A Handful of Self-Indulgent Ponderings

1. At what point does something I feel become fact? With moods and passions so fickle as mine, how often do they have to occur before they are real? How can I tell a person that I'm attracted to them, when I know that 90% of the time, I feel no attraction towards any living thing? In this scenario, it's not a lie, because I am, sometimes, attracted to them. 10% of the time. That's about the percentage that I consider myself truly attracted to a person. Once you break 10%, you've made it farther than the vast majority of the human race. You're in the 99th percentile of my sexual appreciation of humans. But is that enough to become a fact? Is that enough for me to declare to a person, "I want to be with you?" Or is that too much of a commitment? Is that saying, "I want to be with you 100% of the time?" Because that will always be a lie. I need alone-time, and I need more of it than do most people. I'm probably in the 99th percentile of Americans who need alone-time.

How can anyone trust what I say, when it's only true a percentage of the time? There are so few things I can say that are true about me 100% of the time. One of them is that I am constantly changing.

My world turns itself inside out on a regular basis. Three weeks ago, I would have described myself as someone who felt like they were dying, felt that there was no hope for me doing anything good in the future, and who hates being lonely, and hates talking to people. This week, I would describe myself as someone who has hopes for the future, loves having their loneliness as their constant companion, and loves sharing words with people that mean a lot to them.

If I said today that I hated being lonely, I would be lying. It's not true today. If I had said three weeks ago that I hated being lonely, I would have been telling the truth.

If my history is anything to go by, I'll be back to hating life in a week or two. And then a couple of weeks after that, the world will be full of happy giddiness again.

These changes happen between morning and night on some days. Other times, the cycles take weeks. My only constant is that I'm inconstant.

How can I ever present myself to the world, knowing that in a few days, or a few hours, what I've presented will then be a lie?

I think about these things in relation to my gender, especially. It is a fact that I am genderless. When I am all alone, with only Sing the Sorrow, and all the petty circumstances of the world fade away into the sweet blackness, I am genderless.

Therefore, I would like to present myself to the world as genderless, an androgen, what have you.

But suddenly throw me in a circumstance where my gender affects how I interact with others, and I will usually end up caving, and admitting that my genderlessness is a lie, an ideal that can only be upheld in the 30% of my time that I spend in my head alone. Put me in a situation where it would be easier to get along with the group if I'm just "one of the gals," then I'll morph into a girl, and to claim that I'm genderless would be to lie. Put me in a situation where I'm dressed up in a way that's deliberately contrary to how young women usually dress, and the guy at the cinema box office mistakes me for a boy, then I have to admit I feel good about the mistake; I have to admit that, in that moment, it's not genderlessness that I want, but to be a real boy. When I can only get off by imagining I have a penis, in that moment, it's a fact that I wish I were born with one. When in the morning, the idea of having sexual organs at all makes me want to die, it's a fact that I don't wish I were born with a penis. Where is truth? Is truth what is true in the state of sexual, spiritual, intellectual excitement? Or is it what is true when all excitement is gone, and the only thing around and inside me is the stillness of death?

Sometimes I think that my desire to be a man is actually merely a masked desire to have more of a sex drive. Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't it be wonderful for me to actually tell someone I want to be with them, and actually mean it more than 10% of the time?

I wonder if I'll ever know the answer to any of these questions.


2. I am wearing a pair of blue jeans today that I bought and wore in my freshman year of high school. That's eight years ago. What does that say about how dynamic a life I lead? I thought I went out into the world and accumulated and learned new things. But it turns out, I just come back to Rohnert Park and fit right back in the same pair of pants I left behind.


3. I learned today, for the hundredth time, that I'm basically the younger version of my dad. I was doing some contemplation on my favorite subject, my mind. I was thinking and realizing that something I can define about the way my mind works is that I simply reject manipulation, guilt trips, drama. It's like I have this switch in me; when none of that stuff is going on, everything's bright and fine, no worries. But the very second that someone even brings a touch of manipulation or guilt tripping into the conversation, I completely shut off. Just one drop and that's the end. I snap shut. I shut down. That shit just Does. Not. Work with me. It's the least effective way to get through to me ever.

And as I was gathering all these thoughts in my brain, I realized that I'm pretty damn sure my dad's said the exact same thing to me about himself. I'm fairly certain I've both witnessed that reaction, and heard him describe it. So basically, my emotional patterns are carbon-copied from my dad. Funny how that works, isn't it?


4. The only way I can fall asleep is by imagining death. Some nights it's suffocation, some nights it's icy ocean water filling my lungs. Lately, it's been blood flowing out from my veins, draining my body, dripping down my hands and from my fingertips.

5. The end :)