Tu B'Shevat

This holiday was yesterday. It means: 15th of Shevat. Tu isn't really a word, but represents 15 in Hebrew. It's similar to using Roman numerals, like I, IV, X, etc. It's also known as the New Year for the Trees. Basically a celebration of nature. People eat a lot of fruit and nuts, hike or walk, plant trees, and more. There's also a seder that some people attend. Seder lit. means order, but is often used as a ritual meal that goes in a certain order. Many people think of the Passover (or Pesach) seder when they hear it. This one originated from the Kabbalists. With the Pesach one there are 4 cups of wine or grape juice. With this one there are different shades of wine or grape juice, each one representing a season. I think a red or dark color (for juice) is for summer, adding a little white is fall, white for winter, and white with a dash of the red for spring. Each season we go through has a certain type of fruit and nut. Like, fruits eaten whole, or those with inedible exteriors but soft insides, etc. I think there are 15 in total? It's a lot. Quite an experience. I didn't have one this year. In fact, I forgot about it until late afternoon yesterday. I think I might have led a seder last year, but it was just my parent and I. My mom led them for years. Even one of the local synagogues would ask her to lead it for them. I think I still have the Haggadah (book that leads you through the order) she used. I don't think it was very good. Whenever I do it next, probably should print off a better one. 

Yesterday afternoon, I went to Starbucks. Got an iced version of their new cinnamon shortbread latte. I wasn't expecting much, but I like to try new things. It was full of cinnamon and nutmeg, which was nice. Not much else to it, though.

Went through a lot of fb while I was there. I sometimes go through the comments of posts related to Jews and the LGBTQ+ community in general, and block all the haters so I don't have to see them again. I've probably blocked thousands of people already. I just don't want to see such negativity. It's helped a lot when I look at the comments now. Hardly see any of those, but it also shortens how many comments I see. 

Anyways, one of the posts I went through was about a non-binary drag queen who considers herself a goddess. One of the commenters was someone claiming to be a cis ally. She said in order to truly be non-binary, you can't associate yourself with the binary in any way. You can't use goddess, because it's female. She said you can't have binary pronouns either. She was saying that she was looking out for the 'real' enbies, otherwise they won't take us seriously and 'cishets' will take over our spaces. Ok...Many enbies responded with how wrong she was, and she argued with them. A cis person trying to 'protect' us from cis 'invaders', lecturing non-binary people...That's a certain kind of craziness. Non-binary means your not specifically a man or a woman. To be binary, the person's gender is static and it's a whole single gender itself. There are genderfluid people. They may switch between binary genders, multiple ones, ones that are only non-binary, etc. There are demigenders. Some people only partially feel like a man, a woman, or something else. They may feel more of a different gender. There are androgyne people. They feel like they are a little of both a man and a woman. There are bigender people. They may feel 2 genders at the same time or they switch between them. It's any 2, and some of them feel they are both a man and a woman. There are also trigender and polygender (a more controversial term they might use: pangender) people. Very similar concept as bigender for those. According to her, only the agender and neutrois (basically neutral gender. They still have one) people are valid. (She mocked some of the other completely separate non-binary genders, too.) That's really disturbing. If you support people like me, you should support everyone in our umbrella community. Non-binary doesn't equal no gender. Agender means you don't have a gender...This also reminds me of the weird thing where some 'allies' say they accept all aces except heteroromantic ones. Since they're 'basically' straight. No. They may call themselves straight ace to cut it down, but they aren't heteroromantic and heterosexual. Therefore, they're very much still apart of the LGBTQ+ community. Accept us all or no one. Many enbies use binary pronouns, either because it's easier, they like them, they don't care, they relate to their gender (hello, genderfluid/bigender people and others...), and more. They can use binary gendered terms, too. Someone outside of the community policing us on our language ain't cool. Gatekeeping inside the community isn't great either. Gender is a lot more complex than people think, and I think that's amazing. Even as someone without a gender, it's fascinating to learn about the multitude of genders out there. To me, it's also like learning more about humanity as a whole. Maybe it's my anthropology side showing. Knowing just about the binary, is only a small fraction of the human experience. 

Went to Elmer's for dinner after Starbucks. Their special this month is marionberry crepes with raspberry sauce. I got one (they normally come with 2). Ordered a salad and biscuit for sides. Normally with the combo, it comes with your choice of meat and eggs. I can only eat one of their meat options, and it's not great. I don't need more eggs than what's already in the crepe. I don't need more than one crepe, either. It was a really good one. They drizzle it with cream cheese icing and top it off with whipped cream. In a way I celebrated Tu B'Shevat with this. It was bursting with berries. Their biscuits are some of the best I've had.

I tried making an appointment to see one of the gender therapists on the list yesterday. She responded to my message much faster than expected. She said she wasn't accepting new clients, but I could see a different therapist in the same building. I hadn't brought up that I'm looking for a gender therapist in my message. Just said I wanted to make an appointment. So, she probably assumed it was for regular counseling. I looked into the other therapist online. I've heard good things about her in the past. However, with her approach in general according to what I saw, would not be for me. I'm not into the meditation, drumming, spiritual, etc. thing. It actually reminded me of naturopaths, fake hippies, those that appropriate cultural/spiritual things, or people selling 'woo'. Sent warning signals to my brain. I'll email Ashley tomorrow for another list. She did say if I needed more all I had to do was ask. She only gave me 2 options last time. It'd be interesting if I ended up with a male gender therapist. I've been hesitant about that with regular therapy and even with a primary, but I think that might just be because of bias or something. It's highly unlikely that they'd have non-binary gender therapists. That would be the best. 

This morning Rosie seemed really affectionate, and laid down on my feet. I patted her on the back and then towards her butt. She normally loves that, and seemed to get into it. Suddenly, she scratched my wrist. It was hard enough to draw blood. That doesn't happen often. She seemed guilty afterwards and ran away. With a band-aid there, it almost looks like I attempted to cut myself. I used to a little in my late teens. I've had no inclination to do it since. It looks weird to me with that in mind, though. She also tried to bite my calves when I was making my breakfast. Out of reflex and annoyance I kicked backwards into her. She felt even more guilty. She's been glued to me today more so than usual because of it, I think. She even stayed in my room when I played my clarinet. I know she sometimes enjoys it, but hasn't stayed in a while. She seemed so happy when I played, so that was nice.

Got through the Past unit for Duolingo's Italian course. Just 2 more left: Spiritual and Politics. Those should be interesting. Figured out more of how to draw Shadow's legs. I still need to mess with it more. Things are turning out better than I thought they would. After I get his legs/feet down, I'll start drawing in his clothes. Like I said, I got to practicing my clarinet today. (I'm still keeping up with doing it every day except Saturdays.) Played more klezmer tunes. Got a lot of editing done. Made it to the 12th chapter of Alliance. There are 20. It's roughly 1200 words less so far. That's a lot more than I thought it would be at this point. It is the longest book, word count wise, that I've written.