don't you know by now {you can't turn back}

Is it weird to cry about not being in pain and feeling kind of good?

TL;DR — omg Valium + Gabapentin is all I want for Christmas.

I took a Valium for my dentist appointment, and some of my dad’s Gabapentin afterwards because I have some kind of nerve issue on one side of my mouth that becomes excruciating when people poke around in there idk.

And this evening was probably the best I have felt in recent memory, easily.

I don’t realize how just generally on edge I am until I’m not anymore. Feeling relaxed is such a foreign concept to me that it was almost weird. And my mouth stopped hurting, and the fibro pain that’s been killing my back lately went away, and I was able to straighten my legs after sitting crosslegged without literally rolling around and biting my fist to keep from crying, and EVERYTHING WAS BRILLIANT.

I wanted to play music and write stories and go run around with my dogs outside and frolic in the sun and I’m pretty sure this is how life is supposed to feel for normal people.

It’s long been a wonder of mine how much my depression contributes to my chronic pain and how much my chronic pain contributes to my depression, and this certainly seems to lend support to my theory that fixing the pain would make me a much happier person.

But then I started thinking about how it’s all going to wear off in a little while and then all the crying because askdjfalskdjf I want to feel like this forever. WHY CAN’T I JUST BE A NORMAL PERSON WITH NORMAL PERSON FEELS AND NORMAL PERSON LACK-OF-PAIN?

Some thoughts on gender. Also sex. So, umm, vaguely graphic things you probably don't want to know about me? ETA: This got SUPER tl;dr, so you can treat the bolded bits like a summary and just read those, if you're interested.



Over the past couple of years, I've begun to sort of question my gender identification, but I always end up feeling . . . idk, inadequate. I have long hair and I wear skirts literally all the time, I must be like the femalest female who ever femaled, right? When I go bra shopping, I look for things that push them up rather than push them down. I can tick absolutely zero of the standard outward-appearance indicator boxes for other-than-cis-genderism.

But I was looking through an old notebook a few months (maybe a year?) back, and something in there triggered a memory of being very young (7-8 ish) and in the shower and sort of daydreaming that I was pregnant because I was both male and female, and had managed to inseminate myself internally. (Weird, I know.) And that was a running thing, the feeling that I was both male and female. I mean, I knew it was biologically impossible, but that ~fantasy stuck with me for years.

Beyond that, you had your standard tomboy stuff -- I spent every day at the gifted program in elementary school playing kickball with the boys during recess; I remember one of my friends moving back in with her aunt for the summer across the street from my house and saying "Okay, let's start on your tomboy-ification" because she'd spent the year getting her hair brushed and wearing fancy clothes and I wanted a friend to climb trees with; I thought makeup was a fun toy back in third and fourth grade, but in middle school when girls started wearing it to actually wear it, I wasn't interested (save a bit of the black eyeliner goth stuff for a while, but even that got given up on all but special occasions). Those by itself, obviously, indicate nothing about a person's gender identity, but I feel like it's sort of a record of my never feeling female. On the other hand, I never felt male either. I never pressured my mom to let me buzz my hair, or pitched any more fits than the usual kid being forced into a dress for Easter church; I even chose to go by Alexandria instead of Alex in middle school (though that was more because I wanted to be unique than anything else).

As I got older, I spent late middle and most of high school pretty sure I was a lesbian, but I think that's because I wasn't interested in penetrative, penis-in-my-vagina sex, and thought that automatically, logically meant I was a lesbian. It was also a role to play, an identity that I could have -- I still call myself a homo all the time, even though it's not 100% accurate, just because I want to claim that experience, to be a part of that identity that as an other-than-mainstream-branch queer I sometimes feel I'm pushed to the side of. (That gets into a whole other long thing that there have been plenty of diatribes about by people much less tired than I am, so have some keywords like biphobia and erasure and Google it yourself.)

But still, I remember somewhere in earlyish high school (I was probably 15 or 16) watching an Oprah about women with huge clitorises with my Dad omg it was awkward at the time, and it being mentioned that they were pretty much just like little penises, and wondering aloud why that would be a bad thing. He said it was probably just image, or being worried the people they're with will think they're not female, but I didn't really get it. You still have all the female bits, you don't have to deal with the stigma of outwardly presenting as other-than-cis-gendered, and you get a mini penis that could be used (as one of the women's anecdotes related) for penetration; what's not to like?

Late high school/early college, I started to wake up to my boy attraction (thank you, David Tennant), but realized that I still wasn't interested in PIV sex. I get sex dreams pretty much never (maybe two or three a year, idk) but the few times I did, it was always oral/handjob, frot, or me as the penetrative partner (with a strong slant toward the latter two). Okay, dreams, I figured, we'll see if there's anything to this. It's very rare that I would fantasize as myself with someone else (I always masturbated to fanfiction without putting myself in either player's place really, *shrugs*), but I sort of tried it a bit, and holy shit does imagining fucking Olivia Wilde with my invisible dick get me off. Imagining jerking off said invisible dick is also surprisingly helpful. Frot (with both males and females) is pretty much Number One and has turned into my hugest fic kink ever. So, um, okay then. Apparently, my subconscious had a point, and I kind of want a dick.


But I don't want to be male. Not particularly. Not consistently. I've expressed a desire to be male when doing things like going to the Adam Lambert concerts, because I wish that things like painting my nails and putting on tons of makeup and glitter were expressed to other people as the alternative gender performance that they really are for me, rather than it just being something that girls are expected to do. I'd get a hysterectomy simply because I have such severe premenstrual dysphoric disorder and it's the cause of much misery and suicidal ideation, but I don't think I'd ever get top surgery because my breasts don't really bother me. I'd love to magically have a penis, not gonna lie, but I don't know if I could stomach ever doing something so drastically radical and unchangeable to my body, and definitely not at the sorry state of technology that bottom surgery is now (for those who haven't spent ages looking this up and thinking about it -- probably another sign that I wasn't just investigating for Roommate and Scientific Curiosity -- a huge huge percentage of FTMs don't get it because it's like $200,000, and even then comes with severe risk of losing sensation and has only mechanically-assisted function and isn't even always able to pass, like most good MTF bottom surgery is).

Speaking of Roommate, I spent quite a while not talking about this (or even really thinking about it) because I was sort of worried that maybe I was just feeling this way because she had been exploring her FTM-ness and I just wanted to . . . be special like her? But now that I'm thinking about it, it goes back so far that I think it just took Rachel to make me realize that maybe this was a thing and not just that my body issues were just standard low level eating disorder and the fantasizing about having a penis thing was a minor and probably-should-be-suppressed-if-you-ever-want-a-working-relationship quirk. Would I ever have expressed it anywhere but my own fantasies if she hadn't been around? Doubtful. But I don't think that makes it any less real, I guess?



I think there's a lot of weight to be put on my attraction map. (I'm not sure if that's a thing, but that's how I've been thinking about it for some time now.) Somewhere along the line, my concept of beauty got set with a skew sort of towards the feminine, as this ideal with a feminine face and (generally) androgynous body, and that's more or less my ideal image for myself. One of them, I guess. I'm attracted to people who are more or less that andro-chic look, but I also find a strong aesthetic appreciation for people with more feminine bodies (i.e. curves), and therefore sometimes I'm okay with looking like that, too. Sometimes. The ~feminine me still doesn't like to do her makeup and hair every day, or make a sandwich for her boyfriend because she's supposed to, or stay home and watch the kids, and is definitely still more of the power female, but she's more okay with her curves even to the point of sometimes feeling sexy in a clingy dress or something. It's like I'm bigendered, with the two sides being genderqueer and female. Which is super weird.

I know that most of my gender performance is because it's just easier. The constant skirts is a body image thing, because I have, um, probably some kind of serious body dysmorphic disorder when it comes to my thighs and have a hard time handling looking at them, so it's easier to just wear skirts. The hair is vanity, given, but it fits in with my sort of feminine facial ideal. I'm not sure if I'd rather be flat chested or curvy (the andro or the feminine), but I've got tits. (Pretty easily bindable ones, much to Roommate's consternation, but all the same.) And so I work what I've got; I buy the push-up bras, because I at least want what I have to be perfect. (Hallo, perfectionism/control issues/the root of much misery.)

It tends to mean I attract "the wrong kind of person" for me; I think, because of the typology of people I'm attracted to and my slash hobbies and all of this stuff, etc. etc., if I ever were interested in a relationship, even with a man, it would probably have to be someone out of the queer community. I'm read pretty much as straight, or on very rare occasions, hit on by more butch girls, when I want to be the sort of dominant one or at least equal in a relationship (not that relationships require any kind of dom/sub -- and I do not mean this in the BDSM way, but just in general dynamics; the leader and the follower -- or male/female traditional binary roles, but often they sort of happen, even in friendships sometimes, I find). I'm the toppiest top who ever hasn't actually sexually topped, as we say. Which is why I think I'm not hit on by gay girls more often; idk, maybe I put off dominance vibes, so no one comes to me, but then I don't go out and go after anyone? I mean, I'm not interested in a relationship, really, which is why I have no particular drive to change anything about how I present, but it doesn't mean I'm not super jealous when Roommate gets hit on all. the. time. by lesbians and nobody ever looks twice at me.

I'm not sure if I'm attracted to males (almost exclusively gay males in real life, or celebs with more feminine features/presentation) more often when I'm feeling genderqueer/andro and females more often when I'm feeling feminine, or if it's the other way around. I think genderqueer me is attracted to both/pan, and feminine me is more attracted to the women side of the spectrum, maybe? I notice periods of time when I'm much more likely to look pretty much exclusively at women and periods when I look at both or more men (but I don't think ever exclusively), with androgynous types being somewhere in the middle of both, but I'm not sure if that correlates to periods of feeling one way or the other. (I also couldn't tell you how often I feel one way or the other, because it's not really a line that I jump across or anything.) I know I've never had a sexual dream/fantasy where I was explicitly female with a man (a lot of the time, I'm sort of . . . non-gender specific?), but I've been female-bodied in lesbian dreams.

And when I say attracted, I really just mean aesthetic appreciation. I'm pretty sure I'm pretty asexual. I can look at people and think they are ridiculously attractive, and I can look at people and think I want to spend time with them, and I can look at people and think both, but never do I look at someone and think "I want to have sex with you." That's just not something that goes through my mind ever. The biggest, longest running crush on a Real Life Boy I've ever had, I don't think I've ever had a sexual thought about him, and only fleeting ones for my Real Life Woman crush (but that didn't really count, because she wasn't really a Real Life person because it was literally impossible to have a relationship with her being, um, my teacher) -- I'll on occasion have sexual fantasies about celebs or something, but I know if I ever, for instance, had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted with Olivia Wilde for one night in real life, we'd have dinner and talk politics and maybe cuddle. I remember realizing, at a Halloween party last year, that I hadn't gotten off in a while, and there was a guy there who was kind of cute (in that lighting, at least; turns out not so much, but still), and that I could totally make out with, possibly do him if I wanted to, but I didn't. Not at all. Not even "oh, that'd be nice but I don't really know him so that's dumb"; there was just no desire whatsoever, even when I tried to mentally put someone else (including women) I knew better in his place.

But then again, I think I would have no problem, if I broke past some barriers and was in a relationship, having sex. I enjoy orgasms. (Or, um, I did. Fucking anti-depressants.) But I don't . . . go out and look for it? I have no particular desire to have sex with another person, save maybe for scientific curiosity, but if you were here and I was here and we were really good friends/in a relationship and were bored or (idk if I ever actually get this way, but) horny or whatever, sure; as is an occasional catchphrase in our house, "Here, have some orgasms." I've told Roommate before (I think I was probably drunk, but still) that I would totally do her if she ever wanted to fool around, just because I love her (platonically) and if I can do something that makes her feel good, why not? That puts me more on the aromantic side of the spectrum and would disqualify me from "true" asexuality in some people's narrow views, but whatever.


COOL STORY BRO. Just some things I've been thinking about. I kind of tend to just go "agh, fuck labels" because I am so confusing, but at the same time, I feel . . . idk, like I said above in regard to my lesbianism in high school, like I don't want to get left out of this group that I belong to? I don't generally stress about them, but they helped in this case to sort of ~express my feelings. Of all the things I angst about, though, this isn't one of them. The fact that I'm Ace doesn't disturb me (even though I have the probably unpopular opinion that most asexuals probably could be diagnosed with some kind of attachment or arousal disorder; just because it's a thing -- like Roommate's Gender Identity Disorder, or my redheadedness -- doesn't mean you have to do anything about it if it's not distressful or an impediment to functioning). I imagine the gender thing might be more disturbing if I was desiring of a standard, heterosexual relationship (or any relationship at all), but because of the asexuality, it's just not an issue. I wish that my gender performance could be more in line with how I actually feel I'm performing (see above Adam Lambert example), but that's life.

Sometimes, Roommate and I say we're 200% gay. It's crazy; we're like fucking SuperQueer over here or something. Fuck yeah, house of fabulousness.

I keep reading over this and wanting to add more/change things to make sure it all makes sense, but I think exactly two people are going to read even this much, so we'll just hit post.

To summarize that last ranttastic emo post, because tl;dr--I'm half-decent at everything, so I never get told I'm good at anything.

But because self-centeredness is to be punished, the universe decides to cow me quite spectacularly.

Got an email from my mom a minute ago. Basically, my dad's had swollen lymph nodes and lately trouble swallowing and pain, and just recently was coughing up a massive amount of blood. Went to the doctor, who sent him to an ENT specialist, who is sending him to (I presume from mom's tone, though she didn't actually specify) an oncologist.

So I feel even more like shit, because now it feels like I spent all morning being really, really undeservedly whiny. I mean, STFU, Alexandria, your dad's probably got fucking cancer. We don't care that you feel like your life sucks and nobody appreciates you, suck it fucking up; at least you don't have an oncologist's appointment this week.

Obviously, I'm jumping to the worst-case scenario, but it looks bad. Made even more bad-looking by how my mom tacked on to the end "By the way, this is more than your siblings know," meaning "Don't tell them," meaning "Oh, shit." But LOL, perfect example of how even my family knows what a heartless bitch I am--"don't tell the kids because they might get upset, but here's a medical puzzle for Alexandria!"

The worst part is that she's absolutely right. My first thought was "Ooh, glad I didn't sell back my oncology textbook!" Fail.

Idk, it's made so much worse by the fact that I'm not there. When I first came down to college, it was sort of the same thing--his diabetes had been under really great control, but what that means to an endocrinologist is that you aren't going into high blood glucose ranges at all, which makes lows more common. And though highs are what kill uncontrolled diabetics over time, lows kill you overnight or when you pass out at the wheel or something like that, and having been in the car where that almost fucking happened, I was really uncomfortable leaving. Same thing here--I mean, I'm not in tears with anxiety or anything, but I'm much more concerned sitting here getting the second hand information than I would be if I were home and could make him let me go to the onc with him (as I often do when somebody in the fam goes to the doctor for something being wrong, since became the medical expert in the family when I was very young) and get the info told to me as if I were a doctor rather than (I say this with all affection) dumbed down for my parents and telephone-chained to me.

THAT IS ALL. Didn't pay attention and made way too much food and still absently ate it anyway, so my stomach hurts and I'm tired and my laptop charger is all but totally not working, so I'm 42% on the tablet and (hopefully) 100% on Tosh away from being totally computerless. Gah, the shitstorm, when it hits . . . .

So, my days continue. I do science in my lab, fail at science inexplicably if it's organic chemistry, write poetry in the hour or two I have before poetry class on Thursday to hand in and am apparently not suck at it as I've got one of two As in the class, volunteer (sort of unvolunteery, as it wasn't exactly my choice) at this children's science museum, eat too much, exercise too little, and hate myself to excess.


( Poetry )

( Organic Chemistry )

( Biomolecular Interactions )


I do need to stop just taking graded tests at their word. I'm not really checking any of them over at all, even just to see what I missed and make sure I learn it, which is bad. Mostly because I don't want to face these grades again, you know, as school is my entire measure of personal success. Basically, I'm pulling the same self-defeating shit I pulled all through high school except now I'm pulling it where it really matters and I'm not going to be able to sneak by anyway because This Is It.

I'm so fucking terrified that every little thing is going to be the one that stops me from going to medical school. I mean, I've talked about this frankly before--if I don't get in to medical school, I'm probably going to kill myself because I do not know what I'm going to do with my life. I've been saying that forever, but as this possible future appears to be becoming a probability (my MCAT scores on the practice test sucking, now my grades as usual being not good), you'd expect that I'd back off from that a bit, especially as how I've been all "Ooh, I wish I could do this and that and major in this and go work in politics blah blah" lately. Not at all. It's not because I don't know what else I can do with my life (I'd have to switch majors, but I love politics crazy hard, and I could see myself teaching AP biology or chemistry [ha! but I did well in genchem] or even English), but because this is, on Alexandria scale, the ultimate failure. If something that has guided every single decision I have ever made in my life ends up not coming to fruition, what the fuck have I lived the past 19 years for?

Anyway. Either my nap today was more productive than I thought (I was waking up every couple of minutes, though, so I doubt it) or I'm more miserable than I thought, because I just realized that it's the second day of daylight savings time, so my body should think it's almost 6am (though it's 5) and yet I'm not tired. Massive headache that I had most of yesterday and came back a few hours ago is also probably a contributing factor. Blargh.

( Spoilers for 1/23's BSG )

I've really got to pay better attention to these. I think my ADD has progressively gotten worse, as TV's just something I can't do anymore. I'm always also checking my email and playing a game and eating a bowl of oatmeal, etc., etc. and with shows like BSG, you really need to be watching closer than that. It works fine for stuff like Psych, but I find that even with House or ER, people (or the characters) wi'll mention something that happened last week and I won't know what they're talking about even though I just watched it.

( Spoilers for Psych )

Beta'd some fic recently. That was fun. Yet always agonizing--I always want to point out as many things as I think I can help with, but I don't want to make it seem like the fic is bad or make too many suggestions because I think it's worded awkwardly or something that are changing things that are just part of their style. It was (presumably--I just sort of assumed as the author writes femslash and the main characters appeared from the first chapter I read to be these two) Kim/Olivia of SVU, which I've never seen. Frankly, I was so pissed with the casting of Kim (the actress is barely old enough to have feasibly graduated from law school, much less worked in DC and then be assigned to Manhattan's elite Special Victims' Unit) that I haven't paid much attention to her character, but I'll definitely have to now, especially if my betaing skills are retained past that first chapter. (I may have scared her away.)

I want to do my life over again. And not make such a fucking mess of things this time.

If only.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a bad person because I get fiercely, fiercely jealous occasionally. Mostly over friends. Idk. Jealous/depressed, I guess. It seems like crazy, stupid elementary school behavior, but if I think/find out that somebody doesn't like me as much as I like them, I sort of shut down. One of those "you're not your best friend's best friend" things. That situation seems to happen to me a lot. That's almost definitely my fault, though, because I get v. v. attached and devoted to my friends. The problem is that most of me says that that shouldn't be a bad thing, but the rest points out how often and how hard I end up getting hurt by it.