MOOP!

Happy Trans Day of Visibility.

Today I went and found a hidden corner where no one else was around, and _sobbed_. Deep racking sobs, that echoed-bounced out around me into the empty air. Full body shaking-crying, the kind I need to do sometimes because dissociation only takes me so far and sometimes I just need to take the pain and hurt and actually feel it instead.

"It's ridiculous!" she said, perhaps shaking her head. "Did you know that with my sixth graders, I'm not allowed to split them into groups of boys and girls anymore?"

Listen, my cis friends: political correctness has not gone too far. When you say these things, when you roll your eyes, when you complain about how children need to learn to cope with being different and not expect the world to make room for them¹, you are saying these things about me.

You are saying that I am inconvenient. You are saying that I am annoying, frustrating, too much, difficult for you to deal with. You are saying that it would be much easier if I did not exist. You are saying that I don't deserve to feel comfortable, that I don't deserve to feel safe, that I don't deserve to feel respected.

You are telling me that you do not want my honest self, that you do not want my accurate self, that you do not want my true self. You may tolerate parts, but you are not interested in the whole.

But Kat, we're talking about coddled children and overbearing parents not about you-- bite your tongue before you say that to my face. Because when you are talking about binary gender and when you are talking about how hard it is to remove binary gender from your vocabulary you are always talking about me.

How much earlier could I have known my truth, if it wasn't assumed for me?

It is Trans Day of Visibility, and even on a day like today, I have the weight of my assignment² forced upon my shoulders to remind me that Good Girls Aren't Here. Which is why, when you say that you wish not to deal with me, I respond by granting your wish. I have spent decades learning how to hide, I am very good at finding the dark and hidden corners of every building I've ever been in. You will never see me cry.

When I hear the hallway door swing and your footstep towards the bathroom, the desperate echoing sound of my pain ceases, and my breathing becomes silent. My name on your tongue does not earn you a response, I will reappear on my own terms, with my eyes blank and my cheeks red. I will not tell you why I disappear, my trust comes only with my truth and we both know how you feel about that.

I am able to survive in spaces where I don't feel safe. I have to be, that's everywhere. But it doesn't stop me wishing that maybe the next group of children to grow under your eye will get to do it honestly. Or maybe the children after that. Or after that?

Happy Trans Day of Visibility. I'm sorry I still can't be seen.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Strictly speaking, this line was because of allergies, not gender, but it was the same conversation, and it's hard not to hear it as a reminder of how much easier it would be if I would just stop, thanks.

2: You may spit as you say this word, I did.

I had an interesting, and very beneficial, revelation last night.

My Ideal of Femininity has changed. This might be a significant part of why it is so much easier for me to be female than it has been for the past while, because the standards I am holding myself to are different, and much healthier to attain.

See, I've always known people who embody "How To Girl Right"¹, someone in my periphiary who, if I can be like them, I can be doing this successfully. I am not, after all, successful at femininity, at female. It is not a thing that feels natural to me, not like my tomboy-genderfucked-mishmash of behaviour and appearance.

But in the past few years --I don't know how long, not exactly-- there's been a shift. And in thinking, I figured out the pivotal part of the shift, and the reason this is so important to me. The previous Ideal was about what you do, making sure you can successfully meet all the activity markers. The current Ideal is about what you are.

My current Ideal of Femininity is a person I know who is smart, and kind, and incredibly strong-willed. Who is in-touch with her sexuality, and flirtatious, but never forceful. Who is not judgemental, and listens to people with experiences she can't touch, and who would not shame someone for what they are or do not yet know.

I want to grow up into that sort of existence, because too damn long I've been trapped in a world where it matters what you do and how you do it. Putting on makeup, creating food, dancing the follow, wearing dresses...all of that is not a reflection of what you are. All of that has always felt transgressive and wrong --a different kind of drag-- and hard for me to manage. Putting on eyeliner doesn't make me feel female, it makes me feel costumed or lost. And so for too damn long, the idea of being female has been fraught, because when I feel like a girl, there is nothing I can do to encourage the feeling.

I am still very gender neutral, of course. Gender is just not something I _need_ in my day to day life. But I do have days when I feel like a boy, and I do have days when I feel like a girl, and knowing how to manifest those feelings into the real world is a pivotal part of keeping my mind safe and happy and sane.

But part of manifesting those feelings is looking towards examples, people who can do male, or female, far better than I ever could. And I have now found a new example, one that doesn't make my skin crawl quiet to contemplate, and that is a beautiful thing.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I'm sure I have "How To Boy Right" as well, but I think it's mostly just "Racheline and also the Middleman" which is great but not especially helpful.

PostScript: Obviously I have not informed you of the identities of either Ideal I've held. The last was unhealthy, the current...I do not put friends on pedestals, not if I can avoid it. No speculation.

I think realizing (and becoming comfortable with the fact that) I'm genderqueer has made it a lot easier for me to be traditionally feminine.

Like, I'm a lot more willing to be excited about cute bras and awesome high heels and the wearing thereof, since it's all just a different kind of drag.

I can't stop staring at this picture.

It's Racheline. She linked to it on her blog, saying this is me as a man¹ and this is me as a woman. The one I am fixated on is her as a woman. It's a photograph I've never seen --I am semi-obsessive about saving pictures of people I find friends, interesting, attractive, far-away and foreign³-- and was not in all honesty the one I was expecting. The one I was expecting is her as a dancer, red dress sharp against the walls of the subway station, strong and vivid and quite utterly in control of herself.

This is a photo of something different. This is, as she says, a photo of her as a woman. And I'm fixated, on the eyes, on the hands, on the curve of her lips and tilt of the neck.

Racheline has achieved something I simply can't seem to grasp.
She is able to be beautiful. Traditionally femininely beautiful, and quite utterly a woman.

Obviously there is only so much a photo can portray, and I don't have her on IM to ask terribly prying questions about gender and mindset and comfort in ones skin. The sideways glance could just as easily be a way to hide feeling lost, unsure, but I don't think so. She defined the photo as her as a woman. And thus it is.

During NoSuchConvention, I found myself struck with one of those decisive moments in which I suddenly know who and what I am. I wrote about one not too long ago, on my most recent Erik day. That day I knew solidly that I was not my normal absence of gender, I was decidedly male.

At the con, I knew suddenly that I was not my normal absence of gender, I was decidedly female. I was female, and I wanted to be delicate, and flirty, and pretty. I wanted ruffles and lace, a proper skirt, to try on a corset and see if I too could have breasts spilling out of my top. I wanted(want) to be traditionally femininely beautiful and quite utterly a woman.

The initial problem was that I was ill equipped to achieve that at the con. I did try --let down the hair and turn my coat back into a dress-- but at best, I could hit "barefoot hippie goddess" which is not at all the same thing as pretty woman, no matter how you view gender identity. In all honesty though, I could've had access to my entire closet and not known what to wear.

The problem, the real problem, is that I do not have the talent or the security to take clothes and hair and make-up and turn myself into a woman, into a real woman who is beautiful and can smile and mean it, who understands what it's like to be feminine, and how to turn your head and move your hands. I never learned. I have watched with fascination as my sister taught myself, as Jannyblue made posts about how to appear normal, but even following their advice, I am not sure I could achieve anything more impressive than faking it, and becoming very very quiet.

I know too many real women, women who know who and what they are, and who hold themselves with ease and understand what to do and why to do it. I have seen enough examples to know I'm not right.

The moment that feels most right from prom was getting dressed, dropping the leatherman into my purse. Just in case. Maybe you can be a woman with a leatherman, but not I. It was defiance, a tomboy's toy, a geek's little weirdness. It was pulling myself away from the femininity, from the pretty dress and well-braided hair. It was giving me something solid, usual, to latch onto.

The moment that felt most right from the Highland ball, another time wearing another pretty dress, was when adfamiliares latched on to how lost I looked-felt-was and gave me subtle instruction. Now we go choose a table, now we put our purses down, now we go mingle, and talk with friends until you can forget that you are dressed wrong. It was a gift, from someone I admire, and it helped enough that I remember it distinct, ten months later.

I'm sure I can look like a woman, like a beautiful and feminine thing. But it comes at the cost of my voice, as I become no longer myself. Trying femininity takes effort enough that I must close myself off, hide behind eyes that are a little too wide, a little too scared. Curl to the edges of the crowd, because I can't sustain the illusion otherwise, and well, what's the point of being pretty if I ruin it by speaking?

Maybe someday I'll figure it out. I'm getting better at the boy part of things, about realizing today I am masculine and I will behave like thus. There must be similar switches to pull, things to learn (and I laugh as I wonder if maybe I shouldn't start lurking on the edges of the internet devoted to helping good little boys become lovely little girls, in whole or in part.)

I can't help but expect flames from this post. How dare I suggest all women must be feminine, be pretty (I don't think I did), that all women must be confident and self-aware and strong. And of course, I am such a lovely girl, and so beautiful and why would I think myself ugly (I don't and I'm not). Or perhaps how dare I want such a thing, why would I not embrace my body-as-is, revel in unshaven legs and unarranged hair, aspire to be a hippie goddess more than disney princess (I have always been a princess, my very name was chosen in part to let me have that identity. Children should have princess names, said Neva to my mother, and so we did, Katarina and Nikolai, and Alysandra.)

Because I am young, and still learning myself. It has not been so long since I could admit satisfaction with the shape of the meat-sack I inhabit, and I still exhibit the tendency to be unsure of that satisfaction sometimes. The mind is such a grand and glorious and more complicated organ, why would it not take me longer to come to terms? I love myself, as is, but there is an ideal that I may never reach, and it hurts to remember that, just like it hurts when I remember I will never put a rocketship on the moon.

And besides all that, the difference between attractive and charismatic is very sharp sometimes. Do not lie that I am more of the former. Prettier than average, of course, but I was trained by the best from a very young age to warp people to my will. I have more power than Buttercup ever did, but still, sometimes I can't help but wish to be the most beautiful woman in the world.

And I suppose, the only closing thought I can share is how unfair it is that Racheline has two perfect red dresses, and I haven't even got one.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: this post, and here is the man² picture

2: It's interesting how I intersect with gender and words. In that photo, he is self identifying as a man, so I will call him a man. But I wanted so bad when writing this to soften the word, to say "boy" instead. Sometime I should look at the world, and analyze the why I call you boys and girls, why I so often abandon the words man and woman.

3: I guard and treasure every photograph I've ever found of my clone. Of Thorog. Of Rackle and Harena, of DrummerDude and Jarne. Of all the people who for so long were just avatars and text, who I connected to so much easier-stronger-better than my "real life" friends.

The internet has changed since then, and I've aged enough that I've changed too. I wouldn't necessarily go back to when pictures were a treat and a phone call unimaginable delight. But I am nostalgic for then.

So, let's talk a whole bunch about dancing, now that I have ranted at Marc some, and so I have removed all the anger and returned to just frustration.

First off, and mostly unrelated, I feel there ought to be a seminar at things like NEFFA and Flurry which just goes through some of the beginning dance things that can apply to multiple dance forms. Things like "Give weight" or "the most important part of a figure dance is ending in the right spot". Also, up is towards the music, down is away from the music, heads are the people facing or backs to the music, sides are the people with their sides to the music.

Though in all honesty, I can distill all of dancing into three things that everyone should know: Get to the right spot. Give weight. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.

***

Second off...heh. Yeah.

So, today was the Regency tea dance, where I was again specifically asked by one of the local¹ dance historians/teachers to never dance the lady's role while dressed as a gentleman (or perhaps to never have a male partner dance the lady's role while I danced gentleman, which is a problematic distinction, so out of charity I will assume I was asked the first²). The reason is for the sake of the newbies --fine, whatever, it is indeed easier for a new dancer to identify the gentleman and lady's sides of the dance when the people on them are appropriately garbed.

However, if you are going to require me not dance in the lady's role while a gent, then I am going to require two very important things from the dance community at large.

First of all, I require gentlemen to stop asking me to dance. This happens at least once at every ball I go to, and tonight it happened three times for the same dance, which is exasperating, offensive, and time-consuming. If a gent asks me to dance, I must politely explain that I am a gentleman³, disentangle myself from him, and find an eligible lady. This wastes my time, and it wastes the time of my fellow gentleman.

To the end of the dance masters and mistresses, perhaps the best thing you can do to discourage this is to refer to me properly, as a gentleman, when explaining dances. Saying something akin to "and then you will dance with the gentleman across from you --or the lady dancing the gentleman's role" while referring to me⁴ does not encourage your dancers to treat me as a gentleman.

In more blunt terms, when I put on the full tailcoat et al, I am not a lady dancing the gentleman's role. I am a goddamned gentleman, and I will dance the gentleman's role, except in the most dire or intriguing circumstances.

The second thing I require is that, if you insist that gentlemen may not dance together, ladies may not be permitted to ask one another to dance until and unless there are no unpartnered gentlemen.

Oh no! This is terribly sexist, isn't it? Why can't ladies ask each other to dance? Well, because if all the ladies on the floor are dancing with each other, and I am left alone at the end with another gent, our choices are to not dance, which goes against every reason I am here⁵, or to split up another couple, which always feels *terribly* rude to me. Perhaps the other couple is a pair of old friends, who do not see or dance with one another near oft enough. Perhaps one of the other couple is not comfortable dancing with men. Perhaps one is trying to learn how to dance the role of a gent, or is more comfortable doing such. Certainly, they may be quite pleased to be split apart, but especially when they flocked to one another in the early stages of choosing partners, it feels cruel to demand they separate.

So, if gentlemen are not allowed to dance together, then the ladies must wait until all the gents who wish to dance have partnered before joining hands. And certainly, a lady may ask a gent (and I am always honoured and pleased when it occurs to me) in order to expedite this process, but she may not be allowed to ask another lady until there are no unpaired gentlemen.

Now, for what it's worth, I think that second rule is complete and utter bullshit. When I am clothed as a lady, or clothed gender neutrally, I often ask other women to dance, in either role, because there are many people I like dancing with, and not all of them happen to dance the gentleman's role. I am fond of this ability.

Furthermore, I am perfectly willing to dance with another gentleman. Honest. I won't freak out or feel I've lost out on an important flirtation⁶, or feel otherwise cheated. I know many gentlemen --male, female, or queer identified-- who feel the same way, and are perfectly willing to dance either role with another gent.

And no, I'm not even encouraging male/male dancing⁷ (though I will happily get argumentative about that as well). I am simply pointing out that you cannot insist gentlemen not dance together unless they are in surplus, and still allow the ladies to dance together whenever they please, thereby potentially locking gentlemen out of the dance entirely.

***

Mostly unrelatedly, I also refuse to ever follow the rules of gentlemen not dancing together when it comes to couple dances at balls or other dances where there are very few of such, like only a single "last waltz". Nine times out of ten, the person I bring to dance with me is male identified, so I am _damn well_ going to dance the "special" dance with him. There is no gentleman's or lady's side to throw off the newbies with, and if it's a special important "dance the last waltz with your sweetie" dance, I see no reason why charity towards an inexperienced or unpartnered lady is more important than me getting to dance with my special important sweetie. If that makes me cruel, I happily accept the title⁸.

***

Almost entirely unrelatedly, it makes me weary that I so often get into conversations about costuming, and someone assumes that I am clearly looking for advice or resources to put together a proper lady's ballgown and corsetry. Um. No, I'm sorry, I am wearing this tailcoat and waistcoat because I prefer to dance the gentleman's role⁹ identify as a gentleman at Regency events. It is not some sort of hand-me-down "pity" garb, that I am only using until I can get an appropriate gown. I know this is a huge gender-issues clusterfuck of a thing, and will probably not be fixed in my lifetime, but man, it hurts so stupid much every time someone invalidates my masculinity by insisting or implying that I am clearly a lady, I just happen to be wearing guy's clothes.

Um, beyond that, the tea dance was fun, albeit simple, and I should never be the best dancer¹⁰ at a Regency event, that is just heinously wrong. There were delicious cookies. People complimented me on my garb, and my ludicrous non-period hat (FEATHERS).

Also, word on the rumour mill is that maybe there might be some sort of Regency-for-Scottish-dancers in Boston sometime (knock on wood), so hopefully that will happen and more of you will be available. If not, I will just have to dance with you otherwise, huzzah!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Where local covers the upper half of the east coast

2: If you are saying that I *may*, when dressed as a gentleman, dance in the lady's role without that being problematic in terms of confusing newbies, where a cisgendered male dressed as a gentleman dancing the lady's role *would* be problematic in terms of confusing newbies, then you are NOT ALLOWED to use any variation on "because newbies cue off costumes" for why gentlemen and ladies should stick to their own sides. Because my costume is decidedly and distinctly male.

I don't know that this happened. But I also don't know that it wouldn't happen, and I find that offensive as a genderqueer person in general, and as a male-identified dancer specifically.

3: It _maddens_ me that I have to do this. It is not like I am wearing a relatively genderneutral t-shirt and jeans. I am in knee breaches, hose, a shirt, waistcoat, cravat, and tailcoat, and somehow people still assume I am dancing the lady's role? I am not talking about friends wanting a dance with me, I am talking about complete strangers who come up and ask me. What. The. Hell.

4: I'm not clear if this actually happened today, but it has certainly happened before, and even if the teacher was referring to one of the lady-identified people dancing the gentleman's role, I got more than a few glances from around the room.

5: I go dancing to dance. Everything else is secondary. I don't give a shit about your costumes, your food, or your gender roles, all I want is music and a dance.

6: I have been made livid about certain conversations in which it was pointed out that you can't have genderbalance by having a fem/fem couple, one of whom always dances the gentleman's role, because the women who danced with that female-as-gent would feel "cheated" out of a dance with a "real" male. Which is one of the reasons I've been told I can't go to Newport as a boy (in order to increase my chances of getting in). I shit you not, that is some queerphobic bull-fucking-shit right there, and I don't pander to *phobes.

7: As in, men specifically making a point of asking other men to dance, at the beginning of the "finding partners" portion of a dance, (as opposed to the end when there are no other available partners) which, yes, I suppose could technically deprive two whole ladies of dancing. Because they can't possibly dance together. Because --I shouldn't start this rant. Basically, it boils down to "everyone should learn every part, because then everyone can dance more".

8: Is Kat perhaps bitter about two assemblies ago? Noooo, how could such a thing be true!

9: I feel I should point out that in all truth, for all dancing, I prefer to be as ambidancetrous as possible --dance as evenly split down the lead/follow (or lady/gent) line as possible. However, if I am formally dressed in the costume of one gender or another, that means I am much more inclined to be dancing the role I'm presenting.

And I do really love dancing the gent in Regency. There's a lot of flirtation, gentlemen get more and better solo sequences, and I happen to prefer vests to basically every dress ever. Now that I think of it, I should change the wording up there --regardless of what role I dance, I vastly prefer to dress the gent.

10: genarti may very well have had the footwork and figures better than me, and there were certainly a few of the EA/CVD folks who both knew what they were doing, and had the springyness to support it. But I was decidedly in the top tier, and that is _insanely_ inappropriate for my skill level, and that of the people I know.

So, Monday at dance! I wind up grabbing _meej_ to dance, for logical reasons --he's fun, and a good dancer, and I don't dance with him nearly enough.

He runs off to grab a drink of water, and I go find us a set. Common courtesy in Scottish Country Dancing states that when the lead is not there while the sets are being formed and counted, the follow stand in the lead position, so as to make it easier to tell how many couples there are. I make a point of doing this, because it's polite to the couple doing the counting, and makes a lot of sense.

For whatever interesting reason, I'm distracted, and don't notice when DJ comes back. So there's a moment, where we're both standing together on the lead side of the dance. We banter, and I take a step towards the follow side.

"I mean, do you want to lead?" he offers, totally sincere.

And so I did. A female lead, which is not totally unbeknownst, and a male follow which almost always is. I thanked him generously after the dance, but I feel it bears repeating here, because honestly? Helping me fuck with the highly gendered lead/follow conventions at dance means SO MUCH to me.

There are reasons to keep a male/female split for set dances, most of them having to do with helping the beginners identify where in the dance they need to be facing at any given time --saying "face the ladies" is a little visually easier than a new dancer trying to remember which side exactly is the follow side, as well as keeping up and down and across the dance all in their head at the same time.

But when you're in a group of people who have some idea of what they're doing? There is no reason¹ that women can't lead or men can't follow, and I really do appreciate it every time I see it happen.

((And remember kids! If you know how to lead *and* follow, that means you have twice as many potential people to dance with as the people who only know one!))

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Okay, fine, if we're being really pedantic I'll accept "Allemandes" as a reason. But it's not a boy/girl reason, it's a short/tall reason --it is damn hard for me to lead a significantly taller guy in an Allemande, it's impossible to tell where the hell the arms go. But there are work-arounds for that, and like I said, doesn't have jack shit to do with gender except as far as your average woman is shorter than your average man.

So, there's this really damn interesting person known as rm who posts a lot about things I'm interested in, like sexuality and gender. Especially gender. Lots and lots of very awesome gender things.

One of the things I have gathered from reading all this is that, occasionally, he sees fit to dress himself up as Ianto, from Torchwood. Not as a cosplay, specifically, somuch as a "it's time for work, and today I would like to look nice and smooth and stylish like Ianto". I mean, as far as I can tell, of course --I don't know his exact motives in the action, merely that it is something he does sometimes, and completely rocks.

Rach may have Ianto days. I apparently have Middleman days. At some point, my brain ticked over into "goddamnit, Sorcy is a bit of an irresponsible twit, but MM is about the most steadfast and responsible person ever. Let's be him today, instead, and get stuff done!"

And so, after lunch when I came back to the room...


...I redressed myself accordingly.

It's a fantastic outfit. The whole thing is designed to feel solid, accomplished, good about myself. Those are grade A boots of butt kicking there, the cargo pants are designed for girls, with actual pockets, the belt is in the least known of "my colours", the button down shirt and tie are just professional, and the jacket is made pretty much entirely of win, some more win, a little bit of awesome, and even more win.¹

Oh, but of course, I'm leaving out my favourite part.



Hey, at least if I'm a tremendous dork, it's for one of the better organizations out there. (It's worth noting that I'm also wearing boy scout socks...also that sometime I should write an essay detailing my thoughts and feelings on GSUSA and BSA)

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Okay, and a tad "needs buttons" but whatever. I can fix that.

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!

So, this weekend I went to NEFFA. YAY! I decided to go the entire time without Vera. YA...oh, wait, BOO!

But! Before going, I set up my phone to receive twitter messages, from mom and the people who were gonna be at NEFFA, and more importantly, set it up so I could update my twitter from anywhere I got phone service.

Tweets are in italics, and ( under the cut )

So yes. NEFFA this year felt largely more like a convention than a dance event, but I'm pretty okay with that. I spent several hours doing multiple kinds of dance --I got to do a bit of swing with a really talented lead --he led me through a couple jumps and dips, which was rad.

Volunteering went reasonably well, if dull. Dancing was not enough but quite good what there was. People were utterly amazing --I should really make a point of talking to SpringIsWrath more often, as he is wonderful, plus keeping up with Jesse (known also as Boy-I-Kissed-At-Flurry) and ncarraway.

Soyes! That was my weekend. More posting on more things eventually.

~Sor
MOOP!

POSTSCRIPT: My twitter is here, if you want to actually follow it. Let me know offlist who you are, so I can follow you back!

1: I like boys in skirts, oh yes I do.

2: Tall. Painfully skinny. Long hair. I don't find everyone who fits this trope attractive, and there are certainly other tropes I go for hard (my height, something like twenty or thirty pounds more of curves than I have, dark hair, female -oh yum!) but both my dating track record and my eyecandy track record reeeeally like the gangly ones.

3: Pets, with the capital letter, are different from pets, without. The capital letter denotes ownership of some sort --it's very not my kink, but not to the level where I'd call it an antikink⁴ or anything. I find it a fascinating power dynamic, from both sides.

4: I feel that the most acceptable word for the opposite of a kink is a squick. But the word squick (and its original meaning)...well...squicks me, so I try not to use it. I'm working on finding a better word, expect post on this later.

A year ago today, it was 2008, and I wrote a pretty decent essay on friendship privileges. If your name is macaroniandtuna, didn't you promise to give me thoughts like...eleven and a half months ago or something?

The actual posting of that one involved little bits and pieces of drama that I don't feel like going into. And when I originally wrote it, I will admit there was a little bit of a "HINT HINT!" involved for someone certain, which I so got past by the time I posted it. I try very hard not to hint hint people in my livejournal.

(Okay, really, I just try very hard not to hint hint people. If I want a relationship, I should be man² enough to ask the damn person if there's any hope for us. It's amazing what a little bit of communication will do.)

I was pretty happy with the writing of that one, though, and since I think at least half of the goal of this project is to find really good things that I've written and bring them back to public attention, go read!.

~Sor
MOOP!

((OH! Also, twenty one years ago today it was 1988, and muzikmaker21 was born. I didn't bother blagging about this at the time, which was a massive oversight. Sorry dude. Have a good birthday, 'k brotherfather?))

1: I have the nasty habit of being dumped by boys I'm not dating. I'm pretty sure it's happened three, maybe even four times now.³

2: Woman enough, awesome enough, fuck, I don't know. It's just the way I talk, I talk kinda misogynistic, okay? I don't like it either.

3: Ahahahaha, notetoself, if you're going to decide to delete a part of the entry you're writing, delete the relevant footnotes as well. Although this one amuses me. Consider it your Fun Sorcy Fact of the day or something.