Awesome that there's a day for grandparents, too!
It became a national holiday in 1978. It's celebrated on the first Sunday after Labor Day. Apparently, a lot of other countries have their own Grandparents Day. Kind of nice. I only have one grandparent left, and he's amazing!
This reminds me that it's been a while since I last called him...
I think he turns 90 in December. That sounds like quite an accomplishment. It's also 9/11, which is Patriot Day. A day commemorating the attacks back in 2001. I still remember that when it started, I was watching TV just before going to school. The news cut in. Then, the teachers had their TVs on throughout most of the day. Felt saturated with it. It was pretty shocking.Went to an LGBTQ family picnic yesterday. It was at a park near a lake. It was really nice. Apparently, I had 2 reasons for being there. I normally just think of one of them, which is that I have a trans parent. (I'm also an ally in general of the LGBTQ community.) So, I'm family. Also, I'm ace (or asexual), and they're represented in the longer acronym. So, yay! Double the fun!
It was a reasonable turnout. There was so much food!
Hot dogs and hamburgers with their fixings with the BBQ part. There were also baked beans, a few different types of salads, a variety of chips, watermelon, skittles, a big sheet cake, mini cinnamon buns, chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate chip muffins. The sheet cake had a rainbow and sun design in the middle, and a thick white frosting covering the rest. Had a custard type inner layer. That was really tasty. There was also a variety of drinks. Things like water, juice, sodas, etc. It seemed the organizers, PFLAG, really wanted everyone to be able to have something. They even had veggie burgers. PFLAG originally stood for: Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. They changed it, but kept the name, since nationally they were known by that. They changed the meaning to reflect a more inclusive organization for the entirety of the LGBTQ community. Kind of cool. The change happened 2 years ago, so it's rather new. However, from what I've read, they've always been inclusive to the rest of that community, not just lesbian and gay people. I ended up talking to someone about being ace while I was there. They wanted to know more about it, said it was very interesting and were happy for me.
Most people haven't heard much about it. I decided to look for ace closed facebook groups a couple of days ago. Found the 'local' meetup group that meets in Seattle's facebook group, a 18+ ace spectrum group, a safe space for aces one, and today found the greater Northwest ace group. The safe space one is more of a support group. They seem to be the most active, although the 18+ one is close. I'm thinking of making my own group on facebook that's based more locally for me. Eventually, if we get enough people interested, we could meet each other in real life.
Make our own 'ace meetup'. I've heard that there are many groups around the world that do this. I'm thinking of bringing this up with the Northwest aces first. I read a recent post about people possibly making groups that are closer to them. Maybe there's already a group, but they haven't publicized it very well. That's totally understandable for safety reasons, though. It'd be interesting to find out. If there isn't they might give advice on how to start a group or something. Maybe even promote it among other aces. Just a thought.I've been thinking more about my romantic orientation lately.
I posted a while back that I wasn't really sure. Many aces go by romantic orientation for dating and such. I thought I was just heteroromantic. Essentially, finding the opposite sex or gender romantically attractive. So, 'straight' romantically. Now that I've thought about it, I might actually be demi-heteroromantic. Some people just use demiromantic, but when talking specifics they use the regular prefixes like: bi-, hetero-, homo-, pan-, etc. It means I don't develop romantic attraction until I've had a very strong connection or bond with a guy. There's demisexual, which is like this but with sexual attraction. This connection can take years or several months. (And, may never happen. It's very rare.) It's on the aromantic or aro spectrum. I'm not into romance, dating, and such. Although, when that 'connection' is there, I'm really into it. I like it a lot.
This is different than just warming up to someone, or just getting to know them before going out. It's kind of like a switch turns on suddenly, but it's rare. I've only had about 3 or 4 crushes throughout my life. Many people have had a lot more by my age. Some aros call those rare crushes, squishes. Sounds odd to me. I get semi grossed out with overly romantic stuff normally. I find it somewhat fake normally, too. I've only had one boyfriend in the past. About a month before we were in that sort of relationship, I thought we were just really good close friends. He suddenly confessed to me and said if I didn't tell him that I felt the same way within a week, I would never see him again. Being more nervous about losing a friend, I said I loved him too. I don't think I truly felt that way until 4 or 5 months later. Not sure if it was just that I liked the attention (some aros do), it was made up, or I really did fall for him.
It took me a while to feel that feeling though. Haven't really felt it since then. (It was a really nasty breakup.)It's interesting to find out that there are so many different types of attraction. Especially from the point of view of someone who studied anthropology. Humans are interesting creatures.
My attractions are apparently not aligned, which can lead to confusion. Not confusion about how I feel, just where those fall in society. It's good to know more about myself through it, my views on the world through it, and what I might like in a partner. To me those sound pretty important, too. The person I talked to at the picnic said it was very interesting to learn that there are other attractions. She wanted to learn more about them. Some people who are on both the aro and ace spectrum might identify with a platonic attraction. No one has to, but it is interesting. Platonically or in a friendly way, I might be pan. Meaning, in a friendly way, I really love pretty much everyone. I'm cool with being really good friends with women, men, gender nonconforming people, genderfluid people, etc. It's somewhat interesting since many people feel they can only be friends with people of the same sex. Some think that if you're friends with a member of the opposite sex, it'll eventually lead to a romantic relationship. That sounds silly to me. Some say they can only be friends with the opposite sex, because people of the same one annoy them in some way. This sounds odd to me, as well. I can relate to a lot of other women, since we share a similar experience of just being a woman. There's also aesthetic and sensual attractions. I think I still land in just the hetero category for those. Many people dismiss ace/aro attractions because they think the words are 'made up'. All of those terms have parts that were already words. Guess what? Every word we say/use was 'made up' at one point. It's good to put words to how people have felt all their lives. They can find others that have felt the same way, too. Anyways, so I'm a panplatonic demi-heteroromantic ace.
Just hetero for everything else. I'm a mismatch of things. I'll tell people in a quick way: heteroromantic ace. That kind of erases the demi part, which is pretty important, though. Depending how I feel about the person and where I am, I might tell them that part. I might just say ace, and only go into detail if they ask. It's kind of fun finding these things out.
There's a lot of acephobia out there, too. They say one way to combat that is to just be out about it. Also, to educate people and catch them when they might do/say something inappropriate to an ace. Some aces have felt acephobia from the LGBT community. It's not nearly as common as with the general population, though. The rest of the LGBT community can be just as ignorant. Some aces feel like we should have our own organization, since we've felt shut out at times by the LGBT community, people tend to think of that community as sexual or allo (what some aces refer to sexual people as), and we certainly don't fit into what society views as 'straight'. Even when everything but the sexual orientation is hetero. When people think of straight, they think heterosexual, and that there can't be anything else. I've heard of similar things with the trans community. Personally, I think we do kind of belong in the LGBT community. However, I don't like how sexual it can be perceived from outside. Some aces/aros identify as queer. I'm a little hesitant to use that for myself. Mainly because it's still sometimes used in a derogatory manner, feels like I'm encroaching on someone else's space, etc.
There are also different types of aces. With myself, I think I'm both repulsed and very curious about sex. Kind of like it's a morbid curiosity.
With others, I'm very sex positive. I have no problem with other people doing or not doing sexual things. Whatever makes them happy. If it's sexual things, as long as it's with a consenting adult. After the local trans support group (I'm an ally of, and my parent created it) Wednesday, my parent and I went to Shari's like usual. No one else showed up. Usually there's at least 4 or 5 other people from the group that go afterwards. Oh well.
I got their apple pie in a jar. I wanted them to give me very little of the ice cream if they had to. They normally squish 3 scoops of vanilla in there. Way too much!
The waitress said she'll try to have it as 3 half scoops. Still felt like too much. I think if I get it in the future, I'm going to outrightly ask for no ice cream in it. Just have the pie and whipped cream on top. Heck, I'd be good with having whipped cream between the layers, if they have to have something. Pretty much more actual pie in the jar, please. When there's too much ice cream, I get headaches and my teeth are very sensitive to the cold. It takes me a while to eat ice cream itself normally. I would love to be able to just scarf it down like I see some people do.
I've always been sensitive to eating cold and some sugary things. So, it's not like there's suddenly something wrong with my teeth. I know one of the main reasons behind putting ice cream in the jar with the pie is to cool it down. It doesn't truly need that. I could wait until it cools down a bit. The whipped cream would help a little. Managed to attend an online service Friday night. It was from a synagogue in New York City. It was a huge and beautiful sanctuary.
There was a fire in 1998, if I'm remembering correctly on the year, that destroyed that area of the synagogue. In 2001, just after 9/11, they were able to finish rebuilding it, and dedicated it. They had an emotionally filled video shown during part of the service, taking a few minutes to remember the anniversary. Also, had scenes of what was left of the World Trade Center. So, it was in a way honoring that as well. It was a pretty nice service. Felt good to go to some form of one. I'm trying to decide on which synagogue to go with for High Holy Day services. I might do a mix. The reform movement's main site has a listing of synagogues around the country that have live streams of services. It's awesome! The pain has gotten so bad now that I'm having trouble sleeping.
It's traveled to most of my abdomen and back. Very hard to at least get into a comfortable enough position to sleep. I usually just lay there for hours waiting to pass out. When I actually do pass out, it's late, so I get up later than normal. Maybe my new gastro will help with this. I just have to wait until the 20th...
I've also felt more and more nauseous lately. Sometimes I'm so hungry and nauseous at the same time, I'm not sure if I should eat or not. It's a weird and annoying feeling. Again, she'll probably recommend something for this, too.
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