prosphoros

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I woke up this morning with Portishead's Roads stuck on a loop in my head. It's a beautiful song, but hardly something one wants to set the tone for the day.

champignon, maybe this is my answer to your question; this is what loneliness feels like. Now I should maybe be more careful about what I read before I go to sleep.

This perpetual tiredness crap is really getting old.

War today, war tomorrow, war forever!

It would appear that the president and I have very, very different ideas as to what constitutes a "stupid war".

yesterday's surprising lunch walk thought
"I'm furious at my mother. I never expected much of my father."

Yeah, that says volumes. Next week I do the family history with new therapist. It should be fun.

I'm feeling kind of surly and losery today. I've got my (physical) health, I've got excellent people in my life, I have consistent access to safe food and water and what is historically an unprecedented access to luxury and leisure. And yet, amidst this embarrassment of riches, I'm still profoundly unhappy.

I don't think it's chemical; given the slightest excuse, brief bits of happiness sprout and bloom, leading me to suspect that my base wiring is more towards the happy than not. It's hard to think it's just my gender issues; others with adjacent experiences, and at least some similarity of desires find ways to live and find fulfillment. But maybe their aim is different? Maybe the similarities arise from places where arcs run alongside tangents, or some other, more complicated geometries; maybe a few points close to one another aren't sufficient to compare, but then the whole idea of comparing anything to anything comes into question and all meaning falls apart.

I don't think it's just a decision to be happy, though. I read about ostensibly mystical acceptance, life without apparent judgment or criteria, and it reads as the willing death of the mind, the suspension of intellect and an embrace of something like placid stupor, and I can't imagine wanting anything like that for myself; if I did, I'd seek out prescription psychoactives. I hear doctors are giving them out like candy these days.

I don't know why I'm unhappy, but I am. It feels like I'm running out of potential reasons or excuses, avenues for investigation. From that perspective, it's hard not to start to draw the conclusion that it is me, that I'm doing something wrong, or that there's just some wrong state about me, and I have no idea how to fix that.

dreams
I've dreamed of airports two nights running now, and have no idea what it means.

I also just want to go back to sleep.

from good to bad between paragraphs
I'm reading Intersex (for lack of a better word). It was recommended by the Powell's search algorithm, and I've had pretty good results from that, so I gave it a shot. It's a particular form of episodic activism by memoir that simultaneously pulls me in as it makes me paranoid, squirming for what feels like the inevitable alienation (I've read a fair number of books in this style, and have formed prejudices based on bad past experience). It was 44 pages in this time, which is a lot further than what I'd come to expect.

What threw me was that it went from a piece that I found resonant:

Gays read Out magazine, cry at Gay Pride marches, watch Queer as Folk and think that bisexual and transgender people are ruining everyone's chances to be perceived as normal.

To, in the next paragraph:

"Queer" is men who used to be girls who love other queer girls, and boyish girls who only date other boyish girls who behave in a couple as if they are both gay men.

So, I get to share the frustration at mainstream gay assimilationism, but I don't get to be included under the queer umbrella. I know it's impossible to be entirely inclusive, and that she's probably writing to reflect her particular history and perspective, but there's the exclusion I was expecting, right on the page.

Seriously, I could stand to be wrong, could stand to be positively surprised.

Current Mood: predictably disappointed

unexpected side effect
I moved to a mostly vegetarian diet for a combination of reasons (mostly ecological and ethical), and it's been mostly good, I think. I eat out less, which is good in several ways, and am much more conscious about food. I've lost a little bit of weight, which was confusing and surprising; jeans I bought in the spring are a little loose now.

But it really came to an irrefutable point for me when I realized I can lace my Starker's corset all the way down without discomfort. Weird, but good.

I'm so tired that I'm cranky and extremely irritable. I just want to try and get some sleep, but there's no opportunity for that, at least not today.

Sometimes it feels like I'm watching the world end in slow motion with a thousand opportunities a day to make other choices, only no one ever does.

Note to self: don't engage chemically (any chemicals) because you're unhappy and trying to get away from it. It doesn't really work, and you don't want to pick up old habits again. Just because you weren't a mean spirited asshole this time doesn't mean it can't or won't happen next time. Just don't.

interesting
It is actually possible to drink enough to dull most of the pain.

I realize now that except for Janiene and work people, I haven't really seen anyone or done anything in a couple of weeks. That probably means something.

in literary news
I'm reading Oryx and Crake, which very much calls to mind The Stone Gods. They're interesting almost companion pieces (cousin pieces?), covering similar broad topics very differently. I won't be able to make a more in depth comparison until I finish, but I think it says interesting (and good) things about both writers and novels.

Do not want to go to work. I don't know what I'd do instead, but it would probably be better: read? Go sit in a coffee house? Go for a walk somewhere not my neighborhood? We're in the holiday slowdown, which means it's even more apparent that I'm bored at work, and it feels even more like I'm trying to compress 15 cubic feet of me in a five cubic foot space. But I don't have time off until next week. It's going to be a long few days.

It's not fair that one small piece of information can turn an easy "That's it, you suck!" dismissal into a huge, ugly "You may suck, but it's a piece of larger, inescapable suck that I thought I was numb to, and oh god, here it comes again!" anguish. While it may be unfair, I'd rather demonize and dismiss than face my reality that almost no one ever feels safe, that pain and danger can come at any time, in any circumstance.

And it pisses me off that the person in question is someone I have to consider as a fully-fledged human now: one that fucked up, badly, didn't apologize or try to make amends, and probably gets a degree of release I don't get by some guilt action, but still, human. That means it could be damned near anyone, and I hate that.

Current Mood: besieged

Huh. Apparently it's Transgender Awareness Week, Monday to Friday. I'm not sure which is worse, the near deafening silence on it, or the creeping certainty I have that any mentions will be all about making room for transgender men and women. Invisibility or mislabeled, misassigned visibility? Fuck it all, I need to find a way out of that either/or. I don't really want to compete in the 1000m Alienation at the Existential Olympics.

But, some of this isn't going to change. I had a sort of epiphany Sunday, driving and looking at people enjoying the sun. Even if I could reach into my head and pull out the part that sees binary gender, it would only be a temporary reprieve. Even just from watching, I think I'd quickly reconstruct the sorting people do of themselves and others, and gender would come right back in. I don't know what to do about this.

Current Mood: bereft

I am angry so much because it's easier than facing the sadness. Anger lets me tense up and focus outward; so tensed, there's little purchase for sadness. I'm afraid to let the sadness out because I fear it will drown me, that I'll sink into a pit of raw misery and loss and slowly dissolve, be unable to find the edges and crawl out. So I don't cry, don't face it, shove it down and cap it under pressure. I've been doing this a long time; the pressure is pretty intense. But the longer I do it, the more is bottled up, and the more likely a rupture will occur, which only scares me more, makes me more vigilant in my containment, which just feeds the loop. I'm afraid I'm going to blow soon, but it won't be an explosion of violence or anger. I don't know how sadness of this magnitude manifests, but if I don't find some way to release some of it, face it, I'm going to find out.

good read on legal marriage
Genderbitch on (legal) marriage:

On Marriage: Impaled? Have a Bandage!

It's nice to see more voices out there talking about the legal and social problems of marriage.