Open Thread for Personal Stuff: March 2014 Flying Cat Edition

Ally, are you looking just for jobs in your field, or any sort of work? Because at this point I’d say you should cast your net very wide. I know living at your mum’s is proving less than ideal but it’s got to be better than going back to CA. If you have some sort of work to pay your rent, won’t that settle your stepfather’s money worries a bit? And you’ve got a great therapist right there; that’s another important reason to stay put if possible.

Ally, no great advice from me either; just hoping for all the best for you.

kittehs, how upsetting. I’ve only seen accidents where the people survived, and those were upsetting enough.

There are still some things I need to sort out, but overall it turns out I’ll most likely go back to Santa Cruz. I can’t have a stable living situation here. Sure I’ll be stressed out beyond belief if I go back to California and I’ll most likely be prevented by family members from even trying to transition, but at least I won’t have to worry as much about the place I sleep at. Worst comes to worst, I can stay with a trans woman friend of mine in Santa Cruz who is more than happy to let me stay at her place. I trust her a lot as a friend, and she has helped me out in the past before.

In other news, I had yet another nightmare last night. Not only did it include an extremely graphic and violent rape, but it was also transmisogynistic and had no clear meaning. I seem to be getting these nightmares more often over time. ::sigh::

Total thanks to Zippydoo, Kittehserf, and Kootiepatra, (and others) for their advice in the other thread. I just decided maybe I ought to move over here, because I’m not so sure I want to share/hear the opinions of trolls…

Kittehs, totally took your advice, and talked to the second of the roomies, and I’m going to talk to the other one tonight, when they emerge from the homework den. I think you’re also right about my friend totally getting my clueless-ness.

I guess for me, the big fear is not noticing the ‘obvious’ signals, that people talk about, because I just don’t understand or know what they are. A second fear is inadvertently sending wrong signals (and making someone think I’m interested), because I don’t know what those wrong signals are.

My roomies doing the teasing speculating thing just made me have a little bit of a I don’t understand people and what if things are being weird and not going good places and what if I’m sending signals I don’t mean and ahhhhh!!! attack.

Bit of an out there example, which explains some of my concern:

I was on vacation, and was wandering about with a camera. An older person walks past with a small bag of groceries. They say “Hi”, we start a polite conversation, because it’s the weekend, and they apparently have nothing better to do.

It turns into a pretty cordial, slightly interesting, conversation. I like hearing other viewpoints. I’m still taking photos of trees, and fountains, and the park, in general while we chat. To me, it seemed perfectly normal and polite, just like most conversations with people on planes, or in checkout lines, or other places in my hometown.

Finally, I decide I’m done taking photos of trees, and want to make my way back to the place I was staying. I go for a “Nice to meet you, it was a nice conversation, and good luck with life” handshake, and the person tried to turn it into a hug and a kiss. I dodged, and the person hit the ear instead of their intended target.

They noticed the evasive maneuvering, and then asked if they could kiss me.

I said, “Thanks, but no thank you. I really should be going now,” backed away, waved, and then walked swiftly off in the long way back to the place I was staying, so the person wouldn’t know exactly what direction it was.

I know this person invading my personal space was not my fault. If they had tried invading it again, and pressed the issue, I was fairly confident in my ability to get away (I’m a 1st degree black-belt, it was a wide open public area, with joggers and walkers all around, and the person didn’t have anywhere to easily conceal and access a weapon).

Still, the thing that freaked me out once I was sufficiently far away from the situation to freak out and get out of my stay calm get the hell away mode, was that I totally wasn’t expecting that person’s change in behavior. I didn’t see anything that indicated this wasn’t a ‘friendly local, giving tips about pretty areas to bumbling photographer, and talking about differences in the generational worldview’.

Also, the idea that if this person was trying to flirt and thought that I was receptive enough to move in for a totally uninvited kiss is also way disturbing.

Sorry for the wall of text… but I’m trying to sort this out and typing kind of helps.

Yesterday was really rough. All day I felt intensely self-loathing, lonely, and anxious about going back to California. By the time I returned home from a short outing with my mom, I was exhausted and I wished I had some means of catharsis. I was trying to write about my feelings (what I usually do when I’m feeling shitty and I need to vent), but I had no energy to do so.

Later on, I started helping out my step-dad. He asked me to do a bit of cleaning, and then he asked me to get some jars of water with shower water in them. I had falsely assumed that the water from the shower head was virtually the same as the water from the tub faucet, so I got it from the tub faucet instead (it turns out that the shower head has a filter).

My step-dad put the clippings of some plants into those jars of water, and then later he asked me if I got the shower water or the tub water. I told him the jars had tub water in them, and he became furious. I’ll give him the benefit of doubt and assume that he didn’t know that angry yelling is triggering for me, but his yelling was very distressing to me. I also felt guilty because he and my mom are in a tough financial situation, and I feared that my mistake would cost them. After all, he did yell “Fuck, now the plants are going to die!” He then told me to take one jar back into the house, and he said that as though I’m so incompetent I can’t even follow simple instructions (his words: “I want you to take this jar in. Can you do that!?!“).

I was already feeling shitty earlier – that event only made me feel worse. I ran up to my room almost immediately and cried into my pillow for about 10 minutes. I couldn’t believe I made such a stupid, costly mistake. I felt like I failed everyone and that everyone would suffer because of me not paying enough attention to just a few words from my step-dad. Fortunately, it later turned out that the plants were okay because they weren’t in the tub water jars for very long, and they were transferred to jars of filtered water immediately.

I still feel bad about what I did, though that’s no surprise. Oh well. At least listening to Jimi Hendrix is making me feel a little better for some reason.

Ally, you made a completely understandable mistake, and your stepfather’s reaction was way out of proportion. That would have been terribly upsetting to me, too. I’m sorry.

Ally, he yelled at you for getting water from the wrong place? Jeez. Dude needs to sort out his priorities. (Who the hell gets water out of the shower head? How could you be expected to know that?)

Emily: Ow! That sounds both painful and terrifying! I’m glad it wasn’t too serious–I can imagine how badly a boxer could mess up someone’s face.

Ouch, emilygoddess. Hope you’re all better soon. And hugs to Ally.

And an adorable bunny cheater to anyone who could use a giggle.

Unrelated: has anyone heard from Argenti lately?

Emilygoddess: ouch, speedy healing!

My aunt’s evil Siamese–aptly named Satan–once pierced my lip. THAT got my attention!

Hey everybody. I’m not in a terrible way or anything, but I have the pre-con jitters but BAD.

Tomorrow, I’m heading out to Columbus for the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo. I’m already pretty nervous, because I know not a single soul in the entire damn city, never mind my co-creators and con staff, and have absolutely no idea whether this’ll be a moneymaker or a wallet black hole. But it’s also going to require me to be in town for at least three days (possibly four), and do fifteen hours of solid sales.

That sort of thing is exhausting for me at the best of times, and in the past two weeks, I’ve also had a death in the family, a writeathon, and my taxes due. (Don’t even get me started on those; I’ve never made so little in my working life and been expected to pay so much. Self-employment while disabled is ASS.) So I’m already really stressed out and anxious, going into what is a really draining situation for me.

I’m sure I’ll be fine and have a good time, and if I collapse midway through, then that’s just what happens, but I’m still pretty nervous about it.