There are stories we tell and stories we don't tell. Here are some of those.

Wanting, Grieving, Accepting, Changing

February 10, 2019 by Dixie Perkinson in life

I’m sad and restless and want someone to fuck. I’ve sexualized my feelings for so long that I equate sorrow with finger-banging. Unfortunately, I’m breaking old patterns and will not be looking for my next prisoner for my lust or a shirt to discreetly wipe my snot on. Nope. Nope. Nope. Instead, I’ll write. I’ll sit with my pain. I will breath in and out. I’ll blow my nose into a Kleenex. It’s not the same as having an orgasm, but such is life…meaning, life sucks.

Get Over It

February 05, 2019 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative, life

I flew home to New Orleans for Jazz Fest. But really, my reason was to confront my father about his sexual abuse. Although at the time, I didn’t refer to it as sexual abuse. I couldn’t comprehend what to call it. All I knew was that it was fucked up. It wasn’t a single event either. He had sex in front of me consistently through out my childhood up until I was a teenager. And even after that, there would be other inappropriate behaviors from showing me topless pictures of women that he photographed to assisting him with his dirty emails.

Burger King Parking Lot

January 26, 2019 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

My mother chose drugs over me, and my dad chose his dick. My mother got murdered, and my dad did not. With his breathing life, he decided not to go to work and provide like a single father would might have done. Nor did he manage to be like a dad at all. Instead, he lived off my mother’s murdered inheritance and fucked. He fucked and fucked and fucked as much as he could. Sometimes screwing women over financially so he could then pay to fuck some more. I saw this with my own eyes. Often times, I was physically too close. I’d be in the back seat of the car, as a prostitute would blow my dad.

Am I a Masochist?

January 20, 2019 by Dixie Perkinson in life

Before I dive back into writing about my childhood and actively work on my book, I want to discuss why I’m doing this in the first place. No. Seriously. Why am I putting myself in this torturous position? It’s so hard. I’m dying! Send help! Or if you’re from my hometown, send a King Cake. I know it’s Mardi Gras season, ya’ll…

The Dark Side of Fertility...Muahaha!

January 12, 2019 by Dixie Perkinson in life

Oh hey. Happy New Year. We’re all getting older. Our metabolisms are slowing down. It’s getting harder and harder to lose weight every year. Plus, we’re one day closer to death. Cheers!

Let's Talk About Dating Sociopaths!

December 31, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in life

I dated a sociopath for 3 months. Let’s call him, Chad. Most places would consider that to be a fling, but in Los Angeles, it’s referred to as a serious relationship. Now I’m not calling Chad a sociopath because I’m jaded. Trust me, I’ve dated lots of men, and I don’t label them all sociopaths. For example, one boyfriend I was with for most of my 20s, pushed me so hard during an argument that my body slammed into the wall. I fell while cutting my back on the sharp edge of an air freshener and began to bleed. I had a scar on my back for years. Same guy, different night, told me, “I want you to die…young.” He specifically added the word young knowing it would touch my deepest wound…the wound of my mother dying young when I was a baby. Annnnd…it did. Though at the time, my childhood pain was so buried. I had never dealt with any of it. But, he knew. He knew how sad her absence made me feel. He knew my acute fear of becoming just like her. I’ll never forget that moment. I instantaneously cried and was in shock with how much it affected me. I couldn’t stop shedding tears for days, and the confusion of why it scarred me so much made it even more painful. Now, was that guy an absolute dick? Yes. Was he physically and verbally abusive? Yes. But, was he a sociopath? I really don’t think so. There are a garden variety of jerks out there, but they’re not all sociopaths. With Chad though, there were no blows or cuts from air fresheners, just a web of lies…and honestly I think that’s worse. Okay, they’re both bad, but I still think Chad is worse.

7th Grade (Part 1)

December 09, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

I was so embarrassed that I didn’t have a mother. It was worse than a thousand pimples on my face. I hated being different from other kids and having a dead mom made me the biggest freak of them all. I tried as hard as I could to blend in by emulating others. I wore Abercrombie & Fitch cargo Khakis, a monogrammed L.L. Bean book bag, a silver tulip neckless from Mignon Faget (a fancy jewelry designer in New Orleans), Adidas tennis shoes with alternate shoe laces that were a different color other than just grey or black, anything with a Ralph Lauren Polo logo, I got my haircut where they got their hair cut… But no matter what I wore or what I did, I always stood out. I could never fit in. There was never enough Dream GAP perfume to disguise how inferior I felt or really, how inferior I actually was.

Hookin' (Part 2)

November 25, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

My mother was classically beautiful. Her looks were the embodiment of a nice girl. Freely smiling in every picture, exposing her perfect teeth and optimism. She had big, bright eyes that sparkled with charm. But underneath…was something completely different. There was an ugliness. A hatred towards herself. It was so loud she escaped to heroin, abusive men, and excessive spending to silence her demons. She endured an overwhelming emptiness, but nothing could possibly fill the void within. She was never able to love herself, and that torment eventually led to her drug related murder. People have mentioned to me that I look so much like my mother. I especially have her eyes. But do I have everything beneath as well?

Hookin' (Part 1)

November 18, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

I had gotten dumped earlier during the day by Sal, my improv teacher boyfriend. I needed a drink or two or twelve so I decided to walk over to the Dresden, a trendy bar where my friend worked which wasn’t too far from my house. My friend, Betsy, was a cocktail waitress over there and would discreetly give me drinks that the bartender mistakenly made. The hangovers would be gnarly, but at least I was drinking for free. I was terrifyingly broke. I was 27 years old and had less than 20 dollars in my bank account. Now I was heartbroken and broke.

Loneliness

November 11, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in life

Sometimes my loneliness touches a wound inside me that runs so deep. It travels all the way back to past heartbreaks and losses and down to the core…the umbilical cord that once was. Snip. Snip. I feel like a helpless baby with no one around. No one to pick me up. No one to hold me and left to die. Oh, well.

Mommy and Me

November 04, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative, dead mom

My mother, Cathy Campbell, at the age of 30 watched her parents get brutally stabbed to death all within the confines of a station wagon. Cathy was told to keep driving, as two men took hostage. They robbed them while stabbing her parents multiple times before exiting the murder car. (67 stab wounds to be exact for her mother. Mostly on her face. 47 lacerations counted on her father). Cathy was uninjured, but her face, hair and body were covered with her parents splattered blood. She even thought that she herself had gotten cut too, but recognized the blood wasn’t hers. She drove straight to the emergency room where her parents were both pronounced dead. A couple months after this, she got pregnant with me. God, I’ve got great timing.

That Time My Dad Got Arrested (Part 3)

October 28, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

I really thought Patrice was too dumb to leave my dad as if she couldn’t figure out how to use the door handle. Or too dumb in a sense that she even dated him in the first place. Her looks supported my theory. 5’6, bleach blonde hair, super skinny with big fake tits and an airy voice. She was disgustingly cliche. In the beginning, Patrice was obsessed with my dad. Every picture of them together, she would tilt her head and dotingly look at him instead of looking at the camera lens like a normal person. Every. Single. Picture. She called him “Perkinson” because she aspired to be different than all of my other dad’s girlfriends who simply called him by his first name, “Bill.” When Patrice’s father shot himself in the head, she inherited a lot of money and forked all of it over to my dad. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. My dad, in return, treated her like a sex slave.

That Time My Dad Got Arrested (Part 2)

October 21, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

I stood there. Chewing on the inside of my cheek, as I was watched my father, slouched over in handcuffs, being taken away by two police officers above from my bedroom window. The cops were both a head shorter than my dad, even with his incriminating posture. My dad was quite militant about our postures. Shoulders up. Chest out. But I guess, at this moment, it wasn’t important to stand up straight. They escorted him down our hardened gravel driveway into one of the seven police cars along our house. An older, overweight officer was readily standing there. He opened up the back seat door, and guided him inside. My dad did not glance up to my window to look for me, to tell me that everything was going to be okay with a nod or a reassuring squint. Rather his head was down. His face seemed tight with anger. The fat officer closed the car door. Then they drove off. And just like that my dad was gone…

Falling

October 14, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in life

I’m taking a break this week from writing about my childhood woes because I want to get current. I know I’m choosing to do so, but hot damn it’s hard to face your past head on in a public platform.

That Time My Dad Got Arrested (Part 1)

October 07, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

I was lying on my bedroom floor on a Tuesday night, talking or rather listening to my new boyfriend, Riley on the phone. It was Fall of 1998, so yes, it was a real phone with a telephone plug and a spiraled wire that always got tangled without even touching it. The chord wasn’t long enough to reach my bed, so I had most of my calls on the blue/greyish carpet that hadn’t experienced a vacuum’s touch in years. Riley was a sophomore. I was a freshman. Riley often said the n-word and spoke fondly of David Duke. He was also obsessed with the Insane Clown Posse. ( The ugly, white hip-hop duo who painted their faces in black and white clown make-up and rap offensive things, in case you didn’t know. And if you did know, I won’t tell anyone). The past weekend we took a streetcar, followed by a bus, to Tower Records in the French Quarter. He pushed me to buy ICP’s latest album- The Great Milenko. So, I did. When I got home that day, I started to listen to the CD, but had to press stop 6 seconds in. It was too abrasive and well…the worst music ever. I told Riley I listened to the whole album. “It was really good.” My youth was either me lying or not saying things out loud even when I should have.

God, Are You There?

September 30, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in life

I grew up an atheist. My father taught me that all religious people were dumb, especially Catholics. Also, all religious people were awful human beings. They were the ones causing all the wars. He would get in fights with neighbors about abortions and the absurdity of their religion. He repeatedly stated that religion was for suckers. It was for those that were too weak to handle the reality of life. In fact, my dad was quite religious about being an atheist.

Nose Picker

September 09, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

Once when I was around 5 years, I sat in the back seat of my dad’s van and picked a giant booger and stuck it on the window. That booger stayed there for a solid 8 to 10 years. I’m not sure if my dad noticed it or not. He probably saw it but didn’t care. My booger held on like a barnacle, until my step mother impounded the car when she left him. It was one of her many triumphant fuck you’s since my dad’s car was in her name due to his shitty credit. At the time, the van was 15 years old and had a jillion miles on it because we drove across country every summer and other holidays. I’d like to think that in my booger's final days at the car junk yard, it had one last fight left as the 4000 hp crusher opened up it’s jaws and demolished its rusty victim, booger and all. RIP Booger.

The Power of Talking

September 02, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in life

Growing up, my dad would always tell me… your friends are your worst enemies because they take up all of your time. Practice the violin or read a book instead… be careful who you hang out with because they will bring you down. Also the classic hit…Trust no one. Simple, but to the point. He also planted misogynistic seeds into my head as well. Women aren’t as smart as men. Women aren’t as funny as men. They even change their last names to the man’s because they are less superior. He understood having sex (for his son, not so much for his daughter). So for awhile I never trusted women or even wanted to hang out with them. If I can’t fuck you or get a job from, then why hang out?

The Bone (Part 3)

August 26, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

I inadvertently felt protected by going home with this stranger. My hand clasped in his, my safety too. We walked less than a minute to his funky place, but cool/funky since it was in the Marigny Section of the French Quarter where all the artists lived. The Bone pulled out a key to unlock his white wooden gate. And then I remembered, I made out with a boy who lived upstairs. We went to high school together.

The Bone (Part 2)

August 19, 2018 by Dixie Perkinson in personal narrative

It was one of my favorite summers. I never got carded at bars, and sometimes I wouldn’t even get charged for my cranberry vodkas. I would demurely wander into a bar and scope out the room. I felt like everyone was waiting for me to show up even though they didn’t know me like…they needed me. Whenever the bartender would say my drink was on the house, I assumed it was because he detected my star quality presence. Or perhaps he took pity on me. How come this teenage girl is all alone? She doesn’t have any friends? What’s wrong with her? So sad. Let her drink for free.