Man, I don’t even know how to start this. We are like three weeks in, I think; every day is Wednesday to me and I’m cool with it. I have yet to find my grove but I am skippy dippin and skit scattin all over my wood floors trying to figure things out. No one can see me unless they look through my amazing bay windows, and you have the option of taking a picture or looking away.   I stay camera-ready like Queen Gina Vong.

I’m ready to work again; not because I wanna leave my house, but because I wanna pay my own bills.  I’m not as stressed about it as I should be, we all sitting in the poor pot together so I’m just trusting my path and making plans to work around this pandemic.

I love my house; I’ve said it a trillion times. I love everybody in it. I love that for the first time in a very long time I’m only obligated to pay attention to a small group of people. We are huddled up, checking in on each other, and reminding each other every day that they’re loved and missed. I hope everyone else lucked out with similar support groups.

I miss hugs though. A friend came by with quiche (Fort Smith is feeding ya girl so so so good right meow) and she gives the best hugs. We had to air hug and now my arms are sad because they anticipated the overdue affection.  My love language is physical touch. I spoon and mouth kiss EVERYTHING that lives in my house. I miss hugs that don’t smell like melted Bomb Pops mixed with Lucky Charms and Gouda.  I want someone other than the dog to lick my face and bark at me like DMX when I walk by.  Somebody slap my ass, anything!

But for once, for the most part, I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

As a result, my house has been temporarily destroyed.

Just playin, my house is always like this.

But more than everything that comes with this virus and Quarantine, not to sound selfish, but I’m getting to write again. I’m sitting, writing, thinking, feeling and getting to know who Shannon should live, fight, love and die for. I’m not who I thought I was, or who I remember. I’m not even sure I’m the correct version of myself right now.

I’ve been the most distracted, it’s landed me to an unnecessary space. I’ve been literally forced to confront the space I should be tending to along with the rest of the WORLD.

We are forced to mind our own business for once. That’s not even something I do on the regular, I’m a trainwreck that I prefer not to acknowledge.

But I am now.  It’s humbling to spend days at a time butting heads with your child and find a diary entry from nearly the same age with a similar situation merely reversed.

I’ve been the frustrated kid who feels like they can do no right in their mother’s eyes. I’m also the mother who can’t understand why her kid isn’t listening. Or why they don’t understand.

I’m my mother

And my son.

I miss being my parents’ daughter. 

Let me go back, I promise I’ll do better! I’ll pay attention in batting practice, I’ll clean my room. I’ll stop making my brothers cry.  I’ll feed the dogs every day.  I’ll iron your jeans and put that crease in that you like!! 

 We operated in true harmony as children; we literally sang with each other all day.  As the only child currently within her reach, I will say with complete confidence that personal autonomy overpowers set boundaries. No one can make anyone be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’  There’s only so much you can do when your kids are teenagers and everyone has to work.  I can tell Tyler a billion times not to mess with Achilles and he knows what I’m saying, but he chooses to pull his tail.  Children will do whatever they wanna do, especially when they’re big enough to get away with it. 

Another thing I learned that humbled me; none of is ever prepared for the personalities and idiosyncrasies of children. They can’t be handled exactly the same and they notice it, which causes resentment that they can’t understand or navigate properly. Everyone accepts love and consequences differently so my ass is over here trying to figure out which language to speak to two different boys who JUST started speaking English and having feelings.  

I barely know myself. I JUST found out on my own this week how annoying and obnoxious and tactless I am. I’m also on all the meds, so while I’m trying to rebuild myself while inadvertently self-harming in a variety of ways (no sleep, drinking too much, not writing, stress eating, etc) I’m gonna keep my remaining children alive and navigate my behavior for all my other relationships. It’s a ton of trial and error, a ton of apologizing, and even more things to add to the list of boundaries.

Every time I scream in frustration, “I never woulda gotten away with this bullshit!” I remember it’s because she didn’t let us get away with it.

She gave zero fuchs about being the best homie and how loud I threw a tantrum- by the way, cry it out doesn’t work cause I still throw em. She stood her ground to make sure whatever foolishness we tossed her way never made it out again.

Speaking of tantrums. When my Macbook broke I cried like Achilles died with it. Then somewhere between my wailing and sniffling loudly I got a flashback of my mom crying when Goog and I broke these engraved glasses my dad got her for their anniversary in 1984. We decided to play baseball with a balloon in the room we aren’t allowed to play or even visit unless we’re dusting. One of us hit the balloon with a mini Tulsa Drillers bat and it flew right into the Schrank holding  Mama’s preciouses.

Upon this memory, I allowed myself another fifteen minutes or so of audible mourning, took a chill pill and went about my business.

The more time I spend with my boys, the more I realize that I deserved every ass whoopin or grounding I got. 

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I WILL BREAK LESS THINGS! I WILL BREAK NOTHING!!!!!!!!!! 

Shout out to this natural disaster for humbling me as a human, parent, daughter, and woman.

Guess it’s only up from here, and right now we all cookin in the same pot.

Stay ya asses inside so we can all move up. Also, keep washing your hands. 

But if you sick of cooking,  keep our neighbors alive by visiting some of these guys!

These are who I’ve visited since the quarantine so far! Where have you gone?

Jeff’s Clubhouse

AJ’s Oyster House

Asuka Sushi and Hibachi

Ralph’s Pink Flamingo BBQ

Doe’s Eat Place

My biggest share wasn’t even created by me.

Let me just pile that onto my crippling imposter syndrome.

But It sparked a “heavy flow” of emotion from our male counterparts. In the words of the mighty Janet Jackson, it was

Heavy like a first day period.

So real quick I would like a huge favor from any female who reads this:

Please answer in the comments section a simple yes or no. Feel free to add a story, I’d love to hear it and I’m sure a lot of us wouldn’t feel so alone.

Have you lied about having your period to escape having sex?

Simple question, just a yes or a no, I just wanna prove the dudebros who actually read the entire article outside of its provocative title a point.

When I was a teenager my parents spoiled me, and I’m grateful. I had a billion magazine subscriptions; two of them being Seventeen and Teen Vogue. Mad Magazine was my favorite though, and I need to revive that immediately.

Anyways, those two teen girl mags answered some questions I didn’t always wanna ask my mom, or the moms I babysat for. One that I still use today is the question above.

If I’m ever in a situation where I feel uncomfortable just saying No to sex, I’ll say I’m on my period.

Because contrary to popular belief, sometimes No doesn’t always work. In fact, I’ve yelled an almost terrified “I’m on my period!” at a frat boy that sent him in the other direction saying “eeewwwww” when my “No” was met with a “stop being a tease”. Suddenly I’m a stupid bitch for not letting him know beforehand that I was on my period. Because that’s his business.

“Yes, this trashcan punch you gave me is delicious, Brock. By the way, I’m on my period so you’d have better luck chasing the girls in white lace shorts tonight… Not me, in the long black billowing skirt and the crow sitting on my shoulder.”

So, thanks to Seventeen or Teen Vogue, you got me out of a few sticky situations that I will likely be told were my fault for being caught up in the first place. Cause according to dudes I’m slutty, and slutty girls are public property. Back to Seventeen and Teen Vogue, right after I use the word slutty, If you ever want a writer who celebrated every period with you in my bathtub all afternoon ( God I was so spoiled I miss it) Please contact me. Or maybe send me somebody I can contact, it will be fun, I promise!

So, this is about periods. And how we use them to gross out dudes who find them gross enough to avoid.

See what I did there?

Read that above. WE USE OUR PERIODS TO GROSS OUT DUDES WHO FIND THEM GROSS ENOUGH TO AVOID

So, Brock, if you’re not grossed out by periods, guess what, young man?

NOBODY ASKED YOU

ESPECIALLY YOU

So before you spark up your forearms for something other than your embarrassing browser history that you even have on your phone……

Realize that this isn’t about you. In fact, sweeping in to defend your fellow man when it comes to us using our periods as a defense mechanism towards unwanted sexual advances (by the way this is often the last resort) only shines a bright waving red flag letting us know that we need to stay away. So if you decide to comment an argument or explanation as to why I’m wrong, please ask yourself and maybe even type yes or no in the comments

Do you want all of us to know that you’re offended that we are speaking publicly about something you may have experienced yourself?  If this is where you’d like an apology for every girl who refused sex because of her period, let me give it to you.

Just Kidding.

Ask yourself. Is Shannon talking about me, as a person? Does Shannon know who I am, and do I care about Shannon that much that I need to tell her why she’s wrong? Or am I just swingin in like Tarzan to take a swing at a woman with my bare but possibly dirty thumbs? Yeah, you sound like a great guy. ” Not all guys what?”

One, two, three, four

I declare a thumb war.

Okay, Tarzan.

Me, Shannon.

You, Person No One Asked.

I get told that I hate men a lot, it’s usually the last thing they yell. It’s truly not that; I just hate when people, in general, overstep my boundaries and get offended when I want the boundary honored. It’s easy to sound and look angry when you’re saying something people don’t want to contemplate to the point where they explain why my EXPERIENCE is wrong.

This isn’t even an opinion for you to argue. It’s an experience that most women have endured.

In fact, ask ya boi Google about the women who cut their thighs to make men think they’re bleeding. They mutilate themselves so that men won’t rape them. You ever have to cut yourself to make a person think you were too gross to rape? OOhh or the ones who even wore tampons to keep from being molested by a family member. That’s a thing too.

Take a look at that meme. Got shared way more than anything I’ve ever written, and my ego is taking it hard. It was shared by mostly women who felt the same way but argued by men who felt targeted.

Yo, me and Sam are about to talk about online behavior soon. If you didn’t see that shitshow of dudes explaining their right to harass a woman in her DM’s on his page you should check it out.

After that, I’ll have a chicken or the egg conversation and see who is protecting themselves from whom because I know that I’m a dangerous one to play with and no one leaves me unscathed. I’m not perfect and I’m terrifying but so is everyone else. We are all out here trying to get hurt the least but at some point where do we all make it safe for all of us to date?

I’d rather be smashin’ a dude than bashin’ him.

But ya’ll out here playin, and some of us are strong and hurt enough to play just as rough.

So here’s the deal, we been having our periods under control

When the F are you gonna get the rape problem under control?

Unless you’re trying to get us raped less please take a seat.