Starting again on a Sunday

So where am I at the moment.

At the moment I'm still getting over one of the ickier episodes in recent memory.  About two weeks ago I had a cyst removed from under my skin.  Now no one worry, it was not cancer, it was never cancer.  But it was large and in an uncomfortable spot and the skin over it was getting kind of thin so my doctor said I really should have it out.  He promised me three stitches, a few days of soreness, and nothing to worry about forever more.

One infection and two weeks later and I still have a bandage wrapped around the spot.  This has not been fun.

It wasn't any sort of remarkable infection, just good old staph that decided to crawl in there and set up house keeping.  I had to have it cleaned out, which was disgusting, and then packed with antibiotic-soaked gauze, which was painful, and then have that repeated every two days until yesterday when they finally said it was too small to pack anymore.  It's still draining guck into bandages, but everyone swears it's behaving and healing now.  I'm taking their word for it, where it is I can't exactly see it.  Thankfully my wife has health care experience.

Two days before I had the cyst out I landed int he ER in the middle of the night.  I pulled a muscle in my back/shoulder lifting weights a while ago.  (See this?  Don't do this unless you know *exactly* what you're doing.  Have someone walk you through it a few times before you try it on your own.  Learn from my fail.). Not a big deal, but it didn't feel like it was healing so I started going through the process of seeing a physical therapist.  FSM bless the American Health Care System, it takes 2-3 months to get in to see a physical therapist.  This process started in August, I believe, and I'm not actually seeing her until November.

In the meantime said muscle went into a spasm, clamped down on all the muscles leading to my arm, which pissed them off, and which caused me to wake up in unheard of agony.  Seriously.  Waking up after major surgery was not that painful.  Miscarrying twins was not that painful.  Getting punched in the face was not that painful.  All I could do was curl up like a pretzel and whimper until the drugs kicked in.

So what have I been on for the past three weeks or so:

• Antibiotic - for the infection, natch.  The big, horse pill kind.
• Muscle relaxant - to get that back spasm to break.  Has depression as a side effect.
• Steroid pack - deals with the inflamed nerves.  Also makes your blood sugar go straight to hell.
• Narcotics - makes everything better.  In the sense that you're already depressed from one drug, exhausted from fighting the infection and from your blood sugar going to hell, and now taking a nap seems fine and dandy because the pain is over there somewhere.

I spent three weeks getting exactly crap done.  I dragged my ass to the couch every day.  If we ate off clean plates and wore clean clothing I called it a victory.

As of today I'm only on the antibiotics.  I weaned off the last of the rest on Friday and woke up this morning with them out of my system.  Thank the stars I can think again.

So what did I accomplish today?

• Got my kitchen back in working order (three loads of dishes)
• Prepped veggies for Kitty's lunch for the week
• Got all caught up on our clothing laundry
• Made dinner
• Kitty picked up and vacuumed the living room for me, as well as changed the bed
• Mended one of Kitty's skirts
• Decorated for Halloween (finally!)
• Edited and posted a new chapter
• Started working on a Xmas gift
• Put up this blog post

I am not complaining.

A few other things have happened, but I want something to write about tomorrow.   So for now I am off to bed.

So this finally happened

That's Wingspan by by maylin Tri'Coterie Designs.  Made with two balls of Chroma fingering by KnitPicks, in the Carnival colorway, on size 3 metal circular needles.  Yes, it's just over double what the pattern called for (13 points as opposed to 6) but it wraps nicely around my neck and makes a glorious rainbow collar.  I cast off with one knit row and then straight into an i-cord cast-off.

 And on to the next one.  I am once again behind on everything.  Fuck me.

Let's try this

So I'm trying something new.  Daily micro blogging. Longer than Twitter but not really a full post of any kind.  Just little notes about the day.

Sundays are officially insanely busy.  Must do laundry for the spouse for the week, must cook a real dinner, must spend some quality time with said spouse, and so on.  Sometimes it feels like I pack everything into Sundays.  It's not true but it feels that way.

I re-worked my Trello boards to try to improve task flow today.  I have to admit that out of all the organization systems I've tried moving cards around boards, or Post-it notes around them if using paper, really does work best with the way I think.  Every task has a card, put the cards on the day I want them done, then use that to populate a checklist with the proper order of the work, and go.  It works, I like it, I won't change.  You just can't get that kind of ease of movement in a paper system.  Even though paper systems are very, very tempting.

Sunday being Sunday I didn't manage to get a single healthy, goal furthering thing done today.  I will do better tomorrow.

For July 4th, 2017

Identity

So I've been thinking about clothes a lot lately.  Specifically what am I going to wear after I lose weight?*

It's gotten to the point where Kitty asked me if that's really what all this is about.  Isn't about health, say, or mobility or longevity?  Is this really about something that shallow?  I wanted to say no, of course not, but at the same time I had to say yes because it really, really felt that important.

And then I put my hands in dishwater.  I do some of my best thinking with my hands in dishwater.

As I was washing the dishes I realized it's not about clothes.  It's about gender and sexuality and identity.  Clothing is just a shorthand for how we communicate those concepts with others.  Fussing over clothing is my subconsciousness way of fussing over those concepts. 

Now there are lots of aspects that go into making up your sexual identity.  There's your biological sex, your identity, your expression, your level of sexual desire, your choice of romantic partners.  And there are infinite settings for all of them.  Yes, even for biological sex.
  
And being fat, or "fat" my whole life has screwed all that up royally.

I'm specifically looking at three of these for the purposes of this discussion, identity, expression, and level of desire.  Biology and romance are separate, at least for me.  But you do you, okay?

So, take a look at an three-way axis.

To illustrate it in the real world hold your arms straight out to the side, like a cross or a T.   The X line runs from one hand to the other, the Y line from your head to your toes, and the Z line through your naval, extending out in front and behind you.

For today's discussion, when it comes to identity there is also a three-way axis.

This axis represents the different continuum of gender and sexual identity.

Male <-> Female:  How you define your gender.  Where you fall on the Cis/Trans spectrum.  For most people it aligns with your chromosomal gender, but not always.

Butch <-> Femme:  Also known as masculine or feminine.  This is how you present yourself through the world through actions, demeanor, dress and so on, and how those are seen by your community.

Asexual <-> Hypersexual:  Also known as your level of desire.  Or how important is it for you to be sexually intimate with others.

Just to be clear, every point on this axis is okay.  Everyone is different and everyone has to figure this out for themselves.  And it's all good.  

And once you're through this you also get to figure out who you're sexually attracted to and who you're romantically attracted to.  Which is also part of this but doesn't fit the axis model.  I'll tell you why in a minute.

So the other night I had my hands in dishwater and I finally realized what my subconscious was trying to tell me.  This is where my identity has always landed on this three-way axis.

Translation:  It didn't. 

Back in the 80's:

Male <-> Female:  Fat renders you essentially neuter. 

Butch <-> Femme:  You get black pants and a black shirt to wear.  This isn't about presentation, its about covering your fat body.

Asexual <-> Hypersexual:  Doesn't matter.  You're fat

As far as sexual partners go, you're fat.  No one is going to fuck you.

Romantic desire you get to figure out since it's all in your head.  You can love at a distance.  (Younger men BTW).

So up until now my gender identity, my gender expression, even my levels of desire have all been one thing.  Fat.

Losing fat = losing identity.

Now I'm okay with this.  I have a loving, understanding spouse who will gladly support me while I figure this out and an awesome community who are entirely woke and exceedingly tolerant.  I'll sort this out eventually.

But I have to wonder if some of the failed diets out there are because the loss of identity was too hard for some to take.  Or if it's because the people around them were too afraid of their friend losing their identity as "the fat one" and were unsupportive or outright hostile.  Something to think about.

For right now I believe myself to be panromantic but homo-leaning bisexual, meaning I love regardless of whats in the pants but I'm just not that in to playing with boy bits.  All of the rest is a work in progress.

When I figure it out I'll put clothes on it.

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* Whatever it is it will likely involve these tank tops.  They're light, comfortable, fit well and in black they make a great base layer.  You can also wipe off spilled coffee with a damp paper towel and it won't stain.  I need something that won't take a coffee stain when I go out in public.

Amen Brother

Cannon Jesus is better than Fandom Jesus

Jesus Christ was a brown Jew in the Middle East, conceived out of wedlock in an arguably interracial if not interspecies (deity and human) relationship, raised by his mother and stepfather in place of his absent father.  He may not have had a Y chromosome.  He spent his early youth as a refugee in Egypt, where his family no doubt survived initially on handouts from the wealthy (You think they kept that gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the wise men?  Hell no, they sold that stuff for food and lodging).  He later returned with his parents to their occupied homeland and lived in poverty.

The religion of Jesus’s people has no concept of a permanent hell and instructed its priests on how to induce miscarriages.  Jesus explicitly rejected the concept of disability as a divine punishment.  He spoke out against religious hypocrites.  He had enough respect for women to let his mother choose the time of his first miracle.  He blessed a same sex couple.  He told a rich man that he must give up his wealth to get to heaven, and also told a parable about a rich man suffering in agony in presumably Gehinnom (basically Purgatory) just to hammer the point home.  He told people to pay their taxes.  He declared “love your neighbor” to be one of the two commandments on which all laws hang.  He commanded his followers to help the poor.  He commanded them to help the sick and the needy.  He spent time with social outcasts.  He healed the servant of a high priest during his arrest rather than fighting back.  He was put to death by the occupying government because he was a political radical.

Trump and his administration are xenophobic, misogynistic, racist, fear-mongering, warmongering, tax-dodging, anti-Semitic, anti-choice, anti-welfare, anti-equal pay, anti-LGBTQIA+, anti-immigration, support tax cuts for the rich, support Citizen’s United, want to keep refugees out of this country, want to limit our ability to speak against the government, plan to abolish the Affordable Care Act, and they wrap all of that up behind a banner of “Christian family values.”  If you support them, you have no right to call yourself a follower of Christ.

- lauralot89

He also said that slaves should obey their masters, so not perfect. But a hell of a lot better than the Fandom Jesus.

And the Fandom includes not only Trump supporters but most "Christians" today, who might want to take a hard look at their souls.