What I found absolutely impressive and stunning about this comic is the way the artist explained the identification and elimination of the confounding factors in the Rat Park study. This is one of the hardest parts of experiments to explain to the public, and I think it was just brilliantly done.
Go to Sweden, and hope it works out better than last time.
I said yes pretty much exclusively because D asked on a bad day, with lots of barking from my roommate’s dog, and I desperately wanted to escape the noise. This was probably not the best motivation, and together with my usual aversion against going pretty much anywhere (all the organizing and packing and paying hefty sums for train tickets and having to get there on time is very much not among my favorite things) I’ve been doubting and regretting it almost ever since. I don’t know if getting away from my living situation here for a while will do me enough good to outweigh the possible negative effects of, well, everything. (Okay, I’ll admit I’m mostly scared of the touching and consent thing.)
But at least I’ll definitely get to dodge the heat here for a while – I can handle 40°C just fine in a dry climate, but the humidity here kicks my ass. Sweat is supposed to evaporate quickly and help to cool you down, dammit, not drench everything and run everywhere and turn everything any part of you touches into a sticky, wet, smelly, disgusting mess. And I’ll probably get to practice driving, and maybe even go swimming – which, incidentally, is the next point on this list.
Go swimming.
I haven’t been at all yet, and it’s new and scary, and there’s organization involved, but it would make the heat much more bearable and help me to get in some exercise during the sports course-free summer, and I used to love swimming when I was little. I want to love it again. I think I will, if I can just get myself to do it. (I hope that going swimming in Sweden first will motivate me to figure out how to do it at home afterwards as well, but that’s probably only going to happen if it’s really better than last year. And a bit warmer.)
Turn 25. Barring serious accidents or crimes, this one is guaranteed to happen and will take the least work.
I have mixed feelings about it, but since I can’t exactly stop it from happening unless I kill myself first (which I do not want to do, thank you very much) I’ll do my best to maximize the good ones and minimize the bad ones. And I’ll probably even celebrate the whole thing (in a me-typical small, comfortable, cake-inclusive way), which should help.
Jump off this bridge. (The most difficult part about that is to find a good way to get there, but I’m pretty confident I will.)
Hopefully have my roommate and the dogs move into an apartment of their own. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. I don’t know what to do if this doesn’t work out. The situation feels so unbearable sometimes, but if the flat doesn’t work out and I force them to move out anyway (provided I succeed), they’ll be homeless. (Or rather, homeless six months sooner than they would be with the end of our lease this winter. Which makes it sound less bad, but the thought of forcing them out still makes me want to vomit.)
On a more positive note, if everything works out, things will get so much better! The flat will be a gigantic amount cleaner and more quiet, and my girlfriend M will move in instead, and I will take the opportunity to unfuck my habitat by a ton. I recently opened a kitchen cupboard that was full of cobwebs, and there are moths, and the windows are grimy, and everything is gross and really in need of a good cleaning and my fingers start itching just thinking about it because damn I love putting things in order and making them all clean and shiny and hygienic. And with them gone, there’ll be an actual chance they stay that way!
Go hiking and climbing (and try not to get too sunburnt even though I still detest any kind of sunblock).
Definitely not blog more, because we all know how such promises end. In fact, I think I will plan to be blatantly unproductive and lazy for as long as I can possibly get away with it, and not even the tiniest little bit ashamed of that, because I’ve spent the past few years feeling guilty and horrible for being a burden on society and a waste of resources, and that sucked and was not even helpful in the least, and I’m thoroughly sick of it. So, this year, I refuse. Suck it.
….but also squeeze in some work on a project for next year. It wouldn’t be fair to my partner to leave them hanging.
That’s all I can think of for now, except for a few smaller plans – for example, I’ll get vaccinated against a bunch of stuff tomorrow, because I let my immunity lapse and definitely do not want to get tetanus and die in Sweden because I cut myself on a rusty nail. And I’ll participate in a role-playing adventure on Saturday. And before all that, I will go eat cake and watch Breaking Bad with my roommate and friend S, and hope the dogs don’t bother us to much while we’re at it. See you!
I want my social media to be way less English. I expect reading the news in my target languages will help me learn, plus it’s just #aesthetic to be flicking through news on my phone in four languages.
Only problem is I don’t know quite where to start with getting into other cultures’ news. Anyone got any recommendations for Twitters or Tumblrs in Spanish, French, Mandarin and/or German?
I’ll take any language that I might be able to mostly get the gist of by guesswork using my Spanish, French and Latin, so if you’ve got Italian recommendations, go for it. At some point I want to dabble in Russian and maybe Punjabi, too, only idk where to start with learning them.
Will joyfully take podcast recommendations if they have an English transcript.
Hm, tough one – even a lot of German/Austrian tumblrs I know use English. official-wandschrank maybe (mostly LGBT stuff/news in German)? lgbtplusaustria has mostly brief updates about meetings in real life, that sounds less interesting, and the same goes for queervienna (which also mostly posts in English). weirdgermanwords might be fun to follow. useless-austriafacts (and useless-germanyfacts, for that matter) are both less useful in terms of language, but might be pretty fun if you want to get some of the culture (in-jokes and things everyone knows and such).
I was turning 30. It was a big BIG deal for me. When I’d been younger I’d always assumed that I’d be dead. Like you assume the sun coming up is called east. I was certain. Which meant that the day was a surprise and a shock and a wonder.
I also had been loving the idea of 30. My life had been controlled by others. I was under the illusion that Adulthood corrected and solved problems. That it would magically transform me. But still, getting older and no longer being treated as a kid… my gods I was looking forward to that.
But no one showed up.
I got pissed off.
Stupid and bad things happen when I get pissed off. I should also mention my birthday? Almost every year Pride here in Vancouver falls on it or next to it. It’s having Gay Christmas for a birthday. Which just sucks, really.
I’m 30. It’s my birthday. I’m pissed off. I had an invite to something I’d never ever normally go to : a party. Like.. White Party but for leather. I mean wall to WALL gorgeous men in next to nothing but leather. I do not fit in any way. I’m a leatherman, definitely. But I’m not the buff model version. I’m the dark alley and beer hall type. Different type of beauty and I’m glad that I fit the skin I have… but let’s not think it’s something it’s not.
I end up going. Two points here to note: I’m not socially confident. Crowds make me stunningly uncomfortable. I’m part of a generation that socialized with alcohol. Which for me was fortuitous as the more I drink, the more at ease I am. Which, yes, meant I spent a lot of time drunk off my ass. And happy.
The second is my brain chemistry is literally different. I’m bipolar and I’ve known shit aint what it could be up there but had no definitive way to know that until that night.
See. I turned 30 in 2002. Here E had just started hitting the community. For those not in the know, drugs tend to be cyclic in what’s trendy. E was new to me and because I was pissed off I psyched myself up to go into a room with Beautiful Men and be shlumpy in my leather. A couple of drinks and I thought, fuck it. I took some E.
Here’s where I know my brain is different.
Some one says hi to you. Or you them. And then every version of that moment plays out as a voice in your brain. Each at different volumes, all at once, in a room the size of a closet. “They meant it” “They didn’t mean it” “They look angry, it’s your fault” “It’s some one else’s fault but you’re making it worse/better/different/distracting them from it which is good/bad/indifferent”. Hundreds. All my life my brain is like that. It means untreated hours later I would still be processing “Hi”.
That night. E hit and… one voice. Silence otherwise. Mine in my head, all alone. It was… glorious. And I sooo did not want to move or be touched. At the time E was “DANCE NOW AND TOUCH ALL THE THINGS”. So I stood there and was this island of peace. Bliss. And don’t touch me or I’ll hurt you.
It was amazing. I might have been there alone for all that I cared about other people. Except.
Every time I wandered out to get a smoke I had to go past the entrance. There were a few guys there, milling about as greeters and door guys. And there was this one. This small wee man. Pale jeans, tight black chaps. Western shirt faded to almost nothing more than an idea of a look. Nondescript. Leather vest. Leather wristband. He was… hot.
Every time I went out I’d watch him. He never looked around and generally people ignored him. He was quiet and seemed shy. But beautiful to me in a way I couldn’t pin down.
I am loathe to do anything with new people (aka hitting on them) when I’ve been using or drinking, unless they’ve been there with me. It’s rude in my mind. I’m out of my mind, no one needs that shit drooling over them.
So when I left I’d been debating saying anything at all for hours.
Wandering slowly past him I stopped right next to him. I looked down and he slowly started to straighten up from the slouch against the wall. He was not even five feet tall so it was definitely Monster vs pocket leatherman. I sighed and said the cheesiest thing ever: I’d hate myself if I didn’t say this before I leave. I leaned in closer and said “Woof” very quietly next to him.
He blushed and instantly grinned like an idiot from ear to ear.
I figured I’d never see him again. And for a long time I didn’t. But the next time I did it was at a bar and I learned his name was… Little John.
He’d been Pacific Northwest Drummer Boy in 92. Everyone in town knew him. He was a sub and really well known with a tonne of experience. I was new to BDSM and while I knew I was a Dom the community said that only those with experience can be Doms… so I was a poser.
And faced with years of experience and involvement I was shocked to discover that Little John never once considered it a question. After a few misses and swings, we started hanging out. And discussing what BDSM meant to each of us. I started to learn the words and the ideas that I’d felt but never known.
Hilariously when listening to these kinds of stories I heard over and over about people discovering their inner sub. And the trials of it. No one talked about a survivor of abuse and the terror of taking control. Being a Dom. It was and is a hell of a scary ride, this direction.
My primary partner and Little John got along. Eventually.
Eventually we found our own rhythm. And we worked really well. Each got unique things from the other. I used to, for instance, go out onto the balcony to smoke. AND to let Little John ask Wayne questions. Both of them were poz, I was negative. So they talked about meds and health and so on, while Little John wouldn’t feel confident enough to talk to me.
Then in 2004, June 4th, I discovered I was poz. Wayne went inward and had a hard time touching me for fear of “making it worse”. For almost six months. Little John on the night I found out, called to our place to talk about it, freaked OUT. He was convinced it was his fault. That he’d made me poz and with that he ran for the door to drive off. A cliff, into the sunset, he didn’t know.
I held a lot of men then. Kept their tears and sobbing. It took a year before I took the time for my own.
But by then Little John had started to get sick more often. Long looong story about him and his meds comes down to : because no one listened in health care, he dropped off his meds. And slowly died.
By late 2004 he was no longer small, now he was skeletal. Or so I thought. We took him to emerg several times for anemia. Eventually he woke up one morning unable to see around a grey spot. CMV Retinitis. When this shit shows up, things are BAD.
Fun fact. Starting antiretrovirals does nothing when you’ve a virus in your eye. It takes time to get through everything ELSE in your body. So they need to do injections. Yes, there. Wayne earned Little John’s eternal admiration… when things weren’t ready and appointments were going to be missed because meds weren’t shipped to the doctor’s office? He, Wayne, stood in the middle of offices and loudly said “Well, I’m not going anywhere until I (talk to a doctor)(you get the meds)(you make the appointment).” Little John had never seen him functioning as an advocate. They would’ve let Little John walk out without the shots and the eventual loss of his sight because… oh well. Wayne however was not having it. And you do not want him and his 30 years of experience coming at you if you’ve screwed up.
Eventually Little John stabilized from frantic but didn’t stop the slow downward health spiral. And he pulled a cat. He started dumping friends and people in his life so he could curl up alone in his home and slowly die. He knew it, we suspected it but he still did a lot of hurtful things to kick us out.
So it had been a couple of months since I’d heard from him. I was constantly sick about it. It came as no surprise when his roommate, who was also one of his exes and did NOT like me, told me he was in hospital. It surprised me the ex told me, but not where he was.
I had been working on my arm tattoos. I never barged in, I never asked to come to the back when my artist was working on some one else. But this time I did. I told him in short bursts… Little John was in the hospital. And this was it.
Mikel, my artist, shoo’d me out. That’s all I said. When I came back he played Culture Club, one of Little John’s favourite groups back in the day, and tattooed LJ on my left arm.
Around September 4th, after three months of hell after hell after hell, I sat with him. We talked and it was glorious as a rare lucid and talkative moment. He lied and said he could see my tattoo. So I took his hand and stretched out his index finger. I traced out the letter. “L annnd J”, I said.
His eyes got wide and he said “Really, for me?” “Yeah, kiddo. For you. So you’ll always be on my arm, forever.”
He watered up. Smiled and gave me a big hug. He was around 60 lbs at the time so it wasn’t so much a big hug as sticks and soft beard clutching at me.
I told him to rest.
Two days later he died. Waited until the middle of the day when none of us were around. I missed him by 15 minutes, actually.
His eyes were open. Crystal blue like nothing I’ve ever seen. My last words were “You little shit” as I kissed his forehead. Then I called his family.
Today he’d be 50.
He made me a better man than I knew could exist. He was an asshole and a glorious wonder. He was thoroughly a Great Love of my life. My Boy. My Little John.
Checked out a new series and THE DOG DIED WITHIN THE FIRST THREE MINUTES
Not even the Red Wedding hammered home this well that nobody is safe.
With every wrong password he entered into the stolen phone, the thief forgot a cherished or important memory.
have I mentioned how much I am into magic systems that require you to pay in happy memories
partly because there’s not an easy way to game them. it’s not like ‘extracts a price in pain’ (which is still fun too!), or even ‘damages you in some way’, because with those you can ‘cheat’ the system by using a payment option that you find disproportionately unobjectionable
if you’re paying in happy memories, you’re never going to have an easy decision to make, never going to be able to use magic without it being a wrenching necessity – because by definition the price depends on how good, how cherished, the memory is for you, how much you want to keep it
You can’t remember your mother ever comforting you when you fell as a child, but you spend all those memories to rid her of her cancer, and she holds you tight and thanks you over and over and tells you how proud she is of who you’ve become, and you know that even if you can’t remember it any more, there is a reason you saved her, and you must have had an incredible wealth of good childhood memories to make a sacrifice big enough for this bit of magic.
You can’t remember the first time you kissed, but their lips and yours move with practiced ease, and you still remember many other times. (You always will. They are beside you for every spell you cast big enough to take something this valuable, and they make sure to kiss you plenty, and to tell you stories of your shared past again and again until you can remember what happened and how even though you don’t remember living through it, because it has become a different kind of knowledge.)
You remember them burning toast and leaving their sandals over the floor and you never once remember them doing the dishes, but somehow when you get home the toaster is clean and the sandals put away surprisingly often, and you don’t do the dishes anywhere near as much as your memories would lead you to believe. Somehow, the present is always better than the past, and the worse your past gets, the greater the perceived improvements: it’s always going uphill for you!
(And every now and then you taste a dish or watch a movie and are floored by how good it is, and your partner laughs at you and tells you you were just like that the first time around. And afterwards, they make a note into the little book they keep: all the things they repeat for you every now and then in case you’ve lost them, so they can give you lots and lots of wonderful first times.)
You don’t know why on Earth you bother with carpentry, you remember frustration upon frustration and failure upon failure, but somehow the house is full of perfectly good furniture you made, and there is a worktable just waiting for you, and when you pick up the drill your holes are flawless and there’s the most pleasant smell, and the satisfaction of every completed project is the satisfaction of having completed your first. (Your partner notices when you start avoiding the garage, and gently encourages you to try anyway, and the realization that they were right – of course they were! – fills you with love and fondness, another happy memory built right then and there.)
(Or maybe you don’t go back, you pick up a new hobby, and over time the house fills with things you made, and sometimes you look around in wonder at this painting and that quilt and this chair and that vase, and feel a sense of strange pride that even though you don’t ever stick with anything and don’t remember ever doing anything right, you must be quite skilled at many things.)
And maybe, depending on how it works, you also remember what you gained: you don’t remember finishing the dining room table, but you remember your child’s joy when an irreparably broken toy was suddenly whole again. (And maybe, one day, they will take their child to you with a hand accidentally crushed beneath a heavy door, and you will exchange this memory to heal it in an instant. After all, you remember how much your hand hurt in your carpentry mishap, and sparing your grandchild the trip to the ER and the bills and the pain is well worth a happy memory.)
My sexuality has changed. (Or maybe it’s still changing, who knows. Actually, it’s probably still changing – nothing in life is static.) I’ve been both fascinated by and skeptical about the whole thing.
there’s a whole world of dancing-with-objects out there that i never knew about. i’m so happy. look at this guy dancing with ‘swords’ that are sometimes on fire.
Omphaloskeptomai 