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.

"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.

"That's no moon!"

It's horrible to see people's work stepped on. You're always your own worst critic, and it's never great when something doesn't turn out the way you wanted it to. But to have people you trust simply take it and break it and make it how THEY want, without permission? That's a major betrayal.

It always makes me sad when this happens to people. It's happened recently. I don't know the person, but I read their blog, and I like their work, and they worked so hard on this particular thing. It makes me so mad that people would do that - would take something that was someone else's and change it, without permission, for money.


"What world is this? What kingdom? What shores of what worlds?"

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.

When your brain explodes in fireworks, there's only one thing to do.

I love my family and my friends. They're the most important things in the world to me.

But really? It's ALL about the music.

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.

Love makes you do the wacky.

What is wrong with all of these people who make reality TV shows? And what is wrong with the people who watch them? There is something seriously the matter with our society.

I look at my inbox and I feel as though the world has righted on its axis again, after so long out of kilter. Everything is as it should be again, except for my own feelings, which are not now nor ever will be right, or good, or anything but wrongwrongwrong. If only we could police our feelings, make them as they should be.

November 4th is so close now, I feel like the world has started holding its breath. We're not all US citizens, but anyone who cares about the world cares about the outcome of this election. It doesn't quite keep me awake at night, but it's close. But if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, I doubt I'll just stay in my own country; Canada is looking mighty sweet right now. Prince Edward Island was pretty, and Nova Scotia was awesome too, so it's not like it would be a hardship. 

I have to keep reminding myself that I'm doing pretty well for someone of my age, and the fact that I haven't done the things I wanted to do by this time isn't necessarily the worst thing ever. It's just that not everyone has their dreams come true. Which for some people isn't a problem, but for someone who never stops dreaming, it's somewhat heartbreaking.

"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.)