I want something else. To get me through this. Life. Baby.

After returning my rental car to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (the Jackson part was added (see October 2003) to honor Mayor Maynard Jackson, who's dead now and was also the first black mayor of any southern city ever.), I took MARTA to Arts Center, and imbetween the College Park and East Point stops I saw this ad:

There are just too many variables involved in a scenario where a person is geeked in a dirty bathroom losing their virginity for it to be presented as such an unequivocally negative experience. It's like these guys were like, "OK, time to make a decision! What's more important? (1) Perpetuating creepy ideas about the impossible magic and romance of losing one's virginity (Which I believe is the scenario that this ad is trying to offer as the alternative to getting fucked while bent over a toilet bowl (Sounds pretty hot, right?). I could be wrong though. I have been before.) or (2) Making a flashy ad that does little other than trigger former meth-users and terrify children in an effort to aid in harm reduction?" EASY! FLASHY IDEAL-COMPROMISING AD WINS!

I mean, it just seems kind of counter productive. Unfortunately, I'm plagued with an impulse to assign almost everything with the same level of importance, and therefore, am deeply disappointed by this anti-drug effort which uses humiliation of other non-drug related deviations to nonsensically associate the perverted with mortally unhealthy.

So, like, am I supposed to think I'm not gonna look super hot smoking meth out of a broken light bulb at the Texaco station before I go to the punk show? I mean SERIOUSLY! THIS PHOTOGRAPHY IS GORGEOUS! It doesn't even make me think about drugs at all, it just makes me wonder which advertising agency is responsible for the aesthetic and which one of my friends they ripped off to achieve it.

In conclusion:
DRUGS ARE NOT THE ANSWER, BUT POOPY GROSS PUBLIC BATHROOM SEX MIGHT BE.

There have been a bunch of commercials on TV for it too. The organization responsible for this anti-meth campaign is called The Georgia Meth Project. You can see more of these crazy intense ads on their website. I highly recommend it. No pun intended.

Wait. What was the question?

I was about to watch a movie and pass out after drinking what actually turns out to be a small quantity of booze (for Atlanta), but instead decided to reread Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic. I realized two things while reading:

1. This poetry is so bad that it's insulting, even to children. In fact, I remember being a child and reading this to myself and expecting one day that I would understand it. That day has come.
2. I should start drawing again. And showing you. Or someone.

I then remembered two things:

1. Shel Silverstein is actually some crazy jazzbo pervert who likes to talk about double penetration or something. And that's OK by me.
2. I wish "we" (my mother and I, or my dad, or my dogs Timmy and Big Shot, or whoever) still lived in my childhood home.

• It was a smallish cookie-cutter house in what I like to call the OG Suburbs of Atlanta (which means it was closer to downtown than Dunwoody and farther away than Lenox Mall). I had no friends in the neighborhood and ran away frequently to the playground of the Korean Baptist Church, which was so close, it was practically in our backyard. The carpet was longish corn-blue and I always thought there were monsters (or hot guys) floating outside my giant window. This window is where I first began my casual exhibitionism. Which I'm sure you didn't know about until now.
• I miss that home and that life deeply. As with so many children with typically boring divorced/separated families, I associate the exit from this house with the beginning of the end for me (OK? Deal with it.) and also, more specifically, the beginning of the end of my trust in reliable housing. More on this later.
• I still dream about this house. A recurring dream is that my father (To whom I am almost identical, except for, duh, I'm not. He's my dad.) and I are trying to destroy a giant mud dauber to no avail, of course. In this dream, his impotency as my protector cripples me and I always wake up crying. More on this later (much later).

i just can't help myself

I want all my garmonbozia.

ASK HELEN DEGENERATE 1.0

Not long ago, I started an advice column project. Here's the flier I made for it:

Not very many people have responded yet, but maybe that's because I haven't been posting or publishing the results at all. So, now, the moment we've all been waiting for...


...ASK HELEN DEGENERATE 1.0


Dear Helen,

Major problems in the realm of totally helpless, hopeless crushes.  I have the most devestatingly overwhelming crush on someone whose former partner I'm involved in an accountability proccess with! I keep trying to pretend it's not happening but then they meet up with the accountability group to check in and I am overwhelmed with crushy emotions such as 'I would sure love to buy this person an ice cream cone and hold their hand,' or 'Omg! The way they are talking about consent is so articulate and awesome (and how did I not notice they're such a babe before right now?) Oh wait, I did. I always do. Oy vey.'

It's not like I become some googley eyed wolf in a zoot suit, but I just get bummed out whenever we meet up and then they leave and I have post-crushtime depression and am all 'this can never be.'

Because duh, obviously it is totally inappropriate for me to ask them on a date, and if they asked me out on a date (like that would ever happen), it would totally compromise the integrity of my involvement in this accountability proccess, and thereby potentially give the 'proccessee,' if you will, a possible excuse to distrust all of us and ditch out on the whole thing and never stop being a totally creepy jerk.

So I guess my question is: how do you make a crush that you can't help having and is totally intense and overwhelming but not feasible to act on go away? Or, do you have any suggestions on how to navigate being super crushed out on someone you have this sort of 'punk-professional' relationship with?

I hope I don't sound like a whiny baby all, 'waah, waaah! I feel entitled to smooch anyone and now I have to have boundaries! Gimme my bottle!' I just haven't had it this bad in a long time.

Help me, Helen!

Sincerely,
Full Time Whiner

My Dearest Whiner:

It's cool that you know how ironic and potentially inappropriate pursuing a romance with this babely processor, but those thoughts might also be a tool for you to cease examining the origin of your boners in general. Example: it's easy to be like, "Oh I shouldn't have this crush because we're working together on sensitive material regarding this very topic. Therefore my feelings are inappropriate." This is not the end of the road for you and your own process!
 
However, could it be possible that you have this crush exactly for the reason that this person is engaging in a community process? A community process about romantic/sexual/emotional health that you have already invested a lot of your time and energy in? This person is already there, already cares about the politics you make an effort to apply to punk lifestyle, and you get to hang with them all the time and learn the serious things about them and show them, by being a useful facilitator in what is probably a difficult time for them. of course you have a crush on them. everyone's hot and they get even hotter when you know you care about the same heavy shit.

SO, basically you have two options: 1) just fucking go for it, engage in an over-the-top and heavily self-referential over-communication about possibly pursuing some level of romance with this person (because, after all, it doesn't matter what "the community" thinks as long as, and pardon my corniness, you're true to yourself and your love interest). You'll have to sort out your responsibilities to your process group, of course, while simultaneously preparing yourself for rejection and (hopefully not) humiliation). But whatever, right? Life's short or something...

...or 2) take a cold shower and get over it. there will be other crushes. I'm sure you've had crushes in the past and I'm certain you'll have more in the future. Maybe you should start a band or something so that you're mind doesn't try to confuse you by involving your shit in something that's so complicated and unnecessary.
 
Hope this was helpful, whiny baby!
xoxo
Helen Degenerate