I feel like the first step toward achieving a goal is to state it in some concrete way. I’m still waiting for my Passion Planner in the mail, so I might as well do it here for now. Here are some things I want, either for 2015 or just the future in general: * To […]
Surviving Abuse
I have a lot of complicated emotions surrounding the coverage of Leelah Alcorn’s suicide in the media. I’m not transgender, but I am queer and the child of conservative Christian parents who did not deal well with my coming out. They cornered me in my room and wouldn’t let me leave. They threatened to turn […]
Tick Tock
I don’t have a maternal instinct. I hardly know how to talk to kids, let alone raise one. Besides that, I have a lot of things I want to do with my life, and children don’t factor into that.
In a lot of ways, having kids is still the default setting for women. But it shouldn’t be. The response to a woman saying she doesn’t want children shouldn’t be a wink and the word “yet.”
It just really gets under my skin. Having some straight, married woman tell me that I’ll probably decide I want children sometime in the next ten years.
NYE Thoughts
Sometimes nothing can prepare you for the pain of stepping outside the cultural script.
But being able to tell your partner that they’re more important to you than New Year’s Eve, and to hear the same…. that’s worth something. That’s worth a lot. Even if it’s not a midnight kiss.
In a culture which tries to sell us the perfect holiday picture, we can’t lose sight of the fact that the holidays are rarely perfect, even if you’re monogamous.
At the end of the day, I want a relationship, not a fantasy. I want to love an imperfect person and be imperfectly loved in return.
Christmas Thoughts and Fearless Women
Sometimes I think I could let myself off the hook more.
Maybe doing what I love can be enough.
Maybe I should stop worrying so much about whether what I’m doing is the most important thing I could possibly do, and worry more about if I feel alive.
I want to feel that joy and exuberance Julia Child felt when she graduated from cooking school, and again when her cookbook was published.
And if I was full of that joy, maybe I’d have the energy for something else, too.
Cutthroat I Ain’t
I recently started watching Cutthroat Kitchen on Netflix. I’ve seen it once or twice on someone else’s cable TV and wasn’t a huge fan, but I love Alton Brown. Plus, let’s face it, I’ve already powered through all the episodes of Good Eats, Chopped, and Man v Food streaming on Netflix so I need some […]
Thoughts on Bullying
I was bullied mercilessly growing up. It wasn’t until middle school when I was in class with the other smart kids that I started really having any friends. Having someone to defend me meant a lot, even though the teasing continued. Yes, I am smart. Yes, I am fat. Yes, I do have hairy legs. Yes, my accent was different from that of my classmates. The difference is that none of those things actually (should) impact my ability to be loved. None of those things make me an inherently bad person. And that is what no one ever told me when I was 12 years old.
Hello, Again
Overall, life is going better for me. Being in therapy is making me realize how far I’ve come with developing coping mechanisms, and that’s positive. I am slowly creating the kind of life I want. Just more slowly than I thought.
I’m still not where I want to be creatively. It’s just hard to have the brain space to think about crafting performances when I work so much. And I have some creative people in my life, but I’m not surrounded by a creative community like I was when I was in school. It feels harder. I am rusty and less brave or willing to make mistakes as a result.
What Counts as Sex
Overall, I really like my new therapist. She’s open to the queer/kinky/poly stuff, and though she’s cis/straight/married/etc she seems excited to learn. Plus, she’s Canadian so there’s not the weird religious vibe about it you sometimes get with Americans. Just more of a “Hey, that’s not my experience, but what’s it like for you?” There was […]
Thoughts on Street Harassment
Last Friday night was perhaps the first time I’ve felt legitimately unsafe walking the streets of Austin since I moved here a little over a year ago. I wanted to attend a Halloween event at a queer-friendly bar downtown, and decided to take the bus instead of paying for parking. This meant there was a […]