Coming Out Part II: Nameless

Yeah, yeah, I know it's been like six months since I wrote part one but, hey, I'm a busy kid! Anyways, here goes nothing.

Junior high was the first turning point of several that would end up with me doing a complete 180 in beliefs and lifestyle. It was in junior high that my mental illness became much harder to manage, that I became much more ashamed of my body, and that I really started having feelings for my friends.

Now, I'm going to let you in on a little secret, I didn't know queer people existed until I was about sixteen. I knew gay men existed, and that they were wrong and probably satanic, but I didn't know that lesbians, trans people, bi people, or asexual people existed until I was in my mid teens. Let that be a lesson in how sheltered my life was.

There's a reason that secret is important. You know how important names are in fairytales? To know the name of something or someone in folklore is to have power over it. Imagine, for a moment, that you lived in a world where your name gave you purpose and security. It gave you power. Then imagine you did not have a name. You were lost, adrift, nameless and unknowable. You existed, to be sure, but you had no name. You had no power, no power over yourself, and no power to push away the names other people tried to smother you in..

There were many names I needed to discover before I could begin to live, hard names like Depressed and Emotionally Abused, and easier names like Introverted, Passionate, and Queer. But I wasn't there yet. I had no names and no power, I was utterly adrift in the currents of fundamental evangelicalism and the conservative homeschooling community.

I had a small group of friends, three I can remember most vibrantly, all girls. I had crushes on all of them at one time or another, although my crushes were still as nameless as I was. As my depression grew, my ability to be a good friend shrank, and as I headed into highschool I was nearly friendless. I didn't understand why it hurt so bad to see my friends drift away. One friend in particular was the shining jewel of my daydreams. She was cute and tiny, bubbly and boundlessly energetic, quick and clever and a brilliant musician. I adored her.

I didn't understand the pain it caused when she began hanging out with other people instead of me. I was quiet and strange and hard to handle. I was infatuated and I didn't know it, and that made me a bad friend. It was a deep, throbbing sort of pain, the kind that kept me up at night and made me hide in empty classrooms and cry after homeschool co-op ended.

One day, in tears over this heartbreak I couldn't understand, I told my mother "I just love her. I love to hard and when she left it hurt me" I was nothing if not melodramatic. I knew I loved these girls--we were nearly women now--but I didn't understand what it meant, I had nothing to compare myself to, no name to give myself. Until I found a name I could not truly understand who I was.

Journal entry from a road trip to Portland

I love the writing on bathroom walls. I love the crudely drawn dicks, the "call for a good time"s the name and the proclamations of love. They make me feel alive, real, connected to humanity. They make me any to shall "I fell in love with a blue eyed girl" on a dirty wall in my best cursive, so other travelers will know that I exist, that I am real, that I love.

"The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty" and Character Building Via POC

"The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty" is a Ben Stiller film based on a short story of the same name by James Thurber. I read the short story in an American literature class a year or so ago. I don't remember much except that me and Walter had a lot in common as far as daydreaming went, and that I didn't find the story as impressive as the teacher made it out to be. The movie I quite enjoyed. It was cute, and it left me feeling happy, sometimes that's all I want out of a film.
There were, as with all films, several problematic elements. One I want to focus on though, is the treatment of POC in the film. Before I start into this, I want to make a point. The treatment of people of color in this movie is not unique to this film but is a constant problem in almost all mainstream movies. By pointing it out here I hope you will be able to identify it in other films/books/ television shows, whatever types of media you enjoy.
The biggest issue I had with the movie was that it rehashed the old "white person goes out into the world to find their true self" plot. This causes problems because it quite often treats POC as props an plot devices for the white main character, and in "Walter Mitty" that is exactly what happens. When Walter Mitty leaves Scandinavia and heads to Yemen, none of the POC populating the background say a word. The white characters from Greenland and Iceland are fleshed out and given names and personalities, but the PoC (including the Inuit people depicted in Greenland) are reduced to silent or nearly mute caricatures. They become setting and props in the grand play of Walter Mitty's self-realization. Now I understand that this is a character centered film and Mitty is the main character, but the writers found time to give individuality and voice to the white, Americans, Greenlanders and Icelandic folks, why not the rest of the characters.
Overall I liked Walter Mitty, I liked it a lot. It was cute and it made me laugh. I might even go see it again with my girlfriend, and I'll definitely watch it if it comes on Netflix. I can enjoy Walter Mitty while criticizing its issues because like I said this isn't a problem unique to one film. Using minorities as tools to show the development of a privileged person is an unfortunately common trope. Not only is it lazy writing not to research your subject enough to write well-rounded minority characters, it marginalizes minority voices in favor of the stories of the privileged which, honestly, are getting a little. old.

Um, hi

Hey there, I'm not dead, I promise. I had a string of minor disasters last month (tablet stolen, laptop crashing, family being more unbearable than usual, not to mention the usual troubles that come from cold and flu season) but I'm getting back to normal now, the winter quarter has started and I'm only taking ten credits this quarter so things should be less panic inducing. I hope to start blogging more regularly this year. Look forward to it (or don't, whatever).
My newest new year post will come later today, a reviewish type thing of the movie " The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty".

Merry Heathen Christmas

I'm having a great Christmas this year! Aside from some homophobic family shit, but hey, that's life right? I chalk up the happiness of this Christmas as opposed to last Christmas to a couple things, first, I'm on antidepressants and they are really helpful. Second, I'm out of the closet and in a healthy, functioning relationship. Third, and the most surprising to me, I'm not a Christian anymore.

I didn't really expect my deconversion do make Christmas more fun, but it did. The performance pressure is gone. I suppose some of it has to do with the fact that I never really believed, and always felt guilty for my spiritual indifference. Through Christmas pageants, bible readings, advent candle lightings, and ardent prayers for the true meaning of Christmas to touch my life I just wanted the fun and the presents. I felt so guilty for that. I loved being around my family, and I liked singing the carols and lighting candles on Christmas eve. I used to convince my family to go to my grandparent's Lutheran church for Christmas eve because the service was prettier. That's what I really love about Christmas, the beauty of it.

And now, as the queer heathen I really am, I get to enjoy that beauty. I can focus on being with people I love and who love me, I can focus on making delicious traditional foods and giving gifts and making the darkest days of the year merry and bright. All the guilt of not feeling "religious enough" has disappeared. And you know what, it's the best!

I get kind of upset, thinking back on the all the Christmases I felt guilty for not feeling the weight and import of the season. Why was it so important that I felt the weight of our guilt that brought baby Jesus to earth? Is it so bad to let your kids enjoy a holiday without tying the guilt strings to it? Apparently not.

A Day in Thoughts, Abridged Version

I can sleep ten more minutes.
I should call my doctor's office.
I'll do it when they open.
Who am I kidding I won't do it.
Pokemonzzzzz
I should do homework
Coffeeeee
School isn't worth it.
I have the face of a teenage boy.
I have the acne of a teenage boy.
I really want Cheetos.
I really want Savanna.
I'm not going to school today.
Put your pants on motherfucker you're going to school today.
I'll just skip my first class.
Put on your shoes you're going to school goddammit!
Wow, I left on time.
A text message I'm so special!
I wanna get her a billion fluffy cats for Christmas
I could fix this printer, but I won't.
People are idiots.
I look damn good in this sweater.
Curly hair remembered the coffee I like, does she like me?
Baristas are cute.
Curly hair is cute.
People are cute.
I can carry on conversations now, I'm getting better!
Don't call me a girl.
I'm not a girl.
Am I a girl?
I look really good in maroon.
I look like shit.
I need to stop eating junk food.
I'm scared I need junk food.
Maybe they're not shitty parents maybe I'm a shitty daughter.
Thanksgiving is a stupid idea.
If a fairy queen and a goddess of war got in a fight, who would win?
I am really annoyed with these people asking me to do their work for them.
I should probably smile when I tell them I don't mind doing it.
Why am I the only one on the train platform, did the train stop running?
Can I get Jack in the Box on the way home?
I need to stop eating junk food.
My eyes are tired.
I should write a blog post.
I have nothing to write about.
I'll write about my thoughts.
Shit this post got all meta.
Gotta get off the train.
Fuck, it's cold out here.

Witches Aren't Real (But Try Telling My Parents That)

So when I was about eight or nine I watched The Wizard of Oz at my grandparents' house. My family didn't have a television at the time so it was always exciting to go over to grandma and grandpa's and watch a movie. In fact I distinctly remember going over there (they only live five or so miles down the road from my parents) to watch TV on 9/11.

Anyway, my parents were not pleased that I had been exposed to The Wizard Of Oz. To be honest I didn't really like the movie then and I still don't really like it now, but I wasn't about to admit that and lose my chance at some real honest to god rebellion by liking a movie with witches in it.

I got a talking to, not about how I should not have watched the movie, but about witches. Witches. My parents sat me down and told me that witches were not actually good like Glinda, and that The Wizard Of Oz was not a good movie because it showed witches as good and beautiful.

Throughout this entire talk (which was very kind and well intentioned, my parents weren't angry at me at all) I kept thinking to myself "but, movies aren't real..." Now, I was (and still am) a total geek. I love fantasy, I adore mythology and folklore, and I read an old book on necromancy for fun (apparently alder wands are the best for raising the dead) but even at eight I knew The Wizard of Oz wasn't real. Yet here I was getting a lecture about evil witches as if I might meet one on the street and be.... I don't even know, turned into a toad?

But this odd obsession with fantastical things is the very reason my home school co-op demonized Harry Potter (good witches! And kids might try those magic spells!) and Pokémon (mumble mumble demons or something) and in some cases even more Christianish books like The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings (those were usually okay because Christians wrote them).

There are two problems with the actions my parents and their community took, one, questionable material usually got a free pass if the parents enjoyed it when they were kids (so I got to see Star Wars despite the Eastern paganism befouling it). And two... It's rather unnerving when an eight-year-old has a better grasp on reality than full grown adults. But then again these are the people who tell their children to pray if they feel like there are demons in their bedrooms. Nothing like telling a kid the monsters under their bed are entirely real and out to possess them. But hey, you've got the sword of the spirit and the power of prayer on your side! Go get 'em champ, and sleep well.