dream snippet

I was in a weird suit of psuedo-asian armor (red, stragely enough: I don't like red on me) when I remembered that I could turn it into more impressive demon armor (sort of like in Morrowind), which I did. I then rushed in to beat the crap out of weird evil demon-type monsters; perspective worked like it did in video games. There were some human folk there, but all I remember were an amazingly hot brunette gothy chick, and her far-away-eyed blonde sidekick. Once thing had calmed down, I took off my helmet, and the brunette said, "You're a girl!", in a sort of shock. My no nonsense answer was, "But my armor isn't".

work and (in)visibility

Strangely enough, I’m finally starting to get the idea that I might actually be good at my job, and that other people might actually value and note that. I feel like I’m growing more confident (hopefully not in an arrogant or dismissive way), and certainly more proficient.

In spite of all of this, one of my more perceptive coworkers noted that my demeanor has become “more frowny” as time progresses at work. I stopped and thought about that when I heard it, and realized that it was true. As I said at the time, it’s not that the work is unrewarding, because it is; it’s just that there are a lot of other things that come along with that that are unpleasant.

So, I’ve been thinking about that for a couple of days, now, and realized that a certain level of discomfort has risen in relation to work. Before I was known, really, a certain ambiguity lingered around me that I found, well, comfortable. More as truth in advertising than artifice or politics, I tend to refer to my sweetie as either my SO or, well, my sweetie. I tend to assume her name would be useless to someone who hasn’t met her, and, well, ‘girlfriend’ is just an icky term all around (not just because it’s gender specific). But, post holiday party, people have seen her, know her name, and so… it bugs the crap out of me that people assume they know anything about me by having seen my sweetie, by knowing her name, other than that’s the one person I choose over all others. But no, people have to have their categories, their labels, their boxes to put others in, and I’m certainly feeling the heteronormative pressure (in addition to the binary normative pressure that I generally feel). Both of these grow gradually over time, as the preconceptions seem to take on a weight of… well, time, almost like a calcification, an accretion of presumed and assigned meaning, and it bugs the crap out of me.

There’s no easy solution here, and certainly what feels like no workable one. It feels like no matter which way I turn in the human world that I’m going to have meaning assigned to me that is fundamentally wrong. I know, I know; this is probably where anyone still reading is thinking, “well, that’s true for everybody”, and so maybe it is, but… Fuck, no point in addressing the ‘but’ there; I can only speak to my experience, anyway, so I shouldn’t even dream of generalizing.

So, I’m invisible on even more levels now, and I can’t easily claim visibility without stepping into monstrous outsider territory. I don’t know that this would be different anywhere except in the freak ghetto, which is something I’d like to avoid if possible; the resentment I imagine for being socioeconomically ghettoized would be just about unlivable to me, and likely lead to all sorts of stress related physical ailments. So, yeah, that’s why I’m increasingly “frowny”, and I don’t have a solution to it, but I guess recognizing the problem is the first step, right?

include epiphany as a part of a balanced breakfast

It struck me this morning that I need a new tatoo. Unlike the struggling I've done for over a year now in finding a good, meaningful symbol for both the sun and the rain to inscribe onto my skin, this one popped, Athena-like, from my brain.

I need an integral symbol on my upper right arm, to match the rebus on my left.

"you'd never know it to look at me"

I love the world and damned near everyone in it. Why does it have to be so goddamned hard?