Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: anarchy

I ain’t got time for that, part three

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I’m back to talk more about gatekeeping, traditions, and whatever else happens to be on my mind. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how once your eyes are open to something, it’s really hard to close them again.

I sometimes wondered if there was a way I could have been normal. I think about my life, and, nah. It just wasn’t in the cards for me. As young as age seven, I knew there was somtething different about me. At the time, I thought it was that my brain was broken. I felt like I never got the manual for how to be a human being. Not even a normal human being, but a human being at all. I was talking about it with A, saying I felt like an alien. She was the one who encouraged me to take an online autism test because she heard a lot from me that resonated with her (she’s autistic).

I once mentioned to K when we were in our early thirties that sometimes, I wished I could have been normal. She sighed deeply and said, “You would not have wanted that life.” She was right, but it didn’t stop me from wishing for it now and again. Not often and not for long, but when I was deep in my depression and things looked bleak.

Yeah, life would have been easier if I could have been normal. I stand by that. If I had wanted to have the married life and kids. To care about fashion and, hell, I don’t know. Cooking? Now I’m just being catty. But I could not be any less feminine if I tried. And, believe me, I have. Well, ok, if you want to go by physical attributes, I could cut my hair off and do something with my boobs. The former is reasonable; the latter is not (because I like my boobs).

K is right, though, in that I would not have wanted that life. I would have hated that life. In our conversation last night, we were talking about having kids. She has one who is now working their first post-college job. Wow. How time really flies. I mentioned how I had said to one of my Taiji classmates that I would have been a bad mother. He immediately countered me and said he thought I would have been a great mom.

K said that in our society, it was so taboo to say you’d be a bad mother (specifically. Men get a free pass on this one. Maybe not as much these days, but certainly thirty years ago, there wasn’t nearly as much pressure on men to be fathers), it was pretty messed up to not listen when someone said they would be one (a bad mother). It brought tears to my eyes, though I did not tell her that.

She has the ability to make me feel seen in a way that no one else does. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m too much for her to handle, but she’s very good with strong personalities. And, it’s not like she’s the shy and retiring type herself.

You know how you meet someone you can talk to at any time and it seems like you had just talked minutes before? That’s our relationship. It doesn’t matter if it’s a day or a year. She is in my heart, and I know I ‘m in hers. We tell each other things we would not share with others, and she is the sister I’ve always wished I had.

I had no chance, really. There was nothing ‘right’ about me, and I gave up trying sometime in my late twenties. I mean, I had given up before then, but that’s when I became conscious that I really couldn’t be normal, no matter how much I try. It should have been freeing. Instead, it sunk me deeper in the depths of depression, self-loathing, and despair.

Fast-forward to me in my fifties. Not only do I know I’m not normal, I no longer have any desire to be. I know I can’t be, not even as I mask to the best of my abilities. See, I can say the platitudes necessary to pass as a normie for short periods of time. I can mask very well. I seem very empathetic, and I can get someone’s life story in five minutes, whether I want it or not.

In fact, K and I were commiserating about not liking to take Lyfts or Ubers because we get the life stories of the drivers. When she mentioned it, I couldn’t believe my ears because I thought I was the only one. We also bitched about how so many drivers burn incense as they drive. I’m allergic to every scent under the sun, and she said that she was allergic to many smells as well.

As I said, she just gets me. It’s something I really tappreciate about her, and I am so grateful to have her in my life. We met each other serendipitously (at work), and it was only because she was very persistent that we stayed friends when I left the nonprofit we worked at.

About a year into our friendship, she asked me if I wanted to be friends. I never called her, and she said she didn’t mind doing the calling–she just wanted to make sure she wasn’t bothering me. I hastily told her I was so grateful that she called me, and I was glad we were besties. I just didn’t want to intrude because at that time in my life, I felt that I was an imposition on everyone. That’s the power of being constantly put down as a child and told that I was worthless. Not told explicitly, but implied all over the place.

Once we got that settled, our friendship blossomed. We’ve been by each other’s side for over thirty years, which amazes and delights me. She really is my soulmate, and there’s a reason I call our relationship a queertonic one. She’s fine with it, and she loves the idea of the two of us heckling others in a old folks’ home when we’re in our eighties.

 

 

 

Counter the culture

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I think often about culture because I’m so often outside it. I am in a culture that is a guess culture (Midwestern) and one that is even more a guess culture (Taiwanese). When my parents were here, my father would ask me I wanted to eat whatever they were eatting–like special delicacies such as mooncakes. Which I love, but cannot eat. I would explain this to him, but he did not seem to grasp it. He would sit there with a stony look on his face, then say, “You don’t want it?”

It was rude for me not to eat it in Taiwanese culture, but I can’t eat it. I can’t eat gluten or dairy. I was reading a thread on Ask A Manager about food and someone said that if they were offered something they couldn’t eat (because of allergies), they would eat it to be polite and just suffer later.

The askers in the crowd just could not understand it. In this weekend’s thread (or maybe the weekday open thread or even an old thread), someone said that they were glad when people said no and meant it. That kicked off this whole thread about ask vs. guess culture. And it reminds me of an incident in my Taiji class. One of my classmates was a pastor’s wife from, I want to say Alabama. She was talking about a church social she planned that everyone was enthused about, but only one person showed up. She voiced her frustrations, and my teacher who is also very ask culture commiserated with her. I interjected and asked my classmate what her parishioners actually said when she told them about the get-together. She said, “One said yes, a few said they had to check their calendars, others said they had to talk to their husbands. But they all said it sounded interesting!”

I told her that a straight-out yes is a yes, but anything else is a no. “I’ll ask my husband” is a no. “I’ll check my calendar” is a no. “That sounds great!” without a yes is a no. That’s the culture where I live, and while it can be frustrating to outsiders, it’s not any more mysterious than ask culture. Once you realize this simple truth, it can make life much easier.

I am a weird hybrid of the two. I can handle the ‘anything but a yes is a no’, but I really don’t like the ‘you have to demur three times until you can say yes’ bit.  In part because I can eat what I can eat, and I can’t eat what I can’t eat. I’m not going to make myself sick because of culture.

That’s where my anarchy streak kicks in. I don’t hate all rules. I don’t even hate most rules. But I don’t like rules that harm, and these kinds of rules do harm people–usually thoes with the least social capital. I do get that there is lubricant to be had for eating together, but the problem is that anything that is a social norms can go from being a welcoming thing to a gate-keeping thing.

That’s the problem with rituals and traditions. It’s easy to go from what they are supposed to mean to a rigid expectation of how things have to be. Then you lose the meaning of the tradition itself. There were two questions on the weekend thread at AAM about wedding invites. The first was about an evite from someone she didn’t really know. She wanted to know if she could just ignore it. She said it felt like a cash grab (later in the thread). One person agreed with her (that it felt like a cash grab), but other people admonished her for being too cynical. They said she should just say no and move on with her life.


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Why?

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I’m still thinking about anarchy per my convo with Ian yesterday. In this case, though, I’m thinking about it in terms of business norms and how they’re used to keep people in line. I was reading an Ask A Manager post from 2016. It was from a manager who wanted to tell her young report (in customer-facing healthcare) that ‘oil slick’ blue in her black hair was unprofessional. The letter wirter (LW) said it wasn’t in the dress code, so how could she address it?

Even back then, Alison asked if the LW was sure it needed to be addressed. Alison said times were changing and ‘unnatural’ hair colors were becoming more acceptable. And, I must saay, post-pandemic (current endemic) me thinks this is a non-issue. I mean, if your biggest problem at work is the color of your report’s hair, well, I can’t help you.

I have never understood it, though. When I worked at the county, I had extensions tied into my hair. They were of colors that were obviously not my own–blue, green, brown, red, etc. Not at the same time, but I would change them every three months or so. One of the muckety-mucks at the county (I worked on the floor with the heads of many different deparctments) asked me if I had changed the color in my hair the night before. I said no, I just got the extensions changed. It didn’t occur to me that he was disapproving of the blue streaks in my black hair, but I wouldn’t have cared if I had realized it.

I was an admin assistant to the director of the Diversity Training department. And Asian. It would not have been a good look on his part to question me about my hair. More to the point, I wouldn’t have cared. For whatever reason, despite all my mental health issues and my self-confidence issues, I just could never make myself care what the bosses thought about shit like that. It was too silly for words. I know that’s a privileged place to be, but I wish more people were in that position.

Look. I odn’t question all rules and laws. Such as driving laws. I think when you’re in two tons of metal, there should be rules governing who should go wihch way and in what order. I don’t want anyone dying on the streets, yo. But in terms of hair color…who cares. Honestly. Same with tats as long as they are not offensive. I will admit that I would pause if I saw someone who had them on the face, but other than that, who cares? Same with piercings. I also don’t think  women and female-presenting people should have to wear bras or makeup, or shave their armpits/legs. There. I said it. Dudes and male-presenting people should not have to wear ties or starched collars. Back to the female side–hosiery and heels, naw, son.

Basicalyl, if a person is wearing clean clothing and has all their bits covered, it really shouldn’t matter (barring regulations for safety, of course). I get really sad over how many women strenuously defend bras, heels, makeup, hosiery, etc., for work. I don’t care if they want to do it themselves, but every time one of these questions come up (do I have to wear ______ at work?), there are always women who will say yes. Either covertly or overtly. Letter writer states they explicitly don’t want to, say, wear makeup to work. Dozens of women in the commentariat: Have you thought of maybe wearing a little makeup? Even for letter writers who are firm about not wanting to wear makeup.

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Anarchy is not a four-letter word

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I had started a different post, but Ian just said something to me that completely blew my mind. We were talking about societal powers and how we both called ourselves socialists. Comfortably. I would not even blink twice if someone callde me that. I mentioned that I was a libertarian with a small L because as long as you did not harm someone, I did not care what you did. I do not follow societal norms that are meaningless to me, which, to be fair, are pretty much all of them.

Ian fired back that he thought I was past libertarian and into anarchist. My immediate reaction to that was, “Fuck no!” because while I don’t care for societal norms, I am also a rules-follower to a certain extent.

I thought about it, though. What I know about anarchy is that it’s about dismantling all systems and lawlessness. It’s very much a pejorative as it’s used in society in general. But, as I’ve learned in my many years on earth, that’s what the powers that be want us to think. Same with calling people communists during the Red Scare.

I looked up anarchist and talked about it more with Ian. He said it’s not thinking you can dismantle all systems of power, but always holding those feet to the fire. Anarchists know that there will always be power structures in the world; they just want to make sure they are as fair as possible. Of course, some anarchists want to take them down, but others acknowledge that it’s more about improving the systems.

Yes, it’s a far-left ideology. I knew that already. I have also heard people use it in terms of romantic relationships, meaning that they didn’t want any struture to their romance. No partners, no obligations, etc. I have to say that I find that unrealistic, but only because i do think you owe people you love some courtesies. And I think it’s really hard not to have any jealousy at all, but I suppose it’s possible to have a very low level. But, I think it’s going to be difficult to find many people who don’t have any jealousy at all. Also, I think it’s reasonable to expect someone you love to, say, not disappear on you for two weeks at a time.

I have to say, though, that I have been reevaluating my feelings on romantic relationships for the past decade. Back when I was a youngin, I thought I’d marry and have children. That was just a given. My mother made it plain that I was going to get married and have children because as a girl, that was my fate. I was not happy about it, but so be it.


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So what?

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In the last post, I was talking about rules and why I don’t give a shit about them. I learned a new word today: contumacious. It means to be stubbornly or willfully disobedient to authority (usually in a legal sense). See also: anarchy.

I don’t believe in anarchy, actually. I think it’s good to have rules that benefit the general good of the community. Like, imagine driving if there were no rules about who had the right of way. And I believe in rules that protect the most fragile members of the community. Minorities often need to be protected or they will be exploited (see, also, service workers during the pandemic).

But, yeah. I will question rules that don’t make any sense to me. I didn’t use to do it willfully–it was just me not understanding how to be normal. I still don’t, to be honest. Things that are self-evident to others make no sense to me. The marriage and kid thing, for instance. I mean, yeah, I get why people want to do it (in a theoretical sense. I don’t get it personally because I have never wanted either, but I can see why people might want it. Barely), but for me, it just wasn’t ever a thing I felt I needed. Or wanted. I assumed I’d get married and have kids because that’s what everyone did back in the day, but I was very gloomy about it. I was like, “Oh, yeah. I gotta get married and have kids one day” and felt as if a collar was tightening around my neck–and not in a good way.

I didn’t want it; I just felt I had to. My mother pushed it relentlessly until I believed I had to do it. Same with college. I had no choice in the matter–except where I wanted to go. I chose places next to my then-boyfriend, and he got accepted at all of them (Ivies) because he was fucking off-the-charts smart. Like a literal rocket scientist. (Well, not quite, but an actual astrophysicist. Literally.) He told me that if we didn’t go to college near each other, we’d need to break up. Which, honestly, was where I was heading, anyway. He was a good guy, but we were young. I was ready to move on. I did not know how to say that, though. There was a cute guy working in a different shop in the mall I was working in, and I wanted to date him. Not because of him (he turned out to be a jerk), but because I was trying to break free. I was eighteen, just started to descend into a severe eating disorder, hated myself and my body, and felt as if I was being forced to do something I had no interest in doing (college).

My mother: You have to go to college, get married, have kids, and have a professional career. Oh, and go to church on Sunday. And be a perfect size 2. And never say no to anything your mother (me) asks from you. Oh, and have I mentioned giving me grandbabies? Because, grandbabies are definitely the most important thing in this list. DID I MENTION GRANDBABIES????


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An alien in isolation

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the glasses are what makes it work.
However you do it, just write.

I read about how to write from time to time, and I recently learned about the Snowflake Method. I’m not going to link to it, so you can Google it if you want. I was not impressed with the website because the guy was hawking it HARD. I can get past that, though, because I know that’s part of writing these days. I skimmed through all the self-aggrandizement and hard sell bullshit to see what his actual advice was, and it would be fair to say I was skeptical from the start. I have a bias against named systems for most things, especially creative endeavors,

Putting that aside, I reached the part about him saying something like, “If you’re like most people, you dream about your novel long before you write it. You research it and–”

That’s where I tapped out because it just underscored how weird I am. I’ve seen a version of this given as advice or how that particular writer works many, many times. “I have an outline”, “I write down the names and how everyone is related to each other in beforehand”, etc. People talking about how they do all this research when they build a world is common as well.

I’m not disputing that this works for other people, obviously. In fact, it seems most writers have some sort of outline/plan/research thing they adhere to. I don’t. At all. I don’t think about a novel before I write about it. I have  ideas come into my mind, and they are usually fairly fully hatched when they arrive. I write mysteries for the most part, so let me give you an example of my creative process. Note, I tend to write trilogy, so this is what happens when I’m starting a new one.

I’m finishing up a novel, and I have an idea rattling around in my mind. For example, at one point, I wanted to write about abortion. Or rather, have abortion as a main driver in the story. I let that marinate in my brain for days as I finished whatever I was working on. Then, suddenly, I knew how abortion was going to be featured, how it would affect the arc of the story, and who was going to be murdered (the doctor who performed the abortion). I also knew that the anti-choice movement was going to be featured because of course they would be given the topic. I also knew the reason for the murder, although I wasn’t quite sure who the murderer would be. With that knowledge, I started writing.

Another example is a short story I wrote, which is still one of my favorite stories that I’ve written. I wanted to write about depression and the color red. I am inordinately proud of this story because it’s actually beautiful prose, which is not my style at all. I am not one for elaborate descriptions and an exquisite turn of phrase. I’m good at dialogue and building characters. The rest of it, eh, not so much. This short story, however, I paid more attention to my phrasing, and it was almost lyrical.

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