Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: driving

What else I need to do with my life

With difficulty, I’m going to wrench myself away from talking about weapons, at least for one post. The reason is because I need to talk about something else important in my life–my mental health. It’s in the shitter, and I’m really struggling. There are many reasons for it, but I want to focus on a few. And what I want to do to combat the depression/anxiety.

My sleep has been so bad since–well  for over a year, but even more intensely since the time change. Today, I was going to get up at 11 a.m. so I could do my Taiji/Bagua routine before watching RKG (or RG in this case) stream the latest It Takes Two joint, Split Fiction, at noon. Instead, I set my alarm for noon, and was unpleasantly surprised when I looked at the clock.

I blame the time change, but it’s also that my brain is really unhappy right now. There are reasons for it, including not going out much. I mean, I never went out that much, but it’s been cut down even more since my medical crisis because I don’t feel comfortable driving. Just in general, but even more so at night and on the freeway. Obviously, this makes it hard to get out and do things, and I don’t feel comfortabel having people at my house.

That’s another thing. I need to fix things around the house. But every time I think of it, I feel discouraged and ashamed. I am so bad at cleaning. Even with someone who cleans every other week, the house is a mess. I need to make a list of things that need to be fixed, and then I have to tackle them one by one. I just don’t know if I can do it without feeling a ton of shame. In addition, I have to do several steps before I can get to the point of actually doing what I need to do.

Then, there’s the fact that  Ifeel isolated emotionally. I don’t feel like I am being a good friend, and I don’t feel that I’m maintaining my relationships well. In addition, I want to expand my community, whether online or off. I want to find other queer PoC, which isn’t easy to find. Throw in genderfluid, and it’s like looking for a unicorn. Also, when I say PoC, I mean Asian. That, of course, makes it even more difficult.

That’s the story of my life, though. I always have to be different, even when I really, really don’t want to be. And I don’t know how to find people who are similar to me in more ways than one. That might be a folly–looking for camaraderie where there is possibly none.


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MN Nice Ends Where the Road Begins

tuna hot dish is tasty
Yah, you betcha!

Minnesotans have a reputation for being nice. So much so, the phrase ‘Minnesota nice’ was invented to describe it. If you want to be kind, you’d say that we are goodhearted people who will give you the shirts off our backs, then apologize because the shirt isn’t your size. It’s true that we are superficially nice as we will loath to say anything negative to your face. But, oh, how we’ll talk about you behind your back. We’re not much for ‘bless your heart’, but we have our equivalent. Our contempt is mostly conveyed by tone and knowing nods, along with an artfully raised eyebrow. I’m not saying the niceness isn’t real–it mostly is. I’m just saying it’s somewhat shallow as it’s extended to everyone. It’s more perfunctory than completely sincere, but I think it’s better to be superficially polite in public than a complete jerk.

There’s a downside to all that nicety, however, namely repressed anger. Anger is a natural emotion, and it has to come out somehow. I’m not a proponent of expressing it willy-nilly and in full force all the time, but I do think never allowing it to out can make a person do stupid things. Sometimes, it’s directed inwardly, and sometimes, it explodes in a situation that is anonymous, namely, driving a car. Once Minnesotans get in their cars, they become total assholes–me included. I was driving reasonably at the time of my accident, but I’m going to be real with you. I’ve had road rage issues in the past, and I’m pretty fortunate that I didn’t cause an accident while tearing around on I-94 or 35W. I’m much better now, even before my accident, but it’s scary how overtaken by rage I would get when I slid behind the driving wheel of a car. I see a lot of that while I’m driving. Minnesotans are pretty shitty at using their turn signals, which is one of my pet peeves. Even in my angriest of driving moments, I always used my turn signal. Yes, I know you know where you’re going, but I don’t. I would like to so I don’t run into you, if that’s OK with you.  Continue Reading