away for holiday

I really need to need to start working on these updates ahead of time, I still have plenty of ideas about what to talk about but I seem to easily miss weeks, mostly just from not making up my mind in time.  oh well for now I'm just poping in to say that I won't be back till early january. visitin family for the holiday and all.

in the mean time what are some of your thoughts on depression, I don't want this to be too much of a downer but there's a stigma attached to clinical depression and I don't really understand why.  plus there's always the fact that people need to state it's "actual" depression or people will assume your just being sad.  I won't name names but the second one actually happened to me recently I told I good friend that I don't' talk to very often that I've been trying to manage my depression and they started asking me what was going on in my life.  I had to point out that I've been medically diagnosed and medicated before they started to realize my depression was more then just being sad. 

just the right song.

The other day my depression was spiking up again, has per my usual pattern I started devoting as much energy I could, to keep the lonely and sad thoughts out of my head (not very successful, but it tends to net better results then when I leave my mind to it's own devices).  Yesterday that manifested in me playing random clips and songs on Youtube.  when I managed to stumble across one that really helped out and seemed to calm me down a great deal.  the song is the closing theme to the second season of ghost in the shell stand alone complex. living within the shell

kind of ironic that the song which helped me out of the empty lonely feelings I had yesterday was actually called living within the shell, but maybe the way it uses the living within the shell imagery is exactly why it proved so effective.  I'm not going to pretend I fully comprehend why it was so effective yesterday, but I'm very glad it was and i'm going to try to keep track of songs that seem to be able to do this so they can help me out in future instances were my depression spikes up.

ofcourse i'm also very glad I have headphones, because I ended up playing that song about a million times yesterday, and if I didn't have headphones my roommate would probably hate me by now.  oh and just so I leave this entry on a high note, I'll present some proof that Keanu Reeves is immortal (possibly a highlander)

The guy on the left is Paul Mounet, who was an actor known for his deadpan acting style. He died under unusual circumstances and no body was found. I rest my case. (orginal source: http://snakeskins.tumblr.com/post/351461656/jsyk-keanu-reeves-is-fucking-immortal-the-guy-on )

update

my depression has been flaring up again, so i've gone back to my usual habits of combating it with caffeine and video games, not the best way I know, but once the mood hits those things are part of a very small list that provides relief. the good news is that I'll be getting health insurance that should be kicking in in january and from there I should be able to get back on some medication.

beyond my battle with depression not much has been going on, have a lot of writing to do in my class this month which has been keeping me busy and that's about it. 

super hero's

I've been wanting to do something like this for a while but kept holding back since I realized how big it would be.  that is until I realized I could just break it up into different sections.  so while I'm not sure how frequently I'll be doing this, but I'd like to spend some time examine some of the different things that make certain genre's and sub genre's work and what sort of appeal they have.  at the very least I hope this will be informative and entertaining, but I'm also hoping doing this will help me flesh out the stories and games I'd like to make in the future. 

first up the super hero genre, for the record I'll be including a bit more than just the traditional super hero's I'll keep close to what causes the appeal but what I'm including will include people like the punisher as well as the power rangers.

It was a quote from Kinsey Hope’s (gender bitch) tumblr that prompted me to start thinking about this.  it would probably take days to dig through her tumblr to find the exact post but the general jist is that her life experiences and her work in social justice had changed her concept of evil from the "big bad guy" to something more akin to thousands of paper cuts that dig deeper until they reach the bone. 

hopefully you'll forgive the slightly graphic nature of that description but it got me to think, maybe that's part of the reason why super hero fiction is has successful has it is. most of us by the time were adults have realized that evil very rarely has a singular face, and is quite often coming from everywhere, yet the comic book movie is one of the biggest genre's and comic books (which are primarily but not exclusively super hero) make up a million dollar market, and it’s been that way for a long time.  and one of the biggest things they have in common is the presence of colossally evil forces. Now, big uniformly and very powerful evil forces may not seem like a better option but, they come with two things.  the first being it effectively consolidates the evil in the world, since I don't read a lot of comics my view may be skewed, but from what I've seen they don't usually have the all to real situation of evil coming from everywhere, the manage to give it a form.  Now I do know of some exceptions, particularly when they have people like cops in on the evil, but there still giving some sort of from, giving people the ability to metaphorically fight against it.

Which leads me to the second thing that consolidating the evil does.  it gives us the actual super hero's most of which act as symbols of hope, and epitomize the good people are capable of,  I have heard many people who seem to actually use some super hero's to help them give them the strength to choose to do the right thin.  heck this even has some advantages, when the super hero's start having a fall from grace or making really bad choices people are able to blame the writers (like what most fans did with spider man's recent deal with the devil).  and in the cases were the hero is doing stuff we clearly aren't suppose to look up to, hero's like The Punisher,  it's likely to be more in the actual revenge aspect,  those hero's are doing to the same kind of things to the bad guys that the bad guys do to others, things most people can't do.

and of course it would be downright lazy of me not to mention the spectacle of it.  heck I think that's one of the reasons why I liked power rangers growing up.  most super hero battles actually look cool, over the top martial arts, super powers, someone suddenly coming from the shadows, that in and of itself is a lot of fun and I'm sure a major contributor to there appeal, especially for the colorful super heroes.
Feel free to comment if you feel I’m wrong or feel I’ve missed something, in fact please do, like I mentioned at the beginning I’d like to learn more about the appeals of different genre’s from this exercise so anything you can add will be greatly appreciated. 

when a home makes you feel unwelcome

I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point but I'd like to start off by apologizing for not posting in a while.  the class I have this month is consuming a lot of my spare time (without the benefit of actually being educational beyond the first week.) and I have a few ideas for posts I hope to get started on soon, but I can't promise I'll get to them this month.

now onto the title of this post, and yes this is going to be one of those ranty and is actually composed of two topics.  first has to do with were I've actually been living I found out I need to look for a new place and that I'm going to have to vacate it pretty soon.  I'm in no danger of being homeless as a result, but if I can't find something closer to my school than my dad's place (currently staying with extended family) it will be a lot harder to keep up with school. I have some time to look, but given the budget I'll be looking with it's not exactly hopeful.

the second has to do with my online home, Rachel's haven. it's been a wonderful place for me that allowed me to explore and discover myself but there's been something of a trend developing.  that trend is that they will do actions that make women like me feel unwelcome under the pretense of creating an open atmosphere.  it's not really prevalent yet but a small number of instances have happened in a short enough amount of time it's eroding the atmosphere the place has.  the short version is that in a few threads I was trying to assert that woman like me have a right to be fully acknowledged as women regardless of circumstances such as legal identity how long you've been on hormones, or even what popular media will refer to us as.  those threads were locked out saying they were not conductive to an opening and welcoming atmosphere.  yet in another thread some one (actually one of the same admins that locked out one of the threads I just described) felt the need to comment how trans people (male or female) shouldn't' as a community show objection to horribly offensive media like the family guy episode I already waged about.

to break it down with the haven, there not creating an open atmosphere, there slowly building one with a clear message, that women like me aren't welcome, merely tolerated, we don't have a right to feel safe or in any way express ourselves they'll tolerate many sorts of religious or political discussions that don't appear has hostile, but not if it's some one from the TS community saying anything about our identity.  but the highest members of the staff will still go out of there way to tell us we should be quite docile and merely thank them (or texas) for allowing our existence in any capacity.

like I said this is a few instances that happened fairly recently so things aren't that bad all over yet, but it's starting, very clearly.  if I can figure out the right way to bring it up, or if I see it happen one more time I will say something to the other members of the staff on the site but given who has particpated in it I'm guessing that if I do ever bring up this fact I'll be looking for a new home online and offline.

god this really hitting my depression hard.



[update] I checked one of the threads after posting this and it appears that instead of just locking it it's been upgraded to a full on removal,  I'm gone for the weekend and I want to phrase this right but it only stresses the point, ts men and women aren't really welcome, were not to be seen or acknowledged we are less important then the people who come there because there interest in TG is recreational (not the best word I know since it's still a valid form of self expression and I don't agree with the gender roles but I'm at a loss for words for a better on, and at a loss of time and spirit to look up anther right now) .  I hope I can figure a good way to bring it up, it's not easy pointing out when the only safe place you've had for years starts becoming unsafe and unwelcoming.


[update number 2]  ok I'll probably wait till I see something else again, turns out the thread wasn't deleted by the haven staff so there innocent of that  part of the problem.  

I won't be silent any more (kinda)

first off I'd like to welcome my three new followers and anybody else who found my blog in the last couple of weeks.  I'm always happy to have more readers, even though my blog about depression in addition to being transsexual including people finding my blog by googling the words transsexual and depression.  but this blog was made mostly for self expression and one of the things unfortunantly is my depression.

which leads me to the title of the blog, it's gotten harder and harder for me to keep any number of my political or social views away from people, I'm still no were near working up the courage to tell people about my gender issues but recently I've started posting a few current event issues related to gay rights, and subsequently had just about everyone from my past join together and tell me what a self serving evil heathen I am. this has been going of for a few weeks, were I'll give logical and moral reasons why, you know, people deserve basic human rights, and then they'll resort to personal attacks (the most mild of which was critiquing my grammar has there entire argument) and try to tell me how I'm not listening to them, this got to the point to were for most of the day there was actually a face book page devoted to hating me, made by some one who deleted the account they made it with before anyone could find out who it was.

now people thrashing around and saying nonsensical things to be bigoted isn't anything new and I was actually expecting as much, but still, a few weeks worth of personal attacks as started to wear me down a bit even if I give no weight to any specific attack.  so it's left me a little drained (that's part of the reason why I missed last weeks post) and horny, that's possible a coincidence, but it's weird non the less

depression

well I still seem to be in an up and down section of the upswing of my depression (at least I'm still hoping it's an upswing and not just changes within the down part)  but like I mentioned last week here's something of a post detailing my struggles with depression.

depression is something that is unfortunately very common among the transsexual crowd. but when you have a body that feels alien, and a society that tries to say you don't have a right to exist it's amazing to find any transsexual or intersex individual who don't' suffer from it.  I also belive there are a lot of missconceptions about depression, and that most people experince it in very diffrent ways.

I remember the first time I started hearing about depression as a sort of medical aliment, I was in early middle school. and at the time there was a news program made for school students, they had some sort of special on depression and trying to raise awareness of it, and has I heard some of the testimonies about it it really did resonate with me. but for a number of reasons I didn't take it that seriously and weeks later I gave it no mind. the two biggest reasons for this were fear of being something of a hypocondriac and thus misdiagnosing myself, and the fact that the special presented it as something that is always present in those people, 24/7 265 days a year. were as mine was persistent but did (and does) go away for long periods of time as well.  it wasn't till many years later, after my depression had played a role in me dropping out of college the first time, did I really start learning that for some people it does come and go in various patterns.

as I sort of stated earlier, my depression or not depression periods (I have no idea what to call them) tend to come and last for long periods of time.  and a large part of the danger for me is that sometimes when those down periods go on long enough that I begin to effectively forget it's not just the way things are (such as happened when I was at my last job getting verbally abused for a living) during these periods I begin to really think about suicide, and I've really thought about it more than anybody should (ideally no one should have to think about it at all except in context of suicide prevention but I hope you get my point). I can often spend hours contemplating how to keep people from finding my body, how long it would take to get a gun in my gun loving state, what I could use to keep me from vomiting when I'm using poisons, you get the idea.  but for my sake it's importatnt to try and remember what I'm like in my depressive states and recognize when I am, there may not be a lot I can do to counter the psychological effects it has on me, but knowing when I am in those down area's helps me take enough control to keep away from drastic actions and to make sure I keep taking care of myself (so far anyway)

but most importantly I think there are some very dangerous misconceptions about depression that are held in public consciousness. one I still struggle with myself is the idea that the medication is bad or that it's like giving up on life, or the more extreme people like my own father who equate depression medication to happy pills that keep you in some sort of euphoria.  after dropping out of college I was on depression medication for a while, and in general I felt better than I usually do during my high points, life was still far from happy bliss, I still struggled with my gender issues but my head felt a lot clearer, of course my own hesitance to take medication that proved helpful to me (as opposed to the mountains of caffeine I like to self medicate with when I can afford it) led me to stop, and now I doubt I could afford the doctor visit to get the prescription even if I finally manage to get past that stigma. 

but most importantly (and I'll admit I'm not sure how best to say this) is the misconceptions that society has about how depression works, like lady Alexia i've heard people tell me that my life is too comfortable to surfer from depression, which is a very bad thing to say regardless of how comfortable somebodies life is, the fact that depression increases the likely hood of suicide should tell you it's not a logic based alignment. any statement like this will only make things worse, it's not addressing the depression itself, it's not doing anything to alleviate the thoughts or emotions that come with it, and most of all it's adding a layer of guilt on top of the depression so it's actually making things significantly worse.  in a similar vein it's never a good idea to say things like people who commit suicide are taking the cowards way out or are being selfish.  these sorts of statements are likely to make people more likely to commit suicide as they attack the self worth of people who are already starting to see it as a last option, and even if you don't think these people are around we hear it, and you can never be sure, most people in my life wouldn't know that about me but it still stings when I hear it.  and for the record, many people who do commit suicide believe there doing a favor to those around them in the long run (myself included)

short post

sorry I haven't posted much this week. I'm kinda in a middle grounds with my depression, I'm coming out of it enough were I'm no longer dwelling on all the negative things (there fore no longer feeling the need to express them here) but I'm still having trouble working up the motivation to do any real musings or writing. but don't worry I seem to be on my way up. and in fact I'm thinking next week I want to write about my experiences with depression as a whole.

social habits

this one has been on my mind for a little while now, and truth be told it's actually something I've been accused of before not liking people, or otherwise being antisocial.  but as I hope all my friends would be willing to tell you that's not the case there are however a number or things that keep me from being a very social individual.

one of the biggest (and most normal) reasons for this is that I am an introverted individual. the short version of this is that being around crowds of people just drains me, I'd also much rather have a slower conversation were I have a few moments to think through my response than the rapid conversations that are the norm. I've actually been reading about it in an issue of psychology today and there is a lot more to it than that, but if you feel shy or out of place in big parties I recommend doing some reading, learning about common introverted behavior really felt freeing to me. (the psychology today website doesn't' have the article I'm reading, which is entitled revenge of the introverts, but check a few of these out and you'll get some basic ideas, they have a lot more if you just search introvert thttp://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-introverts-corner/201002/dont-call-us-we-ll-call-well-no-actually-we-probably-won-t   http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-introverts-corner/201001/itll-be-fun-and-other-extrovert-lies 

the rest of the reasons are actually things that cause some problems. most relating to my being a transexual, and the depression that comes with this.  basically the way that this works out is that if I can't find way to constantly keep myself stimulated while in public.  I'll give you an example, recently I had to attend my schools orientation, despite having been there for a month, I already knew about everything they started talking about, and after about ten minuets of my mind wandering I suddenly had to start holding back the tears while my mind went to, well I'll just say some dark places.

on a similar token it also seems dishonest of me to socialize with people as long as I have to pretend to be a boy. this isn't always the case but the more intimate I want the relationship to be the more dishonest it feels to go forward unless I were to work up the courage to tell them first. I recently decided not to ask a girl I like out but I'm still OK with trying to get a dungeons and dragons group together, just for an example. this trait is defantly a problem and I believe is the biggest reason why most of my socializing is done online, all the people I talk to online know my current status and they still accept me as a woman, I'm not at a point in my life were I can get this anywhere else and it's the only way for me to have a deep meaningful relationship (friendship or otherwise) and as many times as I have to hear people tell me how bad that is for me or claiming I don't like people. it's far better than the alternatives I have access to.

links highlight: gender bitch

well this weekend I have to put together both a 3-5 page paper and a 3-5 minute presentation (ok I did procrastinate the presentation but the paper is fairly new news) and since I don't want my long emo rant to be the top post for much longer, how about another one of the link highlights.

this time it's one of the activist blogs that I ran across recently it's called genderbitch: musings of a trans chick.
http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/

I have to say this girl is completly awesome I'm still reading the back catalouge of her blog and I've probably spent more time this week reading it than I have doing what I'd normally consider leisure activities (I actually tend to do that when I find a blog I really like). she's very expressive and clever. she also as a way of writing which is very very good at pointing out how other's have severly fucked up http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/intent-its-fucking-magic/ I've also taken to following her on twitter http://twitter.com/genderbitch which includes updates to her tumblr account (fair warning she posts a lot to tumblr) which are still just as awesome.

and since I have a feeling some people reading this may want a bit more I'll give you this Scott pilgrim avatar I made, I'm considering redesigning the site to use (an idea I actually stole from Kinsey of genderbitch) it since a part of me as always been a little uncomfortable using some one else picture as the intro into the site.

I love the machete

 

emotinal baggage

OK a bit of a story behind this surprise post. I can feel my depression flaring up again, and as is it's patterns it attacks the same areas of my life, the same thoughts, I'm not in a position to counter most of them, or possibly all of them, but I figured I'd try and this time it's attacking once again my feelings regarding my last relationship. for the record, part of the problem is that I truly blame myself for everything I'm about to bring up, in my own head everything bad about the relationship was 100% my fault one way or another, but if I'm to gain any control over this depression(at least enough so I don't' drop out of school like last time) I can't keep thinking in those terms, so this well out of necessitate frame her to be worse than she is, so the few that know who I'm talking about please keep that in mind. (and if she ends up reading this I'm really really sorry but if I don't let this out I think it might start ruling me again). also I have no idea how to start this or structure it, and being a pretty emotional piece at an emotional time I don't think I could, so this might not be very clear.and also keep in mind I only ever talked to her through text, instant message email that sort of thing

first off a small things I'm likely to repeat, despite the fact that we met on a TG friendly website I always had the suspicion she considered me a man, this was mostly a number of small things,  I'd always be holding her, never the other way around, when she asked to dance she'd also make it a point of saying I was leading you get the idea


I suppose one of the biggest things was that I never felt free to express myself in the relationship, early on I had gone to her with a few of my emotional problems, and she'd respond by telling me how hurt she was to hear me talking bad about myself, this only served to make me feel worse I'd try to apologize and say I wouldn't bring up stuff like that again, then she'd state that just make her feel worse, this would bring me to an even newer low and our exchange would pretty much end by that point, I doubt she knew but I was crying after both the times that happened.  one of the reasons why this was so pivotal is because one of the primary ways my depression attacks me (for the record she doesn't know this) is convincing me that I am nothing but a negative impact or a burden on those I care for and those around me, so having my girlfriend confirm that no matter what I did I was significantly hurting her made an already emotional time pretty extreme. after we'd had exchanges like that twice I didn't feel comfortable volunteering my problems no matter how much I felt I needed to talk about them, ans since she very rarely asked how I was doing I never got a chance to express them.

on a related note she also started planning an expensive trip for the two of us, very shortly after we started dating, as some one who honestly didn't believe they were worth anything the fact that she was paying for most of it was putting a lot of stress on me, I was able to communicate this a few times, even using phrases like I'm not worth it, she wasn't willing to give up on it completely, in part I believe do to the fact that it was going to be our first time meeting face to face. but eventually she promised to stop bringing it up until some time really close to when things had to be finalized. shortly afterward she regularly brought up "the thing I promised not to mention" which was a double hit, I know exactly what she was talking about so not only it was an instant reminder of how much I was taking from her by going on the trip but how much I was taking just from asking her not to talk about something she was looking forward to.

another big aspect was that I know for a fact the feelings she was feeling for me in the relationship, weren't actually for me, she had some how constructed a sort of persona me that she had fallen for, I tried bringing this up a few times, and she'd usually just get angry, on several occasions she stated she did in fact know who I was.  but there was one specific time were I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a persona she had built up of me, it was pretty much the in sighting incident that made me realize I had to break the relationship off.  I had been pretty down for a while, I was once again contemplating suicide, I was in bed upwards of 14 hours a day and often only eating only one microwave french bread pizza a day, this went on for weeks, in fact from a nutrition stand point I don't know how I made it out of that. my roommates didn't know much but even they seemed to be picking up on the fact that something was wrong, and my closest friend (some one who I also communicate with exclusively through text) picked up that something was wrong, but I didn't talk to my friend much since at the time I thought all the stressors in my life were related to my relationship and I didn't feel right talking behind her back. one day it got so bad that I couldn't even gather the will power to really chat, I'd give one word responses to everything, my GF

the purpose of this blog

as usuall I've been doing a lot of thinking in my spare time and one of the things that came up is why I've been incorperating things like twitter and forumspring into my blog (by the way it's still here http://www.formspring.me/venatuscindy if you have anything you want to ask me it's so empty right now) afterall I first started this blog purely as a form of emotinal release and self expression. while I originally joined twitter just to follow some web celebration I didn't have any reason to update it let alone impede it in my blog and I didn't have any reason to sign up with forumspring at all. believe it or not despite the fact that these were my own actions it took me a while to figure out why I was doing it and I think I figured out why.

The primary purpose of this blog is still self expression and emotional release (and because of that I'll probably be more ego centric here than I am in other places) but I remember when I was first coming to terms with my own gender identity and realizing the concept that some one could truly be born in the wrong body the only sites I was able to find were either based on the sexual fetishes of TG or it was http://transsexual.org/. the idea that my gender issues were just some sexual interest caused it's own problems, due in part to the fact that as I was just discovering this I still considered myself devoutly mormon. and while transexual.org was a wonderful site full of information there wasn't a lot I could relate to on it on a personal or emotional level, I didn't feel as sure as she was when I was just a child (though it was always an innocent fantasy), I was never obsessed with things that others considered girly. though I may have desired a few they were pretty small and I hid that desire easily) and due in part to the diffrences in how well we fit into our assigned gender roles I spent a lot of time thinking it wasn't me and that once again, it was just some sexual fetish I had to control.  and has the story goes that didn't last all that long before I finally had to come to grips with it.

ok I got a little off topic there but hey this is my blog, in the end the point I was trying to make is that I think on some level I hope this blog might help some one else, some other confused transsexual girl might stumble across this blog someday and find some one she can relate to, and hopefully that fact will help her come to terms with herself more easily and the more of myself is out there, the more likely that becomes. and while I'm probably not the best qualified to answer any questions she may or may not have I know that when your in that situation you often want something more personal or emotional than an expert so I want to make sure I'm as available as I can be.

a bit busy

sorry I haven't posted much but I do have some legitimate excuses, last week I was busy both moving and getting ready to go back to school, which started last Monday. I had planned to make a post this weekend but I found out a local convention was going on so any time not spent there is pretty much being spent on my homework. I forgot my camera today but I plan to bring it tomorrow, so with any luck I'll be able to at least give a basic break down of my first con.

everything but the kitchen sink

this week is a bit of an oddity, I actually have a number of things I'd like to comment on but there almost all current events that would be less relevant down the road and typically much better brought up elsewhere. so I figured this would be a fairly blanket post on all the subjects.

first up is something that's just about me. I decided to sign up for form spring. http://www.formspring.me/venatuscindy  if your unfamiliar with it it's basically a continuous QnA, since I've signed up I now have my own page and you can ask me any question you want (well any question that can fit in about 300 characters)  and unless the question is spam or intentional flam-bait or anything about how to contact me outside of the internet I plan to answer it, this includes being able to ask questions anonymously, so if anybody reading this has something you'd like to ask me about being trans, living in a place as conservative as Idaho, or about any of my nerdy subjects I blab on about, please feel encouraged, and don't worry about me having any idea who it is.

now some bad news there's a legal case building up in Texas were a trans woman recently lost her husband (a firefighter) and his family is now trying to nullify their marriage and claim his life insurance benefits for themselves, and because of Texas legal precedent defining gender by genetics, and the fact that gay marriage is not legal there it has a strong chance of succeeding. and to make matters worse their now trying to lay claim to the money she earned herself (turns out she was the main breadwinner in the relationship). a better explanation and linked details here  http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=2671

now some good news, a family is allowing there transgender child to grow up as her real gender, further more this is getting positive media attention in daytime television. http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=2708

and finally the movie inception, go see it. if you only see a small number of movies in theater every year, go see this movie in theaters, and if you can't do that, rent or buy it as soon as it's on DVD. the movie is seriously worth it and I want to see more thought provoking Hollywood movies like this, and if you just want an action movie, it does that incredibly well too, seriously this movie as something for all adults and you need to see it.

why activism is important (to me at least)

you may have noticed I added a small section of activist blogs into the side bar, it's actually something I've been considering for a while but was a little hesitant since pretty much every single one of those blogs as a list far bigger than mine, but expect mine to be growing fairly regularly.

I also know that activism is generally seen as not popular by many, middle class white men in particular, but even woman, transexuals, the GLBT, and all manner of racial activism will try to dismiss it as being overly sensitive, or any number of ways to say that it's not worth it or that it's only for angry young people (ignoring the fact that most people in activism tend to be older than teens or twenty's) but as you may have guessed I don't buy it. and I really don't buy the idea i've been told a few times that as I mellow out and grow older I'll get over it ( for the record I'm 23 which I know puts me on the young end of things).

but as long as trans people are dropped from ENDA (the employment non-discrimination act) in what felt like seconds after it was first introduced, as long as I hear trans woman say we have no part in feminism since it's very name excludes us, and as long as studies like this Half-of-Japanese-Females-Think-Virtual-Girlfriends-Are-Superior are met with scores of men saying the women need to lower there standards in men ( to be fair the study did have a large number of problems including sample size and didn't disclose too many other variables, but that's still about 150 girls that believe that). I'm sorry but transsexuals should enjoy equal employment, trans woman have just as much right in feminism as any woman, and if a woman is competing with a computer program for love and affection her self esteem and standards are already too low. and I honestly and truly hope that I am never comfortable with those injustices.

idaho laws

rant latter, for now I'm to angry about about this news.

http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/you-make-me-feel-like-an-unnatural-woman/comment-page-1/#comment-18013

short version, certain politicians want to make it illegal for a transsexual (trans man or trans woman) to marry anybody.

a romance rant

 I didn't know what I would write about this week, but just know I got back from reading the latest blog entry on lady alexia's blog the ups and downs of life as is typically the case with her blog posts I can relate to a lot of what she's saying the way you can always feel depression in the back even when your in a "good mood" even some of the ways her father can make her feel worse when not trying. but what really prompted this post was how she ended it. I really don't believe a beautiful soul like her's is destined to die alone as she seems to believe.  I wanted to post a comment but I have two problems, one is that I don't think I can do it without it sounding like the pre-packaged re-assurance which isn't bad but isn't often that helpful, and two doing so would probably make me something of a hypocrite, since after my last relationship I've felt the same way about myself.  my last girlfriend also seemed to love me no matter what I did, in my case the problem was that she didn't seem to see the real me, showing she didn't know how I was feeling to turn around and say she knew me well enough to know when something was wrong. in my case when I realized that I tried to be the girl she believed I was , but it was too taxing for me, and even when I hit my lowest were I could barely managed to speak she seemed to stay by me.  it was this that helped me realize a few things, one despite the ease of my position I was still finding the relationship emotionally draining to the point were I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it up forever, and two if I couldn't stay in a relationship with a woman who was already somehow convinced that she was in love with me I obviously didn't have a chance at sustaining a real one.

Ok I kinda went off on a tangent there, has I tend to do on my blog. but that's kinda how I came to my conclusions about my own love life in the future. which is one of the reasons I didn't comment on Alexia's blog, also one of the reasons why I really wanted to, I know how lonely that thought process can get sometimes. but she has such a beautiful mind and soul that I don't believe it can possibly apply to her, so if anybody out there is better at being supportive please please post something on her blog

story elements

some time ago I was trying to break down the kind of thing I like in a story. part of the reason was so that I could easily find new stories and another was to help my own stories. when I got to one aspect I kept trying to descrbe it to myself. it just kept seeming to depressing "I like stories were the heros are poor and down, wait no that sounds bad" I had a few more but they went along the same lines of sounding like they were incredibly depressing.

however after thinking a little bit more on why I liked them I came accross the first time were I could describe it better in few words than the descriptions I was trying. "I like stories that emphasis hope" and that's the reason why intially they sounded so depressing, if the hero's aren't down hope may be present but it won't be the focus. I also think that's one of the reasons why despite the bad reviews I retain my intrest in mirrors edge. that game depicts a world were the opressive goverment has allready taken over but the runners in an act of defiance still run packages to varios targets, I haven't played the game myself but such a small orginization that information and packages are aabout all they can muster but they continue the fight, seems perfect for the kind of story were hope plays a major role. the main charecter is even named faith 

so just like at the end of my cyber punk post if anybody can think of a few stories were this element is emphasized I would appreciate it, and hopefully I'll actually have a new post by this Sunday.

sex

OK I honestly don't know how to get into this, so in my typical fashion I'm just going to akwardly jump into it but a fair warning while I'll try to avoid graphic descriptions the subject matter will ensure that some adult language is used.

I wish I didn't have a sex drive. I know this will sound weird to a lot of people, especially since I have those adult content links on my own blog, but I doubt any one would describe my relationship with sex as healthy. for the record I'm a virgin, unless your one of those extreme types that counts masturbation has losing virginity.

the funny thing is while i'll admit I masturbate fairly regularly I don't 'enjoy' it by any means, I've just learned that if I don't I reach a point were i'll be inexplicably stressed out, iratible and even my body will be tenser, so the matter of when I do it is usually set to when it would be most convinent to take a shower afterward. you see I treet it almost like a pill or an injection, unpleasent but bearable while being better than going without it, I do it then move on and do my best to put it out of my head.

then there also the fact that my sex drive caused a lot of confusion about my sexual identity when I hit puberty. like many other transexuals once that point hit it took a while before I could sort the diffrence between the sexual aspects of it and well the rest of it.

plus not to mention that the body image issues that come with sex and being a transsexual is undoubtedly a major reason why my last (and to date most significant) relationship

I know that was fairly incoherent and unorganized and I thank you if you managed to sit through it, it was just some stuff I needed to get off of my chest.

family guy

ok anybody watching fox last night will probably already know were this is going, I thought about trying to do some in depth analysis but these two places http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/   http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2010/5/seth-macfarlane-complete-idiot  already did that far better than I could, and since I'm still job hunting and trying to write a few side projects I figured I'd leave the more logical discussion to them and use this space (as I often do) to vent.

so with that out of the way let me state that I'm not one of those people that hate family guy by default (well I am now but I wasn't last week) while I felt they went frequently over the line, it usually felt more like failed humor and rarely seemed mean spirited, though i could easily be wrong about all of that.

the episode featured quagmires dad during the first segment of the episode had a seris of gay innuendo as the cast was trying to convince quagmire that his farther was gay, bad but not really insulting or horrible yet. but then comes the reveal that that quagmires dad is a woman trapped in a mans body. I'll forgive how all of her transition is apparently done in one quick operation, but after the reveal the entirety of the episode is little more than a series of dehumanizing jokes at the expense of transsexuals. Ida (quagmire's farther) is referred to as it. both peter, the stupidest character in the show, and Louise (one of the smartest) insist that transexuality is simply being gay, with the only advocate that it's not being quagmire, the shows running gag of sexual deviant.

later on brian starts to fall for Ida and ends up sleeping with her, following that most of the cast as a few laughs at his expense and when Brian learns about it, he proceeds to vomit for thirty seconds straight, followed by screaming, and then states that transsexuals need to inform the neighborhood when they move, that's right, now the most liberal and intelligent character treats the sexual encounter as the worst thing that could possibly happen and infers that transsexuals are sex offenders. I cannot stress how down right insulting that is.  the vomit scene alone probably goes on as long as any attempt at portraying transsexuals has human beings.

and to cap this all off, if you follow the links at the beginning, the creator of family guy stated that he's on the side of the GLBT and thought that we'd be "very very happy" with it. here's a hint seth, if you want us to enjoy the episode, don't portray us as the disgusting it.

ok angry rant over and I honestly feel a little better, mind you I'm officially avoiding family guy from now on. so thanks for reading and I hope I'll have something a little more light heated next week.

why I should never write fan fiction

ok I'll skip how and why but a little while ago I was tryin to think of my favorite fictional female charecters, my first response was my version of commander Shepard from the mass effect games, but as anyone who's played the game will tell you who shepard is is left largly up to the player so I didn't really count it, shortly afterwards I came to major kusanagi from ghost in the shell. the following random brain wave is what lead to the title and should not be read by people familer with both works of fiction and wish to keep their sanity


"if my version of commander shepard and major kusanagi were to ever meet, all war and violent crime in the galaxy would be eradicated in about two months"

yeah, that bad. the worst part is that I've actually been trying to keep the fantasies of them meeting out of my head and I promise you there is no way a story like that could work out well. granted I think it works out better than most of what fanfiction.net has. (has an experiment I poked around there for less than two minuetes and found a mass effect starcraft cross over) but if I were to start infulging in my fanfiction thoughts it would probably get a lot worse, in fact I'll leave you with one more brain melt moment.

it would probably only be a matter of time before I wold write one were link from legend of zelda and kenshin from ruroni kenshin fight over me.  and yes that would horribly kill both characters.

incase of zombie, I may be screwed aka the zombie plan

ok if you hang out with a bunch of nerds long enough a few subjects are almost guranteed to show up, being the nerd I am I decided to bring this one up myself so without further ado.

what's your zombie plan?

truth be told in that respects I'm probably fairly screwed, I have a small apartment with only three areas that can be sealed off from the others, two of those areas have huge windows that could easily fit three people walking through without real crowding, and given that I'm on the first floor they would be a defenante entry point for zombies locked or not. so if I'm caught suddenly my bathroom is the only safe place. but I don't fair much better if I have some time I live close to a school and practically on a major road that would fill up quickly. I think my best bet would be to grab my wooden practice sword (just as useful as a baseball bat) and oddly enough go to the building i work in. it's a reasonably sturdy building that has a few different rooms I could retreat to in case of breach, most of which have food supplies, even if I'll have to break a vending machine to get it (most more than just candy as well). it even has back up generators that kick in automatically and according to the management can last 24 hours.  not sure how long I would be able to last but I think that's probably my best bet.

though I'm glad i'll never have to put that too the test it is a fun little thought experiment to go through every one in a while. so anybody else care to share their zombie plan.

burden

I've been trying to compose some of my more intamate thoughts down into a more coherent narative, unfortunantly I haven't really been sucsessful in that but here's here's a breif sum up


am I a burden?

sorry I can't give as much detail as I'd like but that question, tends to be the ultimate question that pops up during the worst of my depressive phase and ultimately I can't stand the thought that the answer may be yes, that to all the people in my life and everyone I care about that I am somehow a burden to them, financially emotionally, etc etc.  the thought that I might be taking more happiness out of there lives then I'm adding is frankly too much for me to handle.  I already learned that was the case during my last romantic relationship and since I doubt I could do any better is the reason why I gave up on such relationships.

updates are coming

just when I think I might be out of my motivational slump it seems to come up again, but this time I promise you I'll have at least one update by the end of the week, other then this one of course, I'm actually working on two, and just to give you a heads up, one of them is fairly self indulgent, I've learned in the past that sometimes putting the negative thought that flair up during my depression on paper (or computer file) and trying to properly compose them can help, and if for no other reason that to give those interested a better look into my thoughts (kind of what I promised with the title of the blog).  the second should be much more interesting, I'm not sure how successful it will be but i'm hoping to take a close look at the deeper meanings that attract people to certain types of fiction, just to give a few brief examples I plan on talking more about how cyber punk offers a freedom of the mind that I'm attracted to, as well as how some people found hope for the future in the original star trek and i've heard people say that super hero comics give the sense of the strength of the human sole

feeling down

sorry for the lack of updates, been feeling down, I know most of you are probably tired of hearing about this but my depression is flaring up again, so every time I try to get the energy to do something more involving than video games my enthusiasm just dies down, I know that probably doesn't make since to a lot of people. but when my depression flares up it really does take away my motivation to do anything, even things I really want to do and enjoy doing, I've slowly started up a number of small creative projects, no idea how many will stick but I hope it will help me pull out of this, and among the projects is trying to get my blog up and running again.

An in-depth look at gaming habits from an odd perspective.

A young woman walks in front of the crowd of people, if someone were to take a very short look they would assume her to be in her mid twenties, however any one taking a glance at more than just the figure beneath the lab coat would see things differently, mainly her pale blue skin and small antennae coming out of her head. "good evening everyone I am Dr. Farallon, as you all know I've been conducting an in-depth study of the human species and peculiar behaviors of theirs, particularly odd habits concerning their forms of entertainment, today I will be detailing several habits in a hobby called gaming, now the interesting thing to keep in mind is that all of these seem to be universally despised yet almost every gamer falls into at least one of them regularly"

"First up is I might need it later syndrome. This seems to be most common in the first person shooter genre, but can be observed in any game were offensive abilities is depleted with use and must be gathered on the field. Primary symptoms ate using the weakest offensive abilities availed while fighting off large and/or hordes of creatures, usually prompted by the fear of worse enemies coming. To borrow a description from an internet celebrity 'so we have scenarios were players are sitting on a nuclear stock pile that would shame north Korea and are throwing peas at a giant robot crab on the off chance there's a bigger robot crab just around the corner' it's best to cross reference this with the next subject

Stocking, this habit like the previous one involves building up a large cache of powerful offensive or defensive ability, the primacy difference however is that this one is about actively building the stock pile in preparation for a fight, were this starts becoming a negative quality though is that it usually involves replaying previously beaten missions or going back to easy sections of the game in order to maximize the amount gained and minimizing the amount of recourses spent

Grinding. This habit is mostly scene in RPG or RPG like games, it is a very close cousin to stocking, in that it requires replaying previously played sections and minimizing the use of recourses, but is different mainly in the fact that it is usually done to 'level up' aka increase the base of abilities of the character.

next week, something entertaining (hopefully)

ok today I was hoping to have a somewhat entertaining post on some gaming habits I've observed (including in myself) but I keep getting new ideas for it so I'm no were near being ready to post it, admittedly dragon age isn't helping either. so I'll work on it over the weekend I promise you I'll have something nice next week in the mean time if any of you have any gaming behaviors you'd like to submit feel encourage the more the better, and I'll probably use every one I can find. and just as an example of what I'm looking for the examples I have not using your best abilities due to worrying something worse might be coming up, grinding, stock piling weapons, needing to grab every little item before you can continue the main story. 

christmas/quite

first off, I hope everyone out there had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope all of you are doing well

second is that I'd like to apologize for being so quite for the last couple of weeks, I wish I could say I've been busy but as odd as it sounds the problems nearly the oppisite of being busy I've had some time off work, and while not as bad as it was a few weeks ago I still seem to be in my depressions cycle, so I've been spending most of my time marred in escapisim, bad I know, I learned a while ago it's just "self medicating" but it's really is one of the few things that keeps the depressive thoguths from taking root when I'm not on the meds for it.

any way to make a long story short (and significantly less whiny) now that I'm going back to my normal work routine I should be back to the update schedule I've had