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I just burned my hand on our dilapidated toaster oven trying to heat up soy sauce for my triumphantly plump pot stickers. The burn is the shape of a backwards Idaho, or a rather deformed boner. It hurts.

I feel empty, but too tired and hazy to feel bad about it. I'm listening to Ani Difranco and it's reminding me of my sister, who has begun her adventurous college journey. Just call me shameless. I miss her. I miss playing dress-up when we were younger and arguing over who was the pioneer and who was the indian. Do you remember Operation Neptune? Do you remember the huge, empty cardboard refrigerator box that we constructed as a tunnel between our two rooms? Do you remember sneaking in there at night with magic markers and flashlights and drawing inside of our cave until Mom heard our uncontrollable giggles? I miss that old picture of us eating bell peppers fresh from the garden, me wearing my favorite Thumbelina dress, shadowing you and your charming smile.
She was my beautician and sexual education professor. She taught me how to wear discreet makeup that Mom wouldn't notice, and decorated my face whenever I asked her to. She drew me diagrams of erect male reproductive organs when I was little and didn't understand all the hype.
When my heart was broken for the first time she wrote a song for me on the piano and sang it to me when I was sad and mopey and lingering over confusion.
I miss walking home with you and singing The Proclaimers. This college education better be worth it....

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I have this familiar, twisting feeling in my stomach that used to plague me every day when I was younger. A long time ago, my conscience was so huge and heavy that it would drip into my belly cavities and create an uncomfortable knot that felt similar to several hungry snakes. I was burdened with every mistake I made, every misfraction, and I cried because I wasn't perfect. I cried because every small imperfection that plagued me stayed, slowly gnawing at me until I confessed my petty sin to someone who would tell me that it was okay. As I grew older, what I called the Knot in my stomach slowly eroded away and disappeared, smothered beneath rebellion.

One of the things I despise about being a female is the jealousy that so often bothers me. It clings to me, it's like a purple monster that won't go away and won't stop whispering in my ear the constant reminders of things I want to, need to, forget. These things will destroy me. I linger on them, I pick them apart to the bone, devouring the meat and throwing it up to devour again. I continue the cycle, which morphs into self-hatred because that's only way I am capable of dealing with things. The jealousy makes a knot in my belly, it's so similar to the Knot that had existed when I was younger. The snakes spit and hiss hateful things that scrape away at my flakes of confidence. Bitterness follows close behind, a faithful companion, repulsive to me and that much more difficult to deal with considering my everlasting attempts at respect and forgiveness. This plethora of complications causes the days to prove more difficult. The most I can do is try.

//

Last night my parents and I got in an explosive argument that escalated to physical frustration. I felt disrespected and taken advantage of, they felt hurt and I deciphered it as being "anal". I yelled Fuck you! at my father, and he responded with angry impulsiveness. I tried to slap him on the arm in a piteous attempt at revenge and self-defense and froze on the mattress on the ground in dumbfounded realization that I had just made more mistakes then hours in a day. As usual. I recognized again that this anger that is embedded inside of me is unhealthy and terrifying. I never have dealt with it healthily... Time for some serious numbing action.