me and my gun

You can laugh
Its kind of funny
Things you think
Times like these
-Tori Amos, "Me and a Gun"

I was once a member of the Brady anti-gun organization, or at least, on their mailing list. They would send me info regarding the Brady Bill. Michael Moore is one of my favorite creators of anything and I love "Bowling for Columbine". I do not like guns, generally. Or at least, I never did before.

Today I went to a shooting range. Anybody who knows me would find this odd. Not a lot of people know me though, so that makes fitting into odd places where I don't actually belong pretty easy. I'm also a pretty good actress or chameleon or liar, whatever you want to call it. So I impressed some guys at the gun range who didn't know I was some hippy anti-war protester type in my old life. They just saw me shooting a .357, and said I did great for a first-timer. A couple were surprised by the type of gun I had bought, and the ammo. One said, that's not a ladies' gun, heck that's not even a man's gun! Another guy said, don't listen to him, it's been proven to be most effective in "stopping bad guys" (this i know, this is why i have it, i did my research)...

I didn't expect to like men at a shooting range, but they were nice and a man named Jerry showed me the ropes, how to use my gun and let me use his semi-automatic. I've never played sports except ballet and synchronized swimming as a kid, am generally not coordinated at all, but hit the target pretty well, despite rheumatoid arthritis. It was very loud, all the guns being shot at once, and it would normally have made me a nervous wreck but I got used to it and kind of liked it, in a weird way. Another guy let me use his .22. Another one let me take a shot with his shotgun, which I asked to do, specifically because I know that there is almost no chance of living through as shotgun wound to one's head, but people do live through handgun wounds, and I wanted to see if there was any likeklihood that I could physically use the shotgun on myself (it is very unlikely). This was the only time I voiced any of my true intentions, and just did it in a conversational way, saying, gee, I wonder how people use these things on themselves to commit suicide. My staff friend there said he wouldn't even want to think about that. I find that interesting myself, that people can live their whole lives, particularly people handling guns, and NOT think about that, but this is another issue.

It's funny, all the times as a feminist I've felt that I could do anything a man could do and got annoyed when treated differently, probably the one time when I've gone into an arena that few women enter, carrying something and doing something that few women do, and around men who are generally most likely not politically liberal democrats, and they didn't seem to be condescending. More importantly, they didn't seem to have a clue what I was really doing there. I just used the story that it was for self-defense, and gun afficianados in general seem to have no qualms with that idea.

The only thing that seemed strange to the guys at all was a couple recommending that you practice with a lighter gun first, which, of course, would be pointless, because I don't care about getting experienced at shooting targets, but even that was understood when I explained I had wanted a gun that would definitely stop someone, and everyone agreed, you got one that surely will.... Jerry said I did really well for a first timer, and recommended taking home my target with some bull's eye holes in it. Jerry and the other guys have no idea that I would never have entered there arena at all if I did not have a desire to put a bullet into my head. I even asked him, hey, do you ever have any crazy people come in here? And he said, no, if you're going to go shooting people you probably wouldn't go shooting people with guns. Interesting, people think that you're more likely to use a gun to shoot others, not yourself.

One thing about being at the shooting range, it almost felt empowering, like I was living and like I had something in my hand that would protect me, like I had the power to protect myself, like I could fight for my life - all of this being oppositional to the suicidal urge, of course, and I started to have second thoughts again, because there is so much I want to do.

I really don't want to die, honestly. If I didn't have to look at this pregnant belly and realize there was nowhere to go for help, that any hospital I go to will just do what the others already did and mislabel it as a mental health issue, I would just try to live and have the baby, if there was a way, or get it out of there was a way.......if there was a way I'd love to keep living, I really would.

I went to my mom's and couldn't stay there. I can't be around her right now. I put change into a pay phone to call my brother and the phone didn't work, but it was just as well since I have nothing to say that would make sense to him. I want to talk to Kevin because I love him and miss him and I emailed him and wrote back that he has news and will call me tomorrow. News, after not hearing from him for this long, could only be something major, and I know what it is - he's most likely getting married, or did get married, and I don't want to hear about that from him, I can't deal with hearing that. It has already hurt enough times over the years that we never got what was meant to be from knowing each other, and I don't think that I want to know that what I always knew would happen did happen.

My sister never answers her phone. There are other people, but what would I say to anyone? I am so lonely and yet I don't want to contact anyone I know because I'm afraid I'll give myself away and I'm afraid, also, there's no point, since no one really cares if I'm dead or alive.

The guy with the shotgun said, "Yeah, I don't even know how Kurt Cobain did that. I guess people can do it with their toes or something. I would never even want to think about it." I said, "me neither". He believed me. Kevin would never have believed me, since he knows me. Most people I've been around, they didn't know me all that well. Or at least not all of me.

It's interesting how complex human beings are. On the one hand, you can be a girl who would like to defend herself against an attacker, or a person with some interest in just trying something new or getting an adrenaline rush, or a perfectionist who wants to do the best and be the best, and so you might have this big old handgun and being a person who never touched guns before, go out and find some kind of pleasure at a shooting range shooting guns, with a bunch of gun-loving guys, outside in a woodsy area right near where you grew up. And you might be planning your own death at the same time. And you might be pregnant or you might be sick, and you might feel very much alive and enjoying being alive. And you might be still planning your death. And you might be talking to someone about how you're coming back for some personal defense class while, simultaneously planning on being dead before you ever come back there.. And you might smile and shake hands with people and thank them for their help and the answers to all your questions and take business cards and tell them it was nice meeting them, and drive away thinking about how now you know how to get a bullet into your head and you're sure of which bullet to use, and wishing that you really were just there for self-defense and that things were a bit more simple and a bit more as they seemed to be on the surface.

You might want to die. You might not want to die. You might know that regardless, you have no way to live, and so you might kill yourself.

One of the guys at the range had a gun from World War II that soldiers supposedly used, officers. I didn't mention, and won't mention here, what significance that has to me. But that's one reason I'm about to die. That it has a significance so great I can't write about it on a stupid blog page nobody will ever even read. I am hoping right now that when we die we are reborn into better lives, future lives, new lives, not old lives, not with the same demons that plagued us before. I am planning on that, on being reborn that way, into a new life. On having some chances I didn't have this time around. On being connected to the spirits of some people who I know I am connected to beyond this lifetime. And maybe then I'll get to have a wedding, and a baby, and someone who says they love me when I come home at the end of the day from the job I'll do because I'll have a healthy body, and I won't need or desire to ever end my life, and there won't always be something to fear. Or even, even just being reborn in some capacity on some galaxy as some being with a purpose and the chance to fulfill her/his purpose uninhibited by external problems. That, simply that, would be something to look forward to.