Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: power

Honing my aggression

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I love Taiji. It saved my life. Both figuratively and literally. When  I was drowning in depression, Taiji gave me a meaning in life and allowed me to temporary calm my anxious mind. It helped me set boundaries with my parents–and, more importantly, it allowed me to put some distance between us. I simultaneous cared less about what they thought of me and cared more about how I felt about myself.

I became less clausterphobic. I will never like being in crowds, especially because of COVID and how susceptible I am to germs, but I no longer freak out in them. I can find spaces where there seem to be none and slither my way through. I was better able to put up boundaries, which helped with my family, and more to the point, I got more self-confidence. I was by no means perfect, but I was in a much better place than I had been before I starcted Taiji.

Then I had my medical crisis and Taiji literally saved my life. I have said more than once that the three things that brought me back to life were love, luck, and Taiji. I firmly believe that the fifteen years I studied Taiji before getting hit with non-COVID-related walking pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and a stroke prepared my body for taking those hits. And coming back after a week of unconsciousness.

Taiji has done so much for my mental health and physical health. It has helped me relax and it has gotten rid of all my body aches. And, I don’t have to mention yet again about my love for Taiji weapons–but I will because I can and I want to. Taiji weapons are my life and my love, and I can talk about them all day long. I am currently teaching myself the left side of the Cane Form, and then I’ll move onto the Double Sabers. Probably. Still my favorite form.


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Me, Too

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I’ve been ranting and raving about the Weinstein situation ever since the news broke. I’ve written about it here several times, and I’m sure I’ll be writing about it again in the future. This post is not about Weinstein, not directly, anyway. In the wake of the whole debacle, a day of ‘me, too’ emerged on Facebook. The point was to write ‘me, too’ as your status on FB if you’re a woman who’s been sexually harassed/assaulted, etc. It started, I assume, to model itself after the #MeToo on Twitter, which I didn’t see while it was happening. Please note: I know men are sexually assaulted, too. I would have been supportive of any man or nonbinary individual who stood up during the day of ‘me, too’. However, the microaggressions and sexual harassment that happens on a daily basis are more common for women, much more common, so that’s what the focus of ‘me, too’ was. I just wanted to get that out of the way so there won’t be a derail. Yes, men are abused, too. Yes, women are abusers. On with the post.

I didn’t participate in the day of ‘me, too’ except to click the sad face emoji on women’s posts. Why? It’s not because I haven’t experienced sexual aggression/harassment/abuse; I have. I’ve written about it on my blog several times. I’ve been very honest and open about it in the past. I am not ashamed of my past (well, not as much as I used to be. I’m still working on it), and I have no problems with discussing it if asked about it. It’s not because I haven’t talked about it on FB; I have done that as well. I have no problems with posting statuses about it, especially in connection with whatever current event is happening (see, Weinstein assholery). I’ve ranted on the mean Twitter streets ad nauseam about my experiences and railed against the inequities of our society that allows this bullshit to continue.

So, in theory, when I saw the ‘me, too’ posts on Facebook (I didn’t hear about the #Metoo on Twitter until after the fact), I should have been the first one to write a passionate post about it with a ME, TOO shouting in the lede paragraph. I should have written about the sustained sexual abuse, the date rape that turned into an abusive relationship, the friends who’ve cornered me while they were drunk and pawed me while I waited for them to let me go. I should have written about living in the East Bay when I used to walk everywhere, and I couldn’t leave my house without getting hit on. I especially remember one drunk white dude coming up to me when I was stretching before my walk, pressing close to my body, leering at my tats and showing me his. How he laughed at me as I ran away, and how my heart was pounding because I was afraid he’d follow me. In broad daylight. I should have written about when I was in Thailand with my college and staying at a hotel. There was a worker who started hounding me whenever I was in the lounge. Asking if I had a boyfriend. Hovering. Not going away even though I studiously ignored him. Making suggestive statements. I stopped hanging out in the lounge. When I later told my teachers about it, they said maybe it’s cultural* and brushed it off.

I should have written about how I used to have an avi of my chest  tattoo on Twitter, but I took it down because I was tired of guys sliding into my DMs to compliment me on my ‘tattoo’. Side note: I have learned the difference between an honest compliment and one that is dripping with sleaze. Most women can see behind the veil of plausible deniability, and it’s just annoying. I should have also written about being on Craigslist and explicitly saying in my personal ad that I don’t want anyone with an Asian fetish or dick pics and having So. Many. Dudes. disregard either or both of those requests.

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The More Things Don’t Change….

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I spent much of yesterday morning ranting about Harvey Weinstein on Twitter, and I still have Things To Say about it, so here goes. I said I would write this post, and I’m keeping my promise. More and more women are coming out and Weinstein assaulted them, too. Several famous women who come from Hollywood families. Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie are two of the top names, and while I don’t want to focus on them, the fact that they are included on the list indicate just how much of a systemic problem this is. They’re from Hollywood elite families. Steven Spielberg is Paltrow’s godfather, for fuck’s sake. And yet, Weinstein felt free to sexually harass them, probably thinking they’d know it was just part of the culture. I had an argument with a friend about the ‘this is just the way we did things in the seventies’ part of Weinstein’s statement. She maintained that it wasn’t OK at that time, either, even if it wasn’t talked about. I said in his industry, it was absolutely OK. It was tacitly condoned, and I would bet overtly in some cases. In other words, there’s a reason Weinsten thought it would be fine to harass Paltrow and Jolie, and it’s from being steeped in the culture.

I saw statements from more than one male star claiming they had no idea and were horrified. (To be fair, I also saw a few female stars, including Meryl Streep, make the same claim, but it was way more men.) It was after I saw the statement by Benedict Cumberbatch that I snapped. I hasten to add it’s not because of Cumberbatch, and I really appreciated that he added the part about zero tolerance going forward, but I have to say, really? Really you had no inkling? Because shit like this is an open secret. So much so, Seth MacFarlane made a joke about it at the 2013 Oscars and everyone laughed. So much so, Jessica Chastain tweeted about how she’d been warned about Weinstein when she first got into the industry. Glenn Close released a statement in which she admitted she’d heard the rumors but dismissed them. She was frank about how toxic the industry is and that she’s angry.

I wrote a series of tweets to Hollywood dudes who want to know what they can do, but I think it can be used by men in general when they want to know how they can help dismantle the mindset behind systemic sexual violence.


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It’s Just a Fantasy….

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all aboard!
About to ride the dragon (wyvern)!

My fellow nerds, I have a confession to make.

::looks around nervously and clears throat::

I’m not a huge fan of sci-fi.

Whew! I feel so much better now that I’ve gotten that off my ample chest. I’ve been holding it in for far too long, pretending to be amped about the latest Star Trek/Wars movie…by the way, I *am* amped about the latest Star Trek TV show, but only because Michelle Yeoh is in it. More like Michelle YEAH, amirite? She is a badass, and she’s fucking hot. Also, Jason Isaacs. Yum.

But I digress.

Obviously, I’m being hyperbolic, but not by much. Sci-fi has become cool, and I just can’t get on that hype train. I’m not into robots (unless they’re Jaegers and they’re fighting the Kaiju), and as much as I like tech, I’m not interested in the inner workings of mechs.

You know what I do like? Dark fantasy. The term is to describe many different kinds of fantasy, but I use it to mean supernatural horrors in our world, replete with witches and goblins and werebeings, oh my! Some of my favorite mystery series have these aspects incorporated in them, and I’d much rather be immersed in a dark fantasy world than a sci-fi one.

As longtime readers know, I am a huge Dark Souls fan. It’s high fantasy, rather than dark fantasy, but it’s the fantasy part that entices me. Monstrous creatures saturates the worlds, but the most monstrous of all are the humanoids. In fact, the final boss in the final DLC of Dark Souls III *spoilers* is Slave Knight Gael, a character who was seeking out the dark soul of man for his niece so she could finish her painting. When he found it, he became corrupted by all the dark souls he consumed, so humans are literally the worst thing in the Dark Souls universe.

Now that I think of it, the same was true for the DLC of the original game. The final boss was *spoilers for a game that’s a bajillion years old* Manus, Father of the Abyss, and while there’s speculation as to his true identity, what’s agreed on is that he was once human until he ate so many souls he became totally corrupted. Even his name–Manus–can be broken down into man and us. We are man, and we are evil. That’s the prevailing theory, anyway.

You probably also know that one of my pet peeves about Dark Souls YouTubers/Twitchers* is that many of them denigrate being a caster in the games. They’re all male, and many of them have never played a caster, but by god, they know it’s the pussy way to play the game! “Oooh, you run around and snipe people from a far and don’t get hurt!” But you run out of spells and have to melee with a shit weapon, which is no fun, let me tell you. It’s annoying as hell, especially now that I’ve played as a tank character throughout each game. There’s also the, “You can’t beat the feeling of just smashing a guy into the ground” mentality, and I will say there’s more merit to that than to the former, but it’s still fucking satisfying to watch an enemy get engulfed in flames.

I maintain that playing as a melee character is far easier for the most part than playing as a caster, and you can fight me on that if you want. Come at me, bro!

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