do not represent mainstream culture.  They are activists, radicals, and creatives.  Some of them, quite frankly, look a little intimidating or angry.  They are vegan chefs and bike messengers and folks who live in community.  They are also, quite often, parents. And some of kindest and most thoughtful people I have ever known.

For the purposes of this piece I am going to lay out parents that I think fall into the punk or alternative category.  They include but are not limited to; those who "look different", i.e. are covered with tattoos, those who reject and actively speak and live against traditional societal norms, those who are queer, those who raise their children to be vegan or vegetarian, those who raise their children to question authority, those to send their children to altnerative schools such as Village Free School, those who grow their own food, those who have a goat in their yard, those who choose to not own a car, those who raise their children in a home with multiple parental figures including poly partners, single-by-choice parents, those who reject non-egalitarian or authoritarian parenting styles and rather then rules try to impart knowledge, those who consider parenting a fundamental part of who they are but are not defined by it, etc., etc.  

Some folks from punk and radical communities reject bringing children into a world as, well, damaged as this one.  Parents are considered selfish, stamped with the term "breeders", and looked down upon.  Others from these same communities see children as being the only hope for a better future and consider raising children to be an act of love and generosity.  

In Portland, these kinds of parents are very common.  At certain schools, even ones in the public school system, one might even feel that they are the majority.  But go elsewhere and the picture looks very different.  

I guess the reason I am writing this is because I feel supremely annoyed when people make assumptions that punk parents are not the loving and intentional parents that they are.  That because someone is covered in tattoos (yes, even neck tattoos), they don't read to their child when in fact they are probably the ones that are not only reading to their child but writing, illustrating, and binding a book with them.  Not that I do this.  I'm not the crafty type. 

If you have read my other posts you can probably sense a theme by now.  Assumptions and judgements = bad.  Variety and acceptance = good.  Children need love.  What the person giving it to them looks like or how they live their life makes no difference at all.  Truly.  

As 2011 comes to a close, there are a lot of things that I am thankful for.  Some of them are what you might expect; my loved ones, my home, my career.  Others though, are things that I am trying to be more aware and more appreciative of every day.  I call them my little absences.  Here are some of them.  I am thankful that I did not get a ticket for parking for 7 hours in a 2 hour parking spot even though I was totally absolutley positive that I had.  I am thankful that I my cat was not let outside by a neighbor and that she is not dead in a heap somewhere. I am thankful that New Seasons did not run out of clam chowder and that my boyfriend did not get in a car accident getting it for me.  I am thankful that I am not plauged by some sort of deforming illness.  

Now, you may see some of these things as being the flip side of an anxious or paraniod mind.  But I don't think that's the case at all.  I think it is a healthy and adaptive response to living in a crazy world.  I also, being fundamentally lazy, rather then exerting myself getting out there and doing, I often prefer to sit and enjoy.  So sometimes the result of my not-doing leaves me in the position of needing to appreciate not what I have (having not actually acquired or accomplished anything) but all the bad things that I don't have. It's really a double-win because not only am a thankful but I am also not physically spent at all.   

Anyway, my point here is every single day we take for granted the fact that things could be so much worse!  So many bad things could be happening to us at this very moment but they probably aren't!  

In my line of work I see the consequences of what it's like to live a life unaware of all of the many gifts and good things that people are surrounded by.  Sometimes I feel like these things have such a strong presence they are like ghosts in the room, seen and felt by everyone but the one they most want to be seen and felt by.

Don't take it all for granted, folks.  What you have, what you are lucky to not have.  In addition to being crazy, this world is pretty darn amazing and beautiful and you don't have to go far, even off your couch, to see that.  Although I suppose getting off your couch does indeed show you more. If, you know, you're the adventurous sort.    

My father, like me, is a psychotherapist.  Not only that but we both specialize in the same area, sex.  I've written already about our unique personal and professional relationship so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it now.  What I will do here however, is break down a bit further where our opinions and practices differ, diverge.  And why.

It's common knowledge that teens tend to rebel against their parents wisdom, dictates, and mandates.  So imagine this.  Rather than having a father who towers above you, warning about the risks associated with sex, instilling fear in your heart about it's implications, who rather than judging and guarding your development to determine whether or not you have become sexually active, instead asks if you if you feel you are ready and if have any questions, hands you some condoms, and tells you to have fun.  

What would you do?

Well, most people would probably answer that they would do just that.  Have fun.  Experiment.  Maybe even go a little crazy.  But not me.  Oh no.  

That's not to say that I didn't start having sex in my teen years.  It's just that I looked at my free pass, my dance card, with skepticism.  Hesitation.  If my parents weren't going to guard my sacred virginity like a lion at the gate then I guess it was my responsibility to make a decision about what I wanted to do with it.  

The thing about sex is that for kids it's not a matter of "if".  It's a matter of "when, why, how, and with who".  My father's approach to my sexual curiosity and development was far from being irresponsible.  It was informed and empowering.  But it was also different then what I knew to be the approach of other parents I knew.  

So here's how it all turned out.  Startng around age 15, I became a serial mongamist.  I had sex, I enjoyed sex, but only within the context of a long-term relationship and with someone that I trusted and knew well.  I did not have one night stands or casual sex with a partner that I was not romantically involved with.  Many years later, immediately following my divorce, my relationships tended to get whittled down from a few years to a few months for a period of time, but the structure was essential the same.  Now I am in a partnership that I see being a lifelong commitment.  And I see it being monogamous.  

My father blogs for Psychology Today.  He writes often about non-monogamy and about casual sex and the benefits associated with both.  His most recent post, "In Defense of Casual Sex", has gone viral http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intelligent-lust/201112/in-defense-casual-sex.  It's a great piece.  And I really respect and admire his position.  It just doesn't work for me. At times, I have wished that it had.  Have even seen it as a set-back, a weakness or shortcoming on my part.  But inevitably I returned to the same conclusion.  It doesn't.

Everyone's psychological make-up is different. So very different that it would be impossible to draw a precise and accurate conclusion of why we are who we are, why we make the choices that we do based on tracing back each and every event and interaction in our personal history. The best we can do is make connections, find themes.  A theme for for my father is that some of his most intimate and meaningful sexual encounters have been brief and with people he had very little personal knowledge of.  That is so in part because of the freedom it provided him to be his authentic and uncompromised self.  For me, I find that I simply cannot open up, relax, feel present enough in my body to experience sexual pleasure with someone that I don't feel close to in ways that are not purely physical.  I don't know why this is.  And I'm not sure that it matters.  Because in both my father's case and in mine, we are both acting in a way that works for us.  A way that is genuine and intentional.  

Part of the reason that my father's ideas are so overwhelmingly popular, striking a chord for so many, is because he presents an argument that is counter to the norm.  But the norm is typically a place where you don't find a whole lot of thoughtful insight and intentional choice.  So while my sexual personality and preferences is more traditional, more indicative of the historic norm, it doesn't come from a puritanical place ruled by fear or condemnation.  It doesn't come from a place of comforming in order to keep the status-quo and prevent societal chaos.  It comes from me.  My comfort level.  My knowledge of myself, which is based on my own personal experiences.

If I were Queen Of The World (a common fantasy of mine), I would encourage everyone to follow their own hearts and refrain from condemning others for doing the same.  Keep it honest, keep the communication open, and make choices from a place of love and respect and not out of un-named fear. Not only will it result in a happier and more satisfying life, it's a hell of a lot easier.  

One evening, a couple of years ago, my partner at the time  telephoned me to tell me that he was going to go out to a movie by himself and that he would not be home at the usual time we spoke. I was in for the evening with my son and was happy that he was doing something other than work during our time apart. The movie, he volunteered, was a romantic comedy starring Anne Hathaway.  

At the time I was surprised. It seemed like an odd choice to me as he was generally a lover of horror and action movies and I was hard pressed to get him to come along with me on a date night to anything resembling a chick flick.  Curious, when my son went off to sleep, I looked up a review on the internet.  The first one that popped up was one that spoke poorly (and minimally) of the movie's plot and dialogue but highly of Anne's "fairytale boobs", which were shown apparently, none-too-sparingly throughout the film.  Glancing down at my own less-than-magical breasts, I found myself feeling angry, even hurt.  What was it with men and breasts?  Did my boyfriend really subject himself to a bad movie in order to have time alone in a theater to oggle, unabashedly, another women's breasts?  And if so, why was I so bothered by it?  Was this his problem or mine?  Why did it make me question my attractiveness, even my value as a partner?  Whoa!  This was way going too far. 

As a trained psychotherapist, I prided myself in having achieved a certain level of self-knowledge.  It's sort of a "must-do" to deal with your own shit before you start dealing with other's.   But how had I not taken a hard look at the obvious - why breasts were such a BIG DEAL fucking deal to me and everyone around me.  This profound recognition jolted me into what started as a personal inquiry and eventually led to my writing a book proposal- a labor of love (and, at times, hate) in which I attempt to understand and appreciate the experience of being female through the study of the social and psychological meaning of breasts in our culture.      

I started my journey by seeking out information in the place that most people do.  The internet.  This may surprise you but guess what I found in my search for material about breasts?  Porn!  Yes, porn!  Surely the best place to get an accurate account and tasteful representations of the female body and experience.  After wording my search a little more carefully I came across sites and book links to breast related topics such as breast implants, breast cancer, and breast development. Maybe some bra sizing guides.  But no matter how carefully I strategized and angled my searches, I came across very little information that captured the experience of being a human being with breasts.  Very little that addressed the very personal emotions around what our culture has deemed a very public and furthermore, a very important body part.    

So I set out to change that.  To talk to women about their feelings and experiences around breasts.  Their breasts, other breasts, our culture's relationship with breasts.  The good, the bad, the joyful and the sad.  Of course, secretly I hoped that during this journey, my own feelings around my breasts would shift.  That perhaps either a collective conversation or the perspective of one woman who has somehow managed to totally and completely accept and love her breasts and make peace with other's opinions of them would infuse me with the same.

Here's what I found.  The vast majority of women LOVE to talk about breasts!  When I started to send out emails and post invitations to discussions, it was almost as if a collective sigh of relief went out amongst the women around me.  As if they were saying, "Yes!  Ask me!  I, after all, AM a woman!  I actually HAVE breasts! Let me tell you about it, let me talk about it."

I work predominantly with women in their mid 20's to late 30's. I find this age group so interesting to work with because in many ways, they are "in-betweeners".  In terms of their bodies, they are past adolescence but they haven't yet reached that time, usually in the 40's and 50's, when their bodies are no longer sexualized in the same way and when, at least I am hoping, they have gotten for most part comfortable, even confident with their bodies.  I should also mention here that I am 36 and therefor an "in-betweener" myself.  So if I haven't totally inspected and reached some sort of comfortable resolution with my own breasts and indeed had rather mixed feelings about them, could I authentically support the empowerment of women who are struggling with complicated feelings about the own?  

The book I hope to write will include the stories of the wonderful women I had the honor of talking to about their experiences with breasts.  It will not teach you how to give yourself a breast exam or find the correct bra size but hopefully it will help you get a larger perspective on breasts while most importantly, gaining more confidence with your own.  It is my belief that for many women, their breasts hold them back.  They are a source for many of discomfort, even shame.  Rarely do women have for them the feeling of a healthy balance of enjoyment, practicality, and confidence that they may have for let's say, their hands.  Breasts are useful and they are attractive.  They can be sensitive.  They are part of our bodies and thus part of who we are as women.  But they are not all of who we are and they do not not define us.  They are not the determiners or our power or attractiveness or lack thereof.   

Some things changed over the course of my gathering of material for the book proposal.  First, I felt that references to breasts should be SERIOUS.  Breast are not funny they are serious, functional, complex body parts with an incredible, mystifying diversity in ranges such as size, shape, color, etc and not something to be taken lightly! I was going to take the woman-strong high road and not degrade breasts by many of their other "names".  So I got a group of women together with the express purpose of candidly talking about breasts and it was, I have to admit it, funny.  Definitely sad at times, horrific at others, but also undeniably funny.   

Another thing that became apparent to me was that it was important, nay imperative, that we started to talk about solutions.  Every single woman I met with spoke of hating her breasts at some point in her life and many still do.  Mind you, this was more than just an envy of their breast opposite, i.e. my breast are small and I wish they were large or mine are large and I wish they were small such as women might feel about straight hair versus curly.  This was shame.  Every woman spoke about experiences in which unwanted and uninvited touches and comments were directed at their breasts.  This would not do.  No!  This was simply not acceptable. 

I would like to think, actually I NEED to think, that we are all capable of increasing our awareness and making intentional choices.  That blaming poor choices and bad behavior on our ancestors and evolutionary adaptations is just plain dumb.  Is there an evolutionary reason why men might love to look at breasts, see "Naked Apes" and the fertile butt seen from all fours turned to the fertile bossom of the upright female human?  Umm, I guess.  Though I am not sure I'm buying it.  But are we still clubbing each other and grunting to communicate?  Nope.  We're not.  And then of course there is all that scientific evidence around how often men think about sex.  And it's simply undeniable that breasts to many men are seen as highly sexual.  But, with education, can we not overcome these predispositions to be better people contributing to a healthier society?  I say YES!

I think that to a significant degree, we need to shift the exposure and the dialog around breasts.  We are all regularly exposed to images and comments about the "preferred" breast but not the "actual" breast.  We are exposed to men's preferences and peceptions.  What we need to be hearing is women's perspectives on a body part that they have exclusive rights to.  Women may indeed be socialized to believe certain things about their bodies but they don't have to buy in and they definitley do not need to pass along to younger generations.  

I don't know if I'll finish this proposal or if I do if anyone will buy it and print it.  But regardless, I hope that as I continue my own journey you will consider your own, whether you are a woman yourself or someone who loves one.   

Well, everyone else seems to be talking a lot about money these days so I am going to jump on that bandwagon and join in on the discussion.  Here's my money story.  

My financial situation sucks. It really is the pits.  I'm 36 years old and I have a student loan that I cannot honestly imagine ever paying off.  It's actually 2 student loans but one keeps getting deferred becuase, well, I can't pay it.  I also have over 10K in credit card debt.  I'm not behind of taxes but they hit and hit hard ever year since I own my own business.  I pay my bills literally one at a time as I deposit client payments into my accounts.  Something like 2 clients = my cell phone bill.  You get my point.  God forbid, and I seriously mean this, I have car trouble.  Or any unexpected but necessary added expense.  

I'm not entirely sure how it got so bad but I have a few ideas.  I am divorced, I have a child, and I went to graduate school.  Because of the double whammy of going to graduate school while single parenting a child, I could not work in my free time, resulting in the tacking on of additional, supplemental loans.  Loans, all loans, have interest.  Student loans have comparatively less but still significant, especially on large sums.  Credit cards, more.  If you are late there are penalties, charges, and increases that don't drop back down.  There are punishments that keep you in your place.   

I'm not going to give you a giant sob story becuase my life doesn't warrant it.  I have a good life.  A great life.  I have a place that I love, a job that I love, and time hang out with my kid.  I also cannot claim that I have pinched and scraped becuase I admittedly have lived beyond my means and eat out too much.  Inexpensively.  But too much.

But the problem here as I see it is that I am reasonably young, I am healthy, I am educated, I have a viable career as a counselor and am good at what I do, I want to work as much as possible, I even helped write a book that got published, and I have no doubt that my income qualifies me for food stamps because I do not earn enough money to support myself and my son.  Even without the meals out or the trips to Buffalo Exchange, which I do because they are my social time, my alone time, my self care, and because I refuse to feel or live like I am impoverished.  I don't get food stamps, as a source of pride, and because it just does not make sense to me that I should need them, but I'm questioning my reasoning on that one these days.  

So here's the other fucked up thing that is not making sense to me.  I can't get health insurance.  Like I literally can't find someone to cover me, regardless of the premium.  I'm still trying to so I am hopeful that this will come to an end soon but for the first time in my life I am without health coverage.  Now you know I'm a 36 year old woman.  And if you know me you know I'm not overweight, I don't smoke, don't drink, and don't do anything that would put my body in any potential position to be injured other than being alive.  But I have been denied because once, 2 years ago, I had a super bizzaro case of pancreatitis caused by a gall stone (RANDOM) and my doctor figured they might as well just take my gall bladder out to prevent such a thing from happening again.  I have a scar the size of the tip of your pinky fingernail on my abdomen. Problem solved.  Case closed.  But nope.  Red flag.  Oh.  I also got denied because I used to see a counselor.  Actually I have almost always seen a counselor because it feels good and I like to talk about myself.  And I am actually pretty convinced that going to counseling keeps you healthy.  Did I mention that I also AM a counselor?  Yeah.  Well, anyway. Red flag there again.  

I think I am an adult.  I look like one.  I am a mother and I have a career.  I'm the right age.  But I feel like a child.  I'm not trying to whine or be a pessimist or give up trying to get ahead or even keep afloat because it seems pretty damn hopeless but I am being realistic.  Maybe if I had stayed married it would have been different.  I'd probably have health care and not as much debt.  Maybe if I had learned better budgeting and saving skills earlier it would have been different.  Maybe if I worked full time for an agency whose bottom line forced me to betray my ethics, values, and professional standards by providing a lesser quality of care and taking 70% of my fees, I'd make slightly more than what I am making now.  But I didn't stay in an unhappy marriage and I wasn't raised by frugal or terribly money conscious parents and I won't work for a broken system or in a hostile workplace.  

So here I am.  All grown up.  But not yet able to stand on my own two feet.  

I don't have an answer to this problem.  I'm not even sure that I fully understand what the problem is.   I will own what piece is mine. I will.  I've made mistakes are irresponsible choices in the hundred dollar range in the past. Not often.  But I have.  I'd genuinely like to not be in the position I am in right now and am open to suggestions as to how.  Because it feels awful.  Even when I am channeling my calm self, remembering that I have many good things in my life, most especially love. About how compared to many, many people I am lucky.  Really lucky.  An that there is truly only so much you can do about your financial situation so you do what you can and then try to let go of the emotional stress or weight the pressure of thinking about it brings.  Even keeping those beliefs in the forefront of my mind, a shield over my heart, it still feels awful.  It's embarassing.  And it chips away at your self worth.  

So that's me.  And my story is not that different, a little better in some cases, worse in others, then the stories of all those people out there.  Those people who are protesting.  I'm not going to say it.  I'm not.  But you know what I'm thinking.  

Prepare yourself, for I am about to talk about something heavy.  If you're in the market today for a light and funny post, this isn't it.  

Gender role reversal.  Yep.  That's it.  The big daddy.  The big mommy.

This topic has been floating around in my head for a while now.  And I'm putting it out there in part because I want to hear what you have to say about.  You.  Yes, you.  The one reading this.

So here's something I am seeing in my practice and my personal life.  In a male/female relationship dynamic, men are seemingly becoming more nurturing.  Not more nurturing then their male predecessors, that is a given, but more nurturing than their female partners.  They are, in general, doing more cartaking, displaying more affection towards their children and their female partners than the female partners are to them and to a lesser extent but still notably, to the kids.  The most startling thing for me as a mother myself to have seen quite a bit of, are the mothers who, like their male counterparts in the past, have simply picked up, left their family, and started over.  Maintaining only minimal responsibilities with the kids.  I'm seeing more men seeking relationships and fighting to maintain marriages, even unhappy ones.  And it doesn't seem to just be about pride.  

So what I am trying to figure out is not whether this is actually happening (because I can assure you, it is) but why.  

Without a doubt the women's movement as voiced through the proclamations of many of our mothers, told us that we could be whomever we wanted to be, do whatever we wanted to do.  That marriage and children were one of many choices available to us. That we were not dependent on men.  This prompted more women in the workforce and more women seeking higher education and yes, gaining greater financial independence.   And this is when women started realizing that though they were capable of excelling in areas of life other than parenting, they were still expected to carry to lion's share of the work in that department, too.  So they started to get angry.  Unhappy.  Resentful.  To feel unappreciated and undervalued.  To see their male partners, even their children potentially, as something that were taking from rather than adding to.  

Now I want to clarify here that this is something that men were historically feeling, too.  And they were having disconnecting from their home life emotionally and physically and they were having affairs because of it as well.  So perhaps all that's happening now is not so much reversal but that things are evening out.  The genders are reaching a sort of unprecidented equality.  There's still rampant sexism, don't get me wrong.  But in the spectrum from full time codependent caretaker to full time narcissist though most of us, men and women alike, are clumping closer together, and closer to the center, there are more outliers, renegades, breaking their gender role expectations and staunchly planting themselves where tradtion and socialization would prefer they not go.  

My thought is that we are in a period of transition.  And during times like this people indivudally and intergerationally tend to flop from one extreme to another before floating into some sort of middle ground.  Women, in general,  have become more autonomous, sometimes selfish.  Men, in general, have become more family oriented, sometimes dependent, either has a response to the shift in women or entirely apart from it, because for them, that too, was a healthy and explorative choice.  Give it a few decades and maybe most humans will find their way to the middle, the sweet spot, the promised land of self actualized community.  

Anyway, like I said, this post is a discussion prompt.  Because I'm curious about other people's observations and theories.  So if you have something to contribute, I'd love to hear it.  

My clients are colorful.  I don't mean figuratively colorful, though I suppose they are that, too.  I mean literally colorful.  Their skin, by and large, is profoundly and profusely decorated with ink.  

Since drawing this subset of clients to my practice I have been thinking about the relevance of a person's tattoos and whether or not they should be addressed in counseling.  The conclusion I have arrived at in the past, when I was actually actively pondering this and before I set my stance as being "casually nonchalant", was that I would not bring them up unless the client chose to.  That it was not my call to determine how relevant or irrelevant their body art was.  

But I feel like I am missing something by doing this and it's bothering me.  It seems absurd and disingenuine sometimes to ignore the obvious.  Visible tattoos are as public as your nose, your hair, only more varied.  But they are also potentially private and personal and not necessarily open to comment, inspection, or uninvited looks, even positive and appreciative ones.  But then again, counseling is personal.  Deeply personal!  And in the counseling setting I ask all kinds of personal questions. But they are not typically about choices involving personal style.  But, but, but!  Can you see my condundrum?!

For I am curious.  So curious!  And I think that's why, my own curiosity, that has stopped me from asking. I would love to be granted permission to look, absorb the art their skin wears, drinking it in like I do in front of a painting in a museum until fully satieted and no longer distracted.  Maybe just a tad longer then a museum painting, as I tend to fly through museums pretty fast.  Funny, right?  Considering the fact that if a work of art is in a museum it is clearly and widely considered to be exceptional.  But though it might make me feel something,  it has no personal relevance to me as it wasn't created by, for, or on someone I know.  Back to my point.  I have honestly considered a tattoo "meet and greet" at part of a consult or early session.  As in, "You can look at mine" (the open to the public ones) "and I'll look at yours" and then we both won't continually find our eyes wandering as we try to fit color and shape into the frame of something definitive, recognizable.  But that seems awkward.  In the least.  

Now I know, as a tattooed person myself, that people choose their body art for a million different reasons and for no reason at all.  If I were asked to explain why I chose to color myself with the pieces I have, in most cases, I would be hard pressed to come up with a response that was accurate. Or is still accurate, as compared to when I got it. My answer might be long and winding, convoluted, destinationless.  Something like what follows.  

"I got the birds I have on my inner arm here in Portland and they were representative to me, while in the conceptualization stage, of the mother-child bond, marked by their positions (one facing outward) on a branch and solidified by the placement of a hydrangea, the flower of my grandmother.  But when I look at it now (which I rarely do as it has almost dissapeared into my body as all other permanent things do), that original meaning seems very far removed.  But I do remember the stories that the artist told me as he gave it to me of his own childhood on a reservation and of when he got ink poisoning (blue pigment) and went temporarily insane in a mystical kind of way.  That tattoo was kinda a big step for me because it was the first piece that spread further outward on my body and could not be covered up when wearing a tank top or dress."  

"The lotus on my back, one of my oldest tattoos, was one of the only flowers large and dark enough to cover the theater masks and ankh from my high school days when I was really into theater and, um, Egypt I guess.  I wasn't crazy about the Lotus image, it's mroe stylized then the pieces I have gotten more recently, which feel mor natural, painting-like.  But I did like the idea of a flower that stretches from water bottom to surface.  I lived in San Francisco at the time. My favorite sushi restaurant had only 6 small tables and these amazing scallop roles.  The street I lived on was crazy steep and parallel parking on it was insane.  I am a really good parallel parker now because of it."

"I got the band I have around my ankle in Seattle.  Those were my punk/grunge days, though the tattoo itself is rather dainty.  I had bleached white hair then.  My friend Maya was visiting from California and she and I went to get tattoos together.  She was going to get a lion, I can't remember where.  I went first and she backed out, something she remains thankful for to this day. I actually think that trip was what brought Maya and I closer as friends and in more recent years I have really valued our conversations.  Her and her husband and boys taught Jayden and I how to geocache last summer.  Jayden was obsessed with it for a while.  Anway, Seattle. Maya and I went to Orcas Island that trip.  We rented scooters, it was the first time I had ever ridden one.  I ended up buying my first scooter many years later in Portland. The first one was stolen within the first week.  I don't have a scooter anymore.  Had to sell it to pay off my taxes.  I loved riding it when I had it, though.  It felt so liberating."  

A tattoo artist I once worked with said that tattoos are not about the tattoo itself but about how you live with the tattoo over time.  I like that idea and it feels right to me, fits.  I know that for myself, I tend to get a new tattoo,to modify, or to add to a tattoo, around every 1-2 years. Getting a tattoo, for me, starts when the first seed idea drops down into the soil of my conciousness.  And it almost always, always takes root until fulfilling it's tattoo destiny.  I live with my choices every day.  But sometimes I modify the way that wear them. Or how I feel about them.  And that is probably what I love about the process the most.  The timeline, the map, the journal. Something that evolves, connecting past to present but always remaining you. Multilayerd. I have no idea whether other people feel the same way about their own tattoos and the internal shift that took place while deciding on them.  The integration process of living with them.  

Maybe someday I will ask.  

I am currently reading a book (The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides) that takes place, at least where I currently am in the story, during the college years of the female protagonist.  Because of this I am reflecting on my own college years.  A time which, quite frankly, I rarely think about.  My own college years are marked by a profound lack excitement and really, of impact on me.  This has always struck me as strange and inconsistent with how others describe this time of their lives.  Or perhaps it is my own glamorization of the stories that others tell of that time of their lives.  Stories that are fraught with romance and heartbreak, driven by angst and turmoil over their course studies and questions prompted by their course studies and questions and studies about the meanings and directions of their lives.  Fueled and enhanced by drinking drug use and sexual experimentation. 

I went to the University of Washington, a school chosen for 2 reasons; 1.  Out of the 4 schools I applied to it was the only school that did not accept me and 2.  The campus is really pretty, especially in the Spring and Fall.  Just lovely.  Really.  So, motivated by cherry trees and rejection, I petitioned the school for admittance and won.  And off I went.

I lasted all of 6 months in the on-campus dorm.  My roommate was a perky Christian cheerleader, betrothed to her high school sweetheart, whom she spent hours upon hours on the phone with.  I like most people.  I really do.  But I did not like her.  Could not find any common ground.  Plus I was not used to living with others.  I felt trapped, like a feral animal.  I needed quiet to study.  I needed space to breathe.  I broke my contract and moved out into a tiny studio apartment in a house and then eventually to a bright and charming one bedroom with wood floors in the Wallingford district. I loved it. I bought vintage furniture and got two cats; Nicholas of the blue eyes and silenced meow, and Tabitha, the emotionally unstable.  I wrote a lot of poetry (see below).

I did not make close friends in college.  To this day I'm still not sure why.  But it didn't bother me and I wasn't lonely.  I went to class and disappeared into lecture halls packed with hundreds of other rain soaked and quiet students my first years, I went to class and disappeared into smaller rooms with rain soaked outspoken students in my last years.  I got good grades.  I went to work and got good write-ups.  I did my thing.  I grappled a bit with who I was and who I wanted to be, like all 20somethings do.  I had two significant relationships.  The first a homeless punk, the second a much more appropriate though perpetually stoned anthropology major.  

My clearest memory from my college years was of looking out the window one winter when the snow was falling and starting to collect and of thinking that it was the first time my car (a white 1963 Chevy Nova) had experienced being blanketed by snow (yes, I felt at the time that it was experiencing it). That there was a small window of time when the world was noiseless and illuminated with creaseless night snow.  That when that window closed the world would again be loud, glaring, and sludgy.  

So in college what I did was I grew.  In my own subtle way. I figured out what interested me and what I had no talent for whatsoever.  And that's it right there. The part that I wish I had the opportunity to do again.  To do now.  That's the part that I think we all miss.  The not knowing and the figuring out.  The time and space to not know and to figure out.  

If I could go back to college I would take more classes in writing, literature, poetry, photography.  I would brush up on my history and science.  Maybe throw another communications, philosophy, and religion class in.  Or Linguistics!  That class kicked my ass.  Of course I suppose I could still do these things.  Take classes.  Even classes that have no relevance whatsoever to what I do in my work.  My job.  Not all at once of course but I could do it.  Take one at time.  Just because it would be interesting.  Because it would get me out of the track I am on.  The track that I have chosen and that by it's very track-like nature moves forward rather then meandering curiously.  

I miss it, the meandering.  And I want to try to find it again.

Alyssa's College Poems 

Last night I saw
Black angels
Being lowered in
Small
Frail 
Paper cut-outs
With
Fishing wire backs

Tonight you
Can be the one
Who lies
Naked
Beside I,
Fully clothed

------------------

We dance
A ritualistic
Tribal
Dance
Around the sun
And the moon
And you pause
Because you want to tell me
That my strides
Are too long
And that
My spinning
Is off center
But it doesn’t matter
Because
In my pulsing music
Of incorrigible colors
I can’t
Even
Hear you

------------------

I will 
Break
Open
Like a damn
Flooding
Thick
And warm
I will
Cover
All
With my color
And my river
Will take
The Earth
The sky
And all their children
With it

--------------

The earrings I wear
pull heavy
Silver and stone
But I love the delicate tinkle they make
as I walk
I love undressing a chocolate bar
removing it
from it's shiny foil
I love the way a spoon 
holds the steam
of the boiling water it stirred
I have no responsibility 
to bless the woman
who sneezed 
in the car next to mine
No obligations 
to hold the hand
that staves off the loneliness 
I didn't think I possessed

--------------

Sea foam
and
sea salted skin
Wrinkled noses
Ice eyes
Black hair slapping strands
Over the edge
Looking
over the edge
Banging on bone
Seabirds
Seabirds still
on shifts of wind
suspended steady
Screams bashed against rocks
brandishing brail

I am going to admit something here that I am not proud of.  My feelings about other women over my lifespan have not always been positive.  In fact I would even go further to say that they have often been negative.  And it's only been in the past 2 years that this has changed rather dramatically for me.  This change has resulted in such a relief, such a freedom, such a truly mind blowing excitement, that it seems to me that it would be almost unethical for me not to think about and try to describe why it was that I felt the way I did before, and how such a shift came about.

First, we will start in the past.  I try not to blame any of my personal shortcoming (I neither know how to play a musical instrument nor speak another language, AHEM) on my parents. I really do.  My parents are uniquely awesome.  But somehow, somewhere, I picked up on something of an anti-woman vibe.  Maybe it was because my father is gay and my adolescent brain took that to mean something it didn't.  Or maybe it was because my mother didn't have a terribly supportive relationship with her own mother and perhaps as a result of this only had one female friend, until recently, that she seemed to trust and feel close to.

Maybe it was that girl Erica in 4th grade, who exerted an influence over others that I cannot hope to understand and turned all my friends against me, convincing them to leave me bewildered and alone at the cafeteria lunch table for days.  Or Simone in high school who stole my boyfriend and the guy I lost my virginity to (yes, I see the obvious error in placing full responsibility here on her). One of the only female supervisors I have had, who did her best to undermine any accompishments or respect I had worked my ass off to achieve. The ex-wives of men I have dated post divorce who have seen me not as someone who could have a positive impact on the lives of their children and former husbands but as enemy #1.  The countless women over my life who have viewed me as competition, sizing me up, making comparisons, determinations of who comes out on top.  

It's a bleak picture.  I can see that.  And I can also say without doubt that I had amazing female friends as well who provided strength and support through all of those tumultuous times.  But something told me early on that women should not be immediately assumed to be friends, sisters, and allies.  Be it said that of course I have had negative expereinces with men as well.  But there's a different kind of dynamic that happens between women.  And a different kind of sadness that comes as a result of it.

It would be naive of me to not address here that there are reasons that women do in fact, treat each other in a less than positive way when that is in fact happening and is not just a perception or spin off from my own stuff.  I'm not going to devle into that abyss right now because it's a deep one.  But unfortunately there are certain truths about the nature of our society and it's appendage, our media.  There are set-ups built into our system and they are doubly effective because we simply don't have the sense of community, female centered or otherwise, that other cultures have, which could mitigate some of the impact.  

I'm not sure when I first became aware of my own hesitation regarding other women.  But suffice to say that in my thirties it became more and more apparent and less and less something I felt any desire or willingness to hold on to.  It felt awful, suffocating.  And if it ever served a purpose, which I doubt it was, it certianly was doing me no good now.  

In the typical "ask and you shall receive" fashion, therein entered some of the more influential women in my life.  And like a damn breaking, all of a sudden I started to see them all around me.  Women who had something to teach me, things to offer, love and unrestrained support to give.  Women who were open and anxious to take in the same from me.  Radical women, kind women, smart, smart women.  And so it was that my walls started to break down.  And nothing came in to bite me, to hurt me.  Nothing was taken away.  Nothing at all.  I felt like I had discovered a beautiful secret.  A river flowing under the city streets.  

Nothing in life is ever simple.  Even a catharsis, an epiphany such as this which causes a dramatic change in awareness and outlook, can stumble and back track a bit.  I found myself feeling the familiar sense of poisonous threat just this week in New York while surrounded by talented and beautiful women.  This time creating the scenario myself, falling back on old stand-by narratives, dismantling my own achievements in lieu of a hierarchical positioning of theirs. Determining myself as coming up short.  But I caught it this time.  The belief that in the past would have slipped through my fingers and landed, lodging itself in my gut, my heart.  And what a relief it was.  

So I helped write a book.  It's a good book.  It's a sex book.  It's a father-daughter theapist-team sex book.  What could be more fun than that?!

The funny thing is, I never imagined that I would become a counselor that focused on or specialized in sex.  I'm guessing that my father didn't either.  But just like it's cousin, the "therapist vibe" (which emits a signal letting everyone know that they should approach you to discuss deep and personal issues), the "not afraid to talk about sex vibe" reaches a wide audience.  And when people know that they can talk to you about sex, that you won't be shocked, won't flinch or distract, avoid or judge, they do just that.  They talk to you about sex.  Their current sex.  Their lack of current sex.  Their hopes for improved current or future sex.  And low and behold, over time, you learn a lot about how people relate to sex.  How they feel about it, what they think about it, and of course, what they are doing.   

And so it was that people started to coming to see me as a counselor specifically to address issues around sex and sexuality.  Because of that, I attended some relevant classes and workshops. And as a result of that, I found myself in the surreal position of being a hair away from being cast as a sex therapy television reality show host.  And a contribuiting writer to a book.  A book that my dad wanted to write.  A book that came to be called "Your Brain on Sex; How Smarter Sex Can Change Your Life".  http://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Sex-Smarter-Change/dp/1402253923/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316758165&sr=8-1

Now, it may seem strange or even a little creepy that my father and I would embark upon such a project together.  But in order to understand why it isn't, wasn't, you have to understand first a couple of things.  One is the educational and consultation component that comes along with creating most theories, the collaboration that is usually involved in order to make any project multi-demensional. The other is the unique relationship that my father and I have.

Since I believe the first component is relatively self explanitory, I'll say a bit more about the second.  My dad is gay.  And he started living his life as such, that being authentically, when I was around 12.  He came out to me directly a year or two later.  In many ways, we were both figuring out our sexuality at the same time.  And if you think that a 13-14 year old girl isn't thinking about sex and how it relates to her, well, I'm just not sure what to tell you.  So in my early teens I became aware of several things at once; that I was a sexual person, that my dad was apparently a sexual person, and that while my mother was hetero, my dad was homo i.e. different people had different sexualities.  It was a lot to take in and I can't say it was smooth going at all times.  But I have never been anything but grateful that this was all blown open when it was.  It was absolutley fundamental to my own understanding not just of sex but of people.  I divided my time between a more traditional home and a home in which a night out may very well include a drag show.  And it was damn good for me.

For some reason, over the years, when I might have withdrawn from my parents and hid my own curiosities and questions, things remained open.  Supportive.  I know.  Strange, right?  But because of the way sex was first introduced to my awareness, it just wasn't that much of big deal and so I never learned that it was supposed to be something that you didn't talk about. Something that was awkward or shameful.  Fast forward 20 years and here we are still.  Talking like colleagues about sex.  Hows about that.  So, as you can probably see, writing together about it really wasn't much of a stretch.

Back to counseling and writing about sex. My approach to work around sex is positive and accepting and I'd like to think, informed. And some people do come to see me because they just want to understand themselves better as sexual people.  But I am going to be honest here.  Most people come to see me because sex has become a problem.  A big problem.  A deal breaker problem.  Most couples come to see me, whether they are there to address sex specific issues or not, at least in part because sex has become scarce and tense or has stopped completely.  And not only are they not ready to give up on the idea of ever having it again and simply disconnecting from that part of themselves,  but this issue, whether discussed or dodged, has poisoned the well, infiltrating all aspects of the relationship; trust, intimacy, communication, respect.  As a counselor, more and more so with time, you learn how to have boundaries around the sadness and anger you sit in the room with day after day.  But this one still gets to me.  In part because it's heartbreaking to see people so confused and stuck and in part because it's avoidable.  

So esentially, that's what the book is about.  How to understand yourself, sexual desires and all. That your desires and fantasies evloved from a good place.  A place of learning and healing.  How to honor that as being a legit part of who you are.  How to commuicate it to a pre-existing partner or to someone new.  How to avoid the no-sex impasse.  How to fix it if you find yourself there.  

It may sound scandalous.  But it's as human and as real as it gets.  And it's hard for me to find sensation or scandal in something so utterly commonplace.  So obvious.  

Sex isn't everything.  Not at all.  But it's something.  It's something that helps define us and helps bring us closer together. It's something that most of us need a little help figuring out because as much as we love to glorify and objectify sex in this country, we don't really have much education, information, or guidance around what to actually do or how to actually talk about it.  And that gap causes a lot of problems.  A lot.

So I hope you read the book.  My dad and I both do.  And let us know what you think.  Cause in case you didn't know, we like to listen and learn.