10th of Adar

Purim is coming up on the night of February 28th. For that, I might just go online for services. The magillah (scroll of Esther) is read in an interactive way (stomping feet, booing, cheering, etc), there's usually candy and cookies, people dress up, and the adults drink a lot. Sometimes there are carnivals. It's a fun holiday. Some say it's kind of like our Halloween because of the candy and costumes. People can dress up as characters from the story, or really anything else they want. Doubt I'll dress up. I don't particularly like the drinking aspect. You're supposed drink enough alcohol to not know the difference between the hero and villain of the story. I don't drink, so it becomes a weird thing for me. 

I'm tired of people blaming mentally ill people for mass shootings. They immediately think the shooter must be. Then, they suddenly are interested in improving mental health because of it. Mental illness is already incredibly stigmatized. We do need to improve mental health, but it shouldn't be thought of in relation to the shootings. Mentally ill people are a lot less likely to do mass shootings. Mass shootings take meticulous planning, usually have a rationale behind it, and more. Things that many mentally ill people who aren't getting help are less likely to able to do. Much easier for 'sane' people. This aspect scares people. Most times when someone who's mentally ill gets a gun (and isn't in treatment), they're more likely to shoot themselves than anyone else. Sure, there are some dangerous mentally ill people. They're a small percentage, and even they are misunderstood. 

I did have a whole chapter devoted to mental illnesses that I have in my memoir, but with all this, I feel compelled to bring them up here. (Obviously not as in depthly or with the stories.) Maybe if someone knows someone, even if it's just online, it might help a tiny bit with fighting the stigma. People might have a fraction of understanding. Maybe mental illnesses should actually be taught in schools to help with this.

I have type 2 Bipolar Disorder. It's different than type 1. Our mania makes us easily irritated, have racing thoughts, feel like we can do a million things at once, etc. Type 1's mania is euphoric, they can hallucinate, be wreckless, etc. Our depression is much lower than type 1's. We're one of the most at risk people for suicide. I was suicidal at 14 up until I was 24. It was the type of suicidal that there wasn't a clear reason behind it. I just had the urge. That's one of the most dangerous. At 24, I found a med, I'm currently still on, that was/is the best for it. My suicidal ideation all but disappeared. Haven't been since. Keeps me balanced and seemingly 'normal', as well. I went through so many meds before that, and at that time I was misdiagnosed with severe depression. The current one I'm on is one of the few that actually helps people with type 2. It doesn't do anything with type 1's. It was the first one I tried after the correct diagnosis. It's also not an antidepressant, but an anticonvulsant. Something that people with epilepsy might take. I found that really interesting. Also, therapy helped quite a bit. I went through several years of it. I probably should go back to it at some point. Hopefully, with someone who's trained to deal with LGBTQ+ people and possibly Jews. That's hard to find. I've had good and bad therapists, and it can be normally hard to find the right one.

I also have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I used to think that was only for people in the military or veterans. Nope anyone can have it. I have it for numerous reasons. I've been stalked (one of them was really violent), attacked by a Rottweiler, sexually abused, sexually assaulted, etc. All this has contributed to it. I was actually scared and hypervigilant around men for a while. I did eventually get better and more at ease around them. I think I still have moments of being slightly tense if a guy is with me. I still have a lot of uneasiness around big dogs. Even if I just hear their barks. I used to feel like someone's always watching me after I managed to get away from that last violent stalker. (I've actually had about 3 or 4 of them.) I'm a lot better about this now, too.

I have agoraphobia. It's literally fear of markets, but really fear of crowds. I can have intense panic attacks when I'm around a lot of people I don't know in a small place. It adds to my anxiety also. 

I'm noticing that I also have gender dysphoria. It hasn't been 'diagnosed', though. I think I've mentioned it before on here. I might not actually have agoraphobia, and this might be it instead. As well as my anxiety. Who knows, maybe parts of my type 2 Bipolar Disorder might have actually been dysphoria, too. More reasons to find a therapist that deals with trans stuff. Plus, I've had internalized arophobia and acephobia most of my life, and might need to talk to one about that. I'd only feel comfortable with an LGBTQ+ trained therapist with this, too. Again, hard to find in the area. 

So, I have all this in addition to colitis, and a few other more minor chronic physical illnesses. People only take the physical stuff more seriously. Although, since colitis is considered an 'invisible disease', people have a hard time with it. They don't understand that it's chronic, either. 

It snowed off and on since Wednesday night. We've actually been 20-30 degrees cooler than normal. That's a lot. The forecast doesn't have any change from that in the next several days. It's like we're having winter late. 

Last Wednesday night, there was a local trans meeting. There were more people than usual, which was good. Some were also enby, and that was a nice plus. I brought up something close to the end. It was about when to correct people. Dad and I were asked at a local shop if we were ladies (paraphrasing a bit). I mentioned this on here before. Should I have corrected him and told the truth? Did I have time to explain it to him? Should I explain it? What about when waitresses say: "hello ladies"? I want to, but unsure if I want to educate them. I'm not a lady or a guy. Please don't refer to me in this way. I still use she/her, but am leaning towards they/them. If I were to say she/her to them, they'd use female-gendered language which I don't want. It's messed up to me. Also, doesn't help that I still say I'm a daughter. None of the neutral terms for someone's adult child sound great, though. There's spawn, which sounds like I'm joking. There's child, but it sounds like I'm a kid. I don't know, maybe I should look around more. 

I'm about 125 pages altogether for writing those books. That's a lot. Finished the 'Jewish Holidays' section in the cookbook, and am about a quarter of the way through the dessert one. I'm thinking that I'll end up finishing this before Alliance 3. At least, the writing part. I didn't expect to be breezing so quickly through the cookbook. I'm writing out about 8 recipes each time. So many!

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 2018

This is always the week after Valentine's Day. It started on Sunday. The ones who created the holiday were going to go with Aromantic Awareness Week, but the acronym would have been the same as the one for Asexual Awareness Week. Aros have been trying to separate from that community, so they added 'spectrum' to it. The spectrum would have still been represented either way. Interesting when you're both aro and ace, and they're trying hard to break ties...Puts me in a weird spot. Those orientations are different things, so it makes sense. (It's kind of like saying you have brown eyes and brown hair when you're both.) Still...Most aros are allosexual, and most aces are alloromantic. That in itself makes it feel like I'm in an even smaller minority.

There are a lot of ace advocates that seem to forget about aro aces. They seem ignorant about it. You can see a similar thing on AVEN sometimes. Some of them seem particularly arophobic. Saying things like: "How could anyone not experience romantic attraction?" "An aro ace asked me what it felt like to be in romantic love. That's a stupid question. You'll know when you feel it, they just haven't met the right person." "They must be so heartless. How could they function without love?!" "You have to feel something romantically!" "There must be something wrong with them." It might seem like little things, but they add up. Plus, treating fellow aces like that isn't cool. 

However, on Arocalypse it's a totally different atmosphere for people like me. Maybe it's because it's such a smaller and more of a tight-knit community compared to AVEN. I checked, and apparently AVEN has 100,000 more members. Arocalypse has around 700 members. That's a huge difference. They're very kind and welcoming of everyone there. It's a similar design to AVEN, as well. The only downside is it's becoming more and more inactive. I hope it doesn't shut down.

I've wanted to post something aro related every day this week on fb. So far I've added an aro flag filter to my profile pic, added aro ace based art for the cover pic, posted a status introducing it, and found an article one of the ace pages shared. Not much, but it's something. I was thinking about posting all of the aro related pins I found on Pinterest. I'm nervous about that, and I have less than I thought. I shouldn't be nervous when it's on my own page. So what if no one likes or comments on them? It'll be out there and about something that's important to me. I realized I actually have a lot of interesting agender or enby related pins than I remembered. I could post those after this week. I might draw something, too. I was thinking about a stylized spade (like the suit of cards) and an arrow piercing through it. Might have the aro flag colors dripping off of it or something. Not sure if I'll ever get to that.

Had my annual eye exam yesterday. They wanted me to come in earlier, because the one who was doing it lives far from where I had it done. It was snowing that day, and she wanted to make sure she wouldn't get stuck along the way. It wasn't forecasted, and wasn't sticking.

I was very tempted to cross out the M and F on the intake form, and write/check off X or neither. It would have messed with them, and I just didn't have the energy to deal with it. I'm not an F, so checking that off felt really awful. Funny how my existence is too much for others and that I shouldn't be truthful. Why am I so controversial to people?

She was incredibly rude to put it mildly. She told me what I should fill out on the form, and a couple of minutes later she ripped it out of my hands. I was just going to ask about family eye health stuff. Instead, she asked Dad about it, and checked off the boxes. Why? She asked Dad specifically if it would be ok to dilate my eyes. I said I'd be fine with it, but she waited for her to answer. She said you should ask her. 

After some going back and forth, and me getting increasingly annoyed, she asked how old I was. It's on the form! Just look! I told her that I'm 33. She did a double take, and made me repeat myself. She tried to joke about it, saying that can't be right. Eventually, she did apologize. However, she also said I should feel lucky to look so young. If I don't yet, I will someday. I've been dealing with people thinking I'm younger than I am my whole life. It's really annoying. She obviously thought I was younger than 18. Sounded like it was by a lot. How could I appreciate being treated like a kid at my age? That's not lucky; that's disturbing to me. I must have stopped aging physically when I was a teen? I don't know. 

We were talking about her going home, and she said a rather sexist statement about the women working the front. That they don't have to worry, because they have husbands. She doesn't. Now, I'm not sure if she actually knew they had husbands or not. Instead of saying they live closer, to bring up their husbands...Why? Sure, they could help them if they needed it...It just didn't sit well with me.

My eyes are getting worse, but that's to be expected. (It's not by a lot.) I've had to have glasses starting when I was 7 for 17 years, and have had contacts ever since I stopped wearing glasses. So, they're already pretty bad without any contacts or glasses. 

My eyes were especially dry, so when she dilated my eyes it hurt like hell. Took me a while to recover from the pain. Also, took a while for them to go back to normal. Everything was too bright even with wearing sunglasses inside, couldn't read things, and things were blurry. At some point, I started to get a wave of nausea. More so than usual. I don't remember it being so bad last year. Had some tea and a pastry when we got home, and it cheered me up a lot. Now, I'm back to normal, which is good. 

I'm up to about 110 pages altogether with writing both Alliance 3 and the cookbook. That's quite a bit. Especially when I started at the beginning of last month, and skipped several days. I'm up to the second recipe in the 'Jewish Holidays' section. The first one was for the almond torte with cream. Something she would sometimes make for our Passover seder's main dessert. It's definitely kosher for the holiday. There's no flour. I've made it once a few years ago. It was easier than I thought it would be. 

National Tortellini Day!

This holiday was yesterday. I love tortellini! They're like pillows of awesomeness! They go with a lot of things, too. It was also World Radio Day yesterday. I hardly ever listen to the radio now. I used to listen to it a lot. It's been that way since I started listening to things like Pandora, last.fm, Apple Music, etc. It's sad, in a way. I think radio as most people know it, is dying out. 

It's Valentine's Day. To me, it's a problematic holiday for many reasons. One of the most obvious is because I'm aro ace. This holiday promotes romantic and implies sexual love. Pushing amatonormativity everywhere. I don't have either of those. It's like rubbing it in my face every time I go out. I do experience a very strong platonic love, so celebrating that would be great. Still advertisers would like to promote a certain type of love. So, as much as I would like it to be for all types of love, it's not played up as such. Many aro aces do have it as a day to treat yourself or be with friends. It still feels weird. Many aro aces have vented about Valentine's Day in the aro ace group I'm in on fb. There were no posts for a while until now. So, it's difficult.

Another reason is my ex-boyfriend dumped me on that day. It was over the phone, I was still recovering from being hospitalized, and he was on the other side of the state. Probably one of the worst times and ways to do it. This was a long time ago. He had made such a big deal out of the holiday before, his friends told me he was thinking of proposing, we were together for 2 and a half years, and it seemed to come out of no where. Some aro aces apparently feel good after breakups, but it hit me hard. I was very platonically and emotionally attached to him. So, every Valentine's Day is like a reminder...

It's also technically a Christian holiday. It is, after all, named after a saint. While it's been heavily commercialized, it still has this other meaning to it. This has always been a bit unsettling to me. I'm not Christian, I'm Jewish. In Judaism, we do have a minor holiday celebrating love called Tu B'Av. It's a bit different, though. 

I do like the candy and chocolates. Especially, when they go on sale the next day. I don't really like flowers. I think roses are cool looking, but wouldn't want to have them as a present. Flowers don't last long, and make a mess. I've always felt that way about them. If people need a romantic symbol, I would think a flower is weak. It would seem the relationship or the way they felt about each other is fleeting and messy. That doesn't sound good. Candy and chocolate nourish people and tastes good. That's better symbolism, I think.

I'm up to 89 pages in total with writing both Alliance 3 and the cookbook. That's quite a bit in a month. I also skipped a few days. I'm up to the meat section in the cookbook, and it's making me even more hungry every time I go through it. I've noticed there are quite a few recipes from friends of her family and family members in this one. (A couple of the names aren't familiar to me.) Those have been interesting. Often, the recipes aren't with exact measurements for those. Instead it's things like a dash of this, a layer of that, half a jar of this (not saying how many oz are in that jar of something...), etc. This has also seemed like an interesting time capsule. A lot of the recipes are from the late 70's and early 80's. One in this section was from 1969, and it was obviously typed up on a typewriter. Even if people aren't interested in using such old recipes, it's interesting to see what was considered 'good' back then. There were a lot of Bisquik recipes from 1977. That's really old. They luckily listed the oz in the cans of stuff from back then, and how many grams of other things. That way it can be easier to figure out even if sizes of stuff have changed over the years. The mixes and other stuff might have changed a bit too, though. I guess people could look that up as well. I'm even interested in making some from this section.

In 2 days, the preorder period will end for both ebook versions of Alliance: Dawn and More Than Meets the Eye (my memoir). I won't know how they did until then. I think people would be more interested in the ebooks first, since it's cheaper. I pretty much get the same amount in royalties either way. I'm nervous about it. Once the preorder period is over for both, I'll add links to the side of this blog to them. Just like I did for the first 2 books. That way people can always check them out. This blog might get a little more messy looking. I think I remember seeing that I can add another page. So, maybe I'll do that in the future, and post some of this stuff from the sides on there.

AVENues did do a piece on my memoir, and that issue, called Aces in the Media, was put out a couple of weeks ago. They interviewed me, which was more like a form full of questions to fill out. They also added the excerpt I gave them. I'm not sure if it was a good one, but it was on how I felt in a romantic relationship, if I remember correctly. I thought it'd be best to use something from the aro ace chapter, even though I do refer to being aro ace throughout. They also asked if they could use my cover art in it, and I agreed. I'm new to that sort of thing. Hopefully, my part was done ok. I still haven't had the nerve to look at it yet. The next issue is on aces with mental illnesses. Interesting, since I also have mental illnesses...They want aces like me to tell their stories before their deadline. I'm wondering if I should? It's like lately they're putting out issues that relate more to me than usual. Obviously, besides the ace part.

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I started a few playlists on Apple Music based on my books. One's for the Alliance series, another for Sweet Endless Terror, and the last one for the memoir. The easiest one has been Sweet Endless Terror. Basically, looking at any horror or suspenseful music for that. Might look at each story's theme in the future, too. (Space, hearts, classical for going back to a certain time, obsession/stalkers, etc.) Alliance hasn't been as easy. Although, there are a lot of themes in that one. Like, fantasy, slight horror, what it means to be human, demons, specific demons (medusa, phoenix, dragon, etc.) in it, peace, hate, hardship, and so much more. I think the problem with that one is there are so many different themes to look at. I haven't really touched the memoir one much. I might add music that was popular throughout my life. Maybe themes based on the chapters? All this sounds fun, and I haven't looked that often into any of them. It's kind of to connect more with my writing. It'd be interesting if I created a playlist for the cookbook, too. Wonder what would go in there? I guess there are food related songs, but not many. Maybe songs from the 70's and 80's? Fun stuff. 

Still learning German. Some of it has been frustrating, but most of the time it has been fun. They say things in odd ways. A lot of it has reminded me of Yiddish, and I'm glad I know some of that. I know that Yiddish is a mix of German, Hebrew, and a little Russian; but I can actually see where some of the words come from. I just got through the travel section in Duolingo. That one was 6 sections long, which is one of the longest ones. I think next is either another one on the body or numbers. Should be interesting.

Youtube:

I wanted to see if there were any amv's with anime I saw a while ago, and if there were any of my fave manga based music videos or mmv's. Even though I like a lot of the newer anime stuff, these were something different to watch. The manga ones give off an interesting effect. It was kind of cool to see how many I found. 

Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) manga:

Akaya Akashiya Ayakashi no (Of Red, Of Light, and Of Ayakashi) manga:

Tripeace manga:

xxxHolic:

Tsubasa (Wings) Chronicle: 

Shiki:

Gintama:

Boku no (My) Hero Academia:

World Nutella Day!

This holiday was yesterday. Yay for Nutella! I'm not as crazy about it as some people, but it is good stuff. I used to be scared of it until I finally got up the nerve to try it. I don't know why I felt that way. It's just hazelnut and chocolate. It comes from Italy, and was first introduced in 1965. 

This is my wallpaper for February. It's Dogma, or the Earl of Poor Eating, and Satoru from the manga Hell's Kitchen. I think this is the 1st volume cover. I decided to have it a little differently. I like a lot of the manga I've read and am still reading, but there are hardly any wallpapers featuring them online. Most of the ones I've read don't have an anime adaptation. They're awesome and they should be adapted! I copied a lot of chapter pages from some and shared them on here in the past. Most of them are pretty old. So, I thought why not use the big ones as wallpaper, and combine small ones into them as well. So, some of them have 2 images on them. One of them looked great just adding it to a bigger white background. Not all of them are in black and white like this. I can appreciate them more this way. 

By the way, they finally updated Hell's Kitchen. It's been a few years since I put it on hold, and most of the update happened a couple of weeks ago. I think they have all but the 3 last chapters up now. Maybe whenever I pick it up again, and read to that point, they'll already have the last 3 up. It's a fun one, and some of the dishes are drool worthy. Dogma is training Satoru to be the perfect chef. After his training, Satoru's soul will be eaten by Dogma, who's a demon. Akaya Akashiya Ayakashi no (Of the Red, the Light, and Ayakashi) had a massive update, too. That's been on hold for me a lot longer. They have almost all of that up now. It's a really beautiful manga. That'd be cool to get back too, as well.

The weather calendar has crawling lightning that was shot from Australia during the monsoon season. It's cool looking. Looks like fingers of lightning stretching across the clouds. The other smaller pics are of supercell clouds and tornadoes. 

The month-long holidays for February are: Canned Food Month, National Cherry Month, National Hot Breakfast Month, Potato Lovers Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. I love cherries and potatoes! My kind of month. 

The Tu B'Shevat (New Year for the Trees) seder didn't actually happen. I even made a list of all the fruit and nuts we needed. I went through the seder with my mom's haggadah, somewhat to 'practice' it without the drinks and food. I noticed the wording was really odd. Even the prayers weren't written out in Hebrew, when they normally would. It's from online roughly 16 years ago. So, I looked it up. Turns out this particular version isn't online anymore. However, it was an adaptation of another one. The original uses YHWH instead of Adonai or Hashem. Also, using that acronym is usually a red flag that it's not Jewish. Usually a Christian thing. If you're going to actually use the first letters of each letter in the actual word, it'd make more since to use YHVH. It's yud hey vav hey. There is no W. We don't know what G-d's name actually is, so we use attributes, like Hashem, which means The Name. The letters written down are not actually said that way. It's like a placeholder. So, that makes me wonder...The transliterations aren't quite right either. I did find a different one that was Reform based online, and it seemed a lot better. Seemed more kosher, so to speak. Might use that if I do it next year.

Maybe we can invite them to our Passover seder, instead. Last year, it was just me. Hopefully, there won't be too many people that end up coming to that. Dad told me if they had gone it'd be 3 people and possibly their partners coming over. So, it'd be roughly 8 people altogether. That's more than I'm used to for ours. I guess it just means more food and people might have to share the haggadahs. Oh, and either adding the extension (I think it's called a leaf?) to the dining table or putting a card table at the end. Passover starts at the very end of March this year. 

At the end of this month, I have a haircut. It's apparently been exactly year this month. Last year, I tried their over-hyped Deva cut. I thought I liked it at first, but after a couple of weeks the way it was cut seemed so...off. It started to look a bit different, too. Deva cut is apparently supposed to be the best one for curly/wavy hair. I loved the style that one of their stylists gave me after 7 years without having a haircut. (I was growing it out in between.) She actually made me fall in love with it. Others have really liked it, too. I think I had her roughly 2 1/2 years ago, and the time before that. I just wanted to see how the Deva cut was last time, and she's not trained for it. I'm glad I at least tried it out. 

Another thing I've been noticing is I think either lialda or azathioprine has messed with my hair a bit. I know when I started aza., my hair started to fall out. (I'm not taking this anymore, but it can stay in the system for a while afterwards.) I'm noticing lately that I'm getting a lot of white hairs. I started getting white hairs when I was about 16, but I'd pluck them out when I saw them. They didn't show up often. Now, a lot of them seem to be suddenly sprouting up. I know both meds can mess with hair, but this is weird. Those hairs aren't even the same texture as the rest of my hair. I think it's cool that it seems I'll eventually have all white hair, but I don't want that now. I'm iffy about dying my hair, since I've always liked my hair color. If I ever do dye it, I'd probably have a pro do it and have the top layer dark green and bottom layer dark purple. Green, since it's in both the aro and agender flags. Purple, since it's in the ace flag. That might have an interesting effect. I doubt I'd do this anytime soon. 

The 18th through the 25th will be Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. It's usually the week after Valentine's Day, which is fitting. I might put an aro filter on facebook sooner, though. Maybe I'll bring up what aro means again on there. There might be articles I can share, and/or I could do some sort of art thing for it. It's not just for the aromantics, but also the 'grey' area or aromantic spectrum between that and alloromantics. Alloromantics are those who do experience romantic attraction. Sometimes we use allo for short. (Same thing with aces calling others allosexual, they'll use allo.) That community online seems newer than the ace one. There have always been aros, though. They're trying to separate themselves from the ace community, since it's a different thing. Also, most aros are actually allosexual. It's odd when you're both. I might go into more again on here during that week. 

I've been feeling sick for the last few weeks. It doesn't seem as bad as the flu, but like a mild cold. I've also had a lot of pain on my side that eases every other day and then comes back with more intensity. Another reason why I think I'm flaring again. On top of that, I've had a somewhat different type of extremely sharp pain all over my abdomen. It'll suddenly happen, and I have a hard time walking or doing anything while it's happening. That's happened at the grocery store a couple of times. I end up trying to walk around slowly, hunched over a bit, and clutching my gut. It feels like my gut's super heavy when it happens. Luckily, this type of pain doesn't last too long. However, I've noticed it has been happening more often. The first couple of times I thought maybe it was just really awful gas. Then, I didn't pass much of that later and it's gone before that usually. It doesn't seem like it's really related. This and that side pain are starting to scare me a bit. I don't want to go to the hospital (or even Urgent Care), because it feels like they won't believe me. Also, I don't have a fever and I'm not throwing up. I don't know...I suppose if it got much worse I might go.

Last week, the local trans group had a potluck and movie meeting. We brought chicken strips and potato wedges. It was basically the only thing I could fill up on there. There was a 7-layer dip with tortilla chips (both of which I don't eat); a cheese, olives, and meat platter with crackers (couldn't have the meat); and I think one other thing. There was soda, and even though I don't usually drink it, I had some. The movie was the Gender Revolution National Geograhic documentary with Katie Couric. I swear we've had it for group movie night before. I was watching it a little differently now, and didn't have my 'blinders' on. I didn't realize I was agender when we saw it last. Anyways, there were a lot problematic things in it. It was a lot better done than most, but still needed a lot of improvement. The main focus was on binary trans people. Which, ok, it's good to have some focus on them, but what about enbies? 

Also, they briefly showed and mentioned 'gender non-binary'. This is really irritating to the community, as I found out through bringing it up a while before in the enby fb group I'm in (I didn't exactly know why it irritated me so much so I asked them), and seeing articles on it. Would people say gender transgender? How about gender woman or gender man? That's how weird and awkward it is for us. Now, people definitely can say non-binary gender(s). That makes sense. Agender is a non-binary gender, genderfluid is a non-binary gender, etc. 

They didn't bring up genderqueer either. There's some misunderstanding with this even in that enby group. Genderqueer was the original name of the community. Some people had issues with using the word 'queer' (totally understandable), so they came up with non-binary. They mean the exact same thing besides that. The creator of the name genderqueer (they also created the flag for it), said this too. Some people like both, like me, and others go with one or the other. I just say/write enby more, because it's seems more fun. The shortened form of genderqueer is GQ. Not as cutesy, and it sounds like something else. I think there's a magazine called GQ? 

Katie also interviewed 2 trans women. One that was in her 70s and the other in her 20s. The older one was really stuck on the binary. Painfully so. The other one was a lot more 'loose' about the binary. She brought up that gender is really a spectrum, and some people aren't just a man or a woman. That was good to see. The worst part was when the older one said life wouldn't have meaning if there wasn't a binary system...She'd rather die. As an enby this was disturbing. Luckily the younger one was appalled by it. Apparently, she blew both Katie's and the older one's mind. Why does it have to be so out there for people?

I also thought it was odd when Katie kept saying that it was all a lot to get her head around. It's so confusing, apparently. This was mainly with the binary trans and intersex people. Why is it confusing? I think people are actually more scared than confused, but they don't want to admit it. I kind of get being a little confused by the concept of being non-binary. They only touched on enbies once really. Still...It seemed rude at times. 

Oh, one of their 'experts' saying the 'opposite gender' was lovely. I don't know if it was to dumb it down or something, but it wasn't cool. There is no 'opposite'. It's a very binary and somewhat harmful view. 

At an artsy shop downtown on Sunday, the owner was really nice and talkative. Eventually, he stopped and looked at both Dad and I, and said he was assuming that both of us were ladies and asked if that were true. So, to my parent it seemed both affirming and clocking her. She said yes to it. I had a longer pause. Do I tell him the truth that I'm neither a lady nor a guy? Or, do I politely nod and say yes? I thought that I didn't really want to get into it, and did the latter. But, it felt really wrong. The other thing is do I want to cater to cis people to make them feel comfortable and not awkward? Or, do I want to be unapologetically me and possibly have to explain it? Even though he was a very nice guy, why should I have to hide it? He misgendered me this way, and I let him...It feels like a weird internal struggle. I'm actually leaning more towards using they/them, but am ok with she/her still. With everything else, like 'lady' or 'woman', I have more issues with. I want to be more out, but even if I had merch like t-shirts relating to agender (if it even had that word), people would most likely not know what it meant. If I'm more out, I could educate people more, and be happier about it too.

Also, why do people have to assume someone's a certain gender? Wouldn't it be great if everyone was treated truly equally? Before people know what pronouns someone uses or other gendered things, wouldn't it just be easier for everyone to use neutral pronouns and language? Like, using they/them for pronouns. Instead of things like: lady, woman, girl; or guy, man, boy, etc.; why not: person, human, being, pal, friend, gentlefolk, etc. So many other options! Cool if someone tells you to use she/her pronouns and they are a woman. Refer to them with those pronouns and gendered language. Same with men with he/him and other gendered language for them. It's not erasing people's gender. Breaking a binary system would actually benefit everyone. People could explore their gender more deeply, as well. It would be a beautiful thing. More people would probably realize they're enby, which I think some people would be scared of that idea. They want to live in their perfect little boxes. A world where everything is black and white, and they don't have to think much about who they really are. It's the same thing with sexual orientation. They don't want to know there are more 'options' than gay or straight. They might realize bi is a thing, but nothing more. 

I brought up being misgendered and essentially being frustrated about the binary on the enby fb group. The only comment I had was someone who was obviously very angry. I don't think at me. Just someone who's perpetually angry at cis and binary people, I guess? They started off by saying they were frustrated too and agreed with me. Then, it got weird. Saying I shouldn't expect people to be accepting, the gender revolution is afoot, I have to have a hand in it, etc. It was bizarre. At first, I thought I was overreacting in thinking it was weird and uncalled for. But, the more I thought about it, the more it was unsettling. This person was older than me, and seemed to have been 'battling' for a long time. Why can't I assume people will accept me? Why do I have to do something about it? There are people who are willing to do that stuff. I'm really not. I just want to be openly me. There are also safety issues. Yet, I was told recently that even my existence is radical politically. That I'm inherently an activist just for existing. I don't know if I like that. Anyways, I decided to block the angry older person. I don't need that drama. I have been getting a lot of reactions from people. Mainly sad and love ones. I think it's up to 16 of those. The most reactions I've had on any post I've posted in that group. So, obviously I'm resonating with people. 

I've been off and on with writing Alliance 3 lately. Mainly because of feeling so sick. I couldn't focus on it much. I know I'm at least close to chapter 4. It took me a while to think of a name of one of the 'villains' in the story. I didn't want it to sound 'evil'. However, I did want it to be interesting. I often go by meanings of names. Sometimes I'll translate a word (like 'song') into multiple languages, and either pick what seems more interesting or jumble them up. I have come up with some cool combos this way. I chose an actual first name that's water based. It's a rare name, though. His last name is a scientific name of a poisonous flower. Sounds cool and the flower is beautiful, but it's extremely deadly. Also, turned out to be the name of a Greek G-d, who seems to have a similar personality. So, it worked out better than I expected. Interestingly, 2 other recent characters have flower based names. 

I'm almost done with the fish section of the cookbook. She had a lot that were from an unnamed grocery store. They must be from the late 70's or early 80's. Some sound really good. Some of them are microwave recipes. Those sound interesting, easier, and quick. 

I've also been finding more interesting things through Pinterest. One pin was a ramen 'cheat sheet'. It seems like it's for a more traditional type of ramen. You pick different ingredients for each part, and they show you the basics of cooking it all and plating it. I tried it out. My protein was chicken. Aromatics: garlic, dried onions. Vegetables: spinach, carrots. Broth: shoyu (soy sauce) based. It was one of the options they suggested, and I based it off of recipes I saw online. It was chicken broth, dashi (fish broth), soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Seasonings: 7-spice, sweet paprika, a dash of salt, pepper, and margarine. They suggested curry powder, but I couldn't find it, so I used paprika. They suggested butter (I use margarine in place of butter usually) to make it a richer tasting broth. Garnish: chives. They also suggested different types of ramen. I just used the instant kind. Turned out amazing! It's a nifty little template. Might use different combos in the future. Definitely felt more like a meal than I would normally do. Normally, as a soup, I just use chicken broth and the ramen. I never use the flavor packets. 

I also found a pin on making your own flavored salt. That was a cool idea. Another one's on making your own flavored butter. Found quite a lot with making salad dressings. Some with different marinade ideas. Figuring out the right onions or the right apples for recipes pins. Templates for making soups. With a lot of this stuff they can help you create your own dishes. That's pretty awesome! Funny and relatable colitis-based ones. There are pins that have tips on binding. As well as some on top surgery. Lots of aro, ace, and agender based stuff, too. I'm surprised with what I've found on there. I was thinking in the past about sharing some of these on fb. Not sure what stopped me. I know I posted one thing. I think it was on queerplatonic relationships. Maybe I was nervous that it was too odd to share after I did so? Maybe I'll get to that again soon.