Cold turkey quitting for awhile.
This will be nice. I hear that, in the case of cigarettes, the urges only last two minutes, so I’ll be testing how long Internet urges last and how frequent they are.

Dear friends,

I have picked you well for your kindness and respect, but just in case, I would like you to know some Trans* etiquette. It is imperative that you know this, because you will meet Trans* people, and you will know people who will botch things up.

Do not ask “what’s your ‘real’ name” or “what name did your parents give you.” This is a very unpleasant question. It’s extremely insulting and invalidating, like saying “nah, you’re still a ____ underneath your new name/clothes/identity”. If anyone you see do this, tell them to stop immediately.

Do not ask “so are you a boy or a girl.” This may seem weird to you, someone who’s never had their gender questioned, prodded, and worked for, but gender isn’t really your business. Most people fit themselves into the “masculine boy” and “feminine or masculine girl,” but really, if you can’t tell, don’t ask. It’s insulting, because Transgender people want you to take them as they are, not as their label. A way around this which gives so much more respect to the Trans* person is to ask “what are your pronouns.” This allows you to say “He/She/Ze/They/etc.” accurately, without causing the person distress and insult. And no matter who you talk to, you must use these pronouns. It’s degrading and invalidating to call a person by any other pronoun than what they want.

Do not get weirded out by people who are Transgender, or really anyone who isn’t your average able-bodied heterosexual cisgendered (boy mind + penis, or girl mind + vulva). I know people can get that awkward period after learning someone is homosexual or transgender, but that always dissipates. Me and my dearest friends have felt that odd “rework how you see this person in your mind” time, even though the personality hasn’t changed at all. But after you hang out with queer after queer, being absolutely chill with queer people is second nature and it’s not even something you feel weird about learning anymore.

Do not expect people to be open to you about giving lots of historical details of themselves. Being transgender is surprisingly difficult (which is not so surprising once you take a good long look from our point of view), and it has a lot of negative emotions attached to it. There’s something called “dysphoria” which is a persistent, reoccurring stress a person feels when they don’t feel their body matches up with their mind. There is something called “fear” which is a thing felt when you don’t know if your family, friends, or strangers will turn their backs on you if you tell them you are transgender. There is a sucky feeling not looking how you want to look, and not having the body you need to have for the dysphoria to stop, and not being respected or understood by almost everyone. We would rather not bring those bad feelings up, so it’s best to leave our past in the past where we want it. There are many blogs, websites, and resources online for you to catch a glimpse of our lives.

For all those who aren’t gentle, guys take that to scary extremes. The guy doesn’t leave the girl alone, not even after she says no so many times. While it seems endearing that the guy is so devoted and won’t give up on her, it’s simply not taking no for an answer. Sometimes I feel afraid that the only way to find a lover is if they constantly try to knock themselves into my boundaries until I start liking them. No, I want to fall in love as they fall in love with me as we both are drawn towards each other. And yet, this concept seems, and feels, foreign to most. Even typing it out feels not completely right, even when it completely is.

My dad says to my brother “Keep trying, keep trying!” and to me he says “Keep telling them no, keep telling them no.” Because my brother and I are gentile souls, he means “don’t lose faith if she says no: there will be someone who likes you back some day,” and “don’t feel obligated to take low quality guys just because they want you.”

With all these “Imagine your icon

• comforting you after your shitty or mildly stressful day
• wiping away your tears and kissing you on the nose
• watching a movie with you under a blanket
• telling you how wonderful you are while looking deep into your eyes
• eating you out

” I just feel really great because

• my icon is me
• I already do those things (as physically possible)

I would like to cordially give my friend a “decent human being award” for stopping calling people “bitch” when I told him to stop without question.

He gave his reasons (for irony), and promptly stopped.

Fuck yesssssss.

Great night, great people, great movie.

I love getting past people’s shell and getting to their gooey core. We talked about deep stuff, like how his parents are basically greater than a romance novel and shaped my friend into a well formed, solid person, and that illusions aren’t necessary for happiness, and how if you survive off of someone, you have the closest bonds like living in the USSR in the 70’s, unlike today’s suburban, closed-off living.

His friend was hella tall (which gives him back problems), and did four things that I didn’t really like

1. Ask if I was an “actual short person.” “Are you legal? I don’t wanna say midget, y’know. Under five feet, right?”
2. Ask what my “real name” was
3. “No, the ones your parents gave you”
4. “Oh, I’m just a curious person. I have friends of all kinds. I’m a sapiosexual.”

Yeah, well you better fucking get smart before you start falling in love with smart people.

I wonder why people get all everywhere with their emotions when they don’t get enough sleep. I’m thinking that sleep could be a massive reuptake of neurotransmitters, and they’re all just sloshing around causing massive feelings when sleep doesn’t happen. Either that, or the body doesn’t have much well-being, so it feels desperate, and so it’s more out-there and excitable, because rest begets rest, and awakeness begets awakeness.

For the Monday after I watched The Great Gatsby, I dressed up as a flapper. Not the “Party City” flapper, but with a long gown, a real fur kimono shawl, flats, a headband over my forehead, and those ruby red shaped lips. Indecently, I bought the gown and the fur at my school’s theater department’s  annual Halloween sale this year for 5$ apiece.

We have AP English sweaters and outside AP English sweaters that say “I Party With Jay Gatsby,” so when people asked about my gorgeousness, I said, sometimes with a sly smile and half lidded eyes, “I party with Jay Gatsby.”

I’ve been asked to do the Charleston, and I don’t know how to do the Charleston.