Some of those weeks were holidays, and boy howdy did I do so much crafting and driving and enjoying-family-time and snow-watching. Some of those weeks were preparations for my new year, which included a lot of wrapping-up and future-planning. And the rest of those weeks were recovering from a really busy time, both at work and at home, and trying to do further wrap-ups before February 2… which happens to be today.

To my credit, I’ve been blogging pretty consistently all January over on my Kemetic blog, Grave Moss & Stars. And I’ve still been earmarking the links I want to share in the compilation posts. And I’ve still been creating a metric tonne of paintings and jewelry, which I will share in the Monday creativity post.

I just… haven’t gotten the gumption to resume posting here. Suspecting I have fewer than 3 readers didn’t help my motivation. ^^; And, as you probably know, the longer you let a silence linger, the harder it is to break it.

BUT.

Since it is February 2, I am back.

And I will resume posting, at least twice a week, and hopefully on the same days. (Though my Friday link posts will probably move to Saturday…)

And if you’re out there reading, give me a wave. :)

This post written explicitly to break the ice and the silence, to pave a way back in. I know it’s useless otherwise. More goodies on the way, though!

lights flicker on … sound of static …

Well hey, lookit that, I do still have a space here.

Hi folks. I’m going to play with this being a blog again. You’ll still be able to read my randomness on Dreamwidth and my spiritual/Kemetic musings as Emky, and my free flash fiction will stay right here for your perusal.

I’m refusing obligation and rigidity and expectation here, for this wee blog. So I may use it several times a week, or once a week, or a couple times a month, or it may fluctuate between all of the above (which is probably the most likely). I know I want to play with it as a record of my creative endeavors, which will hopefully metamorphose into a record of completion/public results.

I also think it’d be nice to have a singular place to showcase all my random bits, from Mythic Curios jewelry and paintings to my little worldbuilding doodles to my new short fiction to my process on my novel projects to maybe even new songs/musical doodles. Having everyone in one place that’s updated maybe weekly with relative news/links would be pretty cool, n’est-ce pas?

I think so. Let’s find out. Commence playtime!

Go read her post first. I’ll wait. No, seriously, it’s not that long. Done? Okay.

Near the beginning of April, I wrote something in my private journal about instinctively positioning myself as Other in any given group or demographic, especially regarding gender and sexual orientation. It was strongly-worded, so I hesitated to post it on the blog. (Like I often do, I worried that someone will call me out for having no right to speak about such things.)

After reading Shanna’s post, I realized why I do this. It’s not to rebel, or be special or different, or to provoke others, or to get attention. It’s to bring balance, inasmuch as one person in a sea of others can. I try to bring under-represented or entirely lacking qualities to a given group by embodying them myself. These are characteristics I already have, not ones I’m adopting for the moment; I’m just bringing a different facet of my nature to the fore. I place myself in the minority constantly so that the majority doesn’t forget that minorities exist– not only exist, but can bring value to a group situation.

In that light, in recognizing balance, I want to share what I wrote weeks ago, despite still being nervous about it.

Disclaimer: When I mention male/female/masculine/feminine in the following, I’m referring to current stereotypes, not trying to make a blanket statement about all men or women ever. I hate stereotypes, but in order to break ‘em, I have to acknowledge their place in our society’s shared reality.

I am Other. More feminine than a man, more masculine than a woman, gayer than a heterosexual but still not homosexual, neither binary-gendered nor transgendered. And I like being this way.

I bring the qualities of a man into a venue that is feminine. I’m the guy at the table talking just as deeply and rawly about emotions and vulnerability and inequality. I want to let women know that they aren’t the only ones who feel it, who can share it, who want to change it. They aren’t the only ones fighting.

I bring the qualities of a woman into a venue that is masculine. I am the chick that rides her own motorcycle. I am the only woman in a martial arts dojo or a drumming group. I want to fuck up the expectation that women are weak or lesser or objectifiable.

I bring the qualities of genderfunk into the binary of boy-or-girl. I want to remind the cisgendered folks that it’s not all X and Y simplicity.

I bring the qualities of being gay in a venue that is heterosexual. I am visibly not-straight, laughing and free and no less a person for who I love. I want to make sure that GLBTQ is not forgotten or trivialized or dismissed. And it goes deeper and finer: I am the bisexual among the homosexuals, the pansexual among the bisexuals.

I represent the minority within the majority to bring balance, not to stand out. By just being me, not by trying to be what I’m not.

Of course, it comes with terms. I have to introduce her, reveal seven things you don’t know about me, and then share the love with five other bloggers. Who then get to do the same song and dance (if you want!). Also, I owe someone my firstborn, I think. I never read the fine print that carefully.

Meet the talented Patti Larsen, a YA author and insightful writer. She recently sold her first book to Acorn Press and writes scripts for a teen web series. (How cool is that?) She posts samples of her fiction every Sunday – you should check those out. I also adore her in-the-writing-process posts, which are touching and gritty.

Now, a brief tangent before we get to those Unknown Seven Things. A few weeks ago, I discovered some… interesting… search terms that led to my blog. Such as “genderqueer dinosaur.” I was so amused and decided to write a blog post around those terms. So! In honor of my genderfunk and my secret saurian nature, I present to you:

The Littlest Genderqueer Dinosaur, Ty

1. As a kid, I would sit outside in the yard with a notepad and pen and write down observations on the invisible dinosaurs I was watching. I even drew a diagram of how a pack of Velociraptors would hunt me where I sat. I named them all.
2. I had the Jurassic Park Compound when I was young. My other toys (usually animal figurines) would frequently discover the human-toys lying dead and the dinosaurs roaming free.
3. Utahraptors are my favorite dinosaurs. This is probably because of reading and adoring Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker as a kid. (I still love it as an adult.)
4. My first grade teacher was a dinosaur nut and is responsible for my obsession. We made a life-sized paper maché Protoceratops in class.
5. We also made giant paper maché eggs that “hatched” little dinosaur erasers. Each kid had their own and got to hatch them after a few months.
6. Unsurprisingly, I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was a kid. What I really meant by that, though, is “I want to study living dinosaurs in the field,” which is why I eventually switched to craving zoology.
7. Up through sixth grade, I pretended to be a raptor. Including in school, complete with stilted gait and tucking-my-arms-in and “hunting” people at recess. I have no idea why no student or teacher ever batted an eye.

Paying It Forward

Time for some completely amazing, wonderiffic, friendly, and brilliant bloggers who inspire and delight me! Now, I did not repeat any of the bloggers I awarded last time, but I still love them. The following awesomelings are great to talk with, either via Twitter or email, which I really appreciate. I love one-on-one interaction. I love when people care, and these guys do.

1. Do Mi Stauber is a multi-talented wonder: she does colored-pencil art, she plays guitar and sings, she teachers people how to teach, and she’s a book indexer. She is talks about everything with such freshness that she makes me want to index books, too. And play mo’ guitar and draw more and basically do everything cool in the world.
2. Shanna Mann has a sharp tongue and a sharper wit; she’ll delve into deep, mind-twisty discussions that leave you feeling satisfied with time and synapses well-spent. She encourages open-minded skepticism and promotes critical thinking, especially when dealing with the intangible.
3. Fabeku Fatunmise is an orange ninja. (What, you need more than that?) He’s also a drummer and a singing-bowl player (bowl-singer?) and very savvy in just about every way. He also has free soundbytes if you want some soothing sounds from his bowls, which are gorgeous.
4. Reba X is brilliant and clever, and her blog is full of heart and wisdom. Every post is rich and honest and so worth reading.
5. Patrick Hester is rockin’ his geekitude and writing about writing, comics, cool TV series, SF/F books, and his cat. Oh, and he runs a pretty damn awesome podcast called Functional Nerds.

Just to clarify, my shiny stylish bloggers, you don’t have to post this award on your blog if you don’t want to. Totally optional! Spread the love if you want, but it’s not required. I just wanted to give a shout-out to some of my awesomelings ’cause y’all rock. ♥

Thanks again to Patti for passing me this award, and thanks to my five buddies above for being awesome!

I am, in fact, so self-centric that I celebrate the new year on my new year – on my birthday. It’s conveniently close to the Gregorian version – January 15th. Every year, I have this two-week period of in-between, where everyone’s new years have started and mine is still on the way.

I also don’t make resolutions for the new year – I set goals. I started doing this as a teenager, asking myself the all-important question: “Next year, when you turn n years old, who do you want to be?” And so I would figure that out, and then determine my goals based on where I wanted to go with my self-cultivation. It’s turned out to be an incredibly useful way of passing the years, and I plan on continuing the tradition indefinitely.

With that in mind, I am welcoming the new year – a little early, of course, but that’s okay. I am looking ahead, questioning where I am and where I’m going, and playing connect-the-dots.

This year will be a red year. Last year was, as well, but I didn’t choose it, so it rode roughshod over me while I was trying to play by yellow’s rules; this year, I choose the red and all that comes with it. It’s the color of the mother’s fur, dark and rusty and brick-red. It is the color of hearth embers, the red you see behind your eyes. It’s a color with passion and power, fierceness and strength – it can protect the weak spots while they strengthen, the hurt places while they heal. It can stretch the scar tissue past the initial pain to regain functionality. It is independence without solitude, might without hostility, anger without malice, peace without vulnerability.

I am not a red person. I have been magnetized to red influences in my life, both as people and as concepts; myself, I am made of cooler colors and water, not brightness and fire. I understand, on an instinctual level, what I lack and what complements me. Much like the human body needs salt to survive but cannot create it, I need aspects of red to be balanced, but must seek it outside of myself and continually consume it.

This year will be about correcting my deficit of red and learning how to take action.

What will you do this year?

PS~ About half of this post is written in the language of me; I rely heavily on elemental and color symbolism. If something confuses you, please do ask and I’ll be more than happy to translate!

Me

I call myself genderfunky. Other words could also work: genderqueer, bigendered, gender-full, agendered, genderless, genderfluid.

I love when people have no idea what my gender or sex is. I love being mistaken for the opposite sex by someone in person. When I was growing up – yes, all the way up to and through adulthood – my primary preoccupation with my physical appearance was how well I could pass for the opposite sex if I wanted to.

I have no urge to physically transition my body to the opposite sex. It wouldn’t fit me any better than the body I have now – which is to say that I like both, not that I don’t like either.

Gender vs. Sex

I understand “sex” as anatomical, genetic, and hormonal characteristics of male/female/intersex/what have you.

I understand “gender” as the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.

Me vs. The World

I do not associate characteristics of mind, heart, or body (outside of genitalia) with a given sex, which means that, inside my head, there is no gender.

The world around me has gendered almost everything: tones of voice, attitudes, levels of a given emotion, gestures, gaits, colors, clothing style, types of material possessions, living spaces, standards of beauty, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, hobbies, professions. This culture is inclined towards binaries, so its common interpretations of gender are also binaried: boy, girl.

Since I do not exist solely in my own little world, despite my best efforts, I perceive people in general as having genderiffic stereotypes, expectations, and opinions. When I consider what other people think or feel, in any situation or scenario, I always add the gender-filter while looking through their eyes. (Disclaimer: I’m aware that people have different types of and intensities of gender-filters; I am generalizing for sake of brevity right now.)

Aspects vs. Labels

I train in martial arts. I have a motorcycle and a mohawk. I wear earrings in only one ear. I carry at least one knife on me at all times. I wear button-down collared shirts and flannel shirts at work, and boxers and long wool socks all the time. I try to divorce myself from anything associated with negative immaturity or physical or emotional weakness. Most of my rolemodels, both present and past, could be described with the word “warrior.” I am broad-shouldered and solidly-built. I lift weights. I love Metallica and Godsmack and 80s rock’n roll.

I get misty-eyed over sappy moments, in music or movies or my own life. I watch childhood movies and will never stop loving Disney and Pixar. My hands are graceful and long-fingered and sharp-nailed. There are stuffed animals scattered everywhere in my home, including a few that stay on the bed; I still have the teddy bear that was my first ever plushie, given to me right after I was born. I have a dustmop-dog that is smaller than each of the cats, who fit into the palm of my hand when she was six weeks old. I’m easily susceptible to my emotional environment, so I’m careful with the places I go, the people I hang around, and the media I consume. I love Ani Difranco and Melissa Etheridge.

If someone read only one paragraph or the other, they would likely slap a label of masculine or feminine on me. But both sets of traits are true; both are me. I’m not just masculine or feminine; I’m a person that cannot be categorized in binaries.

Hence “person,” not “computer.”

My Problem

I don’t rest easy with (what I think are) other people’s perceptions of me.

I don’t want to appear feminine, because in the culture around me, femininity (not women themselves, but girliness as a quality) is associated with weakness. I also don’t want to appear excessively masculine, because in the culture around me, “macho” is associated with insensitivity. And I prize both my strength and my sensitivity.

Ideally, I ignore gender labels. I let people draw their own conclusions, and I focus on being true to myself, in each little aspect, no matter what gender label someone else might slap on it.

But in 2010, I slipped up pretty badly. I fell into the throttling grips of my I-must-not-appear-weak compulsion, and my personal expression of genderfunky drifted into the decidedly masculine. I wound up suppressing the aspects of me that could be considered feminine, lest I as a person be considered feminine and thus weak. And this suppression thing is Not Okay.

My Solution

I wrote this post. It took me days and several drafts. But I wrote it.

I am telling you, straight-up, that I am genderfunky. I am masculine and feminine, neither and both, something else entirely. All of it. None of it.

And I am recommitting myself to myself, to all the aspects of me, and to the truth of them, not the commonest labels they wear.

I’m just me, in my own space, doing my thing. The world and everyone in it can form their own opinions; I know where my truths lie, and that’s the important thing for me.

More than any other year, 2010 taught me how to care for myself. How to recognize my weak spots and my ruts and my downwards spirals, and what to do – to improve my headspace, or to simply survive with the least amount of damage and misery. I have learned so much about myself and my processing patterns this year; it’s amazing.

2010 taught me to appreciate, deeply and fondly, the feeling of being welcomed when I walk into a space that is not mine.

2010 showed me that I have a family in J’s family.

2010 helped me learn how to edit my own fiction and how to outline plots in great detail.

2010 forcefully cracked open my understanding and empathy and compassion, widening it more than I ever expected.

2010 gave me a blessing that I have wanted all my life – the knack for making my own music.

2010 let me prove that I can handle things, for myself and for other people who need me.

2010 provoked the realization that I am strong when I need to be and relaxed otherwise, and that vulnerability is not weakness.

2010 led me into new, dazzling depths of my relationship with and love for my partner, my mate, my beloved J.

2010 introduced me to Havi and SJ Tucker, who have both changed my life for the so-much-better.

2010 midwifed several brilliant new experiences and events, Tai Kai (martial arts training camp) in March and Strowler Nights on Halloween two of the best; attending and participating was a challenge and a joy.

2010 gave me the opportunity to learn how to do and be so much more.

And as 2010 passes its last breath to 2011, who will take its first, I salute the old year and welcome the new. I hope this one is full of peace, joy, and growth.

Tonight, I found myself playing the game again, centering around our fifth houseguest cat, Kali, aka Deathcat, aka Bitty. She’s been here four months with no official departure date, so she’s sort of ours until her mama can receive her. Then, just to contrast, I played the game with my dog.

1) I’m not actually sure what color my eyes are. I usually say blue, as that is the most popular consensus, but I’ve heard green, grey, and combinations of all of those before. I like to think they’re teal.

2) I love dinosaurs and have since the first grade, when our teacher helped the class make a life-size Protoceratops out of paper maché; up until the 6th grade, I pretended to be a raptor. Utahraptors are my favorite dinosaurs.

3) Snakes are my favorite animal, followed by spotted hyenas as a close second.

4) I grew up reading Conan the Barbarian novels, which may explain a lot about my worldview. (Never messed with the comics; hate the movies.)

5) I took five years of French through school, and while my vocabulary has decayed to a rusty skeleton at this point, I still can’t pronounce the Americanized versions of French words; I have to ask J how to say them like everyone else. (Crêpes are not crapes. Aaaugh.)

6) One of my birthday traditions is to mark down what song is playing on the exact minute (7h58 AM) of my birth as a light-hearted indicator as to how the year will go.

7) L’impossible by Jules Laforgue is my favorite poem. It had such an impact on me when I first read it that l’impossible is an entire metaphor/concept in my paradigm.

8) I really, really want a hedgehog. This is due to a summer babysitting my high school’s bio lab’s hedgehog. I named her Riyan.

9) I am infamous among my friends for crazy roadtrips; the longest one so far was Nevada to West Virginia and back again with J, a 40-hour drive each way with no stops to sleep.

10) I had a pony as a child. Her name was Ginger, and she was an ex-carnie pony. The kids down the street had her and poked one of her eyes out with a stick, so my mom went up to the parents and told them, very firmly, that she was taking the pony. “But she’s not for sale–” “Yes. She. Is.” And so I got a very patient, very mild-mannered brown pony when I was… 7 or 8. I used to take running leaps onto her to ride bareback, and she never tried to kill me. :D There was also one time, trotting down my dirt-and-gravel road, the saddle started to slide because I hadn’t tightened the straps enough; I wound up underneath the pony in a loud thud. Ginger looked between her forelegs at me, snorted, and waited for me to pick myself up before she moved.

11) I helped my parents build our new five-bedroom, three-bathroom house when I was 10-11. It was just us. We didn’t hire any contractors or have much help; Dad designed the floorplans, and we built it over the course of a couple years on an acre of land. (Yes, I actually helped. I painted, put up insulation, wired outlets, nailed boards and drywall…) I later colonized the two rooms that encompassed the entire second story, as well as its little bathroom, as my own. (I also had a bedroom downstairs with a benchless bay window.)

12) I hate having to wear socks, slippers, and/or shoes in a home. I greatly prefer the feel of my own feet on the carpet/flooring, and when it’s cold enough to demand I wear socks, I resent the necessity.

13) While I was growing up (all the way through adolescence, too), my biggest preoccupation with my physical appearance was how easily I could pass as the other sex if I wanted/needed to.

14) Before I was 16 or 17, I refused to swear at all, despite its social prevalence everywhere I went, including my own home. In high school, I scolded a health teacher for swearing in class when there was no need for it. Now, I cuss in about six different languages/dialects at various times.

15) I’m synesthetic; I see sounds. Everything I perceive has a color, a texture, usually a shape, sometimes motion, and sometimes a temperature (which is usually color-linked). This makes listening to music an awesome experience.

16) I’m not a movie or TV person; I haven’t had TV for years, and I like it that way. I have favorite movies that I will rewatch to the point of memorization, but it’s damnably hard to get me to watch new things, barring the occasional ooh, shiny movie.

17) I’m ADD and have never taken medication for it; I often refer to it as spidermind. It makes some things easier and some things harder, and while I don’t consider it a Bad Thing overall, it does make for a very different way of processing the world.

18) I regularly write on my hand in Kalash, one of my conlangs. See? I’ve used this script since high school and recently extrapolated it into a rune set.

19) I feed sashimi to a brown shoulder-dragon quite often. Occasionally minced chicken or steak is added to the menu.

20) My favorite part about living in Colorado was how absolutely, magically beautiful the sky was every single day.

21) I’ve lived in the mountains all my life. I was born and raised in the Appalachians, moved to the Rockies as a young adult, and then transferred to the Sierra Nevada range to be with my partner.

22) I love scribbling doodles on post-its or half-sized notebooks. Trying to draw on a full-sized sheet of paper normally kills the natural flow of my sketch, and I have to work a lot harder to make it look okay. This is why I have a 6″ sketchbook to replace my old full-size.

23) I love math (said the writer). I love putting my brain into gear and sitting back to watch it work through a problem; it’s like observing a computer from the inside. That said, I’m also mildly dyscalculic and can really struggle with keeping the numbers straight. I’m much better at algebraic mathematics than I am at base arithmetic, simply because the former has more letters and is easier to keep straight than a bunch of raw numbers.

24) I draw Korats on the office whiteboard. The current one has been there for months; it’s bright green with red stripes and a red mane. I also write Kalash (see #18) in the corner for good mojo.

25) I abhor most types of bottled water. Aquafina in particular has such a revolting taste that I can barely drink it without literally gagging, and will only do so when it’s the sole alternative to dehydration. Arrowhead is the only bottled water that doesn’t make me cringe to any extent; I drink unfiltered tap water in most places.

26) If I were rich and/or famous, I would revive and fund the Atlas Lion Project. (It was an effort to determine Barbary lion genetics in captive lions and start a breeding program in hopes of reintroducing Barbaries to the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa, where they once went extinct in the wild, but it ran out of funds a while ago and never got off the ground.)

27) I recently fell in love with Avatar: The Last Airbender. Through it, I discovered baguazhang, which I would now love to study (for its own sake, not for its link to the series).

28) If I were unable to wear contacts or glasses, I would be legally blind. However, I do wear contacts now and have worn glasses as a kid; my terrible eyesight means I grew up as non-sight-based as a human can. This makes my visual synesthesia kind of unexpected, and my pixel-perfect graphic design judgment amusing in its irony.

29) If I could choose a super-power/mutant ability, it would be shapeshifting.

30) I am a water person. Not astrologically – my astrology is about as non-me as it could possibly be, except for the ‘fickle’ and ‘stubborn’ bits – but in every sense of the word, symbolically and motion-ly and spiritually, I am a water person. And I like being this way.

One of the cool things about the internet is that it enables me to socialize on my own terms. Because most interactions aren’t real-time, I can control when I reach out to others and when I take in their stories, and that majorly increases my sociability. Trust me, you don’t want to see me in a situation when I don’t feel like being social. I wind up silent and staring.

When I’m already interacting with a person, I’m golden. I’m not hard to get along with and I can usually get a good read on a person, so I can adapt to them. That bit’s fine.

The tricksy bits come up when I am not currently interacting with someone. I don’t like phones, though I use my cell as necessary. I don’t use any messengers at home. I don’t usually have email conversations (though I enjoy them). The only person I text out of the blue is my partner. I’ll respond to all of the above if someone reaches out to me, but I simply don’t initiate them myself.

Most of this centers around two facts. Primarily, I simply don’t think of it. It literally does not occur to me to contact someone unless something needs communicated, like when and where to meet for dinner. Secondarily, on the rare occasion I am reminded of social norms, I usually assume the other person is busy or occupied, and I leave it up to them to contact me at their leisure and convenience. It’s a measure of courtesy in my eyes to let the other person make the first move. (Note that this only applies to me, and I don’t consider it courteous or discourteous from another person’s POV towards others or myself.)

I’m explaining all this to point out that, consequentially, social networking is not my thing. Following a ton of new people at once on Twitter so they’ll follow me back and I’ll rack up the numbers makes zero sense to me. It clogs up my list so that I don’t see the tweets I really want to see, so I stop using Twitter if I do that, which defeats the purpose. I don’t use Facebook because it serves no purpose for me. Livejournal has been my home for years, and I have a great little home with my people there. (There are a lot of people who are LJ-only, I’ve noticed.)

Obviously, I’m not one of the guys who can “build readership” very easily. I have always preferred one-on-one interactions; I don’t talk to groups, I talk to individuals. My people are not a herd, they are persons. So, in working with this blog and being all publicky on Twitter, I am still reaching out to one person at a time, making connections and friendships the old-fashioned way, despite the new-fashioned medium.

Ultimately, I am trying to improve my ability to be social without playing the numbers game. I even de-lurked on two of my favorite blogs yesterday and said hi on a brand new one, which was a feat of willpower, let me tell you. Now that the ice is broken, I’m finding that I feel perfectly willing to be a vocal visitor to those places, instead of the face plastered to the glass pane, wistfully staring inside at the fireplace.

I kind of want to have a fireplace here, too – a cozy place for folks to gather, warm their hands, and tell stories. I’m not entirely sure how to make this happen, but I figured telling you that the door’s open, there’s room on the couch, and tea’s in the fridge might be a good place to start.

So, pull up a chair and share a story if you want. You’re welcome here.