I watched a few episodes of "Tidying Up" recently and it made me exclaim a lot because so many of the things that Marie says are literally things I have said. When I am helping people tidy I say "where does this live?" and "does this have a home?" because in my opinion the most important thing for tidiness is for things to have a home. I do things like greeting a home and waking up books (though not those specific things).

I LITERALLY FOLDED MY SHIRTS THE SAME WAY, before ever watching that, so that I could look through them at a glance. and I fold my skirts like Marie folds ties. I do the same thing of small boxes organizing the inside of big boxes.

and then in my memories today I found an entry I posted last year where I talk about having an ethic of things belonging to whomever will love them more. When I was a kid, I stole or gave away things based on that.

The show makes a lot of assumptions about people being able to buy replacement things, which bothers me, but I do love seeing someone else have as much reverence for things as I do. Though it bothers me that some people appear to just throw away useful things rather than donating them and Marie doesn't scold them, wtf.

But I think a better question than "does it spark joy" (especially for people who get joy easily) is "if you lost it, would you miss it?" and if you don't know, box it up and put the date on it. if a long time passes without you feeling the need to take it out (and you don't have a practical need for it), then you can give it away. That's also how I decide whether or not to get something at a thrift store -- would I regret NOT getting it?

This is part of why it is such a sign of me being in a bad place when my home is untidy. When I am in a good place, I don't even have to try to get things tidy... when I'm not, it looks horrific, because I just drop things everywhere. I get in a very "if I can't get it right why bother at all" mindset. I know it's destructive but that's my brain when it's being a jerk.

Early spring last year my biodad, who owns the house in which I live, threatened to kick me out if I couldn't pay an unreasonable amount of rent, so I told him I was going to move out as soon as possible. After he tried to rent it to my cousin and she flaked out, he seemed to come to his senses since the house is not in rentable condition to any unrelated person. He sent me an email with a proposal of me covering the house expenses. I proposed some amendments on the methods and included that they can't come visit without at least 2 weeks notice, they can't go through my stuff, etc and he agreed. I also said that they need to respect my need for calls to be scheduled, and they have mostly done that, with the exception of my birthday. While it is not a pleasant thing for me to get an unscheduled call ever, I can understand and forgive the impulse there.

He also included this, in the hyper-formal fashion typical of his writing:

"Also, I have given careful thought to your name.  [Your maternal grandfather] was faced with the prospect that one of his daughters decided not to use her birth name and replaced it with a name of her choice.  Her birth name was [birthname] and her newly chosen name was [chosen name].  Mr. [maternal grandfather] honored her decision and called her [chosen name].

     I am no better than [maternal grandfather's full name], my kinsman and father, and I will follow his example, if required.  If you ask me to refer to you as James, I will honor your request.  Simply ask.

     My name, however, is [M], to the whole world except my children.  I request that my children refer to me as Daddy or Dad.  You only have one daddy and his days are numbered.  This is my request."

So I agreed to call him Dad, which I hadn't ever done (I went right from "Daddy" to his first name). I feel doubtful that he respects my name when talking about me to others, but I'm trying to use "Dad" more in my head so it doesn't feel so weird and uncomfortable.

He came in town to visit a relative who is sick (someone I don't know) and before planning that trip he asked if he could stay at my house. He did a great job of checking in and not using pressuring or controlling language, so I said yes, and I offered to take a day off to spend it with him.

He finished his trip to the sick family member and his longtime mentor and arrived at my house on Sunday. He bought himself some groceries before arriving, and we sat on the front porch to have dinner together. He asked if it was okay to reheat meat in my house (I'm a vegetarian) and I said yes -- amazed that he thought to ask, and that it seemed like a real question. We had dinner and a thoughtful conversation -- which was a little one-sided as he talked a LOT but listening takes less work for me most of the time so I was okay with it. When he seemed to not listen I pointed it out and he paused and listened.

Yesterday was the day I took off to spend with him, and it was a good day, overall. We had breakfast together, went to a park I love and took a long walk, and then went to dinner. I gave him a book about trees that I had been thinking of mailing him, and he actually looked at it and smiled and said he thought he would enjoy it. Love of trees is one thing we share, though he cannot let the subject pass without emphasizing that he is fine with cutting trees that need to be cut because they lean dangerously or whatever. Every. Single. Time. we talk about trees he says that. I get it, okay? I'm not about to criticize you for loving then too much so enough with the preemptive defensiveness! I feel for him about it though.

When we got back we loaded up the paper recycling for him to take in his truck, and while I know he wanted to complain that there was so much cardboard (he thinks its dirty to keep it around) he didn't complain or pressure, and even verbally assured me that he didn't want to do anything but complete the chore for me. In the past he would have said "this has got to go. I'm going to load it up, come help me." So he was doing remarkably well with being respectful.

We talked a lot which was so exhausting because he twists himself in knots sometimes to avoid saying things which don't actually need to be avoided, and he is stubbornly wrong about almost anything to do with social justice. But I finally said something that got through yesterday when he was talking about how he doesn't trust or like cops and how they're assholes to him and he thinks its not about race.

I told him that maybe the cops who harass are all assholes who would prefer to treat everyone like shit, but they expect, looking at a white man, that there is a greater chance of him having powerful friends. An asshole cop still doesn't want to get in trouble so he is going to take out his shittiness on the people he guesses as the least powerful. Dad told me "you just said something powerful there" and agreed that that would be a consideration for cops. I thought to myself "not any less powerful or true than the other things I have said but somehow this didn't get caught on your defenses."

This is why I talk back to privileged ignorance every time I have the chance. This was like the third time we had the same conversation in one day, and I tried something slightly different and this time I got through. There are little cracks in everybody's privilege that can bring understanding, but the only way to find those cracks is to push against their privilege over and over and over in different spots.

A few months ago I realized, through watching a friend who I see rarely react to my dynamic with Topaz, that Topaz and I argue -- or appear to argue -- a LOT. We use playful complaint to release irritation; this is not conflict but can look like it. We use tactless respectful disagreement to help us learn about each other, increase our knowledge, and broaden our understanding of each other and what we can teach each other. Our other arguments don't happen in front of other people, and are comparatively rare.

( playful complaint: not conflict )

( You can't mix play and passive aggression )

( lack of tact doesn't mean disrespect )

tactless discussions require COMPLETE trust

One thing you absolutely need in order to have tactless discussions without hurting each other is a MUTUAL, complete and sturdy trust that the other person considers your thoughts to be as important, accurate, and valid as their own. If there is any doubt that the other person truly respects the way you think or communicate, you must both use care and tact in phrasing so that you don't accidentally imply that the other person's ideas are inferior to yours. I have ruined friendships by being tactless when that trust was not there; the trust MUST COME FIRST and there is no forcing it. It is not okay to demand that someone trust you to respect them. You must prove it through repeated example. If the other person doesn't feel completely comfortable with you being tactless and vice versa, that trust is not there.

Other than playful complaint and tactless discussion, we rarely argue. Not to say that there are no difficulties; when we have an emotional clash it hurts a lot, but that happens pretty rarely and we usually learn something important from it. Also, it hurts only out of comparison to the unity and adoration we usually share, not due to any kind of meanness or carelessness with each other's feelings.

behaviors we avoid in conflict

We don't try to hurt each other emotionally -- it is so beyond the realm of what we think of as okay that I forget that some people do that. We don't call names, threaten, or yell. We don't make dismissive, disrespectful, callous, or derisive comments. We don't attack ourselves or engage in self-hate, especially not out loud where it hurts the other person also. We almost never assign motive rather than asking, and if we do we apologize sincerely after we realize. We don't assign blame to the other or ourselves. When we realize we hurt the other person, we do not defend our choices!!!

behaviors we practice in conflict

We trust each other to tell the truth about our own motives, emotions, and desires. We take responsibility for our mistakes by making plans to do better. When we realize we hurt the other person, we empathize first, then explain our motives for what we did (not defensively), then discuss how we will try to avoid hurting them this way again, and ask if there is anything the hurt person needs to help them feel better. Afterward we usually hug, sometimes go have a lay-down cuddle if it was really intense.

( accepting their stated motives as true: example )

In that moment I thought to myself how torturous it would be to not be able to have healing re-connection after a painful misunderstanding. I don't know how other people manage to just not talk about their upsets and wait for time to dull the ache and hope that they can accidentally happen into some re-connection along the way. I want to feel 100% back to normal connectedness by the time the clash is over, and the vast majority of the time, that's what happens. The only time that isn't true is when we're both nearly out of energy and then we clash and we both go into the negative. Then we tiptoe around each other for a bit and do passive-connection things like watch a show until we get back to neutral.

( arguments based on misunderstanding )

( shelving an unresolved discussion is a necessary skill )

I have learned that for me to be fully intimate with someone, they must either be able to discuss right away OR be willing and able to reflect on the issue on their own time and then talk with me when they finish. Either works, and I am sure there are other possible solutions as well. The basic need is for my partner to be willing and able to take responsibility for their share of the emotional work and actually do it.

There is this repetitive and predictable act which is passed off as 'humor' where people imply that what someone else said is meant in a sexual manner. Examples: saying 'giggity' or 'that's what she said' after someone says that an experience was really hard.

This always bothered me but I only just figured out why: it's a violation of consent (unless you know for sure that the person doesn't mind). A mild one, comparatively, but a violation nonetheless: you are symbolically forcing someone to talk about sex without checking to see if they would be okay with that. You are assigning meaning to someone else's words that you know they did not intend. You are not engaging in a mutual act of creating a funny moment: you are laughing at someone else's expense.

In fact, most of the people* I have seen do this only enjoy it if it makes the target uncomfortable. More often than not when it is done around me there is an attitude of attempted sexual dominance. If you do not laugh when someone does this to you, they will react as if you have taken something from them. People will react in ways that show this is not consensual and attempt to play it off as okay; they say "I walked right into that." Conversations should not have traps that one has to avoid.

I can't stand it when people do this, to the point that I never use the word hard when I mean difficult unless I trust the people around me not to do this. I will avoid ever talking to people who do this regularly. I will do verbal gymnastics to avoid someone shoving their empty, unfunny, worn-out joke into my mouth for their enjoyment. It's not cute and it's not funny.

From now on if someone steals my words and assigns sexual meaning to them, I will say, "please don't do that" and when they say "what?" I'll say "don't assign a different meaning to what I'm saying." or I may just say, "don't twist my words" depending on how annoyed/bold I am feeling.

*some people just love making people laugh and do this word-twisting in an attempt to be funny without realizing the effect it has. I can understand that. I have made such jokes before, feeling vaguely uncomfortable as I did so but dismissing it because I couldn't figure out what the problem was. Now that I have, I will not be doing it any more.

If you can't say no to someone without facing a negative reaction (such as pouting, begging, withdrawing, attacking, or response-blaming), they are not giving you the option of true consent. If someone can't say no to you without worrying about how they will deal with your reaction, you are not giving them the option of true consent. Coercion is the sneaky underpinning to this -- sometimes unintentional, but every bit as much a problem whether it is intentional or not. It doesn't become harmless just because someone isn't doing it on purpose.

Expressing disappointment is fine -- as long as you're not making the other person feel like they are responsible for making you feel better. Usually you will have to overtly take responsibility for handling your disappointment for this to work. For example: "I'm feeling disappointed that you don't want to [do the thing] with me. I'm gonna go [practice self care] to feel better; I'll be back" <- that is great as long as it isn't passive aggressive but is sincere effort to handle one's own emotions.

What is not okay is "I'm disappointed that you won't [do the thing] with me." *waits for the other person to make me feel better* or "I'm disappointed" *goes in another room to sulk and wait for them to come make me feel better*

That is effectively punishing them for saying no by making them do emotional work in order to have a positive environment. If you can't process out of your disappointment very very quickly, don't do it in their presence.

Being around my biofamily made me realize all these things that used to be normal for me that I now consider super shitty behavior. Using loopholes to escape things you agreed to do: this is treating someone as your enemy. If you know what the point of their request was and you are deliberately looking for a way to avoid that, you shouldn't have agreed to do it in the first place. The ethical thing to do would be to go to them and say, "I know I agreed to do this but I'm not comfortable with it, let's renegotiate." You should be able to trust that if someone ends up breaking an agreement, it wasn't due to lack of effort to honor the spirit of the agreement or renegotiate to one they could honor. You should not have to think of all the ways people could say yes and then blame their not-doing-it on your phrasing in order to lock people into an agreement they can't wiggle out of. They shouldn't agree to things if they are willing to try to wiggle out of those agreements.

I hadn't realized that it was M who was responsible for inversely-teaching me to not poke people in their sore spots or say things just to irritate. That is disrespectful. If you know something causes someone upset, be sensitive if you HAVE to discuss it and if you don't have to discuss it, just don't do it. Deliberately causing distress for one's own amusement is not making a joke, it is being unkind and disrespectful. Also, I realized how effective my method of stopping that behavior is: describing it and explaining how it is unethical. If you protest with distress, that gives them the 'fun' they were looking for. M's 'jokes' may be technically harmless (implying to P that they resemble someone P thinks is unattractive/unpleasant) but the effect is where you know the ethics of a thing.

(meta-note: I haven't had time to do more than write lately but I promise I'm not ignoring anyone, I just want to keep momentum with writing. I will respond to posts and comments when I next have time)