Ես ատում երազելով մասին, դուք այժմ, քանի որ, երբ ես արթնանում եք այնտեղ չէ.

We are family...

Do you know what it is to find one of the people you are closest to in the entire universe, cosmic sibling and best friend, after almost two years of conscious searching (and over 25 years of subconscious searching)?

Do you know what it is to have them feel the same?

Have you ever loved someone so intensely that you ended up sobbing because the emotion was too great to contain?

私は、あなたが最愛の人の男の子を愛してる。

私は永遠にあなたが大好きです。

If all the world were paper...

There's so much change going on in the world. HCR has passed in the US, which means maybe one step closer to no more children dying because their parents couldn't afford the treatment. No more people refused help because they have a jumped up 'previous condition', like the crime of being a woman. The 'best healthcare system in the world' shouldn't involve people being turned away from hospitals because they can't pay for life-saving surgery.

We have more and more states understanding the concept of equality for LGBTQQI people - slowly, and some states are going backwards (Virginia, anybody?), but one day it will have to happen. The battle for civil rights never ends, it merely takes on a different face.

But there's a part of me that wonders if a big part of this change is pop culture. The whole point of punk and hardcore bands is to undermine authority and the status quo in the loudest way possible - a great big 'fuck you' to the establishment. And don't get me wrong, sometimes you need someone to shout, but sometimes...sometimes a whisper is more effective. A popular TV show which somehow manages to make things normal which had been hidden before.

My (only living) Grandmother is 88. She grew up in a working class family in the south of Scotland. She's not academically educated (although she's smarter than most people I know). She married a farm worker towards the end of the Second World War.

My Grandmother talks about how racists are abhorrent. About how discrimination is a terrible thing. And as we were watching one of her soap operas - a British soap called 'Emmerdale' (formerly 'Emmerdale Farm') - she was explaining who the people were. "He's quite a busybody. He's taking care of that laddie. The laddie thinks he might be gay, but he's not sure. That woman has just come back into it - she locked the vicar's wife in a church and set it on fire."

Right in the middle of that, as if it was nothing: "The laddie thinks he might be gay, but he's not sure." Not said with any kind of tone, not spat out as if it was disgusting. Just a matter of fact statement. He thinks he might be gay, but he's not sure.

Soap operas have a history of dealing with controversial issues and, often, normalising them. On 'Coronation Street' there is a woman (her name escapes me; I don't watch soaps) who was, at one point, outed as being transgender. There are no disgusting 'sh*m*le' jokes, and any time I've seen it I've never heard the T word. The fact that she is transgender is not something that is made into the butt of the joke. She is simply a woman, who is in a relationship with a man, and who co-owns a café.

Part of the reason people take discriminatory standpoints is fear of the unknown, passed down from their parents and passed on from their friends. But a child seeing this (who hasn't been indoctrinated) may not even twig that there is anything that their parents might not consider to be normal, because it's just...not a big deal. It's just a fact.

And it's things like this, that pass by almost without comment, that leave me with a little bit of hope. The more visible we make things like this, the less of a problem they'll be for the younger generations. Or at least, that's what I'd like to think, anyway. Maybe I'm just being naive.

"Know what's written above the fountain you're drinking out of."

There's a reason I avoided getting involved in politics or charities for so many years. There's a reason why I keep my ditzy demeanor, even though it means that I am being consistently underestimated and undervalued. There's a reason why I force myself to be shallow, when everyone else is striving to be deep. This reason has recently been brought into sharp relief.

When River Tam was at that government school, in Firefly, they stripped her amygdalae. I feel like mine aren't quite stripped, but they aren't quite not, either. Once I start thinking about something this emotionally taxing I can't stop; I think and I think and I think and I write it out but I can't always get rid of it and it hounds me for days. Everything in my life suffers for it and I can't quite get anything done because my brain is so full of deep thoughts. Theories and details and patterns that if only I was studying I could write thesis upon thesis based on them. As it is they're simply things inside my head that make no sense, or rather too much sense.

The problem with having a high level of intelligence is that you can never quite escape your intellect. It sounds like bragging, but it isn't. It's a cry for sympathy, because too often I would rather be one of those people who doesn't think about anything but their next pair of shoes and the most recent issue of OK Magazine than someone who has so much insight about poverty or gender/sexuality politics or politics in general. I'm the ideas girl, which means I can't not have ideas, which means I can't not overthink things in great detail, which means I can't not connect the dots between a-and-b-and-c-and-d-and-e and finally ending up with something that would work but who would listen to me? I'm in no position to propose these things.

I'm in no position to change the world. All I can do is try.

If you lived here, you'd be home now.

Last night's escapades with insane people, hysterical women, loud banging noises at 1am and then 2 hours later, and eventual police intervention makes me almost tempted to look for new lodgings. I love my little flat, but I hate the building. The woods are full of fairies, but the suburbia is full of drug dealers.

It's times like this that I get heartsick; torn between two courses of action, neither of which will make me particularly happy. It's as though I'm always searching for the thing that will finally make me feel like I'm home, but until then everything feels like a temporary stopping point. I've lived here almost two years and still haven't hung most of my pictures on the wall; university flats had everything up within a week. Maybe it's because I'm living alone now. Maybe it's because there's something about this place that just doesn't feel quite right. Maybe I'm just ill-equipped to deal with real life and grown-up responsibilities. None of those options are particularly appealing, because they all, ultimately, mean some kind of change has to happen.

I think I know what I want; but then, this used to be what I wanted.

It's not a side effect of the drugs....

I try not to care what people think of me, but of course I do. Everybody cares, and people who say they don't are either lying or more comfortable with themselves than 99.99% of the population. Maybe even less.

I wonder what people think when they look at me; the assumptions they make about me. Right now, I wonder what they would think if they saw me sitting here: short-ish brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail with strands hanging over my face; glasses with thin, black, metal rims that have seen better days and are slightly bent from falling asleep in them too many times; two rubber music-band bracelets - one red and yellow, the other camoflage; a white gypsy top wth purple flowers; red sweatpants, less stylish and more comfy; big furry slippers; no make-up; round face; jewelleryless... All of these things make up my appearance, but none of them define me. People look at me, and they think: Girl. They think: straight. They think: somewhere between 20 and 30. They think: a little chubby, not terribly stylish, a little geeky. They think: big smile, big laugh, dramaqueen, happy.

It's amazing how wrong people can get it when they assume. And it frustrates me, because I feel as though I have to be constantly explaning who I am. If I had surgery to become a total androgyne; if I wore rainbows everywhere; if I walked around with a pensive look...maybe people would get it. If as soon as I met people I asked that they call me by non-gender-specific pronouns, if I showed them pictures of ex-girlfriends, if I could physically manifest internal tumultuousness, then maybe people would understand me better.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a sellout because I'm so much happier not to rock the boat, to let people assume that I fall under one of the heteronormative 'normal' categories unless it specifically comes up. I won't deny it, because for me, I shouldn't have to make a big deal out of it, because no-one should assume things in the first place. But that's not how the world works, is it? Sometimes I wonder if it's worth taking a stand, once and for all, just to clear the air. To stand up for who I actually am, as opposed to who they assume I should be.

Of course, I probably won't. But a person can dream.

You can't title love....

Every spring a craving is awakened in me. As soon as I see a Japanese cherry tree, my soul yearns for the blossom. I don't feel complete until I have some in my hands, in my hair, through a buttonhole. It started when I moved to Edinburgh for university 7 years ago - Edinburgh has squares within the city which are lined with cherry trees - and the first time I saw one a part of me was filled with longing.

Once upon a time, millennia ago, there was a young Japanese woman who fell in love with a man who wasn't her husband, and he fell in love with her too. One night they arranged to meet. The man brought the woman some blossom off one of the cherry trees, and they spent one beautiful, forbidden night together. At the first light of dawn the next day, the young woman dressed, picked up the blossom the man had given her, and stole back to her room before she could be missed. She never saw him again, but for the rest of that spring, and every spring following, she wore cherry blossom in her hair to remind herself of what it was to truly love. Her love for him lasted even after death, because some loves are eternal, and once forged can never be broken.

Aishiteru.

"So you're, like, half gay?"

It's so easy to forget that people will always assume that you're straight, so you have to actively 'come out' everywhere you go.

The world is clearly filled with fail, and needs to catch up kthnx.

"Everything turns into awkward turtle."

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to survive without caffeine. If maybe the agonies I had to spend during the four years without it was a blip, and maybe it won't really be like that. But then I spend more than a day without it and my brain gets wired, feels like my thoughts are on an express train that just won't stop. And then I drink enough caffeine (four shots of espresso topped off with hot water, cans of Red Bull, half a box of chocolate covered coffee beans, cup of coffee) and suddenly I'm Zen. It's like bullet time; my thoughts slow down so I don't feel like my brain is always racing to catch up, doubling back to understand what's going on in my head. It feels so good when everything quietens down, I can sit still, and the world feels peaceful.

Rachel can't be right about why, surely. It makes sense, but it's yet another label that I can do without.

You can almost see the wizard through the curtain....

I have so many names sometimes I don't know what to do with myself. Jinks (Jinx), Vj, Cj (Kittynip) - and J, Jay and other permutations of my actual name.

I don't mean to sound as though I don't like it. I do. There is something freeing about having so many names, from so many people. Some of the names I've given myself, but people choose to use them. Some, people have simply given me. Some names are only used by one or two people, and I like that, too.

Identity is a strange thing. Some people change their names legally, for various reasons, but sometimes because the name they were given at birth is not a name they identify with. I understand that - for many years I didn't identify with my name. Well, maybe not as strong as that. I didn't like it, and I hated my surname. I like it now, although I like some of my 'other' names better. Jin(x)ks and J/Jay are two of my favourites, but only a few people call me the former, and only one person uses the latter.

I think how we identify gender-wise has a lot to do with how we identify with our names. I identify more happily with my non-gender-specific, but still slightly feminine, names. I do like my own name, though. God is gracious.

Counting time....

Did you know that Sanskrit-based languages have ninety six words for love? English, in some ways, is a woefully inadequate language.

In other news:
Plots and plans (and helping hands) can see me through the day.

Second star to the right

I'm about as good as Peter Pan at giving directions. Taking directions isn't my strong point either, making me feel like I'm stuck in a loop of Sinatra, sometimes. You're taught to be independent, but sometimes it backfires.

Whenever someone in a movie falls in love, there's always music. Makes you think that when it happens to you, when you finally realise that you've fallen in love with someone, that's what will happen. You'll hear music; an orchestra, a string quartet, a shoegazer band. In reality, there's no music - mostly it's silence, broken only by the pounding of your heart, the rush of blood in your ears, and your brain screaming wait, what? NO! Maybe some people do get music. The righteous. The innocent. Soul mates. LustLove-at-first-sight. Hormones bouncing around your brain like kids with ADHD, yelling look at me! Pay attention to me! until you have no choice but to listen. So empathetic with everyone else that I manage to miss what's in front of my nose until it's too late.

Epiphanies at the coffee machine are strange, making you feel even more exposed, like everyone knows what you're thinking. Life's too short for any kinds of regrets, so from here on that's it. I won't waste a second, because it's all too precious. I refuse to have any regrets about my life, because what's the point in holding back when maybe you won't even have tomorrow? I don't think I'll stop wearing odd socks, though.

Sometimes - more often than not - people will surprise you. Books judged by cover always turn out to have a twist.

The swingin' sixties were not what they seemed, not everyone was lost in a technicolor dream

My friend at work showed me this yesterday. I think the 'third date rule' has changed a little bit in the last 46 years.



It's always strange to see first hand how different social norms are from generation to generation. When my great-grandmother was alive, she didn't like my first tattoo (she never lived to see the others) because, for her, tattoos were only found on sailors, criminals or 'women of loose morals'. She was shocked that my parents were quite happy with me having it.

Part of me thinks that it seems like a simpler time; the rest of me understands that I would not have lasted a week as a teenager back then.

By guess and God and hope and hopelessness.

It's funny how families work; how the person you were least close to growing up ends up being, in a perverse, messed up way, the person you're closest to. It's amazing what adulthood and distance does to relationships.

Almost regretting invitations given in haste, but the things we do to make others happy should never cause regrets, even though they often do.

My pulse still feels sluggish, as if it's pumping stale alcohol to the surface of my skin to be sweated out. This would not surprise me. Every time, I'm left wishing that I was in possession of a modicom of impulse control. Aching, exhausted, and feeling like hell, but the memories are good, and you only live this lifetime once.

I wish the air was cooler. I feel as though I'm baking in my own skin, expecting to be extra crispy any day now. Part of me can't wait for winter, even though I love the summer. Yesterday felt like July; clear blue skies, brightbrightbrightness, butterflies chasing each other (in honest idiocy of flight). There was a sweetness to the day, memories of being young and lying in a hammock slung between trees as my dog ran around crazily, before coming to lie in the shade, panting at the heat. I miss her.

I wish I could cool myself down just by pressing a button on my arm. That would be awesome.

"We'll see," said my Grandpa. "We will see. We will see."

There's something about being awake after you should have been asleep. Sometimes I miss the insomnia, because it freed me to do what I wanted without needing to waste time asleep. Catch up at the weekend, no harm no foul.

Too many things that I want to get done, but it never feels like I have any time to do it in. Technically I do have time, but it would mean sacrificing time spent doing things which are higher up my list of priorities. Even if other people can't understand why. (That's really not my problem.)

...swinging, tangled in a cat's cradle, entangled dreams and hopes and fears catching fingers and toes as you move. 

For all the world's a stage, and some of us spend most of our lives performing to invisible crowds.


(I've never figured out if 'very commercial singing voice' was a compliment or an insult.)