See, I knew if I let myself get out of the habit of writing an entry every couple of days, I'd let writing slide for weeks at a time. It's been a busy couple weeks at that. Well, my kind of busy that is.

Laundry is washing, and I have an hour or so to kill while I wait. I want to do some painting today. The painting on the board right now is a couple weeks old and not my best. I should stretch out some paper and get it started drying before I get into writing an entry. Ahh well.

There's been something that I've been meaning to write about for a week now, but haven't because of 'politics'. Heh. The weekend before last, I went camping with the boys and well... it sucked. I realized a lot of things about myself, my relationships, my wants and needs, and that's a good thing I guess. But for the first camping trip in a year, I just wanted to have a good time. Self-realizations can stay home.

I can't even think of what point it started to go sour. Maybe it was as early as the night before when I discovered that the campground we wanted to go to was booked full. I left a message for the boys, with the suggestion that we use it as an opportunity to try somewhere new. The rest of the evening was spent calling back and forth with different options. Something that came up was that there was an Ikea midnight madness sale that friday, and that plans had been made to go. (Just to clarify, plans had been made to go camping 2 weeks in advance and until my initial phonecall on Thursday there hadn't been discussion about that weekend at all)

I stayed up that night to make a checklist of what to bring, what we had (most of the stuff) and what we needed them to bring. I walked Sara to school that morning and on the way back home, went to the corner store to get water and other things for the trip. I started prep and pack for the trip at 9am Friday morning. Which for me is late. I prefer to have the car completely packed and ready the night before, so that when it's time to go it's just a matter of the cooler and ourselves to get in the car. By 2pm we were completely ready to go and just waiting for the call from MG that he was coming to get us.

We got to the boys' place around 4pm after doing some shopping to get random needed things. Standard packing chaos. Much of which had me holding my list, and saying "No. we have that."... the list wasn't used by them, due to some miscommunication as I understood it. I think the kicker of that part of the trip was when they couldn't find their tent. I suggested a couple times that we should come back to my place and get my other/smaller tent for them rather than all of us sharing my big tent. That idea was vetoed on the basis of wasted gas. I should have insisted. *sighs*

So we get to the camp site about 7pm and get to setting everything up. Standard debate about what goes where and why. The next irritation was setting up in my tent. RH wanted to sleep across the doorway as "there's more room there" and I kept saying "no. I get up to go pee in the middle of the night and I will trip on you." Finally I just left it and went to set up the kitchen tent area. Through the fabric walls I hear "Fine. I'll sleep here. Because of Pol-i-tics." Somehow I ended up feeling guilty.

Ok, enough of the blow-by-blow entry. Basically the entire trip was filled with lots of tension and stress. I spent most of it with a raging headache because I don't like to get mad, but I was mad almost non-stop. I got teased endlessly. Everything was a production and a power-struggle. I was very much a part of it, I'm not saying I was lily-white innocent, but fuck, it was hell.

Something that's been bothering me about it ever since was the teasing. It's a tradition with the people around me, apparently. Always, and I mean always when I'm out with a group of people that have known me for a while they will start teasing me. There are no words to describe how I feel being the brunt of the fucking non-stop jokes. Apparently "You're funny when you get mad. You turn bright red!" is a good reason to mock, hurt and anger a 'friend'.

Ok, I do turn bright red when I'm angry. I can also turn very violent. Anger makes me want to lash out and beat the shit out of what is making me angry. I've known this about myself as long as I can remember, and I have also worked on controlling it for the same amount of time. I have a vicious temper that I control amazingly. That bright red shouldn't be amusing, it should be a warning to back the fuck off and that maybe, just *gasp* maybe you shouldn't DO THAT.

I don't get it. Part of my control of my temper is to attempt to let it slide off my back, not to let it hurt me. That's what it really comes down to, is I am hurt. I am angry because I am hurt and I want to protect myself from it. So, why is this a tradition? Why is it ok to hurt me to anger me for your amusement? Why? Would it be so funny if I cried instead? If I hadn't been trained by years of abuse to respond to cruelty with anger rather than visable hurt?

It's not funny. That last question makes me see it even clearer. If someone responds to what should be a gentle tease with visable anger, then you've gone to fucking far and you stop and you apologize. Mike pointed out that I apologized a number of times that weekend and never got the same in return.

I realized a couple years ago that I play these roles in people's lives that have nothing to do with who I am or what my life is or has been. That I am this cardboard statue pulled out when needed and heaven forbid I be anything else, like, oh, I dunno, me?

Ahh well. Out of writing time.