Rebellion.

Last night at work was bad. There were too many patients, not enough nurses, and I spent all night running through a giant mess of blood and screaming. There was a lot of blood last night. And more relevantly, a lot of yelling--pain yelling and angry yelling, but most of all the yelling that comes from pain but shows itself as anger.

How to get through it? The money's not nearly enough. The "helping others" stuff can get pretty abstract when you're "helping" people by telling them you can't help them and you can't really give them an ETA on when someone can, sorry. My rapport with my coworkers is nonexistent. What I have, then, what keeps me from turning to tears or rage or complete blankness when a drunk lady takes a piss on the floor and laughs at me for having to clean it up, is the bruises on my tits.

They're nasty and beautiful. (NWS of course.)

The bruises remind me that I'm more than this. I'm not working because that's what I do, I'm working to support who I really am. I'm not someone who eats and sleeps and works--I'm someone who still has dreams and pleasures. I am someone who sneaks away from the cage of tedium at every opportunity.

Sure, I put on a uniform and smile at people I hate and fill out forms no one will ever read. But these are only things I do, not things I am. And the bruises are proof of that. They mark me as a strictly part-time cog with a side gig moonlighting as a human.

It's not just the bruises. It's this blog, of course. It's all the time I spend and things I do with my friends. It's the red in my hair and my lack of panties. It's every time I write, draw, craft, sing, dream. It's every time I go out with nothing in particular to do, just to be out. Sometimes it's just sitting quietly. And it's hardly special to me--it's the reason we have parks and movie theaters and sports. Recreation. Re-creation. When the world destroys a bit of me, I rebuild myself.

I like sex because it feels good, of course. But also because it's an unproductive, unapproved, uncivilized, thoroughly self-indulgent way to spend one's time. How wonderful.