Gender Jumper

genderjumper @ 2026-04-11T23:42:00

2026-04-12T05:33:15Z

In their infinite thoughtfulness, flamingsword and others recently encouraged me to write my life story/ies here because there is still so much to learn about each other. I found it a delightful motivation, particularly when they requested "the Bildungsroman of your oppressed childhood?"

But if I was going to start such a project, I had to make sure I wasn't repeating other stories, and I found I'd written way more here than I recalled!

So here is a rough anthology of posts I've already make that would fall under "A Thousand Ways to Tell a Life Story":

Adverse Childhood Experiences
Burnout
Homes
Sleep
My fam-o's great expectations for me
Alcohol (I called it a "Culture Catalogue" there)
Friendships
Jobs & Employment

And as a treat, here's the first time I wanted to grieve my lost chance to move to Chicago.

I also cleaned up my tags (though I only got through the I's so probably needs a lot more work); as they get streamlined better they should help me as the writer and yall as readers to seek out specific topics more quickly. One thing I have not streamlined yet is which posts are public and which are access-only, so I apologize in advance if something isn't showing up for you. That's a DW etiquette thing I'm still learning.

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Ultimate Road Trip: Reckoning

2026-04-09T18:06:48Z

Last year I got to revisit Manhattan for the first longest time since I went there for college. It was refreshing in many ways, but also arduous. I've always said I would never want to live in NYC again but I'd love a long visit and I got it. I quickly learned the nearby food options, how far I could walk comfortably (in a mask no less, because those streets are often crowded), not to take the stairs if I wanted to keep my endurance, and how to navigate in one of those Citi bikes that were a little too small for me. It was glorious. Yet there were many moments I didn't get to enjoy my stay because I was scrambling to recover spoons lost to surprises, especially calorie crashes. And it was expensive as hell, only feasible because AH and I were getting a free room and generous wages AND because she offered to cover all our expenses to let me keep my generous per diem.

I learned so much about my disability while I was there.

I'm doing a lot better now. My low days, baseline, and best days are all better than I could have imagined this time last year. And yet they are nowhere near where I think they should be, could be, and I have no guarantee if/when they could ever get there.

Fast forward to this morning in sunny Evanston, IL. I did my homework last night and identified one breakfast place down the block that could meet my dietary needs, maybe a couple of backups. But when I get down there, they're closed. No reason, just closed. I see several other places within sight, but at each counter I find out they either don't serve gluten-free or they only serve dessert pastries, not breakfast food. I wander in another direction, skip an alleyway I thought would be a convenient circuit, and try a couple more options. Finally, I call NP and ask her to just order delivery from whatever is close by. I grab a protein bar, some Cokes, and start heading back.

By the time I'm back at the hotel, I'm nearly in tears. I've walked no more than 6 or 8 blocks in an active but far from crowded suburb and I'm already on the verge of a calorie crash despite my planning and flexibility.

Chicago is the most expensive place on our list, but it also has the steepest learning curve. I'd want to go car-free, which means assuming my endurance continues to improve. I might get a bike, especially an electric bike, but the other day I couldn't do five minutes on a stationary (hotel fitness room). I'd rely heavily on the El, but that means mastering a dense new geography AND peak traffic times AND masking AND caloric needs with little room for error. And somehow getting NP and Kiddo to love it, too. On my best days, I'd like to think I could do it.

But with disability, you don't base decisions on your best days. The stars will almost never align THAT perfectly for long, and the rest of the time I might be sitting at home with a family who wishes we'd picked somewhere less intense. Maybe in another year, I could do it with ease, but I cannot build a life on best-case scenarios.

So we're taking Chicago off the list.

I love it here. Before Long COVID, it was my dream city. I could be my best self there. But that's not who I am any more, my body won't let me, and this decision needs absolute clarity about the world we live in now. And in this world, I'm too sick to put myself in the place with the highest prices and the steepest learning curve.

We have friends (and pizzas) to see here, but the tour is off and we may leave a day early. NP can't wait to get home and see the birdies. We'll swing through Champaign as planned, but that was always going to be a half-day at most.

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Ultimate Road Trip: Another Great Town

2026-04-09T02:17:01Z

Didn't take us long to drive a few laps around Ypsilanti, MI, today. We even stopped to walk around and grab lunch. Great vibes, great houses, honestly hard to imagine choosing between it and Buffalo. Buffalo is the better city, but Ypsi has better houses and is surrounded by larger cities. Weather might be a little nicer, but it's a little more isolated (as in: Buffalo is a day's drive from half of the Eastern Seaboard, whereas you can't get to Ypsi without passing through Indiana or Ohio, two of my least favorite states rn).

(Indiana even has a big billboard as soon as you cross the state line: "Cannabis is not legal in Indiana!" I don't partake, but I'm surrounded by folks who rely on it for anxiety or pain management and it's a real unpleasant message to your incoming visitors.)

The best tie-breaker I can come up with so far is driving culture: Buffalo is very friendly on the road and no one seemed to mind that there were other drivers on the road. Ypsi had more aggressive drivers AND more aggressive braking -- we witnessed one fender-bender and nearly heard another in our short visit. But for now Nesting Partner is open to researching more and maybe even talking to realtors in both places.

Chicago and Champaign are left. We arrived in Evanston (North of Chi-town) this evening and NP is not impressed from the drive in. I'm wrestling with the possibility that Chicago was the dream city for an earlier version of myself, but even under ideal circumstances it may be too much city for me now... We're staying here longer than anywhere -- 3 nights -- and will pass through Champaign (another college town you can see in a couple hours) on the way home.

From the big picture, I'm also trying to get better at adapting to my and NP's spoon shifts over the day. Hers are always worst when we're on the road, but sometimes she gets a burst of energy once we arrive; I on the other hand have the most energy on the road and have been flagging during load-in/load-out. We show each other a lot of patience, but I am constantly checking to make sure I haven't annoyed her. I also had a pretty nasty calorie crash this morning because I did too much before we ate our first meal. Oh the joys of a spoonie life.

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Ultimate Road Trip: Surprise! Buffalo!

2026-04-07T00:59:08Z

No bison were harmed or even slightly caught off guard during this journey.

BUFFALO NY (North Buffalo, North Park, Amherst, Kenmore): A-

In my research, I mostly kept Buffalo on the list because that was where Kiddo's father ended up and we promised her we'd give it real consideration. And as I whittled my top 15 down to my top 10 and then down to my top 5 or so, Buffalo quietly sat there and never really dropped in rankings. Before we got here, it had the distinction of being a well-rounded fall back: nothing exceptionally good about it, but literally everything is above average.

Through a dear friend, I met a local couple and one of them led us on a driving tour today. We cruised through all the "indie" neighborhoods, as she described them, and there were a lot! A lot of distinctive cuisine, shopping, and arts events. A lot of nice houses in our price range. A lot of positive experiences in every direction.

The car culture was probably the best surprise: our driving tour was during peak rush hour and we barely noticed. Everything is just down the way from everything else (even in the inner suburbs) and I couldn't get over how patient and friendly the other drivers were. The roads themselves look a bit rough from winter, but they're flat and navigable and uncrowded.

If we had planned a little differently, we'd stay here another night, though I don't know what else we'd need to see. Maybe tour a house for sale or meet a realtor. Maybe stick our heads in the local Subaru dealership and price a new vehicle.

The hardships of road life are getting to us both, and tomorrow we hit the road again.

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The Ten Thousand Things

2026-04-04T06:19:13Z

New ideas for storytelling I want to develop here (as practices toward future memoiring endeavors):

A Thousand Ways to Tell a Life Story: wherein I pick some recurring element of my life and recount touchpoints. Examples include:

karaoke
road trips
singing
autism (I know flamingsword wants to see that one)
etc.

and

A Thousand Lives to Tell a Story: building on my idea that though interesting things happen to me, my story is the least important to tell, this is just a catchy way to describe that process (and a nice counterbalance to the first idea.

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Travel & Playlists

2026-04-03T07:58:24Z

We're leaving a day late, if that wasn't already obvious.

When I get back, though, remind me to talk about my decade-long project to teach two special young people in my life about music they might never have otherwise heard. I found the playlists save on my computer and I'm so relieved that I don't have to go digging on obsolete machines. Honestly, those playlists, collectively, are some of my favorite works of all time.

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Pre-Internet Enshittification (a near-verbatim poesy?)

2026-04-01T07:51:07Z

( not rhyming tho )

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GTFO Part 1: The Ultimate Road Trip

2026-03-30T23:02:21Z

We leave Thursday:

Day 1: DFW to Memphis
Day 2: Memphis to Louisville, KY, to Columbus, OH
Day 3: Columbus to Buffalo
Day 4-5: Explore Buffalo
Day 5 or 6: Buffalo to Ypsilanti, MI
Day 6: Explore Ypsilanti
Day 7ish: Ypsilanti to Chicago
Days 8-11ish: Explore Chicagoland
Day 12ish: Chicago to Champaign, IL
Day 12-14: Explore Champaign and/or Metro East
Day 14: Illinois to Memphis
Day 15 Memphis to DFW

Primary goals are to explore and make some decisions. Recommendations for accommodations, shops and eateries, queer and/or COVID-cautious spaces welcome. We may not have time to socialize much unless someone is willing to play tour guide, but all of the major stops are places we hope to visit after we relocate.

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Cranky day ramble

2026-03-30T20:14:25Z

There's a video going around Instagram masterfully demonstrating the McGurk Effect by mispronouncing Lady Gaga and it's got me thinking about how everyone's brain is trying to fill in data more and receive input less because it's cognitively efficient (sort of like how ISPs cache popular websites and don't always fetch the most recent versions) and the only way I know to countermand that is to talk like fucking Foucault, where every word is precise but unexpected and the syntax and specificity forces you to slow down and make fewer assumptions.

My ex-best friend, the cop, was also a great example of this. He frequently misheard headlines and only retained his version, like when he heard Alanis Morissette say Jagged Little Pill WASN"T just a break-up/revenge album and he heard the opposite. Or the first adult relationship I had with someone with BPD, where the more words I used (trying to be precise), the less likely she was to hear my intended meaning.

Anyway, this phenomenon is all around us and people will hold onto all kinds of ideas out of cognitive efficiency and there's not much we can do about it.

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Musicology: A Short History of a USian Music Genre

2026-03-25T06:47:57Z

( Expanding a working theory... )

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A Love that Makes the World Better

2026-03-11T03:48:36Z

( Allow me to wax sentimental about NP for a bit... )

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An Pithy

2026-03-11T02:34:03Z

Justice comes at its own pace, but its arrival must be swift it is to be at all thorough.

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Another Topic Related to the Under-net

2026-03-11T01:32:09Z

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.

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My New Newsletter will be...

2026-03-11T01:26:51Z

An exercise in the Under-net. I think.

( First, some background... )

So a change has been necessary for a while.

( Here's the plan: )

NP has asked me to hold onto that check in case we need it next week, so I'm unlikely to move rapidly, but it's a joy to know it's out there, not going anywhere. I welcome feedback from anyone who has experience in these matters.

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That Education Meme

2026-02-20T20:25:08Z

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.

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When Did Texas Stop Being Home? (Drafting/Processing)

2026-02-07T03:01:19Z

When I went out of state for college, I told myself and everyone else that I needed to be exposed to new settings when I had the most freedom to receive them. I loved my hometown (and even had ambitions of helping it with the demographic frisson looming on its horizon), but I intuitively knew that it would be better to leave while I could and come back later than to get stranded and resentful.

( Starts strong, ends weak if I'm honest... )

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When the Neurodivergence Diverges

2026-02-03T07:48:11Z

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.

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Dating Profile

2026-01-16T03:41:24Z

I blame my decade on OKCupid, but my brain is always running a background process where it tries to succinctly articulate what an oddball I am and what kind of oddballs I'm interested in meeting, even when I'm not actively looking and don't have a dating profile up anywhere. But tonight I thought I stumbled upon something I like, so I want to preserve it:

I'm attracted to most bodies but not most personalities. I admire most those who are gentle with anyone weaker than themselves, strong against any who wish them harm, patient with any who confuse, and cultivating love and forgiveness toward the messy person they were on the way to developing these traits.

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Microfixation: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

2025-12-27T10:50:24Z

Quick timeline of events:

The Douglas Adams novels started coming out in the late 80s, well after he attained fame for HItchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I first learned about HHGTTG in college, I think, and absorbed some of the basics by atmosphere: a sci-fi novel full of wit and whimsy, but I never actually read the book(s).
- I was already well-versed in Red Dwarf, which never would have existed without HHGTTG but has a deeper foundation in theoretical science.
- I saw the 2005 HHGTTG movie a year or two later with the future slow-ghosting partner and her two kids. I found the viewing joyous, and we rewatched it several times together, but I also felt like it went off the rails about the time John Malkovich arrived on screen. I also picked up the impression that fanboys who hated the film version had completely different misgivings than I had, leading me to think I might like the books even less. I referenced it with friends, but I never invested much in it.
  - The slow-ghost threw a party for her 42nd birthday just a few months before I started caregiving, but it was kind of underwhelming.
  - During the one and only metamour hangout I had with nesting partner's first husband (Kiddo's father), we were assigned table number 42; we had a laugh and I took a photo for his profile in my phone. That guy later made some fucked up choices so the association soured further.
The first season of the BBC America show (original programming on BBC America was always an annoyance, but I made the exception) came out in 2016 and I was RIVETED. It spoke to me on many levels, not least:
- I wanted to be a detective when I was a kid.
- At the time I watched the show, I ♥ Huckabee's was still my favorite movie, not least because of its adjacent concept of "existential detectives".
- A (passive) metaphysical quest to unite insights from the micro to the macro (even if mine was more grounded in social justice and "Eastern thought").
The second season was shunted onto another app and not made available anywhere I could see it for years.
Max Landis, the creator of the series, developed a problematic image.
- First with his weird allegories for racism in Bright, whose reputation kept me away for many years; I think I ended up seeing it at NP's father's house while we were visiting.
- More than most, Landis was effectively "canceled" by the #MeToo movement.
- So even when Dirk Gently started to show up in my streaming options again, I just left it alone. I was scared that I liked it too much the first time and the second season (which became the last, most likely due to the app-shifting gamble failing to draw viewers) wouldn't be worth it.
This month, I found it under an AMC+ package within a larger platform (these tiered streams seem like the future, whether we like it or not, but nesting partner and I really wanted to watch Clown in a Cornfield

That background having been established, let me get on with my thoughts about Season 2, because Letterboxd doesn't do TV shows and I need to get this out of my system (all relevant open tabs not withstanding). I haven't read any reviews or critiques, but I suspect most people found it uneven yet redeemable. I'm not going into a lot of detail, but there will be some spoilers below.

The good

You think the setting of a child's imagination will be hackneyed and annoying, but it never quite gets there. It has internal logic that holds up without everything turning into a MacGuffin.
- The scissor-swords work especially well, and I'm eager to know about the manufacture and training around them.
- Sometimes the background is over-explained, at the cost of current intrigue.
The power of platonic friendships is a central and recurrent theme. I especially like the utter lack of forced romance for... pretty much everyone. Tina just loves hanging out with Hobbs, so she becomes a cop. Dirk continues to be coded ace and tries not to draw attention. Bart makes friends with a gay man and even chooses him over Ken. The Rowdy 3's growing family. Even if potential relationships were to develop (I kind of ship Amanda with Martin because he truly sees her), it's not baited, just left to simmer in possibility.
Nothing is repeated. Well, except for personality struggles, but honestly that's truer to life than most of us want TV to represent. And sure, there were many conversations trying to convince individuals about the interconnectedness of being, but each one was fairly fresh.
The playfulness still comes through. Just when you think the season is getting too bogged down, a villain doses everyone with magical ecstasy and our heroes end up hosting an orgy back at the police station. This is not even one of the ten most ridiculous things to happen in the season; I'm don't think they held back, but I could've seen it go bigger.
Bart's character development was the best surprise; an off-hand comment early in the season makes a huge difference in the end, and you can see her wrestling with it.
One of the big baddies dies hilariously and without aplomb. Just gone. Love it.
The Rowdy 3 make more and more sense to me the more I watch them. Should I be worried?
Without a third season, it's easy to headcanon that Dirk and pals were right about the universe being broken and that the world has gotten worse because of their absence.

The bad

Characters changing personalities, often swapping just to set up a future season we never got.
- Dirk acting like Todd across multiple waves is just tedious and brings the whole season down. I get that the character is supposed to be wrestling with how his abilities affect others, but instead of processing that he just whines and complains and not in interesting ways.
- Then you've got Ken and Friedkin swapping personalities in the final showdown??? There were ways to get this ending without both characters betraying everything we thought we knew about them and there's no plot reason why they've done so!
- The one exception is how Amanda has become leader of the Rowdy 3, but it's organic and perfect!
- Dirk the dreamer is just a red herring annoyance (the image of Todd and Farah rescuing him in patent leather and sunglasses is featured on the IMDB page).
Fewer clever coincidences and more dull deux ex machina...
- I suspect this is worsened by Dirk's character fluctuations, so his "everything is connected" moments feel exhausting and overdue instead of centering.
- Some key plot points are implied rather than explained (did Suzie's wand glitch out because of the Rowdy 3?), while others are beat into the scenery.
Both Todd and Dirk have darker hair (I only noticed after Todd explains it to his sister as trying to stay incognito) and it kind of makes them blur into the background.
Too many set pieces. Some characters and story components got too much time at the cost of others.
- In particular, I'm thinking of the Cardenas parents and The Boy himself, who has half an episode to shine at the end and only uses it to fix everyone else's problems. How does it feel to have a best friend while you're in a coma, someone you trust so fully you build a prophecy around him and summon him to another realm?

The ugly

Too many strong women characters who nonetheless speak in babydoll, high pitch, gibberish, or some combination of the three. Landis and his production staff definitely studied at the Joss Whedon school of "strong female characters", where everyone is a killer yet petite and brilliant yet clueless.
It's weird that Todd and Farah are in some kind of (physical and presumably romantic) relationship but never kiss, right?
- Unless Jade Echete has a rider against kissing white men on screen, I have to assume there was some kind of production fear of pushback, but as written their characters have lost charisma together compared to the first season.
The allegory, if there is one, for contemporary political events is too obtuse and convoluted.
Don't get me started on the love for cops. Suddenly Farah's from a law enforcement family and cries when given a badge of her own?
A recurring scare is built around the title character from the song "Flying Purple People Eater", which originally came out in the 50s. But I'm 85% sure the soundtrack actually features George Thorogood's much later cover; this is mostly a fan quibble, but it also messes up the timeline of events.
The two baddest baddies, both white men, are ultimately usurped by a white woman and a Black man as the final villains. Ho hum. Maybe people were right and Max Landis was a big ol' racist all along.

There, maybe that'll get it out of my system and I can get back to figuring out whether to market myself as a holistic caregiver or an existential one...

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Confessions: The Three C's and What They Taught Me About Expectations (drafting)

2025-12-22T04:57:56Z

( Long and rambly, but human. )

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Memory Glitch

2025-12-16T07:08:30Z

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.

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Karaoke Playlist

2025-12-14T07:58:47Z

CC karaoke today. We rented a private booth and masked in the arcade (everyone was autistic and overwhelmed by the arcade, so it was double refuge). We had a modest Corsi-Rosenthal air filter near the entrance, a small portable air filter on the other side of the room, and PlusLife tests available in case anyone hadn't been able to mask all week. Only five people, and we tore the roof off.

I'm at a good point with my voice, regaining what I can of what once was but also learning and embracing the way that COVID and aging have changed my vocal chords. But then I overdid it and lost the ability to speak for a few minutes. Whoops!

This was Activist Hottie's first time seeing me sing karaoke. She said I don't just sing, I perform. I'm honestly not sure how much of that to chalk up to my two years messing around with RockStar Karaoke (singing with a live band), relaxing into my own flavor of hamminess in this era of my life, or being the token extravert in a room of introverts (AH and I are both ambiverts who play extraverts really well when the crowd needs us to).

Songs today:

U2: Until the End of the World
Aerosmith: Jaded
Crash Test Dummies: Afternoons & Coffeespoons
Madonna: Crazy for You*
Janelle Monáe: Primetime (duet with myself)*
Lenny Kravitz: Lady*
Van Morrison: Moondance
TLC: Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg*
from Rent: I'll Cover You (duet with AH)
David Bowie: Rebel Rebel

*songs I tried for the first time; Lady is probably a new go-to, even though the lyrics are pretty much everything wrong with songs men write about women.

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Love Stories: The Nothing He Sowed (drafting)

2025-12-13T07:04:51Z

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.

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A Death on the Way to a Death

2025-12-05T06:45:35Z

I got the itch to write this afternoon, which was something.

Something about taking Kiddo to say goodbye to her grandfather and seeing a major wreck on Loop 12 on the way out there, lots of emergency vehicles trying to get through, and how we compartmentalize death sometimes so much that we are surprised when other mundanities (and not so mundane occurrences) still go on -- even the injury or death of strangers on the highway.

I suppose I still could, but I want to save my spoons and relish the desire for its own sake.

Our lives are about to change pretty dramatically and I kind of want to document everything. My nesting partner will not inherit fuck-you money, but she will inherit GTFOTexas, buy me a Subaru and a new laptop and take time off kind of money. "What happens to Long COVID if you could just rest your bones for six months?" kind of money. In many ways, we've been preparing for a couple years, yet it's always too soon when a parent dies. When your last parent dies. When you are about to become the matriarch of your family.

Some day is probably tomorrow.

We were not close, but we didn't need to be. I think he didn't take me seriously until we signed some enthatchment documents, and for that I didn't take him seriously. But he did confess to me one time that he held himself responsible for basically everything that messed up my partner's childhood.

Not that he ever changed anything or told her that.

Peace to his soul as I wish peace to all souls. May his memory be a blessing.

I occupy my mind with tangential thoughts like how I will decorate my next office and who warrants a goodbye message before I leave and how long can I keep it from my family of origin?

I also realized that one reason I will never be able to make a living out of care coaching is that the conversation of care is just too hard. No one is ready to welcome it until they absolutely need it, and then it's too late to go through things gracefully. It's like emotional triage, and there's no way I can perform at that level for the prices I was trying to charge.

I'm leaning more and more into community-building. I may not even need to go it alone; I can just support the folks I already know doing the damn thing.

My nesting partner talks about her forthcoming inheritance as if it will make all our problems go away, but I'm thinking sustainability: how can we use this money to stabilize, to teach ourselves our best habits, and to be prepared for that money to not last forever. We'll see where things go.

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Harvest Pot-Luck Bask

2025-11-30T05:54:20Z

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.

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