National Hot Tea Day!

Mood:

This was a while ago, but I love tea!Why not keep celebrating it? Most of the time, I only drink water or tea. I currently have orange spice, and vanilla chai. Really tasty ones. I love almost every tea I've tried. Some of the ones I love are: chai (regular and other varieties), mint, green, chamomile, hibiscus, cinnamon (I've made this from scratch before), Jasmine, berry, ginger (sometimes), apple cinnamon, lemon, pumpkin spice, and more. I normally just add some Splenda to it. Depending on if it's something like chai, I might add a little milk to it, too. Tried it with mint, and that was interesting. Kind of like mint cream.

This will probably be a little long.I decided to get back to doing things with the local ace facebook page. I talked about how I recently found out I'm aro, and brought up the very basic sexual/romantic orientations. There are so many more than what the pic showed...I find it fascinating that there are more. On the whole, as humans, we're a lot more complicated than just being gay or straight. I don't think the general public understands this. I find it makes us more interesting and awesome.However, I also was majoring in anthropology while in college, so that might shape how I view it.It's lit.: The Study of Man. Most people say The Study of Humans instead. So, yeah, it's all about us. Many people don't know that their romantic orientation can be different than their sexual one. Even if you're neither ace nor aro. All of them share the same prefix. Some other ones that weren't listed: fray-: attracted to someone until they meet that person, then it fades (it's considered the opposite of demi-), lithro-: someone who does feel romantic/sexual attraction but doesn't want/need it reciprocated, abro-: someone who has a fluid or rapidly changing romantic/sexual orientation that fluctuates between different ones, and quoi- (or WTF-): basically, someone who can't distinguish between another type of attraction. For the last one, if they're quoiromantic, they can't really tell the difference between platonic and romantic attraction. I suppose for the sexual part, they might not be able to tell the difference between romantic and sexual attraction. I've mostly heard about the romantic version.  

I also wanted to bring up the idea of different attractions. Used how I feel, and where I land for some of it as an example. Like I did on here a while back. It's handy to learn about them, especially if you're aro ace. Just to get to know yourself better. Also, saying I'm aro ace describes what I don't experience, and I like to know what I do.Doesn't mean the aro and ace part are any less important, just good to know more about myself. My strongest attraction seems to be platonic, and many aro aces might mention/go by it. Especially, if they want a queer(some say quasi)platonic relationship. I would love one. It sounds great!I'm pan this way. Meaning, gender doesn't matter to me in being really close best friends and/or being in that sort of relationship. It's the person themselves.

Interestingly, I've been encountering the 'do you consider yourself queer' question often lately. The most recent was on AVEN. I'm iffy with this word. It was used in a very hateful way in the past. Many people don't realize that it wasn't just aimed at gay people. Although, most of it was. There were a lot of assumptions, too. Some people used it against people who weren't considered 'normal' (either in the way they acted or looked), or in 'normal' relationships. It's still used in that way, but seems to be not as often now. Probably because many people have reclaimed that word.

With the original dictionary meaning, yeah, I'd probably consider myself to be. It means: strange, odd, different from the norm, or peculiar. I know people who refer to the greater LGBTQ+ community as queer. Interestingly, the Queer Movement, which sometimes separates itself from that community, considers people like me to be queer...I'm certainly not straight. If I ended up in a qpr with another woman or someone feminine looking, society might assume I'm lesbian or 'queer' anyways. I've read that people who aren't a heteroromantic heterosexual cis person, can call themselves that. It's a very personal thing, and no one but that person has a say on it. Again, unless that person is actually all those three things.

It was interesting, after my response, someone immediately said if I'm not having sex with another woman, than I'm not queer (he had this in relation to being LGBTQ+). And, people are just trying to recruit others into the LGBTQ+ community. This was before I went into 'detail'. One of the funny things about this is: no one knows who a person is truly having sex with.Society can certainly make assumptions, but unless people tell them (or, I guess, caught them in the act), they don't know. If I was in a qpr with another woman (or someone presenting femininely), would they know about that sort of relationship or would they assume? Some outsiders think qpr's look similar to a romantic relationship. Another funny thing: what about straight trans people, bi people, pan people, etc.? Do they not matter?

The LGBTQ+ community is certainly not trying to recruit people. There is gate keeping. (There's also some gate keeping within the ace community, which I find odd.) Although, I've seen most of that online at places like Tumblr. It's really disturbing looking at some of the ace 'discourse' on there.There are those who think aces don't belong at all, and the A really stands for ally. That boggles my brain. There are those who say that there are only the 4 main letters, and everyone else is trying to grab up resources or something. These 2 'factions' are dwindling in number. Thank goodness. Some say they are accepting of ace people, but turn around and say except for heteroromantic aces.Kind of erasing their ace identity, and thinking only the romantic one matters. They do a similar thing with aro heterosexuals. Some aren't sure what to make of aro aces. We're either aliens, or 'of course' we belong in it. Kind of funny to me.

Reading about the Queer Movement, they have a different view, like I mentioned earlier. It seems much more accepting. Also, the LGBTQ+ community has a lot of infighting going on, and each 'letter' has their own issues to deal with. Even the L and G parts have some separate issues. It's a lot more complicated than people think.

After I mentioned a lot of this, he kind of had a flustered response. (I didn't go into the qpr thing, which I now think I probably should have...) Saying that his opinion is based off of what society thinks. If LGBTQ+ people want to use a different definition, then that's going to make things more complicated like you outlined. He somehow thinks that they're 'redefining' it for political reasons, too. What? The question wasn't necessarily asking would society deem you as queer. The question was would you yourself use it? These are 2 different things. Oh, and the Queer Movement can be different. Many LGBTQ+ don't like using that word still. There was so much wrong with his responses, I was amazed by it.I love how they asked this on facebook, and I didn't mention I was aro ace at first. They politely asked what I was, even though it was on a public ace page. When I said aro ace, they immediately said: "Of course you are!" A nicer response than I was hoping. My post that explains things in detail on AVEN has more likes than his response to it. Kind of a little boost in confidence.I still am unsure of using it for myself. I like the idea, though.

Anyways, we had 2 new people join that local ace group, and it seems as soon as I posted about attractions and such, they dropped it. We had 11 before they dropped out. That seemed cool. I hope I didn't scare anyone away with the attractions thing.I actually deleted that post, since I was unsure of it. Might be easier to discuss it in person. I have a hunch it was more the fact that we haven't met yet.

I wanted to wait until we had more people. Very recently, I read a couple of other ace groups' minutes, and they started with around 3 people. We have 3 times as many. So, maybe it really is a sign to start meeting.I'm also unsure about groups like this. I created a group in high school, but it wasn't about something like this. It was about promoting diversity. I've led several other groups in the past (some after high school), but again, it wasn't the same. I haven't attended an actual ace meeting before, and everything I've seen has been online. There isn't a 'guidebook' either. Some other specific groups train people before they let people lead local versions. There isn't anything like that out there for these. Leaves things wide open, and we can really make it ours. Having no 'guide' for it might be a little awkward at first.Maybe my background with groups will help.

Reading some of their minutes, I've gotten a few more ideas, too. One of the ones that started meeting in India occasionally does quizzes during their meetups. The most recent one I saw was on sexual/romantic orientations. That would be kind of fun, and familiarize people with the terms. Although, there are so many...Interestingly, that group mostly had allies. That's still cool to see allies supporting aces.

I think, our group has 4 allies, 2 people on the ace spectrum, and 3 (including me) who are ace. That's actually not a bad combo. I want the people on the spectrum to have a voice/be represented, too. They're important. Having close to half being allies might be good, as well. Others can learn, support, get the word out to aces they might know, educate others around them, etc.

So, I made a few polls to iron out the details of actually meeting. We'll most likely meet at a café. At least, for the first meeting. I think there are rivaling cafes at the moment in one of the polls. Not many people have actually responded, so I'll wait for a bit to see what happens. The person who has filled out all the polls, seems to be ok with having it during the weekend. That might actually be really good, considering some people are freer during that time. We could probably do more things, too. Wherever we end up for the first meeting, at least, I hope it'll be a place that's ok with people bringing desserts. One of the things I thought would be nice, and end the meeting on a positive note, would be to have a dessert potluck. There's the ongoing joke in the ace community about what's better than sex. The most popular was cake, but many are strongly for pie. So, to appease people from both sides and others, I thought it'd be just whatever dessert you want. Or, maybe on the first one, we just order desserts from the café itself...I don't know. It'll be exciting to see how this group turns out.

A few days ago, I made a list of 'trigger' and 'good' foods. The trigger ones are ones that are more likely to upset my system. Even if I'm supposedly in remission. They can still do things like irritate the damaged areas. With the good foods part, they're the ones that are calming, easily digestible for me, and don't affect me much. This was a good thing to do, since I usually just remember 2 of the trigger foods. Don't usually remember any of the calming ones, either. Here are the trigger ones I have so far: corn, popcorn (unsure about other corn products yet), beef summer sausage (unsure about other sausages), certain raw vegetables/fruit with peel (not sure exactly which ones, but some of the most likely: pears, apples, celery, carrots), bell peppers (I suspect), pickles (unsure), whole grain (I think), some whole nuts (at least, having a lot of them). As you can tell, I haven't narrowed down or looked into some of these more.But, it's a good guide. Good foods: fish, eggs, dairy (one of the most calming for some reason), most cooked/peeled fruits and vegetables, oatmeal, couscous, rice, smooth peanut butter, challah (and other breads like French and sourdough), cream of wheat, bananas (almost as calming as the dairy, and it's an exception to the cooking fruit thing). Quite a bit, but I know there probably are more. Also, adding cinnamon helps, too. Garlic doesn't seem bad on my system. Trying to decide if that one is calming or just ok.Everyone is different. So, what might be my 'good' food, might be someone else's trigger. Dairy seems to be the most divided one, though. In the facebook group I recently joined, there was a question about whether dairy is a trigger for people. It seemed like half said that it was one of the worst triggers, and the other half said it was the most comforting. Some said they could only eat dairy during flares. Very fascinating indeed.

Got the biopsy results back yesterday. They apparently had 12 of them this time. I think that's more than last time.It seems, from those samples, that the left side of my colon is worse than my right. That's what I gathered from reading about it. The odd thing is most of my really intense pain is on my right. This is going by samples, so it might be different with the whole thing.

Also, we don't truly know what's causing the pain. Although, after looking it up, many people feel similar pain when they have scarring in their colon. Recently, in that same fb group, there was a question about if anyone has pain with the scarring even though they're in remission, too. Most, if not all, were saying yes. In fact, some said it was much worse pain than what they experienced when the disease was active. So, in my case, it might be the same. I thought if it was in remission, I wouldn't feel pain anymore. It sucks.It's a different type of pain than the one I felt when it was active. Hard to describe to someone who doesn't have it.

If it's too damaged, scarred, and/or painful many people have to have surgery. I'm scared by that idea, but if they take away the damaged parts, I might feel better. If I flare afterwards, the disease won't be damaging those areas further. If the whole thing is taken out, which I highly doubt, (and if it were UC) I might not have to deal with it coming back. (It'd be different if it was really Crohn's.) With that, it takes at least a year to recover from, and you have to have either a 'pouch' on the outside or inside. Many eventually get the internal one, but everyone starts with the external one. It also would take even longer to recover from. That sounds like fun...

They also said that I have some architectural distortion. I'm wondering if that has to do with the walls looking thinner when I compare it to pics online. That'd be interesting. I find a lot of this fascinating. Looking at it from the prospective about knowing my inner workings, kind of makes it cool.

 
Managed to get some editing done of Sweet Endless Terror, too. Close to halfway through that. There are slightly more errors than I expected, but it's still nothing like editing Alliance.