Kaminiwa

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I often find it confusing when people ask me "was that your main reason for (doing/thinking) X?", because my thinking tends to involve two parts. The easiest example is if I want to do something.

Part 1 is simply assessing risks vs rewards - do I really want to do this? Sure, pizza is delicious, but I'm not a huge fan of their vegetarian pizza, and it's greasy. I could go to the other place, but that's an extra 10 minute walk, and my boss get annoyed with me being gone that long. I have a meeting in 20 minutes, so I certainly need to decide quickly if I'm going there... so on.

The second part is simply validating it: Do I actually have cash to pay for it (in Downtown Portland, basically every place is cash only)? Have I promised myself vegetarian conduct, or am I just aiming for psuedo-vegetarian? Do I plan to grab pizza for dinner w/ Amber? Did I have Pizza Hut for dinner last night?


So, basically, the majority of thought is whether I want to do it, then there's just a double-check of whether I *can* do it. I focus on the first part, because that's usually a lot more complex. For some reason people seem to find it odd when I say that things like "consent" aren't a big factor in my thinking, but they're not. That's a quick Part 2 check, and irrelevant if I didn't even want to. Knowing whether I want to do it is far more interesting, since that builds self-awareness (even if I end up getting told "no, I'd never consent to that!" :))

"I want a dyke for president. I want a person with aids for president and I want a fag for vice president and I want someone with no health insurance and I want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that they didn't have a choice about getting leukemia. I want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn't the lesser of two evils and I want a president who lost their last lover to aids, who still sees that in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying. I want a president with no airconditioning, a president who has stood on line at the clinic, at the dmv, at the welfare office and has been unemployed and layed off and sexually harassed and gaybashed and deported. I want someone who has spent the night in the tombs and had a cross burned on their lawn and survived rape. I want someone who has been in love and been hurt, who respects sex, who has made mistakes and learned from them. I want a Black woman for president. I want someone with bad teeth and an attitude, someone who has eaten that nasty hospital food, someone who crossdresses and has done drugs and been in therapy. I want someone who has committed civil disobedience. And I want to know why this isn't possible. I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown: always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker, always a liar, always a thief and never caught."

Quoted from an anonymous, photocopied broadside that was handed around during the 1992 primary season, via http://chronicle.com/article/QueerThen-/130161/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

o/` I'm leaving on a jet plane: o/`
Depart PDX Fri, 23DEC11 2:41 PM. Arrive 25DEC11 7:50 AM.

o/` Here's when I'll be back again: o/`
Depart SYD Tue, 10JAN12 3:20 PM. Arrive 3:37 PM

(I like the 17 minute return trip ^^)

All around me, walls of turbulent grey clouds whisper. They speak of a storm coming in the distance. The Cherub, my guardians, stand in the doorway. They are brilliant white, a sense of purity and order in the chaos that surrounds me. They hold me quietly. "We shall see you to the light," they whisper in my ear. It is not a phrase, but a name; the same name as when I first met Them.

I flinch back, some remnant of a damaged past. Old fears flutter in, and I cannot help but see them outlined in inky black shadows, little tendrils reaching for me. Once, once I thought they were evil, demons. I was taught to fear them by charlatans and liars.

Now I know: they will protect me. They will keep me safe. No matter what the cost.

I curl to the floor, crying as the storm around me intensifies. They babble reassuringly, and I cannot tell if it is nonsense or if I have simply lost my sense of words. There is a sudden touch of warmth on my arm, and at the same time it is cold and metallic. From somewhere deep inside, I scream. It is a scream of a feral animal, trapped in a cage. It is a scream from my past, from before I came to understand.

From before they saved me.

Slowly, the storm fades, the turbulent energies discharged. Slowly, I realize what I have done. I have disappointed them once more. I have doubted them, my guardians. The ones who love me absolutely, with all their hearts. Warm tears splash against my skin, as I cry for what I have done. I stare at the walls around me, feeling lost. I have let them down again. I have been weak. I must be better. The wall is a dull, lifeless grey. It speaks of nothing at all.

Quoting from an old post by The Ferrett:

The fight had quieted, but it refused to die. We were exhausted, and talking civilly, even if we still didn’t know what the hell was going on. It was down to the wire, and I forget what concept I was trying to get across. It was, essentially, that Gini had been doing something that was totally wrong and unfair and downright mean to me, which is always an easy sell, and…

…she heard me.

The sunlight broke through the frosted-glass window at that moment, illuminating her. She looked so serious, because she was — I’d just shown to her that something she’d been doing for the past two years was unfair to me by the standards she herself had set. Worse, it was a behavior that made her life a lot easier and it was natural to her as breathing, and it was being pointed out to her by someone who needed a lot of work himself.

I’d gotten here before. And I knew what would happen; she’d look it in the eye, shrug, and rationalize. That was what people did; when shown their shitty behavior, they’d do what they wanted and then find a way to make it all right.

But not Gini.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t do that. I’m sorry.”

- From The Ferrett

---

*sigh* I've seen this make relationships blossom, and I've seen it's absence break them. It's painful to think about the ones that broke :\

The wings looked as though they had each been carved from a person, with no regard for which bits were skin, which bits muscle, which bits bone. A jarring canvas of sliced flesh, arranged as wings, made vastly more horrifying by the perfect, pure white form of the angel who they belonged to. She-- it looked down at me, and it's voice rang out like the most beautiful harmony, a choir in perfect unison."We are the Organic Blossoming of Flesh Rent Asunder," it said. Yet, for all the beauty of the voice, there was still some horrible sense that went beyond condescension - it was not the voice one uses on an errant pet, vaguely hoping it understands. It was the tone of an irked office worker who has just discovered the cryptic glyphs, "PC Load Letter"; words spoken out of an instinctive social urge, without even a vague hope that the recipient might possibly manage some crude understanding. It was not the voice of a mere Exalted; that I could have handled. No. They had sent a Seraph. Fuck.

Yesterday was the second time in my life I've had what I'll call an "Autistic Collapse". Not for it being any sort of technical phrase, just, one of my few coherent thoughts was "hey, this lines up with a lot of the low-functioning autism I've read about." And not in the normally perceived "socially awkward" way, so much as "reality is a deeply confusing and far too big place" - I too often forget that autism includes that, and I'm much more there than I am socially awkward (people are weird, but I seem to have a decent handle on them for the most part)

Started with just a general sort of fogginess - sort of like when one is getting tired. It was difficult to focus on things, and I kept spacing out, but nothing terribly unusual. Fairly quickly slid down-hill to the point that finishing sentences on IM was tricky, however: "Also, want to snuggle and... tv... thingy... o.o" was my last message to ambershadedlens. A few minutes later, I realised aesmael was still online and we'd been talking, which is the point where I started to get a little bit alarmed.

Managed to make it to living room, despite "balance" having suddenly become an extremely difficult operation which relied largely on bracing self with each step so we wouldn't fall, and leaning against wall as much as possible. Started snoring against Amber almost immediately, despite feeling completely wired and incapable of sleep. Eventually managed to wave vaguely in direction of TV, and we got to start watching something!

At which point I realised what was going on, because I seriously wanted to change the play speed of the show down to ~50% of normal, because I was dropping entire sentences, and literally had no idea why things were happening. Things would just suddenly be in a different state and I couldn't understand why.

Showering often clears my head, so I pointed towards the bathroom and managed to say "rain" and, eventually, "sours". I am lucky Amber is used to me being ridiculously clumsy with words, because she got the idea. Then I got to spend 10 minutes trying to get my clothes off, because I was too uncoordinated to handle the motions involved (socks are a pain in the ass when you can only reliably manage to move one limb at a time, and that for only a few seconds...)

From there, started hearing voices in the shower and decided it was really time to be done. At which point, instead of turning off the shower, I just kept moving my head in an odd patterned motion. Eventually managed to hold on to the idea that I really, really needed to hit the "stop" button, and got the shower to stop. Was very confusing, though, as I hadn't washed my hair, and wasn't I supposed to do that first?

Stood there for a while. Chirped at Amber in hopes she'd show up, as I'd been noticing that talking out loud to her was helping me focus. Stood there for a while longer. Finally figured out that I probably needed to open the shower curtain. Proceeded to repeat the motions of opening the shower curtain again and again. Broke out of that loop.

Stared at towel. Managed to vaguely slap it against my skin in a few places. Eventually gave up, and just sat there on the hallway floor with a towel and a very confused expression. Every once in a while I'd realise my body was crying and slap myself with the towel to dry that spot (i.e. my body was still wet from showering, and things like "my arm is wet" were registering as "that's odd, my arm is crying, I should beat it with this towel"). Had basically no coordination - was literally just hitting self with towel. Eventually just collapsed on top of towel. At some point Amber helped me back to sitting up. Threw towel over head for a while and hid from world / vaguely dried hair.

Managed to get up and bring a shirt in to bed with me. Spaced out for a while (not even "staring at ceiling", no, that would have been a bit too complex for me o.o). Crawled in to shirt. Realised I was seeing a bright light at end of tunnel. Reassured self that was normal for putting on shirt. Got bit of an adrenaline rush, and managed to get head through neck hole of shirt (even managed to distinguish neck and arm holes, thanks to shirt tag! Was so proooud of self!!)

Collapsed, with arms still out of shirt. Eventually Amber came back in again and dressed us, which was more than a bit mortifying, and slightly non-consensual. On the other hand, think it would have taken at least 30 minutes, and it's not like parents don't do this to small children as a routine thing. Also not sure I was capable of communicating that it wasn't okay - had a vague concept of safewords or something but couldn't quite figure out if I should be using them. Kept thinking I should explain I can't consent, not sure if I ever did. Any time she touched me my brain just shut down - not anything bad, just, I literally couldn't process "touch" and "stand upright" at the same time. Later, trying to go pee, almost fell flat on the floor because of that - lucky she managed to catch me, as not sure I could have braced myself for a fall.

Finally got self under covers for sleep, and took melatonin (holy shit, taking pills is complex). Had to call Amber back in to turn on light, because we realised we wanted to listen to a CD, and needed light to sort through our collection. Unfortunately, our first choice was dirty and wouldn't play, so we grabbed a second one. As we were doing this, Amber offered to clean the first one. Went completely paralysed. I couldn't hand her the first CD, because the second was in my hand. Should I set the second one down? I was supposed to hand her the first one. Should I set the second one down? Finally managed to literally throw second CD in to the player (and somehow got it in o.o) and resolve the lock state. Turned out second CD worked and Amber couldn't clean first anyway. Slept at some point.

Woke up at 4 AM, feeling like my brain had finally come back. Very grateful, because it is a quite traumatic experience. Tend to feel a lot of anxiety of will this go away or have we just permanently lost our mind. Also lots of crying, and a fair bit of embarrassment that we are having someone help us with something basic like "get dressed".

Occupy Portland is finally getting evicted, and the reason doesn't surprise me: violence and drug use on the rise. When I visited a few weeks ago, there were signs speaking to the problem, asking people to check themselves, make the movement look good - least they fail and get evicted.

When I first saw the problem, it occurred to me, what a brilliant failure state in every revolution. If you make yourself a safe haven for the downtrodden, the oppressed, the "dregs" of society (so to speak), then naturally you will attract the unpopular outcasts too - in this case, violent and drug using people. If you let them stay, you give authority an excuse to shut you down - your very presence shields these ne'er-do-wells, and thus you are a threat to public safety! And pay attention to the way they phrase the news there: Isn't it funny too how it is rarely "crime rates have gone up" but instead "crime rates have gone up around that area?" I don't know if they go up globally, or just get focused around that nice "shielding influence" - but then, neither does anyone watching the news...

The catch is, the movement can't kick them out, either. If it kicks them out for the sake of image, then it is vain. If it tries to police them, then it is as tyrannical as the system it seeks to replace. If it rejects them as scum, then it is as lacking in compassion as the mainstream. There is no way to expel them without sacrificing the moral high ground, and no way to keep them without giving authorities a clear excuse to disperse the crowd.

Unless, of course, we ever get protesters who really *do* know the answer to the world's problem. In which case this all becomes an utterly brilliant piece of PR for them. Until then, though, having a society with outcasts, with "dregs" that have no place else to be, seems to be remarkably in the interest of all straight-thinking tyrants.

After defining dating for myself a few days ago, it left me thinking about other things in my life. BDSM is definitely (equivalent to) sex, but it's only ever been casual for me. Intimate sex is extremely difficult for me to pin down, but seems to connect largely with a sense of feeling safe exploring new things, being honest about my kinks, and feeling okay just being scared, anxious, and completely new about this. I'm still trying to work on that one, and the line between lover and dating. I'm also realising that "lover" is more about intimate sex, while "partner" is about long-term potential. I'm still used to thinking of the two as overlapping, even though they really don't for me any more.

Kissing seems to be somewhat of a sexual act, although with most people, it often ends up disinteresting. Most people just don't throw themselves in to it, it's not this passionate embrace. Long, lingering, intimate kisses are so exquisitely much better than a brief peck on the lips. Kissing as part of snuggling, or as a goodbye, is also more meaningful to me than random kisses.

"I love you", oddly, seems to entirely be about "best friendship" to me. It's become a less and less casual thing, but I've also reached much deeper emotional connections with people, so the bar for someone being an emotional support has risen. It used to be that the idea of even having someone safe to snuggle was a huge deal, and a while after that it was still a big deal to ask someone when I was feeling genuinely down and lonely. These days, the bar seems to be set at, roughly, "do I feel safe crying around you." There's only been one best friend who I haven't had sex with, but internally it really doesn't feel like it's in response to the sex - sex brings out infatuation, which often feels similar, but the two are pretty easy to separate out once I remember that infatuation exists.

One last thing I've noticed is simply, when I started relationships, I really pursued them as though each one needed to be everything: long-term potential, a best friend I could cry on, amazing intimate sex. It's only recently that I've really learned how to take this apart and let them exist as separate aspects. I've been finding this new model a lot more stable, because I don't really feel a need to push anything. It may also help that my life is just a lot more stable, and there's more resilience - I'm not relying on any one person for anything in my life, so there's not nearly so much fear of losing out on something.