Under the Bridge

Intro for My Brain Basics Guide

2012-01-26T00:57:00.000-08:00

I am ridiculously excited about my first article having been posted the other day. My next challenge was to write a brain basics guide. Believe me when I say that it is quite difficult to simplify certain concepts in neuroscience, but I've definitely had fun trying.

Here's the intro for the guide (which is now 10 pages long and will probably end up being somewhere from 13-15 pages total):

Think about how life would be if you could not communicate. Most of us feel completely disconnected even when we lose our cell phones for just a day, but imagine how terrible it would be to lose your nervous system. The nervous system is the great communicator, connector, and interpreter among the systems of the human body. It is responsible for transmitting messages from one cell to another and making sure the message is received and interpreted properly. It is also the system that allows us to perceive all that is around us through our five senses, learn a language and use it in an organized way, experience emotions, and remember the things that have happened to us. The nervous system makes sure that all of the above types of information can be shared amongst the system so that we can, for example, become happy when we remember our wedding day or take caution when we know that the pot on the stove is too hot. None of this would be possible without your nervous system, so you’re lucky you can’t leave home without it…unlike your cell phone.
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Lol obviously this example was taken from personal experience...

This is What Matters

2012-01-23T00:11:00.000-08:00

I know I've already posted this on facebook in various places, but just in case this reaches a few more people, I'm putting it here as well. Once you see, you'll understand the importance of passing the message along. Thank you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dlYhCs6ZLU&list=UUnGC482qHRyJjw4wItxfZpw&index=1&feature=plcp

Nerd Time

2012-01-22T21:54:00.001-08:00

Two thoughts went through my head today, and they made me realize how strange I am, but I love it. (1) There must be or have been a lot of research involved in determining the perfect size for a can of soda or similar containers because of the average size of the human hand. I thought this because I have smaller hands and prefer Red Bull cans and the new 7.5 ounce soda cans, even though I sometimes drink two. (2) Cold activates the sympathetic nervous system, and we know that people with Asperger's have nervous systems that might be a bit different, and maybe mine is hypersensitive, which means that I get stressed out more easily and would react more strongly to cold. (Cold water agitates me and when it hits me in the face I literally have to hold back from screaming). P.S. I feel so good right now because my new job allows me to think and use the skills I have honed throughout my life.
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I'm taking a break from my work to write a little about it. It's making me rethink a lot about what I want to do with my life, and it's taking me back to an earlier time when I had similar passions. I love to write. Working on these articles doesn't even feel like work most of the time. Working on this "Brain Basics" guide will be even more fun because I get to use the creative explanations I've developed and teach them to a large audience.
I'm in a good mood about this because I'm doing something that I feel gives me a purpose. It is meaningful to me. And this is so very well connected with the whole philosophy of moodtraining. You should check it out if you haven't already. I'm glad I found this place and these people because I have harbored the same philosophy throughout my life, and when I desired a career as a physician, that was exactly the type of philosophy I wanted to use in my practice.
I'm sure there are other things that go along with it, and everything comes back to the brain for me. It's nice not to be forced to interact with people if I am not up for it. It's nice to be able to work in a familiar and comfortable environment. There is instant gratification because of the time frame involved in producing a single article or review, which will activate the reward system. This is one of the reasons why I think artists, contract workers, and other people who work in fields where they complete small to moderate tasks find their work more rewarding and pleasant than those who endure monotonous and seemingly endless careers.
You see, it's the stuff I can't stop thinking about--the why's and how's of everything I experience and everyone I meet. I am a glutton for knowledge, but it's productive since I love sharing that knowledge.
It's tough to describe how awesome I feel right here, right now, and though that is transient, this writing is at least semi-permanent for me and for a few others. It is a reminder that I have felt like this before, just as the other pieces of writing I have posted here serve as reminders, and that I will undoubtedly feel like this again.
I want to have this written down just in case I forget that I am worth it. I want to have it just in case I ever again think that I am stupid, useless, or incapable of accomplishing anything. So, Dylan, don't you ever forget that you're so much more. Don't forget that you're a great person, not just because of your intelligence, but because you have the ability to be kind, compassionate, helpful, and so much more than you know at this very moment.

Just a little letter to myself.

I think this is what those other folks call progress.

Have-Done, Not To-Do

2012-01-21T00:16:00.000-08:00

Before sitting down to make a list of things I have to do, which seems interminable every time, I decided to use an old trick that I learned somewhere along the way, and you know, it really works. I decided to make the following list first, a list of things that I've already accomplished today:

woke up (the hardest part)
wrote a Neuroscience article
took a longer shower than usual
chose two drag numbers
opened my mail
didn't set spaghetti on fire
talked to my parents on the phone
took out some garbage
rinsed out my garbage can and scrubbed it with bleach
separated ALL of my dirty clothes by function
did 2 loads of laundry (so far)
cleaned the stove and degreased all the top parts
cleaned the kitchen floor
did some dishes
made this list

And then I was like...HELL YEAH.
Go Me.

First Moodtraining.com Article (unedited)

2012-01-19T01:10:00.001-08:00

You can’t help but notice them from across the gym, gazing fondly and smiling at their own massive and well-developed musculature. Perhaps you’ve even been annoyed by their seemingly apparent egotism as you quietly go about your daily routine, hoping no one catches you yourself making furtive glances toward the gym’s wall of mirrors. But current research regarding body image and self-monitoring suggests that these meatheads might be on to something.

One area of the brain highly involved in coordinating information related to one’s body image and perception of physical self is known as the parietal cortex, an area that is well known for its role in utilizing visual and somatosensory information to plan and execute movements. Essentially, this area of the brain can help us to determine where an object is in space and how to go about manipulating it. Current research indicates that the parietal cortex also integrates visual cues and somatic input from the skin, muscles, and joints via a distributed network of neurons in order to compute body image.1 Some common disorders of body image such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder may be associated with dysfunction in this region of the brain.1,2

Given this knowledge, it is not hard to see that Mr. Meathead across the gym may actually be utilizing a self-monitoring technique that may aid in his quest to be the next Mr. Olympia. While this may not be your ultimate goal, don’t be afraid to pause to witness the remarkable physical transformations that can occur within a single workout. You’ll notice your veins and muscles have visibly expanded due to the effects of the strenuous exercise, and if getting big is a high priority for you, allowing your parietal cortex to indulge can help to positively alter your own perception of your physical self. So go ahead and stare!

Other types of self-monitoring have been utilized in helping individuals maintain their fitness goals, particularly those who have suffered from obesity. Consistent self-monitoring techniques, as shown in a study by Butryn et al., were associated with lower BMI scores and a higher ability to practice self-restraint.3 Whether the monitoring technique used is weighing yourself daily, maintaining a written and/or visual diary, or simply taking a moment in the mirror to reflect on how jacked you’re becoming, it is an important component of self-initiated mood optimization (Principle 1). And according to a recent study by Ryckman et al., those who harbor more positive perceptions of their own physical capacity outperform those with less positive views on tasks involving the use of physical skills.4 So ,simply by believing in your own strength and abilities, you put yourself at a tremendous advantage!

Optimizing your mood through visual and other types of feedback will have you feeling stronger, happier, and more satisfied with your choice to stay fit and healthy, and you’ll be more likely to stick with your regimen, regardless if your goal is weight-loss, muscle building, or something else entirely. A more positive perception of oneself permeates all aspects of thinking and being, influencing everything from our success at work to our personal relationships with others. By taking time to visually and verbally appreciate our daily fitness victories (and non-fitness victories), we can begin to harness that positive energy and use it as a force for good in the world around us.

1. Ehrsson HH, Kito T, Sadato N, Passingham RE, Naito E (2005) Neural Substrate of Body Size: Illusory Feeling of Shrinking of the Waist. PLoS Biol 3(12): e412. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030412.
2. Wagner, Angela; Ruf, Matthias; Braus, Dieter F.; Schmidt, Martin H. (2003) Neuronal activity changes and body image distortion in anorexia nervosa. NeuroReport 14(17): 2193-2197.
3. Butryn, Meghan L.; Phelan, Suzanne; Hill, James O.; Wing, Rena R. (2007) Consistent Self-monitoring of Weight: A Key Component of Successful Weight Loss Maintenance. Obesity (15): 3091-3096.
4. Ryckman, Richard M.; Robbins, Michael A.; Thornton, Billy; Cantrell, Peggy (1982). Development and validation of a physical self-efficacy scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42(5): 891-900.

The Spirit of Radio

2012-01-18T20:46:00.000-08:00

Sitting in Wood Street Station, waiting for the trolley to take me home from a brief yet productive workout, I was not-so-subtly reminded why my favorite song--out of the thousands upon thousands of songs I know and love--is my favorite song.

The thoughts that flowed through my head from each and every direction literally sent a charging rush of positive energy through every nerve in my body. It gave me chills and filled me with tears at the same time. It both excited and calmed me.

This song is an expression of the meaning of my existence, and I'm not talking about career goals or anything of that mundane sort. I'm talking about the type of thing Robin Williams mentions in Dead Poets' Society. It is something that is not necessary to sustain life, but, just like in the movie, it's what I stay alive for.

And it's how I can explain myself to others. It's how I tell my stories. And it comprises a great deal of my story itself.

My favorite line from this song is engraved on the back of my iPod. It is perhaps an answer to my other favorite quotation. And now I'm sure you'd like to know what it is, in case you aren't familiar with the song or my little green mp3 player:

"One likes to believe in the freedom of music..."

This Morning

2012-01-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

I have opened my heart, and it feels like summer.

Line

2012-01-13T18:57:00.001-08:00

These hopes and dreams are basic needs for those who sing instead of breathe.

Being Out

2012-01-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

It is because of senators that are allowed to remain in office when they so clearly believe that death should come to transpeople who defy the arbitrary laws of gender expression constructed by our society that I will never be able to live as stealth. It is because of those who fear and hate a seven-year-old transgender girl scout that I cannot remain silent about the issues that are important to me--the issues that affect the lives of millions of people both like and unlike me. Silence is just not an option.

My Silver Key

2012-01-02T20:43:00.000-08:00

"Calm, lasting beauty comes only in dream, and this solace the world had thrown away when in its worship of the real it threw away the secrets of childhood and innocence."

I could take it in a million directions, the line for which I made the mad dash to the drawer across the room in search of a suitable highlighter. Sometimes I feel like I am watching the world throw away the things I think it should hold most valuable. At other times, I know that the general concept of "the world" isn't real in itself, but I still get smacked in the face by friends I have lost to the pervading ennui.

The point of the story, or one of the many, rather, is that our division between what is real and what is not real is an arbitrary one, for all images--those within our heads and without--are filtered by the same human vessel. Our perception of the world of dreams and imagination is just as valid as our perception of what we consider to be the real world. But people lose this. They grow up and leave behind the key to their dreams, and they realize what a shitty place reality has come to be. But the problem is that their dream worlds have wasted away from lack of use by the time that they even realize this, so neither world contains anything useful for them. I vow to fight against becoming such an empty shell.

It's not about figuring out which things matter and which things don't. An old teacher of mine used to say that perception is more important than reality, and he mentioned this in reference to the start of various international conflicts, commenting that both sides will believe themselves to be in the right. There is never going to be a sole reality, and maybe that itself is the unifying factor of reality, however we choose to define it in the first place.

So...I decide what my reality is going to be, and I decide what matters and what does not, simply by choosing to believe in this or that, choosing to acknowledge this or that, etc. We are all designed to create our own version of the "meaning of life".

Realization

2011-12-20T08:31:00.000-08:00

"It gets better" does not mean "it gets easier."

Home Improvement

2011-12-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

I'm prepared for this to be excruciating. My heart is heavy. My brain and body are equally troubled, tortured, and are becoming useless. No one ever wants this, of course, but I still feel the need to say that this is the last place I ever wanted to be, though I may have suspected it at various times in my life. Still, it's one of those things you never actually think will happen to you, like a heart attack or cancer.

I will interject with this random thought before continuing: I will never be normal. I just want to be capable. Regardless of success or failure, the latter is necessary for me to be (happy).

I don't know where to start, or how. I don't know why I am hurting so badly or why it happened at this particular time in my life. I am tortured by the fact that I need to know everything, all the time. That fact alone is not something a lot of people can quite comprehend. It's hard to understand pain you've never felt before. I suppose it's even harder to understand pain you've never let yourself feel before, for whatever reason. Maybe it was intentional or maybe it was self defense. I've been thinking a lot about last summer and how I could not see what was happening, and I have no idea how I am supposed to feel yet. There's a letter I never answered, and I am not sure I ever will, but the fact that I went back to refresh my memory should tell you something about the way your words have affected me and probably always will, whether I like it or not. Don't take that for any more than what it is.

For the record, "I told you so" is not an appropriate response.

I've slipped into something I haven't been able to control. I deleted the word "can't" from that sentence, so maybe even this is a start.

Transition does not automatically solve all of your problems, for those of you that seem to think unwavering happiness is the natural end to the course of events in the physical process. What I have come to find is that I am just now beginning to deal with problems I could not confront before. Your body tries to respond to the most pressing threat, and so does your mind. Transition was something that needed to happen in order to move forward with my life, and that means enjoying life as well as dealing with its unpleasantness.

It's become clear that I don't know how to do the latter very well. I ended up where I did because every coping skill that I have ever learned has recently failed me. Because I believed (and am still fighting against the belief) that my life--my job, my ability to deal with stress, my ability to be happy, my financial situation, etc--will never any better and that I will be stuck in this place of depression, anxiety, and limited capacity to function...forever.

I struggled to get myself out of bed every morning for weeks upon weeks, maybe even months. And that was until I just couldn't do it anymore. So I didn't. And I quit my job. But I had already checked out of doing things that make me happy because everything I love has now become everything I fear. I am stressed by everything, saddened all the time. Sometimes there is no reason, and this is something that I can't stand.

I spent three full days in the crisis center because I really didn't know if I could trust myself to be alone with me, and I really couldn't take another day of being home. I didn't move from my bed for almost two days, and I barely ate anything at all while I was there. I kept turning over the thought that this is how my brother might feel every day of his life, surrounded by people he cannot connect with and unable to do anything on his own. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and it's only going to get harder. But it might get better. I'm hanging everything on that one little word, and everything in the logical part of my brain is telling me that it's a really stupid way to go about living. But clearly that part of my head has been sucking lately. Or maybe logic just doesn't have anything to do with it.

It's obvious that I can't hold a job right now, no matter how much I want to and no matter how much I need to have money. Sometimes I still don't really believe that this is who I am and that this is what is happening to me. The fact that I can't have a job right now is just one more thing that makes me terrified that I will never get out.

But when you are isolated for three full days, you start thinking even more. And that really sucks if you already think in overdrive all the time. But it's not something I was able to avoid. So I barely slept and I didn't sleep at all during the night. But I thought, and something in my realized that I needed to stop waiting for the people there to make me better. I needed to make the first move or I wasn't going to get anything out of being there. And I wasn't going to get out of there period. I could barely speak when people tried to talk to me, and I couldn't breathe or look at them, but I did what I had to do during those last 36 hours or so. I did it all because I just wanted to go home. And maybe that sounds stupid because you would think that I would want to get better. But going home was part of that. The fact that I WANTED something...That meant everything. That I was doing something in order to achieve something I wanted, and that must have meant that I thought enough of myself. That I thought I was worth the effort. And no matter how miserable or useless I feel, I need to keep thinking about that. There's a part of me that does want to be here, and it's the same part of me that wanted to get out of that place so badly. It's that part of me that wants to want to do things that used to make me happy. It wants things. I want things. I don't always know what they are, but that's everybody, I suppose.

I am terrified about the decision I might be making. It's something I had in the back of my mind, and when someone else made the suggestion when I hadn't even mentioned it at all, I knew I had to think about it again. PA school. And I'm still thinking. But another thing that's really tough for me, which I learned or rather re-learned over this past week, is believing and trusting that I don't need to know everything or do everything or have everything today or even soon.

I am allowed to be unsure. I am allowed to be unfinished.

I am 23 years old, with two college degrees, a beautiful transgendered body, a boyfriend who loves me for who and what I am, a clean and well-organized bedroom (thanks to the boyfriend who loves me), who is going to nationals for drag in a few months, who is going to go back to school, who is going to make big things happen in this city I've learned to call home, who is not going to let depression, anxiety, fear, pain, or a different way of thinking stand in his way anymore.

Now all I have to do is believe this. I will make this real.
I am allowed to be unsure. I am allowed to be terrified. But I will not allow myself to lose this fight. If I can bring myself to think that my body deserves to live, then my soul should have that same chance. Obviously, it's going to be hard. Here it comes again, and I think it's fucking ridiculous how it appears again and again throughout my life. It's like it should be a tattoo or something.

Nothing worth having is ever easy.

Bleh

2011-12-10T02:02:00.001-08:00

I have to be up in three hours or so, but I don't think I can sleep yet. Something's burning inside me, and I just want to be able to figure it out. I also just got my finger stuck to one of these keys because of an open wound. Lovely.
Argh. I hate this making decisions about my life thing because no matter what I choose, I'm going to be miserable. I just have to choose which kind of misery at this point. But maybe I'll be giving myself enough time to work it all out. I guess I can't be more specific right now, which isn't good either because I'm sure it'll be misconstrued by someone.
I'm getting frustrated with a lot of people. I can't tolerate it. I'm reaching my limits. Argh.

Bleh.
And some other words.

Necessary

2011-12-07T23:48:00.001-08:00

When I look at myself in the mirror, I don't want to see the atrocities
written on me
like streaks of tears
flowing from me.

Brown eyes. And I used to hide them.
Brown eyes underneath convex blue.
Brown hair growing into red. like blood.

I gave up hiding like I gave up my right to bear a child.
Bittersweet.
Necessary.
Painful.
Necessary.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I don't want to see things I have lost.
But I do.
Eternity is keeping score
and I just feel like cheating.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I see the past standing behind me.
I remember how each one of them felt.
And how it felt Real each time.
When I turned around, I saw my future
running away from me.

But I heard her whisper
as she dashed ahead, full speed
like a thunderstorm trapped
in a tin can.

"It was never going to be
easy."
And so my chase began.

At Least We Have Cute Puppies

2011-11-29T00:16:00.001-08:00

I'm coming closer to figuring out the problem. Here's one more piece of it: I feel like everyone else I knew from college is starting that whole real life thing. I'm not moving forward at all, and when it comes down to it, I'm nothing more than a cashier. I don't want this to be my life story.

I want to go back to school because I am not happy.

I'm worried that I'll be wrong again. And I'm worried that I'll never be right.

If my body would allow me, I'd probably be crying every day.

At least some things can be constant, like the way it feels when I'm fighting against the weight. And I am in control. Maybe that's what's happening right now. I'm pushing and pulling and causing myself all this pain--deliberately breaking myself down so I can come back stronger the next time.

But I worry about there even being a next time. Fatigue is starting to overcome me. And it hasn't even been a year.

I can't imagine living the rest of my life like this. I'd rather die.
Something is wrong.

Now I'm going to go watch a cute puppy or two.

Still November, Right?

2011-11-27T19:20:00.001-08:00

It's not depression unless you've got no reason to be upset. Over and over again, I am forced to face the fact that my life is and will probably never be what it was supposed to be. I'm already a failure. And now that this is where I am, it seems impossible to get out. My life isn't what I want it to be. No matter how happy I can be with the person I have become, the rest of my life has fallen to shit, and I'm going nowhere. And I'm not any closer to saving up enough money to change that. I'm banking on getting into graduate school because I know I won't have to worry about money during that time. I'm praying that I get that position because I'll make more money working 20 hours a week for four months than I will in an entire year at GNC. But if that doesn't work out, well, I don't know where I will be.

The credit card payment is supposed to come out of my account tomorrow, and I'm not going to have enough money to pay it. If it takes the money anyway and overdraws my account, that's the best thing that can happen right now. And I'll be slammed with fees until I can deposit my paycheck after work on Wednesday. If the money doesn't clear...I'm back up to paying 400 dollars a month with nearly 30 percent interest. If the latter situation plays out, I'll have to leave. I don't even know how I feel about it. There are things I don't want to deal with if I go home, but there is a part of me that misses being able to be closer to my family. I would miss everyone here, and Jon would break up with me, but I don't really feel like I have a lot of friends here. I don't even think I have a few, really. Knowing that living expenses would be taken care of at home is a plus, but should that be enough? Should I risk everything now in order to prevent having to risk it for the next ten years of my life?

You have no idea how many times I've considered selling drugs or sex for money. I have people telling me stories about how they used to have five cars and had so much money coming in that they could just give one away. Then I always have to stop and think about how ridiculous it is that I'm even at this point. This wasn't what was supposed to happen, and this isn't what they told me would happen. It almost makes me regret going to college at all...almost.

I could have been in medical school right now. Instead, I've been living on a little less than 2 dollars for about five days now, and I still have to wait until Wednesday night. I haven't actually gone grocery shopping in months. My bed is still just an old mattress on the floor. I'm still in the same place, barely scraping by, and I can't live like this any more. I've been trying to make the best of it, but the effort is just one more thing that takes its toll on me.

"Just get another job."
I already want to cry every single morning I have to wake up and go do this. I'd probably--definitely--want to put a bullet in my brain if I had to do it twice as much.

Yes, a lot of people have it a hell of a lot worse than I do, and maybe they are better people than I am for being able to handle more than I can. I won't argue with it. I just don't want to get to the point where I feel like it's not worth trying anymore, and I'm so close already. I can feel it creeping up on me, almost breathing on me. What is there to keep that feeling at bay? I have nothing tangible to help me through this, and every time I rely on hopes and dreams, I end up in a far worse position.

Moving home would be giving up. But I might have no other choice. I'm just another one of those people who got lost in everything I guess. And I have this terrible feeling that I'm never going to get out of this and that this really is as good as it gets. But maybe I do deserve it, with all that I could have and probably should have done. I'm afraid that it's already too late.

I'm just afraid.
And I'm worried that there's no point in even wanting anything now. I don't want to shut down again. I feel like things haven't been right in such a long time. It's hard to imagine that I could have felt fine a few days ago. Maybe I don't know how to live in what everyone calls the real world, but that's really funny to me.

I may not understand a lot of things about how this society works, but if it ever ceased to work, I'd be able to survive just fine. Most of the real world is absolutely fake, and I'm tired of dealing with it. I hate knowing that that's probably how I'm going to feel for the rest of my life. I just lost my train of thought completely.

I need a plan. I feel like I need help making one. But I don't know if I actually trust that many people for that kind of help. As usual, I'm my own worst enemy. Bleh. This ship is sinking for sure.

Just Another Tuesday

2011-11-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

There is value in writing something every day, no matter how insignificant your observations may seem. Those little details, like the fact that it rained today or that I actually took the time to talk to a girl I thought I wouldn't be able to stand. Let's just say I was wrong. I've learned over and over again that first impressions are almost always wrong, even if you're great at reading people. Anyway, one of these days, I'm not going to remember these details, and maybe having them in a little place like this or in a notebook stashed away in a green box in the corner of my room will be the most important thing in the world to me. Our memories really are our greatest treasures. We turn to them when we have lost loved ones--when we have lost anything, really. I strive to remember because forgetting means you have to start over.

And about the pageant. As I expected, I am completely over it and ready to take on the challenge of preparing for nationals in a few months. Bouncing back seems to be my specialty. In order to be a success, you've got to first be a failure. And sometimes, you're both at once. It depends on where you're standing.

It's one of those days where I'm not sure where I'm going but I don't mind at all.

I requested a day off next week to go get my fingerprints done. This is finally going to happen. It's funny that I don't feel more excited about it. It's been so long that it's not that big of a deal anymore. It's just something that needs to be done to avoid awkwardness and inconvenience. I don't need the validation. I think the most exciting part is that I will get to do this with at least one other trans person, and this is a big step for her. I want to see this happen for her more than anything, really. It's always exciting to talk to people who are about to embark on a journey similar to yours. And you want to tell them everything and prepare them for all the challenges they might face, but it's almost like being a parent in a way. You can't tell them everything. Some things they'll need to experience for themselves in order to really understand. I've come to accept this as part of my own life in general, another facet of growing up of which I was unaware several years ago.

There's no one else here right now, and I'm happy to sit in silence. It's something I don't get enough of these days.

I was supposed to be getting a puppy for Christmas, but that's not happening because the girl gave it away to someone else (a relative) after she had already promised it to Jon for me. Oh well. I'm a little sad because I was looking forward to having a cute little animal waiting for me every day. I squeal around tiny, cute things.

I need to design fliers, but I'm exhausted. I just want to sleep. Still feel like it's too early for that, though. Same old. I suppose if I pass out I can just wake up early and start on them.

This is getting silly, so I'm out until I have something slightly more interesting to say.

In Between

2011-11-20T01:14:00.000-08:00

It's kind of ridiculous that it's all over now, and it's even more ridiculous because I don't even WANT to be sad. I just want to get over it and get on with things. I'm not mad. Maybe a little peeved about things here or there, but let's face it, Skyler had the better package tonight and was spot on. And I really am happy for him, and I'm happy for myself too because I'm still going to nationals, I still got to try out this idea (though perhaps it wasn't the best time for a test run...), and I still wound up learning a lot about myself. It's amazing how much you can learn about how you're presenting yourself to the rest of the world just by looking at the way you walk, the way you smile, etc.
And it's also incredibly frustrating.
I want to pick a place to start talking about all the things that happened tonight and the nights leading up to the pageant. I could say so much about how I didn't have enough time with working so much and how it was so difficult to get dancers, etc. But those are just excuses. And maybe I could also talk about how I should have switched my idea when I knew we would only have three days to practice a pretty complicated routine.
And perhaps it was a little TOO outside of the box. I'm not sure. But there are two things that piss me off. One of the comments on my sheet for presentation was "not good as a boy". On a similar note, there were comments in another category suggesting that I was not walking in a masculine way. Or not doing something in a masculine way. Oh, and did I mention I got knocked points for using the word queer? I guess that makes three things. Am I the only one that has an issue with the pageantry system deciding how to define masculinity? I mean, it is their pageant and they have enough crazy rules the way it is, but this just seems like something that's detrimental in general.
The whole thing's just got my head spinning tonight. And I'm just...sad. There's no way of getting around it. And it's more annoying than anything else because my brain is fully capable of moving past this and not dwelling on shit, but it refuses to. And even when I wanted to have a good cry a little earlier, I couldn't. It's almost impossible for me to cry when I need to, yet sometimes I find that tears well up in my eyes instantly depending on the trigger (usually something random and pointless).
I know what I can do well. And I know what I like to do. And tonight has me thinking that this pageant thing really isn't for me. I do get annoyed that I have to say words in a particular order and do this and that. It's a lot of jumping through hoops, and I hate feeling that winning a title like this is the only way to spread my name. I'm sure it's not true, but that's the way it seems to have been working.
Here's the problem I'm having. I'm a performer. That's clearly what I like to do, and it's what I do best. I know how to keep people entertained and push boundaries and keep coming up with new things. I'm also pretty good at designing outfits, apparently. But they don't like the way I walk. I just thought of something...
Maybe the modeling portions are so difficult for me because I honestly don't feel like I'm in character when I am doing it. I don't feel like I'm performing, and maybe if I did, I would do better. I just don't feel like I have the same confidence. There's also that part of me that keeps wondering how my walking in the shape of a T or a triangle is relevant to anything or how it can be construed as entertainment. And I know the answers to my own questions. It's not about that, not all of it. When I do stuff like this, I realize that I feel like I'm doing it for somebody else. With Mr. Cattivo, I felt like I was doing it for me. I did things how I wanted to, and I was allowed to be a lot more creative with it.
Maybe it's just learning that this isn't what I do. I can't sleep. It's almost five in the morning, and I'm already running on barely any sleep from the night before the pageant, but I can't get the thoughts out of my head. My brain always feels like it needs to resolve everything before it can move on, which is why I am so annoyed. I don't want to think about this right now. I honestly want to go upstairs, take a hot bath, read a book, come back down here and cuddle with my sleeping boyfriend.
I asked him if he thought I should keep doing this, and I could tell it was a difficult question for him to answer. There's no getting around the fact that I want to be great at what I do. I want people to know who I am. I want to perform in more places and all that jazz. And I sometimes feel like this is the only way to do it. Again, the brain knows that really isn't true, though it certainly doesn't hurt.
Maybe I'd rather spend my time, money, and energy working on something for me, and by that I mean something for the audience to really enjoy without having to worry about the minute details that usually escape them anyway. If this is how I feel, and I know this is what I do best, why am I still sad? It makes no sense to me.
I'm an entertainer. I'm more comfortable doing that than anything else. But that doesn't mean I don't want to get better at the other things, and maybe a lot of that right now is because it's a new challenge. The other things are hard for me, and ironically enough, I sucked the most on talent because I was so bent on sticking with this original idea I had in my head. I wasn't really on tonight at all, and pretty much everything that could go wrong...did. I knew what had happened as soon as I stepped off stage. But should the fact that it's a challenge matter that much if that's one of the only things keeping me in it?
It should be as easy as saying it's not for me. Kind of like basketball.
But why isn't it? Maybe I should start asking myself why I really wanted this in the first place. Did I really need the validation that badly? And did it backfire completely? Maybe. Not sure. My confidence is shot right now, but I've learned to bounce back. Maybe it's because I put so much time and energy into this, and I don't have much to show for it at the moment.
BUUUUT I still get to go to nationals. And I can change things up. I can learn how to model better, stop saying ummmm all the time, and figure out a way to make the lights work better for me instead of hurting me because you couldn't see my face. But how much more is that going to require from me, and can I even do that now knowing the way I feel.
I'm trying to think back to what I told them in the interview. They asked me how important it was for me to win the crown tonight. I told them that, although that would be nice and everyone enters with the goal of winning, it wasn't everything for me. I come out of each one better than the last, and maybe that's why I've stuck with doing it. I like pushing myself, but sometimes I can't stand not being able to do it my way. A lot of my life is based upon rules and rigid thinking and all that good stuff, and I don't want it to apply to my performance. Maybe I enjoy it so much because I can do whatever the hell I want.
It's a lot for me to think about right now, and I just want something else to go in its place. Again, I'm an annoying kind of sad that just won't leave.
I'm not going to think about drag for...I was going to say at least a week, but I have a show in two. It never stops.
I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh, and the tuxedo that I have isn't supposed to button, fyi. lol

The whole night has me thinking. There weren't too many people there, and it really didn't seem like people were having that great of a time. Do I really want to spend all of my energy doing this when I could be putting it towards making sure people do have a good time and actually want to come back and see me?

Random good thing: I look great in white. :)

Maybe I should start saying some positive things here. And maybe I should stop saying maybe. It must be getting pretty tiring about now.
Maybe.

EsQ wants me to make a pair of pants like mine, though. I mean, that's a positive thing, right?

I want to keep writing to bleed this issue dry, but I don't think that's going to be happening any time soon, or maybe I feel like it's close enough to say that I want to start that bath water.

I'm caught exactly in between "I give up" and "bring it on".

Working

2011-11-01T23:20:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to understand so many of the things that my parents used to talk about, and as much as I hate to admit that they were right...well, they were. I'm depressed about it, maybe for real this time, though the weather may have something to do with that as well. I absolutely hate my job, and every day that I wake up, I think about what would happen if I just decided not to show up. It's not that I mind the people I work with. No, I actually like them a lot, and I'd love to pursue friendships with them outside of our little store. But what I actually have to do is so unbelievably stressful that it feels like I have no time to do anything for myself when I leave work because I am too busy trying to cleanse myself of the frustration that's built up over the past eight hours. And this makes me feel even worse about myself, and it only adds to the stress that accumulates when I realize that everything is piling up again. I thought that feeling was supposed to go away after I graduated college. After four months of living like this, I realize just how much I'd rather be back in school. Maybe it's the desire to have that part of my youth returned to me, but I feel that it's more along the line that I have no patience for rude, ignorant, obnoxious, pretentious, insert-your-favorite-adjective-here people. If I'm not getting yelled at by someone who needs piss cleansers so he can pass a drug test, I'm being talked down to by some corporate moron who knows absolutely nothing about health or fitness. I wish I could tell these people like it is. And there are some people I wish I could throw in front of a bus, like the man who decided to make fun of one of the St. Jude's cancer kids whose pictures we have on the counter this month. I thought it would be fun to try to teach people about working out and staying healthy until I realized that I work downtown, and you don't get nice suburban families coming in to your store. You get real people. And maybe that's what scares me the most. Drug dealers, crazy people (like...REAL crazy people), homeless people, stuck up rich people...never any families. People don't want to listen to me. They could care less what I have to say. They want to be right. They want their QCarbo or their inositol. They want to show me in every way that they can that there is indeed a difference between us. They need so badly to believe that they are better than I am. I deal with it so much that I guess I'm starting to believe it.

I'm starting to get the feeling that I'll never have the kind of stable life that I've always wanted. Maybe that's what I'm just supposed to have wanted. Even so, I know I'd be less stressed out knowing that I'd have enough money and not having to scrape everything together at the last minute. I wonder if going back to school is even going to help me at all. It may not, but I KNOW that I can't get anywhere with what I have now, and that's depressing as hell. It makes me wonder why I even went to college. I went because I believed it's what I had to do. I wanted it, yes. But that's because I wanted to be smart and important and all of that. I'm neither right now, so a lot of good that did me, huh?

I hate being made to feel like a loser. I want a normal job. I want these next few months to be over. I want things to make even a little sense right now. I want them to be clear. And I can't even prioritize. That's how bad it's gotten. I have no idea what should be the most important thing.

This was a really circuitous way of coming to the conclusion that I can't do everything that I want to do for the rest of my life. Some things are going to have to stay memories, and that makes me really sad. I don't want to give things up. But I know that I have to. Over the years, more and more things have led me to believe that growing up is letting go. And you have to keep letting go of things the older you get. And then there's nothing left. It's pretty morbid, but it's fairly accurate, even in a purely physical sense.

I feel like I have so much more that I could give. I could be doing something more useful with my time. I want to do something better. I want to do something for people who will actually appreciate what it is that I am doing. I just wish I felt less alone in trying to figure out the next step. I am fairly certain that I want to go back to school. But how do I know that I'm not just saying that because things are so miserable right now? What if I am, but what if that's okay? What if that's the only reason anybody chooses to do anything? Not to attain happiness but to avoid misery?
It's something I haven't had to think about in a while.

Even though I feel like I have too much going on right now, I want something more. I want that stability. I want my own place and my puppy and my license. The latter is mainly because I'm tired of it taking 3 hours to do something that should take 40 minutes at most and because I absolutely hate being dependent on other people. I want to want people in my life because they make me happy and because I value their companionship, not because I need them.

Did I mention that I want November to be over?

I didn't even have a costume for Halloween this year. I didn't get to give out candy. I had to work, and the only children I saw in costume were the daycare kids we drove by as they were walking down the street in the morning. I'm losing the things that are important to me, and I hate the way that feels. Why is it always that my job destroys my life? Maybe that means I'm in the wrong job. How do I know what the right one is? I feel like I'm going to fuck up a hell of a lot more in the near future trying to figure that out. And then I won't be young anymore.

I must seem like a miserable fuck, but really I just need to get these things out because they are constantly on my mind. I'm generally a pretty chipper person, but that gets tiring when all of these other things are weighing on me. I don't want to put up with this shit at my job for much longer, but I need to find a better one first. And that hasn't happened. I keep applying and applying, but I get nothing. I may be made a manager soon, and that may make things a little better. If I got paid more than minimum wage to deal with these fuckers every day, maybe I'd be okay with it.

Agitated. Confused. Trying to get over it.

Good

2011-10-14T19:20:00.001-07:00

One phone call made all the difference today. I heard my parents' voices for the first time in over two months, and I nearly cried. Talking to them seemed to relieve me of all of the stress I've been accumulating over the last several weeks. And a short time ago, talking to my family was the most stress-inducing aspect of my life. I'll never be able to be one of those people who goes months without talking to his family. I can't be that disconnected. I'd been lonely for months, even around other people who love and care for me, and I was starting to get worried that I might be depressed again. But those feelings vanished. When I hung up, I was smiling and happy. And I felt like things were finally going right for me. I felt like I was headed in the right direction. Maybe it was good to hear all of those things from them too. My family is crazy. But I love them. And I'll never be able to stop, and I'll never be ungrateful for what they have been able to give me, even if there were some things I wish could have been different along the way.
I tried to be the kind of person who turned his back on his family when they did not show immediate acceptance, but I'm not capable of that. It tears me apart. On some level, I think this is true for me no matter what type of personal relationship I have with someone. I suppose I will always have some level of love and concern for those who are no longer in my life. At the very least, I'm not one to hold on to bitter feelings. I don't believe that this makes me a pushover, though it did before I learned more effective and more appropriate ways to manage my affairs. There is a part of me that believes that some doors never really close, but the rest of me seems to want to fight that. Two parts of my nature are in conflict with one another, and I figure that it's better to let the fight play out than to interfere by trying to rationalize my emotional behavior. Everything is going to be okay.

Before Bed

2011-10-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

I started off this post by saying I was in a much different mood than I was yesterday, but I'm not so sure how true that is. I had my highs and lows today, and I decided to seclude myself upstairs because things were becoming overwhelming, and even though this room itself is frustrating and overwhelming right now, I'm doing better than I would be if I were in the middle of everyone.

Once I start thinking about something, I have to see that thought through to the end. And sometimes I wish I didn't have to because I often end up thinking the worst of the worst. I end up in places I don't want to be. I started thinking about how stupid the new woman at our store is (and how we are moving her to another store because she is incapable of completing any task on her own and refuses to listen), but I ended up thinking about how sad it must be to be a 49-year-old woman with a college degree working a minimum wage job under a 28-year-old manager. I started to think about the fact that I was right in thinking that my life is never going to be what I thought it was going to be. Those dreams I had about doing this or being this are getting further and further away from me, and now I see exactly how it happens. I see exactly how my father went from studying to be a meteorologist to working as a claims adjuster. I know what it's like to have something like that slip away from you. And it happens so slowly and so smoothly. It's like you never even wanted it in the first place.
I'm barely getting by. I never know if I'm going to have enough money to keep up with all of my bills, and that one meal could be the difference between overdrawing my account and having to pay a thirty-six dollar fee. I hate this feeling. I didn't even notice the people (snobby downtown customers) looking down on me or acting like they were better until someone pointed it out to me. Maybe that's because I've been experiencing that sort of thing my whole life. I'm used to being treated like shit and get overly excited any time someone does anything even remotely nice for me. It's kind of screwed up, but at least I'm appreciative.
I know what I want. I know that I want to go back to school next fall, and I know the programs to which I am applying. But it's not what I thought I would be doing five or six years ago. A part of me thinks I was more concerned with being a doctor because I needed to prove that I could do it. But I know that I could, and now I need to figure out if it's what I want at all. But I can't just sit around and fuck around with a minimum wage job for ten years trying to figure that out. So I'll do something I love to do. And maybe that's where I'll find myself years from now and maybe not. But I have reached the point where I need to pick a direction. I'm not going to get anywhere by standing still.
The idea of LA isn't so scary to me anymore. A few months ago, I was terrified of leaving everyone and everything. But I feel confident that my roots here are strong. And maybe I won't be ready to leave this year or the next. Maybe not even in five years. But someday, I may be ready to leave Pittsburgh and add another place I can call home.
I feel like my job has taken over my life. It's stressful, and I hate downtown people. If this were an ordinary GNC out in a mall somewhere, things would be so much better. And it'd be easier to sell what you need to. But at least the guys I work with are cool. They're really cool, actually. You'd be really surprised.

I forgot to say something about the show last weekend. My band played at the Rock United festival, which benefited disabled veterans this year. It was amazing. We sounded great, and people want to book us for future shows. It was the first time I've ever been miked. And boy does that feel amazing. It was over so quickly, though. I love the rush of performing in front of people. I used to be terrified of it and would only dream of being able to enjoy it like I knew I could. And I'm finally there. Everything comes in time. I'm really proud of myself. And that whole experience makes me think I'm going to be okay. I turned myself around in that aspect of my life, so why can't I apply that same thing to other aspects? I guess it's not as simple as it sounds. Sometimes I wish I were different. But overall, I'd never trade myself in for someone else.

I find myself thinking about having a family a lot lately. For the past two years or so, I've been trying to push the thoughts out of my head every time they surface because I don't want to think about the possibility of not having a child that is biologically connected to me. Yet I still don't want one coming out of me. And maybe my eggs won't even be good enough for someone else to take in a few years. And that whole process is extremely expensive. So I just tuck that issue aside until I'm ready to deal with it. But as things get more and more serious, and I as I keep figuring out what I want my life to be, it's going to get harder and harder to avoid. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of everything about it. And I was especially afraid to talk to my therapist about it when I was first talking with her about getting hormones, etc. I didn't want to say anything that would make them question my decision. But I'm a lot smarter now.

My thoughts are traveling in so many different directions now. I almost forgot what I was doing. I feel like I'm on the edge of having everything in my life organized just the way I need it to be. But everything is just off enough to make it feel like nothing is organized at all and that I'm just flailing about waiting for the next big thing to come my way.

Time for some music before bed.

Reflections on Coming Out

2011-10-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

I vividly remember being angry this time last year because so many people, both gay and straight, had failed to understand the importance of coming out. Indifference is one thing. Outright condemnation is another, and trying to convince someone that "acting like everyone else" is the only way that queer folk can attain equality is equivalent to saying this: "We can't accept you for who you are, and we aren't comfortable giving equal treatment to people like you, so you should be like us. Then you'll deserve it. Problem solved." And if we don't feel comfortable pretending to be like everyone else, then we deserve to be treated as inferior. You can't ensure equality by attempting to eliminate difference. Do this, and you perpetuate the inequality. And it makes it that much harder for the next kid to come out and face a world of people telling him that the only way he can have the same rights as straight people is to act just like them, whatever that means anyway.
I could go on and on about this type of backwards thinking in the world of straight white males, but the truth is that my own community still has a long way to go in terms of treating its own members as equal. Think about how LOGO portrays the LGBTQ community. I don't see much of anything but cisgendered gay men. Let's make it a little more personal, though.
Coming out as trans opened me up to a whole new world of prejudices, and they came at me from both sides of this mythical line. Suddenly everyone thinks that I have to be straight. Suddenly I am called out for not acting enough like a man. Suddenly, I am treated differently in conversations with strangers and friends alike. I can understand people with no exposure to the queer community making such assumptions, but the difference between one's gender and one's sexuality is still perceived through a heteronormative lens, regardless of the onlooker. Are we still telling gay men that they should become women? No. Why shouldn't it work that way for me? I have so much more to say, but I feel very uncomfortable because I am not alone right now and feel like the only reason this other person is awkwardly sitting here is because I am here. And I don't know how to say what I need to say to make him understand that I need to be as far away from other people as possible right now. I can't write when there are other people around. I can't tune out the discomfort enough in order to do it well, so I'm feeling like things are very disconnected right now because I am constantly worrying about this situation. And now I don't even know what I was saying anymore.
Coming out keeps getting easier for me. Liking myself for my queerness keeps getting easier too. I am not shy about this part of myself. I am quite proud of it, and maybe that's because I'm making up for all the time I spent being ashamed of who I was for over twenty years. Maybe ashamed isn't the right word. I was...disconnected. And I guess I really didn't care. I could be proud of my accomplishments or skills that I had mastered, but never of myself. I was never proud to just BE, and I guess I felt like I needed all of those things to fill that space. Coming out as trans felt like coming into the world and being allowed to be a part of it. Even before I started hormones, I began to feel more real because I was the person who chose that. I allowed myself to participate. I allowed myself to experience the world. I became exposed. And things began to change.
There are other kinds of coming out that aren't as easy. It's still not easy for me to accept that my brain works differently. It's not easy to accept that this comes with limitations. And it's not easy to accept that there is a good chance that this is as good as it gets in terms of how I react to things.
How many other kinds of coming out do people face every day? Everyone does it, and I think we'd all be a lot better off if we had an entire community behind us.
Feeling disconnected again. But I need to get it all out. Coming out is important, you young gay people. Staying in the closet is staying invisible, and that's exactly what a lot of anti-gay individuals want. It's a way to keep us divided and to fool the masses into thinking that we are a freakish minority. On a more personal level, coming out is important because you can finally stop being afraid. You don't have to worry about being discovered. And people won't be able to hurt you with your own identity if you truly love and accept yourself. But that's not easy. I know.
I want to connect this with an experience I had earlier today at work. A rather rude customer said something to the effect that I have no business working in a GNC because of how small I am. I was just stunned because he also wouldn't drop the subject. Before I continue, I'd like to point out that I've never had any of the really big dudes talk to me like that. It's only people who are smaller--often smaller than I am--who feel the need to prove something. But even knowing this, I had a hard time. I started to feel like shit about myself. I started to wonder if that's what other people see when they look at me. I started to feel like everything I am doing is a waste of time. And that's when it hit me that I've begun to experience a whole new kind of inadequacy based upon physical appearance. Standards for men really are just as unrealistic as those for women, but it definitely depends on the environment. I feel like I could explain that better at another time.
I felt inadequate for a little bit. But that went away. I love my body. I love that I am in control of it. I needed to remember something that I tell people all the time when it comes to working out. Well, a few things. (1) Know your own body type, and use that knowledge to make it the best it can be instead of trying to be something you are not. (2) Never compare yourself to anyone else. It doesn't matter how much the girl over there can lift or how far this guy over there can run. Concentrate on what you are doing and making yourself better. If you let what someone else can do discourage you or make you feel inadequate, you have already lost. You have defeated yourself, and you'll end up denying yourself what you are depressed about not having been able to do in the first place.
The same philosophy can be applied to anything at all, not just working out. And that's what is extremely difficult for most people to understand. You need to concentrate on making yourself better instead of trying to make yourself as good as someone else. Being proud of your own identity is far more effective than comparing who you are to someone else. Don't try to be that other person. These points do connect rather nicely, don't they? lol

Dinosaur Brains?

2011-09-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

I just looked over at the TV, and I'm pretty sure that's an alligator head going through a table saw. Interesting.

Holy shit. It's been almost a week, but it seems like it just happened. Maybe that's because I've been kind of sick for the past few days. No. I've been terribly sick. Jon took me to the ER last night (two nights ago?) because he was worried that my throat was going to close, but he took me somewhere new, so I wasn't exactly talking very much, which is good since that would have hurt anyway. I didn't go to work that day, and any normal human being would have taken the next day off as well, but I'm terrified of getting fired. As much as the job kind of sucks because of insane and/or insanely stupid customers, I really need it right now. I keep checking for new jobs every day, but I do pretty well in commission almost every day.
I won. I can't freaking believe it. I'm actually proud of myself. This time, I did things the way I wanted to do them. I had enough time to do everything I needed to do. I was still stressed out beyond belief, but I'm much calmer when I'm on stage. The waiting is the most stressful part. I could hear my own heart beating just waiting for those names to be read. And then it seemed like everyone in the bar was chanting my name. I couldn't stop smiling. Now I have a little bit of a break before I have to do it all over again come November. I know I've already committed myself to too many different things in the coming months, but I'll make it through.
It hurts a little to be doing this, but I can't just sit here anymore. The fever seems to be getting worse. Still watching alligators.
There is an advertisement for a show called "Rocket City Rednecks" in the top corner of my screen. Only in America.
But, don't get me wrong, I do like explosions.
Not getting anywhere today. Ugh.

Sprunk.

2011-09-15T09:16:00.001-07:00

I tried to write something for my "About Me" section, but I got stuck. I didn't know what to put at all. I'm not sure what that says about me. I used to be pretty confident in who I was, and I would be able to describe myself perfectly in just a few words, or so I thought. Maybe it's getting more difficult because I think I'm starting to realize that who I am keeps changing as my life changes. I mean, I'm going to have the same core tendencies, of course, but even some characteristic traits might change as I learn to control my response in any given situation. And I know that I'm a very different kind of person to different people in my life. There are things I enjoy doing that I just can't do right now, for whatever reason. I don't really have a career.

There are a few words that come to mind when I say that. I'm fighting them all the time. I don't want to believe what my entire upbringing has taught me about people like me. I'm not a failure. I'm not useless or lazy.

My writing seems weird today. Maybe this wasn't the right time to start this. After all, I'm only waiting for my phone to charge.

I reached a breaking point yesterday. But I feel good about my decision. I feel bad because my phone died and I slept for 18 hours. But I don't feel sick anymore. And I'm glad I finally decided to take care of myself first. But it doesn't mean that I don't feel guilty.

I' m going on adventures by myself today. I hope this works out well.

I need to clean this place. It's a disaster.

Weightless

2011-09-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

Where would I go if I were to run away right now? I knew this would happen. I knew this feeling would start to take over when things became serious with another person. When I am with someone, I feel stronger. I feel more capable of doing things, more adventurous. The explorer in me comes out. The side of me that wants to see the world and leave a little piece of myself in various places along the way...well, that part has returned as well. I suppose that's not really running away. I wonder if I feel this way for a different reason, though. I wonder if I just want a chance to get a new job in a new place and start all over. I'm not good at leaving things behind, and moving away would probably be the only way for me to make that happen. And even that would take time. Anyway, as exciting and terrifying as it is to think about life outside of Pittsburgh--a life for me outside of Pittsburgh--I'm not ready for that. I could be, maybe. But for now, I think I have more work to do here.

Sometimes pictures make me cry when I know they shouldn't. Nostalgia can be dangerous. I'm not quite far enough away for it to be as simple as that, though. There are fibers here and there connecting me to my old life. And that sounds really stupid considering I'm talking about a year or two ago. But I can feel the fray in the fabric like a tear in my skin. And it's just not going to heal until it finally stops pulling open.
I do miss people. But I miss them as they were, not as they are. And as far as I can tell, there is no going back. Sometimes I just want to be done learning lessons about life.
I don't want this to be as good as it gets for me. I think that's one of my greatest fears.

This is not the kind of quiet that I wanted. It's a loud quiet where I can still hear everything in my head trying to get my attention at the same time. I'm losing it. I know what I need to do as the next step. But I have no way to make that happen. And I'm scared to let anyone know that I'm scared and that I don't think I can do it.

I spent most of my day sleeping. I woke up around two in the afternoon but lay in bed until almost four. And then when Jon left around 930, I fell asleep again. I woke up about an hour ago, wishing I could have just slept a few more hours to make it seem like I had planned to get up early. And now I have a morning full of worry ahead because I don't think I'm going to get everything done. I need to stop saying that I can take care of everything when it's pretty clear that I can't. What would happen if I just let the ball drop this one time? What would happen if I just stopped doing what I always do? That's an experiment for a later date.

I really need a better job.
I need to go back to school. And I hope I'm not just saying that because I feel safe there.
I need to be in control of my space again.

There's never not going to be something wrong with me. I'm not that upset about it anymore, though I still worry about driving people away.

"I want to feel weightless because that would be enough."

CouchCouchCouch

2011-09-06T15:59:00.000-07:00

For a few weeks, I thought that working at GNC had taught me that I would never be able to stand working in such a heteronormative environment for an extended period of time. But I started to think about how people within my own community respond to the idea of being transgendered, and I'm not actually sure which group I've found to be more accepting. Maybe the people I work with don't have a clue what really goes on with being trans, but they're always respectful when they want to know something, and sometimes you can tell that they really think about how their questions will affect you. I see genuine curiosity in these people and in a lot of the straight people that have interviewed me for whatever reason. Most of the bullshit that I've had to deal with has come from within the gay community. I feel that young gay men in particular are the most problematic. The way the questions are phrased, the way I am seen as an object, etc. I know that this is not a complete picture, and there have been other times in my life where the majority of my frustration came from having to deal with ignorant straight people, but I think the present situation is very interesting.

Topic shift. I'm working on my outfits for Mr. Cattivo. I'm getting excited about it. I feel pretty proud of the one that's almost done, and I've been really excited to do this number for a while now. I can say that I don't care if I win and that I just want to do the number, but I would definitely be lying. I always want to win. I don't know who doesn't. And I have to go through all of the motions with the idea in my head that I am doing this to win. Is that complicated since I am good friends with and live with someone against whom I am competing? Eh, not really. I'm mature about it. I'm competitive, yes. But I'm not an asshole. I'm down to the wire here, and I know it, but I've got a handle on it this time around. I'm in such a different place than I was a year ago (in some ways). And in some ways, that's entirely a lie.

The TV is making it hard for me to write. I have a lot of distractions coming up. That'll be good for me. They make me less likely to worry about making meaning out of my life.

I need to work on music and costumes and my bio tonight. I need to get those things for the bags for Friday. And it's almost 7:30. This isn't looking good right now. I also have to work until 6:30 tomorrow. Ugh. I need to tell people something tomorrow, and I don't know if they are going to like it. But this is something that I have to say because I don't want to explode.

Time Out.

Non-Back-to-School Blues

2011-09-01T23:31:00.001-07:00

I realized today just how quickly a place can lose that feeling of home. I had to go to Oakland today for a job interview, which actually went so poorly that I don't even want to mention it right now, and I spent a fair amount of time sitting in the Rainbow office with the new president and vice president and running various errands. I kept looking at the guys playing football on the lawn, the girls walking around in flip flops and carrying purses full of books, the confused freshmen, and everyone else who had that feeling of security because they knew they were in a place that was entirely theirs. I don't have that anymore, and I already miss it. The place still belongs to me in a way, since I did spend so much time there and have known the feeling. But it's not the same. For a split second, I wanted to run back to the bus. I wanted to get away because I didn't want to confront those feelings. In a way, I don't belong there anymore. My time is over. Forever. And that's just one of those words that you never really understand the meaning of until you have to live it.

I'm becoming a shadow. I keep thinking of Dead Poets' Society and how I'm going to be just like the boys in those old photographs in the beginning of the movie. And I'm in between the point of recognition and the point of deciding not to be terribly depressed about the transience of my existence.

I'm on the road to seizing the day, but I'm not prepared for it just yet. But maybe that doesn't matter so much. Maybe I'll never figure out where I'm supposed to be going, but I should probably keep trying because maybe that's all there is.

I'm worried about the same things that everyone else is. I'm worried I'll never really be happy, but am I happy knowing that I'm doing everything I can to try to make myself happy? Does that even make sense? If it does, then I don't think I am because I don't know if I am doing everything I can. What am I missing? This is the question I've been trying to figure out for the last five months.

I'm worried that I'm not good enough or capable enough to do anything. I'm worried that I'm not stable enough to do many of the things that I am interested in doing. I'm worried that this will last forever. I'm worried about everyone else continuing to move forward while I stay exactly where I am. I'm worried that I made the wrong choice. I worry a lot. In fact, I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't worry. I've been anxious, neurotic, twitchy, nervous, etc. my whole life. It's helped me get a lot done over the years, but lately, it's been more of a burden than anything. I find myself worrying so much that I can't even begin to focus on completing a task. I become non-functional. And then because of my anxiety, I am less able to tolerate frustration, and because of my frustration and inability to deal with my own emotions like a normal person, I shut down or freak out. While things haven't been making me go absolutely off the wall lately, I worry that I am hiding myself away. I worry that I'm just avoiding the situations that even might make me a little anxious. And that's starting to catch up to me. I feel like I've put myself up against a wall and everything I've got going on in my life is charging right toward me.

It's roughly three in the morning. I'm still hungry. I'm almost tired. I read an interesting quote on DeJuan Blair's twitter this afternoon: "Just because you miss somebody doesn't mean that they should be in your life." And there's just way too much to say about that, for better or worse.

I'm starting to just feel sad a lot of the time. Summer is almost over. Those things are connected in more ways than one.

I wish I had enough money to just pick a direction and go with it. I have an idea. I think I know what I want to do, at least for now, and that's good enough for me. There's only one problem: I need a little bit of money to do it. I want to take my ACSM CPT exam, but I would need to get the books to prepare for it. And the test itself costs almost 300 dollars to take. This would cost me more than I make in an entire month.

I can't sleep because I think too much. And because I'm hungry. I'm starting to feel disconnected again. But it's strange that there are so many things that do make me happy in my life. I'm just having a hard time really digging my feet into that happiness. I think of happiness like grains of sand, and right now, something is making it feel like solid stone. I'm just not able to penetrate the surface, even though I know it's there.

I was in an office for the second portion of my interview today. I did much better on that than the first, and the one thing that I noticed was that it was quiet. I haven't been in a room that quiet for a very, very long time. And I hadn't realized it until just then. It made me want to stay, which is probably why I did better on that part of the interview. I know I'm not going to get the job because I'm sure I seemed completely incompetent. Maybe it's a sign. Or maybe it means absolutely nothing.

I might be ready to try to sleep again. I need to find time to make a fuckload of lists tomorrow.

The first Pitt game is this Saturday, and I probably won't be able to afford the tickets. I'm hoping some band friends can score me some tickets for the next game, but I really wanted to go to the first one. I've been struggling with a lot of feelings in this area lately. I thought everything had come to a nice point of resolution until I heard some news about band camp this year. I'm going back and forth on what I need to do and what my role should be. It's something I think about a lot. I wish I could be there on Monday as well, but I know better. It's just not the right time.

Maybe I feel guilty about so many things that I am thinking about because I don't like when things are left unresolved.

Maybe I should just go back upstairs and watch Ducktales.

Happy September

Tears

2011-08-29T18:23:00.001-07:00

My college friends are back in school, and I suppose my own reality is finally starting to catch up to me. It really makes me want to cry, along with a few other things at the moment, but that's the main focus of my frustration these days. I am becoming further and further removed from the only thing I've ever known how to do well. I hate my job, and I suck at it, and I'm constantly worried about getting fired. This isn't where I thought I would be. And I know this isn't where I want to be. But the scariest part of it is now I'm not sure how to get back to a place where I DO want to be, especially since I have no idea where that place is. I'm worried that I will be lost forever. I'm worried that this is what my whole life will be. I'm worried about never making it. I don't know if I have long term goals anymore, and I feel like I have very little motivation because of it. I don't know what I'm doing. And I wish someone could help me. But now there's no one. It's all up to me and has been since the day I graduated, and we can all see what a wonderful mess I've made of my life. I seriously feel like a failure, and I'm not entirely sure why. I don't think it's because of any outside pressure to be or do anything, not anymore. Maybe it's because I'm just not happy. I want something more. I want stability that I may never have. I'm struggling to see the point in anything I'm doing, and it shows in everything that I'm doing.

I want to feel caught up. I want to feel like I'm in control of everything, even for just a little. I think I know why today might have been particularly terrible for me. I was washing the outside of the windows today, soap dripping in my eyes, when I realized how fucking pathetic I turned out to be. Later on, I found out that I actually fucked up washing the windows and left grotesque streak marks on almost every one, and my manager had to wash all of the windows again. The most menial, mindless task you can do...and I still manage to get it wrong.

I have a job interview on Thursday, and I already feel like I am going to fail. And that means I probably will. And I'll be stuck at GNC until they have no choice but to fire me because I'm a terrible salesperson. If you want me to explain something to you, I'm pretty good at that. But I'm not good at selling things because I'm not good at lying. I'm not good at all of the pointless formalities that go along with being a salesperson, and I really do have a lot of respect for people that understand all of that. I knew this job was going to be difficult because of that. I'm never sure how or when to approach a person, how long I have to wait before saying something else, where I should stand in relation to them, what tone of voice or posture I should use. I face similar problems when meeting and talking to new people outside of work, but I feel like that's alright. Maybe it's more acceptable for me to be awkward than it is for me to suck at what I do for a living. I suppose I worry that I'll suck at whatever I try to do next. And I am so drained from constantly thinking about interacting with people while at work that there really isn't time for me anymore. I can't do the things I want to do or have committed myself to doing, and that's really stressing me out too.

I don't know how to make things change anymore. I wasn't prepared for this. I keep thinking that college really was a waste of my time because I can't even get a job doing what I spent five years preparing to do. And in two months, I'll have to start paying off my loans. Add that to my credit card bill, and that's already going to be more than I make in one month. I thought I would be able to start paying rent again. Not being able to pay that or get my own place is one of the worst things for me. It makes me feel so helpless. It makes me feel like I'm just mooching off of people. I wonder what I would do if I weren't here. Where would I be? I'm starting to think that all of those people who told me I couldn't take care of myself are right. I suppose when it rains, it pours.

I haven't talked to my parents in so long, and I feel so disconnected. I feel terrible about it. I need help. I wish I could just take out a loan and get a place to live already. But no one would give me one, and I wouldn't be able to make the payments anyway. What the hell can I do? I really need money. I really need my life to not suck so much.

I started thinking about my number for Mr. Cattivo last night and got really depressed afterwards. I'm freaking out about not having what I need. I need to sit down one of these days and write everything out again. I seemed to do much better when I did that. But I can't stay focused. I'm having the same problems I did last fall. Is this shit ever going to stop? What can I do to make it stop?

I'm going to be stuck for a long time, and I don't know if I can survive it. I need to mail and write letters that I should have mailed and written a long time ago. I feel like I'm losing touch with a lot of people, even people I see all the time. And I know it's me. I'm retreating again. I'm running away without going anywhere. And sometimes I don't even realize it. I'm not freaking out as much. But it's not like anything good has been put in its place. Sometimes I feel like there's nothing. And I don't want to strain what seems like it is the one good thing I have going for me.

I don't know what else to write about but I'm having another one of those days where I feel like I should just keep going. I need to clean my room. That's a simple task with a clearly defined goal, and it's going to make me feel better after I do it. Maybe that's a start.

I don't know if I need to be by myself right now. I wish I were better at figuring that out and communicating it to others. And I wish it wouldn't happen so inconveniently.

I don't want to be a loser for the rest of my life. But I feel like I am just going to be another one of those statistics about trans people.

I need direction. I need to be in purposeful motion. I've been in this rut for almost a year now. I felt so close to getting out, but now I might be worse off than I was before. If nothing else, I'm realizing that it's just going to get more and more difficult to get out of it the longer I wait. And that just makes me feel like I'm being forced into making a decision about what I want to do for the rest of my life because I just don't have the luxury of taking the time I need to figure it out. That whole last part makes me want to cry. I know how people get into this shit now. I'm beginning to understand what it means to never be able to have what you always dreamed of having--never be able to do what you dreamed of doing. I'm beginning to understand why people give in and give up. I've never been one to just give up. But it's like any other bad habit: The more you do it, the easier it gets. I gave up on myself last October. I just couldn't take it anymore. And I've never just given up like that before. But it was easier than letting myself get hurt every single day. And maybe it was the right thing to do. I've met people I never would have otherwise. But maybe it hurt me as well. And maybe there's no point in saying if it was the right thing or not because good and bad things would have happened either way. And that's the way everything goes, I guess.

I don't feel like I'm ever going to be able to wrap my head around my own existence. That sounds fun in some ways, but I'd at least like to know I've got a handle on myself. For some reason, my brain started singing "I'm a Little Teapot."

It's so hard to work in a place where I really don't know if I can talk about my life without feeling like a freak show. It's not that I'm certain that I'm being perceived that way, but I fear that's all that people in the straight world are going to see. That's a pretty common fear, yes. I almost said that I wish it didn't bother me, but fuck that. It does bother me. It should bother me. It bothers me as much as the principal who told me it was my fault that other kids treated me the way they did because of the way I looked and acted. It's not my fault that other people are closed-minded. It's not my fault that they can't see what I have seen. And that's not a bad thing. Nobody else has the experience that I have. Sometimes, people just don't know. But it just gets so tiring after a while. I understand what you meant about feeling burnt out with activism. But I can still feel that in me. I get fired up when I hear about certain injustices. And I don't know what that means for what I'll be doing for the rest of my life, but I suspect that it will play a very large role whether I plan on it or not.

If I'm an asshole, it's not because I'm trans. It's because I'm an asshole. Don't make it about anything that it's not. My failures are not related to my trans identity. And many of my successes aren't. I guess that depends on what successes we're talking about, but I think you get the point. This fact of my life is not relevant when talking about sucking at my job or being late, etc, etc.

Maybe I'll start feeling connected now that all of my younger friends are back in town. Maybe that will help. I'm going to start repeating myself soon. Or maybe I can at least find something else to talk about. I just started thinking about how my contacts are in the case with the solution that requires you to wait six hours before putting your lenses back in your eyes. It hasn't been six hours. This really frustrates me right now.

I just remembered that I'm going to have to start paying for a bus pass. That's another 90 dollars a month. I'm going to be working at this fucking job that I can't even stand, and I won't have a fucking penny to show for it. I really can't take this. Not at all.

Tooth

2011-08-22T22:40:00.001-07:00

A few minutes ago, I was leaning over my bed (which is actually just a few inches above the floor anyway) and spitting blood into the lid of an empty Chinese food container. Remembering a conversation I had with a friend a week or so ago, I started to concentrate on the pattern created by the flow of blood around and through the stack of tissues in the middle of the container. This seemed to ease the pain a little...or at least make me forget about it for a little while.

The searing pain itself brought back vivid memories of living at Bates--of the last time a problem with one of my wisdom teeth sent me to the emergency room. I remember clutching the edge of the chair in the room they stuck me in because they couldn't leave me screaming in the waiting room for two hours. I leaned over the left edge of the chair, and as I screamed, a mixture of blood and saliva shot towards the floor.

Tooth pain is probably the worst physical pain I have experienced, though the menstrual cramps I experienced in my early teens are a very close second to that. Earlier this morning, I took eight Excedrin, and it made me absolutely ill. I don't think I've fully recovered from it either. I was sick to my stomach, dizzy, feverish, and a little out of it. But it was still better than having to deal with the feeling of having a hammer smashed straight down into your tooth, that feeling radiating out to your ears and right through your skull. When you're in that kind of pain, it's the only thing you can think about.

Jon is coming up the stairs. Done for now.

Now it's August

2011-08-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

I seemed to be doing well with writing all the time until real life started to take its toll on me. I'm once again finding that this is just something that I need to do, and even if I don't have time for it, I need to make time. I've been moving a lot lately. I haven't really had time to process everything that's been happening, and I need to do that in order to make sure I am ready for some big things that are on the way. I'm trying to piece together how I feel about things, but that's really tough when thoughts of all the things that I have to do start to invade the space that is meant just for me.

A customer came in today to buy a bag of ostrich meat chews (yes, they are gross...and mostly made of beef anyway), but I ended up talking with her for a little while about Pittsburgh in general, and then it turned into a conversation about school and what I studied. At the end of the conversation, she gave me a suggestion about going to PA school. And now I'm seriously considering it. To be fair, I've seriously considered quite a few career options over the past six months. I'm at least going to look into it and talk to some people who've been down that road already.

I work at GNC. I've been there for about a month now. It's not an absolutely terrible job, but I don't like being afraid of losing my job because I'm not a pushy salesperson. I don't like how I sometimes don't know my schedule until two days beforehand, and I don't like being faulted for not being able to make a last-minute change to a schedule I had already been given. Mostly, I don't like putting up with all of that in addition to extremely rude downtown customers for a mere $7.25 an hour. I honestly feel that I am too old for this kind of work environment, which doesn't make much sense since we are all in our twenties there. I did this sort of job in high school, and I vowed that I would never do it again because of how drained I felt from dealing with people all day. But I am much more capable of handling that stress and frustration these days. I've noticed an improvement in myself in the past month. Dealing with customers all day is really, really hard for me, but it makes me better at dealing with people in general. I keep finding out that I can handle much more than I think I can.

I can feel so much negativity just leaving my life. Following through with that decision was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It was harder than coming out to my family, both times. It was harder than opening myself up to be vulnerable all over again. It's still hard sometimes. But I know I am doing the right thing. How do I know this? I can feel the difference in my life. Things aren't perfect, but I stopped expecting them to be a long time ago.

I think I'm okay with not writing anymore today.

Sunset in July

2011-07-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

I just opened my old journal, which I had found while visiting my parents but haven't had a chance to sit down with until now. It was from when I was twelve years old, and I am pretty amazed at how far I have come in the last ten years. I guess it's that whole growing up thing. My obsessions were pretty apparent, as I referenced them in almost every single entry. My handwriting was even more atrocious than it is now, and I really didn't seem to talk about anything other than facts and very basic statements of the emotions I was feeling. Learning how to turn even those basic feelings into words took me until high school, it seems.

I haven't taken my shot yet, and I was supposed to do that last night. I just completely forgot about it with starting my new job and being mentally prepared to convince people to buy shit, which means being mentally prepared to have conversations for eight hours a day. That's the part that makes me nervous. The other stuff is easy. I actually reorganized the entire stock room today, and my co-worker for the day is pretty sure that our manager is going to piss himself when he sees it. I think they were expecting me to just leave the place a mountain of cardboard boxes and crap thrown wherever it would fit while placing even more items in what little space was available. It was actually easier for me to just overhaul the entire room. Then I could know exactly where everything needed to go.

There are quite a few things building up inside of me right now. I'm at a very strange point of being in between caring and not caring about feeling attacked. I'm naturally pretty combative. When I feel that I am being attacked or that my friends are being attacked, I get intensely protective of them, meaning I will do and say things that exist ordinarily as passing thoughts. I also need to be sure that I'm not feeling attacked because of a combination of small things that have happened over the years. I want to try to separate those instances from the current situation. As I do this, I'm seeing that this in itself really isn't something I should worry about either. People are going to say what they have to say. They're going to say what they need to say in order to find happiness. The human brain is partly so fascinating because of its ability to rationalize irrational thoughts and behaviors so that it can continue functioning properly. It prevents errors from occurring by fudging the numbers. Your brain is 1984, basically. You don't even know what's real anymore, do you? And you might even be clever enough to come up with an argument about what constitutes reality in order to distract yourself from the terrifying possibility that your consciousness is built upon a rather shaky foundation of falsities.

I am angry. I am hurt. I feel a sense of betrayal unlike anything I have known previously...And I've been betrayed more times than I would like to admit. But temperance is the virtue around which I aim to center myself. I will let my anger dissipate. I will express what I need to express. Only then will I be able to forgive. But I honestly may fail this time. And I don't think that's ever happened before. I do not like what you have tried to turn me into. I will not be bitter. I will be free from this sinkhole and all its negativity. There is no blood on my hands. This is my return to purity. I will not run.

Envision my eyes, harboring depths so great that they seem almost black. But they are not cold, even to you. I am fire, while you are ice. I may melt you down, layer by microscopic layer, warming all those around with my presence. But this is always at a cost to myself. I will burn out. And you will be a puddle on the floor. We are elements that have been thrown out of balance, not meant to exist in the same circle in this age.

My sadness for what has been lost is slowly dissipating as well. The happiness of the memories that remain has begun to fill me up again. My brain will remember things as it needs to in order to progress along this journey, as will yours. But I still acknowledge the point at which happiness left this relationship, leaving behind a much more sinister core. And the fight against reality was causing the pain. I'm allowing myself the chance to be real now, and this upsets you. Your words will never bounce off of me but always flow through me, penetrate me. It is a connection I cannot sever, no matter how hard I may try. Even now, I spare your feelings by saying these things alone. You must realize--see it in my deep brown eyes--that I know exactly how to make you hurt from within. This is my last act of unselfishness--that bit of holding back. That not giving in to the anger and pain you have made me (and others) feel.

I am not immature. I am not inadequate. I define my own manhood, as always. I will not be brought down into that again. And I am guilt-free in saying what I must, as are you, obviously. There is no reason to hide these feelings now, and I'm not sure there ever was. My brain and heart have found a way to protect themselves: You're already gone to me. You've been gone. And shortly after I allowed myself to discover that, my life improved. And I began to feel happiness again. Real happiness.

I am real. I am not the source of your ultimate frustration. I am only a target, and I can only hope that that hasn't always been the case. You will need to find a new soul towards which you can project this negativity, if you cannot allow it to simply yet painfully pass through you. Choose wisely.

I don't expect I'll hear from you or see you again, and I'm working on how that makes me feel. I don't think I'm feeling anything either way right now. And I think I'm happy about that. That doesn't make me a terrible person. It just means that all of my feelings, positive and negative, about this entire situation have been exhausted. Now the healing can begin, and the truth will flow freely and unfiltered by such intense emotions.

I can only be a little sad that there are still some truths you (and all of us) are not ready to hear. Give it time.

Something Like Home

2011-07-19T00:14:00.001-07:00

I've cleaned up most of the drag-vomit nightmare that happened on Friday when we needed to find another outfit for a last-minute second performance. Unfortunately, the portion that covered my bed has yet to be organized. More important things have been happening over the past week. I've only slept in this room one night since coming home on Wednesday evening, and even that was only for a few hours. My back ended up aching madly throughout the next day. I suppose I had gotten that used to the comforts of sleeping in a real bed.

Home is not something to come back to. It's someone to come back to. I always feel my most adventurous when I have a companion. Why didn't I want to leave Pittsburgh just yet? I was going to be alone in a new place, and that was going to be terrifying. It's actually much more complicated than that, but I don't know if I have words for how I feel about eventually leaving the city. I don't think I want to do that just yet, as I've said in the past. I may want to make this place my home for the next several years. It may be my home forever. I'm certainly not even in the financial position to leave. But why in the world would I want to? Everyone is here, at least for now. I can feel what I have done resonating through the city, and though it's a small ripple in the ocean, that makes me feel like I have roots, ties, influence, or whatever you want to call it here. I feel like I am as much a part of the city as it is a part of me. I'm kind of a nobody, and I'm kind of a somebody. And the view is nice. I like going to places where almost everyone knows who I am, even if they don't talk to me. I like that feeling of being surrounded by the people who care about you. Those last two aren't always the same, obviously, but I have both of those things here.

I don't feel the need to run away from anything. Not anymore. In order to be free to wander, I need to have stability. Part of that is establishing this place as my real home. I'm going to get a place here, and I'm going to make it mine. I'm going to have a puppy and nice things. I'm going to write my shopping list on a little piece of paper and hang it on the fridge. I'm going to have my mail sitting in a neat little pile next to my keys on the kitchen table. I'm going to have a couch that's always open. I'm going to have candles. I'm going to have a big boy bed with lots of pillows and some magazines on a nightstand with a clock and a little lamp that gives off just the right amount of light for bedtime reading.

I wanted to write a little more tonight, but I kept getting distracted with that whole actually-living-my-life thing. I suppose I do have a few minutes, though. I feel so sorry for angry people. Anger is normal and healthy, and sometimes it is a very good response to have. But anger as a state of existence must be full of sadness and resentment. It's one of those things I'll never really understand. I can only be angry for a brief period. I found out that that period is a little longer than I had originally thought, but I cannot stay angry. I cannot stay bitter. I can be sad. I can be happy. But I really, really can't be angry. And I like this about me. Sometimes it makes me too nice of a person, though. But I've learned a few lessons about dealing with people.

I'm allowing myself to be a less nice person to those who are less than nice to me. And I'm finding that slightly comforting. I'm not going out of my way to be mean, but I'm also not going out of my way to be nice. I'm freaking out much less in recent weeks, and I know that my decisions have had a lot to do with that.

Speaking of meltdowns or unpleasant reactions to things, I almost had a situation last night. But it was over in probably five minutes or less. I thought I had done something to upset him. I thought for sure he was very hurt by something I had done the night before. I know I ended up face down and stretched out, stiff as a board. But there was silence. He just sat there and waited. He just knew what to do without ever having had this conversation with me. And things were fine. I sat up, put my glasses back on, and slowly looked him in the eye and told him I was fine. It was comparatively...easy. It's amazing how comfortable I've gotten in such a short amount of time. I've been able to do things with him I wasn't able to do with others until several months to a year into the relationship. It's just that easy to be myself. And I still find it hard to believe that I'm having trouble sleeping without him next to me. It just seems like it's the right thing. I've never been able to be this open about myself so quickly. That alone makes me insanely happy.

We played in the park last night. We lay on the ground looking at stars and just talked. I didn't want to be anywhere else. I don't worry about things when I'm with him. Stupid shit just doesn't bother me or stress me out like it usually does or maybe should. I just need to find that balance now because I haven't really gotten a lot of work done since I've been back. I think tomorrow is going to be that day.

I brought back a lot of shit with me from the Valley. There aren't places to put things. And there's still even more crap at my parents' house. I used to have more stuff than this, but then I kept moving around so much that I needed to leave so many things behind each time.

My thoughts are starting to go in different directions, which means I'm almost done. There's crazy lightning happening now. I love storms...except when gunshot-like thunder wakes me up and scares the shit out of me. That happened this afternoon for the first time in my life, and I can now understand why some people don't enjoy storms.

Shimmy.

This is Your Forever

2011-07-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

Think about that. The next step you are taking. The older you are, the more likely it is that it will be. This is your forever. Remember that when making decisions about your future. End unsolicited advice.

A few days ago, I received an email I had long been awaiting. I didn't get a chance to read it until today, mostly because I've been avoiding my email since it contains a lot of business-related things, and I'm on vacation. The response I got was neither the best nor the worst it could have been, and I appreciate the honesty with which he confronted my seemingly random initial message. There are some points I'm definitely going to address when I find my own right words because I still need to explain a lot of what was going on for me at the time and why I didn't pursue other options. All of those feelings I began to have out of nowhere were not just my imagination. I was sensing something. I knew that there was pain on both sides of this relationship, and I could feel BOTH sides of it. And I knew that the next move had to be mine. I realize now that I skipped a few steps in the beginning, and I could have avoided all of this, potentially. But I also realize that I am where I need to be now. And what happened in the fall needed to happen one way or another, and maybe it needed to happen the exact way that it did, regardless of how ugly or painful. You're never done learning how to be a man. Lesson learned, again. Some wounds do take longer to heal, and that's something I respect more now than ever. It's something I haven't always understood. I don't think I really understood until I had to go through that process myself. I had to be ready to let some people back into my life, and I was still being rather cautious about it. I can only respond and allow the time to pass. I will be ready now. I can only hope that he reaches that point.

I want to say more. I want to pour everything into this and get feedback on what I'm saying, but he deserves more than that now. This is a mostly private matter for the time being. I'm sure when the final resolution occurs I'll have more to say, but for now, you'll have to be curious.

It's almost 8:30 in the morning, and I haven't slept. I was avoiding a situation earlier by wandering around Edwardsville at 2 in the morning. I talked with Jon on the phone until it died sometime after four. I came home and tried to sleep, but that was no use. I can only blame so much of it on the raspberry lemonade and Life Savers. My sleep schedule has been pretty terrible for...my entire life. Maybe I'll figure it out one day.

I got an email about a research technician position at Children's Hospital. I will most likely be doing a phone interview tomorrow or the next day. I'm scared that this will indeed be my forever because what if it's not what I want? I am interested in doing the work, yes. And I do need a job. But what if it IS my forever? Forever is just a concept that seems so permanent and terrifying. It's so terrifying that I can barely move in any direction these days. I'm being pulled in so many that I'm just staying still.

I'm trying to regain a friend--a person I once considered family and still do in many ways. And I'm also coming to the realization that I've lost a friend, probably forever. Some people do leave your life as quickly as they came, and it is true that I will never be the same because of this person, both directly and indirectly. And I'm mostly okay with that, at least in this case. It does suck, and I wish it didn't have to work out this way, but again, when something causes you more pain and frustration than happiness, you have to ask yourself if it's worth it anymore. And I didn't feel that it was. I might be wrong. I'm always open to that idea. I'm still a pretty stubborn asshole. I mean, I operate under the assumption that I am right. I think we all do.

In reading this email, I realize how much the last year has changed me, socially. I do feel like the shy, awkward person he was referencing was a completely different person. Because that person wasn't all that real. And I think that was the point. No one could get to that. I couldn't even get to that. I'm still somewhat shy (but not in the ways that he was referencing), and I'm terribly awkward, although that's more of a fun game to play with my nerdiness than anything. But I feel that most people would say that I love to have all eyes on me when I'm doing my thing, whatever that thing may be. I used to freeze a lot. A lot lot. That never happens when I perform now. Never.

My life is different. I'm still not normal. I can never be normal, for various reasons, and I'm okay with that. My abnormality may prevent me from ever being able to drive a car (or it may not...I've just been too terrified of finding out that that is the case to do anything about it), from holding down the kind of job I want, etc, etc. I was never meant to be normal. Maybe people expected that I'd be a "normal" guy when I decided to transition. I didn't meet people's expectations. Maybe people thought all of my problems would go away and I'd be easier to deal with, but the first thing they tell you when you go in for hormones is that this isn't going to cure you of the issues you may or may not be dealing with. Everything else is still going to be there. I was still depressed. I was still trying to figure out how to deal with society (and still am). Maybe that's something I need to explain better. Maybe that's one for the book too.

I wonder if I was hoping that someone would say something. I skipped topics a bit on this one, but I know what I mean, and that's all that matters. I kept going. I kept waiting for a phone call that never happened or a meeting that never happened. And no one came to me. I figured all was lost. Miscommunication perhaps? I've learned over the last several months of being involved in HMH that miscommunication can cause irreparable damage. I don't want that to be the story of my life anymore because I have a long history of issues with that particular area. I'm not blaming myself for all of them. But I want to be able to handle things in the best way that I can.

It's still hard to deal with the fact that sometimes there just is no right answer.

I still have those fears about being too fucked up for anyone to want to be with me. I need to make sure I don't sabotage this relationship. How do I know if I'm doing it? I'm afraid of so many things. You'd be amazed.

I want to get my football tickets. I want to go to the games. I want to see my line play and not feel like shit about it anymore. I know that I need to keep going with this whole healing process thing. I shouldn't deny myself the thing that I'm so upset about having lost in the first place. I wish I could say that that bit of phrasing was original, but I stole it from a Christmas episode of The Real Ghostbusters. Yes, the nerd inside of me is still alive. Don't let the gold booty shorts fool you.

One of my goals in life is to try not to be evil. I have to work at that sometimes. I will admit that I have mean thoughts about others. We all do. But I monitor them. I analyze them. I need to figure out why I'm thinking what I'm thinking, and I need to plan out an appropriate course of action. There are some cases where this is easy. In other cases, I'm really struggling. There is a little bit of ruthless asshole in me. You can only push me so far before he comes out. And then we're all in trouble. Fortunately, I've only been pushed to this point two or three times in my life. And I don't see that point occurring again any time soon. I feel like I'm slowly losing a grip on what I'm saying.

Almost nine now. I'm sure my mother has already left for work. My father will be working from home today. I'm hidden away in my room, which actually used to be my father's office about fifteen years ago. I remember loving this room because of its location (downstairs next to the garage, quite separate from all the other bedrooms upstairs) and because of the ridiculous lamp that stems from floor to ceiling. I don't think it works anymore, but if someone could make it work again, I would really owe them. Well, when my dad got a job working from home, he needed a bigger office, so he took over the entire downstairs living area, which is two thirds of this floor. And I got this room. It's my sanctuary, even now, when most of my shit is gone and my mother's craft supplies have invaded my desk and shelves. It's a cave. I needed that growing up. I spent a lot of time down here and in the garage. I spent a lot of time by myself, really. I don't regret it. I was telling someone earlier that that time alone made me very good at a lot of things. I practiced a lot of skills that are now quite useful to me. I still enjoy my alone time, but I now realize that you can indeed have alone time when another person is there. It just has to be the right person. And THAT is a sign of love to me.

My nephew came over yesterday (still feels like today). I was so nervous about talking to him that my heart was pounding. He didn't recognize me at first because he asked my name. I told him. I'm Dylan. I'm your uncle. Do you remember me? He paused for a minute and said yes. Then, that was that. We just played for three hours. He didn't care, and it was just that simple. I really don't think he has any concept of gender, though. It's kind of awesome. I was the same way. It didn't hit me until much later. I should explain a bit. My nephew has Asperger's as well. He is six, but his social skills are probably those of three year old, maybe. And there are some things he just doesn't understand yet. However, he can tell you all of the NASCAR drivers' names, numbers, sponsors, etc. Spell anything. Tell you where which president was born. It's really adorable. Just don't expect him to really initiate a conversation with you unless he wants something. There are moments when he does, though. Just rarely. He's so adorable. I wish I could see him more often.

I'm going to be a great dad. I know this now. I would have been a shitty mom, but I'm going to be a wonderful father.

Devon (still deciding on spelling) and Jordan
gender-neutral children's names. enough said

My life is a fucking roller coaster. And I doubt it will ever change. That's unsettling in a lot of ways. I'm just saying things now. Maybe it's time to stop.

Sleep.

Fire and Flames

2011-07-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

"I know y'all know what I mean when I say that I'm waiting for the day when those who are so full of shit finally reach the explosive diarrhea stage of life. ::smiles::"

It seems like a fitting status for Facebook at this time. I'm having trouble sleeping, even though I'm exhausted beyond comprehension by the events of the last 24 hours. Briefly, I was right to worry last night because, yes, something did happen. And I don't want to talk about that right now. It's the same story again and again.

I might as well talk about another story that seems to repeat itself in my life. But I know I'm not the only one.

Let's talk about fake people. And fake compliments. Fake personalities and people who stab you in the back when they think you aren't looking. Let's talk about all of the smoke blown up some people's asses when they barely deserve a head nod and a handshake. So much of social interaction is fake, and everyone has a different kind of fake they want to show all the other fake people with whom they've surrounded themselves. It's seriously incomprehensible to me how you can live your life that way and not be screwed up. Fortunately, I've never met one of these fakesters who hasn't been fucked up by their own facade. But I don't know if that's justice enough for me.

And you know what really fucking sucks about all of this? I have to be a little bit fake too. I have to play these games, but at least I recognize that I'm playing them. At least I know it's not real. At least I know I can go to a part of myself that is real when it matters.
But I have to play along. Otherwise, it's social suicide. I can't say everything I need to say to everyone I need to say it to, and I definitely can't do it here. So I'm being a little bit subtle. I'm lying by omission. And that's really not something I'm that great at, so I'm sure that my fake subtlety is not fooling anyone. And I think I'm okay with that because I really do want people to know the truth of my existence, even when it is ugly. Even when it involves anger and hate and bitterness.

Maybe I'm bitter because it isn't fair. Because I'm too nice to ruin another person. Even though I know exactly how to do it. I'm smart and observant and I know very well how easy it would be to shatter this glass in just the right way. And I could watch you fall. And then you'd probably ask me for help.

But I'll never be able to do that. I will never go out of my way to hurt another person just because. But I'm also not going to help you. And I am speaking in generalities here, again, because I need to reference multiple people in one post, and I have the feeling that my generalities are assumed to refer to very specific individuals. The reverse is more often true. Keep that in mind. You can interpret "help" any way you want.

I keep trying to tell myself that this will all be over soon, and I'll never have to worry about it again. But fake people are going to continue to be a part of my life for as long as I choose to be a part of this society. At this point, I don't have that choice.

I just want to scream to the world, "Can't you fucking see past all of this bullshit? Look at it for what it is already!!"

I'm not the one who wants to hurt you. It's from a song.

Hallmark should really make FUCK YOU cards. I need a couple of those right now.
Writing is the best therapy I've ever known.

I will dance in the flames I go down in.

Slime. Fucking Slime. Let it hit your ears as hard as it can. Let them bleed. Can you feel the heaviness of the word? The cold stickiness that wants to trap you, right there in that "s"? The pressure of the "m" trying to crush you? The [lai] in the middle? The lie in the middle.

I will dance.

NEPA Vacation

2011-07-08T20:06:00.001-07:00

I've been home for about six days now. It feels like it's been both longer and shorter than that, and I have a lot to say, and I think I'm in one of those moods where I'll actually be able to say the important things in important-sounding ways. We'll see about that, I suppose.
I want to start with some background information. The whole story of my existence is embarrassingly complicated, and although that sounds like a very hipster thing of me to say, I can't very well deny the complexities of this twenty-two year journey into myself. I don't remember a time when my father did not drink a large amount of alcohol every night. That's just the way life was for me, and there were nights without sleep in cars in parking lots in a nearby town. We'd wait for the sun rise to drive back home. We'd check to see if the lights were on. It might have been a school night.
Sometimes the fights would be verbal. They were loud and angry. And it could have been any one of us. I didn't know any better when I was younger. I didn't know when you weren't supposed to argue with a drunk person. The answer I've learned over the years is, of course, NEVER. Sometimes I tried to fight back, but it only made things worse. My brother would never back down. My mom would get between them or between us. Or maybe she'd be the target this time. And sometimes, people got hit. And I didn't think too much of it for the longest time. And I'd believe her when she would say that she was going to leave when we both went away. But now I know better.
I'm leading you down a different road than I thought I would be at this point. My intention is not to garner sympathy or anything of the sort. It's not to worry you at all. These are parts of my past that I acknowledge, still reluctantly, and that is perhaps because I know that no matter how much things change, there is always the potential that it will all come crashing back to this.
Another piece of the puzzle...I come out as trans. My brother has been in prison for over four years at this point. My mom is at her heaviest. My father is getting heavier, and it seems he's getting sicker. My life is an emotional mess. I'm on my way up. I'm on my way out of a lifetime of pain. I'm working through things I'd avoided for years. Meanwhile, things are getting worse for my parents in so many ways, and my coming out didn't do a lot to help. It might have been the breaking point, and the fights on the phone and in the car and almost every time we saw or spoke to one another almost killed me. And probably them too. But maybe that almost was just what needed to happen.
I'll bring you back to the present, where my mom has lost over 100 pounds. She lifts weights, does Zumba, goes to kickboxing. She buys clothes that she likes and has friends. She's happy. She's not just existing. She's living. And it is so amazing to see her like this. I hated to see her cry and torture herself about her weight. I hated watching her sink into depression from afar. I'm crying right now because I'm so proud of her. Because SHE is my inspiration, not some roid monster on the cover of a magazine. When I am feeling lazy or like I don't have to try as hard, I think of my mother and the drive she finally had to get out there and take command of her own body. And I cannot pretend that my coming out and my physical transformation had nothing to do with this. But I think the final straw was when I would no longer engage in the destructive and abusive conversations that were driving me into a state of almost constant helplessness and anxiety. I decided to let go. And we did not speak for 4 months, perhaps longer. And when I did let my family back in to my life, I did it slowly. Coming home this time around is coming full circle, allowing them back into my life fully and completely.
My mom took this time to really look at her own life and what she wanted from it. And every time I saw her, she had lost even more weight. I loved seeing how happy she was. I still do.
Where's the downside? Well, what about my father? My mom is going out more to work out, to be with friends, etc. She's not content to just stay up late with him while he drinks, to make him food at 2 or 3 in the morning just because he wants it. My dad is lonely. Craving social interaction or something that can be his substitute. (I don't think I ever remember my father having friends as long as I've been alive, and that actually doesn't seem to bother him. I suspect he is much like me in more ways than he realizes...)
So his drinking gets worse. And he's getting sick. And the situation almost explodes. I only found out after the fact that my father had atrial fibrillation. And that his heart is still not healthy. He wasn't breathing well and was swelling and couldn't move much. He finally saw the doctor in January. I don't know how, but he talked enough sense into him to get him to stop drinking. And he just did. He quit without hesitation. And he began to drop weight like crazy. He's lost about 60 pounds so far, and I suspect that he will lose a bit more because he also walks for a little over an hour every day. However...
I got some emails from him about a month ago or so. I knew they were composed when he was drunk. And then I got the apology messages the next day. I wrote to my mother. She was so upset. I know there are things about that night that she isn't telling me, but apparently it was at least verbally abusive enough to make her feel that way. He just drank almost a case out of nowhere the one night, and she had to deal with that. I wish I could have come back to get her away from it. But I could only be helpless. The talk went on for a little longer this time about separating. But in the back of my head, I knew it wasn't going to happen. She loves him, and he is a part of her life. I don't know if she would know what to do without him--without having someone need her like that. I kept worrying about this and thinking about it. But things eventually went back to normal, whatever that is.
I came home last weekend. He was drinking. That was his one night. My mother wanted me to stay in her room until he came to bed, just in case. I didn't have a problem with this. But she eventually left. He came in and thought I was her. He touched my shoulder and I jumped back in fear, and when he yelled at me, he still thought I was her. I immediately left the room, still in shock about what happened or what almost happened or whatever. I went downstairs to my room to try to sleep again or at least calm myself. But I was followed. He was still drunk, it was light outside, and I found myself in a position where I could not get away. I didn't want to talk about whatever he was saying. I didn't want to talk at all. I couldn't slow my head down enough to explain, but I do remember saying that I didn't want to talk at the time but that I would be happy to later. But he kept going. And he kept making accusations and just talking at me. Sometimes it got loud. And there were so many, and it was so random that I just couldn't handle it. I remember turning on my side and squeezing up against a wall as tightly as I could while he sat on the corner of my bed. And I know I was making some noises and banging my knees against the wall for almost two hours. It went on for almost two hours. I was in a serious meltdown, and my dad didn't understand that. And he was actually trying to make it worse it seemed. My mom knew that she needed to get me moving. She asked a direct question with a yes or no answer: "Do you want to go for a ride in the car?" I shook my head yes and fumbled around with my shoes, and twenty minutes later or so, I was mostly okay. I wasn't great, but I was okay. And I've been worrying.
It's a week later, and he chose tonight to drink. Today was a strange day for me in general. I've been pretty antisocial all day. I just couldn't get myself to talk to other people without discomfort or irritability. And I knew that that was a bad thing to combine with my father's drinking. So I came down here to my room to be by myself, which I needed anyway. I wanted to avoid a situation. I just don't feel like dealing with that stuff anymore. And it breaks my heart to know that there is now one night a week where my mother potentially has to deal with this shit again. And I won't be here to help. But it's not my life. It's not a choice that I can make for her. And I fear that she will never make that choice. It's still really early, and he may or may not "start something" tonight. That's always how it's been referred to around here. It's funny how things like this become normal.
I'm not really afraid of him. He's much more of a nuisance when drunk than anything, but there were occasions where things did get out of hand. And you never know when that is going to be. Drinking almost killed him in the first place too, and it baffles me that anyone would go back to what has essentially poisoned his body to the point of incapacitation once already.
I think I am most worried about my father messing up what my mother has going for her. I wonder what that says about me.
I want to make something clear, though. I don't hate my father. I actually really love him. He's the one who has been most accepting of the person I really am since coming out the first time. I really do believe he understands a good deal of what I've been trying to explain to him and show him in the past few years. He's seen my performance videos. He's asked questions about what spirit gum is used for and things like that. And he's happy for me when a show goes well. I've been getting closer to him over the past few years. I never really felt close to him when I was younger. I think I really did hate him. There are a lot of things I don't like about him, even now, but I understand him much better these days. He is a genuinely good person at heart, but he is not the same person when he is drunk. I'm sure that's why my mother has a hard time with all of this. I don't know if I can say much more about this right now.
I don't know how I feel about this next part yet. It's confusing to me because of the context. I do remember my father using my name during that two-hour meltdown. He called me Dylan. He talked about me as Dylan several times. And as much as I hated a lot of what he was saying, at least that came through. I'm still turning it over in his head. I keep wondering if he would have said it if he were sober. Maybe it's better not to question.

At the beginning of the week, I went to Zumba with my mom for the first time. Of course, I am the only boy in the room, and everyone is curious. The instructor knows my mother pretty well now, so she asks who I am. I introduce myself as Dylan, and my mother adds..."My son."
I wanted to cry right there. It was so simple. I mean, you could tell she was a bit uncomfortable. Well, I could. I don't think anyone else noticed in that tiny little interaction. But it made me so happy. I told her about it when we got home that night. I told her that that's all it really is. A few words are different. Our relationship is still the same. I would argue that it's even better now. Her response was mixed. But it is progress. "What else was I going to do?" followed by "I still think it's a mistake, but..."

The only people I've really talked to in person this whole time are my parents. It's been pretty weird. But on Tuesday, I will be seeing my ex-boyfriend from high school and the beginning half of college for the first time in about three or four years. We have a lot to talk about, obviously. I'm nervous. More nervous than I should be. I guess I also still wonder how he explains the whole my-ex-girlfriend-is-a-man thing. And I wonder what he thinks. And I'm also generally curious about what has been going on in his life because we were also best friends.

So much left to talk about. So much already talked about. So much left unsaid.

I talked with both of my parents separately about possibly going back to school for graphic design/advertising or something along those lines. My mother feels that my time at Pitt will have been wasted if I do that. I have two responses to that. First, the skills I have learned in college can be applied to anything that I do. I do not have to be working in the field I studied in undergrad for that to be true. And the most valuable things I have learned did not come from the classroom or a textbook. An education, though, is never wasted. Second, if I do go into a field or a job that I'm not happy doing day in and day out for the rest of my life, the REST OF MY LIFE will be wasted. My father agrees with me on this. I'm still thinking about it. I haven't made a decision yet. There are so many things that I could do, as I've said before. But I've always gotten a ridiculous amount of satisfaction out of completing projects. I love creating things. I feel very powerful after having done so, and I can work on these projects for hours upon hours without wanting to slit my throat. I don't feel drained after working for 3 or 4 hours on a design. That's definitely a plus. This is going to be hard. I'm not sure what to do.

I have a new boyfriend. And I'm so fucking excited about this. He likes to PLAY. He understands what it means to play, and he actually likes the weird things about me. We've been texting back and forth the entire time I've been away from Pittsburgh, and we made it official (on Facebook, of course, because it seems that's the only way anything is real anymore) the other day. I absolutely cannot wait to get back now. He gives me that feeling in my tummy. That lightness. The one where your entire body feels like its melting away. Like its diffusing. It's been so long since I've known that feeling.
I think that the moment I decided to let go of the elements of my past that continued to hurt me, I was able to feel again. Who knew it would take so long to say goodbye and really, really mean it? I guess you really have to know when to stop letting people and things hurt you. And that's not always easy, as I have found. There's a connection here with something I was talking about earlier, and I hope you understand it without my having to explain it.

There are no final words in that situation. The resolution is as simple as the choice not to engage. And I feel like this is where adulthood begins for me.

Goodbye

2011-06-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

It's not that I'm fighting to stay awake; I'm fighting to stay upright. I will probably lose consciousness if I put my head back down again. I feel uncoordinated and limp. Lethargic is the proper term here, but as always, I'm looking for the reasons behind it. I woke up around two in the afternoon, wandered in the direction of her house to recover my wallet only to find that--because of my inability to rise before most people's workdays were coming to a close--it was already too late to get it that day. I felt a little off at that point, but I decided to try the GLCC after getting a phone call from Lyndsey and taking a few minutes to clear my mind. I suppose I just didn't feel right because I only stayed for about ten minutes. I was lucky to have gotten that transfer from the trolley driver. Otherwise, I would never have been able to get back to Beechview. I turned on the TV and lay down on the couch. No one else was home, and it was really nice to just be there curled up by myself with a cool breeze coming from the other room, even if it was artificial. Something about it seemed nostalgic. It reminded me of a time when I felt like I was in control of many more aspects of my life. Maybe it was peaceful enough to put me back to sleep, and maybe my desire to capture the energy of that moment was enough to make me want to stay asleep. When Lyndsey came home, I literally had to force myself to sit up. My body was trying its best to disobey me. And my whole day has been wasted because of it.
No matter what the reason, my mind always goes back to the same thought: There's something wrong with me. Some people will say that there is, and some will say that there really isn't. I'm not so sure what the right answer is these days. There is merit in believing in both. But I can't live by either one of them alone, which is what I have tried to do for my entire life. I've lived according to the idea that I'm no different than anyone else--that I can do anything and everything and nothing can affect me so much as to prevent me from being a completely functioning and capable human being. And I've lived believing that I'm broken and incompetent and that no amount of help can fix me and that I'll be this way for the rest of my life. And there have been a lot of people who really want me to live in accordance with the latter belief, though they may say the exact opposite. I think that I am learning that there is something wrong with me, and I need to accept this, but I'm also learning that it doesn't matter. The people who really care about me will understand my limits, and they've often been the ones to recognize them before I have. Everyone has limits, and everyone reacts differently when pushed to those limits. I react in a way that is different from most, and it's not normal. And maybe that's what I mean when I say that there is something wrong with me. It's the definition of the external world that gets applied here, and fuck, maybe that's the problem. I've never used the world's words to describe who I am in any other respect, so why should I apply them to this part of myself? Part of myself? I act as if I can separate this little piece from the rest of my soul. I remember doing the same thing before I came out as trans. I believed I could live my life as genderqueer, going back and forth between man and woman, and while this works for some, I couldn't live two separate lives. I couldn't box up the pieces of my identity and put labels on them because I would always end up with some items that didn't belong in either box. And now here I am trying to decide what pieces of me are normal and what pieces are not. Normal for whom? This is the only me that I have ever known. And when I became aware that other people didn't think and act this way or didn't see things this way, it was a pretty overhwelming epiphany of sorts. I'll never know how it feels to not be this way. I think I did once, but I was on some serious drugs. As fucked up as I was, there were moments of clarity when I almost cried because I kept thinking: This is what normal feels like.

This is what normal feels like.

I remember having that same feeling another time, actually. It was very shortly after I started T. I started to feel balanced in a physical sense. But it's not the same. And maybe the drug-induced realization wasn't real. I don't know. I'd like to think what I have is real. Wouldn't we all?

Maybe this is what normal feels like.

I feel like I'm in the eye of the hurricane when it comes to deciding the who and what of my life, and maybe I've been so paralyzed because I recognize the importance of this point in my journey.

Some things are meant to stay in the past. Some people are meant to stay in the past. I do realize my own limits these days, and maybe I overestimate them at times, but I think I have this one right. I am no longer willing to expend unnecessary energy on certain people. My life has no room for this negativity, and I will not engage in this behavior or these conversations any longer. And that should be enough. I will no longer play a part in the destruction of my own self, and I cannot allow anyone else to do the same. End scene.

Various Points

2011-06-22T18:41:00.000-07:00

What the fuck am I? And that’s a question that has nothing to do with my gender identity whatsoever. My friend pointed something out to me last night that I probably already knew, but it’s quite different when someone else can say it, has noticed it, and hasn’t been fooled by your trying to hide it. Graduation didn’t alleviate any of my stress or solve my problems. It only magnified them because it terrified me. No longer subject to strict deadlines or specific goals, I’m floundering out here in what most people would consider the “real world”. Not having something around which my life can be structured is really getting me down, and it’s making me much less productive than I’m comfortable admitting. I’ve been looking for external sources to provide me with enough stability to manage my life and the issues associated with it, but he is right in that I really should have an internal source. But I’ve just gone without so many of the things I am used to and “need” that I’m not sure how to get back to the point of having an internal reserve. I’m always fighting to keep my tank above empty, and I do indeed remember times when that wasn’t the case, and it makes me feel like crap to know that I have let myself get to this point. I have let myself become dependent and have sought out relationships in which that is an acceptable form of behavior. I know that I need to be able to survive on my own, but perhaps that isn’t enough. I need to be able to thrive on my own, and that isn’t happening. That’s far from happening. I know I need help, but I am never able to express myself this way when I have to speak to another person, so I feel like I’m never really getting the message across when I talk to my therapist. I want her to know everything, and I know that isn’t possible, and the things that I do pick sometimes aren’t the right ones.
Learning the difference between being aggressive and assertive…
This is tough for me. I used to be a much more aggressive person, and I was very proud of the fact that I believed I was right, would say so in less than tactful ways, and it didn’t matter how anyone else felt about something because as long as I knew I was right, that was all that mattered. Truth was valued above all else, even the people with whom I was closest. I still value the truth. I still value the right thing and doing the best that I can, but I have a different appreciation and respect for the feelings of other human beings these days. But I think that when I realized how my aggressive behavior was affecting the people around me, I shot so far in the other direction—became so passive—that I almost never said what I needed to say. And people began to take advantage of that, and I let them because I thought I was being a nice person. I was irritated when no one listened to me, but why would they? I didn’t have enough confidence in myself to get others to have confidence in me. And I let that go on and on. Over the past two years, I’ve gotten much better at being assertive when I need to be, but I haven’t been perfect, and I know there have been really important times when I have failed, and I have let myself and others down. And people find it hard to trust me because of these mistakes, I assume. I know that I’m getting there. But it’s slow, and it’s painful, and I could use a little feedback every once in a while. But I don’t have that. I don’t have that other person, and it all goes back to the dependency thing now that I think about it. I need not to need that.
It’s hard to drag myself out of bed when I don’t technically have to be anywhere. That seems like it fits more with what I was talking about originally, but I don’t feel like moving it. This is just how things happened, and my writing is going to stay true to that.
I want to write letters. But it’s hard to write them by hand. But I don’t want people to feel bad because I’ve typed them out. I’m not saying that I would do that all the time, but I feel like I can be much more personal this way, paradoxically. I spend less time thinking about the writing of the words when they come out so quickly, and my thoughts just flow better. And it might be easier on the eyes anyway. My handwriting does deteriorate pretty rapidly when I get so far into a letter.
I wonder if my parents are disappointed in me for not going to school any longer. I mean, I probably will do more in the future, but I don’t think that has to be right now, but it seems like everyone else thinks that. I don’t know what my life is going to be. I know I’m going to be letting a lot of people down. What am I now? I’m a stage performer. And I’m broke. I have two degrees in ridiculous disciplines, and I have not been able to use those skills at all in a way that employers would find marketable. I’m not in med school, grad school, or working some snooty academic job.
Should I be?

Knowing

2011-06-20T22:05:00.001-07:00

I've been surprisingly stable throughout certain events of the past week or so that have done a great job of dragging me back into memories that I've been avoiding, whether consciously or not.
I think it started during a group number rehearsal with HMH, and I didn't like what I became during that particular rehearsal. I fell back into not saying anything, and I'm still not sure if I did the right thing or not, but I do feel that there just wasn't room for any more tension in the room at the time. Someone needed to be quiet and calm. I wasn't calm, but I was collected enough to know what needed to be done, and I think things worked out as well as they could have. But I was taken back into a submissive state that made me feel really helpless. I think the way I reacted to it was more upsetting to me. I wanted to stand up for what I thought was right in that situation, but I could only be silent and watch. And that was really frightening. I felt like I was ten years old again, watching my family fight and trying to get up the courage to say something, but maybe I was afraid of having something bad happen if I finally did. That would only make sense.
Then I performed one of the most difficult numbers I've ever attempted on Saturday. It was extremely personal for me, and it really took me back into that space of being tortured as I went through school. That experience very well could have been my reality. I remember my brother and I being beaten and humiliated and threatened every single fucking day. I remember what it felt like to be so fucking alone and depressed that I just wanted to die, and I wasn't even a teenager yet. I never brought a gun to school, but I could have been that person. And that's terrifying. My brother was beaten almost to death by five people on his first day of senior year of high school. They ripped out his insulin pump and left him there to die. And that's the point at which his life started to really change. After years and years of dealing with shit from people, he just couldn't take it anymore. He never really recovered after switching schools, and he stopped caring about himself. And I remember what it felt like to be a new kid in 4th grade, not allowed to sit with the girls because I didn't look like them. And when I wouldn't leave the boys' table, a few of them decided to pick up my chair with me still in it while another took my head and smashed it off the corner of the table. So I would sit by myself at a cubicle-like desk that had been placed off to the side of the lunch tables. And people would still find their way over to mock me and scream inches away from my face. I remember having to be dragged out of the car kicking and screaming, getting stabbed in the face with a pencil, having my shit destroyed, getting ice balls thrown at my face, having to eat in the bathroom to avoid the people who always tried to put things in my food. You can only take so much of people thinking you're retarded or inhuman or an IT before they break you. And I was broken for a really fucking long time. And I know it seems like I am ranting about this for no reason, but I want you to get the idea. I want you to know how it feels to be in that situation, even though you may never fully appreciate its intensity.
I don't think I went a single day without crying. I remember my mom coming back to the car and finding me with an open container of anti-freeze. That was the second closest I have ever been, and I still can't believe it.
I have taken a lot of shit in my life. I have the ability to deal with a lot of shit. But that doesn't make it okay.
I don't know how else to say what I need to say. Tonight bothered me so much because I saw an insanely strong person cry for the first time. I know what it feels like to be pushed to that point--to just not be able to fucking take it anymore. I almost lost it then because I literally felt the same pain, and I didn't expect it, and I almost didn't know what to do with it. Sometimes teasing isn't teasing. And a side comment with even a hint of malice in it can be the one thing that pushes someone over the edge. You have no idea what the fuck is going on in someone else's life at any given moment, which is exactly why you need to be aware of what you are saying and doing. If you want to talk about what it feels like to be in a room full of people and feeling like everyone is laughing at you or hates you or doesn't take you seriously or doesn't even think you have human feelings, then believe me, I know all too well what that is like, in more than one circumstance. And I was taken back there tonight, after just revisiting a lot of my most traumatic past experiences, and I absolutely cannot sit back without saying something, even if it is to an internet audience, even if I am dismissed in person. And I want the whole world to know that I don't think this kind of thing is okay. And it really, REALLY hurts me.
When you can't even have an iota of compassion when seeing someone react like that, I have to question what else you are capable of. I was disgusted. I cannot hide how I feel about this.
I'll give you a relevant and recent example--one of many. I put my heart and soul into the drumline, but no matter what I did, there were always a significant number of people who were never going to appreciate me and who did their best to take shots at me whenever I was out of the room and sometimes even when I was sitting right there. And I was always fighting a losing battle. And I had to go back every day for more of that. But I kept going back because of the few people I really connected with and because I absolutely loved what I was doing musically. And I desperately wanted that connection with other people and had no idea why the fuck they kept shutting me out or what their problem was. The biggest problem seemed to be the confidence I had gained in myself. I would not be quiet about things that were important to me, and I began to voice my rather strong opinions. And we obviously saw how that worked out. (I'm still working on coming to an adult resolution to that situation, and I hope for the best, but there are some ties that will never be able to be repaired, and I am still feeling the pain from that.)
Even if you don't like a person, nobody deserves to be treated like that. We all fuck this up, but when we do and are called on it, we had better feel SOMETHING unselfish in that situation.
I know I'm probably going to get shit for this. People might think it's immature to write about it on the internet, but I think the broader message is really important here, and it's really quite simple. Treat other people like people.

What else?
Never take yourself too seriously.
Move forward.
Act with purpose.
Listen to the e's. (ask if you don't understand)
This is supposed to be FUN.

I need to come back to writing later because I'm getting worked up again. But I am glad I said these things. I am also proud of myself for taking five minutes for myself when I really needed it, and nothing bad happened. I was in control. And that was amazing. In the midst of chaos...

Boring Shit

2011-06-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

I finally gained access to my grades from this past semester, and they weren't that great. Actually, they pretty much sucked, and by that I mean I got a few B+'s, an A+, and a D+. I've never done that poorly in school, and I don't give a shit. I graduated with over a 3.8 even with that hideous blemish on my transcript, and now I have two degrees that aren't really doing much for me right now, are they? I also managed to sort out the problem with the reimbursements from the Pitt show, which means I should have a sizable check coming my way next week, which will probably go to pay bills that should have been paid a long time ago, meaning I will still have absolutely no money.
I haven't really had a break from drag in weeks, and I really don't mind. I don't do much otherwise, aside from going to the gym and playing with my band once a week. When I go to practice, I am with my friends, and I feel like I'm doing something productive and being social at the same time. It just sucks when I have to come home and be alone again. Everyone else that was there tonight went to be with someone else afterwards. I'm getting stuck on that sentence--on that thought. I just want to cry. I'm a huge sap. What can I say?
Being by myself hasn't been all bad. It's obvious that I just need that sometimes. But I want to be able to choose it. I don't work well when that's my default. And there is a great bit of difference between being alone and being lonely. And I feel like I am lonely all the time or close to it. And it's not even overwhelming a majority of the time. It's just something that's always there. Just something that makes me sigh a little bit. Knowing that things aren't going to change any time soon isn't helping. Knowing that I don't stand a chance is definitely not helping.
Maybe it's living with other people when I'm alone that I am not good at. I mean, even when I lived with housemates before, I was with someone, and I had that connection. I wasn't really alone. We were together almost every night anyway. It's so weird, but I feel so much less trapped when I'm with another person. I don't know why I choose to keep writing about this because it means that I'm choosing to subject you to it again. I suppose this is just my way of processing, and I feel like the people who actually care enough to read this are the people to whom I need to communicate these thoughts anyway. If other people happen to read it, I'm fine with that. I do have my secrets, but I'm not afraid of the repercussions of revealing myself in this way. And I have been doing a lot better since I've been writing more. But no one wants to talk about it anymore. At the end of the day, I'm in my bed alone. And I wake up alone. And sometimes there's just no motivation to leave. I was supposed to get up early today again, and I didn't. I keep wondering how much of this being alone thing is my fault. I feel like I will know when I can be with someone pretty quickly, and I finally got to that point a few weeks ago (or maybe it actually has been much longer, as one of my friends believes), but now I am kicking myself every time I start letting my mind wander down that path. But I also feel that I'm terrible at hiding my emotions for an extending period of time, and I probably slip up a lot, and everyone notices, and then I look really dumb. But I look dumb a lot of the time, so maybe not.

I cleaned the bathroom today, and I actually felt really good while doing it. Part of it is having some clearly defined task and seeing it through to completion. But I think that reminded me of what it felt like to clean my own bathroom back at Dawson. I felt like I was home again for a little while, and it was extraordinarily calming. I get weird when cleaning because I like knowing that it's okay if I move or touch something that isn't mine. I think I have a really hard time accomplishing a cleaning task when that isn't the case. There is the possibility that I can move to a place that doesn't have any rent, which would mean I would feel much less guilty about my situation, but I fear that I would have the same issues, and this would be living with a person I just met and several people that I don't really know. That's going to take a lot, but I will be meeting them soon and hanging out with them. And it would be in an area that's much closer to everywhere that I need to be at any point in my current life. It's something I have to think about. And I guess I should probably see the place first. Maybe I just need to have control over something in my life. Maybe I just need to make that choice because having that ability would feel great. I don't know. I really don't know what I need right now in terms of a living situation, at least not entirely.

It makes sense. I don't entirely know what I am doing with my life right now. The problem is that I think I need to sort out the other matters before I'll really know that. And I don't know how long that is going to take. I really hope someplace just fucking calls me back about a job already. This is getting to be kind of absurd. I need to find something before the summer is over.

I just started thinking about how fast I was typing. I used to marvel at the way my mom could type. It seemed so fast, and I didn't understand how anyone could do it without looking at the keys. It took me a lot longer to be able to do that confidently, and I still occasionally look down to check myself, even though I probably don't have to. But it was just something that very slowly developed into what it is now--my typing ability. I probably type much faster than my mom at this point. I can generally move pretty quickly, no matter what it is that I'm doing, so that only makes sense.

I need to make some decisions. I hate that.

I don't know how it got to be this late. I'm freaking out about tomorrow because I need to run through a number with someone. I actually need to be awake early tomorrow. I should sleep then, it seems. Sorry this wasn't much of an interesting post. I'll think of something fun for next time.

Not Sure

2011-06-15T18:11:00.001-07:00

I'm feeling pretty funny today. The day started off relatively well too, but maybe I should have gotten out of bed when I intended to this morning instead of sleeping until one again. I was late getting to Kat's house, which upset me, and then things weren't going well with the music and I felt like I was being a huge inconvenience because she had to get one of the songs from Amazon. Then we were late getting back to my house, which we weren't even supposed to be at anyway. And practicing in the basement is always weird. A lot of things just weren't lining up today, and I felt like I used up a lot of my reserve making that video earlier this afternoon, which I think went very well. I also started getting worked up trying to explain my plan for our number on Saturday, and I suppose that has something to do with the fact that the subject matter is very personal, and I don't want to make people feel uncomfortable in telling them what to do, etc. Or maybe I was just nervous a little too. I don't know. But now, I'm just feeling kind of down and not really into doing anything. I feel like I fucked up my social interactions for the day, and while I am eager to try to redeem myself, I don't know if I am entirely up for more of it, at least not with certain people, so I'm definitely feeling the pull in different directions.
When I start getting like this, everything begins to bother me. I start worrying about things that I shouldn't. I'm all worried about school and money and getting settled, which is normal, but the way that these thoughts are affecting me right now is getting to be too much. I need to be able to get myself back to a baseline, and again, I'm finding that more and more difficult. I just want to scream and cry and be held right now, but I am outwardly very calm and collected, just sitting up here in my room.
Being alone really isn't good for me right now, but there are very few people I trust to be with me in this state. And I can't really get to them, and I wouldn't want to put anyone through some unnecessary bullshit if something bad were to happen, so it's safer and less potentially harmful for these relationships if I just hide myself away for a little while. I suppose I'm getting used to it, and that may have good aspects and bad aspects.
Maybe I just feel really crammed in down in the basement. That might be a small part of it.
Sigh. Better than saying eh, whatever. Is there a difference?

Parts of Pride

2011-06-14T23:13:00.001-07:00

Now that I have a spacebar, I can type ridiculously fast again, though I must say I was getting really good at hitting that little dot exactly in the middle of the two alt keys. You never know when a skill like that could come in handy...

The official festivities for Pittsburgh Pride have come to an end, though I'm still pretty overloaded with drag-related commitments for the remainder of the month. I'll be performing this Saturday, next Thursday and Friday, and July 1st. And for some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to do a hot spot on Friday. I suppose I thought that, even though I am already fucking swamped, not many people were going to jump on that, and although it's going to be a huge pain in the ass, it'll create less drama in the end if I just do it.

I don't know if I have processed everything completely yet. It all happened so quickly, and there was so much work to be done that I really didn't have a lot of time to think about what I was doing while I was actually doing it. And I'm not sure that I have that much time right now either, but I'm a little less overwhelmed than I was about a week ago. The boy band number went very well on stage, and aside from the adjustments I needed to make because of the stickiness of the stage in the beginning, I am extremely happy with how our side improved from the first time to the second. I have a lot of theories about why our side works well togther, and it is a combination of things, and the same is true about the other side. I'm speaking about sides in the number, of course, not in real life, in case anyone gets funny ideas about that. The whole number was well received, and I think we might see a lot of new faces at our next show, which is why I am getting a tad nervous about not knowing how much has been put into that show. I really want to get a jump on things so that we aren't always rushing to get things worked out a week or two before the show. I think that will come in the next few months as we wind down from pride, but it is going to take an initial push that might be unpleasant and exhausting.

It was ridiculous to see my name on that poster (which is now sitting in our living room) and to be on that stage. It wasn't the biggest crowd I've ever had, but it was probably the one that had the potential to be the most critical and least receptive to the idea of a drag king, especially one who identifies as a transman. And I literally saw their minds changing as the number progressed. I saw some heads explode, made some old lesbians blush, and definitely made an impression on Pittsburgh that day. Despite the change of plans and then the change back to the original plan, which probably freaked me out even more since I was already starting to get used to the idea of the first change of plans, I not only did what I needed to do, but did it without fear or hesitation. I don't think I stopped smiling for the rest of the day. Nothing was going to bring me down that day, and it was pretty sweet to have all these random people want to take pictures with you. I felt like a fucking rockstar. Someone came up to me after my performance and told me that I was just born to be an entertainer, and that really meant a lot to me. And I'm not sure where to go with that from here. It deserves more thought than I can give to it in one night.

The rest of Sunday was equally enjoyable. I showered quickly in order to remove random pieces of latex and extraneous patches of paint. Then it was off to Cattivo for food and beer and epic dancing. I'm not entirely sure how it was possible that I puked that night because I was just lying in bed when it hit me out of nowhere, but it does make sense given the amount of alcohol I drank and the rapidity with which it had been consumed. I've spent the last few days trying to get things in my life organized while also practicing for this weekend. I've really enjoyed that. These two days of practice have been some of the least stressful of all, and they've been pretty productive. I really hope we have a good turnout on Saturday because these performances are going to be awesome, and many of them are going to be on a different level than a lot of people are used to. I don't do very serious political things very often, but this is the perfect opportunity for me to use a cathartic drag performance as a political voice. I think, regardless of who you are, you're going to see a side of me that you've never known before. I really urge you to come (and to buy a cheap advance ticket from me!)

I really don't know what comes next. I've been busy living in the present for the last few months. That has both advantages and disadvantages.

I think my train of thought has crashed into a wall.

Three Objects

2011-06-13T23:49:00.000-07:00

I was looking through the big green box today--yet another failed attempt at creating organization in my life. Somewhere near the middle of the box was a letter dated July 25, 2009. It's not even two years old yet, but there are a few small holes in the middle of the page where the paper had been folded over, and the edges have already begun to feel soft, like tissue paper.

I read letters like this now and don't understand why they make me want to cry so much. But I don't know if all that I am feeling is sadness. Nostalgia may not be quite right in this situation, but it comes fairly close to representing my feelings on the matter. But the words feel like lies now, and it's almost as if they are mocking me.

This isn't reality. This isn't my life anymore. In reading this, I am reminded of once being able to be something for and with someone, regardless of who that person is, in addition to specific memories triggered by the text. I feel like that specific kind of someone or something or whatever I was capable of being has been beaten out of me. And I don't think any one person is to blame for that. And I'm not entirely sure that there will ever be a way for me to get back to that. But things have been happening lately. In general, they are good things, but I am scared because I know there are a lot of conflicts that could arise. I know I'm not making sense, so I should probably back this up. I'm experiencing my first real crush since breaking up with my ex a little less than a year ago, and that alone has caused me to start feeling happy again--like I'm moving forward in my life. But that's about as far as it'll ever go, and that makes me really sad. I read this letter and get images of myself as being that person again. I can see myself being that comfortable with another person and can feel it happening. And that is both exciting and terrifying.

"I think about what could happen eventually, but I don't worry about What Comes Next. It is so easy to take things as they come with you, and so easy to believe that things will unfold as they should. I don't know what that means either, but it's so comfortable I can't imagine any reason for changing it."

I suppose that still makes sense. I do believe that things happen as they should, but I have a funny way of interpreting the meaning of that word. What does happen is what should have happened: It doesn't make sense to say that something should have happened when it didn't. Because what should have happened, happened.

Comfortable. It's a word I've been thinking a lot about lately. I miss having that as a constant in my life. I have managed to find a few people who just automatically make me feel safe and comfortable. And everything starts to be okay when they are around, even just sitting there in silence. I have met fewer than ten people in my life who have had this effect on me. But even fewer people have ever been the kind of person who is allowed to touch me when my mind has created a very clear barrier to block out the rest of the world. And this is something that is beyond my control. I don't know how it is decided that those three or four people can be allowed in when no one else can even speak to me without my getting more worked up. Their presence relieves tension I don't have access to. The connection is so strong that I can feel it even without touch, and it makes me feel so...happy.

But those kinds of connections can be broken. And letting people in, allowing them to be that for you and experience this with you, means exposing yourself to the pain that may result from a future parting of ways. Those are the most agonizing breakups. Those are the breakups that destroy pieces of your soul--the pieces so intensely connected to pieces of another that the split causes them to shatter. And it takes a long time for the soul to heal from something like that, and it can never be the same when it finally does.

I've been waiting for myself to heal this whole time, somehow believing that I could eventually get certain parts of myself back to the Dylan I was this time last year. I've slowly come to realize that this will never happen. Things are just different now. I am different, and I can never be that person again. I can't make anyone love the old me because that person doesn't exist anymore, and I can no longer shut out the rest of the world while I wait in vain for him to return. What you see now is what you get. I'm starting to expose more of myself to the people I value in my life and devote less time to the people who cause me unnecessary pain and stress. And I'm starting to feel happy and focused again, and I have a suspicion that a few people are actually on to this.

I have another letter here. It's very different, written instead in the summer of 2010. It is not handwritten but typed and considerably longer. I don't know what to think of it yet. I have to try very hard not to insert recent memories into the computations going on in my brain. This processing is definitely going to take a little longer.

Then I found a little green notebook, and when I opened it, it took me back to last July at Harris Grill. I have no idea why these three items were so close to one another and so easy to connect. I don't really know if I feel like thinking about it anymore right now. That's good. What's the past is the past, and while I recognize its importance, it's definitely becoming clear that it's over. I'm not feeling the same things I used to when I read these things now, but I am glad I have them. These records exist so that I may evaluate my own progress. Even this current record will serve the same purpose someday. I think I just get sad when I legitimately forget what it feels like to hold and be held that way. I sometimes do forget what love actually feels like. And maybe that's my brain's way of protecting itself.

I'm tired. Goodnight.

SleepyDrugs

2011-06-07T23:29:00.000-07:00

I'm on my way to being pretty fucked up, so I wonder if this will be coherent. After reading a comment on my last post, which was the extra credit assignment I pulled out of my ass at the last minute but ended up really liking when it was done, I started thinking again about where my life is going and how I need to figure that out soon.

There are so many things that I can do with my future, and I'm scared to choose. I wish I didn't have to.

I love cognitive semantics. If I were to pursue an academic career, I would most likely choose that.
I love performing. I could try to get into acting.
I love creating and designing things, so I could go to art school.
I love being physical. I love using my body in so many ways. I could become a personal trainer or an exercise physiologist.
I love making people understand things and allowing them to do things they never thought they could. I could be a teacher.
I could still be a doctor.
I could own my own club.

I've also toyed around with a few other ideas, but those have been the most stable.
Social work?
Public Health?
Police Officer?
Lawyer?

I need to choose soon. And that sucks. The longer I stay away from school, the less likely it is that I will ever return. I wonder if I should apply for next year or wait the full two years like I had planned. Maybe I could take a class or two in the meantime.

Wow, I'm really starting to feel fucked up now. Need to get more of this stuff soon.

Other news? I have the first legitimate crush I've had since Kelly. I am insanely happy that I am regaining the ability to feel those things. But it's an awkward crush that really can't play out. I mean, I'd love to be able to explore it, but I don't think that's possible. And it's a baaaad crush. I wrote about it yesterday, and I felt like a fifteen-year-old girl for a little bit lol.

I have a lot more that I wanted to say, but I am losing the ability to keep my eyes open. All according to plan hehe. Will finish when coherent again.

"So...What the Fuck Do You Do?"

2011-06-07T01:05:00.000-07:00

In the course of my undergraduate career, I have been asked my major literally hundreds of times, and each time, my response generates surprise mingled with a little bit of confusion. The average person is unlikely to recognize the connection between Neuroscience and Linguistics, but from the very beginning, I’ve been fascinated with how language works, and an integral part of understanding how language works is deciphering how language works in the human brain.
Throughout the course of my undergraduate research career in cognitive neuroscience, I have been attempting to synthesize information in the connectionist model of reading with a more general theory of cognitive semantics. Current models of reading suggest that written text is comparable to other objects in the external world, and perhaps the human brain learns to deal with them in similar ways. For example, Frith proposes several stages through which learners must progress on their way to reading proficiency. In what he terms the logographic stage, word processing has not yet become specialized, and individual words are represented as objects associated with their particular global features, meaning that there will be a high degree of inaccuracy if the font or pattern is altered. This means that a child may not recognize the word bat if it is written as BAT. In my eyes, this is quite similar to the concept of underextension: Children learning how to use their language in relation to objects in the real world often fail to recognize certain objects as belonging to the same class. In the beginning, learning how to read is very much like learning how to name objects appropriately: You need to know that a capital b is just as much a b as a lowercase b, just as you need to know that a poodle is just as much a dog as a cocker spaniel. Knowing the former is crucial to your understanding of the word form presented, and knowing the latter is crucial to your understanding of the concept of dog.
Briefly, the connectionist model of processing written (or spoken) language argues that there is a unified neural network that synthesizes information from phonology, syntax, semantics, etc. using statistical relationships. If we encounter a word, concept, or pattern of letters more frequently, some connections associated with this entity will become stronger for the next set of computations. Though this may seem like a unique way of dealing with language processing, many other mental processes are theorized to work in a similar way, such as object recognition as in the example above. I propose going further with this idea in the future because I believe object recognition is also intimately related to one’s internal language processing. The processes of language and object recognition may be tied together so well that we cannot wholly separate them at this point, however. I also believe that one can interpret the evolution of metaphor in a similar way. In the beginning, a metaphor must be explained and continually explained because the similar concepts that connect the usages are not as well defined, in reality as well as in the human mind. Once the human brain begins to associate the concepts, a connection is strengthened. It is further strengthened by repeated use of the metaphor, perhaps so much so that the original connections needed to sustain the metaphor are no longer needed. In this case, we may have a dead metaphor whose connection to the original usage is no longer apparent. (It is not to say that these processes are conscious. Our brains manipulate this information constantly and quite subtly.)
Inhibition and priming can also be related to the realm of language, though these are most often considered physiological processes that apply to other types of experience. When I understand the concept of go, I am connecting it to motion of some sort, and my brain starts to file through the different types of motion the word can indicate. Trying to define the meaning of the word without its context is rather difficult. However, when we place the word go in a sentence, the other words in the sentence will cause a particular set of neurons to fire, and these activated neurons will activate others that are connected to particular meanings of the word go and silence neurons that are connected to conflicting meanings. In this way, I can come to the conclusion that the meanings of go in I am going crazy and I am going to the store are not the same. However, when I am only presented with the word go and am asked to define it, what will I say? I will most likely give a response that is consistent with the most statistically encountered interpretation of the concept because those would be the strongest connections in my brain. This concept of strengthening connections is actually a very generally applied phenomenon known as long-term potentiation (LTP), and it is an observed phenomenon that is applied to all types of learning scenarios. But I believe that the concept of priming can override the statistically more encountered concept. If I have just finished talking about going crazy, and someone asks me what that word go means, the most recent example will most likely be the one I use to tailor my definition. Those will be the strongest connections in my mind AT THAT MOMENT because they have just been activated, and competing interpretations may still be recovering from some type of inhibition.
From the examples I have given above, it’s probably pretty apparent that I firmly believe in a more cognitive theory of linguistics (and pretty much any type of discipline that can be connected to mental processes). However, I do believe that formal disciplines offer great ways of modeling some of the more complex concepts. Drawing a syntax tree may be able to give us an idea of just one little piece of what information our brains may be using to process linguistic information, for example. But it is not an entirely accurate description of all the nuances of that processing. Chemical formulae are used as shorthand to represent much more complicated (and much less neat) chemical processes that occur in the real world, and perhaps one can think of formal semantics as adopting a kind of shorthand to represent an infinitely complex arrangement of neural processes that the realm of cognitive semantics is beginning to tease apart.

Voice

2011-06-04T23:46:00.001-07:00

I hate it when I leave my voice at home. Sometimes it’s really just in my pocket, but my pants are really tight, and I don’t want to embarrass myself by trying to get it out in front of all of these other people, so maybe I’ll just go over there by myself for a little while to make sure. But what happens if I don’t find it over there? I can’t go back. If I go back, they’ll expect me to have found it. What if it’s broken when I do find it? How do I fix it? Do I shake it? Do I send it back? Do I use gorilla tape? Gorilla tape fixes everything. Maybe if I just cover it up with enough gorilla tape, it’ll be okay for a little while. Things will be okay for a little while. I’ve done this a million times before, and now I can get away without using that much tape because I’ve gotten so much smarter about it.

Untitled and Possibly Unfinished

2011-06-04T23:20:00.000-07:00

When I wake up in the morning I am poison to myself the bottles on the shelf self-help in a helpless jar empty like I want my head to be dead to me bled for me but the wound pours when I snore I miss going to the store and picking up chips and soda and assorted fruit snacks and toilet paper because you know you always seem to use up what’s left of mine. You always seem to use up what’s left of mine. You always seem to use up what’s left of mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. I don’t mind. No I don’t mind anymore I can snore as loud as I fucking want because there’s no one there to judge me in the night nudge me in the night or remind me to turn off the lights and check my pockets so now I always forget my God damned keys. The books in my bed become the books in my head and I sleep next to them and a pile of my dirty clothes and only I know just how long they’ve been sitting there. And I don’t have to move this and I can just step over that and I don’t have to move this and I can just step over that. I want to have to. I want to have to have to have to do something. Make me. Make me. Make me want to not want you make me because I just want to. I just want to. I just want.

Productively Queer, Queerly Productive

2011-06-02T02:34:00.000-07:00

I had an extremely productive day, and I feel very good about myself. I know I need to go to sleep soon, but I don't want this day to end because I fear that I won't have another one like it for a while. I've been spending a lot of time with great people in these past few weeks, and I know that my growing relationships with these friends are the reason that I'm starting to feel happiness again. I'm starting to feel that human connection again, and I'm surprised at how quickly I became 100 percent comfortable. I guess I'm still hesitant to discuss this in detail because I'm afraid I'll screw something up in doing so.
Anyway, rehearsal went very well today. It went a little more the way that I am used to practices going. When you have to learn an entire ten-minute set of music and drill in four days or so, there's very little time for fucking around. Our practices were three to four hours long, and we worked pretty much the whole time. And that's how I'm comfortable when there's something that needs to be done. Interruptions usually agitate me. I mean, I love screwing around as much as the next person, but never for more than a minute or two in what is supposedly a structured rehearsal setting. Hell, I was that weird fuck who could keep going after a twelve-hour practice. I mean, this last summer proved a little different since almost everything in my life was going wrong, and I was on the verge of breaking down every night. But I get really focused and do much better in structured situations.
I'm sure that not everyone I'm working with right now has experienced how intense a rehearsal can get. Emotionally taxing is one thing, but I've been through some pretty physically and mentally painful practices. It's something interesting that I bring to the table. It's a different perspective. But it's good that there is a balance there. Someone like me is likely to go to an extreme that others may not be comfortable with, and working with these different perspectives has been really helpful for me. I need to learn how to do it, and I need to learn that other people have different limits in terms of attention, endurance, etc. But a part of me believes that I know what I'm doing when it comes to creating structure and organizing efficient practices. I'm an orderly and logical person, and this is something that I should use for the benefit of others as well.
I'm starting to step up, and I think that's doing something for my confidence as well. I still get a little irritated when people completely ignore things that I say. I'm not sure if people aren't hearing me, but then someone else always ends up saying the same thing ten minutes later. I shouldn't say that. It happens frequently, and that is frustrating. It does NOT happen all the time. But it feels terrible when it does. I am fine with people disagreeing with me. That's how things get done. But when it is as if I've never spoken, it's hard to feel present in the space anymore. I've noticed that I start to check out if it keeps happening. I've really been trying to make an effort not to do this to other people for the past few years, and my experience with Rainbow has definitely been a help. I've been working with HMH for about 9 months now, and I know that every person in this troupe has something valuable to offer, and I appreciate hearing all these diverse perspectives.
I need to trust that I know what I'm doing.

I think I'll say this to everyone:
The most difficult part of being in any sort of leadership position, officially or not, is finding that balance between being confident in your personal abilities and trusting that others are just as capable, if not more in certain circumstances. That's been difficult for a lot of us in this troupe. Many of us are still figuring this out. We feel that we absolutely know best sometimes and refuse to back down, while at other times, we stay silent and completely doubt ourselves, even if we have something important to contribute. I'm going to be honest because we all deserve that, at least. Monday was an example of what happens when we're all on the more confident end of that spectrum. And a lot of us struggled with going to the extreme of that, finding it more important to say what we had to say rather than coming up with a compromise as a solution. We eventually did, and I'm quite proud of the fact that we got through that. What tends to happen after such an incident is a proportionally extreme shift in the opposite direction. It's happened to us before. We've run into some stressful situations, where it seems like we are all fighting, and many of us have failed to speak up when we really wanted/needed to. But there are some people, in every situation, who don't shift as markedly. And that's something that definitely comes with experience. You learn your own leadership/cooperative style after a while, and you are more comfortable being consistent in how you express your opinions and visions. We are naturally going to come to a greater number of professional disagreements as these different styles develop. We will clash. It is important that we recognize that these are NOT personal disagreements and to also keep your own motives in check. Are you disagreeing with someone because you have a personal issue with that person? If your best buddy in the troupe had said the same thing, would you still be in disagreement? Sorry if this seems random to anyone, but I think it's important for ALL of us to work on that balance because, even though it is a very individualized attribute, a person's particular style of working in a group necessarily must evolve depending on the other styles present in the group. Keep this in mind when we meet in the future, and definitely think about how you worked with the group nine months ago versus how you do now. I'm definitely happy with the way I'm progressing, and I hope you guys are too.
----------------------------------
Hopefully that goes well. Again, I have to trust myself.

I think I had some other direction to go in as well, but I don't remember now.

I'm glad that I am writing almost every day again. I feel like so much less is bottled up inside of me, and having people who care to read the things I am trying to relate is helpful. Getting that feedback is helpful.

Oh, I did that robot thing again today. I'm getting less afraid of showing that part of myself to people as well. I'm thinking of taking the tape measurer to the GLCC tomorrow to see how close I was with the room measurement. Haha...tomorrow. It's 6:30AM.

I remember. I remember getting angry after seeing a commercial for a popular sitcom in which the main character is going on a blind date. Now, most shows manipulate the blind date scenario such that the protagonist is paired with some comically unfortunate person. The audience is meant to regard the situation as one big joke being played on the protagonist. In this particular situation, the woman he is paired with happens to be transgender, or at least that is what the writers of this show would like to indicate by allowing a heteronormative male to create a stereotypical caricature of a transwoman as a man in a wig and dress speaking in a falsetto voice. This is fucking disgusting. Seriously. Would people fucking LAUGH at this situation if he were paired with a black woman? A disabled woman? (I hate to say it, but they unfortunately WOULD still laugh if he were paired with a heavy woman too.) I love how popular media still thinks it's okay to make a mockery of the lived experience of another human being. Do you know how fucking TERRIFYING such a scenario would be for a real transwoman? How trans people are affected by the issue of dating all the time? Is there not one person working on this television show for this major broadcasting network who might have seen some recent news about a transwoman being beaten in a restaurant?! Is there seriously not one person there who thinks this is despicably tasteless and completely inappropriate given the temporal proximity of the aforementioned event? Well, America, we have a long way to go. Sigh.

I'm sorry about the profanity, but this is something that gets me ANGRY. There ARE people out there who know better, but they refuse to step in because they want to put something out there for mass consumption. There are probably people working on this show that know better, but they are more worried about making a profit from this television program than anything else. They are making money off of the perpetuation of stereotypes and discrimination faced by our community. And that's just, well, SICK.

I want to live in a world where there's nothing out of the ordinary about that blind date scenario, and I wonder if I'll ever live to see that. I want to live in a world where people like me are not constantly the butt of the joke.

I can't stop thinking about this. But it's a bit of a jump from the previous topic.
I'm very happy that Chaz Bono has gotten media attention because of his transition because he has taken the opportunity to educate the people he does reach. His interview with Letterman was fantastic, for the most part. However, here is the sad truth. If this were a transwoman, the response would most definitely not have been as positive. The major reason that Chaz has been so well accepted is that he looks, sounds, and acts like a heteronormative man. Put a transwoman in that situation whose voice is masculine, who is 6-foot-6, etc. The negative comments would have been far worse and far more numerous. This is an issue that has been driving me crazy since I started this whole process. It hits me harder at certain times than others, but...I HAVE IT EASY. I can walk down the street, and no one would think twice about it. I have the choice to tell people about my history as a female. I have the choice to come out or not. Many, many transwomen never have this choice. And they must ALWAYS be on guard. ALWAYS live in fear. I can't even fucking imagine that, and I have so much respect for my trans sisters that I can't express it. They are the strong ones. They are part of the reason I will never be stealth. I owe it to them. I owe it to them to keep fighting until we can ALL walk safely down our streets.

And with that, I'm going to sleep for a little.

I Don't Know What the Date Is

2011-05-28T17:55:00.001-07:00

I finally got reimbursed for my Pitt Drag Show expenditures, so my bank account will remain above zero when my credit card payment goes through. I don't even know why I bother paying them anymore at all. It's never enough, and the way things are going, it's never going to be enough. I don't even want to think about it. I avoid about ten phone calls a day. I'm not going to argue about options that just aren't going to work for me. I've given up trying to stay ahead because I know I'm not. I'm just trying to get by, and sometimes, it's just trying to find a way to eat the next meal. I hate asking people for money. I hate taking things that aren't mine. Don't get worried. I have enough cheerios and packets of tuna to coast on for a while, but sometimes I just want something more. I'm feeling better, but I'm tired, and I'm losing weight. I've been scared of doing my shot all day because I know I will be even hungrier. I'm pretty sure if you told me I had to walk an hour for a few slices of pizza, I'd do it without thinking. You can get a hungry person to do anything. Really.
I think I will clean and write letters tonight. I need to write another coming out letter. It's been a while since I've done that. And I should probably write another one to my brother and one for my grandmother. I've even been thinking of writing my parents by hand. I wonder if that will make things easier for them. Maybe it will be more real for them.

I did a hot spot last night when I really shouldn't have, but I think I managed to push through to the other side somewhere in the middle of my number. It was an interesting night all around, and I don't have it all pieced together yet. And that's making me a little nervous, but I've discovered that almost everything has some sort of effect on me. I cannot remember a time when I wasn't anxious or nervous, generally speaking.

I'm not wearing pants. And this is fine.

I'm trying to be positive about my life and find reasons for things. I need a way to deal with it. I need more single friends. Or I need to start asking my friends to do things without feeling guilty or like I'm wasting their time. I've slowly begun to do this, but I don't have too much luck because almost everyone I'm close with is seeing someone and spending most of their time with that person. It's insanely difficult for me to make new friends. I mean, I can be friendly with anyone, but it takes a lot for me to feel a connection with someone. I think there's something about trust involved. And maybe I need to know that the other person can understand me without my having said a word.

There are people that used to be a big part of my life that I still see, and I see some of them pretty regularly, but I don't feel really connected to them anymore. One of those connections has been slowly fading over the course of a year, while another seemed to vanish almost instantaneously. I think I'd feel better not seeing them anymore because when I do, I am reminded that my memories are real, and I start feeling happy for a minute. But that goes away pretty quickly because all I end up thinking about is how those feelings just don't exist for me anymore. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.

And now I'm worried about losing people before I even have them. And I hate being timid. I hate feeling this out of control.
Someone asked me this question the other day: "Are you sad?"
I didn't even think about my answer. It just came out. "Usually."

It's not like I'm in a raging depression all the time, but that does happen occasionally. I'm just sad. And it won't go away.

I keep going back and forth on this. I want to believe that everything's going to turn out okay if I just keep moving forward. And the more that I believe that I am not even in control of this, the worse I feel about myself.

I just heard fireworks outside. That reminds me that the fourth of July is coming soon. I don't know what I'm going to do. I may not be able to do it this time. I'll be alone thinking about it, most likely, and I won't have anyone to distract me because I'm sure everyone's going to be all coupled up. Maybe I can try to sleep through the whole thing. Sometimes I wish I could have normal holidays again. Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. I haven't had a real Thanksgiving with my family since just after turning 16. I am starting to forget what that even means. I've spent most of my recent Christmases traveling about three hours to the prison, staying for 12, and then traveling three hours back. And I am thankful for the time I do get to spend with my family, for the most part, but sometimes I want things back. And I'll never be able to have them again. I have never figured out how to deal with loss appropriately. I react the same way whether I lose an object or a human being. And that really sucks when all I want is my damn fire extinguisher pin.

I really tried to start writing something positive. I've been writing a lot lately. Most of it seems very whiny, and that usually annoys the shit out of me, so I can imagine how everyone else must feel about this crap. I do apologize. But maybe this will help.

It passes the time, and it gives my hands something to do.

I think I'm going to look at apartments on Craigslist and give myself something to look forward to if I can manage to find a fucking job. I'm serious in that if I don't find one soon, I'm going to have to leave.

Yet More Gender Shit

2011-05-28T03:11:00.001-07:00

I'm a transman with a very low tolerance for people within the community who feel that, in order to affirm their trans identity and represent it to the rest of the community, they must rely on binary stereotypes. I do enjoy a great many stereotypically masculine things, but I also do some very stereotypically feminine things, and those things are just as much a part of me as the others, and I am not ashamed of them. I'm trying the best I can to prove to those around me that these things we call masculine or feminine are just attributes that cannot be partitioned objectively. My "feminine" attributes are included in my own personal definition of masculinity. From a lifetime of experience, I feel that my essence is masculine, and anything that comes from it, regardless of how society may label it, is rooted in my internal sense of masculinity. I do not need to reaffirm my masculinity by using external definitions to shape my behavior, and I do not need to represent it to the rest of the world in stereotypical ways.

Another person may describe hir internal essence as feminine, a mixture of the two, neither of the two, etc. To me, it's the same sort of issue I have with arguing that they are still men's clothes when a woman is wearing them.

My head seems to be all over the place tonight, but I have to say this as well: I know what it is like to not feel masculine. There are times when situations arise to disconnect me from my internal masculinity, and this masculinity is NOT replaced by femininity. It is an emptiness. A feeling of nothingness. Femininity is not the absence of masculinity, and again, this is known from the inside, not the outside.

I've been ranting about gender a lot lately, and I'm glad. I was having a lot of doubts about feeling disconnected from some of my friends because of the way I view my own gender, but when I opened up, I found that there are many more friends of mine who actually share similar ideas about what role labels play in how a person is represented in the community.

Shifting gears just a tad...

I don't think that I believe that I should have been born male. (I'm still working on this one.) I don't generally believe in the phrase because things either happen or they don't. Oddly enough, that's one situation where the binary thing kind of works. Perhaps the only things that "should have" happened are the things that DO end up happening.
I was born in a female body. And perhaps there were things already in me at the time of my birth that would lead me to discover this trans identity of mine. I think this is the body that I was meant to have, and I think I was meant to make this decision to change it. If I want to use the same old terms, my body and mind didn't line up, but I see nothing wrong with that, just as I see nothing wrong with making the decision to align them. Believing that there is something inherently wrong with being a man born in a female body seems insulting to those who do not choose physical transition. For me, I knew it was wrong to stay
. For me.

I'm going to have to develop this further. I have so much to say about this because of a few recent conversations that have really helped me get closer to a person who is remarkably like me, as I've been privileged enough to discover over the last several months.

I don't know if I need to say something else tonight. Today. I mean, it is almost six in the morning. If I do, maybe it should go in another post.

Body Developments

2011-05-28T01:50:00.000-07:00

I caught myself looking at my hands earlier today. I saw the veins that weren't visible just over a year ago, unless I had just finished working out. Now, they're always there, and I feel like new little branches find a way to surface every now and then. I remember literally feeling the expansion of my vascular system during the first few months. It feels like a tiny pop in your arm, with a little bit of a slap in there. You feel like you just missed rupturing something. I keep wondering if anyone else knows what I mean.

I've said it before, but it's extremely difficult to remember what it was like to have a different body. I can see pictures of what I used to look like, but I can't FEEL it anymore. And that is very strange to me because I am very, very good at feeling things when given any sort of stimulus. When I sit here and look at my arm, I can't replace what I see with what used to be there. It just feels like it's always been that way. I see pictures and wonder how I could have ever been that small or how my hips and ass could have been so big. I never felt small. And, for a female, I definitely wasn't. I mean, I was small in certain ways, but I think you all know what I mean. I can only attribute this to the fact that I tried to ignore my body for so long. I avoided being alone with it and wanted to separate myself from it any way that I could. I would cover up the parts that bothered me the most.

Just now, for the first time in over a year, I caught a memory of what it felt like for about 0.5 seconds. And then it was gone. I was standing in my underwear, looking at myself in the mirror. I turned around. I wanted to cry. I was disgusted by the lower half of my body. Nothing I could do was going to change what was there or make my clothes fit better or make me feel happy. The only thing that made it better was to cover those parts and forget about them. To have the lights off during sex so I didn't have to think about what the other person was seeing--didn't have to think about what I was seeing. I would try on clothes in dressing rooms, thinking they'd be awesome, but I'd leave with nothing except the urge to cry again because I was there with nothing but those bright lights and a mirror to show me nothing but the truth.

The most ridiculous part of this to me is that I know that people found me to be an attractive woman. And I can understand why looking back at these photographs. But at the time, I just couldn't get it, being immersed in a body that I really wasn't that happy with. There were things about it that made me happy, and those were the things that I had managed to change or was fortunate enough to have been born with. I have very broad shoulders and a great back. I've always had these attributes, and it made it almost okay for me to look at the upper half of my body. My chest has been hidden behind this little bit of breast tissue for a while now. I wish I could know what it will look like. I still look in the mirror sometimes and feel terrible about it. I'm getting more comfortable, though. I can walk around the house without a shirt on sometimes, but that is still a little tough. I think people might find that surprising considering how naked I get during some of my performances. Yes, I am more comfortable with my body than I have ever been, but I have a long way to go. It's not a bad thing. It's just where I am at, and I know that I will get there. I was terrified about the gold booty shorts. I would NEVER have worn something like that as a woman. I would have tried to cover as much of my lower body as possible. I would have felt fat and disgusting. And I hadn't tried anything like that at all in several years, and I was worried that wearing them would make me feel all of those terrible things again. But it didn't. And looking at the pictures, I know that they looked great. I'm proud of myself for being able to do that.

It's now light outside. But my mind wants to keep going. I think I'm starting to get better because I'm really starting to think again. I just need to be careful not to push things too soon.

Why We Do

2011-05-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

Whenever anyone asked him "why?", my dad had a habit of responding with "why not?"
He may or may not realize how profoundly a statement like that can affect someone's life. It's a question I learned to ask in almost every situation I encountered, and I've gotten my share of looks over the years because I frequently do and say things that make absolutely no sense to other people. "Why not?" is not an apathetic response uttered because the speaker couldn't think of anything more clever to say to a potentially offensive question. Rather, it's an assertion of the idea that certain dichotomies like right/wrong, appropriate/inappropriate, masculine/feminine are ultimately arbitrary and subject to interpretation. In looking at the same situation, the two questions can be posed simultaneously. The key to making the best of a confrontation like this is simply (notice how I didn't say "easily") to understand what makes one person say "why?" while the other says "why not?"

Drag--or gender performance, I should say--is a subject that often enters into my first encounters with fans and friends-to-be. Many of my trans brothers and I are asked why we are not drag queens because drag is "supposed to" be dressing up as someone of the "opposite" gender. Some more traditional performers continue to criticize us for "cheating" with the use of hormones and surgery. But "why not?" is the response, explicitly a question itself highlighting the pure absurdity of the original interrogative, that seems to make my conversational counterparts pause, at least for a moment...

"You're a girl. Why would you want to play hockey?"
"You're a boy. Why would you want to wear a dress?"
"You're a butch. Why would you want to wear a dress?"
"You're a transman. Why would you want to do drag as a boy?"

Those who ask why we perform our chosen personae fall into the trap of using heteronormative assumptions to define a community of performers whose mission has always been to challenge those assumptions. All of the sentences above begin by affixing a label to the myriad factors, situations, and attributes that have interacted to develop the complex human being standing before you in the present moment. We are not--nobody is--as simple as the label you may want to attach to them.
We perform to tell the stories of our experiences, to make you keep questioning the boundaries between what is "real" and what is not, to introduce another small slice of the world to the idea that any BODY can be the vessel for any story, that any person has just as much right to that stage as the next...Just like any person has the right to love whomever s/he wants, just like any person has the right to be masculine, feminine, something in between, or neither one at all, whether on stage or off.
We take these challenges to the stage, sometimes making you laugh and sometimes making you cry. We keep putting ourselves out there, and everyone in the community knows our names. We take on the burden of showing you the truth as we and those we represent see it, regardless of its beauty or ugliness. We are the the most vituperated of villains among those who transgress gender barriers. Misplaced masculinity and its feminine counterpart are cited as reasons for physical and verbal assault, rape, and murder. We fight this battle every day, whether we are in transition or not, whether we are on the stage that day or not, because we believe that everyone-- from the straight guy down the road who loves romantic comedies to the over-the-top-fierce drag queen walking home alone on a Saturday night--deserves complete and total liberation in terms of gender expression.

Head. Ow. Sick. Fuck.

2011-05-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

These are the times I realize how alone I really am. You can say all you want about having close friends and people that care about you, etc. But most of you aren't in this position at all. Most of you are sleeping next to someone who cares about you more than anyone else in the world. What do I mean by times like these?
The times when I'm sick like this and just want someone to be with me through it all. The times when I can't sleep and just want to hold or be held and talk to someone. I know this must be getting old because even I have trouble not being able to get past feeling like this. I keep wondering if there's something genuinely wrong with me or if maybe I'm just supposed to feel like this.
My head really hurts. The pressure is so bad that my eyes keep watering. I'm sitting here in nothing but my gym shorts, but I'm dripping sweat all over and sticking to everything. My ears feel funny too, and I have to keep stopping because reading hurts.

I keep getting the feeling like I want to try something with someone soon (and no there is no particular person in mind), but it's almost impossible for me to feel that way about anyone else right now. I may get transient crushes or feel like I really have something in common with a certain person. But I always worry about fucking things up or just being too fucked up. And then there are times where I have completely normal reasons for not wanting to attempt relationships with people. But sometimes the reasons get a tad mixed up, and I always end up feeling like it's my fault.

I don't want to just get by anymore, but there's no way for me to fix that now. I keep wondering if I made a mistake.

For as confident as I have become in the last few years, I am still one of the most insecure people I've ever known. I feel like if people really knew who I am, they'd run away instead of try to chase after me.

People who are very obviously flirtatious make me really uncomfortable, and I have no idea how to respond appropriately. People say that I flirt with people all the time, but there are very few occasions when I consciously attempt such a thing. I just try to talk to people the way they want to be talked to. And if I am saying or doing something flirtatious, it's usually so extreme that I can't take it seriously, even if other people do.

No matter what I say at any other time, I will say it here again. I can't be with another person right now, no matter how much it hurts to be by myself. I'm worried that that won't change, but I also worry about rushing into something because I want so desperately to be out of this situation.

I'm getting dizzy. Time for more juice and sleep. Ugh.

For the Book, Perhaps

2011-05-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

I meant everything I said last night. I never really felt sexy until I got to be Dylan for the first time. I mean, I know that other people may have perceived me as such at various times in my life as a female, and I was aware of that. But I couldn't feel it. That was a very external kind of sexiness that didn't really belong to me, and it always felt like coming out from under water when it was finally time to take it off. I'm not the first person to say it, but drag was my gateway drug. It was when I realized that my drag persona felt more real to me than the person I was trying to be in real life that I knew something big was on the horizon. Drag wasn't so much about doing as it was being for me.
It wasn't an instantaneous realization. And it wasn't an entirely pleasant experience. Dylan had to be yanked out of me, and there was a time when I fought back with all I had just to keep him inside. I was terrified of losing everyone and everything. I was terrified of being a freak. So I slid myself into genderqueer, attempting to believe that I could fluctuate between man and woman as I saw fit, but each time I gravitated toward the masculine end of the spectrum, I was better able to see the emptiness of the person that existed on the other side. The thoughts kept coming back, and I would just cry as I watched video after video on YouTube and began to realize that this was REAL. I opened the book signed by Scott Turner Schofield, made out to a straight tomboy named Elise, and let the tears come crashing down onto the pages. I sat on my bed for a long time staring at the graffiti my girlfriend and I had painted on the wall, words uttered by an estranged drumline instructor named Will: "Nothing worth having is ever easy."

It would still be months before I could bring myself to say the words. But they were there. And I could feel them rising from deep down inside, rising into my throat and getting stuck there. When they and I (and he) finally came out, she told me that she knew this day would come. I think we all did.

Mr. Pittsburgh Pride 2011

2011-05-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

Mr. Pittsburgh is over, and while I didn't win, I pretty much did everything the way I wanted to do it, minus a few dance moves I wasn't exactly comfortable with. I mean, if the worst things you can say about me involve my underwear showing when I kick my legs over my head and that pink paint was peeling off my ghetto-ass spraypainted shoes, then I'd say I'm doing just fine. I just wish I were better at speaking. One judge seemed to think I was particularly terrible at it, but I knew that part was really going to get me, and I know what I need to fix for next year. I'm a bit sad that I won't get to do this outside like I wanted to, but I'm still really happy for Britton and Skyler. And that's about as far as I've processed things. The old me would have been quite upset about not winning and probably would have taken it personally. But I can tell that I have grown as a person and as a performer because of my reaction to all of this. Quite a few random people came up to me last night, saying things like, "You should have won." The only thing that I could respond with at the time was "I'm still happy, and things happened the way they needed to. And that's what I really wanted from tonight." I proved to myself that I don't need a crown to feel validated as a performer--that I can be confident, even when I'm absolutely terrified.
When I saw the look on his face after the contest, I knew I had done it right. He's helped me so much through all of this, and that includes dealing with my random bullshit moments of panic and trying to convince me not to quit when something wasn't going the way I planned. And I will let you know that he wasn't lying when he said he felt like he was going to cry. And when I looked in his eyes and saw how genuinely proud he was of me, I felt the tears coming too.

I paused to look at the pouring rain, and I am somehow at a loss for words. I guess that's another thing. Even though I think I could have done much better with the question (I did write my answer in JJ's apartment just hours before, after all), I couldn't have been happier with the way I handled it. I could tell it was going to be difficult because the crowd didn't seem very interested in serious things, especially that late into the evening. But I didn't stutter or stumble. And I really didn't even use that cheat sheet. I'm proud of myself for actually going through with this. Every time I step outside of my comfort zone, it gets easier and easier. I can't wait to see where I am at this point next year.

As much fun as the whole experience has been, I'm really glad the competition is over. It was intensely stressful, and whether I was actively preparing for it or not, it was the only thing on which I could focus, and that was definitely starting to get to me. I didn't enjoy feeling like I wasn't going to be prepared enough, like my costumes were going to be too ordinary in comparison to my friends', like I was just going to look like I didn't belong up there. But I think I proved myself wrong in a lot of ways, and I was approaching the point where I absolutely needed something to make me realize what I have to offer and why people enjoy watching me perform. I'm still wondering what comes next. Should I keep trying this competition thing? Part of me wants to say yes because I know it would motivate me to step it up even more, but this shit costs a lot of money that I don't have. (I'm kicking myself for not splurging on those damned pink shoes.) And as much fun as bragging rights are, I enjoy entertaining people more than I do winning. I know I'm not the only one who appreciates that, and I am starting to think that my energy would be much more beneficial to the community if directed toward creating a scene for younger performers. There's something about helping other people discover things they didn't know they had in them that's incredibly rewarding. And I know how great it feels to be on the receiving end of that.

Today

2011-05-21T04:21:00.001-07:00

I need to make a list of things to do today in order to get it all done without wanting to punch walls. I mean, that was yesterday.

I need to shower and shave, more than just my face.
I need to remove extraneous glue from clothing and seal some beads.
I need to find my green tie.
I need to work out a little.
I need to make yet another set of lists of all the items I need for tonight.
I need to pack my drag suitcase.
I need to try to get this song on my iPod.
I need to go tanning and get a haircut.
I need to eat one last time before the pretty pretty princess diet begins (P3, for short).
I need to find a quiet place and write something out.
I need to mail these two fucking letters that I've been trying to get rid of for two weeks now.
I need to meet JJ at Cattivo.

"It's just drag. Life goes on."

Moving On

2011-05-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

And when you leave that place, it will finally all be gone.

Call the Zoo

2011-05-14T00:52:00.001-07:00

At some point, I told myself that I would start writing here more frequently again.
But I might have been drunk.
I don't think I've ever actually written anything while intoxicated, though I managed to pump out a good chunk of a nine-page letter before succumbing to the effects of a massive dose of some serious cough syrup. EPIC cough syrup.
I didn't intend to get drunk last night. It just sort of happened, and I know I did some really stupid shit on facebook and private messaged several people. Then I ate some toast, and the next thing I remember is waking up in my bed with all of my clothes on, drenched in sweat and smelling like a gay bar. What a lovely start to my day, don't you think?
I don't know why I felt off today. Little things just bother me more when I get this way. For example, people getting sidetracked often upsets me when there is clearly something that needs to be done. I tend to get anxious and easily frustrated.

Mr. Pittsburgh is next weekend, and I'm extremely worried about it. I don't really enjoy competing against my friends, for one thing, and that has more to do with the fact that I'm actually ridiculously competitive, and I can be a monumental douchebag. More than anything, I am discovering how limited my resources are and what that means for me. No matter how talented I am, I'm definitely not going to look the best. Things aren't going to be extravagant and over-the-top. I'm just going to do what I know how to do. And I'm starting to doubt myself and worry that that just won't be enough. I keep trying to answer the question of why I deserve this just as much or more than anyone else, and it's getting really difficult. I'm generally a pompous asshole, but I get in these annoying little ruts where I lack any self-confidence. I remember having this same sort of crisis right before helping out a friend with her own pageant. When I was facing the prospect of competing against one of my best friends earlier this year, I started feeling the same way. I know that I do. I know that I don't need expensive shit or fancy props to win. I know that I can carry myself to a victory even if I'm butt-ass naked, which I'm sure would make some people happy, at least. But there's that weird space of difference between knowing something and feeling it in which I'm finding myself. I feel stuck. I've felt stuck--in so many aspects of my life--for several months now, and I want to believe that the nice weather will turn things around for me.
I'm going on an unintentional diet for the next few weeks. It's reminiscent of the poor-kid diet I went through in October. I'm still a little freaked out by those pictures. Anyway, I had to spend at least a little bit trying to get things for this contest, and that tanked my already meager bank account. I have $1.16 to my name right now, and I don't have much food left in the house, and I feel like a jerk eating other people's stuff, so I eat my packets of tuna and have some cheerios. And I drink water. It's not like I'm terribly unhappy with it. I'm eating healthy things, but I never feel like I'm satisfied. I am always wanting more, but I know there is none. And that's depressing. I'm getting paranoid about not finding a job. I think that will be my biggest project tomorrow, other than heading to the bank to see how they will deal with a check that's made out to Dylan and not to Elise.

I got a letter from my brother today. I didn't really know how to respond to it. It's not an angry letter. He took his time with this one and really thought about what he wanted to say. I can understand exactly why he feels the way he does and the processes he used to rationalize his beliefs. But it just made me...sad. How can he expect to ever be close to me again? As much as I do cherish my past and everything in it, clinging to it in the way that he envisions would annihilate the possibility of ever becoming close to the person that I am now and will be in the future. I do not exist apart from my past. I have in no way attempted to erase the person I had been for 21 years. I still can look at those pictures and say, "This is me."
I want to be able to explain that those memories are not invalid, though my experience of them was much different. Being a little girl wasn't fun for me. It wasn't cute. It wasn't something I cherished or wanted. It was something that I wanted to ignore at the time. It was something that was there just as a word and nothing more. The word was nothing to me until it became a prison, until I couldn't ignore it any longer. Until I had to fight to be seen for who I am. When I look at those pictures, I don't see a little girl. I see me. Looking back, it's easy for me to recognize that I really have always been a boy, not because of what I was wearing or what sports I was playing, but because of how I felt inside and how I related to other people growing up. I always wanted to be in that role and be treated like the others, and I would kick and scream about how I wasn't, and I had NO IDEA why. I just don't think I'll be able to convince him that he's always had a little brother, really.
He's having a problem because these words aren't just words to him. They represent enormous constructs around which his entire life was based growing up. Changing them, in his mind, would mean having to alter the past--alter what he sees as the absolute truth of the universe. The past cannot be changed, and attempting to change it is living a lie. I can understand this logic perfectly, and perhaps this is why it is not a problem at all when people say she/Elise when referring to the version of me that existed prior to my transition. But there is more than the past. The present is NOT the same, and the future won't be either. But that's not going to negate what has already existed. He has attached our relationship directly to the words used to describe the relationship. Can I blame him? How many people today can really even begin to separate language from thought? In order for him to understand and accept the person that I am now, he's going to have to detach all of these aspects of our relationship from those words and transfer them to new ones, and I wonder what that will take for him.
I can't separate the pain from those words. So I guess I can understand a little bit of what he's feeling. I am not okay with being disrespected by people whom I've told why it's so important to me, and I don't think that I should have to be as a compromise. This isn't a compromise about terms used. It's a compromise of myself, if I choose to make it.

So I was feeling kind of shitty and off today, and maybe that's a little bit about why. I thought I would have stopped feeling overwhelmed after graduation. The fact that I have not has contributed to my overall state of unhappiness because it makes me believe that I will never stop feeling this way. I'll never be a calm person. I'll never just be content and easy-going. And that sucks. Again and again, I say it. We can't be anything more than what we are.

Transition made it possible for me to start dealing with all of the other shit that's been buried inside of me for the past 22 years. Everything else was being masked by the fact that I absolutely needed to do this in order to move forward in my life. It was do or die for me, really. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think. But now I'm starting to actually face some of the shit that I should have confronted a long time ago. I'm not in a good place with it right now. I feel like that mountain of shit is just too much for me. I can't see to the other side. I feel like I may never be able to get past some of these things now that they are in the open. And I wish I could talk to my family about it. I wish I could talk to them about so many of the things that I am going through right now, but I am so afraid that they will think that the transition has caused these problems. I know it hasn't. I know it hasn't because these problems have always been there. I can't hide from them anymore because of my transition. And while that does suck for me in some ways, it's probably a good thing. I wish I could FEEL like it is.

It's hard to even remember what it felt like to be in "another body". This is my body, and it feels like it's always been this way. I don't feel like my face has changed. I think I've always seen myself this way, regardless of what other people saw. That's why it is so easy to accept the physical changes as they come. That is why it is exciting. You'll have moments of seeing yourself as being different now and you realize that you really are physically becoming what you have always known yourself to be internally. I'm trying to think about what I used to look like. I'm thinking about my legs and how I looked at them with disgust. I thought they looked fat and gross, and I never wanted anyone to see them. I would look at my chest in the mirror and look at my hips, seeing this fat that didn't belong there, and no matter what I did, it was never going to go away. I would smile, and it would just seem awkward. I couldn't look at myself and be confident. I'd have my good days, of course. But I wouldn't be able to take my shirt off in bed. Sometimes I wouldn't take any of my clothes off, and when I did, I always had to put them right back on. I couldn't stand being in that body. I couldn't stand someone else touching that body. I wanted to hide it, even from myself. And my voice...I couldn't even stand listening to it when people played it back for me. When I spoke, I would hear a much deeper and smoother voice, but whenever I found myself listening to a recording, I wanted to cry. I couldn't believe that that squeaky-ass nasal sound came out of me.

My train of thought just crashed. I think it hit another train. And now there are dying thought children. And they are on fire...Sometimes, I worry about myself...

I don't know if I would like it to stay this quiet or for it to get really loud right about now. I'm getting uncomfortable. My stomach is starting to bother me. I wonder if someone is here.

"The further you go, the less you know."

Rants of a Depressed Tranny

2011-05-12T00:32:00.000-07:00

I'm exactly where I was in October, as sad as that may sound. My reaction tonight wasn't dramatic in any way. I didn't freak out. I'm being extremely level-headed and accepting of all of it. I honestly don't have any more heart left to break. Some of what he said is true, and I'm fine with that, but there are other things that are not. But I keep doubting myself. I keep worrying that I'm just completely incompetent and incapable of doing anything. And my whole life is infected with these thoughts. Do you know what learning to accept myself means? It means learning to accept that I am not supposed to be in a relationship, and any sane person would run screaming from this situation. It is so bad that someone who actually does care about me doesn't think it's worth it. And maybe I never really knew how he felt about me anyway. And I'm fine with it. I'm not mad. I'm not going to try anymore. But it doesn't mean that I don't feel like shit about myself. And that's nobody's fault, and I know that. But what do I do?

It's so weird how being trans is the least of my relationship woes. There are plenty of people who think it's sexy. But that's not really what I care about. I want people to like the person I really am, but people hate that person. People are scared of him. People think he's incompetent and emotionally unstable and immature and incoherent. And I keep hearing it, and now I'm not so sure of myself anymore. I wish I could tell myself that there's nothing wrong with me. But there is. And there is absolutely nothing I can do to change that. People will say that I shouldn't have to. People will say that I'll find someone who loves me just the way I am and all of that crap. But no one knows that. I suppose it's fair to say that I don't know the reverse of that either. I don't want to feel like I'm something that has to be dealt with. I'm a fucking burden, even to people I'm not dating. And that's all I can seem to offer anyone. And now I feel like a financial burden too. And maybe that's a huge reason I want to run away as well. I don't want to be responsible for that extra pressure I put on people.

I'm losing my confidence. Maybe it's already gone. I'm losing my ability to do things well and enjoy them. I'm losing people. I keep getting this feeling that nothing I have is meant to last enough for me to really be happy. I keep feeling loss after loss, and sometimes it doesn't even make sense because I feel like I keep losing the same things and people. And I just don't want to feel these things anymore. Maybe THAT'S why I've been sleeping half the day. My body is trying to run away from my life. I've driven away everyone I've ever fallen in love with because of this. And I just don't want to do it anymore. And maybe I've set myself up now to just keep making that happen. I don't even want to try with people who tell me they like me. I don't want to get involved with people who aren't going to understand. I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to keep hurting myself. But that means I just keep shutting people out of my life. I'm keeping to myself to avoid spreading my misery and to avoid getting hurt even more. But that itself is painful. And I keep going out there with a fucking smile on my face and pretending to be something I'm not. Maybe I've only been pretending to be a normal, functioning human being after all. Maybe I really am that fucked up.

I just want to cry. I just want to be able to scream and punch things and get everything out. But I can't. And that feeling is just building up inside of me. I'm going to snap sometime this week. I can feel it coming. You know, I've never NOT been anxious or stressed out for any decent amount of time. Ever since I can fucking remember, I've always been this way. It amazes me that there are people out there who don't go through every day of their lives like this. I just want to know what it's like to not stress about something or freak out or be physically, emotionally, or mentally messed up by something for a full 24 hours.
I just killed a really big centipede. And I'm going to be thinking about that for hours and not be able to sleep, for example. And that's just one more fucking thing on top of the pile of shit that NEVER GOES AWAY.
I can handle it. I've only had one experience in the last six months where I have felt like I absolutely couldn't, where I fucking stared at the bottle of sleeping pills for hours after looking up how much I needed to take to make sure it would kill me. I cried that night, at least. I fucking bawled my eyes out and finally admitted that it's beaten me--that I've got nothing left. And I still think that's true. I'm losing, and I may have already lost completely. But I'm still moving. I'm still going. And I just can't feel happiness anymore. The only thing I've really been feeling in months is pain, and I can't stand it anymore. I don't want it anymore. I'm just doing things. I keep going because I know I have to. I know there are things that I need to do. But I just don't want to. I don't see the point. And people will tell me it's all in my head. And it is. But you know what? Being happy is all in your head too. Things by themselves are emotionless. Whatever we attach to them is our own doing, our own damned fault. It's all about perception, and I know that mine is kind of fucked up right now. And for other reasons, it always has been and always will be. Yeah, you know this life thing? I'm doing it wrong.

Wednesday?

2011-05-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

I think I'm learning to separate what it means to be sad and what it means to be disappointed. I think I'm feeling disappointed for several reasons today, one of which being that I was absolutely incapable of dragging my ass out of bed before two or three today, and instead of working on cleaning my room or practicing dance moves, I just sat around in my room. (I really do need a desk and a real bed to be productive, it seems).

I spent the day with some friends, but it wasn't what I expected it to be. It was fun, and it was nice to see them, but through some miscommunication, I again wound up feeling like I didn't belong somewhere and that I wasn't really important. I wanted to be really upset. I wanted to be frustrated. But I couldn't. I could only be disappointed, and I didn't mind getting off at some random trolley stop and walking back to South Hills Junction. I actually kind of enjoyed that walk, listening to a Something Corporate song about being lost and confused but being perfectly happy through all of it. I guess the only thing that managed to piss me off was the spider web that got in my face. Luckily, no one was around to watch me flail about like a six-year-old trying to get it off.

Hunger. There are few things more powerful than this. This is how we torture people. Make someone hungry, and you can make them do anything just to have a single bite of food.
I feel like hunger is an emotion. And I'm starving in so many ways. But maybe I needed to go on a diet anyway.

Not knowing what to do means I'm constantly fighting being pulled in different directions. And it's making me really dizzy. There are things that I absolutely need in order to be able to continue functioning properly, and while things have gotten marginally better in the last month or so, they've also gotten worse in some ways. I started talking about two different things there, but I guess it's all the same to me.

I feel bad, but it's becoming very clear to me that I need my own space, for my sake and for the sake of others. I love all of my friends more than they will know, but I just cannot be around people 24/7. I don't mind living with other people, really, but I guess I still don't feel like this is really my space. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am not capable of sustaining myself and that I really have nothing of my own to make my room feel like it belongs to me. I feel like a visitor and a mooch, and maybe that's why there are still no posters on the walls. But I can't go watch movies by myself or sit and draw or really do anything but sleep up there. Maybe that's why I've been sleeping up there for 12 hours a day for the last few days. I can't make myself leave because I just want to be alone or need to get ready to deal with other people. I need to be able to do things at my own pace, and it sucks to say that there are even times when I get uncomfortable just passing someone else in the hall or trying to do something when someone else is in the adjacent room. It's nothing that anyone can help, but I like to be in some sort of control at least most of the time, and there are a lot of ways that that just can't happen where I'm at. I want to be able to move out and start functioning myself, and I also don't because I love everyone here so much. I really don't know what to do, but there isn't anything to do, really. I don't have any money or a job or anything.

A friend pointed out that I write really long messages. I feel like I write really long everything now. I feel like I very rarely get to talk to people about things that matter or share anything with anyone on that level anymore. I'm hoping to get to that point. It's something I feel like I am ready to do with him. But he's not ready or maybe he doesn't want to with me. I just wish I knew. Maybe I'd stop trying or putting myself out there.

I am now about to freak out. This can't keep happening to me. Night.

Love and Graduation

2011-05-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

I actually couldn't wait until I could sit at a computer with a proper space bar, but I'm getting quite used to pressing this little circle when I need to separate my words. It's funny what we can get used to, what we let ourselves get used to. For the past several months, I let myself fall into trap after trap in both the beginnings and endings of relationships. I've said it before, and it's not going to surprise anyone that I've had difficulty being single because I haven't been alone for this long since I was fourteen. And things were very different then.

I don't miss going out on dates. I have plenty of people that want to go places and do things with me, and I mean, I've also got plenty of people who want to fuck me. But that's not what I want or need from someone at this point. Maybe this is what the older folks refer to as wanting to "settle down", but what I miss most is having someone with whom I can be absolutely...ordinary.

I miss the warmth of the body that hits the snooze button just to spend five more minutes wrapped in my arms, the piles of clothes here and there that remind me that this space is not yours or mine but ours, the other toothbrush, going to the grocery store, sitting on the couch in my shorts and being content to never move again because everything I need is just right there with this other person.

I miss being loved more than everyone else. I miss being able to give that to someone else too. I miss the secrets. I miss the games. I miss being able to come home to something. I miss having that someone waiting.

And I worry now that I am too broken for anything to ever work again. Time after time, I've had thoughts that I'm just not cut out to be in a relationship. It seems silly when you look at all of the asshats that end up falling in love, getting married, and spawning more little asshats. But maybe my understanding of love is different from theirs. Perhaps it's a really strange understanding. Statistically, I should be able to find another person who shares that understanding. But what if I don't even LIKE them?

What I'm doing now isn't working. I need to know where I stand with him. I don't think we feel the same way. And that's fine. I just need to know what this even IS. I don't do well with my feelings if I can't categorize them in some way. In order to respond appropriately, I need to know exactly what my relationship to this person is. It's formulaic, yes. But this is pretty much the only way I can function.

Maybe I'm stupid for even getting myself into this. For someone who has struggled with his body his entire life (you can't be surprised by this, really) to enter into a sexual relationship with someone who has a physical aversion to even touching certain parts of him, he must be a fucking desperate idiot, right? But I like him. And I thought that would be enough. But seeing that look on his face makes me want to cry. It makes me want to stop everything and forget I even wanted something for myself. It makes me so aware of what I am and what I am not. Of what I can and will never be.

I feel shame and need to cover myself. I need to hide.

Things are different now. Before, we learned how to handle this together. It was new for both of us. Now I'll be forever teaching my partners what it means to make love to this body and this person. But how many of them will really be able to do that? I keep having horrible thoughts about it. Maybe I've created something that no one can ever love. Maybe I've always been unlovable anyway.

And that's the loneliness I'm feeling. I said the other day that I was never sure I was really okay for any considerable length of time. I'm still trying to get over the most recent bought of being brought out of being okay. I was more than okay. And being able to start this transition made me truly happy. But that didn't change how I would react to having my heart broken over and over again in the months to follow. And I haven't fully recovered. You can't weather this kind of storm. I should have learned my lesson from the first time I had pneumonia.

School is over. I'm done. I am officially a college graduate. Now what the hell do I do? I'm most likely going to be getting a full-time job in the next few weeks. That's the start of "real life" for me, I guess. I'm excited. But there's another part of me that thinks things aren't going to change enough for me to be happy. But I know I can't run away or anything like that because that's too much change. I'm sure I'll have more to say about this graduation thing in the weeks to come since I can't appreciate it at this point. Everything still feels the same. It still feels like a summer vacation about to start. But there are things that will never be ever again. And that terrifies me too. I hate losing things. Maybe that's why I hate things to change when I don't want them to. If I want them to, it's like giving something away, not losing it. You still have to prepare for it, but it is much less painful.

I can only be what I am. I've said this a lot recently. It is both liberating and depressing. And that's how I feel these days. Liberated. And depressed.

Words are still coming. But they will have to come out differently soon.

Rock Bottom

2011-04-25T03:32:00.001-07:00

I pulled an all-nighter working on a queer linguistics project that I really should have been working on all semester. It's a shame that I hadn't started sooner because it's pretty interesting shit.

I came to the realization last night, after sitting on my front porch in the early hours of the morning and crying to myself yet again, that I am indeed as profoundly depressed as I never wanted to admit. I wanted to run back home. I just wanted everything and everyone to stop, and that was the closest alternative to the last remaining unforgivable action in my mind. That doesn't mean I didn't look up how much I needed to take in order to do it and sit there staring at it for hours.

It's hard to describe when you're not in the middle of it. You just get tired of getting up in the morning. You can't feel anything but pain, and all the good things in your life are irrelevant because the pain won't let you feel anything else.

I've been going through the motions and feel like I just don't want anything anymore. I've lost everything. And somehow things and people still find ways to hurt me. I know it isn't true, but I feel like I have nothing. And I don't want anything. I just want it all to stop. I haven't been okay since October or November, really. But it's only been getting worse in the last few weeks.

I can't be anything other than what I am. For better or worse. I knew more of what that meant for me last night than I do right now.

It's finally beaten me. I hit the lowest point of my entire life last night. And nothing really even happened. I guess everything finally hit me. I think in the moments when I finally decide to stop letting people and things hurt me, that's when the real pain begins. Sometimes I want to be numb again.

I'm going to get help. But so much of me doesn't care or think it will matter. So much of me believes that I've never really been okay at any point in my life and that isn't about to change any time soon.

I always feel so alone. But maybe I always have.
I'm not sure anymore.

I'm scared.

Big Boy Shoes

2011-04-23T01:58:00.001-07:00

I'm too pissed for poetry today. But it's an interesting kind of pissed, and since I can't fall asleep and can hear those annoying-ass birds out there already, I might as well do something productive.
I'm not generally very good with relationships because I tend to be an overly trusting person. While I do have the ability to read other people pretty well, sometimes an aura created by good intentions is enough to mask a rather large number of not-so-good actions. That...and the fact that my own emotions sometimes get in the way, but that's pretty much true of anyone who wants to believe in the power of love and friendship and all of that bullshit. I set myself up for terrible things to happen. I get caught in emotionally abusive relationships of varying sorts because I always believe that the other person is really good at heart and has the best intentions in mind, etc. But I'm learning that this does not excuse certain behaviors. I'm learning that I may be wrong about these intentions in the first place. And, most painfully, I am learning that unless I walk away, I will continue to be hurt by those who believe they can say or do anything at all because they just know I'll come running back for more.
The door had been open for a long time. And then all of my shit was stolen. And then smashed up. And then my house was set on fire. And then you pissed on the ashes. When I rebuild, the cycle repeats. This time, I'll learn to lock the door.
I've been such a nice person all this time. But nice makes you vulnerable. Even so, I have never let these experiences of being hurt prevent me from being nice. People have always taken advantage of my extraordinarily high levels of patience and generosity, and I had until now believed that it was better to continue being a nice person. That's what it means, right? You don't ask for anything in return, and even when you get trampled, you still give your all to those around you. But giving your all doesn't work in the long run because you just end up losing yourself. And now it's time that I take myself back.
You know, I used to be such a nice boy...
I see no reason to be nice anymore. No reason to try anymore. No reason to hide how I feel at all, really. My feelings have never been spared. I have been publicly humiliated, undermined, debased. I've been cornered and threatened and coerced and manipulated. And when I cried, it was never for myself. This is what happens when you push and push and keep pushing. Something's got to give, honey. We've discovered my breaking point. And I'm only worried about how this will affect broader things, not my personal life. I'm better off without this in my personal life, if you really must know.
Parasitic? No. Infectious.
People can die before they've stopped breathing, before their hearts have stopped beating.

Disruptions

2011-03-13T03:48:00.000-07:00

This is the self-helped boy who helped himself to whatever he could except whatever could help him help himself escape the recursion of relationships with other selves.

This is the man-made man who made men make mis(s)takes.

This is the underhanded [under hand] of the handsome handyman whose hands had a hand in asking your hand.

This is the brain of a brain that thinks in rhythm and rhyme, meter and time in a musical mind, and this is the problem:

Any line, any time, any rhythm or rhyme
Any boy, any man, any
hand
mistake or
relationship
can
be disrupted.

The Keeper

2011-03-13T03:30:00.000-07:00

He's going to hurt himself.
You can see it in his eyes the way he plans to take you by surprise, and I'm sorry.
This is how it dies.
Your glare isn't much of a disguise.
but Who needs lies when you've got those eyes?

I'm lying too and prying and trying and kicking and sticking to what I've been told I'm supposed to do and hoping you are too. Breaking through. And something new,

nice advice think twice lame ass excuse for unwarranted abuse
and we're both engaged
to this pain

brain stuck no luck moving past dead last dead beat that's me
me one me two me three
three times over three times three the math has gotten the better of me
and so have you

superficial pausing causing you to misread mislead misneed
me
me
me
and who's this really about shout it to
me

keep shouting keep kicking and biting and inviting
me
keep looking and taking and making
me
keep me
me
me
keep
me

Sometimes

2011-03-13T03:20:00.001-07:00

sleepless night sleeveless shirt feeling tight
forever
ever-fading
voice caught on tape

we moved away from one another
and i don't recognize her

only
sometimes

speechless toy seamless boy just feeling
forever
ever-feeling
boy by himself

only
sometimes

One-Year and Many Thoughts

2011-03-12T21:03:00.000-08:00

Well, this doesn't start with my freaking out, so that's a step in the right direction, but although this isn't going to be terribly negative and depressing, I'm fairly certain there is nothing positive about the situation either. I just used a lot of words to say nothing, which means I must be trying too hard to make this not sound whiny or desperate. I'm far from those things, really. I'm happy. I'm really happy with myself and what I have managed to accomplish, yet I'm also ashamed of myself and disappointed in myself, and I can't quite shake what I'm feeling. And then there are the things that I really can't talk to anyone about. I guess that is the downside to everyone knowing everyone else in your circle of friends.

I've made videos and written about this in a lot of other places, but maybe I should take some time to work this out right here. It's been just over a year since I began taking testosterone, and I could finish this sentence in any number of ways. Not all of the changes have been physical, and a physical change does not necessarily equate with a visible change. The emotions I experience have not changed, but how I handle the experience definitely has. I think I've improved in some ways, which may have nothing to do with the hormone at all, but I also believe that there were periods throughout the past 12 months during which the fluctuation in my hormone levels became an added burden. I'm thinking back to the difficult time I had dealing with my family and housing situations over the summer. I honestly could not figure out how to handle these things, and I felt like I was fighting with myself more and more. It felt like a physical battle, and I couldn't always come out victorious. And then I started failing to meet my obligations, which only made certain people harder to deal with, and that's where things began to get out of control. I have no problem talking about that situation anymore, and maybe that's one of the things I need to get off my chest.

There is a very large part of me that knows that he knows what he did was wrong. A huge part of me wants to believe that he really does feel these things--that my decision made sense in light of what was happening. I feel that he does indeed know that he played a pivotal role in helping to force me out, even disregarding the final incident. I'm struggling with this thought that I can't force out of my head. I keep seeing people here and there around campus--people with whom I used to be very close--and I receive nothing but positive vibes from most of them. I'm usually pretty good about picking up on these things, and I'm glad that I know this now. I now know that sometimes my negative emotions and feelings are not coming from inside of me, and being able to separate my own emotions from those of others has been immensely helpful. I want to start talking to them again. And I kept feeling terrible in trying to get this problem solved through the University because the only thing I felt like I was doing was getting revenge. I kept turning it over in my head, and it never made me feel good. Why would I ever want anyone else to feel what I felt? Why would I want to take from someone else what was taken from me? And how would that help me at all? I don't want him to lose it. I just want him to understand what he did and why it hurt me so much, and maybe I should have done this a long time ago. Maybe I should have had that conversation with him in person. It's funny because I know I was about to. I was going downstairs to have that exact conversation--to talk about how things had gotten so bad with the others that I felt like leaving. I wanted to talk about the fact that I knew why everyone was upset and had been upset, that I knew I wasn't always meeting the obligations that I said I would, that I knew something needed to be done. I prayed to be punished. I prayed to have someone tell me that I needed to make up for what I had failed to do. I prayed for someone to have an actual conversation with me instead of talking about me behind my back and mocking me for things that were completely unrelated. I prayed for someone to act like a fucking grown-up in that situation. Maybe I was getting so messed up and so easily frustrated because I was trying to get their attention--trying to reach out for them to help me when I knew I was not in a place to help myself. I know that I had become pretty vocal about things that bothered me. And I refused to keep quiet about the things that mattered to me anymore. And then conflicts arose. I'm quite an easy person to deal with in reality. I don't think I'm an unreasonable person. You just have to talk to me. But I know that's not easy. And because I know that isn't easy, I'm even more understanding. But I felt betrayed that night. I'm letting you all know. I felt like my heart had been ripped out by the one person I thought I could trust that night. The whole day had been a nightmare, and I had to walk from East Liberty to the house in the rain, and all I wanted to do was just sit by myself for a few minutes so that I could regain control. To be mocked for that--in the middle of it--was something I really couldn't take. I needed someone to listen. I could move again when I heard him come in. I moved downstairs. And the rest, as they say, is history.
I will never be able to get back what was taken from me in that final season. And that has hurt me more than a lot of people can understand. Anyone who was in it with me would have the greatest chance of understanding. I came that last day with my friends and fucking bawled my eyes out when you played cadences from my freshman year. Other than Mark, I was the only one who would have known them.
I see you guys all the time, walking down the street, in the Union. Some of you try not to look at me. I wish I could have honesty more than anything. It eliminates a lot of frustration and confusion. There was another person I thought would have been able to understand. We used to be friends. She surprised me. If I disappointed you, I need you to know the feeling was mutual.
Yeah, I still think about it. I have to think about it every time I pick up a pair of sticks or sit down at my set, every time my band friends talk about this or that, every time I pick up my keys, every time I listen to 311 EVER, every time I walk by the places we all used to go. I defined myself by this for a long time, and it IS a part of me, whether I want it to be or not. I do want it to be. But it would be easier to forget all about it. It would be easier if I could pretend that those 4.5 years of my life never happened, but I can't do that. I wouldn't want to. You gave me so much of myself. I learned my first little bits of self-confidence in those years. I learned so much about dealing with people and met some of the people who have helped to change my life, and I keep praying that one day they'll be back again. I want to say all of these things to you and more. I want to say that I gave you everything that I could have, and I know it wasn't what you wanted from me in this last year. But there was no more of me to give by the end, and I felt like everyone was chipping away at me. I can't apologize for just trying to get by. I can't apologize for trying to keep myself together and functioning. I can't apologize for being out of it because of not eating for 2 days and then coming to practice. I didn't want to be in those situations, and I didn't know how to get out of them, and it seemed like no one was going to help me. I did the right things for me. And that was never easy for me to do, and I'm glad I finally learned how to stand up for myself without throwing a punch. I walked away because it was the only control I could exercise, though it was most likely the only option I had left. I knew something bad was about to happen. I could feel a physical altercation coming with at least one or two people, and I wouldn't have been the first one to swing. I did the right thing. It's not selfish to want to protect yourself.

I didn't expect that to take so much out of me. But now I'm in the writing zone. Now things are coming pretty easily, and all I have to do is choose something. And boy do I have a lot to choose from.

Not knowing what I want to do with my life is terrifying me, and no matter how many times I say that I am becoming okay with this, I'm not getting there quickly enough. I'm worried that the last several years of my life have been wasted studying things that I will never have to use, which was probably going to be true anyway, but I would at least like to know that my degrees are going to be worth something to me. I'm terrified that I'll never be what I wanted to be. But I hope I don't think that just because that's what everyone expected me to be. I'll come out and fucking say it already, and I've never said this before in my life, and you'll probably never hear me say it again. I'm a genius. I see things and understand things that most people can't. And people have known this since the day I was fucking born, and there has been nothing but pressure on me to be the kind of person that changes the world ever since. People have been filling my head with this shit for my entire life. It's funny because half the world was telling me that I'd be a scumbag and never get out, while the other hald was telling me I'd make it big and never look back. I'm not sure that either is true. I didn't apply to med school because I didn't want to do something I wasn't sure was right for me. I didn't want to devote my life to a career and have no life of my own when I got home at the end of the day. I didn't want to fix people or make them think that they were broken. I wanted to be a very progressive kind of doctor more concerned with preventive medicine and comprehensive care, but that wasn't what people wanted of me, and they made me think that I shouldn't be a doctor because of it. I don't know if I want to be a doctor because I don't know if I could handle being in school for that much longer. I don't know if I could put the rest of my life on hold, not just for school, but for residency, and indefinitely. I don't know if I want my life to be all about that one thing. I'm trying to find a way to do the things I want to do and help the people I want to help. I know I will probably have to go back to school at some point, but I have no idea when or for what, and that's scaring me too. I don't have the answers. But I also don't want to spend the rest of my life in debt and never being able to enjoy anything. I'm even terrified about getting a job. I didn't do so well over the summer with that job. What if I just can't handle having one? Then what do I do? I'm scared of fucking up at whatever I do pick. I've applied to like 20 Pitt and UPMC jobs. And I'm terrified about almost all of them. I don't want to get locked into something I have no intention of pursuing, and I don't want to fuck up at whatever I decide to do. And I hate looking at the list of things that you are supposed to know how to do. What if I suck at whatever it is they think I should know how to do already? And I keep wondering if this recent snafu with Julie is going to prevent me from ever doing research again, if I decide that that's the path I need to take. There are so many things I am interested in. There are so many things that I could potentially make a career out of. How am I supposed to make this choice? I have considered becoming a personal trainer for a little while. My mom thinks I should try that too. I love to perform. I love to teach. I love to help and serve. I love to figure things out and solve problems. I love to create. I have passion for a lot of things. I love organizing things. I don't know why, but I love making lists and schedules and making complicated things easier for people to understand. I have no idea how to sift through all of this. It was easy when I thought I knew what I wanted to do--when I could just dismiss everything else because I already had a plan. But I don't have a plan now. I don't know what the hell is going on. As much as I want things to change in some ways, I'm fucking terrified of this because I will need to find a way to ground myself all over again.

I don't want to graduate with the wrong name on my diploma. But that sentence alone reminds me of something else entirely. I want to be able to be in a functional relationship with someone. It hurts to know that someone doesn't think you are emotionally stable enough. So then maybe you talk about it, and then things are better than they have ever been for about two days, and then shit hits the fan, and you are so paranoid about freaking out that when a situation does arise to cause you to freak out, you are doubly fucked, and then it becomes even worse because the other person isn't quite sure of how to handle you when you get like that. I've been so bummed out about relationship stuff over the last 7 or 8 months, and I just can't make those feelings go away. I'm trying hard not to shut myself off from connecting with people, but I know it's been happening. A part of me wants to stop trying altogether. A part of me believes that I am not the kind of person someone else can be with for an extended period of time. It makes me never want to try again...not that there are many people I've actually been interested in anyway. I need to feel something. And that doesn't happen very often. I will know almost immediately if things could work out. And I hate that. I hate that I can't just go with things and have fun. I could say so much more about this subject, but that's another one of those things I feel I can't really talk about with anyone because, again, everyone knows everyone else, and shit's going to get around somehow.
I think I really am at the what-comes-next point in my life. And I don't know the answer. And it's hurting me. And I am scared and want to cry. But I can't always do that.
I need to make it through these next few weeks. I just need to get out of school. And I am not so sure that I want to start a job immediately after I graduate, which is what everyone wants me to do, and I know it's what I should do because I'm poor as all hell. But I need time to breathe. I'm going to go crazy if I don't have a little time. I'm hoping for part time in the beginning. Maybe that will ease the transition to being a real person.
"Whatever" is a thought that keeps crossing my mind. I keep thinking that I might actually be depressed, but I'm not sure that that makes sense. I get miserable sometimes, but I'm generally alright. But maybe alright isn't good enough. I am scared that people will think that this has something to do with my transition, when I know that that is the only thing that is keeping my head above water sometimes. That's my stabilizing force right now--that and performing. I was able to dive into my thesis for the last few weeks, and that really helped too. I enjoyed learning new things and synthesizing those concepts into something that was on track to be published. But my train got fucking derailed. I just feel like one thing has happened after another to fuck with me, and my reaction might be what is normal. I am supposed to feel upset about things like that. But how do I stop thinking about them. How do I let go of all of this baggage? I'm not sure that I've ever been able to really let go of anything. That's another thing about me that worries me.
Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm terribly alone because there are things that I wish I could talk about or wish I could share with someone. I miss having that. It's not horrible, but there are those days when I realize that I am alone and probably will be for a while, and it makes me sad. I'm also breathing heavily right now.
I'm at the point where I am scared to be open with some people. And then I end up spilling my guts to people who may not want to hear it.

Random: Apparently, everyone is moving to Portland.

I have met so many people who have literally changed my life all in under a year. And the people I thought were going to be around forever about a year ago are no longer in my life at all. And this is something that I can't quite deal with either. And now I am learning that many of these people that are now so important to me will be leaving too. It's hard not to feel like a loser that's getting left behind.

I also feel weird because I love the people I am living with, and this place really does feel like a home. But I am at the point where I feel like I need a space that is 100 percent mine. I want to create my own home. I want to be able to have this fresh beginning and have a place where I am always in control. I haven't had that in quite a while, and that has probably been contributing to my general state of fucked-upedness. I've found a few good places. There is one that I am really hoping for, but I would need two roommates, and as I said, I don't know if that is an option. I'm scared about living with most people. Three bedroom place in East Liberty for less than 900. And it's a really nice townhouse. The other is the one that I really want. A one bedroom in East Liberty that's 10 minutes walking distance from my gym. And it has exposed brick and hardwood floors and it's just beautiful. 650 a month. I need a job so I can do this. But I feel funny because I'd like to be able to share my home with someone, even visitors, but I am scared that everyone is leaving me. It's completley irrational. And that irritates me too.
I think I could go on forever. I kind of want to because I have nothing better to do, which probably isn't helping me right now. I think there are things that I should be doing, but my brain can't focus on them because it has all of this other shit swarming around up there. I wish there a way to fix that without drugs.
I realized that my legs aren't getting better when I went for a run today. I really need to get this scan and find a new physical therapist. But I want to be able to afford it. Yet anothre reason why I need a job. See job gripes above to understand the vicious nature of this predicament.
I need a new memory card. I am very upset that I cannot find the other one because there are still pictures on it. It has to be with my stuff somewhere.
Not having a desk/bed/level floor also messes with me. But I am way more concerned about getting my name changed than having any of these things. But that whole process seems daunting, and I can't do this by myself. I was upset when they didn't come back with me to work on things last week because I knew that I could potentially freak out, and I wanted someone there to get me out before I could cause damage to myself or my situation. Ugh.
I feel like I am just bitching about things now. I'm stuck in this negative space again and need to find something positive to talk about.
Even with the pain, it felt good to move outside like that. But the pain is unbearable and is preventing me from just GOING.
I need a bike.
So many random thoughts in my head. So much to do. But somehow, thinking about that bike is making me happy.
But then again, I need money.
I know it's time to stop when the thoughts don't form paragraphs anymore.

Surprise

2011-03-04T11:02:00.001-08:00

I'm pretty sure I only write in here when I'm severely messed up in the head. I wish that weren't the case. I think I've reached the point of not even being able to write about what's going on in there. I can't grab a hold of anything in my head or outside of it. I'm not grounded in any way. This isn't going to be good. I feel like this past week and a half of this is going to keep building until something really terrible happens, and that just makes me want to stay away from everyone.

Music and Emotions

2011-02-04T03:44:00.000-08:00

1. If U C Jordan --Something Corporate
2. Just a Dream --Nelly
3. Misdirected Hostility -- 311
4. Fuck You -- Cee-lo Green
5. Perfect -- Midtown
6. Crackerbox Palace --George Harrison
7. The Suffering -- Coheed and Cambria
8. Love Drunk --Boys Like Girls
9. Photographs and Memories --Jim Croce
10. I Can Do Anything -- 3OH!3
11. I'm Amazed -- My Morning Jacket
12. Aeroplane -- Red Hot Chili Peppers
13. War All the Time -- Thursday
14. Dream On -- Aerosmith
15. If You Want Blood (You Got It) -- AC/DC
16. The Devil in Jersey City --Coheed and Cambria
17. Konstantine --Something Corporate
18. This Too Shall Pass -- 311
19. Love 2012 -- 3OH!3
20. Ballad for the Lost Romantics --New Found Glory
21. Hurricane -- Something Corporate
22. Fuckin Perfect -- Pink
23. Hold My Hand -- New Found Glory

Confusion and Frustration

2011-02-04T03:07:00.000-08:00

It's hard to tell the difference between confusion and frustration.

Out of all the things written on both the front and back of that page, this was the only thing I felt comfortable sharing. I'm writing things that I feel that I can't tell anyone right now because I'm not quite prepared for what might happen if I do share them. I'm not sure that I even have the desire to share them. To be honest, I wish I could erase a lot of what's going on in my head because it gets annoying to have to deal with myself all the time, but there is another part of me that wants to hold on. Perhaps the latter part is more worried about losing himself in the process. And I'm finding it difficult to manage my own affairs when my head isn't quite where it should be. Who knows? Maybe it is exactly where it should be and I just haven't figured out how to adjust to it yet. That's certainly more likely given my history, but how do I know what's what? It's another one of those ridiculous and almost pointless questions about what is real and what isn't, and I've never put too much faith into answering questions like that because I feel that an individual's opinion fluctuates based upon his circumstances. As much as drastic change completely fucks with me, I think it's time for something moderately uprooting. I'm not quite ready to leave this place yet, and recent events have made me consider the possibility that I may never be, but I have come to the conclusion that I really just need school to be over for the time being. My life is a mess financially and potentially otherwise, and school truly is the least important thing I have to deal with now. But it has always been the most stable element in my life. That's all I've ever really done, and it'll be nice to see how I operate without having to answer to anyone else for a little while. I've been under pressure to be and do something--anything--for my entire life, and I want to see what it is like to not have that be a factor. I fear that I'll enjoy that too much to want to return to academia, but another part of me believes that I'll get bored and feel unproductive after a certain amount of time. Maybe something in between will happen.
It'd be nice to be able to focus on one idea long enough to figure out the best solution. But maybe now's not the time for that. I've been working on that one for a little while--the not having all the answers thing. I don't know. I've been saying that a lot recently, and I hate feeling that way, and the worst of it is that everyone wants to make sure you DO feel that way when you say those three magic words. I'm not surprised that I don't know what to do. That's easier to deal with than not knowing what you want, which is unfortunately where I am right now. I keep thinking in circles, and it's very frustrating because I know that there isn't anything I can do to make the answers come to me any faster. I just have to keep going to figure it out, just like with performances of mine. I just keep listening. I just keep letting the pictures play in my head. And then it happens. I would just like to feel like I have more control sometimes. Maybe, like with drag performances, I have much more control than I think I do.

I don't want to be the annoying person that I feel like I'm being when I write things like this, but what else is this supposed to be for? It's hard to be creative these days because sometimes I feel that the stress that used to fuel my writing has become so amplified by the dramatic changes that have occurred over the past several months that it completely inhibits my ability to work effectively. I know how it happened, whether or not I fully understand why, and I'm still working on getting back to what I consider normal, but I know that I might be the one preventing myself from getting there. Time is a stupid son of a bitch, but it is the thing that keeps everything from happening all at once, so I can't be too upset with it.

Maybe I just need to be home. I've been out of the loop for about two weeks now. It's interesting what that amount of time alone with yourself can do to you, especially when your body is in that much pain. You'll lose yourself in whatever thoughts happen to come your way just to escape your body for a little while, and that can lead you to some places you didn't really want to go. Speculation can be the enemy, and it usually is for me. I do a lot better when I'm just not thinking about it, whatever it may be. I lost where I was going with this, which means I really do need to get out of my own head soon. That particular phrase always reminds me of one person and one specific incident that fucked me over early this summer, and thinking of him makes me think of a whole mess of other people, and then you see the split-second chain reaction that drags me back down. Everything has all of these other associations tied to it, and nothing exists by itself. I have a problem believing people when they try to convince me otherwise. I don't have the luxury of oversimplification, so I'm sorry if I can find all of the pieces you've tried to hide under the rug.

I'm pretty sure I smell terrible right now.

I like making lists.

Out.

I Can't Think

2011-01-19T22:37:00.000-08:00

I just want to be able to stop moving long enough to figure out my life. I almost lost it completely tonight, and I have no idea why. I remember feeling frustrated, but not for the reasons you might think. Or maybe they had a little bit to do with it after all. Again, I'm not sure. And the uncertainty itself is stressful. I feel like I'm fucking up everything I'm trying to do right now, and now I feel silly about the whole mess because not so long ago a good friend of mine was telling me the same thing, and I know I didn't take her words as seriously as I should have. I didn't pay nearly enough attention to her concerns because she seemed to excel at everything she did, and I just couldn't understand for some reason. Now, I'm about to graduate, and I actually have to produce something. I actually do have to worry about doing the right things and doing them well because the rest of my life is affected by the things that happen in the next several months to a year. I just wish I could focus on the few things that are important to me and not have to worry about this legal matter or that. I don't want to have to worry about being so poor that I can't afford to buy food or medication or get blood tests done. But I know that I have to deal with all of these things, and I don't think I'm doing that very well. And I really don't know how to get help or get out of this. I need to graduate. I need to get through this semester and just not do anything for a while. But that's not an option. And I feel that I'm coming towards a very rough few weeks. I didn't have a good night. I did lose it. But not completely. And maybe if I had I'd be able to start over right now. I still feel like there's something left inside of me that couldn't quite get out.
Am I frustrated because there were things that didn't get resolved that should have? Is it about feeling out of control of a lot of situations? Memories? Probably everything, but I would love to be able to isolate the precipitating factors.

Valentine's Day is coming up. And I'm terrified of how that's going to go for me.
I'm pretty sure I'm jealous of everyone around me. I'm fully aware of how immature this is. It's funny. It's not that people aren't interested in me, but I feel that they are interested in me for the wrong reasons. People see a different person on stage than I am in real life, and not many people realize that. I feel like there is an open gate between my drag persona and me. Sometimes we swap traits with one another, but we're not really the same person. I'm not always that confident, especially in relating to other people. I can definitely talk to other people and have enjoyable conversations, but getting close to people is so fucking hard for me. And I've always been pretty scared of it. It's just that a lot of people who are "interested in me" right now just want to fuck me or get fucked by me, and that's not something that I can do without knowing someone. I've really tried to be that kind of guy who can just take someone home, but it's never going to happen.

I'm not sure that I'm capable of getting close to anyone anymore, at least for the time being. I am now way too self conscious. I'm always the one whose heart gets broken: It's always my fault, something I did or didn't do. That sounds way worse than I actually mean it to. I just mean that I clearly haven't done the right things in the various relationships I've been in, and I'm no closer to figuring it out.
I'm too intimidated to even put myself out there for real. Not many people understand, and I'm fairly certain not many people would want to be with someone like me, and I'm not talking entirely about my gender here. It's all so silly. I wish I could block all of this out of my life and mind. I don't want to have to deal with this now when I have all the other things mentioned above going on. But it's there. It seems like it's always there, and I've been very lonely for several months. How do I fix this? Beats me. So I just keep going hoping things will change one day soon.

I didn't want this post to be about this. I wanted to do something a little more fun for people to read. Instead, it came across as bitching again.

I keep thinking that I might actually be depressed. Sometimes I just get up and don't feel like there's a point. I won't even start something that I really want to do, I'll feel like things that used to be important won't matter anymore. It's like my heart's not in things anymore, but my head knows that it isn't and tries to make sense of it. And I think that contributes to nights like this one. I've just been trying to push through it, but it's really been months. It hit me sometime in October or November after getting me a bit in the late summer. I know a lot of people won't agree with what I'm about to say, but sometimes I think I have a legitimate reason to feel the way I do. Maybe my head's just too fucked up all the time. I don't know. I'm even getting the feeling now that there isn't much of a point in continuing to describe this. I don't really like talking about it, though. This isn't who I am or want to be.

I want the pieces of my life to fit together the right way. They're all over the floor right now, and I'm getting really frustrated with having to jam them into places they don't fit.

And now for some reason I just want to be able to cry. No idea why. It just seems appropriate. Of course, that's not as easy as it used to be.

I feel really lost. I need a direction. There are a few things in my life that give me direction for brief moments, little tasks with finite end points and specific goals. But the whole thing's a fucking mess. I don't know how to manage it. Everything is way too different for me now, and I never had time to figure it all out and adjust to it, and it's just going to keep changing and keep fucking with me until I refuse to deal with any of it anymore and lock myself away for good.

What the fuck? Really.

I just want to run.

I miss having someone waiting for me when I get home. I'm worried about what people with think when they read that. At this point, I've stopped caring. Downward spiral much?

I can't relax. I can't recharge. I'm really fucked. I need help. Please.

Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, something happens to remind me that I'm really just sitting in the same place I've always been.

Every time any little thing happens around me tonight, I want to pound my fists into the ground and scream. People sneezing, other unexpected noises, etc. But I keep everything in. And I feel like I'm doing this all the time some days, and it's all just to keep other people happy and keep them from thinking I'm some sort of fuck up or freak. Why do I do this? I do it because I don't want to be lonely anymore, and I want to be out there in the real world with real people, but the way my head is right now, that's not possible. This cycle is going to kill me.

Maybe this will never change. Maybe this is as good as it gets. I said that to a good friend of mine about a completely unrelated issue of his. Maybe I have to turn that back on myself. Maybe I have reached the highest point. I've come to accept a lot of things about myself, but I've always believed that there was hope for things to get even better, and that is what has pushed me forward in most cases. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I'm typing things and not fully understanding why. The words are just coming out and sounding right, and there's nothing more to it. I can't get away right now. There's nowhere I can go and nothing I can do. And I've felt like this for months as I've hopped around from place to place without feeling like I really belong anywhere. I'm tired of feeling like I'm just visiting. I WANT TO GO HOME. I just want to go home.

And I don't want to stop typing right now because that means I'm faced with nothingness again. Actually, that doesn't make any sense. It just means that I have to deal with my own brain and my thoughts without any way at all to filter them out. At least typing gets me to focus only on the things that I need to put into words. I can't do that with talking right now. And maybe I actually still am thinking about way too many things because sometimes the words really don't make any sense. I feel helpless. And useless. And I hate it.

Fuck.

brain

2011-01-10T01:36:00.000-08:00

I'm amazed at how far I have come and yet more at how much further I have to go.

Out with the Old

2010-12-31T14:59:00.001-08:00

I'm feeling really funny tonight, and I wish I could more succinctly describe it than I'm about to. Most of my friends aren't going to have anything to do with me tonight. I'm not even that surprised about it because I feel like this has been building up for a while. In addition, I keep thinking about things that happened about 3 months ago and all of the people that are no longer in my life--people I really cared about and assumed felt the same way about me. I just can't believe that not a single person cared enough to say something or to even attempt to make me feel like they thought I was a real person. Maybe I actually fear that there were people who understood what happened and why I made my decision but they just weren't strong enough to speak out against the mob mentality that had begun to reign over the entire group. I hate when I have to question more than four years worth of memories. Was any of it real? Where are my friends now? Where were they when I really needed them--when I had all but lost my own family, was afraid of being murdered, was afraid to go home at night, was having meltdowns and panic attacks almost every day, and was afraid to even mention it to them because I didn't want to have them make me feel like the problem child? I hated being treated like a nuisance and I hated causing problems for people that were supposedly doing so much for me. But I started to question things. I'm a pretty perceptive person, despite some deficiencies. In fact, I make up for those by being very, very good in other areas. I won't say which ones because those of you that care will know what I mean anyway. It also helped to have eyes and ears "on the inside". I guess I knew it had been going on with certain people for a long time. I'd heard it from multiple people, but I never expected to catch the person I did, and on a night like that, that was the last thing I needed. That was one of the most crushing things I have ever felt. I felt every little fiber of my heart being ripped apart over and over again. And I was seriously depressed for a long time, and I don't think I'm completely over all of that yet, but it sent me on a pretty awful spiral. I lost a little over 10 pounds in a few weeks, partly because I didn't feel like eating and partly because sometimes I just couldn't afford to anyway. I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me. I guess I'm just feeling really frustrated, and I wanted to get this all out tonight. The year is almost over, and I'm going to have to leave things behind again. But I hate feeling like I have to leave behind all the good things and happy memories because I can't be sure if they were real. I can't be sure if a certain person was being genuine in helping me out all the times he did. I really don't know anymore. He was the person that made me want to stick around the most this year. He was my connection to the rest of them--the one who had known me longer than the rest. I got through some of the shit other people were saying about me because of him, and he made me feel like it didn't even matter because there were far more people who didn't see me that way. But now I'm not sure that that was true, and I'm not sure that he even gave a fuck about me. Maybe he was just doing his job, keeping the peace. How do I tell? I know I'm going to lose them all forever. I don't want that. But I don't see any other way at this point. I need to proceed this way because it's going to happen again, and some other kid's going to get their heart ripped out. I'm seeing the signs already, and I don't like where things are going for some of the others. What do I tell this trans bass drummer from up north when he asks me about joining the line? Think about that one.
I'm queer. And I'm out. This is something I've been struggling with for a while now, and the whole thing gets me absolutely livid. People don't have a problem with gay people. A lot of people say there is no problem at all as long as they don't "act gay". Well, what does that mean? It really means that they are exhibiting atypical gender behaviors. People don't have an issue with sexual orientation. The real problem is deviance from expectations of gender. If a man displays typically feminine characteristics or interests, people take issue and violence can ensue. If a woman does not, she is invisible, ridiculed, not real. It disgusts me to know that had I just been a "normal" guy and kept quiet about my queer life and interests, I wouldn't have been mocked, harassed, and humiliated like that.
I need to start getting ready for tonight. Hopefully, I will be in a better mood later on, but many of the people who could have cheered me up this time last year aren't going to be anywhere near me tonight or any time soon, it seems. Maybe some of them--perhaps most of them--are gone forever too. But I have found new friends in places I would never have expected. In fact, I was sure that I would not like one of them at all, never having had a real conversation. But that just goes to show you that you really can't rely on first impressions. That's a problem that I've faced before too. I'm not always the easiest person to get. I may not say a lot or may seem disinterested, but I'm probably just overwhelmed and thinking way too hard about the whole interaction. I'm not shy, in reality. If you get to the real me--if you can get past all of that other shit--I'm very friendly and love talking to people. And more than anything, I love to make people laugh. I am the ice breaker, and that's often at my own expense. If I can make it easier for the whole group to interact, I will gladly strip myself of my dignity. But you should be aware that this does not give anyone else that right.
Alrighty. Pushups, then clothes, then to the party.

December 27

2010-12-27T16:28:00.000-08:00

I don't need saving. I don't need to be taken care of. I'm sorry that this had to happen, but that conversation really needed to end when it did.

Another one gone, I guess. How many friends will I lose in this new year?

Neuro Class

2010-12-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

I have that funny feeling behind my eyes that tells me I haven't slept through the night, but what feels even worse is the way I can feel my heart beating double-time as I lie there twenty minutes before my alarm is supposed to go off. I knew my day was going to be shitty from the very beginning, and things haven't been getting any easier. I have something to say to professors who think that poster presentations for ten people in a tiny ass room with everyone else in the class wandering around while all of these people are talking is a good idea: It's not. I felt like I was going to scream the entire time, and I couldn't really listen to anyone anyway. And now I have to GIVE one of these presentations on Wednesday. Guess who's going to fail.
You know what that means for the class I'm in now? There's no point in being here for me because I'm not able to pay attention. I'm glad I have this here to keep my a little focused on something, even if it's not what I'm supposed to be concentrating on. You have no idea how happy I will be when this semester is over. It's strange, but I know that the reason that this whole semester has been out of whack for me is because of the way it started, and even if I have most of my shit together now, the fact that I didn't start out that way really screwed me up. I need this current phase to conclude. My filter's going to work a lot better when I can clean out all this gunk from the fall semester.
I'm going to graduate after all. I need to fill out a bunch of forms this week, but other than that, it's going to happen. There were a lot of times when I didn't think it would, for various reasons. Maybe I thought I was going to be arrested. Maybe I thought I was just going to quit because I couldn't take it. And then maybe I thought that I wouldn't be able to afford that next payment.
I don't know why I was so uncomfortable last night. I have some theories, though.
I need to leave this class early anyway. Why did I even show up? Oh, because I didn't go on Wednesday. I've had to miss way more class this semester than I ever have in college, and this might even rival my absenteeism in high school.
I still feel kind of sick.
I'm starting to get that twitchy feeling.
Another thing that pisses me off...When a student sends you multiple messages about missing grades and random zeros you've entered in CourseWeb, it'd be nice to have a fucking response instead of telling me when I confronted you about it two weeks later that you had gotten my messages and that you'll get to them. Some people don't like to miss the start of their next class. However, I just don't like talking to you, and that's my excuse. And you know...I really just don't like you.
I know that I'm probably feeling funny because it's almost time for my shot. I know the dose isn't high enough. I started feeling really shitty on Friday night. I think I'm starting to recognize a pattern here. Dr. Gold never got back to me about the blood tests. My insurance isn't going to cover them. I'm going to have to go somewhere else where maybe someone can help me out. I just want all of the random suck to stop for just a little bit. That'd be great.
I'm really not taking any of this in.
Why do I have to be so messed up? The worst part of this is that I get away with all of this and have for years. I don't know whether that's good or bad anymore.
I promise to write something where I'm not just bitching about random shit soon.
I'm seeing a nutritionist soon, so I have to leave this class early. I'm getting extra credit for it. I'm kind of interested, but I am worried that it's going to be a huge waste of my time.
I am terrified of the insane debt that I've gotten myself into. I don't think I'll ever get out of it. I couldn't make the payment this month, so it pretty much doubled when the late fee was added. And, um, I still can't pay it, so I don't know what's going to happen except that things are going to get much, much worse.
What the hell am I going to do after graduation? It's not freaking me out, but it's still worrisome. I have all these options now, and decisions are scary. It was easy when I knew exactly what I wanted to do and exactly what I needed to do to get there. Uncertainty is a huge part of my life now. I can't tell if that's messing with me or not.
I had another dream about getting into a fight with someone. This was way more epic and involved more people on both sides of it, and it's an event that might have happened a few weeks ago had I chosen something different.
I just want to stop doing things. I need like 3 or 4 days of nothingness. That's not even going to happen over break because I'm working almost every day. I really need to make that money. I just wanted my fucking name changed before graduation, but now I need to worry about this credit card shit before it really gets bad. I mean, it's already bad. And things aren't looking up.
I alternate between believing that I'm actually depressed and thinking that there are certain things going on in my life that would reasonably make someone feel this way. Sometimes you're supposed to feel like shit. There's nothing wrong with feeling depressed when someone close to you dies, for example. So if I am reminded from time to time of something that really makes me feel terrible, it's not pathological to me. I think what's making me question this is the fact that I get reminded of this almost constantly. I feel pretty stupid about not being able to control this--not being able to force myself into forgetting. I think I've said too much already.
Byez.

Ramble Ramble

2010-11-23T00:29:00.000-08:00

I think I have such a hard time letting go because I know exactly what I'm missing, and I'm confronted with that feeling of loss from time to time. I have to do my best not to let that overwhelm me, but sometimes I just fail. I don't know how to interpret this or the other feelings that rise to the surface. Maybe this is just a part of it. Maybe this is what it means. I don't want to be that guy. Or maybe I do, and that's the whole problem.
Maybe I don't want to be anyone's right now. Or maybe I just want to be someone's. I don't know what the answer is. I'm not done dealing with the last several months of relationship disasters. I don't know if I will ever be. Christ, I sound sixteen again. I might just be missing a lot of people and things right now. I'm scared to not miss them, really.
I wish I had a bit more time to write, but I have to be up early tomorrow because I'm going on JJ's webcast. Maybe I can get a few more things out anyway.
It's almost Thanksgiving. That means it will have been a year since my parents found out about my trans identity. I say this because I did not choose to come out to them at that time, though it would have happened a few days later, had things gone my way--had the power of facebook not rendered that impossible. So much has changed in one year. That one year feels like it has lasted a lifetime. A lifetime's worth of people have come and gone since then. It's amazing how much experience can be packed in to that amount of time. The story of my life--our lives--will make a great novel some day.
"You have to do the right thing."
Yes, I do. But you and I have different ideas about what that is and how it pertains to my situation right now. But rest assured that I am. We all try to operate under the basic assumption that what we are doing is right.
Things are going to change soon.
I'm ready for this.
I'm going to lose some people. And that makes me very sad. But sometimes that happens when you do the right thing. I've already lost a lot of you. I rarely give up on people, but that doesn't mean that I don't believe in taking responsibility for what you have done. If only I could be more specific. It won't be much longer.

Thank you for coming with me today. Thank you both for spending this day with me when you didn't have to at all. It's one of the first times I've felt like somebody's really had my back during this whole situation. You've really helped me not to lose focus and feel overwhelmed/pressured. Writing things down definitely helped. Talking it through to the point of exhaustion did too. We just kept turning it over and over and over again. And each time, it became a little clearer. And by the end, it was pretty obvious. This is going to change things. I won't get it back, but I'll make sure that no one else has to lose it.

3:11 Just Happened.

2010-11-02T00:07:00.000-07:00

I don't like feeling as far apart from you as I do right now. You're more than one person, in more than one place. But I think things are going to be okay. I have to start accepting that people come into and out of your life all the time. I just can't believe that we hardly ever see each other anymore. We spent so much of the last several years together. My friend is gone. Maybe things are just different. I wish I could make sense of this, of all these other relationships that keep happening around me. I think it's all starting to, but it's tough. Maybe this is because I haven't really been outside of a relationship for an extended period of time since early in high school. I never knew your heart could break this many times and still keep going. It's kind of incredible, and it might be weird, but that makes me smile.
I think it's time to nap.

"Dylan"

2010-10-29T18:54:00.001-07:00

Even though it was in an email, it happened for the first time today. I'm not sure what to make of it yet. I'm not sure if things will actually get better, but this is a start.

Maybe I just want to hear what it sounds like when they say it out loud. I might cry.

Here We Go Again (EDITED)

2010-10-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

And I was going to look back through my phone to see the parts of that conversation that were important. But my phone is pretty crunchy right now. Do I really need to start putting stickers on things? I hope this will never happen again. I guess it's clear to me that my family is the only thing that affects me this badly. I've even tried to explain that fact to them, and they just laugh at me. They pretend this doesn't exist too, just like almost everything else about me. I know I really shouldn't have answered the phone. But I was feeling so pressured because it was the third call of the day, and we were at about three emails as well. The first one really made it sound like things were going to be better. And I fell for it. But when he answered the phone and greeted me in the same old way, I knew things were about to get bad, and I knew I should have just hung up right then. But I let it go for a minute and tried to catch him right there and explain that it wasn't okay and that I didn't think he really understood. And then there was screaming. And then I just hung up. But then there were more messages, and then I just couldn't let one of them go. I wanted to at least right one thing. And I think that was my bigger mistake. I can't let things go. I can't let things like this sit in uncertainty. So I tried again. I always try to make peace. I always try to make everyone happy. I always want that perfect ending. I guess I have to realize that it just isn't going to happen for me. They're never going to love me. They're never going to want ME in their life. They want someone else. They want to ignore me. And I can't do that. No self-respecting individual would. Tonight made me realize that this is the way it has to be until I can hear those words and believe them: "Dylan, I'm sorry." What I got tonight: "Elise, what the fuck is your problem? What's wrong with you? What the hell did we do to deserve this? Etc. Etc."
It's the same old story on that end. And it's about to be the same old story on another one too, unless I can somehow prove that it won't happen again. You mean too much to me to let this get in the way. I don't want to be something you can't handle.

I'm doing it for real this time, and nothing they can say, other than what I noted above, is going to change my mind. I won't be able to deal with it otherwise. And I shouldn't have to.

I love you. Please don't give up on me.

This was just a roadblock.

I don't want this to change your mind, especially after the conversation we had the other day. It was one of the best and most honest I've had in a while, and I don't think I've ever been able to say things like that to anyone else. I feel so completely comfortable around you. I still want 'us' to happen.

But I still understand your concerns.

I was doing REALLY well, especially today. Maybe that's why I thought I could handle that phone conversation. Maybe that's why I thought it would change things.

Thank you for telling me to hang up tonight. It was the right thing to do.

I can control myself. You've been right this whole time. I do have the ability to do that. You see that part of me every day. I can be like that more often than I am. And that's what I've been working on. I also have been working on a way to let people know when it's happening and to let them know that it is absolutely okay to leave me alone, and it's sometimes better that way.
The drama is going to stop soon. I'm going to make sure of it. That's been part of this whole plan I've been working on.

That solution might be to take a semester off, which I guess would equate to taking a year off since the only classes I absolutely need are offered in the spring term only. But that would give me a chance to work and raise enough money to take those few classes that I do need. It's not ideal. But we have to work with what we have, and right now, I can't afford to graduate in the spring. This is my reality, and I am okay with it.
I'm constantly surprised by what I actually can live with.
I do need to finish this semester, however.
I am getting help from SJ on Saturday to get my shit out of Greenfield.

Things actually are coming together for me. And it's awesome. And I don't want you to think that tonight is an indication of the way things will be in any way.

Even the things I still have left to do tonight, I'll be able to do now. That's pretty ridiculous. I never would have been able to focus on work after something like that before. But now, I'm ready to go do more laundry and read some chapters in this book. And that makes me really happy.

It ALWAYS looks worse than it really is.
You never have to worry about my hurting anyone, including myself.

I was going a year plus without problems. I see no reason why that can't happen again. And those were pretty stressful times as well.

I'm serious about not letting this get in the way of anything. And I'm willing to do pretty much anything to make sure it doesn't. I just want you to trust me about that. If you can offer me that, I know it'll be a lot better off.
If you can believe that I am capable, then it just helps me out that much more. I don't want to feel like you think I can't do this. I can.

Give me some time to show you that this isn't what it's going to be like.

You're on my mind a lot.
You make me smile.

Please let me know when I am doing stupid things. Don't let me get away with it.
Hold me accountable.

<3

October is Exhausting

2010-10-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

I know we all want to stop playing this game. I hate games like this. I only play them because it seems like other people are forcing me to. If I break the rules, I'm the one that gets called out, and if I refuse to play, then I automatically lose. Is it really that hard to have a conversation with me? To ask a question? I'm really upset by a lot of the things I'm seeing and hearing, and I really don't want to believe that all of them are true. Word travels quickly around here. That's the benefit of having such connections. I'm fortunate in that respect.
I still have it. I still carry it with me. I took it out of my pocket and stared at it for a little bit like I stared at the screen this morning, and I had to deal with the same feelings. I didn't know what to say, and when I figured it out, I didn't know how, and when I figured that out, I realized that I couldn't because I was still playing the fucking game.
But it does still mean something to me. I can't forget what it did for me--what it was really about for me. But maybe that's gone now. I really don't want to believe it. It makes me angry when I start to think about where things have gone. I wish there were something I could do.
Making assumptions is fucking dumb.
I know you're talking about me. And you know I talk about you sometimes. Why do we have to hide this? Wouldn't this be much more effective if we sat down and talked it out? One on one? We don't need an audience. We don't need anyone else to know, at least right away. Dirty little secret, anyone?
So that'll never happen. Apparently, no one has the balls to approach me. I made my move. I'm waiting. And nothing. Interesting, huh?

My stomach is full of shitty Chinese food.
I will be in Baltimore performing on an international stage this weekend!
I have so much fucking homework to do that I feel like I'm drowning in my obligations.
Where am I going to get 1800 dollars?
I wonder if they are thinking of me. And I'm not talking about you.
Why'd you have to turn into a fucking doucheface?
I still think you're cool. Call me. For real.

I finally got rid of that black nail polish. That was getting really awkward.
Thanks for writing on my hand :)
I wore purple today.

I want to fall asleep next to you sometime soon.
I hope you feel better. I'm hugging you right now. I hope you can feel it.

I'm too out of it today to write in a more coherent way. It all started this morning with something I saw on facebook. It made me sad. It made me angry. I didn't know how to react. Then I had to run around campus. I looked at my bank account and laughed. I took an exam for which I really wasn't prepared, and I actually think I did pretty well. I skipped my next class. I came home to sleep. I woke up to a phone call telling me about my Homecoming application. Then I found myself staring at an 1800 dollar hold that's going to prevent me from registering again. This time, I really don't have anything to fall back on. No one is going to save me. I don't know what to do. We're leaving in a few days, and I'm trying to prepare myself for that so I don't freak out. I have so much work to do. But now I might need another job so that I can keep paying rent and credit card bills and somehow find a way to stay in school.
I love my new place. But I still need to get everything out of the old one. My head is spinning. Brain train? That's hardly the way that I think about things. Not a good analogy. Unless the train didn't abide by the laws of physics and there were like 1000 of them twisting around each other like worms inside a can.
I was able to save myself a few times today. But I wavered around that midpoint of not being okay for a while. Sometimes it really felt like too much to fight. It would have just been easier to let go. But then I would have had to put my friends through that. Or I would have just run away and locked myself in the office. This is the part that is so hard to explain to people. I've done it enough for some people.
I don't have to explain myself to you anymore. I will if you want me to, though. But you have to ask. USE YOUR WORDS. l.o.l.

That sounded harsh. Oh well.

I'm really not as bitter as this is indicating right now, actually. It just comes across that way sometimes. I think I need to sleep. I guess it would be considered a nap at this point.

Maybe I'll do something creative one of these days. It's been a while. But I hate writing things that sound really angry, and a lot of people and things have been frustrating me lately. I don't want to work myself up to the point where I can't function. It happens sometimes. I'm obviously much better at that now than I was four or five years ago. I can even work myself down sometimes. That's cool to me. It makes me happy. I hope others have noticed too.

I'm for real.
And I'm for real going to sleep this time.

Pink Lemonade

2010-10-13T23:27:00.001-07:00

I've learned quite a bit from the mistakes I have made, and I am actually pretty thankful that I have enough of a brain to realize, at least most of the time nowadays, when my words and actions will have negative consequences. I used to suck at this, and I'd get myself into trouble all the time. I have more tact these days, but that doesn't mean that I always have to use it. I shouldn't really be surprised by how stupid a lot of people can be. Sometimes people just don't think. And that's really sad. A lot of people get hurt that way. But if people want to go ahead and dig their own graves, I'm not going to complain. It helps me out. I say a hell of a lot more than I used to, and that is naturally going to cause me some more problems. I'm not doing such a great job with writing this. Maybe I do just want to come out and say what I mean. If only it were that easy. The waiting game is so difficult.

Everything has a way of coming back to you. And you should be prepared for that. I know I am.

It's not what you're doing but who you are. There was more to that sentence, but it means a lot more to a lot more people if I don't finish it the way that it started.

I'm not as shocked anymore that you didn't make the connection that might have prevented you from saying it. I'm seeing much more clearly now. A part of me wishes I could have pretended for a little longer. A part of me wishes that my heart didn't have to be ripped out and nailed to a wall (or maybe it was tape and maybe it wasn't exactly a wall). But it's better this way. It's hard, though. And maybe I still love what everything was supposed to be. I hate that I have to doubt so much about it now. But no matter what happens now, it was genuine at one point.

I'm thinking of one boy in particular. It makes me so sad to have lost you. I hate that I sound like my parents. I know you're never coming back, though. I'm sorry. You were my friend, and I miss the boy I used to know.

I'm being a bit more transparent now, I guess. Maybe I hope you do. I've had to hold myself back for a while now, when I desperately want to scream. I guess every day is kind of like that for me, even if it is one minute out of the day. Bricks and windows? Not quite my style anymore. Words are my weapon of choice. I guess they seem to be yours too. I like mine better. :)

I like mine better.

I like walking into a room where I get smiles instead of stares. I like having a conversation and being a part of one. I like being allowed to find my own way. I like helping other people find theirs. I like my voice.

I like my voice.

I like being able to breathe. It's not always easy.

I'm not afraid to say it to your face, whatever it may be. It's less messy that way. I guess this pisses off quite a few people. Would you prefer that I say the same things behind your back? You're doing it.

I tried to keep it contained. I don't think that can happen now.

Maybe if you were a rock star...
Baby, I AM a rock star.

It does matter. Keep that in mind. It's going to make sense soon. That I can promise you.

Not one person. Disappointing.
Not THE one person. Heartbreaking.

The same words my brother used.

And you should have known.

This is getting real.

School is way less important than the people that are keeping me here. It's funny how it took me this long to figure that out. Life works in ridiculous fucking ways. But I like giving a damn. I never thought I'd be this person. I never thought I'd be an activist. I never even thought I'd have a voice. I thought much less that I'd be a voice.

Holy shit, guys.

I'm 22 in some ways. A lot of people don't see all the different parts of me. I can count on one hand the people that can. And they are still around. Three. On the way to four and maybe five. I'm opening up. I'm not afraid of that either.

I can talk on the phone with you. And it felt normal. I have so much to say to you. I can't wait until you come home. I can't wait until I can stop moving. November can't come soon enough.

I just want to get through all of this. It doesn't even matter how. Maybe it should. But I'm fine. I'm really okay with my life. Wow, huh?

"What if they get more tanks?" Bitch, I don't need a tank. I breathe fuckin' fire.

Pink Lemonade.
Pink Lemonade. (in a determined kind of way, with a smile on my face)

Question

2010-10-12T00:37:00.000-07:00

How many more of us have to die?

Over Days

2010-09-30T06:24:00.001-07:00

People fight. This is something that we all know. But we still have trouble accepting that this is a perfectly normal facet of our lives--that sometimes we'll just have to scream at the people we love and empty ourselves of all the feelings that we've been lugging around for days, weeks, years, or maybe for our whole lives. While it's not okay for this to occur on a regular basis for an extended period of time, we may come to points in our lives when it seems like we are constantly fighting with those closest to us. This is a period of change in the relationship. It's a violent chemical reaction with atoms and molecules colliding all over the place. Our individual responses are modulators that can take the reaction down different roads. They can act as catalysts, inhibitors, or reacting elements themselves. But change of some sort WILL happen. And I don't think change is always negative, despite the way I seem to react to it initially. And just because a relationship is changing doesn't mean you need to break it off to try to preserve the integrity of the relationship that you used to have.

Little arguments aren't the end of the world for me. Even big ones can be okay sometimes. We'll get over it, and we'll try to do better the next time. That's the only thing that really matters to me. It's simple. It's nothing profound that I have said here, but most of my ways of dealing with people are very simple in nature. And I've found that to be pretty effective.

I need to get to the DMV at some point tomorrow. I need some sort of temporary thing so that I can really enjoy going to the reunion on Sunday/get my fifty bucks worth of alcohol. In reality, I probably won't drink that much since there is a rehearsal that night, but having the option would be nice.

I really don't want to go back to listen to this lecture.

So I'm going to run for Homecoming King. This should be a lot of fun. :)

Food. Now. Go.

2010-09-27T18:28:00.001-07:00

You don't have to remind me. I already know.
I've got nothing left to lose, so I might as well try.
From the way things are going, he'll be gone soon no matter what I say.

Yeah, I sicken myself sometimes.
I suppose learning to live with myself means learning to live with this part of myself too...and not expecting other people to go through it with me.

I'm going to be more on my own than ever.

So what if you are right?
I still don't know why you had to say it.
I was already feeling like shit.
I don't understand.

I'm waiting for him now, and I guess it won't matter after all. Why am I even trying then? Is that your point? Should I just quit now and let him hate me rather than have my heart broken?
It's too late for that.

I don't care if my head and heart are a mess right now. I'm doing the only thing I can--the only thing I know how to do.
And I know it isn't good enough.
It never was, apparently.

I'm not bitter. I'm admitting it. I understand that much.

I just want things to make sense again. I want to feel connected to people again. I want to feel connected to SOMEONE again. And the person with whom I most strongly desire this connection might break it off tonight or very soon.

I'm trying.
Maybe I can do this, and maybe I can't. We'll see.
It's hard to know what I am saying anymore. I'm not even sure why I am skipping lines and putting these spaces where they are. Nothing makes sense.

I'm not going to ever say that it's not fair. There is no such thing to me. We don't get what we deserve. We get what we get, and that's it. And we make the rest of it ourselves. And maybe I can make something of this, but right now I'm just not feeling it. I think all of this has worn me out, and I don't know what it is going to take to get me back to where I need to be. I know that I really care about someone. That's all I have to go on right now.

Some good people just walked in and made me smile.

100

2010-09-19T14:58:00.001-07:00

I still have Sharpie all over my body from last night. Part of me wishes it could stay there forever. I am happy with myself for last night. I may not be happy about certain other aspects of the night, but the only thing I can say is that I know. And that's really all I need. Thank you.

I was up for hours after saying goodnight. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do in the moment that it happened or for several hours afterward.

It's complicated. But the answer is yes.

None of us know what we are doing, and that is okay.

Although my life is going in a different direction than I thought it would, I am confident in my decision. I am proud of myself for even making that decision, which I will admit I had been thinking about for a long time prior to mentioning it at all. This is what I need to do right now. This is where I am supposed to be. This is what I feel. And that is all I need.

I missed you last night.
I'm glad you're okay.
I understand completely.
I love you.

And I love you.

I'm confused. It hurts sometimes. But we are where we are supposed to be.
It's alright, wherever you are right now.

I can feel myself growing up, this year more than ever.
This hurts too. Most things that are good for you do.

I know more than I think I do. I am capable of more than I think I am.

I can.
I will.

I am.

Rhythm Writing

2010-08-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

You're different now, on the other side, allied with my enemies, sentries keeping me from sensing inner peace, happiness. Feel the inner beats, listen to the e's, feel me feeling me through a sea of unfamiliarity. There's clarity to be found in the sound that only the trained ear can hear, but you'd rather be deaf than pause for a breath to study the science behind the music of my existence, my insistance on marching in time to the rhythm in my mind.
You're stuck in a dead step not knowing which foot goes forward and which one stays back and you can't take the weight, metal plates on your shoulders. You're older and that's your excuse to justify the abuse you feed me, need me to know that I need you, need me to know that I am nothing without you, the gods that you think you are, far away from me and that's the way it'll stay.
Don't play with me, already failed me, impaled me upon words mailed to me, and it's great to see you defend your son that isn't me that might need to end me, bend me until I am the one who breaks myself and then you'll all say that my gay friends made me crazy, that they did this to me. Listen to me, blissfully aware of the love for me that lies outside of you, in spite of you, untied from you who lied, who cried, who never once tried to see the happy in me.

A Little About Me

2010-07-28T21:24:00.001-07:00

I remember seeing my chest the first time I put a binder on. I was in my old room at Bates, and Kelly was there. I was wearing this shirt--the same one I'm wearing now. You'd never know it was meant for a female body. It's white with a splash of purple that just seems to ooze down the front. I remember seeing my chest the first time and never wanting to see it another way again. She was looking at me. But I was too busy looking at me. I almost cried. It was like seeing myself for the first time--like I was a toddler fascinated with the image in front of me, slowly coming to the realization that this image is the physical manifestation of what I've always understood as the person up inside my head. I felt like I had a body. I was starting to feel that I could own this body. I started learning that the greatest thing in the world that you can possess is your own self, inside and out.

I tried putting this shirt on without the binder underneath. I couldn't stand looking at it. The shirt is too tight to hide anything, and the feeling of this particular cloth against my bare skin made me want to jump right out of that skin. If you haven't figured it out by now, I've got a pretty fucked up sensory system, though it can do some neat things too. Every shirt feels different on my skin. And each feeling can evoke something different within me.
My sense of touch is very heavily connected to my emotions. Certain kinds of touch will elicit negative emotional responses, while others can elicit very positive responses. And I'm not talking about anything sexual at this point. I like my clothes to fit tightly (generally) because loose clothing equates to light touch or grazing of the skin, and it makes me uncomfortable. But something about knowing that you can see the secret of my chest inside this and a few other shirts of mine really fucks with me, and so I use this binder for the security it gives me. It also gives me constant pressure, however slight, on my upper body. I love pressure. I love connecting with other people through pressure. Squeeze. I love the way I feel when I work out because I can feel the blood rushing to my muscles, creating that sense of pressure, and it calms me. It focuses me. It lets me feel in control.
I like motion. Sometimes I have to be in motion. This becomes very difficult when I am trying to sleep, but my mind and body are at war with one another. Sometimes it becomes physically painful not to move. Sometimes I can't control the writhing or the tossing and turning. Sometimes I just have to MOVE. I kind of feel that way now, but moving my hands across the keys and watching the words march right into their places almost feels like I'm moving somewhere. I'll be in a different place when I finish writing this, at least mentally.
I obsess. And I get stuck. I have trouble doing more than one thing at once, and I don't really get grey areas. I have trouble with vague directions. And, similarly, I am overwhelmed and confused by having to make choices when there are many, many options. I need a step-by-step. I need black and white. It's not that I can't comprehend the other ways of looking at things. It's just extremely difficult, and I may need to take a different path to get there. It might be much more convoluted than the conventional path, but that path might be the only one that can get me where I need to be.
I'm getting better at this, but I hate when my foods mix together and would prefer them not to touch. Mixed tastes overload me. And my body opposes certain tastes altogether. I will instinctively spit out anything that is too bitter, which includes coffee, or anything that has an odd texture. I have no control over this reaction. If I try to swallow, I have to try not to throw up. It is very painful. I am terrified of trying new foods because I don't want to have this reaction.
I am extremely sensitive to the temperature of water on my face. I twitch/writhe somewhat violently when it is too hot or too cold, and I have to prevent myself from screaming.
Some kinds of pain are extremely intense for me, whereas I can tolerate great amounts of other kinds of pain.
Sometimes I'm in a bubble. It's like I'm behind a screen watching the rest of the world watch me. Sometimes I can't see beyond that little screen that's in front of me. Sometimes it's like there is static on the screen. Sometimes some things seem like they are in 3D when everything else is flat--like they are in color when everything else is in black and white. Sometimes certain things will attract my attention like a siren and I won't be able to focus on anything else. These are the things that can help me tune out the rest of the world--that help me when my sensory system is on overdrive. MUSIC. I can lose everything else entirely. I won't even register that you have spoken. I won't notice things that I normally would. Music is that thing that everyone else has to shut up for because it's clearly the most important thing going on. It's my obsession. Everything is music. I started talking the other day, and I had to force myself to stop. We were in the car having a conversation about why certain songs are so popular. I think that, just as we have mapped out according to scales/pitch what the most pleasing frequencies/combinations of sounds are to the human ear, there must be higher levels of composition (song structure/chord progressions/rhythmic integrity/etc.) that the human ear prefers. It's a theory I want to develop more, and I probably would have kept blathering about it if I hadn't caught myself. I could talk about music forever. I always want to keep playing. Music is the way I connect with the rest of the world. It's how I feel closest to other human beings. It's my way of being social. I can understand other people better through music. And writing is music to me. There is a rhythm to everything I write, and that's how I find which words go where. Everyone writes with a different rhythm too. I love all the different genres of person that I can experience when I read things that different people have written. I'm doing it again. I'm getting lost in my own musings about random shit. Pardon me. I do it frequently. Sometimes I like to have people with whom to muse, though.
I'm impulsive. Sometimes these things are harmless. Sometimes I poke people. Sometimes I push buttons. I really like pushing buttons. I play with the buttons on my phone constantly (when I have a phone). At least I don't nipple-tweak people anymore...or write on their faces. I think it took me until late in high school to figure out that that wasn't an appropriate form of interaction with your friends.
I have ridiculous attachments to inanimate objects, especially my phone and keys. I feel like I have lost a person from my life when I lose these things. I illogically attribute human qualities or attach emotions to inanimate objects as if they could think and feel the love I harbor for them. I get very upset when I lose anything that I consider important. Everything I own means something to me and stirs up all sorts of feelings, so I never throw anything away.
My hands are the most real part of me. I do a lot with them. And I don't think I could live without them.
Sometimes I can't talk, physically. Sometimes I just can't break down the wall.
This is just a little bit about me. It all started with a shirt. This is another example of what I like to call the web effect. And just think of all the things that I couldn't get out because they happened too fast up there or were on a different ring of the web. It upsets me when I can't get those things out. That's why I have taken to typing things more lately than writing them by hand. I lose way too much when I write by hand.
So yeah. This my brain. It's screwy. But I love it. It lets me remember stupid things like Mark saying that we had to be up in the band room at 7:27 AM before one of the home games two years ago or read insanely quickly or think of connections that don't really make sense to anyone else. And I also love when I find people who actually do understand those connections of mine--the ones that I make and the ones in my head. I've found a lot of them recently, and even if they don't quite get it, they are interested enough to learn, and that makes me happy. I'm also really interested in the way other people's brains work. I love knowing how other people think. I love knowing why. I always want to know why. It sucks when there is no reason why. That also messes with me.
I like that I understand myself. It puts me in a better position to understand other people. I now have a point of comparison. I still suck at understanding people when they act in irrational ways. I feel like everyone should operate logically all the time. I expect this, and I know that I don't even do this 100 percent of the time. But it also disturbs me when I don't do it or when I am incapable of doing it. And then when I notice that happening, it freaks me out and I feel like I have no control, and it makes things even worse.
I had no idea this was going to be quite this long. I thought I would be done after the first paragraph. I might need to move. I might need to go for a walk and listen to music and fool the world into thinking I'm still a part of it as I'm doing this.
I suck at sleeping. I just can't shut off.
So yeah. Again. This is a bit about me. But what about you? I'm curious.

from December 23, 2006

2010-07-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

We are not unique in our experiences, but they are unique to us. Each of us lives and breathes these experiences as if we were the only kids to ever have their hearts broken, to ever have lewd lunch conversations, to ever sneak out to commit acts of dubious origin and questionable legality. We act as though these experiences are one-of-a-kind. And, though they are not, they are genuine. They are true experiences, and they evoke rather different responses in all of us. They fill us with hope. They fill us with sadness. They both urge us forward and pull us backward. These experiences and memories, as generic as they are, are the most important things we've got. Our lives are like cheesy romance novels. Most have the same basic plot and structure, but the differences lie in the decisions of the author. We are the authors of our lives. So what have we to do but write?

June 20th

2010-06-20T23:31:00.000-07:00

Today (or yesterday now) was Father's Day. I didn't call. I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to talk to a man that hates me. He hasn't been the father that I needed him to be these last few weeks. For I short time, I thought he would be my ally in this. I thought I could convince him that I am not insane. I thought he would be able to understand the truth of my situation and the truths of this faultily gendered universe. He seemed receptive to new ideas. He seemed like he wanted to learn as much as he could. But now I feel like things are worse off with him than when we first talked about my identity as masculine. I don't know what to do.
I feel guilty. But I also feel like this might show him that I feel just as invisible and neglected when he doesn't call me by my name. I feel like there is no room for me. I feel like I am being squeezed out of existence. And the only thing I am doing is being true to myself.
How do I say these things without hurting them more? And when do I stop worrying about that and start taking care of myself? I am floundering in my financial situation right now, and I am afraid to ask for help because I don't want them to feel like they own me anymore. I need help. I am about to reach out to my grandmother. I hope that she will be the one. I don't want to lose her. I want to get in touch with others in my family. I want them to see me. Maybe they can help me reach my family. I don't want to feel this way. I want my blood to matter in some way. I want to know that I belong somewhere in my family.
I feel bad about not calling my father today because a very close friend of mine doesn't have the choice. His father is dead. And I am scared that this situation will reach the point where I will not feel anything when my father dies.
It was also my brother's birthday. He's 27 now.

Mom, I am proud of you for trying to lose weight. I am proud of you for realizing that you are worth it enough to take care of yourself. I am proud of you for being strong every day of your life. I am proud of you for not caring about what the world thinks of you. I am proud of you because you kick ass at what you do, and you know this, and you aren't afraid to admit it. I am proud of you for reaching outside of your comfort zone. I wish you could feel these same things for me.

Dad, I don't know how to reach you. I feel like you set yourself up on an island sometimes. Like father, like son, I suppose. I have found a way to leave my island. I am opening myself up to the world after years and years of being a castaway. Please don't turn me away. Please don't force me back into isolation. I am proud of you for trying, and the only thing I want is for you to keep trying. I feel like you are giving up on me when you stop listening to me. I love you.

Brother, I miss you. Happy Birthday.

Observations: Almost 15 weeks

2010-06-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

I feel more in control of myself, both mind and body. Because of the way my brain works, this can't be the case all the time. I don't shut down as often, but when I do, the whole thing seems more intense. And maybe that means that part of me is becoming more real as well. If this is the case, then I should be better able to deal with it.
But I can feel the difference inside of me. I feel less like I am looking at the world from under the surface--less like I am grasping to break the tension above. Maybe that's not really true. I know these feelings are still there. Sometimes I am so disconnected from other people. I know there is nothing I can do about that. But I can choose to fight. And I'm getting stronger. I'm getting better at breaking my own shell. I am realizing that I do have the control that I've always desired. I just need to learn how to access it.
I was playing drums today. My hands are better at doing what I want them to do. And I see something different when I watch myself playing in the mirror, and I happy. Like said, I feel more real. My body and brain are feeling less like separate entities. Now the struggle is connecting the whole of myself with the world out there. People sometimes fail to realize the paradox of becoming closed-off/shutting down/having a meltdown/whatever. I guess I just can't deal with the world on its terms. I can't take all of the shit that keeps coming at me. It really is just too much to process. But I don't choose this, at least most of the time. I want to be out there with everyone else. I don't want to be locked in. But I still need to figure out how to handle myself when those things happen. And I do feel like I'm getting better. I feel like I have one fewer disconnect on my plate. And now I can start to focus on the other big one. Maybe improvement in one has bolstered my ability to deal with the other. It's exciting to know that I am gaining control--that it is possible to gain control.
I feel at home in this skin of mine, for the most part. I don't feel like I am hidden behind my eyes. The rest of my face is starting to tell the story. My smile is genuine. I am a real person. I feel real. How can anyone say that I am doing the wrong thing?

29

2010-05-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's been quite a long time since I've written something here. And it's because I've been so afraid of what other people will find out. I've been afraid to say anything because it might get back to my parents or to people who have some ridiculously unwarranted power over my life. But I don't care. I can't care after tonight. I am quite sick of people trying to make me believe that I suck at things or am useless. I can think of four people within the blink of an eye. I'm sure there are many more, but right now I can't think very well. The web effect has taken hold of my brain, and I am not even aware of my surroundings now. It's as if I am alone here in my head and the rest of the world doesn't exist. My body is just doing things. It walked itself home somehow and managed to have a conversation with someone for part of the way, though I don't remember most of the walk and I definitely don't remember the conversation. My brain has been elsewhere. I had to leave that place tonight. I just couldn't stand being put in that situation again when I thought I had moved past that sort of juvenile behavior. I didn't think that someone so respected in this community would treat me like this, and I will come right out and say that this person has not earned my respect. That's the way it works with me. You cannot demand it from me: You must show me that you deserve it. And so far, this one hasn't come close. It's frustrating. It sucks when other people try to make themselves look better by trying to make everyone else look worse. But I still don't understand why I left. Why didn't I say this in front of everyone? Why didn't I call them out? Is it because I want this all to go well? Maybe if I had said something I would have fucked everything up. But maybe if I had said something, I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. And why did that have to be the one thing that made me topple over and lose control tonight? I guess I didn't really lose control, but you know what I mean. At least, I hope you do by now. I should have expected it when I got a funny feeling earlier in the day. I didn't know what it was about. I was worried about something, but I couldn't place it. I guess I'd been worried about tonight too. And maybe I'm also worried about the fact that my best friend is moving to another state, and I may never see him again. I don't know how I can possibly afford to visit Connecticut. I would love to go up there all the time. I really don't want to lose touch. And I don't know how to handle this.
I'm tired of being worried about things. I don't want to be afraid of being myself. But maybe that's not what tonight was. Maybe I was being diplomatic. Maybe I really was sacrificing myself for the greater good of this project. But if that is true, does that mean that as soon as I am done with this, I can let it all out there? Is that the right thing to do? Or is the right thing to do to keep playing along with it and hope it benefits me somehow in the long run? I just don't know anymore. I keep trying to play these fucking games with people, and I know I can win, but winning takes a lot of energy because the whole mess of it is bullshit. It'd be so much easier if people would just deal with each other honestly for 10 fucking minutes rather than dance around each other for months or years.
And I don't know but the rest of me is slowly coming back, and I'm remembering the pain in my legs. It's not only in my shins now. My knees hurt now because of these stupid shoes that don't fit, insoles that are too old and I can't afford to replace, the miles that I've walked, and the stupid fucked up feet I was born with. And now I'm in physical therapy for my fucked up shins. I'm supposed to do this massage thing and ice them down tonight, but at this point I'm just getting the bodily awareness back. I don't know how long it will be before I can physically move myself from this spot. I don't even know if I can speak right now. This might be all that I can do. I'm terrified, yet my mind is still doing that thing where it thinks about a thousand things at once, one of which is how and why this goes on inside my head. How can my brain create such a state of experience? I think people take drugs to feel this way. And I guess if you are in control of it and can decide when this is going to happen to you, it might be kind of fun. But this. This just takes you over. I don't know how long I've been in this state or how long it has been since I left, but it feels like no more than 30 minutes could have passed. And that seems like a long time. But it's probably been almost 2 hours. I have no idea. I don't know where everyone is or what to do to get back to them or even back to the version of me that can deal with what is happening right now.
I do remember something. And I think it's the something that made me start writing this. Three times tonight, my life was threatened, and in two of those situations, I knew there was a reason to be afraid. I could feel it. The immediate danger. The willingness to kill surrounding the one group of people. I don't know if I ran away. I can't remember. I don't know if I was just walking quickly or full out running away. I can take one or two or even three people but not 7 or 8. "I'm just going to kill that fucking faggot." And even if it was just this one kid, I know how easy it would be for me in this state to just keep going no matter what. I would do something awful. I'd let myself get killed or seriously hurt someone else because it would have been instinct. And the other time, I should have stopped. Maybe. I should have said something. I thought this. I thought I should have turned around and done something to prove myself. I thought at least once in the night I should have stood up for myself. For everyone who gets threatened like this. I was going to do something. I don't know what could have happened but maybe it would have mattered. I just don't know. This is fucking bullshit.
Bullshit.
Why do I have to be afraid to walk down the street in my own fucking neighborhood? Who teaches my peers to be this way? What if I could have taught someone not to fuck with random people on the street? Just one time, someone shouldn't get away with it. I don't know if I will be able to stop myself next time. This isn't right.
I can't get out of this bubble. I can move and do what I am supposed to do but I can't take in the whole picture. I'm so focused on a single point that the single point is inside my head. It's a black hole. There's so much packed into this one tiny space that the rest of the universe is incomprehensible to me. I can only deal with this little bit right now. It's like my circuits have been fried, and I need time to repair them. I don't know how to make this happen any faster, and something this bad hasn't happened in a while, and I know this is because so many different things have been combining to grind me down. I just can't resist that much shit. And the icing on the cake came at the bar this evening. That threw me over the edge, and I knew I wouldn't be able to fix it. So I tried. I tried but I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn't stop myself. I moved. I just kept in motion because repetitive motion--like walking in time when you don't even realize you are doing it--is something that can usually calm me down. But it wasn't helping. I couldn't even notice it. And then I was alone. And then I wasn't. And both were awful. I think I was more afraid of what I was going to do to somebody who fucked with me than what he was going to do to me. I don't care about getting the shit kicked out of me. I care about hurting someone else or just getting in that kind of trouble where I'd spend the rest of my life in jail. I AM NOT MY FUCKING BROTHER. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN TO ME. I WON'T LET IT HAPPEN TO ME, AND I DON'T CARE IF EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING WORLD THINKS THAT I'M A PILE OF SHIT THAT DESERVES WHAT'S COMING TO HIM.
In all of this stupid fucking shit, I am incapable of hating another person. And that is my greatest fault. And there's nothing that I can do about it. I am the one who gives infinite chances to people. I'm the one that's always going to be there, even when you continue to fuck me over. I've always got your back, even though you step on mine day after day, week after week. Yeah, I take shit. And I've always taken shit and gotten through seemingly unscathed. But recent times have made me realize that I don't deserve to take this shit and that I am actually worth enough to make that point and have people listen to it. But it's really hard to get out of the habit of trusting people. I somehow trust everyone and no one at the same time. Or at least I trust very few people. Please someone stop me, and get me out of this chair. My leg hurts so much.
I don't know what I am even writing. I'm scared to move, but I want to. And I can't. This is fucking annoying. I haven't had something like this happen in a bit. How do I get out of this? Maybe she will be able to bring me out of this? Am I writing what I feel inside or just what seems like it should be said? Or are these two things just naturally the same for me. Is what I see as logic just my own opinion? I know I'm not this blind. But maybe I am right now. Who knows how I really function in this state? Maybe this is a clue. Maybe if I get everything out here or as much of it as I can before it slips away and the web keeps clouding everything with all these strands going in more directions than I can count, I can figure out where I need to go to get out of it in the future. I know my sentences go on forever. I know there is no pattern. I just keep going. And I can't really control where my mind is headed, and my mind can't control what's happening to my body, and I need a way to get everything to line up again. I need to gain control again. That's it. I don't know what to do when I am not in control of a situation. That's not that true. I can deal with these things quite well, but I have to be in control of at least something or know that something that I did caused me to be in control of something. I don't know. That doesn't make sense. I have to be given some background reason or something to know that I have control over things. I need to have that going in. It's not confidence. It's knowledge. That's what I need. It's security that I can't quite label. And I guess little things eat at my daily allowance of security, and by the end of the day, I may be just fine. But some days I just run out. Some things just take too much out of me.
I feel disgusting right now.
It hurts. I am tired. I am starting to feel my body yet again. But this has only been cycling between nothing and a little bit of something. I haven't been able to get any further. I just want to get up and change my clothes before anyone gets here because I want to cover as much of myself as possible. I guess that means I want to keep hiding. I don't know if I can trust myself with anyone else right now. I don't know if I can trust myself at all. So I guess that must mean I need someone else to help me out right now. But I just don't see how that makes sense. Maybe I do. I am totally confused by my own head right now and know I am not making any sense.
How can people call me normal? She says I'm one of the most normal people she knows? Isn't that funny? Most people might tell you I'm the most screwed up person in the world. At least that's what I've been told to think for most of my life. And my parents I think are still trying to convince me of that. My fingers are twitching and being all weird but somehow they know exactly what to type. I don't know how it's coming out. But it is. I am somehow typing way faster than I ever could and I am definitely not looking at the keys as much. I know more than I think I do and maybe I second-guess myself all the time. I don't have to look. But I do. I worry about it and I don't even realize that I do it, but when I am on auto-pilot my muscle memory takes over and I am fine. What the hell? Why can't this work all the time? I know it can. I just need to get myself in the right place to be able to make it happen. And I know this doesn't make any sense to people, but I know how to do it if given a little bit of time. And the time depends on the situation. I can fix some things pretty quickly. I don't even know right now. I lost it completely.
I might be stopping soon, but I don't know why. Maybe I said what I needed to say without realizing it. I must have. I really don' t know anything of what I said. I feel like I ruined everything tonight. I didn't do this on purpose. I'm sorry. I wish I weren't like this sometimes. I wish I didn't fuck up everyone's plans and spoil shit. I shouldn't be allowed to be around people sometimes. But I don't know when to make that choice. How am I going to be in charge of another human life? How am I so much better at fixing other people's shit than my own?
What the hell? I don't know. I need to stop. I will stop.

Something

2010-04-05T21:37:00.000-07:00

I am full-fledged masculinity

with just enough--

a splash of femininity.

faggot.

words are my weapons

too.

bigot.

Family Speech from YouTube

2010-02-15T00:41:00.001-08:00

This is the written version of my Family video. I figured since I couldn't sleep and I was on this kick, I might as well do what I said I was going to do a while ago.
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In my family, ever since I can remember, we’ve had a certain saying that became much more important when our family had to go through serious issues with my brother’s incarceration and we became physically separated from him. Always Together Forever. We would write it as AT4E in all the letters we would send and say it every time we said goodbye. And now I think that my family needs it again. It’s not something that’s only applicable to his situation or to situations in which there is a conventional type of loss. This kind of reassurance matters just as much in unconventional circumstances, and I would argue that it matters more since we are less likely to encounter such reassurance in the larger social sphere. This kind of love should be unconditional. It’s an all-the-time thing.
My parents once I asked me why it was so important to me that they accept me or respond positively to my choice to transition. (I hesitate to use the word transition, even, because I don’t believe I’m changing into something that isn’t already there.) So, why is their support so important? It’s not that I expect total agreement at any point, and I certainly didn’t expect it at the outset. I expected exactly what did come—severe anguish, outrage, disgust, disbelief, depression, and a sense of loss on their part. These feelings are understandable, but at some point, family needs to understand that this decision belongs to you, and that your feelings are indeed stable and rational—that you have thought it through deeply and painstakingly and that you are aware of all the risks, physical and otherwise, that may arise as you proceed with transition. At this point, family members need to step up. While it is important for trans people to understand and empathize with their grieving family members, it is also important for the family members to realize that this situation is not about them. Furthermore, they need to move past preconceived dreams that they had for their child’s future and start to understand how much happier and fulfilled their child will be living the life that he or she truly desires.
Again, why does it matter? Parents who reject their children often say that the child has also rejected them to find family and comfort in friends and that it shouldn’t matter to their child if they support them anyway. But, like most of us in this society, we have grown up with the notion that family loves unconditionally—that they are there when you have nowhere else to run—that when the rest of the world is bombarding us with hate and oppression, we may find solace and comfort in the arms of those who taught us to be the proud, shining people that we are. The last thing that we would expect from these people, who have been there with us throughout the ups and downs of our lives, is a supplement to the transphobic onslaught we are likely to face by some. The last thing we need in our times of desperation and fear are shots of I told you so. When all else goes wrong, and we are forced to hide our true selves from the rest of the world, what we desire most is that safe space with those who supposedly know us the best. We desire that space where we can be and say anything we want—where we don’t have to worry about putting on airs or keeping our guard up. We want the people and places that hold our memories. We want community and stability and familiarity. In short, we want a place where we can be home.
It’s a true test of the family as a whole when something like this arises—when a child tells you that he or she is transgender and wants to pursue gender reassignment options. It’s a test of that unconditional nature of love—the love of a person as a person and not as a normative model for gender. The transgender child bursts a protective bubble that this society has created around the revered “traditional family” model. We shatter norms that most people cling to, hold onto for dear life, as if they risk drowning in the sea of difference that lies beneath their raft of glass. How is this accomplished? We introduce “the Other” into their environment. We bring the foreign, the unknown and feared, right to them. It’s something that just can’t be ignored or dismissed. It’s the same sort of shattering of worlds that goes on when people erroneously assume that cancer, diabetes, and alcoholism are issues that affect other people and families, and not themselves. People unfamiliar with the concept of transgender and transsexual people immediately conjure up popular media representations of the Jerry Springer tranny. They fear being labeled freaks. They fear being different. Yet they somehow do not look to us, the transgendered, in these times. Do they think that we don’t know this same fear? We face this fear every day, and many of us have learned to embrace being different, turning the problem completely around, loving every bit of who we are as individuals, no matter what the fuck anyone else out there has to say about it. I think that parents of trans people should really look to their children to see how strong this has made them--look at their children to see how proud they are of their identity.
Another question several members of my family asked me, quite accusatorily, was why didn’t I tell them first? Why did I have to tell all of my friends and use internet means to convey this information to some? Why did I leave them in the dark to be blindsided by this when they received a phone call from a family member who happened to see my facebook page?
I can first say that I didn’t intend for my parents to be informed by anyone else. I had planned to tell them myself. And that’s the tough part. It’s something you have to plan for. a lot. Coming out as trans to your parents takes unspeakable courage. It takes everything you have to work up to that. You lose sleep over it. You cry over it. You turn it over and over in your head and try to figure out exactly how you are going to do it and when. And a lot of the time, you know exactly how your family is going to react. In my case, I knew that it would be bad. To quote Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird about the level of courage you need for this task… “It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”
It’s like facing a firing squad. Signing up to be a kamikaze pilot. You risk losing everything. You risk losing the love of the most important people in the world to you. You risk losing your home. You risk your education, if you are financially dependent on them. It’s a huge burden to have to deal with the issue of having to tell your family, and for this reason it is hugely important to build a strong network of social support before you tell them. It’s important that you have somewhere to turn when disaster strikes—that you CAN make that 4 am phone call in hysteria to your best friend. It’s important to surround yourself with people that understand you and will love you no matter what may happen with your family. This social support network is what often prevents depression in cancer patients, what helps the newly divorced move on with their lives, which helps all the grieving in the world carry on to the next day. With this support network and with our composure the best that it can be, only then can we approach our families. It is not that we have not thought through every little detail of the process over and over again. It is not that the thought has suddenly arisen out of nowhere. It is not a whim. It’s not a game. And it isn’t something that goes away. It’s something that most of us have known all of our lives, whether we have had a name for it the entire time or not.
We ask that you understand these things. We ask that you respect us. We ask that you try to learn as much as you can without feeling the need to cram statistics of death and unemployment in our faces. Do not assume that we aren’t aware of what awaits us. We are very aware. And that is why we need you more than anyone else. We need you because we know that things aren’t perfect for anyone in this world, and that being different makes it a hell of a lot harder. We need you because we have so many wonderful memories with you and want the opportunity to create more of them with you. All in all, what this really means is that we need you, because we love you.