14 june 2022
I'm alive! Been slammed with classwork, but I'm free for the summer now that I've cranked out a few behemoth essays. And hey, I graduate with my associate's degree on Friday! I'll be jumping right back in for a bachelor's degree, but it's nice to hit that milestone and see the work pays off. Makes me feel like I'm going somewhere.
I've been chipping away at little side projects lately, mostly tech stuff. I've been making my own Plasma theme (CalmEyes- I already put the color scheme and Kate theme out there), working on various articles for my personal site (note to self: update town site this week), and messing with crafts. I've enjoyed UV resin lately and made a few cute pawpad keycaps! I'm also working on a community project I opted into. I owe at least 250 lines of voice acting and I've got until the end of June to do as much of that as I can manage. Wish me luck! It's fun and tedious.
Also, happy Pride month to all my fellow queers and gender weirdos. You know who you are. 'Tis the season for rainbow capitalism and riots. May we all find the chance to live as who we are one day without it being a problem, and may the ignorant jerks learn to be better than they are now.
To folks that are questioning, and really for anyone who might be queer or trans or anything at all: It's okay not to know. You don't have to have the right words or get it right. It's messy territory and sometimes you've got to carve your own space and say "you know, I don't fit in the boxes quite right and that's just how it's going to be." Sometimes questioning isn't about finding the One True Label, but about breaking away from the need for labels and finding your own path through the maze. It's a Choose Your Own Adventure and you can rip out the pages to tack in your own if you want to. Smash words together. Push at taboos. Play with the ideas and toss them at each other until something sticks and says "I see you, I know who you are inside, and you are home." Make your truth out of popsicle sticks and chewing gum if you have to. It's okay. You're okay.
I've been reading Stone Butch Blues this month (which, by the way, is available for free- gotta love it when an author practices what they preach, just look the book up and the PDF is free to yank in from the author's site [RIP Leslie Feinburg] https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/). It's a very good read, but definitely look up a list of content warnings before reading if you're sensitive to heavy content. You name it, it's probably in the book. I'm glad I'm reading it. In a strange way, I feel seen by a fictional character decades in the past living in a substantially different situation from me. It feels important, particularly the phrases "gender traitor" and "he-she". I'm not alone.