drag shows and long days

I'm not gonna lie, I kind of hate going to drag shows with people.

like

I know that many people often are able to question their gender in a safe way at drag shows for the first time

and that many performers feel happy or exhilarated or whatever while doing the shows

and that many people are able to at least see or understand another idea of how to live

but to me it feels like a circus, with the audience laughing and shouting and throwing peanuts at the performers, who dance the same tired inoffensive gay anthems over and over while pretending that it's ok to be a joke

and someone in the audience sees someone they know down below and say something like "that's gross" or even just "that'll take a while to get out of my head"

and the rest of us

cowards because we aren't performing, aren't putting ourselves out on stage for the audience to shout at

sit there quiet and bowed under the weight of knowledge that this is how life is, that you will always have to explain, that you will always have to be tolerated, and that you will continue to put on a constant show to demonstrate how harmless you are

I don't like thinking about this this way. I have friends who are straight, friends who are cis
but this doesn't mean that I understand them, and it doesn't mean that I have to accept all of them as allies and friends out of pity

I just kind of hate knowing that I will always feel like this

that nothing will stop me from feeling strange and unsettled when I am gendered, when strangers explain to me that my birthname is beautiful and so they will continue to use it, that I will always have to explain myself and have to weigh the professionalism of using a name that doesn't fill me with self hatred


I'm just tired tonight.

Update

I graduated college

This week I'm packing

I turn 23 in a day or so and I have no one to celebrate it with

This is my own fault

I forget to tell people things and I don't ask for help enough


growing up is realizing that not every year has a birthday party with streamers and cake


fuck it

I'm just going to go pitch a tent in the woods and get horrifically drunk

It'll be fabulous.

Food

I have money issues almost perpetually.  Largely it's because one part-time job should not be relied upon to pay rent, cell phone bill, academic expenses, and still be able to get food.

((I feel like this contributes, in a large way, to people thinking that I am unreliable, or that I am kind of a flake.))

One of my old roommates offered to help me budget better, but I know where all of my money is going. It's just that the amount of money I have just barely covers that things I need to survive.

(I've tried working multiple jobs.  One semester, I had 21 credits and 2 jobs. I also had one shaky, panicked breakdown in the shower, a truly spectacular depressive episode, and an entire semester's worth of anxiety over scheduling. I am a perfectionist, and this means that I put things off until I can do them perfectly.)

Food is a necessary thing that I need to think about more

During one month in that semester, I spent 25 dollars on groceries.  I survived off of ramen and frozen dinners.  It's tough, but doable.

I also never want to do it again.

I have issues with food. My sensory issues with food don't affect me enough to make me stop eating, but I have difficulty remembering to eat.

Sometimes I am just genuinely not hungry.  I have learned a lot about things like "mindful eating", and a lot of that seems to involve paying attention to your body and interpreting that into what is healthy.  Whole wheat bread makes me feel better. So does salad.  And sometimes I am really not hungry.  If I don't have a lot of food, and I'm not hungry, why should I eat?

((waste not want not))

My parents came from the Baby Boomer Generation. Their parents came from the Depression age generation.  Being fat meant that you had enough food in the house, that you weren't starving. Meals were scheduled at breakfast, lunch, dinner, at specific times. My grandmother was a big lady. Big heart, big body, and, we thought, big bones.  When my grandmother died of congestive heart failure, my family found out that she had a petite bone structure.

((i don't want to die))

My life seems crazy and out of control a lot. I need specific numbers on recipes. I need specific dates. I need specific guidelines.  I need my lists and my calendars.  When I was in second grade, I didn't have enough information to supply sufficient nutrition. Now I am in college and I have information and people still tell me I don't know what I know.

((knowledge will give you control))

Sometimes I trace the lines of my bones under skin. Sometimes I trace the edges of scars over it. Sometimes I trace the thin sharp lines of tendons. Sometimes I trace the curve of muscle over bone.  I used to do it with metal, and now I do it with ink and fingertips. I feel that I am made up entirely of lines, and that the places in between the lines are nothing but smoke and air. My lines weigh me down. My lines keep me from blowing away.

((definition is existence))

Today I was able to go shopping for free in an old manager's basement. She "adopts" college students and lets them go grocery shopping in her stock of bought-in-bulk food. When I got there, she had already filled up a bag, and had me fill up another bag and a box with fruit and nuts and soup and instant dinners.  I was worried I didn't say thank you enough. I have a full shelf of food now.

((it's funny how having enough food makes you feel loved, how asking for help doesn't make you feel useless, how eating food when you don't have to worry about the rest of it can fill in the spaces between the lines))

and they let me be their friend

Okay well apparently I can’t focus until I write this

I keep getting the feeling that people are just tolerating me, that one day I will say something wrong or do something wrong and then pam I’m out of their life

This is frustrating

Things that I do wrong:

I get angry at things and people a lot even though I’m getting better at pretending I’m not. Sometimes I have a bad day and I can feel everything tipping and anger balances it out again.  I think I heard that people react to anxiety in different ways and one of those ways is anger, and that’s how I react. 

(sometimes I feel very similar to a lot of the portrayals of bucky in fanfiction, because everything is loud and unpredictable and everyone expects you to know what the rules are, and you know some of them but if you get them wrong then everyone thinks you’re an idiot, and anger can reset that.)

I tell jokes that are rude and offensive, but sometimes the rude and offensive jokes that make me feel bad make the people who don’t like my rude and offensive jokes laugh.

I think I worry too much and too vocally about getting left behind or left out of things, and that makes people not want to include me in things

I went in to get tested for adhd and apparently I don’t have it, I just have a “creative personality” that means that I find it difficult to justify doing things that I don’t want to do. My big thing is novelty. If I have novelty and control, then I have motivation. If I do not, then I am fucked.

So I know I am broken but not in a way that I can fix.

I am bored almost all the time and I know some of this is depression and some of it is anger and some of it is both but the only times I can break through that is with violence – either in paper or skin

Sometimes the things other people do make me angry and then I feel bad for being angry, but I am still angry.  I don’t like it when other people breathe too loud, or break my schedule, or aren’t interested in something that I think they will be interested in.

I can tell when people think I am being an idiot about something, and that makes me angry, which makes them nervous, which makes me angry again.

I don’t like it when other people remember something that I can’t remember because I have a bad memory and if I don’t remember something how can I apologize for it? I used to have friends who would remember things I said that I didn’t remember saying, and I still don’t know if I actually said them or if they just said I did to gain advantage over me

I don’t trust people, I think, is the biggest issue, but I don’t see any way for me to trust people when people are generally untrustworthy.  I can usually trust people to do what I expect them to do, but if someone tells me they will or will not do something, I have to make plans in case they don’t.  What does “trust” mean? How do you do it?

I had a very good day today until I was suddenly having a slightly less good day. I want to leave. I want to move away from here. I feel like I make people uncomfortable here because I am wrong. It makes sense in the story in my head for me to be the anti-hero, and so I don’t know how I portray myself to everyone else.  I am an awkward adult growing out of a broken child and I wish I had the manual.

Things I do right:

Lying

Being manipulative

These are the two things, I think, that you need to be good at in order to hold a conversation and have friends.  “No, I don’t mind.” “It’s ok if you say no.” are pretty good examples of this.  I don’t see much difference between “bad” manipulation and “good” manipulation, because manipulation is getting other people to do what you want. I also don’t see much difference between “bad” lying and “good” lying, because lying means you aren’t telling the truth, and I don’t think anyone wants to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth except maybe our most idealized version of the justice system.

I am good enough at lying that I do it to myself all the time and sometimes I don’t notice. When I was twelve, I said to myself I know you lie to other people and that’s ok I guess but stop lying to yourself so I did that for a while, and then I started telling the truth on the outside and realized how much I still lied on the inside.

Facial expressions unless I am sad and angry, and I guess I do those right because I am communicating very well that I am sad and/or angry.

Finding connections between people or things. Sometimes if someone is looking for help with something, I am able to find them help with that thing. It makes me feel good.  I like buying people things. It makes me feel good not to be selfish.

Being selfish is like white bread, I think. When you eat it, it reminds you of your childhood, and it is so tasty that you could eat a lot, but when you do, it sits in your stomach and you regret it. Sometimes it is better to pretend you are eating white bread while instead you have wheat bread or a salad, because you feel better about yourself.

I do sometimes think the people around me would be better off without me, but I think that is a white bread thought. It’s okay to think white bread thoughts but still eat salad.  The truth is that there are a few people who were worse off before I was here, and there are a few people who were better off before I was here, and there are a lot of people for who it wouldn’t have mattered either way.

The way I am writing is the way I think when I am sad or off balance or angry sometimes. I didn’t intend to write this way, but it helps me to tell the truth better than if I wrote long flowing sentences.

Once I sat down at a table and the other people at the table said so what’s wrong with you

And I was confused

And they said oh basically all of her friends are screwed up somehow, so what’s wrong with you

And I said I get depressed and then I get depressed for being depressed and then it turns into a big spiral of badness

And even though I sounded like an overdramatic 18 year old (which I was), they said oh, ok and they let me be their friend

Updating

I'm brushing this off again

I'm graduating in less than a month and I have so much stuff to do
But there's less stuff every time