steffan: (winter)
I'm a survivor of childhood abuse. The abuse most often took the form of neglect, but was reinforced by somewhat extreme physical punishment. When you are being told that you are the problem, that you deserve the treatment you are getting, that somehow its your fault for the pain you are going through, you begin to think that maybe if you were different... that it wouldn't be happening to you.

So as a kid I often wished I was a girl, because I saw girls receiving love and acceptance that I wasn't getting. I know now that girls are abused as well, but I was a kid and didn't have that clarity. I also sometimes felt (and even now often feel) that I wasn't human at all, since being human meant having to deal with emotions and pain and a lot of stuff that I couldn't (and in some ways still can't) handle. I wished I was Vulcan, like Mr Spock, because he was immune from any feelings and didn’t have to deal with them. People would say "I know this makes you mad" and Mr Spock would say "I am incapable of being mad."

Even though I had these fantasies, I knew I was male and anyone talking to me for a half an hour would figure out that my issues were about love and acceptance and not my gender because I would have expressed it that way: “I wish I was a girl because I perceive people giving them hugs and telling them they care about them and they get attention for who they are, not what they do ‘wrong.’” It was never “I wish I was a girl because I KNOW that I am a girl inside.” Similarly, I would say “I wish I was an alien because they don’t have to have emotions and feelings and because of that they can’t be hurt by what other people do to them.” It was never “I wish I was an alien because I KNOW I am an alien inside.”

I don’t really talk about this stuff (which is odd because I talk about EVERYTHING, as a defense mechanism,) and I know that a lot of detractors of the idea of trans-ness would point at those things and use them as arguments against the transition of kids, (that it comes from abuse or neglect) but I don't think that way. I’m saying that I recognize the difference and I recognized it when I was a kid and could have told you as much.

Kids that are saying that they KNOW they are wearing the wrong gender, are saying something different than I said as an abused little kid. I was saying, “help me find a way to get love and acceptance, help me to experience and process these feelings of rejection and pain that I shouldn’t have to handle at this age, and BTW please stop hurting me.” These kids are saying “I may die if I have to live in this costume that is not in alignment with who I know I am, at my core.”

While my issues aren't the same as dysphoria or dysmorphia, they are close enough that I can sympathize. I can imagine that they feel different from normal people. That there is something wrong needs correction on a very basic level, and that they have no power to correct it, and that they have to hide how they really feel from everyone.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
I got this whole wall of books in my office. Most are tech related books, and they have been on the shelf for years and I haven't cracked open one of them I'm sure. Thinking that I can just ditch those books and use the shelves for art.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
Hello. Sorry I haven't been here in about a year.

I came here to write about the plan of the current administration to erase everything except binary gender assignment.

(Just LOOK at this sh!t)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-sex-definition.html


"The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, ... Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing."


a) Setting aside issues of identity, a "biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable” just DOESN'T EXIST. Doofuses.
b) Birth certificates are written out by people, and subject to all people's stupid prejudices and even just plain outright dumb error.
c) DNA testing will offer no clarity, the "Clear, grounded in science" binary categorization doesn't exist in DNA either.
d) The plan described here leads to shame, secrecy, self hate, self harm, etc. if you don't fit into one of the boxes described here, and then it spins the myth that there is no way to be a person that DOESN'T fit into one of those boxes.


Listen jackasses, just get the eff out of this issue entirely. The government doesn't need to be here. You are honestly doing way more harm than good. If the point is to discriminate against transgendered people, then denying that transgendered people exist seems like a pretty dumb way to go about it. Just have the courage to be bigots out in the open.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
People say "nothing is as it seems"
and that seems so obviously true
but if nothing is as it seems
and you expect things to be surprising
then why do we even need to have the saying?
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
My uncle went insane, strictly speaking. When he got better, he told me that the experience wasn't one of feeling as if his mind was making up nonsense... It was one of feeling as if the world around him was the one going mad. His mind was still flexible enough to make sense of everything, and it seemed to him as if the people around him all began to very gradually act in stranger and stranger ways, until it demanded a response from him, at which point he learned that things weren't as he perceived them.

Lately I feel this way too. I look specifically at my country and think, it's all topsy-turvy and I wonder, "If the me of a decade or more ago were put all at once into this mess, he'd run. This is some serious sh!t. He'd be on his way to dual citizenship in someplace scandinavian." But the real me, I've had this change happen gradually, all the while thinking... well, THIS SUCKS, but I can take it, at least this slice of horror. One more, and THAT will be too much.

I wonder how much really IS too much?
steffan: octopus (octo)
i don't think it is, leastwise
it's not your usual conspiracy
all these young women just seemed to have
thought of this independently

the double stroller
the yoga gear
the ponytail
the ipa beer

the two kids
taylor and mackenzie
she thinks one is a girl or at least
one ought to be, statistically
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
In hindsight, all the songs in "The Sound of Music" seem particularly military in tone. I can just picture squads of marching men singing "How do you solve a problem like Maria" in sort of a camp North Korean military parade complete with goose-stepping.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
Left, Left, Left-Right-Left.
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
Left, Left, Left-Right-Left.

Not sure if they did that on purpose (given the Nazi overtones in The Sound of Music,) or if Rodgers and Hammerstein were just particularly attracted to marches.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
I was trying writing out my address for work, and I couldn't remember what my 6th Grade English teacher taught me about writing out an address.

Normally, my general attitude regarding such matters is, "who cares?" But this is for a contract amendment so I want to at least appear to know what I'm about.

Anyhow, I was struggling to remember the proper way to punctuate City, State, and Zip Code in the address.

My odd brain tells me it's like this:

Denver CO, 80209

My odd brain is telling me that because of the mental pause it inserts after Colorado. "Denver Colorado...80209"

My old 6th grade style guide actually says it is like so:

Denver, CO 80209

My odd brain reads this as "Denver...COLORADO80209" which is why it seems weird to me.

In any case, I was curious so I looked it up on the Post Office's website.

The Post Office would prefer no punctuation at all, thankyouverymuch.

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub28/28c2_001.htm#ep526236

The postal addressing standard would have you write:

DENVER CO 80209

Seems like the comma-less address preference has been that way since around 2011.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
It seems to me...

that abusers all want to take credit for the success of their victims... as if the way they punished another human being is something to be proud of, just because that person sucked it up and worked hard to *spite* them... to get past the abuse.

Then to have those bastards stand up and say "just look, she's a big success now, I guess I didn't do TOO bad by her.."
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
door in alley

Near my house there is a door in an alley that looks like it leads to Narnia. It's framed by lovely violet flowers and ivy, and has a nice keystone detail in the brick arch. It seems so out of place amid dumpsters and garages, that it has to go *somewhere.* But since it is in Denver, I always assume that while it goes to Narnia, it's a Narnian version of Denver, where the centaurs and fauns are waiting for the coals to heat up while talking about the Broncos and how much better talking bison is for you than beef, and 'was that the last fae pale ale?'

I've tried to take a cell phone picture a few times, but it always lacked that sense of fantasy. This morning I took one of the polaroids over, since polaroids are at least 50% magical realism anyhow. 1 I mean half the time, they don't come out at all, and the other half of the time they look like they were taken by Isabel Allende.

However, the polaroid did the trick. There's definitely that sense of a trans-dimensional portal in disguise going on in this picture.


1Think about it, fairies, bigfoot, UFOs, blurred risque snaps of teenage fantasies, all on polaroids. Back in the day if you had something dodgy and unprovable to record, a polaroid was the weapon of choice. Plus its plastic construction, cheap plastic or poorly ground glass lenses, and self-digesting developing process leads to all kinds of photographic relics that just *might* be a vampire in the doorway behind Uncle Joe.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
The puppy made a huge mess of his fur on his walk, keeping in mind your delicate sensibilities dear reader, there will be no details, but you can get close if you imagine a septic tank backup and you've about got it in terms of potential destruction and general disgust.

So needless to say, a bath was in order, which went down OK up until the time to get dried. He has a long coat so we have to use a hair dryer, which for some reason super-stimulates him and he starts to run around like crazy until he completely wears himself out, which takes anywhere from a half an hour to three days.

Add to that, the fact that the reason I was walking him early was due to having to log in to work early for a work meeting where we will discuss how an office I manage is trying to toss me under the bus.

Since I'm an imposter in an extremely important job that I am far underqualified to perform and I have a workplace that is notoriously intolerant of failure, naturally I take these things quite seriously and on the walk that's perhaps why I wasn't watching the pup as closely as one should.

Anyhow, I need to log in and attend this meeting at half past, and the dog is tearing around the house like he's an Italian gentlemen who has had a quad espresso and would very much like to explain to you how the Italian parliament works, except for translated into dog.

Whenever I am faced with these things, I try to remember that the color blue is simply a convenient construct of my senses that my poor addled brain has come up with in order to explain something that is otherwise unexpressable, and once I am dead it will be as if the color blue as I know it never existed.
steffan: (winter)
I was humming "Hey My Man" by the Babes, and the dog sighed at me and went off to sleep in his crate. Everyone's a critic.

I was thinking a bit earlier about ghosts, and their sort of societal "usefulness." Lots of cultures have the concept, spirits visiting the living.

The easiest for me to get a grip on are ancestor ghosts. After his death, I had vivid dreams where my grandfather would offer advice that I couldn't interpret. I attribute this to my sense that there was something left to do there, some things left unsaid. I know he would understand these things, but I know they would have upset him as well. Now that he's gone, I regret not telling them to him.

Ghosts are saying that the thing to fear, the thing to avoid, the thing to make peace with, is unfinished business. In the end, that's mortality for you, what you could have done with the time you had, but didn't. Ghosts are the sympathetic regret over the unfinished business of others.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
I've been collecting discarded playing cards for about 6 years now. I'm trying to assemble a complete deck. I have 13 cards remaining, but the actuarial reality of probability makes the completion of the deck less and less likely with each card that I locate.

Today I found the two of clubs. The recent wet weather had soaked the card and it had divided, back and front. I found the back first, a card from a bicycle deck, back facing up. When I retrieved it, I thought I'd found a blank card, or one washed clean by the rain. Later I found the other half a block away, face up, and I knew when I saw it, that the two of clubs would have no back.

The interesting bit to me, is how each card now has been imbued with a certain circumstance. The condition, the location, the time of day. I make sure to write all of these things down in a notebook that I keep with the cards, but most times if I see that card again, say in a card game with friends, I remember what randomness has tried to tell me about this particular card.

I could read this tarot and tell you, if you drew the two of clubs, that the scenario seems unreadable, but with time, it will become clear.

Pickleback

Jul. 27th, 2017 11:11 am
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
For the benefit of prosperity, today is the day that the White House press secretary read the letter of 9 year old Dylan (aka "Pickle") in support of the president (presumably because they couldn't find any adult republicans willing to write about their Trump themed birthday party.)

This pickle stuff is comedy GOLD, Jerry! The letter in question (at least until twitter breaks the image link...) follows:




Some are saying on twitter that "Pickle" is fake and are tweeting out under the hashtag #pickletruther But fake or not, this is a huge calculated PR move and it makes you wonder what they were thinking. The new press team under Scaramucci is shaping up to be very strange.

As a political play, it seems to be calculated to stir up the "elite vs normal joe" hornet's nest that the Trump team has played so well throughout the election. The left is incredulous of such a bare sentimental move, and looks at the Trump playbook (like impersonating a staffer, 'John Baron' so that he can say great things about himself in the third person.) While the red hat crowd see elites trashing a cute child for his "deplorable" support of the grand Cheeto. "HOW DARE THOSE AVOCADO TOAST EATING LEFTIES QUESTION THE SIMPLE FAITH OF A CHILD?"

In the end, fake or real, Pickle is a pawn, a distraction from the ever increasing intensity of the Russia probe. I'm just glad "Pickle" hasn't come in the form of a preemptive strike on North Korea.

gezellig

Jul. 21st, 2017 10:12 am
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
If you have an inclination, the curated twitter feed for The Netherlands (https://twitter.com/Netherlanders) this week (7/16/17 or so to the present,) is crushing it. (Normally the Netherlander in question tweets under https://twitter.com/MENEERDEGREEF (just in Dutch.)) He seems a bit brash and loud (yes, loud on twitter.) But I must admit that he is entertaining. He's been covering the untranslatable Dutch concept of "gezellig" all week. (While I just said that the concept was untranslatable, it's closest English equivalent seems to be a hybrid of "cool" and "chill" (Cool, as in "be cool" and chill as in "chill out.") But it also seems like more than that, with an element of hospitality thrown in there for good measure... Wait, wasn't there another paren to close? Yes. Yes there was.)

I love the idea of these curated feeds (popularized by Sweden, and signal boosted by Stephen Colbert as he tried to take it over without being a Swede.) The concept being that a selected "typical" person tweets their unvarnished feelings out at the world from your country's official twitter account. It's too bad the US is too tightly wound to ever go for such a thing.

I think Coloradans, as a subset of Americans, are gezellig enough to handle it, but Californians are definitely not.

Sunflowers

Jul. 21st, 2017 09:10 am
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)


From my morning walk with the dog through our neighborhood.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
I used to dread interviewing for jobs until I got a job that required me to interview and hire people. I had to do that A LOT, and I probably interviewed 2 or 3 hundred people over the course of the 4 years that I worked there...

I took away three points from all those interviews, the first was: "if you can communicate and can actually perform the job you are applying for, then you have an advantage over 80% of the other applicants. That bit alone is helpful for me, because I'm very insecure, but I'm also honest, so I'll only apply for jobs that I'm capable of *doing.* Knowing that when I enter the door, I'm going to be better than most people they will see, is a big boost going into the room.

The other bit was: "Have some idea of how the company makes what it makes or does what it does and be able to explain that basic concept back to the interviewer, and have a few broad ideas on how you can contribute to that." Believe it or not, very few applicants will actually be able to do that, and it will seem very impressive, and it won't take a ton of prep work to get there.

The last point isn't part of the other two, it's about flipping the script on the interview. Don't get too hung up on the idea that they have all the power to REJECT. You actually can do some rejecting as well. THink about it this way, "Some guy wants me to work very hard to make money for them, instead of doing things that i enjoy and aren't stressy. I'm going to make sure they are good people to work for..." There are employers that are great, employers that are mild hassles, and employers that are abusive. In the interview, it's helpful to ask questions and start classifying. I like to ask these questions in as innocent a manner as possible... like, "what is the policy on company cell phones?" Because this gives me a hook into whether they will want me to answer issues at 7:30 PM at dinner, and they won't have prepped for this the way they will have prepped for "what's the work-life balance like here?" "Where could I go to get a nice sandwich after the interview..." gives you a clue into whether they actually GO TO LUNCH at this place, or they sit chained to their desks, etc. "Why are you hiring at this time?" lets you judge whether they burn through employees in a few months, ("we're always looking for good project managers!") or whether they are expanding because they've had a new product launch. ("We've promoted Bob to handle this new client, and we are helping him build a great team to go into Sweden!")
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
I think that if an alien came down as judge of the worthiness of human civilization, and all they had to judge us with is HGTV programming... I think that for the first 12 hours, they'd be like "they are flawed but they are worth saving!" and then in the second 12 hours, they'd be like, "kill it with fire."

That is all.
steffan: cat loves sun (Default)
Most of dreamwidth (at least the active stuff on http://www.dreamwidth.org/latest ) is fan fiction of some type.

I'm wondering if I could start writing fan fiction for a story that doesn't exist. (Yeah, I get it, that would just be *fiction* genius.) But I mean a story that is plugged in to an unspoken yet constantly referenced canon that exists for the characters and just assume my audience knows exactly what that canon is...

Sort of related to that, vice had an interesting article on Snape identifying as a trans woman... it's remarkably well thought out, and whether Rowling put it there or tapped into it subconsciously, there is definitely something to it:

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/bjx8xm/the-shockingly-convincing-argument-that-severus-snape-is-transgender

"Snape is a character who inhabits a fluid, ambiguous position for most of the narrative—always between two worlds, and often quite literally lurking in the shadows of a room, outside looking in, Ensnapingthe senses said. "Snape reads as someone in the closet, and tragically so."

To understand trans Snape scholarship, you have to immerse yourself into the text. Snape's profession is a useful entry point for this discourse: As Hogwarts' potions teacher, Professor Snape reveals her personal appreciation for the power of potion making in the first book, telling students that "there will be no foolish wand-waving" in her class. In 2011, author Racheline Maltese wrote a compelling, iconic essay about Snape as a female heroine, noting that Snape's seemingly insignificant comment about wands here is actually an early indication to the reader that "this character is, on some level, a rejection of masculinity, especially in light of the many moments of phallic humor wands provide us throughout the series."
steffan: Steffan at Sofan (steffan)
Whenever I read a description of a messy room in a novel that includes "old, half full cups of coffee" in any fashion, I attempt to picture it in my mind's eye...

...I cannot. In every universe, all cups are either full of coffee, soon to be consumed, or empty, wishing they were about to be filled with coffee once more. There are only these two states of coffee-cup-ness.
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