26th of Shevat

Having the new hospital bed in my room has been interesting. The remote actually has a clip to hook over the rails. I don’t have to have it at my side all the time. The old one didn’t have a clip and would easily fall. Had to sleep with it. It feels weird to not have to do that now.

I got 2 new calendars. One that’s Jewish, and the secular one features places from around the world. We think the one that features places has Amsterdam for this month. The houses are similar to the one’s there.

I kept getting hot flashes and had to open the windows in my room. It got pretty chilly in there. It was weird to feel so hot when it was so cold outside.

I had my first bed bath with it on 2/13. I didn’t really trust the water coming from the bathtub, so I got some downstairs, and slowly went back up the stairs. I poured it out in the tub afterwards to make it easier to go down the stairs with. The dust bunnies went everywhere, but it did go down the drain. I did the bed bath after lunch instead of right after brushing my teeth in the morning. I think it was the perfect time. I did that for the other times since then. Most of the time since then it’s ended up being 40 min-45 min to do everything. (A little bit less time last time I did it.) That’s not too bad considering I was by myself. The last couple of times, there wasn’t any wet spots. Yay! I ran out of lotion last Monday. I quickly ordered more that day. With my most recent bed bath, I had to go without the lotion. At least I got clean. It’s just my skin got a bit drier afterwards. I got it tonight. 

I waited a while, but my next Universal Yums box was stuck on the pre-shipping phase. I sent an email to them about it. They replied back only a few minutes later. (It was much faster than expected!) They were sorry that it looked like they lost it. How do you lose something like that? They quickly sent a replacement box free of charge (I paid for the one they lost, so it should be like that) after that email. They said it’ll be on Türkiye or Turkey. That’s interesting. They sent another email on a Turkish recipe for karnıyarık. It’s for a savory stuffed eggplant. I hate eggplant. Maybe if it was hidden I’d try it. They even had tips for what to look for when picking a fresh eggplant, and on Turkish olive oil. They prefer Turkish olive oil. Should be interesting to see what snacks they have. Probably would be different than Treats was. I think they mainly look for things with multiple servings, which is great to me. Apparently, I got 2 boxes from them tonight. (I just got them, so I don’t know what’s in them yet.) They must have found the ‘lost’ one.

My parent was gone last Monday through Friday. She went to a NASP convention. They go to a different place every year. This time it was in Seattle. I heard she met a lot of people she hadn’t seen in a while. She also broke her glasses. She went with an Uber there, and came back in one. 

Rosie has been super clingy since she was gone. She already was before, but even more so now. She’s been resting under my new bed as I’m on it throughout the day. There’s a pretty big area back there. She’s been peeing a lot on the puppy pads. She’s been going through them like water. We got more on Saturday. It takes a lot out of me to do them. I was giving her the insulin shots. Sometimes it was earlier than usual. I didn’t know if she was going to run away later, so I did it when I saw her just before making breakfast and before my dinner. Her usual is after those meals. There was one night where I didn’t see her downstairs until my last snack. A little late, but I did it. I think I was doing it right. I didn’t feel any wetness or smell it in those spots. She seemed wobbly at one point where she tripped over her legs. She was ok after a minute, though. I didn’t think she needed sugar or anything with that. She’s been lying on the hard linoleum floor in the kitchen sometimes. I don’t know why she does that. She has food, water, and the pads have been taken care of. Sometimes I’m making something, so it sort of makes sense. Other times I’m not. Weird. She’s been sitting/lying down really close to me as I eat, too. Sometimes so close, she’s under my chair. Hopefully, she’ll go back to normal, since my parent’s home now.

I decided to order groceries online Friday night, since my parent’s glasses broke. I thought it would not be good for her to drive. Found everything except for the usual desserts, my toothpaste, and a med. Still had to go out for those things Saturday. That’s also when we got more puppy pads for Rosie. My parent decided to wear her bent glasses while driving, since she could still see that way.

Last week I had a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with cream in the middle. It was from the new bakery area at a local market. It seemed over-the-top, and a great way to celebrate things. I could only get through half of it. They also had a red velvet and champagne cake. It was combined, and interesting.

A couple of days ago (in the morning), after brushing my teeth, there was a lot of red stuff that I spat out along with the toothpaste. I didn’t eat anything with a red color. I didn’t feel pain in my mouth, and didn’t see any blood from my gums. The only thing out of place was last night I noticed a hard/spiky spot on the roof of my mouth. It disappeared pretty quickly. I don’t think it had anything to do with it. So, what was it? I’ll see if it does it again.

I enrolled all 5 of my ebooks on Smashwords to their annual Read an Ebook Week promo. I set them to free. I seem to get more ‘bites’ when they’re free. It’ll be from March 2nd-March 8th. I put up a notice about it on my socials. I doubt anyone will care on those. I’ll still post about it on March 2nd.

Last week was Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. I didn’t see anything new and interesting on facebook for it. Seems like everyone’s quiet about it this year. Maybe they’re scared.

I posted a selfie on my socials. I haven’t taken a selfie in a long time. I also wanted to compare previous selfies to see how much my ‘moon face’ has gone down. (A steroid made that happen.) I think it’s pretty much gone. I had a couple weird responses. One person, on Tumblr, said they looked at my profile and my selfie and they want to make a mural based on it. Saying I’m their muse. They said they’ll pay me $500 for it. I quickly blocked them. That was just bizarre. On Twitter, someone mentioned me. Apparently they said they were ‘inspired’ by my selfie and drew/painted me. It looked awful. The other people he did that to and was inspired looked awful, too. The original selfies were much better. Good it’s not just me. I don’t like that they did that without my permission, but it doesn’t violate Twitter’s rules. Although, he also had drawings of naked men. Some with rabbit heads. It was creepy. Another little surprising thing was a comment on facebook. Saying my skin is perfection, with hearts for eyes emoji. I think I should take it as a compliment, but I’m not used to that. At least it wasn’t like that person on Twitter.

It’s been raining heavily lately and windy. It’s supposed to get even windier tonight and Tuesday. The temperature has been warmer than usual, too. Warm, but stormy. Weird combo.

I finally cooked again Sunday night. It was One Pot Chili Mac and Cheese. From another pin on Pinterest. I don’t know if I rinsed the beans correctly. It turned out great, though. I thought there wouldn’t be enough liquid, but the pasta was perfectly done. There were a lot of leftovers, but that just means more lunches/dinners during the week.

Had a phone appointment today with my primary care doctor. I wasn’t expecting it. I had a notice telling me to do a pre-check in. I looked at my appointments, and there was also one to see someone in oncology (one I don’t know) in April. No one told me about it. I don’t like when they ‘decide’ for me.

Anyways, my doctor said she created the phone appointment today. She wanted to talk to me right away. She had just talked to Dr. Slack about my pain. He might think I’m still in palliative care (pc), which I’m not.

She went over 3 options for pain. The first one was to go to a certain specialist (I don’t remember what she called them), choosing between 2 different places in Seattle. They’ll insert a pain pump. Seattle’s a long haul. I don’t want to go all the way out there. It also sounds a little scary. The second option is to switch to methadone. I’d have to get off of morphine. The third option was to try gabapentin. That would work together with the morphine. She said the morphine deals more with bone pain, and gabapentin deals with nerve pain. I chose the third option. I think I’ve tried gabapentin before. (I could be wrong. We might have just talked about it.) It was back when they thought I had fibromyalgia. In reality, I probably was experiencing symptoms of my cancer. If I took it, I don’t remember how it affected me. She said there’s either 100 mg or 300 mg capsules. She’s going to try a stronger dose for me to start with. It’ll be the 300 mg. There’s more wiggle room to work with as well. Like, the max is higher than some others. She said I should probably start with it at night, since it might make me sleepy. It might also make me dizzy, unsteady on my feet, or trouble thinking/brain fog. She’ll order this along with okaying my next morphine refill. She wants me to talk to her again in 3 weeks over the phone. Just to see how it’s going. Hopefully, this will work. The other options sound intense, and again, scary. 

Pinterest (I did not make these. I'm just sharing):

Youtube: 

National Cherry Pie Day!

This holiday was yesterday. I love cherries, so putting them in a pie makes them even better! Haven't had it in a while, though. Finding a good cherry pie locally can be difficult. They tend to have what I call sugar or 'gel' packets. Basically large globs of sugar. Not the best. Sometimes those are good, but really shouldn't be there. They mess up pecan pie often, too. Either too few nuts, too dry, too much filling, etc. I sadly can't have that anymore, even if it's one of my faves, too. 

This week hasn't been great health-wise. Monday, I had one of the biggest migraines I've had in a very long time. The 'aura' for mine are often auditory. Usually thudding sounds. When it happens, it also feels like blood is spurting from my head. There's a lot of pressure, too. That part usually lasts a while, and gets really annoying. Not really painful. As soon as it finally stops, the massive painful headache starts. At this point, I'm also sensitive to light, certain sounds, cold (more so than usual), and certain foods. Usually this phase doesn't last long. Maybe a few hours. This time was different. The headache finally died down on Wednesday. However, the after effect was stronger than usual, too. I get sick to my stomach, feel like I'm in a fog, still sensitive to a few things, and fatigue sets in like I had been through a marathon. This phase usually lasts for an even shorter time than the headache. I was still in it when we went to the local trans support group that night. Another headache, that felt similar to the migraine one (but there was no aura beforehand), started after having the banana cream pie for dessert at Shari's after group. The bananas in it were still frozen. Might have triggered it? It was bizarre. 

It felt like I was finally starting to recover around noon yesterday. A few hours later, I decided to try a new game on the PlayStation 4 called The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. A detective/horror game. Sounded fun. However, the clues had text that would light up near them. If you clicked 'inspect', what he thinks/observes comes out as text quickly and swirls around. Occasionally repeating over and over. Sometimes, it wants you to find a certain clue by clicking '???', and then those question marks swirl around wildly. They combine when you've found something. There's some jerking around of the camera, too. It eventually made me so nauseated, I came very close to throwing up several times after I stopped playing. Stomach was really upset for a while, and felt like the acid was burning through it. So, I laid down, trying to calm it down. Felt like I couldn't look at a screen (like the computer or iPhone), couldn't color in my 'adult' coloring book (it's a book based on designs of a tattoo artist, which is usually fun), or really much else; for fear that I'd throw up or start another headache. So, I just closed my eyes and sat there. Eventually, I had fallen asleep for about 2 hours. Felt better afterwards. Today's been pretty good so far, but I'm trying not to trigger anything. Trying to be kinder to myself, too. 

I'm thinking of looking into chest binders again. I don't think the one I have worked too well. I also stopped wearing it when my health issues got worse, and it was hurting more. Things don't seem as bad as they were when I was on Lialda (that's not to say things are fine. I still have awful health stuff), now. So, I thought it'd be an ok time to look into it again. Plus, they're bothering me more than usual lately. I'll go with a different brand this time. I have an Underworks one. I've heard gc2b and Shapeshifters are good, so I'll look at those, along with any other brands I find. I want something long, so it stays put and doesn't roll up or anything. Similar to my current one. I don't want the weird string feeling rubbing up and down my back, and the weird puckering it does around the neck area. Maybe something that gets me even flatter? I don't know. 

Sunday was the start of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. I've been posting something aro related for every morning post on my author account on Instagram. A couple of people have stopped following me during it, but I've decided not to care about that. This is a part of me, and if people don't like it or don't want to be informed, so be it. All the better, actually. I've gotten a lot of likes from fellow aros on a lot of those posts, which has been nice to see. Some have added a couple of those posts to their stories on there, tagging me as well. My evening posts are still following the pattern I'm trying to set. For normal weeks, I've 'assigned' certain topics for the days of the week. Some having 2 topics for the day. That makes it more interesting, I think. 

I also recently found out that there's an aro ace flag. It was created at the end of 2018, so it's rather new. 2 shades of blue for being aro ace and the aro ace spectrum, and our experiences. Blue was chosen because it is between the aromantic green (in that flag) and asexual purple (in that flag). White for wholeness, as well as aro aces who are aplantonic (don't experience platonic attraction), nonamorous, or not seeking a partnership of some sort. Yellow is for love and relationships that exist outside of conventional romantic and sexual relationships. Orange is for community. It's in between green and purple in the other direction on the color wheel. Much more colorful than the current aro and ace flags, which is nice. I think it looks snazzy. 

There's also an oriented aro ace flag. I saw this a while before this 'new' aro ace flag. An oriented aro ace is someone who experiences other attractions strongly. Many go by this for queerplatonic relationships. Before I heard about this, I read that people were just saying what their 'queerplatonic' attraction was. This seems to encompass more, though. There are many other types of attractions. I'm an oriented aro ace. Specifically, a pan aro ace. My strongest is platonic, although I might rephrase that as queerplatonic, since it feels like something even more (hard to describe). I have potential to be attracted to people of all genders this way. I would love to be in a queerplatonic relationship or qpr in the future. The problem is trying to figure out how to get a partner for one. It's not like dating, and that makes me cringe. I'm slightly romance-repulsed, although not as strongly as my sex-repulsion. Probably more romance-averse...I have read about some people that are trying to create a site that's based on finding queerplatonic partners, and for aro aces specifically. I don't think there truly is anything like that out yet. It's hard, especially because not many know about this sort of relationship, and it might seem...weird at first to others. It's also hard to know who actually wants to be in one. Then, there's if you're compatible, like with most relationships. I've heard that going to aro and ace group meetings has helped many people find partners for it. The closest one to me is in Seattle, and they recently changed the name from Seattle Aces to Seattle Aces & Aros. Through their facebook group, they seem to be sincerely trying to include aros, too. They're not just changing the name. It's not really local for me, though. They only have one meeting a month, but do have events throughout the rest of the month. Some of them sound fun.

Anyways, that flag is also pretty new. Created a few months before the aro ace one. Dark blue is for the shared aro ace experience, grey for the aro ace spectrum, white for orientations within the community (bi aro ace, gay aro ace, pan aro ace, etc.), and teal for non-romantic and non-sexual attractions. It's nice looking, too. Still more colorful than the current aro and ace flags. 

Got the author copies of my paperback books last week. So nice to actually see them in print! They're like my babies. They had some scuff marks, which I wasn't happy about. The matte finish on the 4 that had it felt weird, but that might just be because they're new. The glossy finish for Sweet Endless Terror was nice, and really fit well with it. The only other issue I see with them is the font size. I went with what was suggested, but it's bigger than I expected. Might be good for the cookbook, but the others...I'm not so sure. The font's not incredibly large, but maybe it's just a slight size too big than what I'm used to. I think the memoir is the only one that ended up slightly smaller in font compared to the others. Maybe it's the size of the books. If I change the print's font to something smaller, I'll have to change the formatting, change the cover size, etc. It's not a simple change. I'll just stick with it for now. Seeing them all stacked up really shows how much writing I've put out there, too. It's impressive to me to see it all like that, even if they're not really huge books. Alliance is the thickest, like I expected. Alliance: Dawn comes close. Also, understandable. 

Youtube:

One Piece:


Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun (Toilet-bound Hanako-kun):

Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer):



Boku no (My) Hero Academia:

Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (Assassination Classroom):

National Cherry Pie Day!

This holiday was yesterday. This is one of my fave pies! Cherries are one of my fave fruits, so it makes an awesome pie that way. It can be surprisingly difficult to find decent cherry pie sometimes. Sometimes there are huge sugar lumps, sometimes it's too watery, sometimes there aren't enough cherries, etc. Might be why I don't order it often at places like Shari's or feel like getting it at the markets. 

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week ends this Saturday. Didn't do much for it. Most people know that I'm aro on places like fb, dA, and Instagram. I post aro stuff occasionally on fb. Not often for the other stuff. Oh, I post about it on here, too. I thought a little about making aro related art, but couldn't come up with anything. 

I got the referral letter for gender therapy through the mail yesterday. (Didn't see it until today.) I find the referring diagnosis both funny and insulting. I know they have to have something like it in order to cover it, but it's weird. It's: uncomfortable with one's gender. I'm not uncomfortable with my gender. I'm more uncomfortable with how society forced me into a box that doesn't fit. Seems backwards. Just because a doctor looked at me when I was born and said I was female, does not make my gender that. Would have been better if it was just gender dysphoria, but they can't do that until I get diagnosed by a therapist that I've seen. I wish things were better this way. At least, my new therapist will be covered and there'd be a small copay. However, I've noticed I haven't been billed for a copay for that 1st visit yet. Maybe they'll cover the whole thing? Doubt it. I guess I'll see. 

Most of the snow is gone. There's more snow in the forecast, though. I really hope that doesn't happen. I'm tired of seeing it. It's just been cold with a slight breeze lately. Fun when you still feel like you have a respiratory/ear thing going on. 

I'm trying to be better about eating a certain way again. Not related to the calorie thing. I'm still following that. Having more soluble fiber, and less insoluble. Insoluble fiber often aggravates my colon, since it's so scarred. That stuff scrapes across the scarring harshly. Plus, a lot of it triggers my colitis symptoms, and I think I'm flaring again. Soluble fiber is like soups, applesauce, oatmeal, cooked/peeled vegetables and some fruit, non-seedy/grainy breads, etc. Insoluble fiber is like a raw green salad, raw/unpeeled vegetables and some fruit, seeds, and more. Think the fibrous roughage type foods. Often thought of as 'healthier'. I've decided to try and stay away from most things that are nut-based. Creamy nut butters are comfort foods, but whole and pieces of nuts are triggers for me. (It's more than just insoluble with this.) So, I went to Shari's last night and their turkey dinner comes with the option of salad or soup beforehand. I got their tomato bisque. I still got a vegetable this way, and avoided the pain of the salad. The vegetables for that turkey dinner were well-cooked. That was nice, but I didn't have much of it since I wasn't really thrilled about it. I got their s'mores pie, instead of a nut based one. I like their nut ones, so that was sad. Their new hazelnut pie sounded so good, so I got it last time. It had so many nuts that 1/4 of the way in, I was feeling the effects. Partially why I decided to be better about this sort of thing. There are a lot of restaurants that have salad as a thing before the entree. I'll try to look at their soups to replace it. I don't think there are very many options for me at places like Red Lobster. We'll see. Gone back to not taking home leftovers, except for those few dishes that I know will still be good the next day/certain places. I'll try asking for smaller portions again, too. 

Studied more Korean today. I've decided to completely level out the early units (at least) one at a time. I'm close to finishing the Alphabet 2 unit. There are 5 levels to each one. Alphabet ended up having 72 parts to it in total. So much! It'll probably be close to that for the one I'm on. This will also elongate the course a bit. It's much shorter than the other courses I've gone through. I want it to last at least to the 3-month mark. I'm surprised that I'm pretty much able to read it now. I've been saying it along with the speaker, but some things look like they should be said differently. I also feel like I'm getting some form of speaking exercises this way. Still not as good as the actual speaking ones for Italian and German. They were more structured, too. 

Finished drawing Shadow's clothes today. I tried to add folds to them, but didn't want to overdo it. Hopefully it looks fine. I'll draw his shoes and start outlining it all with ink next time.

Managed to practice my clarinet, too. Haven't in a while because of that respiratory stuff. Had to take more breaths than usual. Mostly played Gershwin and some from the Solo Pieces for Advanced Clarinetists book. I was better than expected. Hopefully, I can practice again tomorrow.

Edited more of Alliance. Found some really silly mistakes. Went through 4 pages of the print version, and 3 of the ebook. The print version is smaller in size. Not bad.

Finally, got back to cleaning today. Despite still feeling sick, I felt I really needed it. I swept my bathroom floor, used a strong version of liquid plumber to clear my sink, and laundered the large rug near the counter. Beforehand, that stuff was probably making me feel sicker. I haven't done it in a while. I used to clean something every day but the weekends. Hope to get back to that. It's hard when you're always fatigued. I don't remember actually laundering that rug before. (Might have, it's just been so long I don't remember it.) I've had it for many years. I just would shake the stuff off it. Stuff like hair and cat litter. It didn't smell right for a while. It'll be nice to see it clean. With cleaning, I'll try to do little sections of rooms again each time. It worked well. If I feel that I'm going to have to do a lot, I'm a lot less motivated to do it. Plus, this takes into account the fatigue. 

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week!

This started yesterday and ends on the 26th. I think I read that the people behind it first had it as Aromantic Awareness Week. They realized the acronym for it, AAW, was the same one for Asexual Awareness Week. So, they added the spectrum part. It sounds more inclusive this way. Aro-spec people are the ones that fall kind of in between being aro and romantic. More of a 'grey' area. Just like with aces and ace-specs. Including these people is awesome! (I'm thinking of not using emoticons for the time being, I'm tired of the current ones I've found. So, there won't be any in this post.)

Again, aromantic just means not experiencing romantic attraction. I'm aro ace, so I don't experience that and sexual attraction. There's one more 'a' someone could be, and that's agender. Not experiencing something is in interesting thing to try and figure out. 

Aro aces basically get hit on 2 fronts by society: heteronormativity and amatonormativity. Heteronormativity is the idea as a society that everyone should be heteroromantic, heterosexual, and cis, or 'straight'. Most people don't know about romantic orientations, or even that they can be different from your sexual orientation. The ones who aren't straight/cis are looked at as weird, or inhuman, or that they have 'tendencies', or there's something wrong with them. Also, it's about how straight-centered things in society are. Like, most of the media is based on straight/cis people. Occasionally, you might have a gay character, but they're stereotyped. Same with trans characters. (I don't think I've ever seen a non-binary person being represented.) If, on rare occasions, there's an ace character, they're treated as though they need to be fixed. Some of the media gets it right, but it's super rare. Also, even for medical stuff it's 'straight'-centered. A gay man can't donate blood unless he hasn't had sex for months. (Can't remember the exact number of months...) Trans women are treated similarly, even though they might be straight. In fact, it might be because of that for some. It's really ridiculous. We're also told by society that you need sex. It's apparently listed as one of the things humans need along with food, water, and sleep. This makes aces feel like they're broken, or alienated, or inhuman. (Personally, I've felt alienated with being both aro and ace.)

Amatonormativity (hopefully I'm spelling this right) is when society says that humans need romance. That romantic love is the highest form of love, and everyone needs to achieve it. Other types of love are considered lesser than. This hurts aros. For me, platonic love or attraction is one of the strongest ones that I feel. Friends and especially close friends are very important to me, and I can love them to death platonically. It kind of hurts when some of my friends grow distant from me because they're in a romantic relationship. They spend a lot more time with them. It's kind of understandable, but makes platonic love lesser. Even when I was in a romantic relationship, some of my friends didn't want to hang out as much and became distant. My boyfriend seemed to try and suck up most of my time, and seemed to not want me to see my friends as much. It was a weird feeling. Added to the drowning or smothering feeling I got towards the beginning of that relationship. That never totally went away while I was with him. 

I've read posts even on AVEN where the aros are more represented than the general population, that say things like: "Aros don't feel or understand love. How could they not? They must be cold and heartless." I really hate this! Aros are perfectly capable of many other forms of love. There's platonic love, parental love, familial love, love for pets, love of country, love of food, neighborly love, love of cultures, love of your heritage, love of music, and many more. 

And, there are other types of relationships out there. I personally would love to be in a qpr or queer(some prefer quasi)platonic relationship. Some people use qpp instead, the last p meaning partnership. It's essentially a relationship that isn't sexual and romantic. So, it's more emotional and platonic. I still would like to be with someone, just, again, not romantically and sexually. It's a lot more than 'just' friends. Many people have a hard time actually explaining it to others. Anyone can be in this sort of relationship, but it's mostly aces and aros that know about it. For me, gender doesn't matter with this. I can be attracted platonically/emotionally to any gender. So, I'm kind of pan this way. 

The problem is trying to find a partner for it. Aros can date, but they might not really understand it. I honestly don't quite understand it, myself. I've tried. I thought in the past it was like trying to make friends, but kind of like those friends wanted things that I didn't care about. Leaving me wondering: why would they want those things? However, this relationship is a different sort of thing. Some people actually use a sheet that asks the possible partner what would be ok and not ok to do. Basically, a checklist of boundaries. Some couples are ok or enjoy having sex and doing certain romance coded things. The partner is sometimes referred to as a zucchini. I like the less popular one more, being pumpkin. It's a little cutesy, though. I still don't know why they would call their partners vegetables. Although, it's interesting. 

Some people in a qpr marry their partner. I think that would be interesting. Some get married to please their family, some for tax purposes and other governmental benefits, some to symbolize their relationship, some to show that other relationships are just as important and should be celebrated, etc. With weddings, in the past I've only thought about things like the dress and food. Not the actual partner...(Which might be another sign I'm aro.) I think if I were to marry my partner in that relationship, we could modify it. Make it so it's not so romanticized. Like, instead of kissing at the end, do a nice hug. Have the wedding as a chance to party, see family and friends, celebrate the relationship, an excuse to dress up, have good food, and more. It might be strange to others that attend it, though. I don't think we'd care what those people thought about it. Some couples even have kids, either through adoption, or the 'old fashioned' way, or IVF, etc.

A week from this Saturday, the local ace group will meet for the first time. I'm really excited about this! Maybe I'll meet another aro ace. Although, meeting aces in general would be awesome! Who knows, maybe I'll meet someone who wants to be in a qpr, too. I think that's one way to find one. A new member just recently joined the facebook group. So, we're back up to 10 people. Maybe we'll have more that show up at the cafe. That would be both a good thing, and a bad thing. The bad part would be that I hope they have enough room for us. The good part would be the number of people...Even if half are allies, that'd be great. 

Someone on fb recently made a bunch of pics with Star of Davids that have different romantic orientations' flags in it, and the ace flag in the background. They said people can freely use it. I thought it was really cool, so I made it my profile pic on fb and instagram. It represents that I'm a Jewish aro ace. Yay! 3 of my identities are represented! The flag they chose is the newest one. The dark green, light green, white, grey, and black one. I think I mentioned the meanings in the past. Although, many people still can't agree on those. There are 3 different flags that I know of. I personally like the 1st one the most (green, orange, yellow, black), but apparently that one's not that popular anymore. Still saw it being sold online somewhere when I looked up info on it in the past. So, some people still like it. 

I might try joining Arocalypes soon. It's basically like AVEN, but for aros. I think it might have even been made by someone who was apart of AVEN. It has the same layout, and they share similar news. The color scheme is a little hard to get used to. It has the current flag colors as borders, and the main color is like a bright light green. Kind of in your face. I don't think it's as active as AVEN, either. It only has about 400 members vs the hundreds of thousands AVEN has. Still, it would be interesting to be apart of that community. I'd get to know or read about people who are like me that way.

I also recently joined a closed fb group called Rainbows, Aces, and Unicorns (LGBTQIAPDFKS+). It lists the longest acronym for the community I've seen. The longest I usually see is up to the P, and they add a + to that. Maybe the D is for Demisexual and F for Fraysexual? Not sure about the others. Interesting anyways. They seem extremely inclusive. There are apparently a lot of aces and aros. (By the way, one of the ace symbols is the ace suit in cards. Hence, just saying aces as a symbolism in the title. An arrow is one of the main symbols for aros.) Many who are both. Many members represent the other letters, too. I really like this group so far. They seem really kind. I'm not used to a general LGBTQ+ group. I know of many ones that each deal with only one part of the community. So, this is good to see, and a semi-new experience for me.