In the interest of explaining just what the hell I was doing for the entire month of November (because it obviously wasn't updating my blog), I was doing NaNoWriMo.
It's a challenge to everyone who claims to be a writer, thinks they ARE a writer, and wants to be one, too.
Me? I wrote more words than a sane person ever should. That's not important now, though. That comes later.
The point of NaNoWriMo is to challenge yourself to finally write that novel. Yeah, it may not be good, but it's written. You can fix it later. I've never gone into NaNo expecting to write something so fantastic that I don't need to edit it. I've been known to send characters off on rants about Finland, or have them all start singing a song they hear on the radio because I have NO IDEA what to do next. It doesn't need to be GOOD writing, you just need to shut up and WRITE it. If you worry about it being the best novel ever written on your first draft, it'll never get it written.
This year, I wrote several different plots. I'm betting when I get around to editing, I'll probably scrap most of them. The ones I don't shove in the vault, never to see the light of day again, will be rewritten. You see, my challenge to myself this year, instead of sticking to the way I'm used to writing, was to write across as many genres as I could. It just happened to tie in beautifully with the idea of writing a million words in November, something I had always wanted to try. I know my own limits better than anyone else. I had to see if it was possible.
For me, it is. I have a fast enough typing speed that I can get away with things like writing 80k in a day (which I really don't recommend, by the way). I had the free time, stamina, tendency toward insomnia, and sheer force of will to sit at my computer for eight to ten hours a day doing nothing but writing. I polished off the month with 1,061,892 words, which left me 4,108 words short of five million for the year.
I don't know if I'll do this again. The million was a blast, I must admit. I guess I'll wait and see how next year unfolds.
To December, and beyond!
I'm working on editing 2008's NaNo, which I utterly failed at completing in November. I did finish it by the time February '09 rolled around, though. When that gets too frustrating, I switch to re-writing the first half of Caillien's story, which took me ten years to get on paper. The problem with taking ten years? I started when I was twelve. It is very, very obvious in the way I used to write. I'm editing with the intent of losing the "one day, I might be satisfied with this, and maybe one day, I'll be published and everyone will love me" attitude. I'm editing for my own good, and yes, I would love to be a published author one day, but that will never happen if I'm not willing to buckle down and do this properly. I can write as much as I want in a month. There hasn't been a day this year that I haven't sat down at my computer and worked on one of my stories. I have to stop thinking in the "one day" mindset. No more "maybe". If this is worth doing at all, it's worth doing right. Now that I've thoroughly contradicted myself and confused everyone, I'll move on.
As of right now, writing is my hobby. It's a hobby I put significant amounts of time in, and I get very little out of it beyond the satisfaction of finishing whatever was in my head. It's time to take this to the next level, and it's time to get things ready for readers.
Somewhere along the path to utter insanity, I remembered a few things I apparently forgot.
To my cheerleaders, thank you. Your support means a lot to me. This includes the overachievers who kept me going, even when all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep.
To my very serious brethren, especially those of you who tried NaNo this year (but mostly Allo, Athy, and Ocie, who are all fantastic ladies), thanks for always being around when I needed a character named, a dare thrown in, and a random Scottish accent no one could understand.
Many thanks to Ho, who was always there when I needed a laugh.
Thanks to Lys, who helped me find Nessie.
To my rival and fellow ridiculous overachiever, it was a BLAST writing with you! Rock on with your bad self.
To the handful of new readers who wandered over here from the NaNo pages, hai! Glad you enjoy my blog.
To my haters, thanks! You gave me the motivation to rub it in your faces. I don't need you and I don't need your pity, so kindly go fuck yourselves.
01 December, 2011
24 October, 2011
Things OCD does to me
I've mentioned it before.
I have a rather mild form of OCD. You'll occasionally find me cleaning ALL THE THINGS, but it's considerably more likely that I'm manic at the time and not caught in a bout with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Instead, I do everything in prime numbers. I can actually recite all the prime numbers up to 1009. It's a fun party trick. Actually, check that. 1013. Combine that with my knowledge of the first 103 digits of pi and I'm pretty much a walking dictionary of useless shit.
I once made a friend switch seats with me in class because his chair was prime and mine was not. At recitals, I always sit in the fifth chair of the fifth row. When I book tickets for musicals, I ask for a prime numbered chair.
I walk in prime numbers. I will count every step on every sidewalk section, and if it's not prime, I have to go back and MAKE it prime. Most fall nicely into twos and threes, though, and the ones that don't are generally fives and sevens.
I eat in prime numbers. Back when I could eat pepperoni, there had to be a prime number of pieces on each slice of pizza I ate. I organize my M&Ms by colour, then in prime numbered rows. If a colour fails to be prime, I pass off the spares to the nearest person who understands/doesn't question why I have to do things this way. Today, I drank three cans of soda. I've had two slices of pie. I ate two small bowls of mac & cheese with two small dill pickles, I had two waffles for breakfast, I put exactly seven shakes of nutmeg into the sugar blend for the pie, which had exactly five ingredients. I used five apples to make the pie, and total (including the sugar blend), it had seven ingredients.
I take ice cubes in prime numbers. It doesn't help that my ice cube trays, for some reason, make seventeen cubes each. Most recipes I have commited to memory have prime numbers of ingredients and are memorized in alphabetical order. I'm fairly sure this isn't a normal thing. Go ahead, blame it on little memory tricks. Explain to me, though, why things with eight or four ingredients just don't stick in my head.
Onward! To more crazy things!
My bookshelves are arranged in a somewhat unique matter.
Most people arrange alphabetically by author. My father organizes the next set (multiple books, same author) by title, unless they're obviously a series (2001, 2010, 2061, 3001). Usually, the two are the same thing.
My books are arranged by author, until I get to the "D"s. Then I have every DragonLance book I own, arranged chronologically by placement in the saga. I've read every book, just to figure out where they go in this order. After that, it continues normally until I get to the "F"s. Then, Forgotten Realms books take over for a while, arranged in the same manner as the previous saga.
It's not just sagas and such. I have every Redwall book by Brian Jacques, organized by where they fall on the timeline. Well, fine. That was something similar. If I have several books, not connected by a timeline, they're organized by when they were published, not by title. I can find every book I'm looking for, exactly when I want it, but Fiance still looks at my shelves wondering what on earth is going on.
Fiance moved a shirt in the closet on me once. It was just a shirt. Nothing particularly wonderful about it. Just a black Uni t-shirt, with "IDAHO" written across the chest.
I noticed it was out of place when I stumbled out of bed to get dressed. I was running late, though, so I told myself it wouldn't be that big of a deal, and let it stay there.
I ended up skipping class just to fix the shirt in the closet. It bugged me THAT. MUCH. It was only swapped over two, so instead of being with my "school pride" shirts, it was in with my Jazz Fest shirts (I should note I have a prime number of shirts, and a prime number of categories, too). Things HAVE to be where they're supposed to be. It eats away at my mind if they aren't.
When I worked at the Chinese restaurant, I meticulously organized all of the silverware. I have to stop myself from rearranging silverware when I go out to restaurants with friends and family. It's easier at most places, though, because they have a prime number of pieces. The Chinese restaurant had four. I rationalized it by saying there were three KINDS of silverware.
The point of this?
Not all people with OCD are rearranging the threads on their carpets, making sure they're all the same way. Not all of us have to wash our hands every time we touch something "unclean". I don't have to touch the doorknob three times before I can open it. My apartment is rarely what you might call "clean" or "organized". The things that matter to me, like my books, games, and clothes, are all exactly where they're supposed to be. Everything else is just a bit of organized chaos.
I have a rather mild form of OCD. You'll occasionally find me cleaning ALL THE THINGS, but it's considerably more likely that I'm manic at the time and not caught in a bout with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Instead, I do everything in prime numbers. I can actually recite all the prime numbers up to 1009. It's a fun party trick. Actually, check that. 1013. Combine that with my knowledge of the first 103 digits of pi and I'm pretty much a walking dictionary of useless shit.
I once made a friend switch seats with me in class because his chair was prime and mine was not. At recitals, I always sit in the fifth chair of the fifth row. When I book tickets for musicals, I ask for a prime numbered chair.
I walk in prime numbers. I will count every step on every sidewalk section, and if it's not prime, I have to go back and MAKE it prime. Most fall nicely into twos and threes, though, and the ones that don't are generally fives and sevens.
I eat in prime numbers. Back when I could eat pepperoni, there had to be a prime number of pieces on each slice of pizza I ate. I organize my M&Ms by colour, then in prime numbered rows. If a colour fails to be prime, I pass off the spares to the nearest person who understands/doesn't question why I have to do things this way. Today, I drank three cans of soda. I've had two slices of pie. I ate two small bowls of mac & cheese with two small dill pickles, I had two waffles for breakfast, I put exactly seven shakes of nutmeg into the sugar blend for the pie, which had exactly five ingredients. I used five apples to make the pie, and total (including the sugar blend), it had seven ingredients.
I take ice cubes in prime numbers. It doesn't help that my ice cube trays, for some reason, make seventeen cubes each. Most recipes I have commited to memory have prime numbers of ingredients and are memorized in alphabetical order. I'm fairly sure this isn't a normal thing. Go ahead, blame it on little memory tricks. Explain to me, though, why things with eight or four ingredients just don't stick in my head.
Onward! To more crazy things!
My bookshelves are arranged in a somewhat unique matter.
Most people arrange alphabetically by author. My father organizes the next set (multiple books, same author) by title, unless they're obviously a series (2001, 2010, 2061, 3001). Usually, the two are the same thing.
My books are arranged by author, until I get to the "D"s. Then I have every DragonLance book I own, arranged chronologically by placement in the saga. I've read every book, just to figure out where they go in this order. After that, it continues normally until I get to the "F"s. Then, Forgotten Realms books take over for a while, arranged in the same manner as the previous saga.
It's not just sagas and such. I have every Redwall book by Brian Jacques, organized by where they fall on the timeline. Well, fine. That was something similar. If I have several books, not connected by a timeline, they're organized by when they were published, not by title. I can find every book I'm looking for, exactly when I want it, but Fiance still looks at my shelves wondering what on earth is going on.
Fiance moved a shirt in the closet on me once. It was just a shirt. Nothing particularly wonderful about it. Just a black Uni t-shirt, with "IDAHO" written across the chest.
I noticed it was out of place when I stumbled out of bed to get dressed. I was running late, though, so I told myself it wouldn't be that big of a deal, and let it stay there.
I ended up skipping class just to fix the shirt in the closet. It bugged me THAT. MUCH. It was only swapped over two, so instead of being with my "school pride" shirts, it was in with my Jazz Fest shirts (I should note I have a prime number of shirts, and a prime number of categories, too). Things HAVE to be where they're supposed to be. It eats away at my mind if they aren't.
When I worked at the Chinese restaurant, I meticulously organized all of the silverware. I have to stop myself from rearranging silverware when I go out to restaurants with friends and family. It's easier at most places, though, because they have a prime number of pieces. The Chinese restaurant had four. I rationalized it by saying there were three KINDS of silverware.
The point of this?
Not all people with OCD are rearranging the threads on their carpets, making sure they're all the same way. Not all of us have to wash our hands every time we touch something "unclean". I don't have to touch the doorknob three times before I can open it. My apartment is rarely what you might call "clean" or "organized". The things that matter to me, like my books, games, and clothes, are all exactly where they're supposed to be. Everything else is just a bit of organized chaos.
22 October, 2011
Things that make me flail
In just under two months, I'm getting married.
After copious amounts of drama involving my father's wife, we finally got things settled. I'm actively pursuing a restraining order on her, my father is walking me down the aisle, and my brother will be at my wedding.
And now I'm going to go back to flailing in my corner, because HOLY CRAP THIS IS ALL ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
After copious amounts of drama involving my father's wife, we finally got things settled. I'm actively pursuing a restraining order on her, my father is walking me down the aisle, and my brother will be at my wedding.
And now I'm going to go back to flailing in my corner, because HOLY CRAP THIS IS ALL ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
18 September, 2011
Waiter! There's a dead guy in my soup!
Sometimes, my mind likes to play lovely little tricks on me.
Like tonight, for instance.
I love rain. It's one of my favourite things. The smell, the way it cools everything down, and that breeze that blows it in hours beforehand. I love all of it.
It started pouring not too long ago, so, as I am prone to doing, I put on my pajama pants and dashed outside to enjoy the rain.
Then I realized something.
I was OUTSIDE.
AFTER DARK.
And thus, I panicked.
Your guess is as good as mine. I'm not entirely sure why being outside after dark now causes me to panic, but now that it's over, I find it rather amusing. Even with my bucketload of crazy, I have to stop and laugh at myself.
Life is what you make of it. If you don't step back from it all and laugh at yourself, you're doing it wrong.
Like tonight, for instance.
I love rain. It's one of my favourite things. The smell, the way it cools everything down, and that breeze that blows it in hours beforehand. I love all of it.
It started pouring not too long ago, so, as I am prone to doing, I put on my pajama pants and dashed outside to enjoy the rain.
Then I realized something.
I was OUTSIDE.
AFTER DARK.
And thus, I panicked.
Your guess is as good as mine. I'm not entirely sure why being outside after dark now causes me to panic, but now that it's over, I find it rather amusing. Even with my bucketload of crazy, I have to stop and laugh at myself.
Life is what you make of it. If you don't step back from it all and laugh at yourself, you're doing it wrong.
12 September, 2011
Psychoanalyze me, Captain!
It's been more than a month since my last post.
Thanks again for the support, everyone.
Today, I'm going to talk about my one completely irrational fear.
Zombies.
I'm utterly terrified of them. I think it's mostly because I'm kinda fat and lazy and I have asthma, so if I ever need to run like hell, my chances of survival are pretty slim. Beyond that, I'm just scared.
Perhaps this fear stems from the fact that zombies aren't aware of WHO they were, or what they're doing, or worse, who I am. The other day, I had the "zombie dream", in which my entire town is zombified and I'm the only survivor. I'm running like crazy through town, waiting for the sun to come up because that's somehow my only chance of surviving, and when I get home, the Army is outside my apartment and Fiance is a zombie. I walked home from work last night comparing why my dream could not be real because of silly little things, like the bag of fortune cookies I had in my hand and the rock concert that was going on downtown. The nightmare is made all the more frightening by the little similarites I've managed to draw between dreams I've had and my real world life months (and sometimes years) later.
Zombies are irrational, unaware, and just want to kill me. I don't think I'd ever be able to get past whether or not I knew the person before, or what they meant to me. It's why Fiance is the zombie in my dream, and why he's the person I dread finding the most. My mind intentionally puts me in the situation I'm most afraid of, and I don't know how to handle it.
A lot of people poke fun at my terror, and honestly, it is a little silly. I always say it's the most legitimate of my fears, but spiders are at least REAL. Spiders can genuinely fuck you up. Zombies? Well, I shouldn't have to worry about them. The problem, of course, is that I DO worry. I spend an absurd amount of time worrying about something that I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about. Honestly, I would probably make it to Day Two of the Apocalypse and find some way to die rather than face this fear.
I grew up with a pretty solid sense of what is real and what is fictional, but zombies are the one thing I've never been able to place on either side of the line. I had no problem watching vampire movies, because vampires (for the most part) maintain some part of their humanity. Zombies aren't even remotely "human". Watching five minutes of a zombie movie makes me feel horrible, scared, alone, and occasionally queasy. Silly, yes. Terrifying? Yes. I willingly admit it's an unlikely occurence, but that tiny little bit of doubt about it has found enough room to take root and grip me in my own fear. A little drop of doubt. That was all it took.
Thanks again for the support, everyone.
Today, I'm going to talk about my one completely irrational fear.
Zombies.
I'm utterly terrified of them. I think it's mostly because I'm kinda fat and lazy and I have asthma, so if I ever need to run like hell, my chances of survival are pretty slim. Beyond that, I'm just scared.
Perhaps this fear stems from the fact that zombies aren't aware of WHO they were, or what they're doing, or worse, who I am. The other day, I had the "zombie dream", in which my entire town is zombified and I'm the only survivor. I'm running like crazy through town, waiting for the sun to come up because that's somehow my only chance of surviving, and when I get home, the Army is outside my apartment and Fiance is a zombie. I walked home from work last night comparing why my dream could not be real because of silly little things, like the bag of fortune cookies I had in my hand and the rock concert that was going on downtown. The nightmare is made all the more frightening by the little similarites I've managed to draw between dreams I've had and my real world life months (and sometimes years) later.
Zombies are irrational, unaware, and just want to kill me. I don't think I'd ever be able to get past whether or not I knew the person before, or what they meant to me. It's why Fiance is the zombie in my dream, and why he's the person I dread finding the most. My mind intentionally puts me in the situation I'm most afraid of, and I don't know how to handle it.
A lot of people poke fun at my terror, and honestly, it is a little silly. I always say it's the most legitimate of my fears, but spiders are at least REAL. Spiders can genuinely fuck you up. Zombies? Well, I shouldn't have to worry about them. The problem, of course, is that I DO worry. I spend an absurd amount of time worrying about something that I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about. Honestly, I would probably make it to Day Two of the Apocalypse and find some way to die rather than face this fear.
I grew up with a pretty solid sense of what is real and what is fictional, but zombies are the one thing I've never been able to place on either side of the line. I had no problem watching vampire movies, because vampires (for the most part) maintain some part of their humanity. Zombies aren't even remotely "human". Watching five minutes of a zombie movie makes me feel horrible, scared, alone, and occasionally queasy. Silly, yes. Terrifying? Yes. I willingly admit it's an unlikely occurence, but that tiny little bit of doubt about it has found enough room to take root and grip me in my own fear. A little drop of doubt. That was all it took.
10 August, 2011
It took me a while to think of something to follow the last post. As a matter of fact, I STILL don't know what I'm going to ramble about today.
Thanks, everyone, for the somewhat surprising support. I really wasn't expecting so many people to react the way they did, and for those who shared their stories with me, I think I love you EVEN MORE. You are all amazing, wonderful people, and none of us deserved what happened. I'm happy people trust me enough to tell me these things, and rest assured no one else will know until you're as ready as you can be to talk.
I spent a lot of time after my last post genuinely terrified, mostly of what people would think. Then I realized something rather spectacular.
I didn't CARE. I don't care if anyone thinks I'm making it all up for attention, or if people think I need to be heavily medicated or WHATEVER. It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks, because I finally made my life tolerable.
So fuck you, random person who hates me. You can spend your energy trying to convince people I'm lying, and frankly, I'm not going to bother cleaning up after you. My life is pretty freaking ok right now, and that's what's important to me. Whether or not you believe me is pretty low on my list of important shit to care about.
I have no way to end this post without repeating myself more than I already have, so that's all for this week.
Thanks, everyone, for the somewhat surprising support. I really wasn't expecting so many people to react the way they did, and for those who shared their stories with me, I think I love you EVEN MORE. You are all amazing, wonderful people, and none of us deserved what happened. I'm happy people trust me enough to tell me these things, and rest assured no one else will know until you're as ready as you can be to talk.
I spent a lot of time after my last post genuinely terrified, mostly of what people would think. Then I realized something rather spectacular.
I didn't CARE. I don't care if anyone thinks I'm making it all up for attention, or if people think I need to be heavily medicated or WHATEVER. It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks, because I finally made my life tolerable.
So fuck you, random person who hates me. You can spend your energy trying to convince people I'm lying, and frankly, I'm not going to bother cleaning up after you. My life is pretty freaking ok right now, and that's what's important to me. Whether or not you believe me is pretty low on my list of important shit to care about.
I have no way to end this post without repeating myself more than I already have, so that's all for this week.
29 July, 2011
This needs to be said.
I'm betting this will take me to a dark scary place, but I NEED to talk about it.
Let me say here that I don't expect your sympathy, nor do I WANT it. I don't want to hear "I'm sorry" or "That sucks". I KNOW it sucked. You shouldn't apologize because it wasn't YOUR FAULT. There was nothing you could do (unless you've been hiding a time machine from me, in which case, GO! FIX IT!).
I will try to be funny. I will probably fail at being funny. DON'T MAKE FUN OF MY PATHETIC SURVIVAL MECHANISMS.
I've kept The Ex to myself for a long time. I've had my reasons for doing such, but it's been three years now, and it's time to get this out so I can put the whole thing in the past, where it really needs to be. I got myself to a place where I can think about this and not want to puke, and Max (Fiance) is aware of as much of this as I could tell him. Now it's time to tell you.
I met him when I was a freshman in college. He was my friend's friend from high school; she didn't like the boy I was dating (and to be honest, neither did I) so she set me up with him the day after I broke up with him.
Needless to say, I don't speak with her these days, either.
I was lonely and desparate. I needed some sort of validation that I wasn't going to be by myself and turn into a crazy cat lady, or maybe just that someone *might* be able to be attracted to me. It was a week before Valentine's Day. I slept with him before I even knew his last name. I casually asked our mutual friend how to spell it the next day, but I still felt like a slut. This happened four and a half YEARS ago and I still feel like a slut when I think about it.
There was a lot of sex. It strikes my memory as being GOOD sex, but when you're as screwed up as I am, it probably wouldn't have been good to anyone else. Things were ok in general. Things got rougher, but only in bed, so I didn't worry because at least he wasn't hitting me. I let him get away with it. Instead of saying "no, I don't want you to literally chain me to the bed", I let him use a dog choke collar on my wrists. It made me lose all feeling in my hands for DAYS, which is horrible when you're an instrumentalist.
After that, he decided handcuffs would be better, but he was too cheap to spring for bondage cuffs. That's right. He used the metal kind. Instead of stopping when it crossed from 'good pain' to "OH GOD I'M BLEEDING", he just kept right on going. The doctor said I was lucky it didn't scar. I've seen other people with scars from metal handcuffs. It looks like they tried to kill themselves.
Right before the end of that semester, he "forgot" the condoms. Being stupid and lonely and genuinely afraid he would leave me if I ever said 'no', I didn't protest. He left for basic training two days after finals week and I moved in with my father for a couple months, until our lease started on our apartment (with our mutual friend as a roommate).
It was a horrible shock when I realized it. I was over a month late. A MONTH. I did the only thing a nineteen year old girl with no means to support a child and terrified of her parents finding out ANYTHING could do. I never told The Ex about it. I let him go right on thinking he'd gotten away with it. He had. I let him get away with it.
We wrote letters back and forth while he was at basic training (and later AIT). I still have every letter he wrote to me. I've been trying to work up the balls to burn them, to sever that last little connection, but I've never gone through with it. I always just shove them back in the darkest corner of my desk drawers and hope I'll never see them again.
Every single one says "I love you." I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe it so much that I completely ignored every voice in my mind telling me to run. So I let him get away with it. I rolled over and let him do what he wanted. I LET him, but it was somehow different. This time I knew what was going on, and I allowed it to happen. I wanted to be loved, so I kept ignoring the little voices in my head.
He got back from AIT in late September. He still didn't know he'd almost had a spawnling. I never let anyone know, not for several years. Not until I was free.
That was the only night I ever said "no". I never said it again. It didn't do anything. Everything was exactly the same. Some sick part of me enjoyed it, the humilation, the shame, and the pain. That part of me always enjoyed it. It still makes me sick to think of it. The word "slut" gets stuck in my brain again, sticking to everything, ruining everything. I ENJOYED it.
Of course, he didn't helpt he process much. He made me quit my job, leaving both of us unemployed and living off my tiny savings account because he couldn't stand the way other people looked at me. I was HIS. I wasn't allowed to talk to my male friends, because clearly I would cheat on him. I was a slut, after all. I ENJOYED it. I was nothing, nothing, because I enjoyed it. It wasn't rape. Couldn't be. I enjoyed it.
I locked myself away. I went to classes, I hung out with my exclusively female friends (I was occasionally allowed to visit my male friends, but only if he was there to assert his claim on me). I was nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. I know I passed my classes, but just barely. He wrecked an almost perfect GPA, but I was passing, so no one noticed I wasn't in there. I don't remember most of that year. I consider that a blessing.
I don't know when I finally pulled myself back. I don't know when it became too much. Our roommate moved out to live with her boyfriend and didn't say a word. She knew, though. I know she did. One of my good friend's girlfriends attached herself to me, maybe because she knew, too. We'd known each other for a month, at most. She got me out. She pulled me out of my shell, inch by inch, until I couldn't roll over and let him get away with it. She moved into the spare bedroom and refused to let me be alone with him for any reason. I slept in her room, she handled everything when we kicked him out, and I didn't come face to face with him again unti the baseball bat incident.
I wasn't even strong enough to get myself out. I hate myself for it. She was my personal saviour. If I were religious, I'd say some cosmic being sent her to make things right, but I'm not. She just knew I needed help somehow and dropped everything to help me.
And there it is.
I'm going to go make a cup of tea now.
Let me say here that I don't expect your sympathy, nor do I WANT it. I don't want to hear "I'm sorry" or "That sucks". I KNOW it sucked. You shouldn't apologize because it wasn't YOUR FAULT. There was nothing you could do (unless you've been hiding a time machine from me, in which case, GO! FIX IT!).
I will try to be funny. I will probably fail at being funny. DON'T MAKE FUN OF MY PATHETIC SURVIVAL MECHANISMS.
I've kept The Ex to myself for a long time. I've had my reasons for doing such, but it's been three years now, and it's time to get this out so I can put the whole thing in the past, where it really needs to be. I got myself to a place where I can think about this and not want to puke, and Max (Fiance) is aware of as much of this as I could tell him. Now it's time to tell you.
I met him when I was a freshman in college. He was my friend's friend from high school; she didn't like the boy I was dating (and to be honest, neither did I) so she set me up with him the day after I broke up with him.
Needless to say, I don't speak with her these days, either.
I was lonely and desparate. I needed some sort of validation that I wasn't going to be by myself and turn into a crazy cat lady, or maybe just that someone *might* be able to be attracted to me. It was a week before Valentine's Day. I slept with him before I even knew his last name. I casually asked our mutual friend how to spell it the next day, but I still felt like a slut. This happened four and a half YEARS ago and I still feel like a slut when I think about it.
There was a lot of sex. It strikes my memory as being GOOD sex, but when you're as screwed up as I am, it probably wouldn't have been good to anyone else. Things were ok in general. Things got rougher, but only in bed, so I didn't worry because at least he wasn't hitting me. I let him get away with it. Instead of saying "no, I don't want you to literally chain me to the bed", I let him use a dog choke collar on my wrists. It made me lose all feeling in my hands for DAYS, which is horrible when you're an instrumentalist.
After that, he decided handcuffs would be better, but he was too cheap to spring for bondage cuffs. That's right. He used the metal kind. Instead of stopping when it crossed from 'good pain' to "OH GOD I'M BLEEDING", he just kept right on going. The doctor said I was lucky it didn't scar. I've seen other people with scars from metal handcuffs. It looks like they tried to kill themselves.
Right before the end of that semester, he "forgot" the condoms. Being stupid and lonely and genuinely afraid he would leave me if I ever said 'no', I didn't protest. He left for basic training two days after finals week and I moved in with my father for a couple months, until our lease started on our apartment (with our mutual friend as a roommate).
It was a horrible shock when I realized it. I was over a month late. A MONTH. I did the only thing a nineteen year old girl with no means to support a child and terrified of her parents finding out ANYTHING could do. I never told The Ex about it. I let him go right on thinking he'd gotten away with it. He had. I let him get away with it.
We wrote letters back and forth while he was at basic training (and later AIT). I still have every letter he wrote to me. I've been trying to work up the balls to burn them, to sever that last little connection, but I've never gone through with it. I always just shove them back in the darkest corner of my desk drawers and hope I'll never see them again.
Every single one says "I love you." I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe it so much that I completely ignored every voice in my mind telling me to run. So I let him get away with it. I rolled over and let him do what he wanted. I LET him, but it was somehow different. This time I knew what was going on, and I allowed it to happen. I wanted to be loved, so I kept ignoring the little voices in my head.
He got back from AIT in late September. He still didn't know he'd almost had a spawnling. I never let anyone know, not for several years. Not until I was free.
That was the only night I ever said "no". I never said it again. It didn't do anything. Everything was exactly the same. Some sick part of me enjoyed it, the humilation, the shame, and the pain. That part of me always enjoyed it. It still makes me sick to think of it. The word "slut" gets stuck in my brain again, sticking to everything, ruining everything. I ENJOYED it.
Of course, he didn't helpt he process much. He made me quit my job, leaving both of us unemployed and living off my tiny savings account because he couldn't stand the way other people looked at me. I was HIS. I wasn't allowed to talk to my male friends, because clearly I would cheat on him. I was a slut, after all. I ENJOYED it. I was nothing, nothing, because I enjoyed it. It wasn't rape. Couldn't be. I enjoyed it.
I locked myself away. I went to classes, I hung out with my exclusively female friends (I was occasionally allowed to visit my male friends, but only if he was there to assert his claim on me). I was nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. I know I passed my classes, but just barely. He wrecked an almost perfect GPA, but I was passing, so no one noticed I wasn't in there. I don't remember most of that year. I consider that a blessing.
I don't know when I finally pulled myself back. I don't know when it became too much. Our roommate moved out to live with her boyfriend and didn't say a word. She knew, though. I know she did. One of my good friend's girlfriends attached herself to me, maybe because she knew, too. We'd known each other for a month, at most. She got me out. She pulled me out of my shell, inch by inch, until I couldn't roll over and let him get away with it. She moved into the spare bedroom and refused to let me be alone with him for any reason. I slept in her room, she handled everything when we kicked him out, and I didn't come face to face with him again unti the baseball bat incident.
I wasn't even strong enough to get myself out. I hate myself for it. She was my personal saviour. If I were religious, I'd say some cosmic being sent her to make things right, but I'm not. She just knew I needed help somehow and dropped everything to help me.
And there it is.
I'm going to go make a cup of tea now.
25 July, 2011
The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn
My puppy, Stumpy, developed some form of extremely aggressive cancer. It took about a week for her to get so weak she could barely stand, so my mom took her to the vet. She called me and I got over there as fast as I could, where it became clear that the most humane thing to do was have her put down. The next morning, I went out to the farm to put her to rest, under the apple tree out by the chicken coop.
Fiance gave me the best bit of advice ever.
"It's ok to be sad. You're sad because you loved her enough to miss her."
I called up one of the other people who adopted out of her litter (the litter was born to a basset hound in the Humane Society animal shelter; the father was a bull mastiff). Two of the puppies had short legs, three had long legs. John, the person with the other short-legged dog, lives just across the state line. I called him and asked how his dog was doing and learned his puppy had come down with the same thing three months before; he had the money to spend at the veterinary hospital and had the tests I couldn't afford run. It was indeed cancer, and there wasn't a thing he could have done for his dog, either.
This, of course, made me start to think it might be a genetic problem. The litter is just over nine years old, and his confirmation of what my vet had found put me a bit at ease.
Then I got to thinking about the other people with the other dogs. They don't live in the area now. Neither John nor I had their contact information. He was so much of a wreck over the whole thing (still), so I went over to the Humane Society to ask if they'd contact the others. It hurt to be there, but SOMEONE had to do it.
I took some cupcakes with me. I used to volunteer there regularly and brought goodies for the staff when I could. They were all sympathetic and agreed they would contact the other owners. This brought us around to the subject of the bake sale, my cupcakes, and how much money they thought they could raise on them.
I spent a lot of time working with a basset hound rescue program over the last few years. I've wanted a basset hound since I was a little kid, and Stumpy was the closest I was going to get to having a basset when I was in high school. The Humane Society agreed to send some of the donations to the closest rescue program, the one I worked with.
And that's how I ended up baking fifteen dozen cupcakes on my one day off a week.
We raised around $600 just off the cupcakes, and close to $1000 for the entire sale. I had one lonely cupcake left when the sale was over, and a lady bought it for $50. She wrote the check straight to the rescue program. My dad and his wife made a donation to both in my name, and EVEN MY MOTHER showed up to buy some baked goods for the sake of animal rescue.
Instead of sitting around, moping, I got to help two causes I believe need more help. I had the chance to turn my sadness around and make something good come out of it.
There are a few things I care this strongly about. Animal rescue is right up there with "breathing" and "music". There are so many pets out there just waiting for a loving home. Both of my kitties are rescue cats, all of the dogs out on the farm are pound puppies.
I loved my dog, more than I ever realized I was capable of loving anything. It made me realize a few things.
I'm never going to let a day pass that I don't tell the people I love how much they mean to me.
Good things come out of grief. You have to work at it, it's not easy, and you might just want to cry ninety percent of the time, but it is WORTH IT.
Fiance is far better at handling me when I'm panicking and sad than I am.
I love you. I love ALL OF YOU. Because of you, I have somewhere I can put my thoughts. I have a way to communicate with people, even though I'm horrible at speaking. It doesn't matter that I lisp and hate my voice. You give me a whole new voice just by occasionally dropping by to see what I have to say. I love each one of you.
And, of course,
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
Fiance gave me the best bit of advice ever.
"It's ok to be sad. You're sad because you loved her enough to miss her."
I called up one of the other people who adopted out of her litter (the litter was born to a basset hound in the Humane Society animal shelter; the father was a bull mastiff). Two of the puppies had short legs, three had long legs. John, the person with the other short-legged dog, lives just across the state line. I called him and asked how his dog was doing and learned his puppy had come down with the same thing three months before; he had the money to spend at the veterinary hospital and had the tests I couldn't afford run. It was indeed cancer, and there wasn't a thing he could have done for his dog, either.
This, of course, made me start to think it might be a genetic problem. The litter is just over nine years old, and his confirmation of what my vet had found put me a bit at ease.
Then I got to thinking about the other people with the other dogs. They don't live in the area now. Neither John nor I had their contact information. He was so much of a wreck over the whole thing (still), so I went over to the Humane Society to ask if they'd contact the others. It hurt to be there, but SOMEONE had to do it.
I took some cupcakes with me. I used to volunteer there regularly and brought goodies for the staff when I could. They were all sympathetic and agreed they would contact the other owners. This brought us around to the subject of the bake sale, my cupcakes, and how much money they thought they could raise on them.
I spent a lot of time working with a basset hound rescue program over the last few years. I've wanted a basset hound since I was a little kid, and Stumpy was the closest I was going to get to having a basset when I was in high school. The Humane Society agreed to send some of the donations to the closest rescue program, the one I worked with.
And that's how I ended up baking fifteen dozen cupcakes on my one day off a week.
We raised around $600 just off the cupcakes, and close to $1000 for the entire sale. I had one lonely cupcake left when the sale was over, and a lady bought it for $50. She wrote the check straight to the rescue program. My dad and his wife made a donation to both in my name, and EVEN MY MOTHER showed up to buy some baked goods for the sake of animal rescue.
Instead of sitting around, moping, I got to help two causes I believe need more help. I had the chance to turn my sadness around and make something good come out of it.
There are a few things I care this strongly about. Animal rescue is right up there with "breathing" and "music". There are so many pets out there just waiting for a loving home. Both of my kitties are rescue cats, all of the dogs out on the farm are pound puppies.
I loved my dog, more than I ever realized I was capable of loving anything. It made me realize a few things.
I'm never going to let a day pass that I don't tell the people I love how much they mean to me.
Good things come out of grief. You have to work at it, it's not easy, and you might just want to cry ninety percent of the time, but it is WORTH IT.
Fiance is far better at handling me when I'm panicking and sad than I am.
I love you. I love ALL OF YOU. Because of you, I have somewhere I can put my thoughts. I have a way to communicate with people, even though I'm horrible at speaking. It doesn't matter that I lisp and hate my voice. You give me a whole new voice just by occasionally dropping by to see what I have to say. I love each one of you.
And, of course,
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
16 July, 2011
It's been a hard couple of days for me. I need a bit of time to sort things out. It may be tomorrow; it may be next year.
Sorry for the lame post.
I'm just not sure I can put this here today, because I'd have to see it every time I logged in or checked my comments, and I feel pretty awful right now. In time, maybe. But not today.
Sorry for the lame post.
I'm just not sure I can put this here today, because I'd have to see it every time I logged in or checked my comments, and I feel pretty awful right now. In time, maybe. But not today.
07 July, 2011
On the Theraputic Qualities of the Blanket Fort
A friend of mine, who is no longer with us (he died of an extremely aggressive form of leukemia) taught me one thing that has stuck with me for years.
Blanket forts.
It's that simple. They're the secret to happiness. It is impossible to be sad when you're sitting in the middle of your living room, hiding inside a fort made of whatever blankets and sheets (the one I'm in right now includes two fabric shower curtains and one regular old window curtain) you could drape over your lamps and furniture. They need not be elaborate; in fact, some of the best are the simple little ones like the ones I built when I was a little kid.
When I was little, my brother and I would try our hardest to build the biggest forts we could. We were limited only by our height, but we did pretty well for not being able to reach the tops of the floor lamps.
In my first dorm room, the first thing I did was pin a screen up around my top-bunk bed so I'd have my own little bit of privacy. It was the simplest fort I've ever built, and it served its purpose well. I'd sit up on my bed and read, or listen to music, and the rest of the world was easy to ignore. I did homework up there, wrote essays (which were later typed into my clunky old computer), slept until 4 PM, wrote stories, imagined entire new worlds, all behind an old repurposed bedsheet and beach towel. When my roommate moved out and I convinced my dad to pay for a single instead of a shared room, I put blankets up around the bottom bunk, too. I slept in one and did everything else in the other.
I can't help but think of Rob every time I build a fort. When it finally hit us all that he was GONE, we all got together at someone's apartment (I'll be damned if I can remember whose it was) and built a fort. We used all our blankets, all our sheets, every single piece of furniture we could get into the living room (including all the floor lamps from everyone's homes). Then we all crawled inside with a giant bowl of popcorn and just remembered Rob. We were a weird little group of people, and when it got out what we were doing, other friends of his kept coming over. It didn't matter who they were; they wanted to build one last fort for Rob, so they did.
Try it some time, if you don't believe me. Spend as much time as you want perfecting your own method of draping, figure out which size sheets and blankets work best, how heavy they can be before your lamps start protesting, whether you like the ones that take up the entire room or just enough for you to take a nap in. You can decide for yourself if using thumbtacks to hold up the corners is acceptable, or if a fort must be built entirely by draping things over other things. Line the floor with your comfiest comforters and curl up with a good book or a movie or whatever else makes you happy.
This one's for you, Rob.
Blanket forts.
It's that simple. They're the secret to happiness. It is impossible to be sad when you're sitting in the middle of your living room, hiding inside a fort made of whatever blankets and sheets (the one I'm in right now includes two fabric shower curtains and one regular old window curtain) you could drape over your lamps and furniture. They need not be elaborate; in fact, some of the best are the simple little ones like the ones I built when I was a little kid.
When I was little, my brother and I would try our hardest to build the biggest forts we could. We were limited only by our height, but we did pretty well for not being able to reach the tops of the floor lamps.
In my first dorm room, the first thing I did was pin a screen up around my top-bunk bed so I'd have my own little bit of privacy. It was the simplest fort I've ever built, and it served its purpose well. I'd sit up on my bed and read, or listen to music, and the rest of the world was easy to ignore. I did homework up there, wrote essays (which were later typed into my clunky old computer), slept until 4 PM, wrote stories, imagined entire new worlds, all behind an old repurposed bedsheet and beach towel. When my roommate moved out and I convinced my dad to pay for a single instead of a shared room, I put blankets up around the bottom bunk, too. I slept in one and did everything else in the other.
I can't help but think of Rob every time I build a fort. When it finally hit us all that he was GONE, we all got together at someone's apartment (I'll be damned if I can remember whose it was) and built a fort. We used all our blankets, all our sheets, every single piece of furniture we could get into the living room (including all the floor lamps from everyone's homes). Then we all crawled inside with a giant bowl of popcorn and just remembered Rob. We were a weird little group of people, and when it got out what we were doing, other friends of his kept coming over. It didn't matter who they were; they wanted to build one last fort for Rob, so they did.
Try it some time, if you don't believe me. Spend as much time as you want perfecting your own method of draping, figure out which size sheets and blankets work best, how heavy they can be before your lamps start protesting, whether you like the ones that take up the entire room or just enough for you to take a nap in. You can decide for yourself if using thumbtacks to hold up the corners is acceptable, or if a fort must be built entirely by draping things over other things. Line the floor with your comfiest comforters and curl up with a good book or a movie or whatever else makes you happy.
This one's for you, Rob.
02 July, 2011
Last Night
Rather than explain this to every person I talk to, I'm putting it up here both for the sake of not reiterating and getting more pageviews (why yes, I AM trying to get more readers... but that's not important now).
So.
Yesterday, I kept getting creepy texts. They were from three different numbers, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night. Most of them were highly sexual, and the only response I sent at any point was, "Two things: I do not know you, and I am a MAN." With my history of being stalked (although my stalker had not been seen in months), I figured it wouldn't hurt to have the person/people think it wasn't my phone number.
Later in the evening, the messages got creepy. I'm not going to post any of them; I'd rather not think about them. I called the cops, and called Bestie to come stay with me so I would have a man around and wouldn't be alone. I know how to defend myself quite well, but it's better to not get to the point that I have to.
The cops and Bestie showed up at almost the exact same time. I talked with the cops about the situation, let them read the messages, and they went to look around the building and see if anyone was hiding in the bushes. Bestie went with them.
They were just turning the corner to the back of the building when Bestie thought to look out in the parking lot (which has four parking spaces) where my car was parked. He noticed broken glass, and got the cops to go with him to check it out.
Turns out my stalker was IN MY CAR. He ran, the cops chased him, and Bestie came back to my apartment just in case. The cops came back a little bit later to let me know they couldn't find him and wanted to search my car.
They found his wallet (brilliant move, by the way, creepy fucker) and one of the phones I'd been getting messages from. It had been reported stolen that morning. The cops made a quick call and found out the other two numbers were ALSO from stolen phones.
This morning, I filed a temporary restraining order and, since I have his name, am pressing charges over the broken window in my car. I have a court date to get a permanent restraining order on Tuesday.
And that's what happened last night. I am safe, I will not go out by myself after dark, and Bestie is going to stay here at night until the full restraining order is in place. The cops are sending someone to drive by the building every hour during the day and every half hour at night, so please do not worry on my account.
So.
Yesterday, I kept getting creepy texts. They were from three different numbers, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night. Most of them were highly sexual, and the only response I sent at any point was, "Two things: I do not know you, and I am a MAN." With my history of being stalked (although my stalker had not been seen in months), I figured it wouldn't hurt to have the person/people think it wasn't my phone number.
Later in the evening, the messages got creepy. I'm not going to post any of them; I'd rather not think about them. I called the cops, and called Bestie to come stay with me so I would have a man around and wouldn't be alone. I know how to defend myself quite well, but it's better to not get to the point that I have to.
The cops and Bestie showed up at almost the exact same time. I talked with the cops about the situation, let them read the messages, and they went to look around the building and see if anyone was hiding in the bushes. Bestie went with them.
They were just turning the corner to the back of the building when Bestie thought to look out in the parking lot (which has four parking spaces) where my car was parked. He noticed broken glass, and got the cops to go with him to check it out.
Turns out my stalker was IN MY CAR. He ran, the cops chased him, and Bestie came back to my apartment just in case. The cops came back a little bit later to let me know they couldn't find him and wanted to search my car.
They found his wallet (brilliant move, by the way, creepy fucker) and one of the phones I'd been getting messages from. It had been reported stolen that morning. The cops made a quick call and found out the other two numbers were ALSO from stolen phones.
This morning, I filed a temporary restraining order and, since I have his name, am pressing charges over the broken window in my car. I have a court date to get a permanent restraining order on Tuesday.
And that's what happened last night. I am safe, I will not go out by myself after dark, and Bestie is going to stay here at night until the full restraining order is in place. The cops are sending someone to drive by the building every hour during the day and every half hour at night, so please do not worry on my account.
01 July, 2011
The Red, the Black, and the White
I woke up today with the sort of migraine that usually knocks me right out. You know, when you sit up and almost pass out because there's just a throbbing pain where your brain used to be? Well, I've managed to batter it into submission with caffeine and Vicodin, so at least I can think without it hurting now.
I've talked about the Red. I didn't name it at the time, but I've talked about the Black. I don't talk about the White very often, because it's not as distinct as the others. The White is stable. It's the calm before the storm. A blank page, before the other moods come and scribble all over it. When you talk to me, I'm probably White, or I might be trying really hard to ACT like I'm in the White.
Writing about the white isn't as easy as I was hoping it would be. The Black and the Red are so obvious, though, and people don't usually talk about their boring every-day lives. The White is those days when nothing particularly good or bad happens, I get a so-called "normal" amount of sleep, and I'm not dragging myself through things or racing to get everything done.
These are the days when I bake tons of goodies because I feel like being around people, and the easiest way to get friends to come over is to bribe them with delicious noms. I've never had the patience to bake when I'm Red and I lack the energy when I'm Black, but White is juuuust the right sort of feeling for baking.
The White is as normal as I get, which is saying a lot for me.
These are the days when I bake tons of goodies because I feel like being around people, and the easiest way to get friends to come over is to bribe them with delicious noms. I've never had the patience to bake when I'm Red and I lack the energy when I'm Black, but White is juuuust the right sort of feeling for baking.
The White is as normal as I get, which is saying a lot for me.
26 June, 2011
More on Being Genderless
It seems to be a topic of late, in both my personal and online interactions, so I decided it was time to put some thoughts out there.
Obvious fact: I support equal rights. This means nothing more than it is; no one is more equal than any other, regardless of what the pigs in Animal Farm believe. I don't want to get a job because there's some quota to fill on employees who aren't white males. If someone is more qualified for a job than I, by all means, they better get the damn job. I believe in equal pay, equal benefits regardless of race, class, gender (or lack thereof), sexuality, and chosen lifestyle. I don't call myself a feminist because, quite simply, I am not one. Once again, I don't fit in the box of crayons.
This extends beyond just the workplace. I have yet to run into a situation where I haven't been able to get a job because some other minority applied, mostly because I grew up in an area where minorites just don't live. Back in the town where I grew up, we had a grand total of three people who were out of the closet, one Hispanic family, and the only black person in town lived at the Manor (a home for the mentally disabled). When one of the guys in my class came out, he was instantly alienated because it just wasn't done there. Back there, men had specific roles to play, and women were supposed to keep the house, have children, and maybe teach, because those were the only acceptable things for women to do. I can't count the number of female teachers who left their teaching jobs because they had children to raise.
I mentioned in my first post about an argument I had with my soon-to-be mother-in-law. Well, today, that argument decided to rear its ugly, ugly head again. I spent a good chunk of my day trying not to yell at her through email because I just don't think gender has any business in ANYTHING. How much you love someone shouldn't have a damn thing to do with what just happens to be between their legs. It does in this society, though, because there is something WRONG with people who don't fit gender norms. For some reason, it's wrong to be who you are if it means you don't fit nicely in the box of crayons.
This, as many things, draws a lot from the way I was raised. My brother turned out a kind, sensitive man. He is quite honestly one of the nicest people I know, and his dream in life (last I heard) was to stay at home and raise the kids while his wife does whatever makes her happy. He's amazing with children. My family makes fun of him for this. My grandfather flat out refuses to accept that it's possible. Granted, he's a product of the Great Depression and still believes women shouldn't have an education beyond high school. Every time I visit, he asks why I'm dressed like a man and why my brother turned out such a "floppy-wristed faggot". Neither of us can look at what we're labelled and be satisfied.
I came out of childhood entirely opposite of my brother. The thought of having children flat out terrifies me. I have the maternal instincts of a rabid wolverine, and when combined with the degree of mental fuckery I have going on, it's probably a good idea for me to not have biological children. I turned out the way I did because I learned early on in life that if I don't stand up for the way I believe and what I think, no one will.
I once spent two hours sitting after school with my increasingly more frustrated classmates (not to mention the teacher) because I refused to agree that anyone has the right to kill someone for any reason (more on that later). They spent every minute trying to bribe me into agreeing with them, even for a moment, promising I didn't have to ACTUALLY agree and I could change my mind two seconds later about it for all they cared. The teacher had foolishly decided no one could leave the room until we were unanimous one way or the other, and the few who shared my viewpoint were quickly swayed when it became obvious she was serious. So we sat there. It was the class right after lunch, around 12:30 PM, and she had to phone our other classes to let them know we were all going to miss class. Everyone thought I was just being stubborn, or taking the less common option to be "different" and stopped trying to convince me my view was incorrect. It wasn't flawed, it was just WRONG. It was wrong to not agree, for whatever reasons I may have had. Even those who agreed with me at the onset of our five-hour 'debate' were suddenly convinced I wasn't entitled to my opinion. When they started yelling, the teacher finally let people go home. She and I never got along very well, but she didn't treat me quite as harshly after that day. When I graduated, she gave me a card that said, "In five hours, you never tried to make them believe anything you did. I thought you were stubborn at first, but when it came down to it, you left the room with my respect that day."
The point of this little tangent? The instant it became obvious I wouldn't sell out my beliefs, everyone turned on me. People have been trying to force me to fit into the box since I came into this world, whether it's my grandfather and his belief I'm just another dyke, or my former classmates and their decision that I must be ostracized for not wanting to fit.
I grew up completely unsure of why I had to be a woman when clearly I was more suited to the "male" lifestyle, and somewhere along the line I decided it's not only hugely unfair to expect everyone to fit into the box, it is simply not right to make them fit in pre-made slots. If you expect a marker to fit where that crayon should be, you're going to end up disappointed.
When I say I'm genderless, I mean it. I don't see myself as "part this, part that". Growing up without a sense of gender identity didn't give me a huge identity crisis. It let me find out who I am without limits. It's what made me push the rules to see how far I could go and gave me the space I needed to breathe. I grew up outside the crayon box, and while at one point I did wish I could fit nicely inside it, life is more fun out here. I never would have fit, even if I had been willing to try.
Obvious fact: I support equal rights. This means nothing more than it is; no one is more equal than any other, regardless of what the pigs in Animal Farm believe. I don't want to get a job because there's some quota to fill on employees who aren't white males. If someone is more qualified for a job than I, by all means, they better get the damn job. I believe in equal pay, equal benefits regardless of race, class, gender (or lack thereof), sexuality, and chosen lifestyle. I don't call myself a feminist because, quite simply, I am not one. Once again, I don't fit in the box of crayons.
This extends beyond just the workplace. I have yet to run into a situation where I haven't been able to get a job because some other minority applied, mostly because I grew up in an area where minorites just don't live. Back in the town where I grew up, we had a grand total of three people who were out of the closet, one Hispanic family, and the only black person in town lived at the Manor (a home for the mentally disabled). When one of the guys in my class came out, he was instantly alienated because it just wasn't done there. Back there, men had specific roles to play, and women were supposed to keep the house, have children, and maybe teach, because those were the only acceptable things for women to do. I can't count the number of female teachers who left their teaching jobs because they had children to raise.
I mentioned in my first post about an argument I had with my soon-to-be mother-in-law. Well, today, that argument decided to rear its ugly, ugly head again. I spent a good chunk of my day trying not to yell at her through email because I just don't think gender has any business in ANYTHING. How much you love someone shouldn't have a damn thing to do with what just happens to be between their legs. It does in this society, though, because there is something WRONG with people who don't fit gender norms. For some reason, it's wrong to be who you are if it means you don't fit nicely in the box of crayons.
This, as many things, draws a lot from the way I was raised. My brother turned out a kind, sensitive man. He is quite honestly one of the nicest people I know, and his dream in life (last I heard) was to stay at home and raise the kids while his wife does whatever makes her happy. He's amazing with children. My family makes fun of him for this. My grandfather flat out refuses to accept that it's possible. Granted, he's a product of the Great Depression and still believes women shouldn't have an education beyond high school. Every time I visit, he asks why I'm dressed like a man and why my brother turned out such a "floppy-wristed faggot". Neither of us can look at what we're labelled and be satisfied.
I came out of childhood entirely opposite of my brother. The thought of having children flat out terrifies me. I have the maternal instincts of a rabid wolverine, and when combined with the degree of mental fuckery I have going on, it's probably a good idea for me to not have biological children. I turned out the way I did because I learned early on in life that if I don't stand up for the way I believe and what I think, no one will.
I once spent two hours sitting after school with my increasingly more frustrated classmates (not to mention the teacher) because I refused to agree that anyone has the right to kill someone for any reason (more on that later). They spent every minute trying to bribe me into agreeing with them, even for a moment, promising I didn't have to ACTUALLY agree and I could change my mind two seconds later about it for all they cared. The teacher had foolishly decided no one could leave the room until we were unanimous one way or the other, and the few who shared my viewpoint were quickly swayed when it became obvious she was serious. So we sat there. It was the class right after lunch, around 12:30 PM, and she had to phone our other classes to let them know we were all going to miss class. Everyone thought I was just being stubborn, or taking the less common option to be "different" and stopped trying to convince me my view was incorrect. It wasn't flawed, it was just WRONG. It was wrong to not agree, for whatever reasons I may have had. Even those who agreed with me at the onset of our five-hour 'debate' were suddenly convinced I wasn't entitled to my opinion. When they started yelling, the teacher finally let people go home. She and I never got along very well, but she didn't treat me quite as harshly after that day. When I graduated, she gave me a card that said, "In five hours, you never tried to make them believe anything you did. I thought you were stubborn at first, but when it came down to it, you left the room with my respect that day."
The point of this little tangent? The instant it became obvious I wouldn't sell out my beliefs, everyone turned on me. People have been trying to force me to fit into the box since I came into this world, whether it's my grandfather and his belief I'm just another dyke, or my former classmates and their decision that I must be ostracized for not wanting to fit.
I grew up completely unsure of why I had to be a woman when clearly I was more suited to the "male" lifestyle, and somewhere along the line I decided it's not only hugely unfair to expect everyone to fit into the box, it is simply not right to make them fit in pre-made slots. If you expect a marker to fit where that crayon should be, you're going to end up disappointed.
When I say I'm genderless, I mean it. I don't see myself as "part this, part that". Growing up without a sense of gender identity didn't give me a huge identity crisis. It let me find out who I am without limits. It's what made me push the rules to see how far I could go and gave me the space I needed to breathe. I grew up outside the crayon box, and while at one point I did wish I could fit nicely inside it, life is more fun out here. I never would have fit, even if I had been willing to try.
Things I Do When I'm Manic: Part I
See also: Shit Cai Does When She's Bouncing Off the Walls.
The flip side of being so depressed I can't get out of bed (the Black) is the days when I'm so ON that I can't sit still. This is the Red. It's the fiery feeling that grows in the back of my mind and keeps building and building until everything I do is just a blur of Red. People don't usually see me when I'm Red. I'm too busy doing everything there is to do to bother with people who aren't just as fast-paced and excited about things as I am. I'm constantly looking for more time, better efficiency, and things I can do so I can point to them later and say, "SEE?! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO! CAN YOU DO ___ IN TWO HOURS?! I CAN!" The Red is usually what inspires my maniacal cleaning rampages, when I clean the entire apartment, do ALL THE DISHES, wash all my clothes, and can occasionally be found scrubbing each individual tile in the shower.
It's hard, I will admit, when everything is clean. That pairs up nicely with the OCD, though, which is rather mild. I don't spend hours cleaning because it MUST be clean. My OCD manifests in eating, mostly, and the way things must be arranged. That, though, is a story for a different day. Back to my topic.
When all the things are cleaned and organized JUST so, I tend to throw myself into video game marathons. Last time I was truly Red, I spent three days without sleep making a perfect save file (100% of all items, quest completion, secret dungeons, monster data, weapon and ship data, all the secret endings, and defeating all the optional bosses) in Star Ocean: The Last Hope (aka, SO4). That was after I'd spent a day scrubbing the grout in the bathroom. I've been known to play Final Fantasy IX and make it through the entire game in under ten hours (my perfect save file is now juuust under 9 hours, while my "just get it over with" file is sitting pretty at 8:14:21). Yes, that's right. When I'm manic, I turn into the crazy uber-gamer. I don't sleep, I eat only what is necessary to keep my stomach from rebelling, and I run through batteries like they're going out of style. If I run out of batteries, I will quite seriously run to the store and buy more. It doesn't matter that the only 24-hour grocery store is two miles away, I will sprint there and back at 3 AM if needed. I'm aware that driving is faster, but it doesn't FEEL fast enough. I make people hide my car keys when I'm Red. I don't trust myself behind the wheel.
Once upon a time, I tried to spend time with people when I was in the Red. It's almost impossible for other people to keep up with me, though, because I'm zipping along faster than anyone can track. These are the days when I know it's hard for my friends to put up with me, and they are all saints for doing such. Fiance is the only person who sees me Red on a regular basis, and he's pretty much learned to just leave me be. Even I have a hard time keeping track of where my thoughts are sprinting away to, so I can't really expect it of anyone else. I'm infinitely distractable and surprisingly focused all at once. Such a perfect contradiction.
I'm supposed to keep track of my ups and downs because they're fairly predictable if I do. I don't. It's just not fun if I do. There's a little tiny bit of warning before I go from being stable to thinking I'm invincible, and like all rollercoasters, you have to go down from there. Would the rollercoaster be much fun if you knew every bend, twist, peak, and drop? I don't think so. Then again, when you've been riding as long as I have, it's not hard to notice what's coming. You just have to know what to look for.
The flip side of being so depressed I can't get out of bed (the Black) is the days when I'm so ON that I can't sit still. This is the Red. It's the fiery feeling that grows in the back of my mind and keeps building and building until everything I do is just a blur of Red. People don't usually see me when I'm Red. I'm too busy doing everything there is to do to bother with people who aren't just as fast-paced and excited about things as I am. I'm constantly looking for more time, better efficiency, and things I can do so I can point to them later and say, "SEE?! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO! CAN YOU DO ___ IN TWO HOURS?! I CAN!" The Red is usually what inspires my maniacal cleaning rampages, when I clean the entire apartment, do ALL THE DISHES, wash all my clothes, and can occasionally be found scrubbing each individual tile in the shower.
It's hard, I will admit, when everything is clean. That pairs up nicely with the OCD, though, which is rather mild. I don't spend hours cleaning because it MUST be clean. My OCD manifests in eating, mostly, and the way things must be arranged. That, though, is a story for a different day. Back to my topic.
When all the things are cleaned and organized JUST so, I tend to throw myself into video game marathons. Last time I was truly Red, I spent three days without sleep making a perfect save file (100% of all items, quest completion, secret dungeons, monster data, weapon and ship data, all the secret endings, and defeating all the optional bosses) in Star Ocean: The Last Hope (aka, SO4). That was after I'd spent a day scrubbing the grout in the bathroom. I've been known to play Final Fantasy IX and make it through the entire game in under ten hours (my perfect save file is now juuust under 9 hours, while my "just get it over with" file is sitting pretty at 8:14:21). Yes, that's right. When I'm manic, I turn into the crazy uber-gamer. I don't sleep, I eat only what is necessary to keep my stomach from rebelling, and I run through batteries like they're going out of style. If I run out of batteries, I will quite seriously run to the store and buy more. It doesn't matter that the only 24-hour grocery store is two miles away, I will sprint there and back at 3 AM if needed. I'm aware that driving is faster, but it doesn't FEEL fast enough. I make people hide my car keys when I'm Red. I don't trust myself behind the wheel.
Once upon a time, I tried to spend time with people when I was in the Red. It's almost impossible for other people to keep up with me, though, because I'm zipping along faster than anyone can track. These are the days when I know it's hard for my friends to put up with me, and they are all saints for doing such. Fiance is the only person who sees me Red on a regular basis, and he's pretty much learned to just leave me be. Even I have a hard time keeping track of where my thoughts are sprinting away to, so I can't really expect it of anyone else. I'm infinitely distractable and surprisingly focused all at once. Such a perfect contradiction.
I'm supposed to keep track of my ups and downs because they're fairly predictable if I do. I don't. It's just not fun if I do. There's a little tiny bit of warning before I go from being stable to thinking I'm invincible, and like all rollercoasters, you have to go down from there. Would the rollercoaster be much fun if you knew every bend, twist, peak, and drop? I don't think so. Then again, when you've been riding as long as I have, it's not hard to notice what's coming. You just have to know what to look for.
25 June, 2011
Sick Days vs. Mental Health Days
Two posts in one day? I'm spoiling you guys.
I spent most of today hacking my lungs out. Then I spent the rest of the day puking my guts out. There's pretty much nothing I want to do on my actual sick days but crawl into bed and be lazy on the internet while pretending to watch a movie/TV show. Granted, that's what I do on my mental health days, too, but there's a difference. On those days, I don't do anything because that's what I want to do; on sick days, I just don't have the energy to do anything else. I tried to read a book today and ended up falling asleep on it. I tried to watch a movie with Bestie and ended up taking an unplanned nap. I "worked" on my knitting project for a few rows, noticed I'd managed to turn 40 stitches into 51 by what can only be called magic, and then took another nap.
I'm a big supporter of mental health days. One of my professors refers to them as "mocha breaks", and another encourages us to use them if we're getting close to a breaking point. I've found in my collegiate career that the occasional day off keeps me from using sick days as often. It's probably because I tend to do way too much, so the stress eventually builds up and explodes in my face if I don't take a day without worrying about something. I remember way back when i was a freshman when skipping class actually made me so nervous that I made myself sick, and a part of me wonders what happened to that person.
Sick days, of course, are things I don't particularly enjoy. If I'm only a little sick and just don't feel like pushing myself too hard, they aren't horrible, but days like today are not worth it. Days like today are best spent curled up in bed with a movie I've seen countless times, something I don't need to pay any attention to because I already know the entire movie word for word. That way, I can go read random things on the internet, nap randomly and without warning, and spend whatever time I need praising the Porcelain God without missing anything important.
Today's choice? Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog with Thought Catalog and some random awful fanfic I found the other day. Yes, I admit it. I read fanfic. I read mostly slash, because it's just addictive. It doesn't require a lot of attention, either. Oh, and chat. I spent a lot of time in chat today.
Compare this to my last mental health day, during which I watched the entirety of A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel (they're both on YouTube, for those who are not familiar with the joy that is AVPM). After that, I dedicated the rest of the day to powering through the game I was playing. I don't remember which game it was, now that I actually stop and think about it. Probably Radiata Stories, seeing as it was pretty much all I played for two months.
So that's what I did today. Well, that and wrote two blog posts, which is practically unheard of for me. Two in a week seems like a lot most of the time.
I spent most of today hacking my lungs out. Then I spent the rest of the day puking my guts out. There's pretty much nothing I want to do on my actual sick days but crawl into bed and be lazy on the internet while pretending to watch a movie/TV show. Granted, that's what I do on my mental health days, too, but there's a difference. On those days, I don't do anything because that's what I want to do; on sick days, I just don't have the energy to do anything else. I tried to read a book today and ended up falling asleep on it. I tried to watch a movie with Bestie and ended up taking an unplanned nap. I "worked" on my knitting project for a few rows, noticed I'd managed to turn 40 stitches into 51 by what can only be called magic, and then took another nap.
I'm a big supporter of mental health days. One of my professors refers to them as "mocha breaks", and another encourages us to use them if we're getting close to a breaking point. I've found in my collegiate career that the occasional day off keeps me from using sick days as often. It's probably because I tend to do way too much, so the stress eventually builds up and explodes in my face if I don't take a day without worrying about something. I remember way back when i was a freshman when skipping class actually made me so nervous that I made myself sick, and a part of me wonders what happened to that person.
Sick days, of course, are things I don't particularly enjoy. If I'm only a little sick and just don't feel like pushing myself too hard, they aren't horrible, but days like today are not worth it. Days like today are best spent curled up in bed with a movie I've seen countless times, something I don't need to pay any attention to because I already know the entire movie word for word. That way, I can go read random things on the internet, nap randomly and without warning, and spend whatever time I need praising the Porcelain God without missing anything important.
Today's choice? Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog with Thought Catalog and some random awful fanfic I found the other day. Yes, I admit it. I read fanfic. I read mostly slash, because it's just addictive. It doesn't require a lot of attention, either. Oh, and chat. I spent a lot of time in chat today.
Compare this to my last mental health day, during which I watched the entirety of A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel (they're both on YouTube, for those who are not familiar with the joy that is AVPM). After that, I dedicated the rest of the day to powering through the game I was playing. I don't remember which game it was, now that I actually stop and think about it. Probably Radiata Stories, seeing as it was pretty much all I played for two months.
So that's what I did today. Well, that and wrote two blog posts, which is practically unheard of for me. Two in a week seems like a lot most of the time.
Books I Read When I'm Depressed: Part I
I was thinking the other day about the books I always go for when I feel like utter crap. More fun info about me: I ride the bipolar coaster. I have a rapid-cycle form of the disorder, and within my larger cycles there are definitely further peaks and valleys. The ride is never smooth. It's like one of those roller coasters with the loops and corkscrews, then suddenly it plummets underground with next to no warning.
I turn to books a lot, whether I can barely sit still while caught in mania or if I'm so depressed that I can barely convince myself to get out of bed. Granted, the manic version of me usually can't focus on the book for longer than a few pages before bouncing off to do something else, but I still try. That's a story for a different day.
I'm going to start off with a book I just finished, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In the Rye. The part of me that never grew out of being a depressed teenager loved every freaking word of it. The adult part of me, the part that wants to shake people and tell them to just grow the fuck up, spent the entire novel waiting to slap Holden. Still, though, I wanted to run away with him. I wanted to run away from life in general, leave this world of school and having a job as far behind as I could. I'd take Fiance with me, but only if he was ready to leave everything he knew behind. We wouldn't talk to our families, we would make new friends, we could start all over again.
This book was banned from my high school, all because some guy who already had loads of problems read it and later committed suicide. I'd like to think I can understand that sort of view on the world, but I CAN'T. There is no part of me capable of understanding how reading a work of fiction can be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. I've found a couple books that are entirely capable of shoving me all the way down into the dregs of depression, but I still cannot fathom that being too much for me. I'll pretend to myself that I'm just marvelously well-adjusted (which I'm not) and I have a brilliant concept of fiction vs. reality (which I don't). The main difference, perhaps, is the way I find comfort in characters so flawed they can barely pretend to function. I don't want to read things about characters who are perfect. I despise Mary Sues. Perfection is boring. I read things to escape from my world, even if it's just for a few hours. I can't relate to characters who have perfect lives, perfect personalities, perfect relationships, and perfect jobs. I'm far from perfect.
I digress.
A good part of why I devoured The Catcher in the Rye as quickly as I did (other than my absurd reading speed) is that little depressed teenager who never got out of my head. She knew exactly what was happening. She made me remember what it all was. The entire novel, I was forced back into high school, where no one talked to me, people in general hated me, and where everyone was a "phony". I know what it's like to be an outsider. Maybe I know a little too well. High school, though, is a topic for another day.
Did Catcher in the Rye make me feel better when all was said and done? Not really. It was a fun ride, though. That's all I want to be able to say when I'm done with life. Maybe the ride wasn't perfect, and maybe I got a little distracted somewhere in the middle, but hey, at least it was one hell of a ride.
I turn to books a lot, whether I can barely sit still while caught in mania or if I'm so depressed that I can barely convince myself to get out of bed. Granted, the manic version of me usually can't focus on the book for longer than a few pages before bouncing off to do something else, but I still try. That's a story for a different day.
I'm going to start off with a book I just finished, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In the Rye. The part of me that never grew out of being a depressed teenager loved every freaking word of it. The adult part of me, the part that wants to shake people and tell them to just grow the fuck up, spent the entire novel waiting to slap Holden. Still, though, I wanted to run away with him. I wanted to run away from life in general, leave this world of school and having a job as far behind as I could. I'd take Fiance with me, but only if he was ready to leave everything he knew behind. We wouldn't talk to our families, we would make new friends, we could start all over again.
This book was banned from my high school, all because some guy who already had loads of problems read it and later committed suicide. I'd like to think I can understand that sort of view on the world, but I CAN'T. There is no part of me capable of understanding how reading a work of fiction can be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. I've found a couple books that are entirely capable of shoving me all the way down into the dregs of depression, but I still cannot fathom that being too much for me. I'll pretend to myself that I'm just marvelously well-adjusted (which I'm not) and I have a brilliant concept of fiction vs. reality (which I don't). The main difference, perhaps, is the way I find comfort in characters so flawed they can barely pretend to function. I don't want to read things about characters who are perfect. I despise Mary Sues. Perfection is boring. I read things to escape from my world, even if it's just for a few hours. I can't relate to characters who have perfect lives, perfect personalities, perfect relationships, and perfect jobs. I'm far from perfect.
I digress.
A good part of why I devoured The Catcher in the Rye as quickly as I did (other than my absurd reading speed) is that little depressed teenager who never got out of my head. She knew exactly what was happening. She made me remember what it all was. The entire novel, I was forced back into high school, where no one talked to me, people in general hated me, and where everyone was a "phony". I know what it's like to be an outsider. Maybe I know a little too well. High school, though, is a topic for another day.
Did Catcher in the Rye make me feel better when all was said and done? Not really. It was a fun ride, though. That's all I want to be able to say when I'm done with life. Maybe the ride wasn't perfect, and maybe I got a little distracted somewhere in the middle, but hey, at least it was one hell of a ride.
23 June, 2011
Greetings and Salutations!
Hai. It's my new super-secret blog! This blog is for YOU, my weirdo internet friends. And, y'know, the people I actually know in my real life. I'm starting with the intent to post weekly; if I can manage to be grown-up enough to post once a week and not fail miserably, I'll move on to posting more frequently.
Here's the basics of me, not that you need to know, because you PROBABLY know me:
I have synesthesia.
I claim no gender.
Now, those might seem like strange things to throw out there as the "need to know" part of the CaiMonster. They're both giant parts of who I am, though. You were probably expecting things like "I have two cats" and "I am a blonde, but not a dumb one". While both of those are true, I don't think they define my existence nearly as much.
First, synesthesia.
What colour is the letter Q?
What does red taste like?
Think of your favourite song. What colour is it?
That's synesthesia. I can see and taste sound. Think of it this way. I can hear in THREE DIMENSIONS. It's like I'm a freakin' superhero, except my powers are amazingly lame.
When I think back, I've always been this way. I can't recall the exact point when I started noticing other people weren't the same. I grew up assuming all people could do the exact same things. Now, in my quasi-adult life, I know life is different than what I once believed. I know people with grapheme-colour synesthesia (colours associate with certain things, usually numbers or letters), others with number form (all sequences have colours, such as the alphabet and musical scales), and a couple people who get colours for the things they smell. I've noticed a surprising number of other musicians with sound -> colour, and I believe we were all drawn to it because it's not just music to us. It can be the single most overwhelming thing and the only way we can calm down.
The one moment that stands out in my life was in a seminar I took on music archetypes in film. We watched the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, "To Jupiter and Beyond". Now, if you've watched it, you're familiar with the way it screws around with your head. The next day, we watched it again, with the alternate soundtrack, "Echoes" by Pink Floyd. I sat there, entranced, watching the colours dance across my eyes and the screen, while the words just struck chords within me. When it was time to leave for marching band, I stumbled across campus, shaking and disoriented, still stuck with how the entire thing captured me, stole my mind, played with my thoughts, and left me wanting more.
Onward! To my utter lack of gender identity.
I am biologically female. I identified as a man for a good portion of my not-very-long life, and realised somewhat recently I am not a man. I'm not a woman, either. I've never fit in the cosmic box of crayons. When I was little, I played with G.I. Joes AND Barbies; they were usually having epic battles with the Ninja Turtles. My brother and I would run around, goof off, pretend we were pirates or spacemen, and I genuinely wasn't aware I was different from him until I was in elementary school. It's not fair in a lot of ways. The easiest way I can explain it is that I am a gay man trapped in a woman's body, but even that fails to be accurate. I'm not a man; I'm not a woman. I'm floating off somewhere else, not trapped by the confines of gender.
I had an argument with my soon-to-be mother-in-law over this Canadian family and why it is perfectly acceptable for the parents to refuse to reveal the gender of their children. She insisted that it will cause an identity crisis later in life, and I insisted allowing someone to figure out who they are on their own without forcing society's gender roles onto them is something we should all have. In the end, we both walked away from the argument feeling bitter and angry. I'll probably never have my own children, and while I can't say I would take it to the same extremes as the Canadian couple has if I ever did, I find some degree of comfort knowing other people find gender to be just as confusing as I do.
Here's the basics of me, not that you need to know, because you PROBABLY know me:
I have synesthesia.
I claim no gender.
Now, those might seem like strange things to throw out there as the "need to know" part of the CaiMonster. They're both giant parts of who I am, though. You were probably expecting things like "I have two cats" and "I am a blonde, but not a dumb one". While both of those are true, I don't think they define my existence nearly as much.
First, synesthesia.
What colour is the letter Q?
What does red taste like?
Think of your favourite song. What colour is it?
That's synesthesia. I can see and taste sound. Think of it this way. I can hear in THREE DIMENSIONS. It's like I'm a freakin' superhero, except my powers are amazingly lame.
When I think back, I've always been this way. I can't recall the exact point when I started noticing other people weren't the same. I grew up assuming all people could do the exact same things. Now, in my quasi-adult life, I know life is different than what I once believed. I know people with grapheme-colour synesthesia (colours associate with certain things, usually numbers or letters), others with number form (all sequences have colours, such as the alphabet and musical scales), and a couple people who get colours for the things they smell. I've noticed a surprising number of other musicians with sound -> colour, and I believe we were all drawn to it because it's not just music to us. It can be the single most overwhelming thing and the only way we can calm down.
The one moment that stands out in my life was in a seminar I took on music archetypes in film. We watched the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, "To Jupiter and Beyond". Now, if you've watched it, you're familiar with the way it screws around with your head. The next day, we watched it again, with the alternate soundtrack, "Echoes" by Pink Floyd. I sat there, entranced, watching the colours dance across my eyes and the screen, while the words just struck chords within me. When it was time to leave for marching band, I stumbled across campus, shaking and disoriented, still stuck with how the entire thing captured me, stole my mind, played with my thoughts, and left me wanting more.
Onward! To my utter lack of gender identity.
I am biologically female. I identified as a man for a good portion of my not-very-long life, and realised somewhat recently I am not a man. I'm not a woman, either. I've never fit in the cosmic box of crayons. When I was little, I played with G.I. Joes AND Barbies; they were usually having epic battles with the Ninja Turtles. My brother and I would run around, goof off, pretend we were pirates or spacemen, and I genuinely wasn't aware I was different from him until I was in elementary school. It's not fair in a lot of ways. The easiest way I can explain it is that I am a gay man trapped in a woman's body, but even that fails to be accurate. I'm not a man; I'm not a woman. I'm floating off somewhere else, not trapped by the confines of gender.
I had an argument with my soon-to-be mother-in-law over this Canadian family and why it is perfectly acceptable for the parents to refuse to reveal the gender of their children. She insisted that it will cause an identity crisis later in life, and I insisted allowing someone to figure out who they are on their own without forcing society's gender roles onto them is something we should all have. In the end, we both walked away from the argument feeling bitter and angry. I'll probably never have my own children, and while I can't say I would take it to the same extremes as the Canadian couple has if I ever did, I find some degree of comfort knowing other people find gender to be just as confusing as I do.
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