November 12, 2012

Day 7968 | Day 8044 | Day 8076

It's been a while since I've written much here. Partly it's a reluctance to acknowledge that what's happening to me is real and partly I want to see how everything turns out first so I can analyze in retrospect rather than admit to my overwhelming uncertainty about the present and future. But mostly it's that I've become so wrapped up in my personal struggles that I've become nearly blind to anything else— world shrink is a good description.

A little over two months ago I came out to my parents as transgender. I'd held the letter in one hand and a bottle in the other. The letter because I couldn't say the things that needed to be said, the bottle because I couldn't do the things that needed to be done. It went, I suppose, as well as it possibly could've—I shouldn't downplay the importance of a supportive and accepting family. Yet it's a support without reassurance, acceptance without empathy. Hollow, analytical, and without an emotional component as though I'm merely a problem that needs to be solved.

I've discovered that my parents are much more comfortable with addressing the practical aspects of my being transgender and transition than with my emotional needs through the process. Therapy, insurance, doctors, medications. Those are concrete problems with definite answers: easy to grasp and settle unambiguously and my parents have been a valuable resource for me to draw upon when figuring those things out. But when I try to connect to them by talking about the constant fear that I'm making an enormous mistake, about feeling isolated from everyone and everything, and about worrying that people will stare at me for the rest of my life, my parents are suddenly absent. It seems as though the natural reaction to your child saying 'I feel like a freak' would be to respond 'You're not a freak.' But instead what I get is a sympathetic 'Yeah...' trailing off to a painful silence.

This only reinforces my instinct to hide everything and remain emotionally distant from my parents since being open yields no benefit. I truly feel an emotional connection with only one other person and though our love for each other has grown into the most rewarding friendship I've ever had, it is not enough to be able to rely upon just one person for support. The fact that we're now living several hundred miles apart has also put a distinct limit on how we are able to support each other, no matter the depth of our feelings.

So in some ways things are radically different from the way they were a year ago or even just three months ago. I honestly never really thought I'd tell my parents about my gender issues or even that I'd still be alive at this point in time, yet here I am. But in other ways it's still remarkably status quo. Isolated, depressed, and in constant, barely-controlled fear. The difference is that there's a spark of hope that refuses to be extinguished despite how hard I try. Life's funny like that.

On politics:

Is it possible, in this day and age, to speculate on the prospect of an election being 'fixed' without being made to come across as some kind of conspiracy-theorist? After all, amidst the corporatocracy, the media messaging, the electronic manipulations of our daily activities, it would seem almost less plausible to suppose that it wasn't so.

Now, if you frequent 'conservative' websites (which, unfortunately, seem to be overrun with advocates of sex-policing fascism than genuine concern for small government), you can not help but hear theories ten ways from Sunday as to how the election just passed was in fact stolen -- from tales of pick-switching voting machines and stacks of phony ballots, to notions that Hurricane Sandy was the product of military weather control technology, the air is thick with theories of nefarious actions which, if undone, would switch the result back to a victory for Mitt Romney.

To these charges I answer: suppose all of this is true. Do you think Mitt Romney, or Paul Ryan will do anything about it? Hell no, Romney couldn't get out there to concede the election fast enough -- even while these claimedly indefensible votes were still being counted!! Or Mitch McConnell, or John Boehner? Nope, Boehner has gone the opposite route, coming out almost right away to declare that now, "Obamacare is the law of the land." Similar kowtowing to the outcome of the election has been evinced by those who claim to be bastions of conservatism. Eric Cantor remains silent. GOP chair Reince Priebus turns and looks away. The bottom line is that by their silence, if not by active agreement, they're all complicit in any claimed election theft!!

Indeed, the present silence of the GOP establishment with respect to the legitimacy of this election is all the proof that is needed that this was by agreement, from some point, if not from the very the start. It is all-too easy to envision the set-up being made between them -- possibly before that third presidential debate, the one where Romney robotically 'me-too'ed Obama's foreign policy talking points, from Israel to drone attacks. At some point before that date, Romney and Obama and McConnell and Boehner and Cantor all came together and agreed: Obama gets reelected, Dems keep the Presidency maybe for four more years, (or who knows, maybe for forty), while the Repubs get to keep the House. Watch and see how few Repubs -- especially from amongst the ones who really control the GOP, its dollars, its decisions -- will actually express any opinion, or do anything at all, about the concerns conservatives have raised. Try it yourself. Call your nearest Republican Congressman or Senator or Governor and insist they stand up to this, and see how they respond in their public actions.

So if this election ought to prove anything to conservatives, anything at all, it is that elections no longer matter. There is no 'political solution,' going out and voting, digging into your own pockets to give money, making calls, ringing doorbells, it's all a worthless waste of time and money, a distraction designed to part you from a few dollars more while keeping you from looking behind the Republicrat curtain of cowardly corruption. It's a tax those who call themselves 'conservative' for public consumption trick you into paying in the form of 'campaign donations' by falsely swearing to take on the other guy.

Herman Cain was right, the "GOP" has been fully and irreparably compromised, infiltrated, rotted from within. It's time to dump the GOP and make a new actually conservative party. (Except that those parties already exist, they're simply suppressed by the Republicrat duopoly.)



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Question of the day:

Why don't they just give Superman the Green Lantern ring?

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In node auditing news:

teleny is done!! iceowl is done!!

junkill -- on page 2 of 4
jessicapierce -- on page 2 of 11

Blessings, all!!

Tonight I will make sandwiches for atheists.

With any luck there will be some theists or agnostics for whom I will be making sandwiches also.

But the atheists are certain as the local atheist group has reserved the conference section of the restaurant where I work. These atheists do this every year here. In a place where "local" means heavily religious, an atheist group would be a tight bunch.  

I have been making sandwiches for the past three weeks between three to five days out of the week at this particular restaurant. I have made sandwiches in a number of other situations, both paid and not, though I would not consider myself a master of the art. Even so I do pride myself on a rather firm grasp on sandwich theory. Other theories, not so much.

When my coworker found out that the atheists would be in attendance, he espoused his Taoist opinion with regards the big questions out there. I do not know what I believe in or don't believe in but knowing simply that life exists and persists chills my bones.

Most mornings I am simply amazed to wake up.

This morning I awoke in a state of profound disbelief at the severe pounding overhead. The sort of beating that makes a hangover feel like a tickle in comparison.

Then I recalled that the roofers were scheduled to start today. Start by removing the failing roof of my mother's house. I think that they started on top of my room first. At 7 am. Which means that I got much less than the recommended allotment of sleep for the night and am floating down the hours until the noise ceases after my making of the sandwiches stops for the night.

I knew that the roofers were coming because there's a giant dumpster parked in the driveway. I dreamt of diving in and finding a world of more food than anyone could ever want. Instead I carried on, willfully disbelieving the inevitable by staying up late reading fairy tales. Which made waking up most unfun.

The roofers took a break for lunch, during which my mind began to calm somewhat. I suppose that I should have simply left the house immediately upon waking, but I was tired and did not want to expend much energy, knowing I would have to work later tonight. After I broke my fast though I decided that some fresh air and non-banging would do me good, so I went to two thrift stores.

Thrifting is always an interesting experience and today was no different. For one, there was a dog smoking weed inside the first one. The dog left without buying anything. I thought I had managed to time my visit before most of the high schoolers rolled in, but then I remembered that the high schools were not in session for the day. 

There was a very large Canadian flag for sale (don't ask me the price, I didn't check) and the usual assortment of bric-a-brac and castoff clothing. None of the clothes suited me much but I did find a CD from a band I'd heard good things about and decided not to buy a CD from a band I'd heard questionably good things about. I bought some shoes, a Soviet spoof by an English wit and ten old faded photographs and spent nearly all of my thirteen dollars. 

And tonight I will earn a few more more dollars, making sandwiches for the atheists.

As much as I would like to have the chance to overhear their atheistic chatter, I won't be able to do so, being in the kitchen, making the sandwiches. But I will be perfectly happy, listening to bad techno instead of the banging of roofers overhead.