Marina Rose Martinez

I guess I’m on a blogging kick.

Anyway, I thought I’d write about the rain because that’s what’s going on and I’m anything if not accurate. So… it’s raining. And… stuff.

I don’t know what to write about except that the rain makes me think it’s later than it is because there’s not enough light to justify it being daytime and I just feel like it’s elementary school, because in elementary school when it rained we didn’t go outside to play, we stayed in the classroom for recess. And really, which fat, socially awkward kid with no friends doesn’t positively love staying inside where everybody in the class has to at least play near you, if not actually with you? Outside is dirty, and requires -yech- running, and worse yet–the kids are all spread out, away from teacher earshot so they can call you a whale and nobody knows but you and every other kid around, who will never, ever let that go. Until somebody says that you look like a dude and are probably an it–which will automatically become your new, hermaphrodite nickname. So rain was awesome, because we all had to sit quietly and play nice and nobody could suggest that I might be better off dead for at least one whole day.

But in middle school and high school it was totally different. Since I started taking public transportation in 7th grade, waiting and walking in the rain, then being packed onto the bus with several people that smelled like wet, diseased dog wasn’t really my idea of awesome. Especially when I recall that my shoes were frequently falling apart, and that my pant legs were always dragging on the ground due to the fact that I perceived big baggy jeans to be the height of fashion. An image choice which eventually became my standard high school sagging dickies. Either way, those fuckers drag on the wet ground and in puddles, and usually, by the time I got to school or home from school everything below my knees was soaked through, due in no small part to the fact that in LA, the drainage system backs-up in the rain and everything floods. I also never carried an umbrella because 1. umbrellas are stupid and 2. Umbrella’s just drip water all over the bus, giving you the same problem except indoors. Long story short, I never had good rain gear, because why would you go out and spend the money for something that happens 5 times a year? And as a result, rain sucked because I was cold and wet the entire time.

So this is really extra long and all I wanted to do was waste a few minutes writing about the rain. And now I’m thinking about all my old clothes and all my old shoes, and taking the bus in high school, and standing in the pouring rain, wishing I could smoke but knowing not to chance it. And all the other little things I hated about being young and angry and poor. And now the rain just makes me feel young and tired and contemplative.

I just wanted to say that I could really do without Christmas, completely. Like, I understand that there needs to be a festival of lights, long dark winter, the nights getting shorter in anticipation of new beginnings etc, but this is ridiculous. This is some bullshit. We’re all broke this year-fuck, we’re all broke every year and yet, we keep digging ourselves a deeper hole just to give crap to douche bags we don’t even like. Well, you do. Everyone I’m getting a present for, I like. And on the one hand it is rather nice to have a day where we remember not to be assholes and give shit to our friends instead of just focusing all our rampant American consumerism on ourselves and our pets. But on the other hand, it’s a lot of hassle and we’re all dealing with it at the same time. Everybody has to take vacation at the same time, everybody has to be at the airport at the same time, Isn’t there a better way?

Also, suck it Jesus, you don’t even figure in to this shit!

So, awhile ago I wrote this tawdry block of text on the Keith and the Girl forums in response to a girl who was having trouble with her orgasms (she’s since sorted it out). I’ve gotten some great compliments on it. Seems to have helped others with their own personal -ahem- orgasm problems. Although I fail to see it’s potential to be arousing, I am proud of it, both as a piece of work and as sort of how-to guide. I notice that a lot of people are not prepared to speak or write in detail about their personal sex life and I see how this might be helpful. Two notes: firstly that every link in this post is completely Safe For Work so click away, and second that after five years of practiced, precision targeting, my 5-is-a-bad-night track record is somewhat less so. Every couple will tell you that working for the 5th O is usually futile when you know that they’ll be back in your bed naked again tomorrow. C’est la Vie.

Just thought I’d throw my 2 cents in here.

I agree with everyone to see your gyno, and that it might just be that you’re eighteen. I personally don’t believe that the fact that women tend to be unable to orgasm until a later age is due to physiognomy, and that it is probably due to our society but that’s a completely different topic.

I don’t know if it’ll be helpful to you, but this is what I did:

I’ve pretty much always masturbated and there would be a climax, at which point I would stop and go to sleep, but it was never incredible or mind blowing like I had heard it described by other girls. Eventually I changed my masturbatory technique from applied pressure to the clitoris to a combination of finger-fucking and clitoral stimulation, which caused the process to be a lot more fun, but I still had the same bland climax. One night, I was jerking off in my bed like I did every night and I could feel a real orgasm building. As it got closer and more intense, i realized that I was about to be overwhelmed by it and as soon as I made this realization, it felt like a door was being slammed shut in my head and within a second it was over and not only did I not cum, but I was completely turned off. It sounds dumb, but I had frightened myself away from cuming. Before this my jerk-sessions had been frantic and disconnected, almost like a chore. After this, I slowed it way down and made sure to take time not only to acknowledge that I was touching myself, but also to become comfortable with it. Considering how long I had been masturbating, being comfortable would seem like an easy task, but it was really difficult not to feel embarrassed or creeped out. I hadn’t realized how ingrained the shame was. I would have to give myself pep-talks in my head to keep going (it sounds ridiculous, but I’m not kidding).

Eventually, and I’m talking about months of doing this every night I had the same feeling of a massive orgasm building to climax again and I got scared and stopped this time too, but not as quickly, and the next time I felt it, it was only a month later instead of several months. I’m not sure how many times I got to the brink only to be scared away again, but I do know that it got easier each time to relax and accept the loss of control. This technique worked so well for me that now I’m pretty much the most orgasmic person I know, 5 times during sex would be considered a bad night.

Hope that helps, sorry it was so long, I wanted to be as detailed as possible in case you could benefit. Not being able to cum is a horrible condition. I’d have to say that my best advice is practice, practice, practice.

So I’ve been thinking about the last blog I wrote about Ben’s perfect family, and my anxiety over my lameness and overall lack of tact or breeding. And I understand that I’m being a complete ass. I should be overjoyed that the problem I have with my boyfriend’s family is that they’re too nice and too awesome, and that next to them I feel dwarfed and retarded.

After all, I could have Fairy Princess Holly from We’re Mean Because You’re Stupid’s in-laws who are terrible, hillbilly, present grubbing creations who don’t discipline their children and are grand marshaled by her morbidly obese, hover-round equipped mother-in-law who seems to delight in calling poor Holly fat, and telling her how awful she is. Of course, if I did I would be able to have an awesomely hilarious podcast about it like her, and not just sound like a spoiled rotten ass hat going “oh, Ben’s family is too fabulous! Poor me!” all across the Internets.

I honestly don’t have anything to say aside from what I already said, it’s just that I don’t have a lot to do right now as we’re basically just sitting around waiting for our 3 hour holiday lunch to begin, at which point most of my co-workers will probably eat like pigs and then complain about how much it sucked. Don’t complain about free food, people! I mean, we live on the same planet that the holocaust happened on, like, 60 short years ago, and you don’t approve of the free Chicken Parmesan? And this from a girl who’s last blog was about perfect in-laws being too perfect?

There is no hope for any of us. Although this is making me think that there might be:

Tell me, is this obsessive linking good for you? Because it’s really good for me, and I’ll probably keep doing it no matter what you say.

No.

I’m not even down with the idea that P can belong to OP, that is P that are O than the person the aforementioned P is actually attached to and a part of.

But that’s just one woman’s opinion.

Anyway, I’ve been spending time on the Facebooks lately, and I’ve been looking at the facebook pages of some old high school friends with that Dust In the Wind song by Kansas playing inside my head a little bit. Not sure why. Maybe because it’s Christmas and I’m still not speaking with my mother. Maybe it’s because my 5 year anniversary just passed with Ben.

All I know is that the scary fake and contemporary family style togetherness featured in mainstream media around this time of year just makes me angry. But that’s juxtaposed with the fact that this Christmas will be spent up in Oregon–possibly in the snow–with Ben’s perfect nuclear family. Sooo I’m going to be smack in the middle of the Christmas I always wanted… when I was 7. But instead of being the happy 7 year old I always wanted to be in the middle of a Christmas with Mom, Dad, Siblings, Snow in A Quaint Two Story Cottage House, I’ll be playing the part of Freaky LA Slut Who Is Fucking Your Son! What’s not to love really?

All I know is that there’s definitely some anxiety there. Primarily about Christmas in general and about how emotional and weird it can get without even trying. Secondly, I always have anxiety around Ben’s adorable parents and their perfect family. I don’t know thing one about positive and healthy family relations, especially in this type of situation (and by this type I mean the one where you birth a child, raise him right, send him off into the world only to find that he’s decided not to bring home a normal girl, and insists on bringing me instead). Is it too much to ask that December and it’s corresponding stressful family togetherness holidays be wiped off the map of our lives and memories? I guess that would be mean to people who’s family’s don’t suck.



I encourage you to click on the links. I tried to make them not only informative, but amusing as well.

You can see the whole do to here , but I’ve decided to go back to vegetarianism and take a more detailed look at my personal experience as a vegetarian over the last 6+ years.

Disclaimer: I have been eating meat for the last 3 weeks, so if you’re looking for a heartwarming story of one woman’s wavering commitment to her belief system in the face of temptation, and how she overcomes this with renewed vigor, go rent Yentl or something. This is just my personal experience and opinions, that’s all I can really offer anyone.

Anyway, in my blog, To M(eat) or Not to M(eat) , where I was contemplating going back to meat, I said I had been a vegetarian for 5 years. Actually, my calculations were off. It had been about 6 years at the time of that writing, and by the time I quit, I had been a vegetarian for something like 6 1/2 years.

In my experience, vegetarianism is like any other subculture, community or belief system. Just because we call ourselves vegetarians, doesn’t mean we believe the same things, vote the same way or have the same motivations. Some of us are cool, some of us are dicks, and I’m sure that who fits into what category depends on a whole host of factors, not the least of which is the perception of the person making the categorization.

Just to recap, I personally, went into vegetarianism for two reasons: animal welfare and consumer welfare. I felt that the way factory farms doped and tormented their animals was not only cruel to the animals, it was cruel to the people who ended up eating their hormonally altered, unhealthy, stressed carcases after they died. I always felt that I was an omnivore, but I also felt that I would be able to maintain a healthy diet without meat thanks to supplements and soy products. I was wrong.

After a year and a half I was at college, and despite the fact that they advertised great vegetarian meals in the cafeteria, it was inedible to me because the vegetarian option relied 100% on soy meat, which-I learned-made me sick to my stomach when used as a main course. I was extremely anemic, and the entirety of spring break freshman year, I spent sleeping. Completely depleted, and I broke down and ate some turkey. I wanted to throw up, but as soon as that passed I felt like I had never been sick at all. I resolved after that to include fish in my diet to make up for the protein imbalance.

If you want the rest of my story as a vegetarian, you can go back and read my previous blog . Suffice it to say that 6 years after adding fish to my diet, I still found myself frequently sick, tired and foggy headed.

Since I have started eating meat again, I have energy that I didn’t have before, I don’t seem to need as much sleep and when I feel shitty (for example, I was dehydrated this weekend) I have a much greater recovery time than I did before.

If To M(eat) or Not To M(eat) was a description of myself in the middle of that moral quandary, I want this to be a note from myself having come to at least a temporary conclusion on the issue and at least a temporary peace.

At the point that I wrote the last blog, I was exhausted, sick and in a moral fog. I had, over the years tried every suggestion that various well-meaning people on and off the Internet had insisted that I try: rice cookers, lentils, supplements, cook books, time, effort, money, discipline, farmers coalitions, slow food groups, ad infinitum. I bought cook books galore, I threw meal after meal into the trash when I really couldn’t afford to throw away food, but what I had made was inedible. The truth is that either I’m just not that kind of person, or those things don’t work for my life, or probably some combination of the two. In the months between that blog and my first eating meat again, I drastically improved my diet, upped my exercise incredibly and was still falling apart at the seams, taking too many sick days, feeling behind all the time etc.

I came to the conclusion that I have responsibilities to my real life that outweigh my responsibilities to The Animals or The Movement. I have to be able to show up at work, I have to be able to take care of my house and myself. Not everybody is the same, and what works perfectly for one person can be the total wrong decision for others. I gave 6 1/2 years of my life to vegetarianism, and as soon as I stopped there was probably 20 more kids lining up to give 6 more years of their lives. I don’t regret those years, I feel like I got to learn more about myself, my needs and how to take care of myself by having such a greater need that I normally would have had. I also was able to feel a part of something greater than myself for awhile.

People have suggested that because I refuse to do vegetarianism their way I want to stomp on kittens’ heads and suck out their eyes and fornicate with their tiny, furry corpses. There is an extremist faction in the movement that, like all extremists I feel the world would be better off without. If I didn’t care about animals and their treatment I would have never even tried vegetarianism. There are ways that a person can give money to those companies that are taking better care of their animals in order to reward them and encourage them to continue this practice. This is what I intend to do.

Many sites like Certifiedhumane.com will give you a list of places where humanly raised and slaughtered, hormone free meat can be purchased which includes restaurants and grocery stores. Specialty stores like Wild Oats, Henry’s Market, Trader Joes and Whole Foods make sure that all their meat meets a certain standard of care. Even though Henry’s was listed as a seller of humane meat, it wasn’t clear on their own website, so I went in and asked the butcher, who confirmed that they had a store-wide standard.

I think that when I dropped out of the market of people who buy meat in America, I gave up my ability to actively choose what kinds of products I wanted to see in that market, leaving those people who didn’t care about standards to make my consumer decision for me. This was better than doing nothing, and a more practical in my younger years when I couldn’t have afforded to buy humane meat if I had wanted to, but my needs and my resources have changed.

After all, there’s no reason I can’t go back to a vegetarian diet if I suddenly come to the realization that I’ve made a horrible mistake.

Despite how I’ve responded to certain comments in the past, I do actually welcome comments. It’s just that when people don’t read my blog, make vastly incorrect assumptions about me and castigate me for who it is they think I am, I’m libel to do the same thing right back. It’s juvenile, I know but I have to get my kicks somewhere.