spiceworms

Moving Day.

2009-09-29T13:51:50Z

It's my birthday today.

I chose this day to spend 24 hours on a bus heading to Idaho.

Sometimes I wonder....

Something happened?

2009-07-31T06:47:12Z

Umm so I was moving out, and there was this guy who stopped me and we chatted. He was very fem and I made no bones about liking guys. He mentioned hitting on me, I mentioned that I like it when people hit on me. We parted amicably, he said he was sad that we talked so late. 'Wrong friends at the wrong time, you should stick around, just for tonight.' I mentioned it sounded better by the second but that I really did sound like an idea.

He came into my old apartment as I was sweeping with and stated. 'I want to strip off all of your clothes' I didn't say no to this idea.

Come to find out that people could see inside my apartment at night. The entire time. While I was naked. For months. And they had been oogling. Form months. I was intensely flattered. Then there was hot sweaty making out between men. I was rimmed, it was... exquisite.

I think he really REALLY likes me, despite my sex being... broken... which is good. However, he's older, not that I mind, but he's a widower... ish... his husband passed a number of years back. He says I talk like his husband, though he was extremely pleased to learn I was not a vegan. His husand was a philosophy professor... I shouldn't hesitate to mention I play one of those on taps.

He's cute and sweet, and... I kinda like him back.

The only issue is is from what I can tell... Imagine you look at this cute guy for months, you develop a fantasy, then at the last possible second it comes true. ~Then~ you find out he's just like your ex-husband who passed, except twenty years younger, addicted to physical fitness, and loves steak. Oh and this time instead of you being the poor one and him being the rich one it's the other way around.

I worry that I'm fulfilling a little too many fantasies all at once and unreasonable expectations might occur.

spiceworms @ 2009-07-28T05:40:00

2009-07-28T12:42:39Z

I had a dream last night.

Marvel superheroes in tanks and mecha.

Fantastic Force versus Mecha Nightnare

Shit was so pure and cash.

I'm... Kind of glad?

2009-07-26T16:24:33Z

     SO! I took a break from LJ for just a bit, or should I say it took a break from me. Really the fear and the anxiety combined with how I have learned to channel these things (Rather constructively, it breaks my mental process down into emergency problem solving mode, the only problem being recursive patterns and a tendency to try and brute force my problems away) threw me into an utter black frenzy, mood, not my skin tone.The results are... Interesting.

     I have a full time job now, but they aren't paying me a cent till the middle of next month, that means I have to wait an entire month just to get my first paycheck. This does not save me from losing my appartment, but bodes well for the fututre.The job itself is emminently bearable, though they want to cut my pay after 14 days of working there and have a crap comission system, mostly it's decent because of the people who work there and the music. They play a lot of rock, punk, some metal, and some parody/comedy songs with just enough volume that I can't remember anything after I've left, just that I was there and the day was bearable. You can get lost in a job like that... I could but I need something that will pay better so I'm still looking.

     I have found a new place to live for half of what I am paying here now for rent and a similar reduction in utilities, howerver this includes air conditioning. It's only about three blocks away from my current location, meaning that I just tack on about 25 minutes (big blocks, you see) to my daily walks to and from work... and shave off a similar ammount from the trip to my FLGS every week I can afford it. Of course I don't have enough money to pay that rent either, hopefully one of my most wonderful people will come through and save me though. *Crosses fingers*

     I have to clean the house today, it's going to pretty much be my only chance... I don't want to deal with any of it really... Ah well.

Needless

2009-07-07T11:22:45Z

SO. There is this show out new this season, it's called NEEDLESS. That's right, in all capital letters. Everything about this show is Infernokrusher. The OP starts with heavy metal and a nuclear explosion and then ramps up from there taking stops at every visual trope they can think of shoving in our faces at a rapid fire pace like a triple barreled mini-gun to the cacophony of screaming guitar. This is instantly everything I want out of a show, it makes my blood pump faster. The animation style is rough in the OP, somewhere between TTGL and Dead Leaves for style. There are burly protagonists, bouncing tits, yuri schoolgirls, evil mahou shojou, top hats, kung fu fighting, and most of all explosions, tons and tons of explosions. And then the show starts.

And I go buuuu, because as awesome as this is the animation studio got a shit buget and can't animate anything. I rage, I rage hard, because it is so... good... and yet... animation... and it hurts inside. It is Infernokrusher! It uses explosions as an interruption of the viewer! Just when you think BOOOM, and it never lets up.

Why couldn't it have been pretty too? Well at least I'll have TM 8.0.

Amazing.

2009-06-25T13:05:41Z

It gave.

I never expected it to but today, after my hot water heater was replaced but not turned on so I had to take a cold shower, after another full day gone mysteriously missing, after spiraling down into depression, after wondering at the psychological impact of being constantly bitten by bugs actually is, after finally understanding that yes, suicide -is- on my list of responses...

It gave.

I realized that yes, I'm more alone than I ever have been in my entire life.

I'm starving myself, malnutrition only barely held off, I couldn't eat too much if I tried right now.

I sleep way too much, this is probably related to the above malnutrition.

I'm not exercising even half as much as I should

I only get out in the sun about three times a week, total

I'm probably killing myself

And then for no reason, I was happy again.

I think though in the end it's because my entire life I've been circling around the fact that the only way to be free is to be in freefall

This is Grace in Gravity, mother fuckers.

Watch me shine.

Geekness: Part 2 of Mugen

2009-06-19T13:56:30Z

     So I have just completed watching the Shadow Skill television series and I have come to a realization, anime did not exist before the year 2000. Anything labeled 'anime' from before then is either dead to me or 'not really anime'. This is a rather harsh and bitter pill to swallow for someone who has seen their share of Urusei Yatsura, who cut their teeth (or lost their virginity depending on how you want to say it) on the X OVA, and this rules out such classics as Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, and Akira, classics from the halcyon days when anime was about tits and explosions. This also cuts Shadow Skill, both the OVA and the series out of my index. Believe it or not this is a good thing, much as I weep to let them go. In order to put this into perspective I need to give a little background on Shadow Skill and my relationship with it.

     Back in the day when I was younger, before DVDs and the majority of casual internets, I watched all the anime I could find. This was difficult because I was nine (possibly younger) and had no money. I had watched Guyver (fuck yeah, Guyver) thanks to my local video store and had watched the X OVA aaaand I think I had watced Ninja Scroll by then, but that was about it. So one summer I go to my father's house, which is stay up late and play video games watch whatever you want on TV party central. Oh and he had porn comics above the sink I'd kill someone to have scans of now, but I digress. He also had illegal cable, which was all the rage back in the nineties and is so much less feasable these days, and so I got the action channel or actually whatever it was before it became the action channel... Showtime... Maxx? Can't remember.

     Anywho, one night I'm up late and this anime comes on named Shadow Skill. It blows everything else I have seen before out of the water. If I could point to one OVA and say 'That, that right there sealed my lasting love of this medium.' it would be Shadow Skill. The character design wasn't something I had seen before and the martial arts action combined breathtaking fluidity and bone crunching viscerality in the same momment. I was young so I guess I didn't care that the plot was disjointed? Looking back on it (having read the manga and watched everything but an insanely crappy cgi outing) I'm amazed I got it at the time. But I got it.

     Kurudan Assassination Techniques arose from combating slavery. Eigi (the shadow arts) is generally considered to be the more deadly of the two. It focuses entirely on kicks, the fighter's arms treated as shackled together. Because that's how they kept the women. Hyougi on the other hand focuses on punches and small stable footwork, because the men's feet were shackled to prevent them from running away. Hyougi is taught, post rebellion naturally, in schools in Kuruda. Eigi is taught one on one, master to student, like any secret art of assassination should be. Gau Ban, arguably the main character, is trained in Eigi, you know, the more deadly female martial art, by his older sister Elle who is possibly the strongest human fighter in their world, period.

     Let's take a second and think about how cool it is that in the rather patriarchal society that is Japan this mangaka thought 'Traditional gender roles? I see nothing wrong with my female lead being demonstratably stronger than everyone else and punching through a meteor while everyone else has their thumbs up their bums.' Also it's a hotblooded martial art family. They get stronger by shouting out 'I am invincible! No one can defeat my Shadow Skill!' It's an assassination style... that teaches the power of being hotblooded... I'm probably not explaining this well enough. Teaches being hotblooded. It's only gotten more epic with age. This is me as a little kid:

"My Mind. Is Blown... ... ... I need to train NOW!" Then I'd go run in the sand and do jump kicks. Because when your nine, jump kicks, fuck yeah.

     Now I'm a bit older than eight, I'm done with my teens, and I've grown into a consumer of a lot more anime. I didn't even know there was a Shadow Skill television show untill a few days ago, so I watched it. It was obvious to me that at the time, they had spent a lot of money on this. It was dated. Oh sure, I still loved it, but if anyone wanted me to reccomend them a title to show them what anime was all about? This would be far far away from my list. This just isn't what anime is these days. It's grown up some, a lot like I have.

     2000 isn't an arbitrary date either. Specifically Hajime no Ippo came out in October of 2000, and it's the earliest example I'd give someone if asked, so there is the cut off point. Love Hina, may it rot in hell, blew the harem genre to shreds and gave it the vast majority of the shape it has today. Love Hina released April 2000, and I hate Ken Akamatsu. 1999 was a tempting year, seeing Mononoke Hime, the first Pokemon Movie, and Perfect Blue released theatrically statesides, but honestly... Those titles have been left behind. Mononoke Hime is a timeless classic, yes, and anything by Satoshi Kon is Relevant, they have been surpassed by their decendants, and us fans need to move on too.

     Too often the 'top anime' of a fan will include Bebop, Trigun, and Ranma, or Tenshi, or fucking... any of those seminal works really and they will recommend these titles to new potential viewers. I think in so doing we are doing a huge disservice to them. What we need to do is figure out what anime means Now. We need to suggest titles that will become classics in time, and only bring up the things from before with veterans. History is important, yes, but eventually you have to teach it like history and not like current events.

tl:dr version: Because I watched this one show the next time someone asks me to recommend an anime I'm going to steer them towards Toradora or something like To Aru Majutsu no Index... Okay I clearly need to figure out what shows I should use.

Been thinking...

2009-06-17T19:05:44Z

I haven't used your towel. It hangs in the bathroom waiting for your return.

I feel like if I use it you'll never come back. I wonder... I wonder if you would even want to.

I've been writing a bit more, that's good. The problem is I need a job, yesterday. The only way I can get to doing what I want is to wait here in fucking Arizona for more months so that I can get in-state tuition because I haven't lived here a year, so I can go to college, so I can join the military, so I can go to college.

I could have a job right now, I'm certain of it, but I just can't... be bothered... I don't do well alone.

I don't think I've ever been quite this alone before.

You should tell me you're coming home. I haven't been eating well since you've been gone. There is a hole in this house, the place you left when you went away...

I shouldn't need a reason, but you gave me one. Could you do it again for old time's sake? If I knew you would return I could do my best to make sure there is a place to return to.

spiceworms @ 2009-06-14T20:11:00

2009-06-15T07:47:42Z

     She was right on time, he saw her through the crowd on his right. He reacted without thinking, really it was second nature by now. He slammed his foot into the tiles beneath, showering debris into the air on the platform, shiny bit of fake stone glinting in the florecent lighting along with all the dust and concrete debris. He hadn't caught a support beam, lucky. People had just begun to register something was happening when he cut his hand through the explosion, propelling those fragments towards their target.
     The debris impacted into her form, pulling more with them in their wake. Her eyes went wide as she saw him, shock, recognition, fear, anticipation, they all burned in the look she was riddled with holes, picking up her body from the ground as the fragments blasted their way messily through her body. She was dead before she hit the ground. The crowd screamed and began to mill in chaos and confusion as the body of a seemingly natural woman began to bubble and evaporate.
     She gasped behind him, crying out in sensations he couldn't even begin to fathom but made his heart leap in his chest, clutching to him and rubbing her blind-folded face into his cheek, moaning "You killed me. Auuughh, god... didn't even have any warning..." That wet tongue licked at his ear, grinding herself to him and shivering. He pulled her back through the crowd and tucked between a bank of telephones and a photo booth. Greedy hands brought the fabric away from her black hair and looked into those nearly ice blue eyes which would soon fade into a color more suitable for blending in. He kissed her rapaciously and she yielded to him, his heart broke for that and he pulled the earbuds away.
     "I love you." He whispered now that she could hear him. Passion was her only reply.

-----------------------------------------------

     The old man crouched over his plants, tending to the soil with natural fertilizer, doing what small bit of pruning needed to be done. More he just did it to kill time, to let the day slip by him in work. He could feel the presence behind him without looking. "Ahh, you're early Ire." He said, not looking up or moving to stop his soothing work.
     The youth chuckled behind him, raising smooth hands to supple skin. Still, he envied not the young, save merely for their ignorance. "I just came by to see how the next generation was growing."
     "Getting impatient are we? It won't work. Humanity is not ready fo-"
     "Humanity is ready for us, needs us."
     "I hardly see how that can be possible. All we've ever done is wage wars and meddle in their affairs."
     "It's a brand new age. They've created their own gods and have forgotten the heroes of old. It won't hold."
     The old man snips a dying branch from its hold. "If there is one thing I have learned it's that the common world is resiliant. They will continue on without you, forget you, and never look back."
     Ire sniffs at this and turns to walk away. "I'll be back when they are ready, I can see I'm going to get no help out of you."
     The geezer stands and shifts his glasses. "Of course you will always be."

My Generation (w.i.p.)

2009-06-08T03:30:24Z

This song kinda popped into my head while I was in Kansas. I imagine it sung by a female with an acoutstic guitar and perhaps light/jazz drums. Very indy, very sad, the song when sung should sound as sad as the lyrics.

We laugh at other's misfortunes
We laugh at everything
But our laughter is the tears of torture
Trying to hide our broken wings

And we go to work on Sunday
Cuz it's all we've ever known
But it's the diligence of the dying
As we watch our cold world burn

So give me back my generation
Give us back our hopes and dreams
Give me back my generation
You should have taught our hearts to sing

We live in a world that's broken
You say you gave all you could give
We don't blame your distraction
Just tell us how we can live

Our songs scream out our sorrow
You roll your eyes and grin
We can't tell you that we're not joking
And we're bleeding because of your sin

So give me back my generation
Give us back our bodies and minds
Give me back my generation
On our own, some hope we might find

We don't know how to be lovers
We can barely even be friends
We're not blind to our destined ending
And it makes some of us never begin

Give me back my generation
Give us back our chance at life
Give me back my generation
So we can try and finish your strife

Give me back my generation
Won't you give it back
Please give it back
Begging give it back
Give it back
Give it back
We need it back
I need it back so ba(hold note)dly

We laugh at other's misfortune
We laugh at everything
We're a tribe of faceless people
Listen to our fading scream

Immediate Concerns

2009-06-07T08:30:05Z

So. I figured out I don't have mosquitos. It's mites. My house is infested with mites of the kind that bite humans, raise welts, and cause me to itch madly. I am also delicious it seems. I did not have mites before I got the second couch and my queen sized bed so it's obvious where they came from. The sad thing is that now I need neither the bed nor the couch, so all I'm enjoying is being eaten alive by bugs I can't see. It's maddening and the bites are spreading. First there were two, then four, and now... I don't... I'm just glad my body will adapt soon and take some of this from me.

I got home and tried to pay my rent. My bank had just been robbed by the time I got there and no one knew where another USBank was. I come home to a pay rent or we'll sue you notice. That means late fees. Gotta love comming home from two funerals only to have a bank robbery spoil your day then go sit in your pest infested home. It itches, I itch all over and there is no relief.

On the plus side the Yoshida Brothers are an incredible group.

I'm trying to get my thoughts together to blog about the second funeral, this will be impossible till my body stops screaming hystamine...

Oh did I mention I don't have the means to fix this?

Funeral, The First

2009-06-02T08:41:05Z

Today was so incredibly intense, but first to address something, or more importantly someone.

I love you. I need you. I miss you more than words can convey. I miss you more than my heart can bare to reflect. Don't leave. Don't leave -me-.

Okay, so today started with vacuum noises. I might have lamented my family earlier but man do we get some things right, in this case we clean like a mug. To use a basketball metaphor our cleaning takes the form of zone defence, we stay in one area and pass cleaning utensils between us. We don't talk, we just clean. Sometimes hand gestures are involved, thinking back on it we have some Black Bolt in us. (Get it? It's a nerd joke, Black Bolt, black family?) In fact we work really well like this, so much so that when I'm with the family I forget that other people can't hear our silent conscious decisions. More on this later.

So the family gathered. It was time for the funeral after all and we had a service to get to. My father showed up and we lead the charge to the church, I got to talk to my little sister on the cell, she's going to camp, I'm excited for her. Of course I'm still terrified at her living situation, but you would too if you suspected your eight year old little sister was being malnourished and ill educated not by intent but by -ignorance-. I'm helpless in the situation, naturally, but what can a half brother do? Bothersome.

So the service begins and people speak, talking about how my great-grandmother's connection with god never waned, how she was an amazing person, how she helped shape a community of love in Coffeeville. There was also a lot of talk about god, and raising chideren in the word and so forth, which my mind twisted into indoctrination. I got up to speak, check out how I rip people off left and right and fail a bit.

"...so that aside I just want to say something on the subject of life, death, and passing. Life is the bitter pill we all must swallow before we reach our joyous surcease." This got a lot of approval grunts and a few hallelujahs "My great-grandmother has finished this life and can now drink of the sweet water." This got fewer grunts. "It is in us the living not to sorrow, but to exist in joy will only add to those that have past on to the after. Thank you." And then I sat down and got claps. See how I failed? People came up to me and commented on how profound my words were, I was asked to speak at someone else's funeral...

I could have rolled them.

I could have given them the ultimate token, I could have -passed-. I could have once and for all assured my family I was still christian. All I had to do was mention Jesus or God or anything like that and the impact would have -trippled-. But I couldn't do that, and my performance suffered. I stuck to my beliefs, compromised only as much as I felt I could... It was enough to wow them but I still failed.

Funny thing was there was a millionaire preacher there, he was impressed. If I had gone for the gut I could have gained a valuable contact.

In the closing someone mentions the Fear of God. That about ruins all the lovey dovey fellowship talk from before.

So we came home and there was food. Lots of food. Lots of chatter too, I've found that black families all have complimentary laugh tones. The casual talk and cackling is a frequencey you can immediately identify as family even if you don't know what's being said. It's soothing somehow. Tribal. After the food came the viewing.

The family went to the mortuary. There was litterally an echo in... I would call it space, but it wasn't just. I looked at a dead body. Everyone else saw great-grandma.

All I could think of was to wonder if I could make someone else so still, if I could handle the concequences of lethality after looking at the end result in the face. The -absence of a person- was staggering.

I decided that yes, I could.

After the viewing we come home. We sit around and I get into a -very- rousing argument with the pastor starting on the subject of FOX News, then into government theory, then into aliens as a catalyst for unifying humanity, global climate change... I mean we whent -everywhere-. He was a christian conservative who makes over 250000 a year. We had lots of fun.

In the end he told me I had a gift and to keep on with my passion but not to let it outweigh my judgement.

This was a pretty cool day all things considered.

... But I missed you. I wanted my family to meet you.

Geekness: Part 1 of Mugen

2009-06-01T08:07:48Z

I did fou things today.

I played 4e with some friends online. It was straight up tons of fun, even the frustrating parts.

I watched an episode of Dr. Who or two.

I finished the manga 666 Satan... Because I'm in an incredibly christian house and it was for the lulz.

I watched an episode of Eden of East.

I think this is me girding my loins for the Kansas trip which may or may not have internet.

Dream: Issac Hayes

2009-05-31T17:26:49Z

I just had the most amazing dream I've had in years

I dreamed that I was in elementary school with Issac Hayes.

Not Issac Hayes as a child, but as an adult. I was angry because he was never in my group and the projects he was a part of were inevitably superior.

Then came the day we wrote up project ideas then had our groups assigned then picked from amongst our ideas.

My idea was a side-scrolling fusion between Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon (I have a huge afro in this dream) and Street Fighter done with a funk sensibility and a bass line so low it was lead. (I'm trying to quote, the original line had something to do with coconuts on palm trees.) Then came the group assignments, they assigned Issac Hayes to my group and everyone decided that my idea was the one we were going to do.

It was the best moment ever. I hearted at Issac Hayes.

Never mind that there were other parts to my dream, none of you know the people I went to high school with, but suffice it to say it was incredible.

Edit: I just realized something! I was totally in love with one of my friends in high school and I buried it the entire time because we had been friends since elementary school. She was in the dream... I might still have feelings for her?!? I'm weirding out because the more I think of this dream the more I realize I want to find her and just say hi...

End of the Day

2009-05-30T09:31:09Z

So I took a nap and we went to Canter's for dinner. I got a Ruben that was mind blowingly delicious. We came back home and my nieces came over with their mother.

It is only when i am around my family that I remember why I stay away. It is only after having my beloved solitude ripped from me that I recognize how much I need it.

Family gets up in your business, family has something to say. Family asks 'Well why don't you come back and live in LA?' and once you explain that the cost of living and education aren't to your liking they remind you that Uncle lives in a two bedroom by himself (That's my cousin's room when they stay at their father's like hell I can accept that) Or that grandmother's apartment is large(You want me to what?!?) and now that great-grandmother is dead she's all alone.

Now notably it's my Moroccan aunt who's badgering and pestering me about things, she's very high energy and doesn't understand boundaries the best. She has a very different concept of family than really most of us do, and it shows in my cousins who are somewhere between her hyper-intimate way of being and the Fisher family polite distance. For most of us family is enjoyed at n arms length, hug it when you want it but otherwise just no, but even being this close has left me slightly uneasy.

We're each such highly singular individuals and communication amongst the Fisher/Fields family is often fraught with peril, no one completely gets where the others are coming from, but we do out best to get along. Only problem is you have to toe the line and not be a bisexual alternately gendered taoist giga-liberal so long as you're interacting.

Also grandmother's wireless is terrible for torrents, I could never live here.

On Being Black

2009-05-29T20:09:24Z

So grandmother and I just had the greatest discussion about black culture that had no point to it -ever-.

It started out with her saying that black colleges would be putting education majors through college with a full ride so they will become teachers in the future. I mentioned that I really dislike the idea of black colleges. I find it separatist.

This launched a -huge- discussion about a lot of things I've talked about in my earlier post about black culture and the fight against kyriarchy with my grandmother defending with some rather strong points. She also mentioned that gay rights advocates have been calling themselves the new black. THE NEW BLACK?!? This is ridiculous! I have never been quite so insulted by a group I consider myself a part of! Are they rounding us up? Are we forced to use separate bathrooms? Are we denied education? More to the point, are we rioting? Are things so bad that we have a violent response to being so ill treated? Have they sicked the dogs on us?!? Where are the firehoses?!?

Okay, I need to stop foaming at the mouth about that... it's just... really bothersome...

Anyway, grandmother told me a tale, and hey let's relate it to the above. I'm paraphrasing but work with me here. "I grew up in Kansas, we were one of the first states to integrate. There were two black schools in Coffeeville, this was when it had a much bigger population than it has now, and when integration came they shut down our new school. They wouldn't let any of our teachers teach in the integrated schools, some integration eh, so from the third grade on I was taught exclusively by whites. (Note: By this time in the discussion we are miles past being politically correct.)

Now I consider myself blessed to have this opportunity but I remember one time when it first began the principal called us all into her office (I think she said her) and asked us 'What do you want to be called?' and I remember thinking to myself, though I didn't say it at the time 'I want to be called Elaine...' (I wish she had said it... god I wish she had said it...) I was in third grade, but I remember being kinda angry and insulted, though I didn't understand what was going on. 'Would you like to be called Negros or Black' which wasn't a pride term at the time the sixties hadn't come yet or some other term I can't remember but she had options for us. I don't remember what was decided, or who decided it but I for the life of my couldn't figure out why we couldn't be called children and why we would be called because of our race."

So hey! Can I get a similar experiance from the Gay Rights perspective? Oh wait! No, you can't because sexual orientation has never been disintegrated. Ouch... sorry... She went on to continue and I feel the need to get the rest of it out just because it... I don't know... it was enlightening.

"But then again I lived on the west side, and you never had this experiance (this was to her sister who came for great-grandma's funeral), but all our neighbors were all white and they treated us on equal level. Now this was in the fifties when racism was full blown, yet I never experianced racism in my own town. I didn't know I wasn't allowed into the only resturaunt in town, I didn't have any money! I didn't know I wasn't allowed up to the counter of the rail worker's hostel, kids just went up to the window to get ice cream. There was two pools one for the white and one for the black and the black pool was on the east side. To this day I have -no idea where the other pool was-... or is! Could still be there! All I had was my own experiance and people were nice to my family.

So while I knew that people were fighting in the south I never saw anything. Maybe I would have been more angry if I had -known- I was limited by my skin tone, and perhaps there was a lot of ignorance involved, but I never saw myself as different and the community I grew up in was supportive of keeping it behind the scenes."

Kansas, surprisingly nice. I'm less apprehensive about visiting now.

Greyhound; Preceeding and After

2009-05-29T16:49:10Z

Cab Drivers! Wow. Interesting group, but last night's was exceptional.

A slightly older black lady picks me up and as we are driving towards the freeway she gets confused about what street we are on because of some construction work, but everything turns out fine. We drive up to the on ramp and she yells at a Hummer for no reason. Somehow this turns into a discussion about planned obsolescence, only I actually use those words and she doesn't. She proceeds to tell me how she blows the faux-riche of Scottsdale's minds with such talk. "Just because I'm a cabdriver doesn't mean I'm not smart. I drive for my own reasons."

This then segues into half a conversation about racism. I say half a conversation because she's not listening to me by this point and is instead touting her own virtues proudly. "But you know, when most people say race they mean culture. A race doesn't have innate stereotypes beyond physical traits, but cultures have behavior." I try to interject to raise the conversational level, it doesn't work. Thankfully I get out of the taxi before I get frustrated.

So the greyhound ride was simple enough. There was a theology major sitting behind me who was doing a documentary on transportation. She was asking questions, not offering too many statements, observing. First one to speak with her was a younger guy, who kept asking her how the pot was in Canada, where she went to school. She calmly explained to him that it was a bible college and he didn't quite get it the first few times. I turned around and asked her what she intended to do with a theology degree.

She gave me some answers and I summarized with "So basically you are going things that require a post graduate degree, but not really anything to do with theology." She defended her choice, but not very well, I nodded and agreed with her to be polite. Taoist monk does not start fights with Christian theology major. She asked me questions, I gave answers, I stopped talking when I revealed I was headed to a funeral.

Then a rather verbose young man started hitting on her, and did so for a rather long time. I was tickled. It was obvious after a little while she would have rather kept talking to me, as she kept striking up conversation every now and then. It was... amusing...

Christian theology major is -so- not my type. Seven hours later I wish her good luck on returning to Canada. She would have been a good contact if I felt like cultivating it but... I don't.

The insurance isn't going to pay out for great-grandmother's funeral and everyone is broke to fuck and I can't afford to do anything about it. We're looking at trying to find a place for a service on Monday then shipping her body to Kansas to put her in the ground.

I am the only Conspicuously Available family member to go to Kansas with my grandmother... Oh this should be fun...

More as it happens.

Leaving, for a momment.

2009-05-29T05:57:13Z

Going to the funeral for my great-grandmother.

Updates as they happen!!!

Cisgendered

2009-05-28T12:09:06Z

This Post is not Based in Fact.

Cisgender (pronounced /ˈsɪsdʒɛndər/) is an adjective used in the context of gender issues and counseling to refer to a class of gender identities formed by a match between an individual's gender identity and the behavior or role considered appropriate for one's sex. Cisgender is a "newer term" that means "someone who is comfortable in the gender they were assigned at birth." "Cisgender" is used to contrast "transgender" on the gender spectrum.

Or at least that's how Wikipedia defines it. It'll do for at least this one sided discussion as well.

About two years ago a friend confided in me that growing up they had spent a lot of time wrestling with their gender identity but in the end chose to remain Cisgendered (Not that the word was used at the time) because it was easier for them to get on in life with their birth gender than attempt to be transgendered. "It's a choice between being more comfortable and being more comfortable." They explained, and well I understood.

A few hours ago I told a friend of mine I'd be writing this post. He had the following to say. (Once again paraphrased, or in this case with some useless bits redacted): I'm afraid my knowledge of human sexuality terms is limited to the common knowledge and the stuff I got about third-genders in Native American cultures from my cultural anthro class. Not sure what there would be to write about, but like I said, not a gender studies guy.

If you were born Cisgendered there probably isn't anything to write about in and of itself. The common state of being for the majority of people exists only in contrast to what it is not. It's a lot like anything sexual really, there is assumed volumes of things to be said about homosexuality, about normal heterosexuality? Much less, if only because you can easily assume that most people have experianced what you are talking about. But what about abnormal heterosexuality? Fetish?

I consider myself to be Cisgendered abnormal. I'm Cisgendered because while it doesn't completely fit, it fits enough... for now. In that choice between being more comfortable and being more comfortable well my decision is pretty easy. Why? Because I don't have any other options.

I am not female.

See, when I look in the mirror I don't ask "why couldn't I have been born X" because quite simply the X that I think I am? I don't have a word for it. Instead I flex and think about how I can work this body that I have better, because it's not a bad body you know... it'll do... I guess. Because somewhere in the back of my head I'm not a guy. I'm not male. Sure I have some masculine characteristics, but my gender identification is not male. It's not female either. It's also not hermaphrodititic... insofars as I know because who knows what being a hermaphrodite actually -means-. So gender options one, two, and three all fail me. Miserably.

I can't count the number of times I've heard the phrase "Well you're not really a guy." and instead of being insulted of my masculenity I just nodded and smiled, because normally that's a compliment. Also, I'm not. People can tell. I act differently, I project myself differently, I run by different rules. Oh sure most of it works, no one would gainsay me screaming "I am a mayun!" and then punching someone's entrails out. But I need another option, I need something to identify with that works for me.

And let me tell you I could use new genitalia. The shit I got aint bad, but man, it could be more interesting.

I've always been just mildly offput from manhood, just three to four steps removed. It's remote and isolating because you have a hard time putting it into words much less trying to find someone else who knows what you feel like.

I'm Cisgendered because I don't have a better option.

How about Violence? Can Violence be a gender?

Or maybe I'm a digitaly sexual person, made up of both ones and zeroes (if you catch my drift, wink wink, nudge nudge, one goes in the zero and they make a baby lol) and meant to be housed in a body of silicon and steel... or... you know... even cooler materials than that, and my problem is science hasn't caught up with my sexuality...

Here's hoping.

Death

2009-05-27T02:35:38Z

So my Great-Grandmother Opal died today. Ain't that the kicker.

She was 82, she had lived a full life. I never knew her without the debilitating dementia.

She was always described to me as racist and cruel but strong for a woman born in her age. Gumption I believe they would have called it.

Just a friendly reminder, nobody gets out alive.

The Beginning: End of the Line

2009-05-26T12:50:36Z

So it's the end of the month, or very near to it depending on how you look at it. My life is in shambles, my finances are in question, my education is in question, my future is in question. I have very little, I can still fit everything I own except the furniture into a backpack and my suitcase. I have a suitcase full of someone else's clothes. I have no -reason- to get up in the morning, just a vague feeling of responsibility to do so. Once again I have been broken down to the very bottom, I have little to no recourse, the love of my life is completely out of my reach, I'm covered in mosquito bites, my air conditioner is broken and management won't fix it. I have no friends in the city where I live. There are no obvious ways out.

This is normally when I do something drastic and change my life (temporarily) for the better.

The problem is this is a pattern. This happens to me often enough that I have a set of completely normal responses to it. That is to say, I'm prepared to lose everything. I expect it. This is bullshit. I don't deserve my life to be this way. I have consistently thrown my life away for other people and made huge sacrifices that I have nothing to show for but memories. Normally that's good enough. I also consider myself lucky in that I have managed to live upon the grace of others from time to time. This is unacceptable.

I also don't know how to live any differently.

I don't know how to do anything for myself. That is to say I know how to do things, but I am never enough reason to do any of them. I don't value myself enough to expend effort on my own behalf. Sure, give me someone to care about and I'll move mountains, done it before, I'll probably end up doing it again. But that isn't good enough. If I worked to build -myself- up I would have an easier time helping others out when they needed it, wouldn't I? Or would I just have farther to fall?

This is one of the reasons I have always wanted to go into the military. I'm good at doing what I am asked to do or ordered to do or doing what is expected of me by others, I just don't seem to have the capability of doing for myself. So, not only would I be good at it, perhaps I could build up enough residual resentment that I could want to do something for me, or find out what I feel me is worth doing for. I've never wanted an easy life. Hell, since a very early age I have expected my life to be difficult, painful, arduous, and more unpleasant than pleasant. I have accepted that nothing is gained without sacrifice, and that those few happy moments do actually make the hardship worth it.

Now if only I could have a happy moment by myself, for myself, I'd probably be a lot better off.

I'm not a selfish person by nature, or at least I'm not anymore. I want, but I have no attachment to things. I have found a certain kind of center, or peace, that would be much better suited to a different time and a different place. I'm not suited for this self-centered society. Oh sure I'm an egotist, I'll never deny that, but I know the world doesn't revolve around how much I can get and even less around how much I can keep. I will not be happier with more money in the bank, I will just be more complacent. These are not the same things.

But maybe I should try and be more selfish. That's been the plan and the goal, but I've never succeeded. Hopefully my mother will call me, I'll be in the family's debt some more, but I'll come out on top in the long run. If that doesn't happen? ... It's like the realization that you're an adult because you can eat what you want whenever you want it. I realize that at this moment I'm still just a lost kid, trying to find a reason to grow up and fully enter the adult world, because I myself have never been a good enough reason.

To Defeat; To Fight

2009-05-21T14:12:00Z

Someone once said that fighting for peace is like fucking for celibacy. I, for one, agree.

Now important to understand is that I've been doing martial arts for about sixteen years now. It's my life and utterly inseparable from who I am. I take the martial and application aspects of it very seriously. What that means is that I'm good in a fight. Not just your average tough fists good either, I'm a weaponized human at this point. I don't fight because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I get into a serious fight I will damage the average opponent. Not that I'll win, mind you, technique means little in a street fight, but I'll move to inflict lasting damage.

Part of that training is learning how to suppress the instincts we have inside. The average person is not just going to dive their thumb into your eye-socket. People can't just -do- that. However, often times, that will be the quickest method to ending a fight. So if it's life or death? Why not? Because the point isn't the fight, the point isn't even ending the fight. The point isn't to kill your opponent, the point is making the continuance of whatever behavior started the fight, in this case a life or death situation, cost more for your opponent to continue than it does for them to stop.

Gouging someone's eye out does -not- make peace. At best it engenders fear.

Fight, Flight, Posture, Submit. I'm certain I don't have to explain more than this much.

Black people make white people nervous. The fact that we are violent and dangerous is a part of the common discourse about race. We're tribal, savage, and most of all angry. White people do what they can to placate the black community while still keeping them under thumb, mostly because they need to assuage their guilt and they really aren't interested in giving up that power. Black people in America are also the favorite minority. We make culture, we rule at sports, we create our own language, we're funny, fresh, and entertaining!

And best of all we toe the kyriarchical line.

On a whole black culture has been removed from the front lines of disassembling the establishment to attempting to attempting to infiltrate it, jockey for position inside of it, and gain equal power to oppress others through it. I do not believe that as a group my own culture gives a damn about reproductive rights, homosexual rights (which is hilarious because we have at least three completely different versions of gay inside the culture, rape culture, transgender -anything-, children's rights, pornography (outside of christian conservitism), prostitution (ditto), or really any other civil rights issue.

Aside: Let it be known that I don't give a shit about legal pornography. Perhaps it is that I wish to be a pornographer myself. And no, I'm not going to make it easier to digest by calling myself an erotic fiction writer, those burning loins I write about are the exact same as the picture of that cock over there. It's porn, it's making people horny in exchange for money, and dammit that's the job I -want-. (When I put it that way it sounds like prostitution, strangely I'm not bothered by this.)

The above is a problem because black culture should still be right there with everyone else. We should learn about and care about those issues because we have a pretty good track record of actually getting things done as far as civil rights go. All you have to do is look at the past hundred and fifty years really. That's some significant movement in a short period of time when you are talking about changing the way people think.

Because the key as far as I see it is not that we fought the White Man and won, far from it in fact. It's that we put the establishment in a place where it would lose more (riots and uprisings) by not making our consessions than it would in making them. With some other issues this looks like it would be pretty easy to do, it's not like you guys are suggesting to abolish nearly free labor and nearly free living sex toys in the same stroke...

Or are you?

P.S. I miss you more than words could say. I miss you more than pain can feel. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.

120 Hours: Epiphany.

2009-05-20T13:08:33Z

Nothing happened yesterday. And when I say that don't think that I mean that 'not much' or 'very little' happened. I mean NOTHING happened that I did not consciously decide on. I watched anime, I read manga, I read blogs, I talked to people I wanted to talk about the problems that I've been having. Generally the world danced to my tune, except my mother failed to call me. That happens. But that isn't something happening, that's a failure of something to happen. I thought and I considered some things, lots of things really, and I came up with more things I wanted to talk about.

I want to talk about me being cisgendered in context, about the lack of options.

I want to talk about emotional sensitivity.

I want to talk about Romeo and Juliet.

I want to talk about what being insane has done to me.

I want to talk about blame.

I want to talk about experiance, specificly validity or invalidity.

I want to talk about intelligence.

I want to talk about sex in a number of different ways.

I want to talk about civil rights.

And I want to talk about all these things before I leave. It'll be some busy blogging.

But what I want to talk about right now is love, and with luck I shall have discharged this speech forthwith.

The entire time I was unsure to say I loved her. Rather, it was true to say I loved her, but only as I could. Love from me is no easy thing. Too often have I constructed simulacrums of emotion to fill the gap and truly dishonest with myself for so doing and keeping it as true. I worried that as I said it, and keeping it as true, I was by fair reflection giving false and holding of mine own heart in contempt. Nay, I thought, I could no sooner let that be true as rend my chest open with but my fingers and pull my still beating heart from its throne.

But given the knowledge, and ordained predilection, of previous treason I feared that in the shadow, hidden from god of day there lurked a dark and ominous spirit sent to hold upon the stony cliffs of my insides and manipulate myself to give false testimony of that which I believe in full honor. And so upon the amulet of doubt did I prick myself, held as I forgot that the head is not well native to the heart. So with foul instrument I was stricken deep with the poison to let if fester and grow, knowing not in of myself but rather only of what I have known of myself to steer my return to health.

Let it be known that I have always counted myself agent, one holden to change and held in favor of the moirae, to find weakness in the skein and sacrifice of my own thread to make the whole more resilient. Of my dalliances and encounters labled conquests my only badge of victory be the improvement of place of those whom I have thus hit and won the match, and my badges I have never counted small. Of her it came to be known that perhaps I could in small part have half a badge, a triffle, perhaps a trinket, perhaps a single band of color to signify that -some- change of fate hath occured by my well intentioned intervention.

But I cared not. For it was in those very momments that my core felt rent and sanguine, for once there was no solace to be found. It was then with ill humor and a blackened heart, be it from bruised muscle or evils grip I shant know, that I realised I loved true, that I had been right, and that I loved more than I had even said because I could not let go. Defeated and redeemed by the same stroke... Just and fair even in its cruelty.

The past 72 hours. Part III

2009-05-18T02:51:28Z

The Litany of Hate is, essentially, a collection of about three hundred posts of women speaking aloud their abuse, telling what happened. It is a stunning indictment of the common sexual discourse because so many of the stories are the same. It demonstrated -powerfully- that the problem is in the deepest part of society itself. What I couldn't get over, though, was how often women mentioned that cat-calls, being groped, or lewd remarks made them feel dirty or sexually impugned upon.

That's when the trouble really began in my head.

I couldn't help thinking about the times I had been cat called by cars full of girls, and sometimes guys, or times when I have been touched by people I didn't want to be in the club in ways I didn't want to be touched (I chaperone, it's not that I don't trust my female friends to fend for themselves its just if a guy is going to try and cop a feel on someone I care for, I'd rather them grope me instead... and they have once or twice) , or the volumes of casual cruelty that men do to eachother, especially when you aren't quite straight. None of this made me react like these women did. Never once has this bothered me... at least to any extent that I could recognise.

Everyone's pain is their own. See, that's what is wrong with my thinking. I was comparing, judging, determining worth by resiliance to behavior that -should not exist in the first place-. The problem isn't with how they cope, it's that they shouldn't have -reason- to cope. but of course my wrongheadedness wasn't done.

See, I've been abused too. Raped. And yeah, it's hard to say that, but I got there. As I read over all the hate that society has generated against women and the casual, enabling, denying, stupidity of the average person it started to bother me again.

This, I thought, this is a forum for moral support for female sexual abuse victims. There is a -culture- involved with this. There are programs, litigation (really crappy though, needs so much work), and even a movement based around stopping these injustices. Oh, and what do men get? Oh you'd love to -think- that male privilage would extend to taking abuse, especially sexual, against males seriously. It doesn't. But as I sat there I realised. These women blame Men. I'm a sexuall assault survivor too, yet if I shared my story would they care? Sure, I thought, they'd care, bit not as much as they would for a woman who would have gone through the same things.

And so I seethed, and kept reading.

The only time people care about boys being molested is when there is additional scandal to go with, I thought, not remingind myself that that's pretty true about women too. No, the only thing I could think of is there are shelters for battered wives, but that I would be ridiculed for expecting the same for men. Why is my experiance invalid? I've been abused by both men -and- women, try and tell that to a normal person and they might admit that the rapist in the street was assault, but women? C'mon, you're a dude. So I kept reading.

Then. Suddenly, without any of my earlier issues being resolved, it struck me. Am I one of these men? Am I a part of this parade of crimes? Have I coerced people into sex and potentially damaged them forever? Horror stole over me, its cold embrace wracking my already flimsy mental state. I could only come to one conclusion. Probably.

Probably I had done it without my knowlege, I've had blackout drunk nights where sex was invloved (waking up with a condom on, at once uncomfortable and intensely relieving), anything could have happened. Or maybe I -had- done it intentionally. I play rough with people who like that kind of play, and that means I have a long list of encounters where I wasn't given a no, but never got a yes, and these are with people I cared deeply for and even loved. As I sat their and reviewed my conduct, especially recently, I realised that the abuse hadn't stopped with me at all, it had just downgraded some. Preying on compulsion is not consent. Then I came to my second conclusion. By this point it is nearly impossible (I'd put it in fractions of a percent my probability of escape) that I haven't damaged anyone sexually with my actions, with or without my knowledge, exactly the way I have been damaged.

So, I'm a sinner. Generally that makes me feel like a worthless piece of shit. Generally that makes me a worthless piece of shit. And then my experiance -was- invalid. Nevermind that I responded to being sexualised at a young age by seeking physical intimacy as a way of telling myself I was loved. (The patriarcy call women who do this sluts, right now I now I'm amonst their number.) And hey, the fact that my coping mechanism for abuse was traditionally feminine? That bothered me too. I look at myself and I know that despire how hard I -tried- for the past eleven years, I've failed. I failed you all. Irredeemably.

Of course feminism wouldn't include me. I'm the enemy. Like so many men, I tried not to be, but... I was... I am...

And this -THIS- is why I have a hard time not getting angsty in my blogs.

Fucking pathetic.

The past 72 hours. Part II

2009-05-18T02:04:38Z

So I'm already a bit staggered by not having anyone else in my home, not having a reason to -do- anything other than the baseline of eventually I want to make something of myself. Depression is an easy habit for me when I'm alone. Then the bad news about the army, that didn't help. So where do I turn? The internet! To be specific my friends, who I trust to be supportive (well most of them) and to have good ideas that make me think. Now I have a friend Krinn, who hopefully is reading this right now, who is a person so incredibly dear to my I must say that I love them as family. Krinn is also a feminist, who has pointed me in some interesting directions for it before namely a few blogs (feminism 101 and iblamethepatriarcy) that are rather interesting as someone who has a -strong- interest in Civil Rights.

iblamethepatriarchy is pretty darn amazing. Twisty is very strong with her word-fu and I can actually see her fighting spirit glow from her blog. She has the heart of a true champion, I'm certain if she felt like it she could be a whole super sentai team, by herself. Or even better she could be a shonen protagonist with a decidedly feminist bent, tipping the whole genre on its ear. (That, by the by, is not a bad concept to start with when thinking of a story... maybe I...) On her blog late friday night/early saturday morning I read a post about men posting on feminist blogs. There was a link to two other blogs in her 'but what about the mens' section that detail how to post responsibly towards women. In it she says, and I paraphrase, that it'd be better if men simply didn't post at all.

On one hand I can see 'This is a Safe Place' in it. On the other hand I find it deeply insulting.

Now! Understand that -I- understand my outrage to some extent is generated by male privilage. 'Oh? Is my experiance not -valid- enough?' is the same kind of thinking that comes from the expectation of inclusion. It's wrong for me to expect that, especially in a 'Safe Place' that I frankly haven't been invited to. So, I go read the primers. I agree with some things, disagree with others, but one thing sticks in my craw. Once again I paraphrase, a part said that asking what people are going to change the situation is doing it wrong.

Now lets get another piece of privilage I have ingrained in me by my own particular culture. That is the thought that the racism and sexism debates can be compared. This comes from being a black man who has been prejudiced against, struggled against it, and to some degrees overcome. We Shall, after all.

Of -course- these issues can't be compared evenly. They just aren't the same. Yes both have been going on since before recorded history, yes subjugation and slavery have happened on cause of both. Wars are fought over racism, thousands of people throw their bodies and lives into the meatgrinder over ethnicity.

The biggest difference is that for feminism or female rights, violent wars are not fought, in patriarchal society women are -expected- to walk dutifully into the meatgrinder of rape culture and die there without protest, quietly, with but a whisper, and no loss of life on the side of men is expeted or tollerated.

Give me an enemy I can face, I would ask if given the choice, and luckily in my privilage they did, and so I do. The slavery of women is , in my opinion, worse. First off slavery of ethnicity? Includes women, and captors have traditionally forced the degredation of being property to disgusting places. Dual slavery, not to say that black men were never sexually abused by plantation owners, seems a step up for me. A slavery your entire world reinforces subconsiously? Yeah no, I can punch bigots in the face if they say/do something stupid. I can't punch every advertiser in the world turning women into the sex class no matter how hard I try... yet... but man wait till I have a drill big enough. The common discourse, despite how hard change is to enact is on -my- side. I can look at any woman and know it's against her.

Back to topic, it bothers me that male feminists are supposed to be passive. That bothers me a lot for the aformentioned selfish and wrong reasons. The 'positive feminist male stories' I've read (I've only been doing this for about twenty hours all told, so I haven't seen a lot but...) are all reactive. No pro-active male feminists to be seen, and what is more your behavior and conduct when engaging in discussion is supposed to be passive as well. No assertions of male privilage is difficult to come by, I know I -could not do it no matter how hard I tried-, but I just don't understand the need for a lack of vigorous debate from both sides of the gender line.

I was about to just write it all off (in a classicly male way) when I felt the need for a second opinion, called Krinn, and was told to wait till they could explain it better, and pointed me to another blog, and told me to look for the incrimentalsim. So I did, educated myself a little more, and got even more angry at the abuses thrown, and stqrted to think 'well maybe it's not all bad, it's just a support structure that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with equality'

Then during all that I stumbled, quite by accident onto a Litany of Hate. I didn't think I'd need a part three but here goes.