It finally happened. Trump left. Smilin’ Joe Biden was sworn in.

The long national clusterfuck is over.

And now, the world, as one, copes with PTSD.

On the personal front, the “not specifically intended to be sexual” vibrating massager I ordered showed up on time and on schedule.

Bit of a tussle with the delivery guy. He calls from the entrance to our building and tells ME, the customer, that I have to go down to HIM.

“I can’t do that.” I reply. “I will let you in. “

“Um, no, we can’t do that. I’m on a cell phone. ” he says.

“I know.” ^[1] I said, in my bright, cheery, and clearly enunciated voice that only implies that you are an idiot, “So hang up and call back on the phone attached to the building.”

“Uh, no can do, I don’t have the number…..”

“The buzzer number is 0601!” I cheerfully supplied.

“Well…. okay.” he grated in reply, then hung up.

And for a while, I didn’t hear from him. And my resolve wavered. So I went out to the living room and asked Julian to go down for me.

But Julian didn’t even have his pants on when the phone rang, and lo and behold, the intense buzzing sound on the line allowed me to infer it was him, and I let him in.

Victory! Ah, that felt good. Don’t try to match my laziness levels, fool, because you might be lazy, but I’m lazy AND brilliant.

Nolo contendre, motherfucker.

And the best part is that I didn’t even think about it. He said “Come down” and I said “I can’t” purely out of reflex. I had not given a single thought to the issue before I picked up the phone the first time.

The reason that is such a big deal was that I stood up for myself (in a tiny way) purely out of instinct, and that signals big progress towards learning to assert myself.

I defended my territory and won, and without thinking it through and deciding it’s justified and carefully measuring the amount of force needed and all that BS.

Nope. He tugged. I tugged back. HARDER.

This is not the first time this has happened with Amazon deliveries. It happens pretty often. I can only assume that most people just go down, like this entire apartment building was their house and they are going to the front door.

Well fuck that. I am a lazy stubborn agoraphobic genius, so YOU come to ME.

Oh, when he finally knocked on the door and handed me the package like it was a dirty diaper on the way to the pail, he gave me such a look of resentment.

Like, sullen teen level resentment.

I, of course, loved it. Go on, feed me your pain, your resentment, your blind and unjustified rage. It only sweetens the victory.

Like I am going to go out of my way to make HIS job easier. Fuck THAT.

More after the break.

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Nothing but haymakers

When I (verbally) fight, I fight hard. Every punch is maximum force. Every shot is a headshot. Every thrust of the blade goes straight for the jugular.

It’s the way I have always been. And I suppose there is a certain rough-hewn nobility to it. Were I a petite man, it might even be labeled as my being “scrappy”.

But in a 6’1″ ogre like me, it’s really antisocial.

It’s like I fight every fight like I am fighting for my life. Like there’s far more at stake that some idle conversation or some comment section bullshit.

So why is that? I mean, what the fuck, right?

Let’s try to figure it out.

First, let’s discuss my oft buried and rarely acknowledged pugilistic nature.

There has always been a part of me that really wants to fight. That wants to hit and be hit without a hint of restraint.

That just wants to fuckin’ go’er, ya know?

But obvious that shit has no place in the mind and personality of a sweet natured middle class liberal fag boy like me.

Had I been a product of the working class, I probably would have been one of those guys who picks fights in bars for fun.

But instead, I learned to bury that part of me because it “didn’t make sense”.

And I have only just now realized that there was a lot of baby in that bathwater and that I paid far too steep a price when I suppressed such a large part of myself and that it’s high time I excavated that part of myself and put it to good use.

Another factor is how I grew up verbally wrestling with my father. First I attempted to mediate between my father and my siblings (surely, it was just a matter of communication) and then when I got older and realized my father abused us because he needed to, I would tackle him when he started talking crap at the dinner table and I just kept on doing that, interposing myself between the innocent and the forces of evil, until I got strong enough to utterly defeat him and chase him away.

I take no pleasure from that. It needed doing so I did it.

So on that level, I really was (verbally speaking) fighting for my life. I had to defeat the monster that was my Dad. Nobody else could do it. Nobody had my gifts but me. Nobody else could see him like I did. Nobody else knew his secrets and his bullshit and his petty little justifications like I did. I had to do it. It had to be me.

And you know what? When you are fighting the boss monster of your entire existence, you don’t pull your punches. You hit as hard as you can as fast as you can and you just keep hitting until the motherfucker stops getting back up.

No wonder I fight like I do.

The third factor is a lack of opposition. Had I had equals to spar with and test myself against, I would have learned how to play nice and not take things too far.

But I didn’t. I’ve been far, far stronger than those around me for my entire life. Which means there was never anybody to slap me down, put me in my place, show me where the limits are.

Instead, I defeated all comers with depressing ease, often without even trying. I shrugged off their mightiest blows and then ignored them.

Also very antisocial of me. But it’s not my fault I’m the biggest and the strongest.

I don’t even exercise.

There’s other factors too. Like shameful memories of losing verbal battles to bullies. A fuckton of suppressed rage at how life treated me.

Being, in general, a wee bit insane.

Regardless of explanation, it’s something I am going to need to deal with if I hope to escape this cage of mine and go out and hang with the normal people.

Or at least, a larger and more diverse group of nerds.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.