Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Gender Issues

Why am I like this? Part two

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Alternate title: Playing life on hard mode.

Yesterday, I wrote about how I unerringly pick the hardest choice when it comes to identity. And I tied it in with my dislike for hard games. Then I gushed a bit about Shadow of the Erdtree to make my point as to why I play From games (but, sadly, I probably won’t be able to play them for much longer).

Shadow of the Erdtree epitomizes what I love and hate about gaming. Or rather, the whole soulslike genre. I have tried so many soulslike games, and I have liked exactly one of them. That was Salt and Sanctuary (Ska Studios). And the reason I liked it was because it was almost exactly like a From game except in 2D. In fact the 2D aspect was my least-favorite part of the game beacuse it made rolling difficult. But they preserved the ability to beat the game with just magicks alone, which was why I enjoyed it so much.

Fast-forward to Life of Pi (Round8 Studio, now known as Nough, and NEOWIZ). Hahhahahah I just realized I called it Life of Pi. Lies of P, not Life of Pi. People not being me have declared it the best soulslike not done by From. Some have even said it could have been done by From themselves. I strongly disagree with that, by the way. The level design in severely lacking, and I don’t consider it good combat that only relies on one thing (fucking parrying. Goddamn it. I hope this trend goes awaya soon). It’s boring as fuck, and no, that’s not just my bitterness talking. Yes, that’s part of it, but it’s not the whole reason

Even within the FromSoft games, the ones I like better are the ones that allow you to play in a variety of ways. I have said time and time again that Sekiro is my least favorite of the From games, and it’s in a large part because you have to play the game the way the devs want you to play. Or rather, it’s no fun if you can’t/don’t.

People like to say this line, “When you click with the combat, it’s makes the game easy.” When I said the combat never clicked for me, I could see their brains screeching to a halt. I was talking to my nibling’s spouse about it, and they were talking about how a certain boss was a hard skill check. “That’s when the combat clicks–or you quit.” I told them that it never clicked for me, and I beat that particular boss the way I beat all the bosses–by whittling away at the health.” They said in all seriousness that they didn’t know you could beat the boss like that. I said, “You can, but it’s not fun.”

Which is true. I beat the game, but the second I beat the final boss and the very brief elation faded, all I felt was relief. I never, ever had to fight that boss again–and it was the best feeling in the world.

I watched a video from a guy who loved the From games, but who was very clear about there being a line between hard bosses that were fun and fair, and being difficult just for the sake of being difficult. He mentioned the last boss of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, who was a nightmare when the game first came out. It was not a fun fight at all, and I don’t know why I persisted*. But it was an awful boss. I was shocked at how bad it was. It felt like pure fan service, and not good fan service at that.

Now, to be fair, one of my biggest issues with the boss pre-nerf was that I could not actually see the boss with the light show going on in the second phase of the fight. See, every action was accompanied by a holy attack that had light trails errrrrrywhere (and I do mean everywhere). And there’s a specific attack that is nearly impossible to avoid if you don’t start sprinting in the opposite direction the second you see it’s going to happen. Even then, you can still get tag–and if you get hit by it fully, it can one-shot you.

I. Hate. Being. One. Shot. By. A. Boss.

It feels cheap and really discourages me from trying again. It idd not help that I got the boss down to about a tenth of their health bar on my second try–and then did not come closs again for hours. That’s how it goes, I know, with big From bosses, but it just cemented my hatred for the boss.

This boss was so bad, many people respecced just to beat this boss. Think about it. You’ve played the entire DLC with one build, and then you have to change it to a very specific build in order to beat the final boss of the DLC. I did not respec, but that’s becauuse I actually had (sort of) one of the builds best suited to beating this boss.

Here’s the connection. Kind of.

In real life, I often feel as if I’m playing on hard mode. I don’t choose it on purpose, but I don’t really have a choice. It’s not as if I said, “Hey, I want to make my life as hard as possible so I’m going to eschew not only binary genders, but nonbinary genders as well. I’m going to choose nightmare mode and go with agender.”

If I wanted to play on easy mode within the traits that were given to me from birth, I would be a cishet woman who got married and had two children. Working a nice job that didn’t take too much of my energy because I had to devote that to my man and my children. Pilates three times a week, maybe a little ladylike curling of 1-pound dumbbells (I use 15-pounders when I do my Taiji weight-bearing sets. Or 20-pounders for the easier of the movements.)

That would have been easier–along with being a Christian. Which I was born as. Let me clarify. It would have been easier in the sense of blending in with society and not making waves. And maybe I would have felt less like a freak/alien. Well, if I actually wanted those things, I mean. Because I don’t, it would have made me feel even lonelier if I tried to do all that just to fit in. When my mother went on a fifteen year campaign to get me pregnant, the only time I wavered was when she  wore me down to the point that I considered doing it just to shut her the fuck up. Which is not a good reason to have a child, honestly.

Fortunately, I came to my senses and did not give into my terrible impulse. It just goes to show, though, how much my mother bugged me to have children.

More tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

*I know why. I’m a glutton for punishment. And I’m stubborn AF. And I would feel like a failure if I didn’t beat the boss.

 

Wish I may, wish I might

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Alternate title: Playing life on hard mode.

I don’t like hard games. I know that sounds facetious because I play From games, but I play them despite the difficulty not because of it. I put up with the hard bosses because the level design is beyond compare.

I can’t get over how amazing the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC’s level design was. Elden Ring, the base game, was terrific as expected. It won game of the year and totally deserved it. Two years later, the DLC came out. I went through one of the most traumatic events of my life on the day it was announced (well, it started that day and the next day was actually the worst day of my life, but I was ready for it (mostly) when it came out four months later.

I gladly allowed my self to get lost in the moody, atmospheric DLC. I did what I always do, which is avoid the main story for as long as I possibly could.

Hey, wait. This post isn’t about that, so let’s move on. I have written about Shadow of the Erdtree endlessly, and I wasn’t going to do it again in this post. I just wanted to mention it because it’s simply amazing in the breadth and depth. The main game took me 240+ hours to complete whereas the DLC took me 70+ hours. I explored the hell out of everything in both the base game and the DLC.

I was just about to write more about it, but the point is that I don’t play the games for the difficulty. In fact, in the DLC, the last boss was just…ughhhhhh. They have nerfed the boss (or rather, the shitshow that surrounds the boss), but it’s still just an unpleasant fight.

In real life, I wish I did not unerringly pick the hardest hill to climb every time. I swear to god that I don’t do it on purpose, no matter what my mother thinks. (She doesn’t like that I’m so anti-tradition and so…weird and wrong (in her eyes).) It’s just what I feel in my heart of hearts.

In this case, it’s gender. I was reading a forum about changing your pronouns at work, and so many people were for it. Meaning they were for having them in  the sig box of their emails and introducing themselves with their pronouns. These were cis people, by the way. Most trans/nonbinary people were not as sanguine about it for a few reasons.

One, for people who aren’t out yet, being made to state their pronouns could be very fraught. Or the people who haven’t decided on their pronouns yet. Or, like me, someone who is agender and does not use gendered pronouns.

More than one person said how I felt–they did not mind so much other people calling them by a pronoun, but they did not want to actually call themselves by their at birth gender pronoun. I have given up mostly on correcting people because I really don’t have the energy. Plus, I get how weird it is not to use gendered pronouns, so I can’t really fault people for getting confused. I mean, I don’t always remember for myself, either.


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Groups, labels, and feeling at home, part two

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One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot throughout my life is how much my sense of being an outsider is me and how much is them. Them meaning society. In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how there’s a channel in the Discord to which I belong that is really good for discussing various topics. It got threateneed to be age-verified when Discord switched to that (not getting into the inane politics behind it, but just, ugh), and some people who never visited the channel thought that was just fine.

Here’s the thing. It’s the one channel I felt comfortable talking about queer things, nonmonogamy, and an array of other things that did not fit into the other channels. In fact, the channel was created (before my time) when there wasa a college student (19 or 20, I think) asking questions about sexual slang. I gather this was in one of the general channels, and some people were uncomfortable with it.

Then, one of the owners of the Discord created the channel for After Dark topics and said, “Don’t make me regret this.”

We got that lifted when the threat of intrusive age-verification became a reality, for which I am profoundly grateful. In this channel, we have talked about music, dating, lightly touched on politics, and, yes, sex. We’ve talked about nonmonogamy/polyamory (and what the difference is), whether men and women can truly be friends (and introducing nonbinary/agender people into the question), and have encouraged people to go on dates.

The last few days the channel has been super-busy. No idea why, but the messages have been flying. We’ve pondered what ‘milkshake’ means in the classic R&B song of the same name by Kelis. Boobs? Butt? Blowjobs? Je ne sais quois? I’ve always thought it was the first, but I’ve heard people say it’s the second. Never heard the third or fourth until today. Other people said it’s what she has within–pretty much the same as the fourth.

How did we get on this topic? Because it’s been stuck in my head for several days, and I shared that in the channel. I think it was tangentially related to something that was going on in the channel–though I’m not absolutely sure. My brain works in werd ways (which is the whole point of the last ten or so posts), so who knows what connection it made?

Side note: when I was  younger, I would write or talk in ways that just assumed others could see the connections I was maknig in my brain. They were so clear to me, I couldn’t understand why they weren’t as clear to other people.

We also talked about dating woes people have had and muffins. Those are not related topics, byway. Oh, and it was muffins and cupcakes. We were discussing the difference between them because someone shared a meme about them. It had something to do with what the actual difference was–was it just the frosting? And then we migrated to talking about did that mean muffins were tops and cupcakes were bottoms? Because muffin tops were a thing.


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Sex and dating, dating and sex, part eight

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I’ve decided that I want to do ten posts about this topic, so three to go. Why? Because. This is one way my neurodivergent brain works, by the way. It insists on making patterns when there aren’t any. I know that’s normal to some extent with everyone, but my brain does it to a bothersome degree. I know it’s going to happen at some point, but I’m powerless to stop it. It’s easier to go with it and let it wear itself out–or not. Some of my obsessions continue whereas others are left in the dust.

One thing I’m working on is being not ashamed about the weird way my brain works. Look. I know I’m a freak. I’ve known it since I was a kid, even if I could not articulate it. It’s interesting. There is someone in the Discord I’m in who is clearly neurodivergent and not at all interested in masking. Yes, it’s a ‘he’, which is significant. He has upset/offended several people in the Discord, including me because of the way he’s phrased things.

He likes to state his opinion as if it’s fact, and many of them are inflammatory. I’m not against it, but I also think that you should have some care as to the feelings of other people. It’s hard for me to say because I’m too much to the other side. As an AFAB, I was taught to always care about other people’s feelings first. That’s not good, either, but I do think there needs to be a balance.

It’s frustrating because this person, let’s call him Jack, makes me want to defend him on some occasions, not because I necessarily agree with his viewpoint, but because I don’t like groupthink. All groups have it, and this is not the worst at it, by far, but there is a slight stifling that goes on that I do not approve of.

There are times when I eye a conversation and decide not to wade into it. Sometimes, it’s because I’m not up for an argument, and sometimes, it’s because I know that my opinion is so out there, it’s not going to be welcomed. Therefore, I’m self-censoring, which is not ideal. It’s what I do much of the time, though.

I do envy Jack for not giving a shit about how he says things, but I also think he needs to think a bit. He tries to defend himself by saying it’s how he and his friends talk. Well, we’re not his friends. Also, that’s a bad excuse for being a jackhole. Even if it’s not deliberate, it’s still off-putting.

I don’t know where I draw the line between being yourself and being a jerk, but he goes well past that line. Also, again, it’s dudes who are allowed to be their authentic selves while women and AFAB people are more penalized for not fitting in.

In Jack’s case, it’s also because he’s mostly online and on the younger side. And he hangs out with people just like him (I’m guessing the predominance of them are guys, too). It’s easy to think if everyone around you thinks the way you do, everyone in general does as well.

People have been very impatient and brusque with him. Neurotypicals, I mean. Or more specificially, people who are not autistic (since autism and ADHD are different things). I can often see what Jack is trying to say, but do I want to defend him? Sometimes. Othertimes, he makes me angry, too. Especially when he talks as if he’s the authority on America (he’s not from this country and doesn’t live in it).


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Dating, sex, and tech, part seven

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Apparently, I have more to say about dating, sex, and tech. Techs in the city? Text in the city? Oh, wait. It’s Sex AND the City. Whatever. I never watched the showl/movie?/whatever, anyway. This is my post from yesterday in which I talk about what I thought was going to happen in my life versus what I really wanted to happen in my life.

Today, I had my Taiji Zoom class. It’s in the basement of a church that is like a concrete bunker. My teacher uses a headset so we online can hear her. Without fail, at some point, the connection goes out. We may be able to see her, but we can’t hear her. Or vice-versa. This is usually when she switches from using her headset to not using it, which she does after ne do meditation. She takes off the headset during meditation, which makes sense. For whatever reason, when plugging the headset back in, it totally disconnects her from the internet.

Sometimes, it’s because she accidentally hits a button on her headset. Other times, who knows? Tech is going to tech.

I will say on my end, I had a few months of frustration with my audio when attending the Zoom classes. It was after a Zoom update, of course. I fucking hate updates because for every positive update, there’s two to three unintended negative consequences. Also, I really don’t need updates every month. Maybe keep it to once a quarter.

Of course I want my computer to run as smoothly as possible, but I hate it when the negatives outweighs the positives. And it’s often the case of , “How the fuck do I return this to the way it was? Fuck if I know!”

By the way, I’m playing a game called, Birdigo, by John August and Corey Martin. They say it’s inspired by Wordle and Balatro; it’s simple and addictive. However, it would not accept the word ‘fuck’, which made me lift an eyebrow. Really? ‘Fuck’ isn’t in the dictionary? I was very disappointed by that.

Anyway, back to my computer issues. Suddenly, after a Zoom update, my audio did not work in Zoom. It worked just fine the week before. I fiddled with my settings, and they said that they could hear me, but I was extremely quiet.

The next week, I realized that I was somehow had two Zooms open. One was the app and one was the in-browser Normally, I used the in-browser, but it didn’t automatically come up like it used to. Now, it was the app that came up, but I didn’t use the app. Therefore, there was no audio through the app. The audio would only come through the browser.

This took two sessions to figure out. I checked it after class, and it was correct. I had no idea why the app was opening since I did not use the app and did not want to use the app. I only used the browser, but Zoom didn’t like that. It wanted me to use the app, probably so it could get my details.


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Sexy times in my future? (Part three)

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Sex. Dating. I have more thoughts on this, but before I get there, I want to touch a bit more on technology and when it doesn’t work. Facebook rolled out the encryption in chat thing, and because I cleared my cache, it now won’t recognize me in one specific chat–the only one I use on a regular basis. (With my bestie, K.) I did what I could to try to access the almost year’s worth of messages I can’t get, including ones from this week, but in the end, I gave up.

I followed all the tutorials telling me how to get it. I finally was able to use the code to get into the chat, and a portion of the messages were still missing. That’s when I realized that it wsas Meta being Meta (ughhhhhhhh), so I mentally  shrugged and moved on. I was still irritated, mind, but what could I do about it?

Back to dating. Here’s my post from yesterday in which I talk about dating–and technology.

I am flummoxed when it comes to dating because gender is such an anathema to me. Being queer, many of the hetero norms just don’t matter to me. I mean, they probably wouldn’t even if I were straight, but they’re truly meaningless. When you have two people (or more) of the same gender (or different varying genders), the old rules for hets don’t make any sense. In fact, when you look at the norms through queer lenses, so many of them fall by the wayside.

As a girl/woman, I heard the following: “Don’t ask a boy out. Let him do the asking.” “Let the guy pay.” “Don’t ever beat a guy in–” well, anything, really. So many of the rules for women were to make yourself as small as possible and not take up any noticeable room. Cater to the guy’s needs/desires/sensibilities, and don’t you dare have any needs of your own.

Don’t be high maintenance. Don’t be needy. Don’t eat anything too _________ fill in the blank with anything but salad. Oh, and don’t offer to pay. Apparently, that’s emasculating.

It all boiled down to, “Be a living, breathing doll who has no opinions of her own.”

Even if I could do all that (and I couldn’t), why the fuck would I want to? I read The Rules when it came out because I wanted a laugh. Instead, I was horrified by how antiquated the advice was (and it was a runaway best seller), and the last sentence sent a chill down my spine. It was something like, “And the rules don’t end once you get married because you have to put in the work to keep the man who’s biggest benefit is that he’s breathing.” That’s paraphrased, yes, but it was that sentiment.

I remember thinking, “Oh, great. I never get a breather?”

By the way, when the next edition or the sequel came out, there was a note stating that one of the authors got a divorce. That made me laugh uproariously as I admired her chutpah.


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Last day of May–and more about labels, part eight

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Let’s talk more about labels and sexism. Oh, that wasn’t what we were talking about? Oh well. It’s what I want to talk about now. In the Discord I’m in, there was a discussion about boycotts and calling out actors for problematic ideas/behavior. This isn’t the first time this convo has happened, and I heave a sigh every time it comes up.

Here’s why. I don’t think cancel culture is a thing, first of all. If it were, then there would be waaaaaaaaay less abusers in pop culture. I mean, look at Harvey Weinstein. And Rupert Murdoch. And Matt Lauer. And, and, and….I could go  on for hours listing men who were known abusers and weren’t stopped. Hell, they were enabled, encouraged, and coddled. Let’s not forget the most famous of them all, Jeffrey Epstein. No, he wasn’t strictly Hollywood, but I can guarantee that there were many men in Hollywood who were visitors of Epstein’s island back when it was in operation.

Here’s the argument: No one is perfect and for everyone who is targeted for bad behavior/thoughts, there are hundreds of others like him. In this case, it was Henry Cavill and what he said during the MeToo movement. Some people want him in the Elden Ring movie. Other people pointed out his gross ideas, and, apparently, he’s a jerk to people he considers under him at work.

I have not liked him since his MeToo comments, but I don’t mention it because, quite frankly, I’m just tired. Plus, I’ve never really liked him nor do I find him attractive. He’s another I can see why others found him attractive, but he just did nothing for me. Once he stated his repugnant ideas during MeToo, he became waaaaaay less  attractive, even visually.

More to the point, he sounded as if he was in his eighties as he droned on and on about the days when men were men and women were fish to be caught. Women knew their place, damn it! They were to be chased and wooed. He actually said that, and I had to look at the year again and how old he was.

Besides the grossness of what he said, I was struck by how gender rigid his ideas were. Again, I thought they were fading away, but sadly, there seem to be many people who still believe that bullshit. Which is yet another reason I have no use for gender. I didn’t see why I should have to sit home at demurely tending to my knitting while I waited in vain for that special boy to muster up his courage and ask me out.

Why the hell shouldn’t I ask someone out? Also, being queer really underscores how silly all that is because with two people of the same gender, someone has to make the first move. But, that’s why people ask who the man and women are in the relationship. Because they can’t fathom anything other than the standard (and tired) heterosexual gender roles.

A few years ago, I was in a forum where a single woman asked if single women could be friends with married men. Most people (mostly women) said it was alright as long as–and then they listed a bunch of rules. Like only going out with both of them, not talknig about the man’s relationship with him, and other things like tthat. Most of them were assuming that they became friends after the man got married, by the way. I don’t think that matters, but that’s what they assumed.

This was last year or the year before at the earliest, so we’re talking about recent. We’re not talking about when I was in my twenties, thirties, or even forties. This was the mentality when I was in my twenties, and I had hoped it would get better by now. Sigh.

There were a few who said it didn’t matter the gender and there should be no different rules. This is where I stand. I have two besties, one man and one woman (the latter is more like me in that gender isn’t that important to her). I don’t treat them any differently based on their genders. I talk about the same kind of things. The differences are because of the interest they have, not because of their genders.

I’ve talked about both of their romantic relationships with them. I’ve talked about sex with both of them. I think both are very attractive people. I consider them both to be cloner than friends, but not romantic partners. And I don’t think I need to set any restrictions with one or the other based on their gender.

I distinctly remember one woman going on a rant about how men and women could not be friends and how nonbinary people didn’t count because something something terribly queerphobic. She said that in her marriage, her husband didn’t have any female friends because SHE WAS THE QUEEN AND WHAT WOULD HE NEED ANY OTHER WOMAN FOR?! She actually capped something in her screed, and it was really cringeworthy.

I mean, how terribly sad and insecure she must be to cut her husband off from more than half the population. There were fa few other women in that forum who’ve said that they don’t personally have male friends becaause they found it too much trouble (as married women). I don’t get it, but that’s not offensive. because of course, they can do wahtever they want with their own lives.

It’s jsut the dismissive attitude that no men and women can be friends that chaps my hide. Plus, how terribly narrow-minded of that person to think that just because SHE can’t be friends with any single man, it means that no one can.

One of my (male) exes once said that every male friend I had wanted to sleep with me. It was certainly true of him, but it’s not true in general. I have had several male friends who have not wanted to sleep with me and a few female friends who would have been happy to warm my bed.

Back to the antiquated idea that men and women can’t be friends. It’s bullshit.

Heh. I think that’s all I really need to say about that, but I do have a few more tihngs to say. I have always had friends of all different genders. I like people based on their personalty first and foremost. I don’t really care about their bits unless I’m going to be handling said bits and I only care then so I know how they want me to handle their bits. I like all bits! I’m an equal opportunity bit-handler.

I don’t know why it scares/angers some people so much–the idea that people of all and any genders can be friends. Well, actually, I do. It’s the same reason some women got so mad at me when I was in my twenties for not having/not wanting to have children. It’s beacuse it shakes up the status quo and makes them questions their own decisions.

Well that went in a wild direction. More tomorrow.

 

Labels and dating, part seven

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I’m back! And this time I am definitely going to talk about dating and labels. For sure. I am not going to veer off onto another topic and talk about that for over a thousand words. That is not like me at all, and I won’t deviate from the path at all in this post, either.

In the last post, I actually touched on dating, which was what I’ve wanted to talk about for the past few posts. If I were in my ideal world, this is the ad I would write. “I”m looking for a fuck buddy or three. Hit me up if you’re interested.”

That’s the basic gist of what I want, but, of course, we don’t live in an ideal world so I have to qualify that statement to get closer to what I really want. First of all, no Republicans. That is still my unberakable will not tolerate. Even more so now than when I dated thirty years ago, just no. Anyone who is a Republican in this day and age is on the wrong side of history. There is no moderation in today’s Republican Party. They are trying to destroy me and my kin; why the hell would I want to be a part of that?

Back when Marriage Equality was being debated, some Republicans were clutching their pearls and bleating about how uncivilized the queers were being in what they (we) said. “Why can’t we be civil about this?” They would say in earnest.

Because, motherfuckers, there’s nothing civil about trying to classify me as not a human being deserving of basic human rights. Our words may be uncivil, but your beliefs are worse. Besides, it’s not as if they would listen to us if we just used nicer words. Believe me, I’ve being fighting this fight for thirty years along with several other concerning civil rights. We are in danger of losing many of the rights we have gained over the last few decades, which breaks my heart.

And it’s made me draw a hard line in the sand. If you’re part of the current Republican Party, then you’re actively against me as a human being with equal rights to you. I do not have to date that if I don’t want to, and I most definitely do not want to.

By the way, the ‘both sides are bad’ people irritate the fuck out of me, too. No, both sides are not equally bad. I’m not saying either side is particularly great, but there is one side that is actively trying to strip me of my civil rights. There is one party that was behind the occupation of Minneapolis and the  terror it wrought on my home state.

This is something I touched on previous posts. When it comes to dating, people are allowed to be as discriminatory as possible. In fact, it always makes me chuckle  darkly when people tell me I have to give someone a chance. Interestingly, men usually say it with the belief that women and perceived women don’t have the right to turn down anyone who shows interest in them. The woman should be flattered! Especially when she’s not conventionally attractive.

The women who used to tell me I should give any guy a shot were coming at it from a different point of view–that any man was better than none. But they also believed that any man who had the courage to ask me out deserved a chance. “You never know!”


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Labels, labels, labels everywhere (part three)

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I want to talk more about gender identity, sexual orientation, and dating. And labels. Maybe. It’s been at the forefront of my mind for several reasons. I mentioned in the last post a few times when it was helpful to have labels (mostly with health issues), and I am not going to muse whether or not it’s helpful in dating.

I will say I don’t like the labels I’ve chosen for my sexual and gender identities. They are both the least worst of the bad, and I’m not satisfied with either. Bisexual and agender, by the way. I’ve had the former label for over thirty years, and it has never sat right with me. I like queer the best, but it now is synonymous with gay. I’m not happy about it, but it’s not a fight I’m up for fighting.

Same with genderqueer. I really like it as a descriptor for not being on the binary in the fullest sense of the term. But now it means nonbinary in the same way queer means gay.

Sigh.

I’m irritated with myself for always making life so difficult. This is part of being neurodivergent, too, though. I’ve read that people who are neurodivergent often feel the need to be really explicit and on point with their words. I can attest that this is me, and it’s annoying as fuck. Even to me when it’s me doing it.

I overexplain things and belabor the point until the other person is ready to scream. I can see the shift on their face (or hear it in their message), and yet, it takes a Herculean effort for me to shut the fuck up. The person I’m talking to doesn’t need a twenty-page backstory to every idea I want to present. When I found out this was a thing with autistic people, I felt validated.

Another thing is that everything is related in my brain. I can’t tell a story without bringing in what others would consider extraneous information and tidbits. When I talked to my autistic friend about it, she was in enthusiastic agreement that her brain worked that way, too. It’s one reason we can have comfortable conversations (in messages). We can pepper in as many non sequiturs as we want without worrying. And if one of us goes really far down a weird road, the other will bring the first person back again.

Or not. Sometimes, I join her on the side path to nowhere (and vice-versa), which can lead to some wild journeys. And once in a great while, I don’t know where she’s going. I can usually figure it out, but if I can’t, I just ask questions until I get the gist of what she was trying to say.

Knowing that this is a thing for neurodivergent people is such a relief to me. It doesn’t mean that I just let myself ramble all I want whenever I want, but it does mean that I can be a bit kinder to myself when I can’t seem to stop utter nonsense from coming out of my mouth.


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More about whatever’s on my mind

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Am I continuing my weather reporting? I sure as hell am. Here is my post from yesterday in which I just meandered over the whole place. Why? Because I can, but also because it’s been so fascinating to me. We got down to 44F last night, which is cold for this time of the year–but not cold enough for me. And right now? It’s 66F–which seems about right for *checks calendar* Mid-May.

I would love one more frost warning before the season is over. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I am calling it again; winter is finally over. On May 11th. With five to six months to go to the next winter. As I’ve said, I’m loving it because I like the cold. I get so grumpy when the heat starts rising and the bugs start coming out to play. I feel like I’m at best half-alive in the summer. The spring is not my favorite, either. Fall makes me happy because it’s so pretty and because it tells me that winter is coming, but it pales in comparison to winter.

Winter is and will forever be queen. Even though I’m getting a bit more sensitive to cold because of perimenopause (which is now, I think, just plain menopause), I still much prefer it to being hot.

Side note: It’s so weird. Perimenopause/menopause, I mean. I’ve always been lucky that I only got my period two to four times a year for three days at a time. One light day, one heavy day (which is probably light/medium for other people), and the third day being light or almost nonexistent). I rarely got cramps, and if I did, they didn’t last very long. My biggest issue with getting my period was that I could never predict when it would come. That meant I had to carry products with me most of the time. Not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, of course, but just slightly irritating.

I did worry about the fact that I got my period so few times a year, but my doctor told me as long as it was twice a year, it was fine. Which was (barely) what I got. Once my doctor clarified that it was fine, I stopped worrying about it and was just glad that it had such a minimal impact on my life.

I will say that the only time that wasn’t true (my period schedule) was when I was having sex on the regular. Then, my period came every thirty-five to forty days, and it was pretty obvious why. From a biological perspective, of course my body wanted to be ready to procreate whenever I had sex. Therefore, my previous ‘schedule’ of getting my period once every three to six months would simply not do. was I pleased about it? Yes and no. I did not want to have my period more often (as I absolutely did not want to get pregnant), but I did appreciate knowing approximately when it was going to occur.


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