The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Are you going to say to me “This can never be,” are you going to say to me, Withered Hope?
Sad sack!
Sad sack!

A post of complaining. I recommend skipping. Here, watch this instead. You’ll have more fun.

Here’s what’s going on, I guess.
So Sunday, Jonathan and Shauna decided it would be a good idea to get Molly groomed, as it was obvious my mom never was going to and they were going to the dog groomers anyway. So they took Molly and did it. This really upset my mother, as she thought Molly looked cute all shaggy and stuff. Of course, she was ignoring all the matted, dirty fur and things like that, which is why Molly needed to be groomed in the first place. She was also freaking out about the idea of Molly being in a cage for any length of time at all, and was sure Molly would be angry at her. It… yeah. Anyway.
Molly gets back, and Mom is all moody that Molly looks different now. She’s clearly upset. We all try to cheer her up, but to no avail. She’s unhappy about this turn of events. This is when Cole arrives, and we go upstairs to play games and wait for Cara because we were going to get snowcones.
A bit later, Jonathan and Shauna come up, and they tell me the situation. Apparently there was a fight. Anger flared up over the fact that my mom worries so much about this dog, but won’t attempt to support me by even doing something like trying to call me by my name. She got told off, and started crying. Shauna and Jonathan just wanted to let me know. I hugged them and told them how much I appreciate their support. I mean, I don’t want us all fighting. I want us all to be the awesome family we are, you know? But still, the fact that there’s so much love for me there, and that they want everything to work out for me so much that they’d do that… it means a lot to me.

Anyway, this made my mother’s mood worse, of course. I tried to talk to her, and she asks me if I’ve been telling Shauna we’ve been fighting. I said no, because we haven’t been. But that’s just because I go way, way out of my way to not do anything in front of her that would cause a fight. I can sense fights brewing. I can sense how everything will explode if I do things the way I want or should. I feel like our relationship is so strained, so fragile, and I’m trying so hard to make it work. If I’m myself, it’ll break. Even the little things I do, like using my true gender when talking about myself, bother her. We haven’t been fighting, but I’ve been holding myself and my life back a lot to keep it from happening.
She said she’s been doing good in supporting me. I couldn’t bring myself to say yes. She and Dad are being fantastic in helping me out in many areas, such as house-buying, but in this one? This whole being myself thing? They’re not with me. As far as I’m aware their position is still “I can’t look at you doing this to yourself.” Which is basically getting me out of their life. Which they don’t seem to understand still. Even though I’m teaching and working and doing literally everything but being around them as myself, and that someday that shit has to end.

I’m complaining instead of explaining. Anyway.

Now it’s today. Today was going pretty decent for me. I mean, I had to get up early and work the truck, but that’s not so bad. Hours and all. I also taught, and that went pretty alright, too. Things were going fine.
Then we were having a conversation with my dad, and for the first time today, Mom refers to me by my old name.
My stomach dropped out from under me. I felt terrible. It took me awhile to figure out why, but I think it’s because she had been yelled and screamed at, but took nothing away from that experience.
Either way, bringing it back to the song, it just feels like my hopes of ever getting my parents to understand are stupid at this point. It feels like it will never happen. It feels like I am going to lose my parents. They don’t want a daughter, and they don’t want me. I feel like I’ve tried so hard to keep that hope alive, that they would, and this is just another thing trying to blow out that candle. Maybe it would be for the best if I went. I don’t know.

I love my parents. They love me. I want them in my life.
I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of them being the only two people in my life who don’t understand. I’m tired of them being the only two people who make me feel like a freak, or that I have something to hide, or that I’m less than a person. I’m tired of his hope that they’ll understand someday that keeps me from doing something about it. I’m tired of worrying, every moment I’m around them, that we’re going to start fighting.

I talked with Ecks after I ran to my room, turned down Jonathan’s invitation to go play board games with people (I just wasn’t in an emotional state to meet new people. I’m sorry, Jonathan. I hope it didn’t ruin anything.) and just curled up in depression and lost hope. We talked, and he’s awesome, and he’s right. I mean, I’m not going to let this stop me. Nothing is going to stop me anymore. Not when I’m finally myself for the first time in my life. I will wake up tomorrow, and I will continue on. No thoughts of suicide, no inability to get out of bed, no overwhelming feeling of failure. My parents have done a lot, but I got rid of those things without them. I was responsible for becoming myself and succeeding, and still am. I don’t need their approval. If they want to be a roadblock, they can be, but they should get out of the way. I’m going anyway.

And that’s what’s happening in my emotional life. Did you see that funny video? You should have just watched that up there. Goodnight.

I bought a physical CD from a physical store.

It felt kind of weird.

I mean, it’s not like I hadn’t bought physical media before for songs. But the last few actual albums I bought with a physical CD I kind of ordered on Amazon and then pirated, and the copies were never opened. Zero Day and Tonight would be those. Not even opened. I don’t know why I got the physical disc at all, really, except it kind of feels nice to have an actual object, and it was from the Borders clearance thing, so it was basically like 40 cents more than it would cost to download it, and TMBG can gladly have an extra 40 cents from me or whatever.

But while I was buying this physical CD (it was Join Us by They Might Be Giants) I just felt really awkward and out of place. It felt surreal to be buying music from a store. The world is already at that point for me. I decided to listen to it once on CD on the way home, to make the physical nature of the purchase worthwhile, but of course I broke the shit out of the case trying to get it unwrapped, so that’s fantastic. I buy the physical media, and it doesn’t even last! Lovely. And now that I’m home, it’s ripped to my computer, put on my iPod, and I will never, ever use the physical CD again.

The album? Well, I’ll talk about that another day. Let me be honest: I’m completely exhausted right now, moody, and just want to go to bed, preferably with a wuff. But I am too stubborn to not write something on this blog. So this is what you get! Tomorrow will be better. Later.

I feel exhausted. I worked all day, then I was all friendly with people and learned the amazingness of Regular Show, and now you expect me to write a blog? Pft. Links. That’s all you get! I’m going to bed!

Sorry, but I am kind of tired and, hey, I got cool links.

Do you like very heavy-handed metaphors? How about when there’s some humor in there and it’s kind of clever? Then you should probably try The Stanley Parable. If you’re going to do it, just do it: it’s one of those things that, once spoiled, means nothing.

Morbid Coffee linked this on twitter. I don’t really know what it is, but it’s, um, interesting. Yeah.

Best Cosplay Winner.

The best news ever is that they’re making a Black Dynamite animated TV show. The pilot exists and is on-par with the film! A must watch.

I think this picture from the set of Star Trek is kind of cool.

These are soon to be part of my brother’s lawn army.

I found this funny. I am easily amused.

Finally, just to prove how ridiculous My Little Pony has gotten, here’s a little My Little Pony game I played today.

I’ll try to sleep and feel better. Later!

Today I decided I would stop feeling useless and sorry for myself and fucking ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING. Because, you know, that’s the best way to not feel that way. I hadn’t really written any fiction in awhile, so I decided that’s what I’d do. I’d sit down, and I’d write some fucking fiction, like a writer! Yeah, that’s the ticket, I would write something. Fuck yeah.

I sat down and opened Microsoft Word, and tried to think of a story idea I’d developed enough to actually write down. Sadly, all I could come up with was an idea I had for some furry porn, but dammit, I was going to write something, so I started writing on it anyway. It’s porn time! Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.

I occurred to me about a page or so in that I had really made no reference to these characters being furries yet. I went back and started changing some things, but it felt wrong, so I changed them back. I guess they’re humans then, that’s cool. I mean, I hear some people like pornography involving humans, as strange as that sounds. I continued on. A thousand words or so later, I realized how little this story had to do with fucking. I mean, fucking was a big part of it, sure. But that wasn’t the point. It was about these characters finding love and falling into this odd situation with technology. You know, a cyberpunk kind of story. Only with fucking. I had been percolating the concept so long in my head, I made the characters, to me anyway, too people-y, and thus I wanted to tell their whole story, not just their bedroom antics. I didn’t let this revelation stop me though. I mean, I finished the story. It went where it was going, and when it got there, it was done.

I then looked back over the whole thing. What I had was neither pornography nor a serious, literary short story. If it was supposed to be pornography, well goodness, I’d have to add a lot more description of all the fucking that occurs in the story. The framing device would probably have to be thrown out, because it’s a downer, and pornography is supposed to be an upper. If it’s a serious short story, it’s lacking conflict. What conflict is there is brushed over quickly. I would need to spend some time really fleshing out the characters more, make them not pornographic stereotypes, and show the conflict more between them, instead of just saying it happened. The framing device could stay, but would need to be more seriously involved in the story. The more I thought about it, basically either path would basically double the size of the story, at least. Not that that’s a bad thing. But basically, the story has a ways to go after this first draft, no matter how I slice it. I’ll probably try to make it legit.

The whole experience, and this is the reason I wanted to write about it, really made me wonder about the difference between writing porn and writing a short story. I mean, in my head, there’s a clear difference. One is a legit craft that I work on honing, and one is something fun I do to distract myself when I’m horny. But a lot of work I’m most proud of, including the story that I’ve managed to get published, have near-pornographic themes and depictions of sex. I set out to write those to write a short story, one that works as I believe a story does, and has conflict, characters, and so on. But when I set to write something pornographic, I mean, I’m still thinking about a lot of the same things. The only difference is the solution to whatever conflict there is has to be fucking. But that’s a possible solution in a real story, too. No reason it can’t be. There’s also no reason a “legit” story can’t be sexy. Granted, a short story might not be the best place for a superfluous sex scene, as you’re trying to keep your used space to a minimum, but some sexy times are always nice, if they’re appropriate for the characters.

I think what shocked me is that I didn’t set out to write something I wanted to make really good. I set out to write that pornographic distraction. Yet that wasn’t what came out. It’s that intent, I think, that I’ve always used to determine whether or not a story is pornographic whatever, or something I should make really good and think about publishing. Again, this story needs a lot of revision before it is any good, but the pieces are there. When I write porn, I normally take a “fuck it, just write, it doesn’t matter” kind of approach, and do things like not name the characters or basically anything else I have difficulty with when writing a story. It was kind of refreshing to do that and have something come out that I see potential in, because it was so low-stress. Normally when I have a BIG IDEA and want to write it out, I find it very stressful and often throw bits away in frustration instead of continuing to roll. This… wasn’t too bad. I could keep doing that.

I don’t know, it was an interesting and successful experiment, not only because I wrote a short story draft, but because, well, it did help me not to feel like a useless asshole. So good for me! Victory all around!

What do I want to write about?
I want to write about loneliness, I guess.
Just skip this post if you want, no worries.

I feel like things are pretty decided on the “I have to move out” front. I feel my parents pushing me away, not wanting me in their lives and trying to get me to go back on everything I’ve ever wanted, and I doubt they’re going to take me seriously unless I call their bluff, get out from under them, and start living my life. So away I should go. I’ve run the numbers. I should be able to do it, I think, without too much issue. I’ve got to find a place, of course, but I’ll get started on that soon. Things will work.

When I think about reasons I don’t want to leave, though, I find it surprising that Molly is kind of the top of my list. I mean, she’s very much my mother’s dog. But she likes me a lot. She’s always happy to see me. If I’m sitting here, feeling depressed and lonely, I can go downstairs and sit with her on the couch and at least cheer up a little bit. She’s just always so happy, so pleased that I’m there. I loved Frisky, our previous dog, of course, and he was friendly too, but I was much more one of the people he was watching over and protecting, if that makes sense. Molly wants to be around me, comes to me when she’s scared to hide. She’s just… yeah. I feel stupid that writing that kind of shit brings me near to tears, but here we are. That kind of devotion, so in my face, just melts me.

I’ve got fucking awesome friends and a boyfriend I love. I shouldn’t feel lonely, perse. Frankly, I enjoy alone time anyway, quite often. But even though life is going great, I still do break down from time to time. It’s hard not to sometimes. That’s just life. Molly is my escape plan. If I am feeling really unbearable, she’ll be there to make me feel loved. Silly, maybe, but effective. Losing that kind of scares me. I’m so used to doing it now, I don’t know how else I’d cope. Cara is like, “Oh, get somewhere that allows pets and get your own dog!” and I mean, I suppose that’s an option. I never really thought about it. I guess it might also be an excuse to make my mom accept me more. She’d put up with me for her “grandkid,” I bet. However, it’s also a lot of extra expense that I don’t know if I can handle. So much of that “extra expense” money is still going to be tied up in transitioning for a long while. And I don’t know if Brer wants a dog around when he gets here… I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s why I’m worried about moving out! Stupid, huh? But that’s what’s been on my mind since I decided dragging my heels would make things worse here. Might as well get out there and get the being murdered my mother assumes will happen over with, you know? No time like the present. Onwards to my apparently obviously imminent death!
(Times like this, I’m glad she doesn’t read this. I love her. I don’t want to be this snarky to her face, but fuck, I have to let it out somewhere. I’m allowed to be frustrated. Just not an asshole.)

It’s time once again to clean out the ol’ tabs. A fresh start, with fresh tabs, will do us all a lot of good, don’t you think? Well, too bad, that’s what’s happening anyway.

First, let’s start with some comics that have vastly entertained me recently.
The last panel of this cracks me up every time. I think I might be slightly broken.
This particular comic kind of sums up everything about why Nedroid is one of the most wonderful things on the internet.
Romance on the job? It’s an idea with vast story potential.
I guess this is sort of a comic? It’s a diagram, at the very least, filled with important information about how to conduct business on the internet.

How about videos? I’ve got that too.
The more I watch this sketch, the funnier I find this discussion of one of the more pressing concerns in the restaurant industry.
It’s a Mega Man 4 Race! I was entertained, certainly.

Now I have two more links, without clear categories to put them in. Oh well.
So this is slash Retsuprae fan fiction. Finally, all your favorite Retsupraers will hook up. It’s about time.
Finally, here are more Harrison Fords than you can handle.

Always good to shake out the dust from those silly tabs, and make way for new ones! Actual content tomorrow, probably. Have a good day.

I’m not sure how to organize all this stuff that’s been in my head into a coherent essay, but I’m just going to go for it anyway. Sorry if it doesn’t make much sense or seems really scattershot.

When I went to visit Brer, I basically conquered my last thing that I was worrying about with the whole transition thing: I started using the correct bathroom. It’s really such a stupid thing, when you think about it, but I was so fucking nervous. But it’s just like anything, and I knew that: act like something is wrong, and something is wrong. Act like nothing is wrong, and nothing is wrong. It was not a big issue at all, and will continue to not be. It also just seems stupid that something like a bathroom would be the main indicator of “you made it” but that’s kind of what it is to me. That’s the main sorter of people into gender groups on a daily basis, and now I’m on the correct side of it. That’s what I wanted.

I really expected some sort of push back from the world. Some sort of horrible fate to befall me because I started going out as myself, and not worrying about it. Nothing has come of it yet. For all the fear my parents beat the fuck into me about Southeast Missouri being intolerant, everyone I’ve encountered and discussed this stuff with has been fucking fantastic. Everyone who is not my parents is so understanding and supportive, it really makes me feel stupid for having lived this long being so scared of being myself. And while it was subtle, and not the huge weight off my shoulders I was expecting, I feel so much better. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m not acting confident, but am confident, and maybe that’s not a useful distinction as far as what it lets me get done (because let’s face it, fake confidence is good enough in the majority of situations) but as far as me feeling good while doing it? It means a ton. It means a lot to me that I can believe in myself. It’s been a long time since I could say that and really mean it.

The parents are still being stupid. If I was being overly dramatic, I would say that I think that them being like this will end up being one of their biggest regrets in life. I love them so fucking much, and I know they love me, and once they understand how much better I am doing, and how much happier I am, they are going to feel like garbage for fighting against me for so long. (Okay, I guess this was a stupid, ineffective ploy to be dramatic without being dramatic, but surely you can indulge me a bit in my own diary blog post, hm?) But, you know, I get it, to some extent. They want the best for me, but can’t face the fact that what I’m telling them is true, and that I am working towards the same goal. I’m frustrated, but I’m their daughter, and that’s that. I can’t imagine life without them. I know they’ll be there for me. That’s what matters.

Really, though, the worst thing, if you can call it that, about the transition is people apologizing to me all the time. Nice people, trying to wrap their head around a new name and new pronouns… well, it takes awhile for it to click. I know that. But they apologize every time they get it wrong. I don’t know how to react to it. I just feel lucky that they’re even trying at all. How do you tell someone that yes, you really would prefer them to get it right, but that it’s not hurting, insulting, or otherwise doing bad things to you for them to make mistakes sometimes? I’m still working on the answer to that one. Still, if people being very polite and apologizing to me is my biggest worry, I say that things are going pretty well in my world.

But yeah. Things. Things are going well. I’ve been noticing other things, though, which I will record for posterity, so I can see how stupid wrong I am in a few years time.
I am so fucking hungry recently. I don’t know if it’s giving up sodas (you’d think that would have died down if it was, as it’s been several weeks now) or the hormones or what, but fuck, I am so hungry. I’ve gone from eating a meal a day, maybe two if it’s a social occasion, to just feeling starving all the time, and eating three meals a day, often out of hungry desperation. I just cannot remember being this constantly hungry before. I have no idea what this means, but it just feels like it can’t be random coincidence. I dunno.
The other thing is that women are talking to me more. Conversations that used to just be a slight nod of the head or a “sorry” suddenly are becoming actual conversations. I had a cashier strike up a fairly sizable conversation with me about the flavor “sour apple” at a gas station, and another woman I was in line with at Wal-Mart started a conversation with me about one of the magazines on the rack, for some examples. This isn’t a bad thing in the slightest. I am good at polite conversation. I just don’t remember that kind of encounter happening before, really. It just feels like a shift in how the world is interacting with me. It feels like something has changed, you know? And, well, I suppose something has, since I’m going out as me now. This might be another point of insanity, though.

Overall, though, things are going great. They’ll be better if I get the job I interviewed for today (And hi, background check people, if you read this!) but, you know, either way. Life is worth living. Life is great. I think I’ll keep at it.

I gave up soda.

Yeah, me. I did that.

Can you fucking believe it?

In any case, I drank straight water for awhile, and while that was fine, it also felt very forced. It didn’t replace the feel-good that came from cracking open a Pepsi, since it wasn’t all that enjoyable. Thus, I started making Crystal Light Lemonade, because I had enjoyed that in the past. (Of course, I always used twice the powder back in the day. I used the recommended dose this time around.) It was a good substitute, and while not water, was way, way better for me than soda.

Of course, the pack of lemonade mix we had from who knows when eventually ran out, and I went to the store to buy some more. When I got there, though, I noticed that the Schnucks brand was like… way cheaper. Three for the price of two cheaper. I decided it was worth a shot. However, there were three lemonade variants available: A “Natural” Lemonade, a “Natural” Pink Lemonade, and a Raspberry Lemonade. Of course, I bought all three to give them a try.

The first one I went with was the Raspberry Lemonade, because that seemed the most interesting. I love citrus, love lemonade, and rather enjoy things that are raspberry flavored. However, past experiences with Raspberry Lemonade had been poor at best. They just tasted like shitty weak lemonade that someone dropped a raspberry in.
This, however, didn’t. It was a rather strong lemonade, which I appreciated, which just had a little bit of raspberry on the back end to cut the sour slightly. It was rather good, but it’s not something I’m going to drink every day. Still, I had high hopes for the normal lemonades, as that one turned out quite well.

The standard lemonade wasn’t nearly as good, though. For whatever reason, it just tasted artificial. It had that sting that artificial sweeteners have. Granted, this is supposed to have artificial sweeteners, but I kind of hate that taste. I guess the raspberry was hiding it in the previous mix. With nothing to mask it, it was out in full force. It was drinkable, but not optimal, by any means.

The pink lemonade, though, is probably the one I will keep buying. It undercuts that artificial flavor with the sweetness of pink lemonade, and does it without, you know, making it not taste like lemonade like the raspberry does. It’s a solid and cheap drink mix. I like it.

Overall, though, these are pretty decent products, which surprised me. For example, I have bought the Schnucks generic Chex Mix before, and that was a god awful mess nobody would ever believe is Chex Mix for a second. Tasted horrible. These are fine, though.

Yeah, I wrote about drink mixes. I dunno, it was on my mind.

Hi! By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to spend a week with Brer. This is both totally awesome and totally scary, but I know the trip will be worth it. It should be relaxing and lovely, and I’ll finally get to see him, finally. At least once before he moves down here. That’s good, right?

That, of course, leaves the question of this blog. I don’t really want to do a week-long hiatus because I like things posting. That means I’ve got to build up a back catalog of posts to post over the week! That’s what I’m doing now, in the past. I’m going to try to write enough to keep things rolling. That doesn’t mean I won’t maybe break in and write something different, if I have time and feel inspired. I can always push those older posts forward even more. Why not?

So, yeah. Basically, if any of this stuff seems kind of old news when you read it, that’s why. It’ll all be new content, as far as the site is concerned, but who knows, I may have already talked your ear off about it by the time you read it. So be it.

Now I’m going to go enjoy my trip. You enjoy the week as well, yes? New old content begins tomorrow.

Time to dump some links on you all. I’m about to travel, so these tabs need a little clearing out to lighten my load!

Tim Schafer is awesome. Doubt it? Well, just look at his latest bit of promotion for his newest game. Yeah, awesome.

But is it as awesome as animated gifs starring cats? That’s hard to say.

The utter insanity of this piece is something that has to be seen to be believed. Wow. Who would have spent so much time on that? Bravo, though.

Just watched some Harry Potter film? Need a recap to help you make sense of it all? Well, these comics are pretty badass, and can do just that. Give them a try!

Finally, I will admit I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but this podcast thing seems an amazing idea, and I can’t wait to give it a listen.

Okay. I feel good getting those links off of my chest! Well, I’m off! Later!