Every time I see one of those lie-about-who-this-is memes with a photo of some celebrity, it makes me uncomfortable.

I was isolated from pop culture to an extreme degree until age 19, and as an adult I don't listen to the radio and have never watched cable tv. So the vast majority of cultural references I don't get, and these memes make me feel laughed at.

These memes also make me think about people who are more literal than me, who would find this just confusing and frustrating, and people who are even less exposed to U.S. popular culture than I am, and people who can't recognize faces.

It just bothers me and I'm ready for it to be done.

Edit: this is one format of the meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gonna-tell-my-kids

I have over 25 work-in-progress posts on my phone because I get so nitpicky perfectionist about them and when they are 2 sentences from done I end up leaving them for like a month. I also have a weird block about not posting things until they get a certain length, and I make most of my posts too long. So I am going to try to break them up more and hopefully this will result in me posting more often.

Most people don't REALLY have a choice about enabling because you have to 1) realize it is happening and 2) have enough resources to change it and 3) realize you CAN change it in order to actually have a choice. None of these things are easy in a world that pretends love = self-sacrifice! It's not just your own preconception that has to change, you have to manage to throw off the expectations of the entire world. It's a lot.

People are forced into enabling. It's something to avoid when you can, but in my mind it is not at all something to feel guilty about.

I recently added some new people here: welcome! I'm gonna re-post some important info for y'all, as I am too anxious with strangers to have individual conflicts, generally.

Language is extremely important; it shapes our thoughts. If you value using any word that comes to mind without considering the consequences, we won't get along. There are a lot of commonly-used words which cause a lot of harm. The most common that I come across are probably st*pid, l*me, b*tch, cr*zy, and ins*ne. I've written a lot about this:

slurs are still very harmful when they are aimed at a situation/action/thing instead of a person / TW: slurs
we can't be friends if you use slurs because it damages me & breaks my trust in you / TW: slurs
slurs are both harmful and not expressive: say what you actually mean instead / TW: slurs

Other language issues that I object to and will unfriend people over include using rape 'jokes' or referring to stereotypes like they are fact (such as saying that girls like pink or that being assertive is masculine). Making light of rape is harmful. Affirming stereotypes is harmful. If I haven't addressed it directly with you I may assume you don't realize, but if it happens a lot and I don't feel able to discuss it with you, I may cut contact with you instead.

small random PSA: I take zinc and b12 every day, and I haven't gotten sick in over a year and a half, despite being around sick people often enough. I consider the two things highly related, and as the pills aren't too expensive, I shall continue to take them. I also drink lots of water and avoid sugar, especially if I know I have been exposed to something.

I want to try to post every day this month. It's not going to be easy because I have a million and a half things to do, but it will help me feel more like a person. And maybe I can actually finish some of these half-written posts that have been languishing. I miss you all.

Do you have any things that help you to keep up with posting?

A deep feeling of wonder at nature is not common and not something many people want to enter into on purpose (though they might if they are high on romance or drugs or something). It takes a level of willingness to be vulnerable, because wonder is associated with children and those deemed 'mentally deficient.' Most people just don't believe that a rock is or should ever be an emotionally-relevant object in its own right, and out of those who do believe, they're usually not willing to explore that. Most of the photos you see of people at places like the grand canyon are not of people feeling awe. They aren't really even noticing. They're just like "I'm in a place that has high status! look at me!" or maybe "this makes a great backdrop for my hike" or even "this is aesthetically appealing." But actually being emotionally moved? it's rare, and for me it is incredibly important.

whew, I'm so late going to bed but I finally caught up on LJ. And earlier this week I re-wrote my profile for the first time in years. It's not complete- I need to update the list of important posts - but it is way more reflective of who I am and what I want.

I'm really excited about tomorrow (later today); I'm gonna have a truth-or-truth night with alcohol and so many of my favorite people. Kylei and Heather are spending the night with me and Topaz and I think I am the most excited but I have felt excitement from each of them about it too, which makes me feel so happy and close and loved.

and I have used up too much brain for a longer post, bleh.

I can't bear selfishness, especially when it kills empathy. If you can't care about someone else's feelings when you are angry at them or hurt by them, what good is your love? NONE. it is USELESS. And I know that sometimes I am selfish like this, but I try my best not to be and when I fuck it up and don't keep compassion present, I apologize and do my best to help heal any hurt I have caused. That's what I ask from others. I'm not sure if selfishness should be a dealbreaker, or how many times it takes to decide that it's not just occasional accidents but the general way of handling things.

Doing stuff for other people that makes you feel good is not a test of love, not remotely. You can be the most romantic, gift-giving, affectionate-words-using, cuddly, playful, service-giving person when you're happy, but if you turn into an attacking beast when you're upset, that means you are NOT LOVING, you just like the reactions your niceness gives. Love doesn't vanish when anger or hurt happens. Selfish giving does vanish. You can tell how much someone loves you by how well they treat you when they are upset with you.

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all white people are racist. not all white people are bigoted. racism is a system you are born into. bigotry is an attitude you can choose.

I'm using the sociological definition of racism as an institutionalized system of inequality. Individual acts of bigotry against white people are not called racism because they aren't something that exists in a nation-wide or world-wide way, enforced by laws and educational systems and media etc. Bigotry based on your skin is painful and horrible to experience no matter who you are. But if it was racism, a systemic problem, then every white person you know would have a similar set of daily experiences. People hating you for who you are is bigotry, prejudice- it only becomes oppression if it is something that no one in your group can escape. If I try to make it as simple as possible, bigotry is an individual problem which can be escaped by avoiding those individuals who are bigoted. Racism is a social system which cannot be escaped because you can't avoid the laws and other forms of institutional inequality like educational systems. Sometimes white people suffer under bigotry, but white people never have to deal with racism, at least not in the US.

at least I got something done today. I applied to the Allied Media Conference to give a skillshare on intimacy. And I mostly tidied my room from the post-trip chaos (though my art corner is full of stuff that doesn't belong). And I re-made a ritual jewelry piece that had broken. Didn't do any homework or real writing or reading though :-[

So tired of being stressed out over this same fucking conflict. can it be done already please.

#uselesspost

The other day Abby gave me feedback about my post on 5-steps to educate or eliminate that made me realize that I have subconscious processes for a lot of things, and when I make those processes conscious and concrete, they become more useful to me. So I'm probably going to be making more stepwise-processing posts in the future, and I'm gonna go back and tag the ones I can remember. The first one that comes to mind is how I apologize when I have hurt someone -- 1) empathize 2) explain 3) change (the order of that is VERY important). I'm including lists in this too, even when they are not ordered lists, such as my draws and dealbreakers: my reasons to fight for a relationship and my reasons to end one. If you can think of any of my posts that involved processing through lists, that would be super helpful if you'd tell me about them, even a vague topic would help me find them.

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How I set goals: I set goals by my desires, and figure out those with these questions. I used to set goals out of guilt or fear or shame, but not now. I have to be pulled to make something a goal, not pushed.

1) What do I most feel a lack of in my life? What do I have the most unfilled yearning for? What do I most quickly start missing when I don't have it?

2) What are some ways I could get more of those things?

3) How can I make small daily habits or once-a-week tasks out of #2's answers?

OMG I just had the best idea. Much of rhetorical power is in structure, so it should be possible to create a computer program where you can write a speech, then have it process it into a format that would create the desired result - being remembered and taken seriously. Things like repetition of key words, sets of three, rhyme, alliteration and assonance, even puns, those would all totally be programmable. ARGH wish I had the skills to do this.

Of course, it may already be done.

Today I felt tired emotionally and physically, and also a bit down. I can tell that summer is leaving- it's 72 outside :( I stayed overnight at Topaz' and didn't bring any contacts so I'm wearing glasses, which makes me feel disconnected from the world and sleepy, and I don't have my sunlight lamp and Topaz keeps zir house cold (I dislike air conditioning when it makes temps below 75) so it's setting off my SAD. Also my car is low on oil so I didn't want to go out and get coffee and the coffee I had this morning was inexplicably bad, so I'm not caffeined enough. I did good self-care though, took a nap, reflected on what might help and realized that if Topaz took me out (so I don't have to drive Hedwig while ze's low on oil) to get coffee and oil that would make me feel way better. Topaz liked that idea so we're doing it soon. I have been very worried that I was lapsing into depression, so my not-getting-swept-under by this cluster of downness makes me feel hopeful.

I was supposed to be trying a new medication, but apparently my psychiatrist forgot that I don't have insurance or riches, and one month would cost $550, so I laughed ruefully and left without it. I guess it's buproprion for me until I can get an outside psychiatrist who can prescribe real ADD meds. It helps some, so I'm glad to have that at least.

This week has been very emotionally intense and I hope to write about it soon. I feel very irritated with my lack of creation lately.

Sometimes I get this overwhelming feeling of stuckness and it makes me want to be slapped, hit, or stabbed, it's like an intense frustration at being in a body, I can't escape. Maybe this is my kind of anxiety. It's like being in my body makes me feel bad and I want out, I want to escape the static and I feel a desperate need for extreme sensation. I want to cry, I want to scream, I want out! Being able to intensely focus helps, but if I am lonely (like I am right now) I have such a limited number of things I can focus on without getting sad, and feeling this and sadness at the same time is the worst. What the fuck happened, three weeks ago I was fine.

I'm sorry I've been absent here, and I have gotten too behind to truly catch up. I'm going to try as soon as possible. Right now I am feeling achingly anxious and am not sure why, I can't calm down. I was really thrown by that awful night and I need to be overwhelmed, washed out. I'm going to catch up a little bit and then go to nature somewhere -- it may be a hot, wet mess but if I breathe it in and take photos, hopefully I can ground this out. This is why I consider myself mostly calm -- I rarely get this feeling. It's like right before the end of a timed test, when I'm not finished yet. Those last frantic squiggles have been my breath and blood for the past hour.

My life feels weirdly predictable right now, which hasn't been true for so many years. Since I broke up with my ex-spouse in late 2009, I've never been able to predict where I'd be living, who I'd be with, or what my major project would be. Now I'm living in a house with rent so cheap that I can't justify moving unless I get a far better job than I have ever had, and it's likely I'll be here at least another year. I'm with a person who makes me the happiest I've ever been, and we've been sort of de facto monogamous and I don't see that changing for probably at least 5 months. My major project this year has been attempting to establish myself as an artist and tilling the soil to nurture a tribe, and I don't see that project being put aside anytime soon. School is still my endless task but I'm almost done. In that way next year will be a HUGE shift but mostly I feel so predictable it makes me a little uncomfortable.

I went on Okcupid looking for new friends in my area and messaged people asking if they prefer to be internet friends first or to meet in person first and giving my links in case it was the former. Two people responded with variations of 'internet first' but didn't add me. I feel like this is lack of reading carefully or lack of sincerity, both of which are super frustrating to me, but I thought, maybe they feel the need for a more direct invitation (or maybe they somehow don't realize I cannot add them first - well, I could but they'd probably find the searching necessary for that to be off-putting, 'stalkerish') so I wrote again saying okay, feel free to add me, with a link, and still nothing. One of them even responded to the rest of the message. What am I missing? Why is it like pulling teeth to connect with people? I feel like people 15 years younger than me won't ever have to deal with this. Social media will be understood as an extension of self and basic internetting skills will be as considered part of literacy. Of course, it could be that they saw my facebook, realized what a feminist killjoy I am, and changed their mind but didn't want to be frank about it.

In response to someone in a facebook group asking why bannings were explained publicly:
for marginalized people, seeing that oppressive behavior is not tolerated makes them feel more safe. If it makes you feel unsafe, you might be relating more to people who perpetuate oppression than you are to people who are being oppressed. There's also the aspect that the more privilege you have, the more you feel entitled to a space, so when you are told that you are only conditionally allowed, that is threatening to that feeling of entitlement. But most marginalized people feel only conditionally allowed all the time in every space, so no one is giving you an experience that they have not already had. It might seem unfair or uncomfortable but that is because re-balancing when you are used to being the 'winner' means having some perks taken away.

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The privileged poor are some of the worst exploitation and oppression sympathizers. Economics is the oppression that most rarely leads to a rejection of the system, probably because it's the one where the carrot is largest and closest. People really think they can get it

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I have dealt with many people who use the same derails when discussing slurs. I am sick of the same old shit. Derails like "well how do we discuss these important things if I can't even use the word 'l*me'" which is a red herring because a slur-use of the word l*me is not ever going to help fight ableism, and the same applies to other slurs. Or "I would have listened and cared about this important issue if you had just been more polite" which has never happened. People who are going to change when someone points out their error are not going to refuse to change because someone didn't point it out in the right way. Calling out oppressive behavior results in defensiveness or concern, and the only thing that decides which it is is the values of the person who is being called out.

It's been 90 degrees in my house all day. The air conditioner's compression coil is broken, according to the person who looked at it today. Now I have to wait for M to decide it is important enough to spend money on and then for them to fix it. It's painfully hot because I only have a ceiling fan in here and the other fan has to be downstairs to bring some of the cooler air up here (I hope, who even knows if its working). I need this fixed because I feel like I can't breathe and I'm so exhausted just from the heat that I can't get anything done. Even the idea of going out to a place that does have air conditioning sounds like the worst chore, because I'd have to put clothes on my sticky sweaty body. Also I'm out of meds because the wellstar replacement for the KSU office organizer person is crap. I don't know how much of this blarghCAn'T is heat and how much is med-lack. The only reason I've been able to write this entry is that dark brought a temp drop -- it's 82 outside and probably 87 inside. I'm letting all the bugs in so I can blow in some cool air :-[

Oh, and the a/c has been broken for at least 3 weeks. it's just been in the mid-80s instead of 90. I can handle mid-80s pretty well but this is too much. I like heat generally, but I hate it when there is no escape and almost no breeze. I need another fan at least, and now.

I didn't do that bad this month with posting every day, but I missed 8 days so I didn't do great either. I really want to share daily, so I'm going to share little bits and pieces on purpose, instead of just as filler. Here's something I wrote in response to someone claiming that when it comes to oppression, they mind their own business and put on a happy mindset:

The problem is that minding your own business is at least half of the reason that evil continues. If people minded their own business, there would be no child labor laws, no true citizenry for anyone other than white landowning men, and it would still be legal to for a man to rape a woman so long as he had the proper document (slave papers, marriage license). And there are widespread horrific problems today, like the prison industrial complex that is basically a new form of slavery. To mind one's own business while others suffer is to condone the evil that makes them suffer. So we have to learn, and we have to pay attention to people other than ourselves, find out what is needed to stop the suffering. If you are not the one suffering you can't figure out how to fix it: only those with the experience can tell you what will work.

Along the same lines, I feel if you watch someone suffer and do nothing, you are WORSE than the perpetrator. I say this because I felt far more betrayed by those who saw and did nothing than I did by the people who actually sexually abused me. Bystanders should absolutely be prosecuted as accessories to any violent crime, unless there is reasonable fear for their own safety. In a crowd of bystanders saying nothing and doing nothing while watching one person assault another without a weapon, all those pieces of shit should be thrown in prosecuted as much as the one who did it. Make that a law and there would be far fewer shitty people condoning rape and other hate crimes.

I've been doing a whole lot of interacting on facebook and that feels rather like screaming into a void, because those threads happen and are buried and forgotten. I want to be more consistent about saving my comments and putting them in my LJ.

things that make me feel accomplished right now:
having made at least 3 real friends out of acquaintances in the past 4 months
having broken up with Aurilion
having had productive conversations with Hannah
having written pretty steadily for the past 3 months
having spent more time with Kylei and Heather

things that make me feel anxious right now:
not knowing my final grade for stats this semester :-O
feeling unclear on if I got my assignments all in properly and also afraid of annoying the professor by asking and also pretty sure that I did so it doesn't feel worth it to ask
gardening (it's a deadline even though it isn't a firm one)
the fact that I've asked several professors for recommendation letters and they were all like "yes I'd love to!" and then didn't do it and I didn't respond to it within the time for it to not be awkward
the fact that said recommendation letters are necessary for any scholarship applications
the fact that I'm poor goddammit and need scholarship money
Topaz' stress and recent bout of migraines

things that make me angry right now:
everything
especially the fact that multiple people got to the end of a semester of a GWST class and still made the argument for an inevitable "natural" human urge to other and create hierarchy. Way to not learn a damn thing about human "nature."
also the sexist false narrative of fertilization.

things that would make me feel better (probably) but I feel too ADDfrazzled to do:
fractalling
writing more about TBC
editing photos
making icons
sleeping?
getting something/anything written so that I feel more in charge of my own brain

scribbling quick: during the fast I had an amazing experience at Big Trees, then came processing, visiting a Quaker meeting for the second time, time with Pat where we had an honest and plain conversation about queerness and educating oneself, an unexpected meeting with my parent-sib Peg and bio-sib S, more processing, spending time with SabR and Kazi for the first time in ages, an incredible series of dreams in which I met a new Deity who has come into my life, and all kinds of amazing meditating and creating. I keep wanting to write but there is so much to say and there are photos I want to share and omg I've been editing like a fiend and I still have a huge backlog. The fast seems to have been this... blessed exuviation, and now there is just an explosion of change and growth.

*hugs flist!!!*

*explodes with nerves and glee and pre-travel jitters!*

I'm off to see Aurilion! I hope to get online some of the time I'll be in NC but I will probably miss most of your posts until next Friday or Saturday (24th, 25th), so if you post something you think I would find really interesting, message/email me!!! DO IT. Don't be all self-effacing, you know what I like :D