Gender Jumper

A little something my colleagues and I whipped up: Platform Hide & Seek.

We're implementing a first wave departure from Discord as we speak, but the game was developed with an eye toward ALL platforms where organizers, NSFW spaces, and other Internet users want to move away from mass surveillance, Al slop, and/or enshittification.

Via flamingsword:

TL;DR: most of my answers are "It's complicated..." or "LOL no".

Adults responsible for your care actively helped facilitate your early learning (reading at bedtime, playing educational games, going to child-friendly museums...).

Complicated. I have a handful of memories of my mom reading to us, but mostly she left us to our own devices. My adoptive grandfather was very hands-on, though I would say it was a lot better for socialization and world-building than capital-E Education. 

You had a library card.

Complicated. I got one in Kindergarten and stopped using it in first grade because my mom returned a book late and never paid the fine.

Adults in your life involved you in tasks that involved mathematical skills.

Complicated. I wouldn't say they gave me hands-on learning, but my stepdad did teach me multiplication months ahead of school just because we had some idle time and he liked that I was smart.

If you started falling behind in school, you received help from a private tutor.

LOL, no. I never really fell behind, though. I guess there was that semester I transferred schools and joined Geometry, Biology, and Geography seven weeks into the school year; I was expected to make up the work and given some leeway on timing, but no extra instruction or support.

You went to a well-funded school.

LOL, no. They had plenty of money for metal detectors and security guards, but the funding really seemed to dry up once my schools became majority-Black. I don't think we were horrendously under-funded, there was just nothing to spare. Most textbooks were 5-10 years old, we had to fundraise for band instruments and trips, and there were two TV carts (no antenna or cable) for the whole school -- that's the level at which we were operating.

You typically attended school adequately clothed and fed.

Technically yes, but I had to borrow my stepdad's jeans a few times (and he left track marks, ew) and I always always always smelled like cigarette smoke.

Adults responsible for your care were able to help you make decisions when it came time to pursue higher education.

LOL, no. I filled out the paperwork and told my mom where to sign and how much to make the check out for (test and application fees). Mom did drive me to one or two college nights, but we never really talked about my thought process. All anyone cared about was that I was going to go and I was going to finish.
 
If you were disabled and/or neurodivergent, you were classified by your school and received support through the educational system.

LOL, no. I was good at schoolwork, so no one had reason to complain. My brother was the problem child and I got lost in the shuffle. Even when I was having semi-regular meltdowns, I was told I needed to learn to control my temper, not to understand my own needs. I figured all that shit out on my own without really understanding why it had been so tough to start with. 

You generally felt physically and emotionally safe at school.

LOL, no. I guess elementary and high school were alright, but my middle school was rife with racial tensions and gang violence. Some people thought I was surly enough to not mess with, but I didn't know that at the time. I realized years later that it was mostly my height and my ability to draw that kept me from getting my ass beat on a regular basis.

You were in relatively good physical and mental health.

Relatively? I almost always had something physically wrong, but it was usually minor: a jammed finger, a scraped knee, or a multi-day neck spasm, stuff like that. My mental health was always simmering until I taught myself to stop being angry over shit I couldn't control.

For the most part, you were able to study and complete assignments without any struggle.

LOL, yes, but only because I found it easy. I would fill out worksheets during passing period and cram major essays in a single night. I didn't learn how to study or plan work until college, and I wasn't very good at it until grad school.

Test-taking came easily to you.

Yes. Effortless.

You read at grade level or above.

Before I ever started school, my babysitter's kids handed me a high school textbook to read out loud and I could read it better than she could. That never really changed. 

Your mathematics skills were at grade level or above.

Other than that awkward first semester of Geometry (I'm told many artists struggle with Geometry anyway, and I was at peak illustrator mode), I was the best in my school.

Adults responsible for your care supported your academic journey for the better and for the worse.

I told them what I was going to do and they made it happen. Nobody really prepared me for any of those decisions, though, or helped me think ahead. I remain the only person with a college degree in my immediate family of origin.

I cannot think of a time I have ever felt so ADHD as I do right now. All of my people are AuDHD and see Autism and ADHD as over-separated pathologies of related phenomena, but when I talk about embracing my ND traits I'm identifying almost entirely with the autistic side. At least, that used to be the case.

My brain goes through cycles, and this time last year I was so brain-foggy that I didn't have much wherewithal to notice much, let alone have feelings about it. But it seems there is a time of year when I want to hybernate, and even coming out of that is a drudge. I don't want to sleep all day (which is good), but I do want to watch videos and browse Letterboxd all day. I don't even feel nourished by these activities, I just start them for what I think will be 5-10 minutes and next thing I know several hours have gone by. I have a whole list of activities I'd rather be doing (and I've been nominally productive). Is this a sign I'm pushing myself too fast? Doing too much? Or just completely out of touch with my own needs?

I'm not sure it helps that my week is so untethered. I have meetings but I don't have anchoring events. I don't have dates while Activist Hottie is out of town, my local friends are in their own worlds, most of my phone calls fall through, and the commitments that hold feel like pulling teeth for myself and others. I already know I cannot force discipline upon myself, but I used to be able to outsmart myself with pacing and incentives. The incentive now is that we get to move in a few months, but everything feels far away.

Welcome to the whiny portion of the season.

Today we had a little power blip, so my computer (usually left on overnight) had to be turned on.

When I did, it sounded too quiet.

Where was the whir?

The screen stayed blank longer than usual (probably some background tests), but everything looked fine as soon as it loaded.

I stood vigil while it fully booted, turned it off, and turned it on again. No whir, no evidence of problems. I turned it off again until I was ready.

When I came back, I let it load and plugged in my external drive. Time to back up everything again, just to be safe. Took a few hours. But at the end, both devices seemed perfectly content.

I turned it off when I went out for a while. Turned it on once more, no problems, but still no whir. Opened the side panel and looked around. Not a lot of lights to indicate problems (this model is over a decade old), but definitely some dust. And three small fans, all running quietly. I looked around for extra drives (I've had it so long I start to forget specs), but everything was accounted for: one hard drive, three fans, one empty DVD-ROM, nothing else that would have made a lot of noise. I blew some canned air around and put things back, promising to keep an eye out.

It's occurred to me slowly over a few hours that some combination of helping Nesting Partner with her computer and the constant hum of A/C, air purifiers, and other computers around the house may have displaced me in time. As I thought about it more and more, I realized the "whir" I sought was probably from an earlier computer, probably my last desktop (purchased in 2001 -- I was so excited to keep MP3s for the first time!).

Sure, I'm a little behind on sleep and our fancy new Aranet says my whole house has too much CO2 concentration, but did I really just make up a memory from another era of my life?

It's not just that. I got a massage on Saturday, and was reminded of my regular LMT from caregiving days. I finally remembered her last name (a couple months ago I could not), but now whenever I try to picture her, her image starts to merge with that of my 8th grade English Teacher. Sure, they were probably about the same age when I knew them and roughly the same skin tone, hair, and build. But their personalities were night and day different, and I'm a little upset that I can't see her face. I wish we'd taken a picture together at some point, but I wish I could see the correct face.

Maybe this is something that happens when we age or maybe this is another tiny whisper of a future crescendo toward cognitive decline. As I've written about before, I have enough personal and academic knowledge of dementia to suspect that I'd be able to watch it in real time if it ever happens to me. Most people's brains start changing twenty years before symptoms become noticeable, but most people aren't as attuned to their own experiences and interiorities as I am and most who have been probably weren't tracking it closely to a specific illness.

I fancy myself a storyteller, and my recent urges toward writing are as much about recording what I can as they are about giving my brain a healthy balance of stimulation. I think I've had a unique vantage point on this empire of ours, and if our history were ever told the way we tell Roman history, the best and most important lives would be lost. But if these stories start blurring together a little too often or contradicting accounts of other people who were there, I want to be able to own that, too.

Today's story is sparked by my niece, who sheepishly confessed to me that she's still Facebook friends with my best friend from high school, who was affectionately once known as SuperChristianJockBoy but could now just as easily called PaternalisticEvangelicalCop now. Every once in a while, he'll DM someone in my my fam-o and wax philosophic about where our friendship went wrong, even though it's been nearly 9 years since I first cut off contact. He's been trying to solve it like a puzzle all this time, because he wasn't paying attention to the real story in the first place. Allow me to share that one with you now:

In high school, however shocked everyone was, SCJB and I were genuinely great friends. We liked to ask deep questions and read interesting works and listen to lively music. We showed up when our friends needed us, lent $20 back and forth for a while, and supported one another's strange lives without judgment because we connected to each other's humanity, even if not our values. We knew each other's families and could vent about their eccentricities, again without judgment. In college, we even worked and traveled together a couple of times and found ways to celebrate what we had in common. He balked at my going out of state, as much or more because he identified so heavily as a Texan and didn't understand how limited I felt here. We had thoughtful debates as our politics diverged further, often agreeing on the main points if not the actions that should be taken to correct them.

Once in a while, though, when I started to present evidence on something that mattered to me, he would shut it out and say, "Well, I don't know anything about that." At the time it felt harmless, but I've since learned a lot about tactics for dismantling debate (not least because my brother weaponizes liberally) and I don't exactly see it as a good-faith comment. It's not a statement that says, "I'm unfamiliar and I want to learn more." It's a statement that says, "I'm unfamiliar and that's your problem, not mine." The conversation was over and somehow my knowledge was disruptive.

I worked in D.C. He futzed around college for a couple of extra years, then ended up in a finance job he hated. He decided he wanted a job outdoors when one of his frat buddies got him psyched about becoming a fireman. Then when none of the local fire departments were hiring, they agreed to become cops instead. But the frat buddy never made the cut. I never took issue with it because I was still cop-neutral at the time: I knew they were capable of a lot of harm individually but believed they contributed societal good, too, and that a compassionate individual could accomplish good things from behind a badge. (I was young and naïve! It was the mid-00s!) He also took a lot of overtime work as a security guard. He also got married, and I was the best man.

One time he and one of his cop buddies joined me for karaoke and made a joke about how somebody spent her "Obama-bucks". Forget that my mom had been on welfare at some point when I was young, or that his mom probably was too. This slang was coded.

"There hasn't been major welfare reform since Clinton," I told him.

"Well I wouldn't know anything about that."

Well into caregiving, I would have still considered him my best friend, even though we didn't hang out or even check in as much; yet I had also applied the BF moniker to my writing and dating partner and to a friend from adolescence who showed me around the local BDSM scene before fucking off to California. It was caregiving, in fact, where the cracks began to show. I was having the hardest time of my life and I was hearing from him less than ever. When I did, it was usually a brief text exchange, of which up to a third of the exchange would invariably be, "Well, I know I need to come by and see yall some time. I'll bring [wife's name, because my grandfather liked her]." And then he just never did. I never asked him for help because I didn't know what or how to ask, especially of this guy, who still called me a "long-haired hippie" beyond the equivalent eight years that he'd known me with short hair. The old working class ribbing never let up, but I found I increasingly couldn't rib him in return. I found it tedious and unaffectionate.

The breaking point didn't come at my grandfather's funeral, as he has somehow convinced himself (he was the officiant at my request, though more as a favor to my grandfather than to SCJB), it came in two parts, one about half a year before the funeral and the other about half a year after. When his wife gave birth to their first child, I came out to draw the baby (as was my tradition at the time). It was my first time in their new home. He probably said something about visiting my grandfather in memory care, but I just ignored it. I told him I had some big news that I was excited about: Nesting Partner and Kiddo were going to move in soon, and I would have a family in the household again. Instead of reading the joy on my face or finding common ground (as we had done when we were young) he immediately balked at the idea: "A single mom? I dunno, man, that's pretty serious."

"Well, I've known her for over a decade and we've been together for over six years already. I know them well and this is what I want." Why did I feel like I had to defend myself?

"Well, good luck I guess." He didn't say, I wouldn't know anything about that, but he may as well have. The conversation was over and somehow my joy was disruptive. He walked off and I decided not to linger.

I should write another time about everything swirling in my brain during the time my grandfather lived in memory care. All I wanted to do was honor my grandfather, rest, save my relationships, distance myself from my family, and get on with my life. That already included SCJB after his comment, though it had already been clear our political differences hit differently. He spent some time under investigation for brutality one time and blamed his Black sergeant. He started grad school before I did because he wanted to become a detective (and eventually did). He got his ministry license but still never found a permanent church where he fit in. His ritual when he got home was to fix a Jack Daniels and put his wife on the ground in some sort of bodyslam while she laughed and screamed idle threats at his/their surname. They collected beagles. He finally stopped eying the door like a mob boss and reminding me that he could never have his back to it (he maintained these practices, he just became more subtle about it). We all went to a concert one time -- he and his wife, me and K the Ghost -- and he was in gym shorts, but since he wasn't allowed in city limits without his gun and badge within reach, he had to stash them in his wife's purse; I should have joked about him taking the purse to the bathroom, but it wouldn't have landed right. Things always sound different coming from me.

Anyway, I didn't hear from him much until my grandfather's funeral, when I invited him to officiate. It was a nice symmetry since he'd read a prayer at my grandmother's funeral and he had, long ago, been fairly close to them. It was my intention to cut off all contact there, but then he surprised me by showing up to my birthday gathering that weekend. I had the displeasure of seeing him meet the metamour from the BDSM scene who used to outsource his 101 to me so he could swoop in and date the people I prepared once they got the gist. But fine, whatever. I could start distancing myself soon enough.

When his child's 1st birthday came around, he invited me to a huge party and asked if I could unveil the drawing. I attended alone, and when we had a moment (which was hard -- there were a lot of kids and people I didn't know around) I was eager to tell him how well my household's first year had gone.

"So I know you had some concerns, but this year has been great."

"What do you mean?"

"About my partner moving in?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

That's when I was done. It was bad enough he never showed up when I needed him, even worse when he'd talked down to me about my relationship. But then to not even remember how important this was to me and how out of line he'd been? That was the last straw.

After I left the party, I just stopped answering. After two or three went without responses, he said he was just going to go ask my brother what was going on (my brother who I also wasn't speaking to at the time) and I relented.

"No need to get anybody else involved. Ask me anything."

I think his first question was something like, "What gives? How do you abandon a friendship after everything we've meant to each other." Whatever it was, I resented its premise and rambled as much in my reply.

I don't even think his second question was a question, but I tried to meet it in good faith and tell him that my priorities had shifted. "You're asking the wrong questions," I remember saying.

He didn't even ask, "What questions should I be asking?" He just pouted a bit more and gave up. Told me to have a nice life.

He pinged me once or twice after that, but nothing substantive and I didn't respond.

It was a time of great loss for me, but I had no grief over him by that time. I grieved him as I had many others through the lonely nights of caregiving, through the forgotten promises of showing up and doing better, of all the people who would say, "Let me know if there's anything you need," but then when I wrote on Facebook that what I needed was support and a reminder that I still existed, they never responded. I grieved the loves of my life who limped right up to the finish line with me, only to be gone when I turned back to thank them. I grieved people who had meant the world to me at various times of my life but who hadn't bothered to check on me during my first, truest tribulation. Whom I begged and pleaded to call, visit, distract me with their problems. Who had the gall to advance their lives while I was stuck in limbo and then tell me when I reemerged, "We just didn't know what to say!"

My anger toward SCJB has reduced and simmered down to a generic glaze: another patriarch who depended on someone for emotional labor and got -- what's that the GenXers say? -- all butthurt when it was taken away from him. That was the real indignity, I realized after some time apart. Since some time in college, maybe we were 20 or maybe we were 21, he hadn't shown up for me once. I showed up for him. I was there when he confessed to losing his virginity. I was there when half his wedding party bailed because he and his fiancée were going to move into their shared home two whole months before exchanging vows. I was there when his mom remarried and his mother-in-law died of cancer and his father offended his Black frat brother and he spent a summer with the Salvation Army and talked about how weird and creepy their whole military vibe was... But any time I shared something, he doubted, he debated, or he dismissed. When I looked over that long, long adult pattern, I realized that I wasn't even sure he noticed the emotional labor; he had been keeping me as a pet. I was his pet atheist (oh yeah, there was that time I send him a pages-long email about how my spirituality had evolved and I wasn't technically an atheist any more and he never responded -- I digress). I was his pet "liberal" "atheist", and I think the only reason he bothered to keep me around beyond a certain period of nostalgia or convenience was because he thought one day I would see the light -- religiously, politically, or both -- and he wanted to be there to gloat. Do I think he consciously believed this and wished for it? No, but I think it was the most affirming hope he had for our friendship. I was a smart guy, everyone knew, and if some day I took his side in some or another contention, then he'd get to feel smart, too!

It's all so crass. Like my fam-o, the journey I've taken isn't even on their map, can't even be plotted from their legend, and sounds somehow like a fantasy and the most boring thing ever to them. But I've been following my path and discovering things I never knew I needed -- we needed -- while they settled into scripts and ruts and scripts where they complain about the ruts and I've kept away from the Jack Daniels and I've kept from body-slamming my partners and I don't go harassing people who've made it clear they have nothing to say to me, no matter how badly I want to.

It was a resounding success. The food, the company, the sense of community. Some highlights:

Quite possibly the most beautiful moment I've ever shared with my household was watching my nesting partner and Kiddo simultaneously holding court in a room full of adults. Everyone was completely focused on one or the other of them, their similar speech cadences offered a strangely stable syncopation, and I just got to bask in the moment that I made happen. It's hard to convey just how rare and precious this moment was, but the short version is they're both autistic and very selective about opening up in group spaces. It was glorious and I get teary just thinking about it.

We went with an indigenous and regional vibe, since Kiddo is trying to build connections with her indigenous ancestry and we're a fairly decolonial bunch. Bison tacos, fry bread, esquites, and homemade tortilla soup were among the highlights. 

Storytelling was also a highlight. I confessed to everyone my intentions of building a stronger sense of community between maskers in this area so they'd all have each other to lean on once we finally GTFO. I got brave and shared a little bit about my time magic.

Returning with my party-superstar vibes (and honestly, these are the most successful events I've ever hosted without major assists, so that's a whole other layer) reminded me of days before COVID, before grad school, mostly even before caregiving, when I could just show up at a party and, at peak, vacillate easily between observant wallflower and center of attention in cycles. But since I didn't need to hold court for more than one story at a time, I didn't try to create or hold onto it, it just flowed, and I think it did for everyone else as well. With all that relaxation (and a bit of weed, though I myself never partake), a strong undercurrent of flirtation also emerged, and it felt like being at a polyamorous party again. I really missed that openness (didn't I journal about it here a couple years ago???), and have been savoring the afterglow a little too much.

I don't know if anyone's really interested. I'm not sure any of us have the capacity to even just have fun without complications these days. But damn, it feels good to be attractive and attracted and I'm going to bask in that a bit too.

If you want to host a virtual viewing of RHPS, it's important to keep things simple and match people's enthusiasm levels. A few people with high enthusiasm are happy to settle for a couple of gags and a straightforward viewing, while a lot of people with low commitment just invites frustration and noise. If you're somehow enthusiastic about this experience without having ever been to a shadowcast yourself, there are recorded audio (cassette) and video (DVD) versions out there where you can learn about popular audience callbacks, some of which date back to those early Village viewings in 1976! Once you know the lines, though, it's important to scale back expectations and adapt to your circumstances.

Read my full essay at Letterboxd, no login required.