MOOP!

I hate crying.

I hate it more than many many things, and what I hate most of all is crying out of frustration, or over something stupid, or for no damn reason at all. I hate it because it makes me feel small, and weak. I hate it because it means I'm living a stereotype I want to avoid, that of the feeble, dainty female, who needs to be protected, and coddled, and helped along. She's not strong enough to do it herself --better let someone else take over.

Yesterday, I went shopping with mom. Part of this was a lovely trip to the bra shop, so I can actually have more than two bras that fit me well and I enjoy wearing. Sitting in the dressing room, trying on a cute little 34A -just my size!

And the cups are too damn big for my tits! I don't even know how it happened, just all of a sudden I'm sitting alone in the fitting room, trying not to sob loud enough so that someone actually hears. It's really *really* stupid --I love having small tits, it saves me a world and a half of trouble-- but it's just the defeat of wearing the smallest bra in the store, and having it gape. I know I ain't ever gonna be big and curvy and beautiful, but c'mon gods. That's just mean.

It wasn't more than a couple seconds, barely enough tears to wet my cheeks. I pull myself together, get over it, take a few deep breaths until the mirror shows a pale enough countenance to play normal. I continue shopping, the event passed, but somewhere, deep in the back of my mind, I have taken a slap to the face.

Because I was crying. Over a fucking piece of *clothing*. Because I am a woman, because I am weepy, and because I am weak. That metaphorical slap trails off to join all the hundreds of thousands of minor slaps and taunts and jeers that have collected over the years in the back of my mind, a collection of laughter over how little strength I actually possess.

It's every time I drop something, or run into something, or trip over something. It's every "slow down or you'll hurt yourself", every "take a deep breath and relax". It's frustration at being lonely, being stupid, being lost and unlovable and painfully painfully insecure, and it's frustration at being so easily frustrated, and so unable to change.

It's techno fandom thinkin' I can't move baseplates for the pipe and drape. It's Target sending me away to "go get something you *can* lift -like pillows!" It's every single customer, male or female, who doesn't think I can when I offer to carry something big and heavy out to their car for them, and tells me as much. Why the fuck would I offer if I couldn't carry it, asshole?!

It's being weak, and crying at that weakness, because I'm just so tired of it. And every time I cry over something stupid, I hear society's evil little voice in the back of my mind. "Aww, look at the stupid little girl, someone better go help her."

(I cannot *stand* being helped. I'm too stubborn and prideful to ask, but more than that, it's the fact that *I'm* the one who's supposed to be doing the helping! But this is another essay)

Society laughs at me, and files me away as just another stupid weak female. Can't help you move, she's not strong enough to lift the boxes. Oh look, it's a sad part of a movie, guess we better pass the tissues! Society sees me, and judges me, and judges my entire damn gender along with me, and it sucks. I'm tired of living up to my gender stereotype.

Sorry if this is incoherent. I kinda feel like I'm about to cry.

~Sor
MOOP!

Women are warm and soft and curvy, and squish in all the right places. They have nice breasts, and hips, and don't have sharp elbows or knees. They take care of their body, and do things to make it look and smell nice.

They know how to cook, and are good at it. They make things from raw ingredients, not from boxes, and know how to go shopping for what they need, and don't even bother with recipes, since it's all so very simple to them anyways.

They sew things. They can both make things from patterns, like costumes and period clothing, or they can modify things that they get from other stores, to make them fit better.

They know what colours look good on them, and what colours match with each other, and what colour belt you should wear with these shoes, and what pattern shirt you should wear with that skirt. They can tell what clothes flatter their figure well, and what clothes won't. They look good in dresses. They own proper underwear, with lace sometimes, that serves just as much as decoration as it does utility.

They wear make-up, often every day. They know how to do it subtle-like, so that no one can tell they're made up, and they know how to do it striking, to emphasize their eyes and cheeks and lips. They can apply lipstick in one go. They know what hues to use for their skin tone. Similarly, they know lots of pretty things to do with their hair, and can pick or choose to match the occasion.

Women follow when they dance. If they're quite good at dancing, they lead sometimes as well, but only with the very inexperienced. They are good at following, and do not try to back lead.

They are flirtatious in appropriate ways. If they are single, they can flirt with strangers out in the big wide world, catch eyes, ask boys for numbers, all that sort of things. If they are hooked, they know how to behave properly as half a couple, know when to kiss their boyfriend, and how to hold him and where hands should be placed.

They do not tell dirty jokes. They may be bawdy in groups of their closest girl friends, discuss vibrators or birth control or very mild kinks, but they wouldn't dare mention masturbation in mixed company, or be vulgar. They are not sexual creatures in public. They may sometimes tease their boyfriends in public, but no one else, and get embarrassed if someone notices.

They are monoamorous, and display cautious amounts of jealousy towards their boyfriend's female friends. They are heterosexual, except for perhaps a few incidents of experimentation in high school or college, and perhaps except for a best friend, with whom wildly over the top, and completely platonic flirtation can occur.

~S/R
MOOP!

So, apparently, June 2009 is officially LGBT Pride Month.

...That's kinda awesome! I am proud of being me! Clearly I have to go kiss some girls (preferably while dressed like a boy) to celebrate!

***

In other news, I was on the news today --Fox45 was doing a piece on the Maryland MS bike ride, and mom went to be all "volunteering is awesome!" So yeah. I woke up at six fifteen in the morning and put on a corset, and then got to stand in the background holding a pirate flag. My life is a charmed one.

((And the only reason this was at all tolerable was because Brenton --a friend I picked up from Balticon and have been keeping each other up far too late at night ((:eyes:))-- had to get up at six for work, so the two of us wound up texting each other all morning.))

***

Work was pretty much hell today. Although shadowcaptain visited --that is decidedly less hellish.

Also, I bought a steampunky dress and some CDs.

***

Ohhey, Veronica and Jeremy are here. Awesomesauce!

~Sor
MOOP!

So, for teacherclass, we just watched "A Private Universe" which is basically being all "Oh hey, people don't know simple scientific facts like why there are seasons".

This led me to wonder about what other basic knowledge there is that people don't necessarily have. Certainly, it ties in with my basic pop culture thing --while I myself am *woefully* uneducated, there are still things that I will find jawdroppingly shocking if you admit you're not familiar with them. (Like what do you mean someone born, in America, fifteen years after it came out has never read Where the Wild Things Are. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN!?)

I try very hard to not have any resounding pop culture biases, but I recognize that there is a list in the back of my mind of things I expect people in my circles to be familiar with. If not Flying Circus, every geek ever should probably have seen Holy Grail --even if you hate it, you now get roughly 1200% more references.

Or more importantly, The Princess Bride. I mean, I know I'm biased, what having acted in it, but how do you survive as a geek in this country without having seen The Princess Bride? Hell, while it's an amazing read, I don't even demand you read it, just...not having seen it? Dear lords.

Those are all part of the geek set, and I just more or less expect people to know them. Hell, I quoted "Why are you smiling" "Because I know something you do not know --I am not left handed!" last night, and will probably quote something else in the next twenty four hours, just because that's how I roll.

Additionally, I have a personal set of things that I think everyone ought to experience. I don't necessarily expect my friends to have seen Dr. Horrible or The Middleman, but dear lord, admit those gaps in your experience and I will do the best I can to help you fill them. Or holy hell lords, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I don't demand anything past the first book, but seriously, if you *haven't* read at least that one? I...I'm afraid I can never look at you in the same way again.¹

((Of course, I lose out on several people's personal sets for not ever being able to get through the second Lord of the Rings book. I'm sorry, I just...can't. I wish I could, but it's really not happening.))

SOYES! What are the overarching things that all geeks need to experience? What are the personal things, that you believe all people in your friends group need to experience?

Oh and bytheway? Before you leave a comment? Take twelve minutes out of your life in order to watch How To Kill A Mockingbird. Yes, yes it is worth it. It is basically what "To Kill a Mockingbird" would have been if Harper Lee had been aware of tvtropes.org's "Rule of Awesome"

~Sor
MOOP!

1: This is totally why Chris and I wouldn't have ever worked out in the long run. He dating KT for a couple years just saved us the inevitable argument and subsequent heartbreak.

I don't want to live my life
On one side of an ampersand¹
Even if I went with you
I'm not the girl you think I am
And I don't want to match you
'Cause I'll lose my voice completely

(Ampersand, Amanda Palmer. There's a little bit more to the chorus, but it's not important to the way I interpret the lyrics. Me, interpreting things, it's enough to make a cat laugh.)

To me, ever since the first time I really Heard the lyrics, actually Listened to them, instead of just letting the music wash over me as I am so wont to do, I realized that Amanda was talking about something that terrifies me. On one side of an ampersand? She (I) doesn't want to be part of a pair, oh look, there is AmandaandBrian, KatandAnyone. No. Just please, no.

And my fear terrifies me.

I've been alluding to this, bits and pieces and slipped words. A sentence here and there, nothing anyone would notice, not without being able to see the big picture. And the brilliant part of talking to you and you and you is that no one besides me ever gets to see the big picture.

Call it want of freedom, call it my own asexuality (which was never asexual somuch as aromantic, I realise) call it fear of intimacy, call it all or none of the above, it's still there. I'm beginning to get to an age where I can get into relationships that last forever, last the rest of my life, last until marriage and beyond, and dear gods.

Dear gods, I'm petrified.

This...These feelings, the way I love people now means I don't want to lose them. I've been able to enter every relationship safe in the knowledge that it was going to end. High school relationships don't last, silly, people are too different. Hell, the fact that Blue and I made it almost a full year is inherently boggling, a year long relationship? At fifteen, sixteen? We were freaks.

I don't have that safety anymore. I can't rest easy in the knowledge that it will, eventually, end.

Oh, of course it still will. I don't fool myself, my prediliction for older men² means I tend very towards people who're at enough of a different place from me that eventually we will fragment, and that's okay. I'm alright with losing love (though I never want to lose friendship). But sometimes...I fool myself. Or my mind fools itself. And I realize that I don't want it to end, not ever.

And ye gods, with that realization...I want to run.

I want to run and run and run and hide and be all by myself for a long long while and that's terrible. It's escapism of the worst sort, it's shutting myself off because I just can't accept the idea that maybe it's okay to have someone else there to support you. Because maybe I don't have to go through all of life alone. Because maybe I'm not the only one who can take care of me.

Because maybe being independent is lonely, and maybe being as truly free as I feel I want involves building walls so thick and high that I'll never be able to see the world through them. And I do like the world.

Growing up is scary, but why does it seem so much safer if I could just manage to do it alone.

I...I guess all I'm trying to say is that my therapist was right (damn her) and I think I'm scared of intimacy. I already knew I was scared of opening up, for reasons I've never been able to grasp. I'm scared of perfection for reasons half rational (as hard as I try to achieve it). I never realized that I was scared of safety.

If I flirt with everyone, smile and flounce, keep myself from never falling in love, then no one can ever care about me, and I'll never care about them. All hearts will be safe, unbroken. If I need to bury my face in a shoulder, I just have to turn to the nearest Toy, held fast in walls spun of quick-witted bullshit, rapidfire excuses for the tears on my face, my Need for arms around me.

And I'm sure that would work much better if I never slipped. Heels are pretty, sure, but I still trip, and tumble heart over head into love. And being in love means I have to care, have to be intimate, have to actually let myself open and be honest --I'm terrible at being honest, not in a way that causes me to lie, but in the actual speach, actually getting myself to the point where I can say the words that I need to sometimes. I'm getting better --I've been getting better for most of the last year, learning how to say I need help, say what's going through my mind.

I think I've been falling in Love. Not just loving people, I'm good at that, used to that. Ever since I first managed to tell Veronica that I loved her (not in any weird way, just as a friend, do you understand?) so very long ago (when such words were not to be spoken) not a day has gone by where the phrase hasn't passed my lips. But being in love? That's a lot harder. A *lot* harder, and it keeps happening, once, twice, thr...

I don't know what I'm going to do about this. At the very least, oh, does it feel good to write. I half whispered earlier, tears carefully hid from my eyes "I don't have a home" but I *do*, I so very do. My home has always been my words, given a blank page and a nudge in the right direction, I can weave myself a safety so strong I can almost feel the phantom arms protecting me.

I suppose what I'm going to do is let myself be open. Force myself from running. Maybe sometime I'll find myself on one side of that ampersand, and maybe I won't mind it so much.

I think it's time to face fears. To figure out why they are, and let myself defeat them. Let myself be serious, for once in my life, because for once in my life, I have found something worth being serious about.

Let myself fall in love. One, two, not quite three times, and see what it's like not being totally alone. Contemplate marriage, a mortgage, and a wall that does not encompass me alone.

We'll see.

&Sor
MOOP!

1: Though, to paraphrase Magus, it would not be terrible to live life on one side of an incubus/succubus. [/obscure Nethack joke]
2: And my beautiful younger woman exception is a whole different sort of case, and one I don't wish to discuss here.