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instead of rambling on twitter, i should post coherently through here.
i find that i'm really good at asking nicely, especially through text or if given a little while to parse my thoughts out in the most gentle and friendly way. i hope that this sort of inviting demeanor doesn't change when i become more masculine. because while it does cause people to hit on me because i'm very accomodating and warm by nature [despite the untrue accusations of being "cold" always flung at me by parentals], it also gets me in where other people would be rejected because i'm [at my best, anyway,] able to very calmly and understandingly get my point across and avoid the other person feeling invalidated in any way. making other people feel good about themselves is a strong anchor for me. and also helps you get what you want. esp if you really believe the things you tell them haha. you don't HAVE to believe them, but i much prefer to tell people good truths about themselves rather than nice lies.
i mention this because a blog that i follow on tumblr [they might be a mutual? i forget, i pay so little attention to notes these days] has some interesting abstract sort of kintypes, like space-kin and god-kin and i was really curious about what that feels like. because i can't QUITE relate to either one to be honest. and i wanted to know, so i sent an ask. and i very gently, while maintaining that i was curious only and not critical [understandably, people are quite touchy about weirdos on tumblr asking them about their kintypes, since there's endless trolling around this subject] and actually i got a response later saying they'd love to answer when they get home! and i felt like the positive response was because i have this talent for phrasing a question in a very gentle, warm and positive manner. and i should put this talent for words into use. i am very good at asking delicate questions without offending people. i'm looking forward to their in-depth response when they get home later, i always love their mixes on 8tracks that they share about their experiences with such things. even if i can't relate i really enjoy it.
although maybe i can relate more than i admit readily. the idea of being a [rising, slowly self-acknowledging, coming into one's own power] deity in one's own headspace. is not unfamiliar to me.
it's really nice to be able to recognize things that you are good at and just flatly state them, objectively. be able to put forward what your skills and talents are and just know in your heart that they're true. and that you're not fluffing yourself up, making more of yourself than you really are, or any such thing. and not lying to yourself in an effort to "fake it til you make it". none of that. just straight up: i'm good at this. this is what i'm good at. i'm good at delicately asking personal questions or gently breaking bad news when i have to.
and it's really nice to be able to reject people's opinions of you as straight up false. untrue. wrong. i used to think that all people's opinions about ME and how i live my life were equally valid and worthy of consideration. but guess what, past self, that is completely false. it feels really good to just throw them carelessly away and no longer regard them as even possibly true. that old belief that maybe it's TRUE that i'm cold, selfish, cruel, arrogant, hateful, mean, unwilling to listen and stupid, maybe all of those things are TRUE because people that i highly respect expressed these opinions about me. since i respect them that means their opinions mean something, right? and that means i should take them into consideration. well, dear past self, you are wrong. and anyone who tells you such things about yourself needs to be kept at arm's length at best and is not your friend. i'm not saying don't ever listen to criticism but you KNOW what kind of person you are. you KNOW that you are a gentle and warm and loving person. you perform this function 100% of the time, you never fail to be caring and thoughtful and kind. sometimes TOO caring, TOO thoughtful and TOO kind for your own good. and if people report to you that they experience the opposite, review those reports with high suspicion. they are very likely lies told to you for any number of cruel reasons. remember the people who told you these things; review over the years who they all were and what things they had in common. their relationships with you. bad teachers, bad bosses, bad family members, all of them disease ridden unhealthy connections that are best cut off.
and not only that, but look at the care with which you take others' opinions into consideration, even TERRIBLE cruel "opinions" about what kind of person you are for god's sake. even taking crap like that seriously, that stuff proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a very empathetic and considerate human being who listens to others and takes their opinions seriously always. like, to a fault sometimes! nevermind all those awful lies told to you about how you never listen to anyone's advice, hardheaded, stubborn blah blah blah. all bullshit. you know the truth, you know that you are an observant and caring person who listens sometimes TOO much to the thoughts of others. you are a kind, thoughtful and sensitive person, and these are not empty flattery but absolute truth, about younger me as well as current me.
you are so kind and caring and empathetic about others' feelings that you worry yourself to death about how other people see you or think about you or how you come off to them. you used to stay up all night making yourself sick with weeping over the fact that no matter how hard you listened and tried to follow your parents' advice, no matter how hard you SHOWED them that you listened you were invariably told anyway that you were stubborn and deaf to any advice given to you. that used to give you migraines from stress. all these things are absolute proof that you are a good and sweet and big-hearted person and none of these things are empty words to try to guide you into behaving how you "should", these are flat facts.
this is how you learn to love yourself.
daily life:
bb and i went out for lunch together because he doesn't have much more free time before renaissance festival season starts. lunch at the Diamond is always so good, and we always eat too much hahah but it's worth it. i had a whole pile of fried pickles that were delicious and perfect. and okra that was also perfect. [omg it's okra season 8D] and they gave me my fish sandwich on this hoagie-type roll instead of the usual, and it turned out to be almost better and held together better than the regular sandwich. and the waitress was super nice and i love the big dude from the kitchen who came out to hand me our fried pickles that i always see around there.
and then bb decided to play songs on the jukebox, some old nostalgic Motown-y music that he always remembered from childhood trips to the beach, and only wanted two songs out of three plays that he paid for, so he let me request one. and i found September by Earth, Wind and Fire and that's how i ended up playing EWF to the entire restaurant inside and out and experiencing the pure joy that is September. and thinking what a positive influence my old band teacher Mr Wallace was to my appreciation of mid 20th-century "black" music genres and their HUGE cultural importance and contribution to what pop music and all music became and is becoming. just this three minutes of pure joy. i love September and I love EWF and I love the music that black american culture produced throughout the twentieth century and i love that i went from growing up in a very racist household to being exposed to the pure joy that is blues, jazz, R&B and various pop genres because of having a black teacher with these interests. and the kind of music he exposed me to via media and choosing such music for the band to play. not only did i gain an appreciation for music as an art form and all kinds of classical music, but the way i grew to adore and respect black music through the decades and the vital role that it has played in the evolution of music as a whole just... man! lemme tell you. someday i wanna tell this to him personally. tell him how he helped one random little eleven year old white kid expand their horizons musically and culturally so far beyond the sheltered way they were raised. [edit: after finishing this entry i did exactly that through facebook hahaha. cuz i'm feelin emotional about it right now. love for ya.]
then we hopped around two antique stores. the first one had a creepy old-people smell and the store owner made me mildly uncomfortable [and did that thing that antique store owners do often to young people in their shop, and watch them like a hawk in case they steal or break anything. i've actually been refused entry to an antique store before by its owner because i 'wasn't eighteen' and even when i proved to her that in fact i was, she still wouldn't let me in cuz i was SCARY LOOKING, but anyway:] and the music playing was very 1940s and creeped me out a lot, in the way that that crooning simpering-female-vocals-plus-strings music from that period often does for some unplaceable reason. but the second shop was very nice and had lots of cool things, including many awesome instant cameras. [one of them had half a pack of Super Old Expired Film from Kodak[???] still in it, that of course was dead and would not shoot. i opened it up and removed the film, and the store owner caught my eye and told me that that was the film. and i laughed because of course i wouldn't know what a pack of instant film looks like, except that i happened to be intimately familiar!]
the only thing that made this shop much less awesome was as we left, the store owner... kinda drilled us about why we didn't buy anything and made a comment that all day today he had seen "nothing but deadbeats" in his store?? which was... i almost thought i misheard him, wow that was some bad customer service haha. i was slightly miffed by that. and i definitely won't forget it, what a poor last impression you made on us. people window shop for many reasons you know, and if you hadn't said that to A Customer's Face, then maybe we would have come back and bought some of the cool books [and beautiful accordion and concertina!!!] for very fair prices that you had! and now i doubt we will. at least not if you're behind the counter, grizzled old white dude who watched football on a tiny old tv!
[addendum: this store has two and a half stars on yelp and several reviews complaining about the store owner's "jokes" or attitude some days. oh my. apparently this is just how he runs the joint. that's unfortunate]
side note: i should definitely try to get my car fixed up and running reliably again by next week if possible, or as fast as i can. after next week, he won't have any days off, truly, for two months. working five days a week and then all weekend at the renaissance festival, for the next two months. including the last weekend of september. so he's only got one more weekend before that season begins. it's gonna be a whole lot of fun but his lifestyle will change somewhat, and thus so will mine. i'm going to have to definitely be more independent when it comes to getting out of the house and having fun or doing work or anything. and consider that alright.
i'm feeling very calm and centered today. i did have some "brain swerves" at times - when you just start feeling your brain reel towards irrational fear and stressful thoughts for no reason, then usually clearing away after a few minutes - but they passed quickly enough. i'm slouching and not keeping good posture and feeling kinda restless and uncomfortable again, but instead of agitating my depression like it often does, there's just this pervading feeling that i'll float through all of my problems and arrive at the other side intact. which i gotta say is really nice. i want to be able to hold onto this peaceful feeling. and not even give thought to the idea that i can't.
feel like i'm doing so much growing, so much learning. and decided that yeah, i basically took september off from life. from fiscal responsibility. after this month ends is when i'll start job hunting again. start putting that part of my life back up and running. start working out what to say about why i quit my job. and because of my talent for carefully phrasing words together [!!], i think i can make this work. with a little help from people like my stepsister and mentor in all things job related. she's so damn good at getting jobs that i'll always envy her. she's one of those extroverted introverts like my girlfriend, where people EXHAUST her but if you didn't know better, you couldn't tell cuz she's so loudly social.
also, the other day, i don't know if i wrote about it but my friend Stef came up to the house and i did a commission piece for her, she modeled nude [plus some knee high rainbow stripey socks haha] and i sketched her. and it was a lot of fun, she paid me money plus a cheap dinner. and i took her to save point and she loved it, as does everyone that i take there lol. also i showed them where i was accidentally double-charged for a small item last time, and no questions asked i got enough store credit to buy a SNES game for a dollar. i love that damn store.
and i also gave her my Big Swinger 3000, my first polaroid camera that's super old and in great shape but film basically doesn't exist for it these days. she said she'll take shots with it but who knows if that'll really happen. regardless i've been wanting it off my hands for a while now that i have a camera that actually takes film and works lol, and i think she'll take care of it. [ironic because during our trips to the antique store today i found many old Polaroids [and a Kodak Handle omg, look those things up they were some controversy] from the Big Swinger era!]
i found out today upon arriving home that when she left my apartment she... hung out and smoked a blunt with my neighbors. and showed them my sketch of her, and now the wife really wants to model for me too haha. i don't... really care to get involved with them, they are nice to me but they have a lot of drama and i refuse to get mixed up in it. but thank god she assures me that she's not interested in getting close to them. cuz that's just not... a twist of fate that i want in my life haha. they are probably good people but i want to enjoy the good in them from a distance because the bad is... pretty bad.
i really like reading the blogs of people that i'm totally unconnected with. i discovered that the Finsters bird blog of old that i used to read in like high school has vanished from the face of the internet after not being updated since 2011, and even with my googling skills [another talent! it rarely fails me, i know just what inputs to make to get what i want very quickly. i tell people i know how to tickle google] i couldn't find a hint of the owner or her birds anywhere. i have no idea what happened to them, but i wish them well. but in my google quest to find the birds and their owner[s], i found this total other blog written in a somewhat different style, but i wound up reading the chronicles of the blogger's divorce. and her upbeat tone even when she is having a hard time is really nice and inspirational for me. and maybe reading it has helped with this lofty mood i'm in right now.
other thoughts about: my parents, about the idea of blaming things on them and what level is 'acceptable' or justified, about "taking responsibility" for one's own actions. and the idea that... recognizing the effect of your upbringing on your adult life is almost criminalized by this culture and the message is often that you need to "grow up and accept that whatever you do is your own fault". which is really kinda toxic! the truth is that we are part nature and part nurture and that you choose every action that you take, but your motivations are shaped by your experiences. you are in control of all this. you are the center of your world and your own power. but the past is very real and it made you into who you are today for better or worse. the question is how much do you invite it into your life. how much do you acknowledge it. how much do you bring up, deal with, and process and move on.
wow this was such a long and introspective entry!! it's full of good thoughts. i've been typing for over an hour and i keep going back and adding more, and my fingers are actually tired, which never happens. i approve. let me have more days like this.
i find that i'm really good at asking nicely, especially through text or if given a little while to parse my thoughts out in the most gentle and friendly way. i hope that this sort of inviting demeanor doesn't change when i become more masculine. because while it does cause people to hit on me because i'm very accomodating and warm by nature [despite the untrue accusations of being "cold" always flung at me by parentals], it also gets me in where other people would be rejected because i'm [at my best, anyway,] able to very calmly and understandingly get my point across and avoid the other person feeling invalidated in any way. making other people feel good about themselves is a strong anchor for me. and also helps you get what you want. esp if you really believe the things you tell them haha. you don't HAVE to believe them, but i much prefer to tell people good truths about themselves rather than nice lies.
i mention this because a blog that i follow on tumblr [they might be a mutual? i forget, i pay so little attention to notes these days] has some interesting abstract sort of kintypes, like space-kin and god-kin and i was really curious about what that feels like. because i can't QUITE relate to either one to be honest. and i wanted to know, so i sent an ask. and i very gently, while maintaining that i was curious only and not critical [understandably, people are quite touchy about weirdos on tumblr asking them about their kintypes, since there's endless trolling around this subject] and actually i got a response later saying they'd love to answer when they get home! and i felt like the positive response was because i have this talent for phrasing a question in a very gentle, warm and positive manner. and i should put this talent for words into use. i am very good at asking delicate questions without offending people. i'm looking forward to their in-depth response when they get home later, i always love their mixes on 8tracks that they share about their experiences with such things. even if i can't relate i really enjoy it.
although maybe i can relate more than i admit readily. the idea of being a [rising, slowly self-acknowledging, coming into one's own power] deity in one's own headspace. is not unfamiliar to me.
it's really nice to be able to recognize things that you are good at and just flatly state them, objectively. be able to put forward what your skills and talents are and just know in your heart that they're true. and that you're not fluffing yourself up, making more of yourself than you really are, or any such thing. and not lying to yourself in an effort to "fake it til you make it". none of that. just straight up: i'm good at this. this is what i'm good at. i'm good at delicately asking personal questions or gently breaking bad news when i have to.
and it's really nice to be able to reject people's opinions of you as straight up false. untrue. wrong. i used to think that all people's opinions about ME and how i live my life were equally valid and worthy of consideration. but guess what, past self, that is completely false. it feels really good to just throw them carelessly away and no longer regard them as even possibly true. that old belief that maybe it's TRUE that i'm cold, selfish, cruel, arrogant, hateful, mean, unwilling to listen and stupid, maybe all of those things are TRUE because people that i highly respect expressed these opinions about me. since i respect them that means their opinions mean something, right? and that means i should take them into consideration. well, dear past self, you are wrong. and anyone who tells you such things about yourself needs to be kept at arm's length at best and is not your friend. i'm not saying don't ever listen to criticism but you KNOW what kind of person you are. you KNOW that you are a gentle and warm and loving person. you perform this function 100% of the time, you never fail to be caring and thoughtful and kind. sometimes TOO caring, TOO thoughtful and TOO kind for your own good. and if people report to you that they experience the opposite, review those reports with high suspicion. they are very likely lies told to you for any number of cruel reasons. remember the people who told you these things; review over the years who they all were and what things they had in common. their relationships with you. bad teachers, bad bosses, bad family members, all of them disease ridden unhealthy connections that are best cut off.
and not only that, but look at the care with which you take others' opinions into consideration, even TERRIBLE cruel "opinions" about what kind of person you are for god's sake. even taking crap like that seriously, that stuff proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a very empathetic and considerate human being who listens to others and takes their opinions seriously always. like, to a fault sometimes! nevermind all those awful lies told to you about how you never listen to anyone's advice, hardheaded, stubborn blah blah blah. all bullshit. you know the truth, you know that you are an observant and caring person who listens sometimes TOO much to the thoughts of others. you are a kind, thoughtful and sensitive person, and these are not empty flattery but absolute truth, about younger me as well as current me.
you are so kind and caring and empathetic about others' feelings that you worry yourself to death about how other people see you or think about you or how you come off to them. you used to stay up all night making yourself sick with weeping over the fact that no matter how hard you listened and tried to follow your parents' advice, no matter how hard you SHOWED them that you listened you were invariably told anyway that you were stubborn and deaf to any advice given to you. that used to give you migraines from stress. all these things are absolute proof that you are a good and sweet and big-hearted person and none of these things are empty words to try to guide you into behaving how you "should", these are flat facts.
this is how you learn to love yourself.
daily life:
bb and i went out for lunch together because he doesn't have much more free time before renaissance festival season starts. lunch at the Diamond is always so good, and we always eat too much hahah but it's worth it. i had a whole pile of fried pickles that were delicious and perfect. and okra that was also perfect. [omg it's okra season 8D] and they gave me my fish sandwich on this hoagie-type roll instead of the usual, and it turned out to be almost better and held together better than the regular sandwich. and the waitress was super nice and i love the big dude from the kitchen who came out to hand me our fried pickles that i always see around there.
and then bb decided to play songs on the jukebox, some old nostalgic Motown-y music that he always remembered from childhood trips to the beach, and only wanted two songs out of three plays that he paid for, so he let me request one. and i found September by Earth, Wind and Fire and that's how i ended up playing EWF to the entire restaurant inside and out and experiencing the pure joy that is September. and thinking what a positive influence my old band teacher Mr Wallace was to my appreciation of mid 20th-century "black" music genres and their HUGE cultural importance and contribution to what pop music and all music became and is becoming. just this three minutes of pure joy. i love September and I love EWF and I love the music that black american culture produced throughout the twentieth century and i love that i went from growing up in a very racist household to being exposed to the pure joy that is blues, jazz, R&B and various pop genres because of having a black teacher with these interests. and the kind of music he exposed me to via media and choosing such music for the band to play. not only did i gain an appreciation for music as an art form and all kinds of classical music, but the way i grew to adore and respect black music through the decades and the vital role that it has played in the evolution of music as a whole just... man! lemme tell you. someday i wanna tell this to him personally. tell him how he helped one random little eleven year old white kid expand their horizons musically and culturally so far beyond the sheltered way they were raised. [edit: after finishing this entry i did exactly that through facebook hahaha. cuz i'm feelin emotional about it right now. love for ya.]
then we hopped around two antique stores. the first one had a creepy old-people smell and the store owner made me mildly uncomfortable [and did that thing that antique store owners do often to young people in their shop, and watch them like a hawk in case they steal or break anything. i've actually been refused entry to an antique store before by its owner because i 'wasn't eighteen' and even when i proved to her that in fact i was, she still wouldn't let me in cuz i was SCARY LOOKING, but anyway:] and the music playing was very 1940s and creeped me out a lot, in the way that that crooning simpering-female-vocals-plus-strings music from that period often does for some unplaceable reason. but the second shop was very nice and had lots of cool things, including many awesome instant cameras. [one of them had half a pack of Super Old Expired Film from Kodak[???] still in it, that of course was dead and would not shoot. i opened it up and removed the film, and the store owner caught my eye and told me that that was the film. and i laughed because of course i wouldn't know what a pack of instant film looks like, except that i happened to be intimately familiar!]
the only thing that made this shop much less awesome was as we left, the store owner... kinda drilled us about why we didn't buy anything and made a comment that all day today he had seen "nothing but deadbeats" in his store?? which was... i almost thought i misheard him, wow that was some bad customer service haha. i was slightly miffed by that. and i definitely won't forget it, what a poor last impression you made on us. people window shop for many reasons you know, and if you hadn't said that to A Customer's Face, then maybe we would have come back and bought some of the cool books [and beautiful accordion and concertina!!!] for very fair prices that you had! and now i doubt we will. at least not if you're behind the counter, grizzled old white dude who watched football on a tiny old tv!
[addendum: this store has two and a half stars on yelp and several reviews complaining about the store owner's "jokes" or attitude some days. oh my. apparently this is just how he runs the joint. that's unfortunate]
side note: i should definitely try to get my car fixed up and running reliably again by next week if possible, or as fast as i can. after next week, he won't have any days off, truly, for two months. working five days a week and then all weekend at the renaissance festival, for the next two months. including the last weekend of september. so he's only got one more weekend before that season begins. it's gonna be a whole lot of fun but his lifestyle will change somewhat, and thus so will mine. i'm going to have to definitely be more independent when it comes to getting out of the house and having fun or doing work or anything. and consider that alright.
i'm feeling very calm and centered today. i did have some "brain swerves" at times - when you just start feeling your brain reel towards irrational fear and stressful thoughts for no reason, then usually clearing away after a few minutes - but they passed quickly enough. i'm slouching and not keeping good posture and feeling kinda restless and uncomfortable again, but instead of agitating my depression like it often does, there's just this pervading feeling that i'll float through all of my problems and arrive at the other side intact. which i gotta say is really nice. i want to be able to hold onto this peaceful feeling. and not even give thought to the idea that i can't.
feel like i'm doing so much growing, so much learning. and decided that yeah, i basically took september off from life. from fiscal responsibility. after this month ends is when i'll start job hunting again. start putting that part of my life back up and running. start working out what to say about why i quit my job. and because of my talent for carefully phrasing words together [!!], i think i can make this work. with a little help from people like my stepsister and mentor in all things job related. she's so damn good at getting jobs that i'll always envy her. she's one of those extroverted introverts like my girlfriend, where people EXHAUST her but if you didn't know better, you couldn't tell cuz she's so loudly social.
also, the other day, i don't know if i wrote about it but my friend Stef came up to the house and i did a commission piece for her, she modeled nude [plus some knee high rainbow stripey socks haha] and i sketched her. and it was a lot of fun, she paid me money plus a cheap dinner. and i took her to save point and she loved it, as does everyone that i take there lol. also i showed them where i was accidentally double-charged for a small item last time, and no questions asked i got enough store credit to buy a SNES game for a dollar. i love that damn store.
and i also gave her my Big Swinger 3000, my first polaroid camera that's super old and in great shape but film basically doesn't exist for it these days. she said she'll take shots with it but who knows if that'll really happen. regardless i've been wanting it off my hands for a while now that i have a camera that actually takes film and works lol, and i think she'll take care of it. [ironic because during our trips to the antique store today i found many old Polaroids [and a Kodak Handle omg, look those things up they were some controversy] from the Big Swinger era!]
i found out today upon arriving home that when she left my apartment she... hung out and smoked a blunt with my neighbors. and showed them my sketch of her, and now the wife really wants to model for me too haha. i don't... really care to get involved with them, they are nice to me but they have a lot of drama and i refuse to get mixed up in it. but thank god she assures me that she's not interested in getting close to them. cuz that's just not... a twist of fate that i want in my life haha. they are probably good people but i want to enjoy the good in them from a distance because the bad is... pretty bad.
i really like reading the blogs of people that i'm totally unconnected with. i discovered that the Finsters bird blog of old that i used to read in like high school has vanished from the face of the internet after not being updated since 2011, and even with my googling skills [another talent! it rarely fails me, i know just what inputs to make to get what i want very quickly. i tell people i know how to tickle google] i couldn't find a hint of the owner or her birds anywhere. i have no idea what happened to them, but i wish them well. but in my google quest to find the birds and their owner[s], i found this total other blog written in a somewhat different style, but i wound up reading the chronicles of the blogger's divorce. and her upbeat tone even when she is having a hard time is really nice and inspirational for me. and maybe reading it has helped with this lofty mood i'm in right now.
other thoughts about: my parents, about the idea of blaming things on them and what level is 'acceptable' or justified, about "taking responsibility" for one's own actions. and the idea that... recognizing the effect of your upbringing on your adult life is almost criminalized by this culture and the message is often that you need to "grow up and accept that whatever you do is your own fault". which is really kinda toxic! the truth is that we are part nature and part nurture and that you choose every action that you take, but your motivations are shaped by your experiences. you are in control of all this. you are the center of your world and your own power. but the past is very real and it made you into who you are today for better or worse. the question is how much do you invite it into your life. how much do you acknowledge it. how much do you bring up, deal with, and process and move on.
wow this was such a long and introspective entry!! it's full of good thoughts. i've been typing for over an hour and i keep going back and adding more, and my fingers are actually tired, which never happens. i approve. let me have more days like this.
