Category: A little emotional

Are you a jerk looking to date?

Are you bored and regular dating sites aren’t doing it for you? Are the women you find not plentiful enough, too demanding, not tolerant, demand respect and to not live in fear and betrayal? Then you’ve come to the right place. Holyshitnotagain.com is the dating site for those who’ve been looking for that special someone with a special resilience.

  • Do you dream of meeting that one person you can take all the world’s problems out on?
  • Does the sight of someone happy make you want to punch it off their face?
  • Do you love coming up with new and interesting ways to destroy someone’s soul?
  • Do you hate your mother?
  • Do you love your mother too much?
  • Do you want to take all your issues you have with your mother out on someone?
  • Do you hate women?
  • Do you love all women often?
  • Does the truth make you want to just lie for no reason?
  • Does it make you happy to deny happiness to another?

Then we have the woman for you.

We, at holyshitnotagain.com, have the perfect woman for any closet-case, liar, cheater, trickster, and violent felon looking for temporary love. She’ll have dreams of a happy future with you, but it’s always temporary here at holyshitnotagain.com.

Meet Molly. Our newest and only star at holyshitnotagain.com.

She’s cute
She’s smart
She’s sexy
She’s a world traveller

And there’s something about her that just makes you want to smack that smug smile off her face. Cheat on her, smack her around, lie to her face, and she’ll keep coming back for more. No one knows resilience like this little filly. She’ll give you presents, make you delicious meals, cater to your every need without you ever doing anything but treat her like shit.

She’s perfect for anyone who:

Likes to cheat so much that it’s reported in the local newspaper
Prefers Molly’s closest friend and her drugs to Molly
Is a violent, psychopathic, narcissistic monster
Is a bible-banging, backstabbing, alcoholic hypocrite
is Married

Don’t worry, she’ll believe your lies. And, she’ll stick around long after you think you’ve exhausted all forms of degradation. One thing that Molly has, it’s resilience. She’s in it for the long haul, regardless of how temporary you’ve decided it would be without telling her.

Get her before she regains any self-confidence. The pickings are ripe here at holyshitnotagain.com.

You can be the next asshole to swoop up this charming piece of whipping post if you act fast.

Be careful, though. She has had some good men in her life and there’s a chance she’ll remember that fact before too long.

Behold the competition:

Applications accepted now! Don’t wait. Time’s running out. Offer ends when she finally pulls her head out of her ass.

Visit: yeahrightasshole.com

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Truly

I say “truly” because I’m finding out that just not having actual face-to-face, virtual, or cellular interaction doesn’t mean I’m truly over it like I want to be. I need to be over it. I have to get over it.

I feel, and it’s only my opinion, that being truly “over it” is akin to the experience of going to Alcoholics Anonymous. You can go to AA because you’re told you’re not supposed to drink alcohol or are mandated by the court to do so. You white-knuckle it day-by-day, chanting the mantra, only to repeatedly fail and stuck in a torturous loop. Or you can go to AA because you truly, deeply in your heart, believe you have a problem with the way you think about alcohol, want to change that, and find only then do you make the change into who you’re meant to be. Lesson by hard-won lesson, one day at a time.

The important lessons are always hard-won.

I tried pure cocaine once. Decades ago. It’s not a euphemism. It was 100% pure cocaine. It was pure; pearly and flaky and amazing. It was euphoric. It was power and happiness and heaven. And the next morning, I wanted to die from the headache and shame. The cure for the shame and wanting what was bad for me was in already knowing it wasn’t good for me. Already knowing that dipping my toe didn’t mean I could swim. It didn’t lie; it’s just true.

Had I not known, though. Had it lied about its intentions, lied about its aftermath, I would’ve been hooked. I would’ve been conned into needing what it gave me so teasingly. If thought I could have that dreamy euphoria once again, even as it vanished without a word, only to return with more tasty promises—always just when I had curbed my addiction—to suddenly, cruelly, and without explanation deny me access again…would I do anything to entice it back? Would I have hung around despite it screaming at me what a piece of shit I was so humiliatingly only hoping for it to throw a little of that paradise back my way like it used to? When we were new? Were lovers? Friends? Before it convinced me I wasn’t worthy of even mere crumbs? Would I subject myself to torture to bring back that euphoria like it promised? Of course I would.

I’m glad I didn’t have the option. It was fun once and that’s where it belongs. Once.

But drugs and alcohol are easy to vilify because they’re recognized as something not to do. For good reason. They destroy people, lives, potential, energy. They’re vampires. And, there isn’t anyone telling us we’re wrong about them being dangerous. Drugs and alcohol don’t lie. People do.

Because of that reality, I’m struggling with why I should bother. That tiny bit of euphoria offered to me, despite the horrific psychological, physical, emotional abuse that comprised the interim, has been more desperately comfortable to cling to than having to admit to all of it being over. To not have that comfort to withdraw to, as fleeting and as false as it was, is frightening. Even worse is having to admit to being fooled entirely; a euphoria manufactured from Day One. It’s humiliating, crushing, defeating. Releasing that tiny last memory is the last comfort left until total emptiness. I fear the worst but have nothing left to cling to.

And it is worse. The emptiness breaks my heart in what little of my damaged life I have left.

Now it’s just dark.

So dark that it seems like I’m reeling towards a brick wall at midnight at 100 miles per hour with no time left to wonder what’s stopping me from running headlong into it. I can’t seem to see past the brick wall, what little shadow I can see of it. All I see is end and blackness and stop. Not death, just apathy. Just nothing.

Yet, I somehow know it’ll get better.

Because it has to.

Because there is no going anywhere but up from….

–No! Don’t say it! Stop this now.–

That statement is dangerously untrue! It’s only a semantically tricky way to invoke danger. I know better than to ever say the words, “things can’t get worse”. Because they will. I’ve lived it before. When those words are uttered, the gods go out of their way to prove us wrong. Like some medieval-themed game played with a 12-sided die, saying it makes it true, no matter what kind of cloaking word devices I use. I know better than to tempt them that way.

So I take it back! I take it all back.

Clinging to comfort isn’t living. Clinging to life isn’t living. I won’t do it anymore. The new die is cast.

So instead of tempting the gods into perpetuating a violent felon’s idea of what I deserve, I’ll say instead…I’m aiming towards the black, brick wall. And running head-first.

Propelled and limping as I near it, pinwheeling weak baby giraffe-like legs harder and faster, gaining speed and strength as the force of my own acceleration peels back my cheeks into some kind of a smile. A one-two leap and I’ll launch over it, shoot skyward, bounce off intermediate hills and haughty mountains. Somersaulting then regaining my direction in tighter trajectories.

I’ll dodge swoopy bald eagles until the goofy one I can’t avoid connects, startled as myself. We’ll explode into a hilarious mass of feathers and laughter.

Landing hard on our backs, we’ll high-five while panting in catching our breaths.

Wondering at our luck in our escape, pride in each other’s soaring, we see that wherever it is we land, it’s surprisingly sunny there.

Truly.

Asshole-Attitude Pervasiveness

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devil-mo
The author

20+ years ago I was stabbed in the throat by some asshole stranger who just didn’t like women. My friend and I happened to walk by his path and received his wrath.

She and I are fine now, he’s dead. It’s another story.

Stemming from this instance…being stabbed in the throat combined with a host of existing issues due to the immensely important thing I’m going to explain…I went to a rehab center that promised to help with my PTSD and ensuing Depression. It didn’t. While I’m so grateful for the opportunity I was gifted, that place sucked balls.

Again, that place is another story. And not my direct point.

I’ll explain.

Something regarding the #MeToo movement I read tonight had me thinking. It got me thinking how pervasive misogynistic attitudes are about women in general. So much so that, even though we’re 51% of the population, our functional health issues are disregarded. So much so, even other women are convinced that they are bullshit.  When I think about it, I’m suddenly horrified by how acclimated I became with the status quo of shitty attitudes towards all things “female”.

To come around to my point, as I  was attending this awful place settled on top of a Sierra in Tucson, AZ, we were required to attend morning meeting with the rest of the ~75 patients and confess aloud what we suffered from. One day, I said, in a disrespectfully joking manner, “I’m a victim of a violent crime, have ADD, PTSD, and…PMS.”

Everyone laughed because I was trying to be funny. It was disrespectful of me to be making light where I should’ve respected others’ weight. I didn’t think much of it then, though. I should have.

Here’s the shit:

I wonder, now, why did everyone laugh? Why did I think that was funny? Why would a painful, disruptive, disabling condition like PMS be funny? Ever?

20 years after my little haha fucking comment, I finally find out that my biggest issue in life has been PMS, more correctly, PMDD.

It has crippled my life. And it’s certainly not funny.

So why do we think it’s funny? Because it has to do with menstruation and that’s icky? Probably. Is it because it’s a female problem and therefore “dainty” and ridiculous? Probably.

Because of how pervasive this ridiculous, asshole-ish, misogynistic attitude is, it’s been barely even researched. It’s always been acknowledged but only as a weak symptom of being unfortunate enough to be born a woman.

Last year, writer Frank Bures questioned if PMS was real in his book, The Geography of Madness. In the above linked excerpt from Slate, he cites research that suggests that PMS—and its more brutal relative, PMDD—are culturally constructed rather than founded in biology. However, he recognizes that even if (and that’s a big “if”) something is a social construct, that doesn’t mean it’s not a real experience. He throws in examples of research that found women who endorsed stereotypical gender roles experience more “menstrual distress” and sheds light on the cultural differences between how eastern and western women experience their time of the month before coming to the conclusion that PMS and PMDD could be “cultural syndromes.”

–I would love to show Frank Bures-asshat, whoever this ridiculous idiot is, the hole I put in the wall at work just because the door was closed when it shouldn’t have been. I’m not saying which door…–

PMS is real. PMDD even more so.

PMDD can be so misunderstood that the condition is frequently misdiagnosed as a mental illness like bipolar disorder. It leaves thousands of women in a dark place or suicidal for at least one quarter to half of every month.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/28/women-premenstrual-syndrome-pms-dysphoric-disorder

It occured to me tonight that my comment 20 years ago was perpetuating the same cultural belief that this isn’t a problem to be concerned with because it’s a “woman” problem. I thought it’d be funny because no one takes it seriously. I thought it’d be funny because I was told that my rage, suicidal thoughts, and depression I’ve suffered once a month for 35 years that leaves me holding my knees and rocking, sobbing, and praying I can control myself, is just a weak, “woman” problem.

It’s like a revisiting evil demon who sits on your shoulder whispering reminders of your every regret. It makes you question your reason for existing, your reason for being on this earth. It removes your logic and ability to function. It reduces you to caricature.

So I ask again, why do we think that’s funny?

Chicks, amirite?

-NTZ

https://www.apa.org/monitor/oct02/pmdd

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/11/29/13765740/is-pms-real-slate-research-cure

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder-when-its-more-than-just-pms-201510128415

I’m Not a Bigger Person

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Have you ever sat up nights dreaming of someone’s demise? Have you ever focused so hard on someone getting their just desserts only to be disappointed by their head not exploding? Have you ever envisioned that someone running so hard, running hard but slower than you, from a bear?

Or are you lame?

Hm?

Don’t give me the “forgiveness” diatribe, either. Fuck forgiveness.

I read the best news today. I can’t wait for the rest and I hope it hurts. God, I hope it hurts someone responsible.

UCSD Investigated for Bullying

I’d explain more but I’m too busy celebrating these people who had the cajones and credibility to stand up to a system that has encouraged systematic abuse and unethical behavior. There’s more unearthing to go yet and I hope it gets muddy.

Keep on, heroes, for the countless number of us who never got our moment. We’re cheering for you every step.

And Throw In Something Witchy

Charles-mansonbookingphoto

One of my favorite quotes of all time is one by Charles Manson.

“Do what you do, do it well…and throw in something witchy.”

Now, before you get outraged, there’s a reason it’s my favorite and not what you’re probably assuming.

I don’t like it because it’s creepy/scary and makes me all shivery—it doesn’t. I don’t like it because it’s counterculture and I’m some misinformed hippie—I’m certainly not.

I like it because it’s rare to sum up someone’s true ethic—a glimpse inside their true self—from one little quote.

What this quote means, and he himself has admitted to it, is that he didn’t really care why his followers were going to do what they did as long as they did what he said, and did it well. He told them what they wanted to hear to motivate them (aided by a lot of speed and LSD.) He didn’t care about the state of race relations in the U.S. or starting a race war. He just wanted to hurt people as he’d felt he’d been hurt. He wanted to hurt and he wanted to make headlines.

Manson knew that if Tex Watson was to “throw in something witchy” along with the brutal murders,  the press would go crazy for it. And they did.

Manson was right but he’s not a genius. He’s an opportunist. He rode a societal wave that handed him vulnerable people who fulfilled what he was lacking and were fulfilled by him what they lacked. It’s mundane.

Charles Manson wasn’t and isn’t some Svengali. He wasn’t and isn’t some evil, demonic minion of Satan. He’s a man who hated his lot in life; who had a lot of anger towards everyone who got to enjoy a life he never got to enjoy. He is someone who happened to be at a place in geography and time where shoveling out answers to people already grasping for them happened to dovetail sweetly with his one charismatic skill.

Charles Manson was an happenstance-opportunist who got “lucky”. Lucky for him, not lucky for anyone who happened across his path. Lucky because he got what he wanted his whole life: acknowledgement, out of a life of irrelevance.

And that’s what he is, a “lucky”, angry, vengeful, opportunistic little man. And that’s all.

He’s human.

All of this stems from a preview I just saw of an upcoming ABC show “reminiscing” about the “evil” that is Charles Manson. There is no evil here. It’s human nature, whether you deem him devil or angel.

Despite the fact that they are gifting this man with what he’d always wanted, and what drove him to do what he did by revitalizing it…they are also perpetuating a myth about human nature that I find more disturbing.

Again, Charles Manson isn’t a devil. He’s human.

The myth is the push, the need, to deem people who commit terrible acts as evil or crazy or inhuman…the need to see people who commit horrific acts as anyone other than ourselves. I get it. I understand.

But to do that is ignorant, lazy, and cowardly.

Ignorant for not seeing that everyone in every way has influence. One can be a hermit, living in a cave, yet that runoff from their sewage is poisoning the plants, killing the bees that should pollinate the vegetables miles away. Ignorant for hoping that we’re separate entities who hold no responsibility for anyone else’s existence. It is simply not true. Not knowing or acknowledging your influence doesn’t lessen its effect.

Lazy because shame on you to anyone who thinks, “Hey, not in my yard.” And shame on you again.

Cowardly because we need to acknowledge that it IS our responsibility. Not addressing what’s causing and perpetuating whatever is your concern, makes you a coward. To think that you or a group of you can’t make a difference, is cowardly. To stand behind the excuse that, “nothing changes” is cowardly.

(Did you know that writing to your state’s congresspersons about your particular issue sways how they vote about…well, everything? Everyone? Who YOU are to be in this community and your power in it?)

Write your congressperson

It’s all of our responsibility to know what we’re doing for all of our fellow humans. Good, bad, and irritating. Because if we don’t, we get Manson.  He didn’t start off bad. He got his shit handed to him hand-over-fist. It made him bitter, angry, violently vengeful.  He was a kid that grew up in a shit-hole existence; uneducated, unguided, and uncared for.

It’s no excuse but it was all preventable.

I do blame him. But I also blame us.

Giving Manson a special on TV reassuring us that he is different, “evil”, “the devil”, and “powerful” is taking away our responsibility for helping to create the monster out of a boy.

Just because you don’t know anyone on the wrong-side-of-the-tracks doesn’t make you less responsible for the three-strikes law. Ignorance doesn’t validate you for voting in programs that promote incarceration and recidivism instead of rehabilitation. Turning a blind-eye doesn’t excuse your hand in this because you don’t want the icky-ness in your yard.

Charles Manson is an extreme example of what can happen when you’re born into a world that beats you from day one, where anger is your only connection, where violence is your only outlet.

He’s not the devil, he’s a possible outcome.

And it’s all our fault.

Apparently, I’m Dead–updated.

**An update of really no update…still worth the read.**

Apparently, I’m Dead

Apparently, according to the letter I received from the Los Angeles County Public Guardian, I’m dead. It’s been such a sublime, peaceful, extremely bright day today that I’m starting to question it myself. Though, in Heaven, I wouldn’t be out of smokes. I’ll let you know if I resurrect any time soon in the eyes of the State of California. —Molly Knop

The letter I received wasn’t a fraud as I initially thought. It didn’t ask for any money or social security numbers or anything we’re told not to give out. It was straightforward and clear; it asked how my funeral and burial expenses were to be paid upon my death. My death. The Death of Mary (Ellen!) Knop. After my initial bristling from seeing my name written wrong again, I re-read the letter. Yes, that was me, the only Mary (Ellen, damnit!) Knop in California. I scoured the Internet again for a Mary Knop in California, but as far as I could tell, I was the one, the only, the most…okay, the only Mary Knop in this great state of ours. Even Facebook didn’t have one listed in California and Facebook freakishly knows everything. Okay, I may not have searched very hard but I did dig a little deeper than Facebook. I even checked MySpace, though that one was a little harder to get to because I had to go back in time to 2005.

Continue reading “Apparently, I’m Dead–updated.” →

Apparently, I’m Dead

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*Small update of no update. Still worth the read…

“Apparently, according to the letter I received today from the Los Angeles County Public Guardian, I’m dead. It’s been such a sublime, peaceful, extremely bright day today that I’m starting to question it myself. Though, in Heaven, I wouldn’t be out of smokes. I’ll let you know if I resurrect anytime soon in the eyes of the State of California.”

Facebook, September 30, 2013

That was my Facebook post on September 30, 2013. The letter I received wasn’t, as I initially thought as anyone would, a fraud. It didn’t ask for any money or social security numbers or anything we’re told not to give out. It was straightforward and clear. It asked how my funeral and burial expenses were to be paid upon my death. My death. The Death of Mary Knop. After my initial bristling from seeing my name wrong again, I read and re-read the letter. Yes, that was me, the only Mary (Ellen, damnit!) Knop in California. I scoured the Internet for a Mary Knop in California again, but as far as I could tell, I was the one, the only, the top, coolest…the only Mary Knop in this great state of ours. Even Facebook didn’t have one listed in California and Facebook’s got everything. Well, I may not have searched very hard but I did dig a little deeper than Facebook. I even checked MySpace, though that one was a little hard to get to because I had to go back in time to 2005.

Continue reading “Apparently, I’m Dead” →

Death Isn’t Private and a Promise for a Long Lost Friend

If there ever comes a time where I’m told it’s the end for me, here’s my plan: I’m throwing a huge party and everyone’s invited. Afterwards, while we spike my IV with Diet Coke and vodka, we’re playing the original Trivial Pursuit I’ve memorized by now and Pictionary (I get to win even if I am only drawing sticks). We’ll all be wearing stupid hats and making faces with scotch-tape. Then, I’ll be passing out the lyrics to the horrible show tunes with your names on them in the order you have to do your solo at my wake. During the service, T-shirts, with my huge face silk-screened onto them, will be air-cannoned out to the mourners to the tune of Yakety Sax….or the theme song to WKRP in Cincinnati, a true classic. And there will be an open bar. I hope you all make similar plans.

I don’t want anyone to find out I left without signing their yearbook. I want everyone to have the chance to tell me what they want when they know I can hear it. (Good and bad, though that would be a odd time to tell me I was a jerk, you would still get the chance, weirdo) I found out that my old friend passed on as quietly as one could in this information age and it took me years to find out she was already gone, right around the time my search to reconnect with her really began. I wish so much I could’ve told her how much she meant to me and hopefully made her laugh but it was too late and my dear friend perished bravely, though cruelly and tragically, without so much as a whimper. And again, though late, all of my love is sent to her poor family.

I searched for years for you, Jess, only to find I tried just a little too late. It won’t happen again, I promise. I didn’t get to say it then so: Goodbye, my friend, you’ve always been some of my favorite memories. Your wit and humor and kindness and cynicism were a template for my own life. And your genuine awesomeness is always with me. I wish we could’ve cracked-up together again but maybe I’ll just see you on the other side and embarrass you then. I’ve got more ideas for our radio show. Even if my afterlife might be quite a bit warmer than the beautiful place I’m sure you are, we can maybe Skype or I’m sure I’ll have Facebook down there. Whatever the case is, I won’t let the afterlife get in the way. I’ll start looking for you the moment I reach the gate.