The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I got my Festivus Exchange Gift! A few days ago, really. It was pretty awesome. I wrote up the haul in the appropriate thread on Talking Time, of course. You can check it out here, if you’d like. Queen Possum was awesome. Perhaps more awesome than I was, in my gift-giving, though I’ve promised myself not to worry about it. However, in this post, I mostly just want to talk about one thing, and that is this hat, what I consider the centerpiece of the whole deal.

It has just kind of made me so happy and so sad at the same time.

Not that I think the gift was a bad thing, oh goodness, far, far, far from it. I look at such things online all the time, and think about buying them. I look with sort of jealous eyes at the occasional person in Kohl’s wearing a cat ear hat. I want to be cute, and wear cute animal hats. Embrace my furry side and grin, and look cute… cutecutecute… and this is pretty well completely cute. Not to mention someone made this thing by hand, for me specifically. It is perfectly fitted to my head. I. Love. It.

But during the process of making that post, I realized I needed to take a picture of me wearing it, to show off how well it fits. But I couldn’t take a picture of myself. I couldn’t wear the hat in public. I’m not that way. Yet.
That kind of spiraled me out of control for an evening.

I am closer than I have ever been to transitioning. I have an appointment with an actual doctor who specializes in gender identity on the 28th. Some number of months after that, after she’s all down with what’s up with me, I can start hormones and stuff. I’m not rich, but every time I evaluate this stuff, I am, for probably the first time in my life, in a good enough financial situation to do this. I can do this. I should be happy.

But being so close just brings what I can’t have yet into sharper focus. I think I’ve been more moody and depressed about these issues than I have been in a long while recently. And that’s likely almost completely because I have finally taken some action, and by doing so, brought all those issues and problems I buried deep, deep inside me to survive these years where I couldn’t due to my stupid parents and money and my own stupid holdups. They’re coming back. It’ll be nice to have someone to talk about them with, I suppose. But it is harder. It’s annoying.

I dunno. I’m on my way, though. Soon I’ll be able to wear that Rainbow bunny hat, perhaps. Soon things will start getting fixed. I know they will.

Yeah… they will. They have to.

I guess I should write all this out, just so it’s written out. Just to examine it. We’ll return to normal stupid blogging shortly. Maybe it’ll be about Modern Warfare 2! Nobody is writing about that, right?

It’s been awhile, but on last Tuesday, I had a little bit of a breakdown. It wasn’t long, because I had things to do that required me to, you know, keep face, but it certainly rippled from there.

So Tuesday night is the night of the writing workshop. I wrote a story called “Transitional Conflict.” You can guess the kind of subject matter with a title like that, I’m sure. Anyway, I though the story turned out pretty well, if I was a bit minimal, and I was really interested in finding out what everyone had to say.
We get to my story, and it suddenly becomes so awkward in the room. Probably not to anyone but me. But I couldn’t look at anyone. Everyone was close to who my main character was, but also so far off, and it sort of pained me to hear them talk about it. I mean, from a writer’s perspective, it was useful. This was great feedback. But it just really bothered me.

As I walked to the car afterwards, I found myself getting really angry, and fairly upset that people couldn’t understand that character. I also quickly became mad at myself for not being able to express my own issues in this character. If I couldn’t even use all my writing talents to get across this struggle, and make it clear who this person is without just having them knock people over the head with it, what chance did I have of making that happen in real life? What were the chances of me being able to just be me?
Soon, this mixed with frustration that I was letting feedback on writing get to me emotionally. Sure, it was an emotionally charged story, but dammit, I’m a fucking professional. Whatever I need up doing, at this point, it seems pretty clear it will involve writing in some way. I’m more professional than to cry about how my story was misinterpreted, even though, admittedly, it wasn’t just that.

I eventually broke down, and I made a phone call that went badly, and I eventually just bottled it up as I normally do and got back to work.
It’s just been a long time since I got so upset about these sorts of things. I suppose that’s a good sign. I’m doing better, of course. But it’s not solved, and I know that. I’ve not found a solution. I just… I feel like I have my life together, and something like this happens, and then I feel like I’ve done nothing, accomplished nothing… what have I been working for, you know?
And sometimes, I just honestly don’t know.

I am so fucking sick.
Ugh.
Agh.

I don’t think it’s a flu or anything, it’s just one mean motherfucker (I learned in class last night that, yes, motherfucker is one word, keep that in mind) of a head cold that is taking advantage of the fact that I haven’t really got a good night’s sleep since school started.

So I’m kind of knocked on my ass right now, and trying not to fall behind. I had to call in to the press today and not work in order to nap for three hours… I hope I don’t get too behind. At some point I have to do some homework. Write another paper. I need to do that.
I also need to try Crash Course and play RE5 on the PC with Brer. And beat Mario and Luigi. And stuff.

Ugh, I feel awful.

So here’s how my Wednesday went.

I got up early, and went to school to prepare. I was getting everything all semi-perfect, since Dr. Phegley was observing my class. It all went as well as could be expected, I think, but nonetheless, it was pretty stressful. I don’t know. It’s hard not to feel that way when you’re being evaluated. But I just did my normal thing. That’s the best way to actually get something out of it, right?

So it started out with some stress. Then I worked at the press, huzzah, and then I went home, because I deserved a break, and I was going to have it that evening. I got some Chinese with Spaeth and Jonathan, where I got a fortune telling me to be frugal. Which is funny for the In Bed game, I suppose. Then I headed home. However, I was too tired, due to all the waking up early, so I had to pretty well immediately fall into bed.

A few hours later, I got back up and started playing Mario and Luigi. I buy some fancy gamer mice during the Woot off just because I can. I get the call for dinner, so I save, and close my DS… and then this happens.

Fuck.

I’m not going without a DS, so I immediately call up Essner and Spaeth to give me a hand purchasing a DSi with their Wal-Mart powers. I head to the bank to pick up some cash, and while I’m driving there, my car is making some really weird noises.

Fuck.

I go back to the house, and yes, apparently my brakes are fucked up. So I get to get those repaired. Fucking awesome.

When it rains, it fucking pours, you know?

All of this has left me pretty completely drained. I stayed up later than I should have because I was all moody. I still feel pretty shitty. And I’m complaining about it on my blog.
So there. I suppose.

I remember, way back at the beginning of the semester, when I was told that “You should really look ahead to see where major assignments are, and not schedule papers due around that time!”

Man, that’s some advice, huh? That I didn’t follow?

Yeah, I’ve got the first big paper for my class now, and it needs to be graded. On top of that, I also have my first big paper for my Linguistics course, and I need to finish up a short story, among other basic homework.

This is going to be a real busy weekend! Aren’t we just excited?
Of course we are. Of course.
I mean, technically, I hope I’m done with most of it at this point, when this actually gets posted. That would be totally cool and super sweet. But, you know, I’m realistic. If nothing else, I’m sure I still have that Linguistics project to work on. Yay yay.

Anyway, I’ll stop complaining and get back to work now, I suppose.

So it’s been a couple weeks since I started seeing a therapist. It’s, um, been going well, I guess. I’ve been brought nearly to tears just about every single time I go, so that at least means I’m hitting, to some extent, the heart of SOMETHING that is the matter. So that’s nice.

I have concerns. Being in therapy is a good step, but I know I’m not seeing the person I should be seeing. I was hoping it would work as a springboard onto someone with more, you know, specific experience, but I worry it may not be going quite that way. I mean, at some point I’m going to force that issue. I know that much. But… like I said, something is happening, so I can’t be TOO unhappy with how it’s going.

I just want progress. A feeling of progress and moving forward with all these issues I’ve been sitting on forever and ever. I’ve got all these career things I’m going on full steam, but dammit, I need some personal resolution now, you know? I have my degree, and I’m going for more degrees, and things are going well in that regard, but I need resolution of the personal nature. I need to be myself. And find it.

My therapist knows what he’s doing to an extent, and I rather like him, even though it’s clear we’re just, you know, completely different types of people. That helps. But he’s certainly poking around to see if there’s a solution other than what I want. Good to cover the bases, I guess… but as I said, at some point, I’m going to have to just flat out force the whole point and get what I want about the whole thing. It’s, you know, to some extent my time. Have to do what I want to do with it and get the results I want.

It’s just so hard to put things into words. So much of all this is just… strong feelings over everything. I can’t explain it logically, because it isn’t logical. There’s nothing logical about it. It’s just who I am. But I can’t just say “it’s just who I am” because that’s not an explanation.

Fuck, I dunno.

But I’m doing something. Something is always better than nothing. That idea is what pulled me out of the gutter and got me here. It’s served me great. And it will continue to.
I’m doing something.

So on the fabled 9/9 of 09, I was lucky enough to get to play through the entire story mode of Beatles: Rock Band with my friends, from start to finish. We strummed away on plastic guitars like nobody’s business. We sang and harmonized our hearts out. We made jokes during boring parts. We generally had a great time.

And it was in the middle of this great time, as I was laughing at Spaeth being utterly stupid and making satanic noises during the extremely repetitive ending to I Want You (She’s So Heavy), that I realized how precious this moment was, with all of my great friends in the room, having a good time.

I always hate when I get all depressed about this kind of thing, but dammit, these times can’t last forever. People are going to get jobs and move away. If I keep going the way I’m going, I’m going to have to move away to work on my Doctorate in 2 years. There is a strict time limit to being able to just jump in and have such fun with my friends.

I don’t know. I had that twinge of almost crying when I realized it would be times like this I would be thinking back on, and missing, in the future.
These are what my youth is, what good times I had during it, you know?

And then Spaeth and Essner started going back and forth on the mics, and I snapped out of it, and got back to fun. But I wanted to record it here.
At least a little.

So, who cares how good a job I do, right?

All that matters is that I’m dressed up, in proper, masculine fashion.

Who gives a shit if I’m engaging my students, or helping them learn to write better, or any number of actually important things. No, all that matters is that I am not allowed to be comfortable in my own skin. I can’t just be me, who is an intelligent, fun, and effective teacher. I have to be someone different, someone who is probably worse at a lot of things, but damn, they look good, don’t they?

That’s what’s important in life: Being a false person.

Ugh. Arg.

So, this is a blog post. A post on my blog. Blog post. Yep.

There is shit going down in my head right now. There are worries about. Worries about school, about finding a therapist and how I’m going to deal with that at home, about questionable purchases that may be arriving soon or not, about my body, about so many stupid things.

So many stupid things!
So many.

I mean, on one hand, I feel like I’m doing pretty okay. Things are going pretty sweet in my life. I am moderately successful. I am not having panic attacks.
And yet, I don’t know… my mumbling has come back, the mumbling where I constantly belittle myself and tell myself I’m stupid and whatnot. It hasn’t really been around for awhile, and I really don’t think it bodes well. I’ve got to be stressed.

And the semester hasn’t even started. Man.
How my thoughts change a lot in a day, huh?
Well, not really change… just the other side of things. The other one. Yeah.

I tell myself again and again that I’m okay. That things are fine. Almost going my way, even. I go out, I do what I need to do, I play games, I have fun, I make money. I’m good.

And then something, a little something, sets me off.

It’s a comic, this time, and it’s a very good comic and I will tell you about it outside of my depressive fit.

I’ve trained myself long and hard to put on a face of stability. I’m pretty good at it. I can lead. I lead a whole team of people every time I work and seem like I know what I’m doing, even if I’m just winging it. (Though that’s the key to leadership, as far as I’m concerned. Always seeming like you know the answer to those working with you, but approaching things knowing that you don’t.)
But, you know, it’s all a facade.

I know I’ve said all this a million times… and each time I say it, a week or so later, I’m like, eh, I’m back in control. I got this. I’m on it. But I’m not.

I’m pretty broken, you know?
Pretty much.