Idiot Ex

So I have an idiot ex. He's not legally my ex yet, but he should be shortly. He called me today to tell me his girlfriend is pregnant. I was not surprised, and didn't act surprised. It felt like he was waiting for some kind of reaction. I asked him what reaction he was expecting and he said pretty much the one he got. He tried to claim that he was telling me because he thought it might affect us filing for divorce. I called him an idiot, because the idea makes no sense. Her child has nothing to do with me. Oy.
I wouldn't trade in the years of being married, because it helped me become who I am. I wouldn't have discovered what I'm capable of if he hadn't fucked up all the time. Seriously! Without having to deal with a whole slew of stupid decisions I wouldn't know that I have the ability to handle disaster. The only thing I would change...I think I would have ended the marriage about two years ago. The last two years haven't really taught me anything, they've just been incredibly stressful. If I could go back in time...I would have left him after I started pursuing a college education. My life would have been better if I had. Everything before then I wouldn't change though! I wouldn't have gone back to school if it wasn't for him, and wouldn't have become as tough as I am.
He misses me as his friend. I told him that I can't be friends with someone I can't trust, and he has destroyed every vestige of trust. Even if somehow he could overcome that, his girlfriend is a manipulative, untrustworthy bitch and that easily triples the amount of distrust. I told him he could send me guilt presents though ;). If he sends me guilt presents then I call with a thank you. Sounds like a good deal to me :D.

Maladroit

The holidays remind me of how socially maladroit I can be. I am bad at editing myself to the occasion, so usually it's safer just to keep my mouth shut. I am normally an inveterate chatterbox, given the opportunity I can talk for hours. Which makes it funny that I am not a fan of giving speeches. I can remember my dad coming home from a parent teacher conference laughing. One of the teachers had expressed concern that I was too quiet in class, my dad thought she was joking. What he didn't understand (and still doesn't to a certain degree) was that being in a classroom was nerve wracking for me. Social phobia anyone? Not that I was diagnosed at that point. I also just got in the habit of being quiet in most classes for a couple of reasons. One reason was that I was harassed by other students if I participated too much, and the other was that I was (and am) incredibly good at saying the wrong thing.
I usually don't offend people, I just aggravate them. As I've gotten older I get a more positive reaction, even though sometimes laughter is not the reaction I'm hoping for. Now the odd thing is that while I've always accidentally aggravated people, I've also always been able to get way with saying things and asking questions that would be offensive if asked by someone else. I don't know why. Is it that I am so obviously clueless that people find me non-threatening? Or is it pity that makes it okay for me to say whatever needs to be said?
Here's another thing, *WHY* are these things supposed to be offensive? I mean, what's the big deal about asking about sexual orientation? If it's pertinent to the conversation, what's so bad? Sexual orientation is not a huge deal, just sometimes within the framework of a conversation I personally think clarification helps to understand someone's point of view. Just what is the huge deal there? Why *shouldn't* someone ask clarifying questions? Wouldn't conversations go a lot smoother, and discussions be less acrimonious, if people understood one another's perspective??
Now, as for the holidays... I am reminded of my maladroitness because communicating with my family is aggravating as all get out. You'd think that after dealing with me my entire life they would be used to the fact that I constantly ask questions and that conversations with me never go in a straight line. But they don't. They get annoyed if I get "off-topic", or talk about something frivolous when they're talking about something serious (or vice versa). I understand that they don't want to be derailed, but if I walk away they get upset because they think I'm upset and that just annoys the heck out of me since *before* they got upset I wasn't! Then they get defensive and it goes downhill from there. So for the holidays I try *not* to get involved in group conversations. I used to just hang out with "the kids", but "the kids" aren't all that young anymore. I'll probably end up nabbing my brother to play a game, or just watch a movie in another room.
Holidays. blah.
Joyeux Noel.

On a frivolous note...

So I like K-Drama. A lot. I keep starting different series before I'm done with another. It's just so fun! It's not just the eye candy (though that's nice too), it's the whole aesthetic. The K-Dramas that I like (mostly contemporary romantic comedies) remind of the I Love Lucy days, because it seems like anything goes! They'll take what to American eyes might seem like a ridiculous concept and create a beautiful and sweet story around it. I'll be honest, figuring out how the drama ends is never a challenge, what *is* a challenge is figuring out how they're going to get there. A really good show will keep me tense an on the edge of my seat, waiting for the next twist. An okay show will leave me relaxed and anticipating the twist that's coming. Either way I have fun. I think it's silly not to admit that sometimes we just want to watch something for fun. Not to better ourselves, not to watch some dramatic tale...some shows are just cotton candy. Everyone needs some cotton candy sometimes! It runs the gamut, from cotton candy, to popcorn, to Toblerone, to a full on six course meal (I'll be honest, I generally don't watch the last type of show, too ADD!).
The other thing about K-Drama is how much *fun* it is to watch with a fellow fan. There is much squeeing and bouncing and maybe just a bit of MST3King ;). I miss my friend's daughter, she was my K-Drama bud, we would squeal and jump up and down and pause a show just to catch our breath *sigh*. I have another friend who I can watch with, but I have a feeling it'll be a different watching experience, an equally good but different watching experience. I can't wait. But before I start another series with her...maybe I should finish the five series I have going right now. Heh.

Lavender Marriage.

I am obsessed lately with the idea of lavender marriage. For those who are not history nerds, lgbtq or lgbtq history nerds, a lavender marriage was when a gay man and a lesbian woman would get married to appease the social mores of the time so that they could see the people they *actually* were interested in on the side. Also, a straight woman could be substituted as long as she wasn't interested sexually and it would still be lavender marriage. Cole Porter's marriage is an example of that working. The point being that it is not a marriage based on sexual attraction or sexual interaction. It's a relationship that is used by both parties as a security blanket and to protect themselves from an oppressive and aggressive society. I mean, we're talking situations where you could be beaten to death for being gay.
I am not obsessed with getting lavender married (well, okay, if I am reallyreally sleep deprived or drunk or both I tell my friends to find me a nice gay man to settle down with) in real life. I just can't stop rolling it through my brain, as in, imagining scenarios where it would happen. In almost all of them I'm living in the 50s or 60s. Except for one where I was in Korea and married a gay man and he and his lover and I adopted a baby. It was a cute dream. But I digress.
The idea of having a platonic life partner is nice, but the lies that have to go into it and the circumstances in which it would feel *necessary* bother me. I also can't help but wonder if that's a little bit of why I stayed married so long. I mean, the sex could be great, but...it wasn't as frequent as it could have been. It makes me wonder...Was I subconsciously staying in a lavenderesque marriage? I mean, it wasn't truly lavender because of the whole heterosexual sex thing, but... I still wonder. And then feel like even more of a bitch, cuz, yeah. I didn't do the dumping, though I did try to leave, but I am the one who fell out of love first. Even if I didn't realize it. I think I was out of love for, oh, at least a year before I realized it.
So, I guess that's why I've been obsessing. Wouldn't an *honest* lavender marriage be better? Better than staying in a marriage because it's habit, or you don't like being alone (which honestly is not that big of a deal for me but it probably contributed), or you don't want your parents to disapprove, or...Particularly if someone else's emotions are involved. I think my ex knew, because he kept growing more and more insecure and more and more paranoid. Neither of us really knew why. Heh. I feel kind of shitty, but I guess his instincts were right!
I just don't have a lot of experience (ooooo, thought of a name for my orientation! BAsexual! see, it's a combination of bisexual and asexual! Not accurate, but it would be funny to say to someone) with relationships. I just didn't recognize the end of the relationship because it was the only long term relationship I was ever in, so I had no experience in recognizing the signs. So I feel bad for being oblivious, but he was still a dick ;).
Maybe if I watch a few movies about lavender marriages I will work it out of my system...Either that or it will just make it worse, heh. When really tired I asked my bfam if he would lavender marry me. I felt really creepy, cuz...yeah, too much like incest for my mind's liking. He said if we lived in the 40's he would totally lavender marry me, and I said we would move to Miami and have our own harems...in the 40's. hmmm....I wonder if Katherine Hepburn would have gone for me ;).

Figuring out the Future

I am currently at a low ebb on the shores of crazy. This last week saw the reappearance of zombiecrazy, wherein I felt like an idiot. That's one of the cons of having such a ridiculous fear, it's hilarious when it's not happening but embarassing as all get out when it does happen. The low ebbs are what make me soooo uncertain about the future.
I've been pursuing a degree in library science, though have not yet gotten through to my AA yet. Yay crazy and stress! Anyways, I have been pursuing this degree because I love books and I don't have panic attacks in libraries...of course, getting to the library can be a problem when I am feeling completely ill equipped to travel anywhere by myself. So I've been pondering the idea again, which is just what I do. I beat things into the ground trying to figure them out.
Is this the right field for me? Will I even be able to get the degree with the social phobia and anxiety making going to school difficult? I think I can get through the latter, I am, if nothing else, tough. I like to think I'm tough anyways. I'd really like to think I'm tough enough to barrel my way through things. But that still leaves the first question. Should I do this? I want a life lived extravagantly. I don't neccessarily need a job that pays crazy good wages, if I have a job that fulfills me and allows me to improve myself in one way or another. I would be a great librarian, or I could be a great information specialist of the various sorts that the Library and Information Sciences degree would qualify me for. But...Since I've lost all of my routines and so on that kept me functioning for the past 5 years I have to wonder...Is putting myself in a box the right thing to do? I mean, it is the easy thing to do. It's easy to create a structure and schedule that turns into a box I keep myself in. It's very easy. I can even be pretty content living that way. But is content the same thing as happy? I don't think so. Content is getting by, happy is thriving.
Thrive! Thrive! Thrive! Live! Live! Live!
I need to know that I can get more out of life. I do get more than people expect out of every moment, but I don't want to have to wring the clothe of life to get the drops out. I'd rather have a trickle of refreshing experience, than a rag I ring out over and over and over again. I don't need to be famous. I don't need to be rich. I don't need to be influential. I don't need power. I just need...I just need to be able to say "I experienced life firsthand." I don't think that's so much to want. I just don't know how to do it.

Sexual o_O

My dad doesn't know I'm not straight...or monogamous. I don't want to tell him, but I do at the same time. Because I'm very tired of editing myself before I speak. But I'm afraid that the truth would hurt my stepmother. My mother knows, and specifically asked me not to say anything to my brothers. My grandma just kind of shrugged it off. She's a sharp lady, I don't think she was too surprised. I'm a lot like my grandma, mean but funny. I actually try really hard to cut the mean part out of the equation, but I'll admit that I'm always thinking the mean.
I am polyamorous and not straight. I don't think I'm gay either, nor particularly bisexual. I like the word "queer" because it's so open ended. My sexuality is as follows: I am not sexually attracted to a lot of people, but of those I have been attracted to all but one have been girls. I am 28 and don't need to take off my shoes to enumerate the list (just to put it into perspective).
I sometimes wonder if my sexuality (or lack thereof?) has anything to do with my wonky brain chemistry. I mean...I have a wonky body, wonky brain chemistry and wonky sexuality. I don't mind my wonky sexuality, I just think life would be nicer if it worked a little more often. A harem would be nice ;). See, that's funny because my wonky sex drive ensures that I won't have one! Ha. Ha. *sigh*
I wonder about myself sometimes. I laugh at so much I wonder if I have a sense of humour or just hysteria. That was a joke too...or was it? O_o
Parsing stuff like this gets too serious. I don't really know that it matters all that much, except possibly in the case of parenting. I wonder if someone like me with my lack of understanding of any binary sort of sexuality would have a problem parenting. Makes me wonder if I should just not consider it. That and the brain chemistry. Being single isn't a stop to it, I've known more than a few wonderful single moms. I think I could be a good one. At least up until puberty. I can handle the most stressful situations if I have someone else to look after. This is something that my ending marriage taught me. What I often can't do for myself, I can do for someone else. I think...I think though that I've just answered a question I had. I shouldn't have a child until I *can* do for myself. If I'm too old to have one by that point, I'll adopt. One of plusses of adoption is having the option to get one that's already house trained! That was only sort of a joke ;).

Laughter

Ummm... It may be that it is possible to overdose on laughter. My head said that not only is it possible to do so, but that I have done it. The rest of me says it's not possible and life is fanfuckingtastic.

Humour

A sense of humour is sometimes the only way to survive. If you can laugh you can get through it. There is no situation where helping someone smile or laugh is not going to do good. I will do my best to make someone smile even at a funeral, because seriously, if the person you are mourning wouldn't want you to smile they were probably an asshole anyways and might need to have their headstone teepeed. But the type of person who deserves that kind of reaction isn't really going to have any mourners, so it's a moot point.
Every situation can be got through with humour. You don't have to laugh at the situation at hand, but if you can bring yourself to laugh about *something* you'll get through it. Laugh GODDAMNIT. There is too much joy in the world not to partake of it. You want to laugh? I'll tell you something awful and hilarious. When my anxiety/panic disorder gets reallyreallyreally bad...my brain thinks it sees zombies. Swear to God, even though I know zombies don't exist, my brain is convinced that if i turn around I'll see one...so I don't turn around. It's friggin' hilarious when it's not happening, and you know what? I am glad my brain thinks it sees zombies, because I can laugh at that. I love Zombieland and Land of the Dead, but can't really watch many others. But I love that there is such a ridiculous genre because it makes it easier to laugh my way through anything. Because being able to laugh my way out of panic and fear is a fantastic feeling.
Laugh! Not a request.

Philosophy

I used to work as a teller for <insert corporate entity here>. I was pretty good at it, but it wasn't good for me. I was very good at snapping off one liners. If corporate had ever heard how I talked to some of my customers I would have been fired in a heartbeat, but the customers enjoyed it. I had a few stock responses, jokes and comments that I would make to people. One of them created an interesting conversation that has stuck with me and, from what she said, was going to stick with the other person as well.
When people would ask me how I was doing I would primarily respond "Livin' the dream. Every day in every way." Usually people would respond with "More like the nightmare, haha" or something like that. This gal was going through a rough period and responded with a sarcastic comment to the tune of "Oh really? How do you manage that? grumpgrumpbitchmoangrump". I responded as I usually did, "It's a choice. I choose to live the dream." She got really quiet and then asked me to elaborate.
I had never had someone asked me to elaborate, so I told her one of my true philosophies and took off from there. I figure that life is a choice between laughter and tears, and I choose laughter. I have a lot of crap wrong with me, I have fibromyalgia so am in a fairly constant state of pain and I have mental illnesses that make life difficult. But I choose laughter, I choose to the live the dream. I'm not an optimist, and I'm not blind to the awfulness of the world around me. I'm really not. I just don't see how choosing to allow misery to rule my life is going to improve the world or my situation. There is, of course, a place for grief and anger and all other emotions. There can be no depth to happiness without sorrow. But we can choose to be happy. We can choose to say "This is my life, and I'm gonna live the dream." We can transform our lives by always pursuing the best. Attitude is everything. I can do more than "make do" in a situation, I can do more than just survive, I choose to thrive.

All my malfunctions

I get to conquer tomorrow all on my lonesome, driving into the city to meet with a lawyer. This is a big deal for me. Going to the grocery store by myself without having an anxiety attack is an achievement, I don't say this sarcastically. It truly is an achievement to be able to conquer unreasoning fear. I try to celebrate each little victory for my own sake. A bunch of little victories are worth as much as one big victory, and can provide more lasting change.
I suppose it may not seem like much to someone "normal" (and what is that anyways?), but it is a big deal to exert independence from your own brain. It's so hard to go out in public by myself, I feel crowded by the people around me and claustrophobic. If I have someone with me then it's not as bad, but I've learned my lesson there. It's never good to have to count on someone else for your own mental well being. Because people can let you down, and in the end not having them can drag you down farther than having them shored you up. I'm not saying that accepting help is bad, I'm saying relying on it was for me. I am having to create brand new coping mechanisms and structure for my new life. It's scary, and I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do it but I will, because not succeeding is not an option.
In spite of all of my malfunctions I am still hopeful. I have friends who want me in their lives regardless of how inconvenient I can be, and a mother who loves and supports me even though she kind of thinks my lifestyle is the devil. I have my heart and soul where it's always been, trying to break free from my broken self and soar into heavens of my own making. Yeah, yeah, it's cheesy, but that's how it feels. I love this life and this world, complete with pain, joy and misunderstandings.
It's funny, I suffer from Major Depressive Disorder and yet a lot of people think I'm the most cheerful person they know. I can be cynical, but everything is there to be smiled and laughed over. Want to know why? Because it can always be worse and it can always get better.

Auntie Mame

My life is currently in a state of flux. Change is happening faster than I can keep up with. But that's okay.
I love the movie "Auntie Mame" with Rosalind Russell. I mention this because when I'm feeling like I need motivation, or to be reminded of why I'm doing something, I hear her voice in the back of my head. "Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" It's kind of become a mantra for me, and a goal. I have a mental illness, multiple actually. I have Major Depressive Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder and Social Phobia. I really prefer to call the last Social Claustrophobia. I don't "suffer" from a mental illness. I conquer every day, some more thoroughly than others.
I'm not really sure what to say here. I only created an account so I could follow a fan site for a Korean pop group I like. But I figured, "Hey, if I've got this account I might as well use it!"