I want to raise my freak flag
Mar. 31st, 2011 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sacredchaoA post in parts. Um...
Woke up after an unusually generous amount of sleep this morning and felt like I'd had none at all. Nothing specifically amiss, but didn't want to move, couldn't concentrate and had that general achy queasy malaise that suggests lesser seen parts of your body making use of all your resources. I pushed through breakfast and was halfway through packing clothes for the day when I decided I couldn't face it and went back to bed.
I woke a couple of hours later and rang work, dozed another hour and started trying to book an appointment to see a doctor. After this morning's arghfest trying to book an appointment at a bulk billing clinic anywhere up to 10km away I've concluded that there are sod all in the way of doctors actually working within the public health system on this side of town. So I paid two hours wages (or at least it *will* be two hours wages once I get the Medicare rebate) for a piece of paper that says I'm ill.
"...and not be stgmatised by the rest of the world?" I was in a weird frame of mind this morning. I felt put upon by being unwell in the first place and not being able to sleep more (which is really what I needed) because I had to find someone to corroborate the fact that I was unwell. I didn't want to go out to shop but had to if I wanted something halfway enjoyable and nutricious for dinner. I was just in a state of overall grumpiness not helped by the fact that I really wasn't on song mentally. So I started resenting pretty much everyone around me. How *dare* they be so comfortable in their own skins and in a way for which they'd mock me if I tried to emulate it. How dare they do it so blissfully unthinkingly, not even realising how comfortable they are or that there might be someone who's *not* comfortable in that respect? I resented that, resented that they'd misinterpret who and what I am in a way that's almost diametrically opposed to who and what I actually am. I resented the fact that either is potentially a reason to find me an object of ridicule. I realised yet again and in new and unpleasant ways that I simply don't feel that I'm *allowed* to explore who I actually am. In short, I was ill, irrational, and just emotionally piling one thing atop another until I was ready to implode.
I can all too easily see how people could turn this into a lifetime occupation. In many ways it *is* a reasonable set of things to resent and I absolutely do get shat about it regularly. I'm going to try very hard not to let it become some sort of festering pit of bitterness though. Incidentally, at times, that might be difficult.
Little moment though. In the supermarket. Grumpy. doing the self checkout thing with the groceries. Woman's voice from the checkout station to my right: "Move around to this side darling so you don't get in the way of the lady...uh....person." The small child in question was standing right next to me at the time.
*glees*
Bad mood gone right there. She'd clearly gendered me as female on the basis of peripheral vision and then turning to look at me more directly still wasn't sure. Not sure enough to correct herself with "man" rather than "person" anyway. I was in pants and tshirt and that knitted hoodie thing I love so I seriously wasn't crossdressed. Seems my silhouette and body language fit better than I thought.
Later at the doctor and waiting a while to be seen even though I had an appointment. Not seriously grumpy. Poking through Bornstein and Bergman's 'Gender Outlaws, the next Generation'. I realised that I'm still really scared of being thought of as a freak. Maybe it's time that I recognised that I *am*, by any reasonable definition, a freak. Note that this doesn't have to be a bad thing. Groups of friends in the past have used the word as the highest compliment. "You're not like other people" it says and the subtext is "Most other people are mouth breathing dinks who only marginally possess the faculty of mental synthesis." It's not always thought of quite so well by everyone else, of course. So maybe I do just have to grit my teeth, square my shoulders, gird my problematic loins and raise my freak flag. There will be looks, remarks and hopefully little more than that. Gah, so easy to type but even that bumps up the heart rate. My life is never going to be unremarkable again it seems and while that promises to be fascinating it's also truly scary. It remains to be seen how well I'll deal with that.
Dinner looks promising. $1.40 bought me two chicken frames which have produced a promising stock and a surprising amount of meat plus a stealthy liver. Half a butternut pumpkin roasted with salt and thyme, a few potatos and a couple of onions roasted with salt and rosemary while I dealt with the stock and made up some bread dough with proper bread flour rather than the cake flour I've been using. The roast veggies have gone in along with fresh ginger and coriander and some turmeric, cumin, pepper, chilli oil, sesame oil and cider vinegar. I've banged it about a bit with my recently acquired potato masher and it's beginning to show potential.
Woke up after an unusually generous amount of sleep this morning and felt like I'd had none at all. Nothing specifically amiss, but didn't want to move, couldn't concentrate and had that general achy queasy malaise that suggests lesser seen parts of your body making use of all your resources. I pushed through breakfast and was halfway through packing clothes for the day when I decided I couldn't face it and went back to bed.
I woke a couple of hours later and rang work, dozed another hour and started trying to book an appointment to see a doctor. After this morning's arghfest trying to book an appointment at a bulk billing clinic anywhere up to 10km away I've concluded that there are sod all in the way of doctors actually working within the public health system on this side of town. So I paid two hours wages (or at least it *will* be two hours wages once I get the Medicare rebate) for a piece of paper that says I'm ill.
"...and not be stgmatised by the rest of the world?" I was in a weird frame of mind this morning. I felt put upon by being unwell in the first place and not being able to sleep more (which is really what I needed) because I had to find someone to corroborate the fact that I was unwell. I didn't want to go out to shop but had to if I wanted something halfway enjoyable and nutricious for dinner. I was just in a state of overall grumpiness not helped by the fact that I really wasn't on song mentally. So I started resenting pretty much everyone around me. How *dare* they be so comfortable in their own skins and in a way for which they'd mock me if I tried to emulate it. How dare they do it so blissfully unthinkingly, not even realising how comfortable they are or that there might be someone who's *not* comfortable in that respect? I resented that, resented that they'd misinterpret who and what I am in a way that's almost diametrically opposed to who and what I actually am. I resented the fact that either is potentially a reason to find me an object of ridicule. I realised yet again and in new and unpleasant ways that I simply don't feel that I'm *allowed* to explore who I actually am. In short, I was ill, irrational, and just emotionally piling one thing atop another until I was ready to implode.
I can all too easily see how people could turn this into a lifetime occupation. In many ways it *is* a reasonable set of things to resent and I absolutely do get shat about it regularly. I'm going to try very hard not to let it become some sort of festering pit of bitterness though. Incidentally, at times, that might be difficult.
Little moment though. In the supermarket. Grumpy. doing the self checkout thing with the groceries. Woman's voice from the checkout station to my right: "Move around to this side darling so you don't get in the way of the lady...uh....person." The small child in question was standing right next to me at the time.
*glees*
Bad mood gone right there. She'd clearly gendered me as female on the basis of peripheral vision and then turning to look at me more directly still wasn't sure. Not sure enough to correct herself with "man" rather than "person" anyway. I was in pants and tshirt and that knitted hoodie thing I love so I seriously wasn't crossdressed. Seems my silhouette and body language fit better than I thought.
Later at the doctor and waiting a while to be seen even though I had an appointment. Not seriously grumpy. Poking through Bornstein and Bergman's 'Gender Outlaws, the next Generation'. I realised that I'm still really scared of being thought of as a freak. Maybe it's time that I recognised that I *am*, by any reasonable definition, a freak. Note that this doesn't have to be a bad thing. Groups of friends in the past have used the word as the highest compliment. "You're not like other people" it says and the subtext is "Most other people are mouth breathing dinks who only marginally possess the faculty of mental synthesis." It's not always thought of quite so well by everyone else, of course. So maybe I do just have to grit my teeth, square my shoulders, gird my problematic loins and raise my freak flag. There will be looks, remarks and hopefully little more than that. Gah, so easy to type but even that bumps up the heart rate. My life is never going to be unremarkable again it seems and while that promises to be fascinating it's also truly scary. It remains to be seen how well I'll deal with that.
Dinner looks promising. $1.40 bought me two chicken frames which have produced a promising stock and a surprising amount of meat plus a stealthy liver. Half a butternut pumpkin roasted with salt and thyme, a few potatos and a couple of onions roasted with salt and rosemary while I dealt with the stock and made up some bread dough with proper bread flour rather than the cake flour I've been using. The roast veggies have gone in along with fresh ginger and coriander and some turmeric, cumin, pepper, chilli oil, sesame oil and cider vinegar. I've banged it about a bit with my recently acquired potato masher and it's beginning to show potential.
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I'm probably gonna get smacked for this............
Date: 2011-03-31 07:00 am (UTC)In other words, fly it, baby. Fly it high.
And way to make me feel obnoxious and snotty for not caring about the external shelling as opposed to the internal *sniff* I thought I was being all new age and caring and shit, but noooooooooooo
*runs away. You've been watching me in chat. you know I'm fuckmuppeted :P*
Re: I'm probably gonna get smacked for this............
Date: 2011-03-31 08:51 am (UTC)Re: I'm probably gonna get smacked for this............
Date: 2011-03-31 08:56 am (UTC)Don't forget, you've had decades of this dichotomy burning up and building up behind an unknown wall. Don't be surprised if a great deal of "what the fucking shit?" spills out now it's breached.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-31 07:03 am (UTC)I'm not surprised your heart rate went up! Accepting the title of freak is as emotionally fraught as coming out - it's saying, 'I'm an outsider and I'm okay with that, you can't hurt me with that word because I'm going to take it and make it wonderful'.
And as you said, that's not easy. But it is oh, so very brave.
And that little girl in the supermarket? Gives me a little hope, at least, that the world isn't locked into gender pigeonholing forever.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-31 08:40 am (UTC)Brilliant! I need to work out a way to get that printed on a t-shirt...
BTW I have to pay to get medical certs for sick days at work (no bulk billing around here) I resent it immensely. Can't they just take my word for it?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-31 09:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-31 10:52 pm (UTC)You have to be very careful about using up all your no-med-cert days because Attendance Management Hell will open it's flood gate... chastising letters, attendance meetings with HR,Manager and Dept Head notifications etc etc. I will drag my sorry butt into work with the plague if I can't get into the doc and have no med cert free days left.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-13 11:31 pm (UTC)All the best peple are, dahhhhling.