International Non-Binary People's Day!

This holiday was on Friday. It's to celebrate non-binary people, what we contribute to the world, and awareness of the issues we face. The person who started it chose this day because it's right in between International Men's Day and International Women's Day. They found out that the date in numerology equals 3. So, another meaning for non-binary people. I think they mentioned that we're often lumped in with women, but we aren't women. Another way to refer to someone who's non-binary is nb or enby. I kind of like enby. It sounds cute. Also, the plural form is enbies, which is better than writing out or saying the whole 'non-binary people (or genders)' thing. There are so many more genders under this umbrella term. Agender people fall under it simply because we're neither man nor woman. We're still outside the binary. There are also other genders like genderfluid, demigender, bigender, pangender, and so much more. 

There are apparently subcategories under agender that I'm just starting to learn about. Really interesting stuff. Even with just looking at it from an anthropological standpoint, let alone for myself. I'm starting to watch more youtube vids and read more about enbies in general. I've also come across some nasty hate towards them. Not directed specifically at me, but I recently read an article by a TERF. TERFs are Trans-Esclusionary Radical Feminists, often shortened to rad-fem's. They aren't real feminists, and they're extremely hurtful to trans people in general. They think trans men are somehow betraying them, and trans women are 'forcing' their way into women's spaces. It gets a lot nastier. That's very mild compared to some of the horror stories I've read. 

Anyways, I hadn't read anything on how they view enbies specifically. It was really bizarre. It wasn't particularly nasty, but was quite rude and seemed to try and invalidate them. They used quotations every time they wrote out non-binary, trans, and other identities. (Made the article look even more messed up.) Saying that enbies make the "trans" community look bad. That the ones who were afab (assigned female at birth) are just confused. Like, they don't know there are many different types of women out there. Why not be a tomboy or something? They brought up how using they as a pronoun is grammatically incorrect. I've got news for them, it is correct. When you don't know someone's gender, people tend to use they without thinking. For example: Who are they? They wanted [something]. What are they doing? It's not hard. 

Genderqueer is essentially the same thing. It's just some people are uncomfortable with associating with the word queer. Totally understandable. I like the idea behind it (not using it as a slur), and reclaiming it. Many people use that word to describe the LGBTQ+ community, because it's easier than writing/saying the acronym. I recently heard another person say that maybe we should use Pride to refer to the community. I don't know...I like queer more. Although, if anyone from the community doesn't like me using that word around them, I won't use it around them. Oftentimes, people use non-binary in general instead of genderqueer. Although, I've seen people write/say both. Technically, we are all non-binary in the community. With genderqueer, I can see that it might be a bit confusing if people just see it. They might think: "What does this really mean?" So, maybe it's more of an in thing? Kind of confusing...

I went to our local Pride fest yesterday. Got a really nasty looking sunburn on my neck and a little down my back. My face is sunburned, too. It's really uncomfortable. It's my own fault, though. I didn't use sunscreen. I even have a little travel sized bottle in my purse. I think most of the time that it's not going to work. Oftentimes it doesn't. I usually get sunburned anyways. Maybe not as badly, though. 

I put a Planned Parenthood temporary ace tattoo on my cheek for it. I got it from them at the Seattle Trans Pride. It was surprising to see. People kept looking at it, and a few people asked if it was temporary. I don't think anyone asked what flag it was. Many people complimented on my earrings. Almost every time I go out I have someone compliment on them. They're big silver cat face earrings. They have kind of an I don't care attitude. I thought one person was going to rip them off. They kept saying how much they absolutely loved them. I've never been really good about complimenting people unless something really catches my eye. So, I end up saying thanks, nodding, and not complimenting them back. It's odd because many women tend to reciprocate comments after one of them does it first. I'm not a woman, so I wonder if that's why I'm not that good at it...I think it can be a very gendered and cultural thing to do. Not necessarily complimenting first or in general, but trying to reciprocate a compliment to be polite or something. So weird. I guess I try to be more genuine with that sort of thing. It might seem rude to others, though.

There was an ace flag up with the other flags scattered around the park. That was one of the things that made me happy. There was also a glass-based booth that had certain flag colors worked into the glass pieces. There were some pendants like that, but I think the only one that was ace themed was a little shallow plate. Looked cool, but didn't sound useful. It would have been cool if I saw a glass pendant with the colors. There were apparently some trans ones. I think Dad got one of them. It was cool looking. I didn't really look for my other 'identities' or parts of me.

There was a flag booth. I think I got my huge ace flag from the same place last year. The guy there is weird. I asked him about an aromantic flag. He swore he had it, and went searching for it. He looked for a while, and I said I'd come back later. About an hour or so later I come back. He says he couldn't find it in the booth, and I can go through the extra boxes behind his booth to see. I did that a little while, and got nothing. He seemed upset that he didn't have it. He apparently left it behind. So, I asked him if he had an agender one. He didn't. I asked him if he had a non-binary one. He didn't. (That was surprising.) I asked him if he had a genderqueer one. He had those. A big 3' x 5' or a smaller one was all he had. I wanted to have an even smaller one. (Not sure how big this one really is.) I settled for one of the smallest ones he had. 

I posted a pic to both fb and Instagram. Today, one of my followers commented: "Not to be a negative Nancy, but that's the Suffragette flag, though. lol" I looked it up, and yes it looks exactly like the UK suffragettes' flag. I also looked up info on the creator of the genderqueer flag. Since they were from the US, they didn't know about that UK flag when it was created. They created it off of other sexuality and gender flags, off of many meanings for the colors (that community could understand), etc. 

I mentioned this stuff, and that maybe they should do their own research on why the genderqueer flag is the way it is. There are many flags that look the same. Plus, this is a global symbol, unlike the UK flag. That's a big difference. There are only so many combos for a tri-colored striped flag, too. Nobody owns these colors. As the exchange kept going, I felt odd that I had to defend one of my communities' flags. Also, they said we should honor the UK suffragettes somehow if we're taking their flag...What? How? I don't even know where to begin on that. I eventually blocked them, because it was tiring, they were missing the point, and seemed to only get more bitter. First time I felt like someone was trying to get me to defend a flag. It's still going to be the official genderqueer flag whether they like it or not. Has been for a while. 

I got a cheeseburger for lunch there. It was pretty good. Well seasoned. Had Doritos Nacho Cheese chips with it. The chips might not have been a good idea, considering I'm supposed to stay away from corn products. Later, I got a root beer float for a snack. I think they knew what flag I was carrying, and said ma'am in a weird way. Really forceful, and somewhat indignantly. Like, making some sort of statement. It was odd. Eventually, their ma'am started sounding like mom. I was starting to laugh in my head, which made it a bit better. I don't have much of a problem with ma'am, as long as it's not said rudely. I know they're trained to say it. I'd definitely prefer a more gender neutral way of being addressed by them, though. They are quite a few out there that they can use to refer to customers. 

As soon as they gave the root beer float to me, it erupted out the hole in the cover. It was a sticky mess. I cleaned off the excess, and noticed the other people that had ordered it after me had the same surprise. Not very pleasant. I wanted to wait for Dad before I sat down with my float. She was getting a sausage for a late lunch. Eventually I couldn't stand much longer, and went to the covered picnic tables. She told me her sausage took 35 minutes. That's a long time! When I got my hamburger from the same place, I think it took about 10 minutes for it. It was towards the beginning, though. There was also a pizza truck. They brought their own pizza oven. I felt too warm for that. I thought there would be another food truck/booth. Oh well. Apparently, a store across the street from the park was giving away snow cones for free. That liked tasty, but I was too full from the other stuff at the time. 

We did go to Elmer's after that. I needed some place cool, and semi-quiet. I think Dad felt similarly. Someone at Pride kept screaming in a high-pitched voice, and I think they also had a whistle. It was annoying when they were right next to me. Could feel my ears pop. The music seemed like it was at decent volume, though. 

I put up a group flyer, for the local ace group I started, on the bulletin board. Saw a lot of people stop to look at it. That was great. I left some info sheets at the Pride info booth. The area for the pamphlets/info sheets was off to the side and kind of hard to see. I thought no one take them, and didn't really care. One person did take a copy, though. Having someone take at least one copy was amazing! 

There's an ace info site that has free info sheets you can download. They say what asexuality is and basically what it doesn't mean. It also lists their site's address, which is great. They're somewhat newer than many of the other sites I'm familiar with. I follow them on fb, though. They tend to be better than AVEN as far as their fb pages go. Anyways, I used that and added an 'other resources' section under it in Photoshop. By the way, Photoshop's an amazing tool! Made some interesting things through it. 

I listed a bunch of sites, and added the local group at the bottom. I mentioned these: AVEN, Asexuality Archive, Pieces of Ace, Demisexuality Resource Center, Asexual Stories, The Asexual Agenda, and Apositive. I wanted to add one of the more scientific sites that I know, but apparently it hasn't been active in a while and seems to be shutting down soon. That's sad. It listed a bunch of research papers/journals on it for free. I think even the person running the site had authored some of them. Another one I wanted to share was the Carnival of Aces. I might have forgotten about them...It's a group of ace authors/bloggers that write about a topic relating to asexuality each month. People not in the group are welcome to participate. Some are non-fiction and some are fiction stories/poems. Haven't really read those stories, though. It's different than Asexual Stories. That's lit. aces sharing their life stories. Hopefully I didn't give out too much info to people.

One person requested to join the group on fb later. Not sure if they were the ones that took the copy or if they were someone who saw the flyer. Found out they're 15 years old. That's young. I just hope it doesn't turn into a youth group or something. I want aces of all ages. Maybe if we get big enough, we can split it into a youth one and an adult one. Young aces face some different issues than adults. There are many things both groups face, though. It'd be awesome if we get a member who's much older than me. Everyone also has a voice and different perspective, too. I want people from all over the spectrum. It'd be cool if some were aro, like me. I'd have an added layer in common with them. Even better if they were agender. Triple A's are rare...I didn't plan to be that rare. I wish it wasn't. 

I called the GI department back to schedule an appointment. All their gastros don't have anything free on their calendars. An assistant is free, though. She's kind of like a specialist. They said she can do almost everything but surgery. That's not bad. This will also be within network. That will help with a lot of things. The closest appointment she had was for the end of next month. I agreed to that. The receptionist sounded worried that there wasn't something sooner. I told her about my situation. She said she has gone through something similar. She told me that if it gets even worse, I should go to the hospital. She wanted to keep talking after we said bye. I think she wanted to make sure that I was ok enough to wait for a little over a month. She seemed kind. I hope this assistant is more knowledgeable and cares about my symptoms. That last part is very important. It's not like I'm complaining for fun. They have to be aware of what's going on. I also still have a tendency to think that if I don't think about it, it's not there. That makes me less aware of it. Used to be much worse. 

Finished watching Kabukibu or Kabuki Club. I liked it more than I expected. It was cute. My fave mangaka group (one of the few I know, but they're awesome!), named CLAMP, had a hand in it. They're a group entirely composed of women. They make interesting manga. One of their trademarks is out of proportioned limbs for characters. That was somewhat of a turn off the first time I saw xxxHolic. I just wasn't used to that style. The rest of the art is usually amazing. For this show, the characters looked more 'normal'. They played a minor role in it, so that might have been why. It was an interesting view into the world of kabuki theater. It seemed they played around a bit with gender, too. That was fun to see. One of the female actresses has a very masculine look to her (she was also in drama, and many of the girls in it kept falling for her as well as some of the guys), and one of the male actors has a very feminine look. They both act normally very much like those, too. I think there was a character that seemed genderless. It was difficult for some fans to tell at first what gender he was. He didn't seem to care much about gendered stuff either. He had a very minor role, though. That was interesting. It'd be cool if there was a sequel. 

National Cherry Cheesecake Day!

I used to hate cheesecake, until I had some with a topping while I was at a Jewish summer camp. Fell in love with it afterwards. I think it had strawberries on top. Cherries are awesome with it, too! Fruit in general usually goes well with it. I think when it's plain, it's too rich of a taste for me. There needs to be something that cuts through it. A few months ago, I remember having a black cherry (they were baked in, not as a topping) and chocolate cheesecake from Safeway, and it was one of the best I've had. I think their cheesecake is supplied by the Cheesecake Factory, so that would make sense. They know their stuff. 

Wow! This is the 900th post to this blog. That's a milestone. I want to post more often, like I used to. This month seems to be the best, in terms of posts this year. 

Sweet Endless Terror is now available in print on Amazon! Yay! It's now linked up with its ebook version. It wasn't for a while. Here's the direct link to it: Sweet Endless Terror. This version isn't quite available to all the global marketplaces yet. I noticed it's in the UK and German one. They did say it might take up to 72 hours to fully be distributed globally. This doesn't take into account their distributors within those marketplaces. So, it'll take a while. I did spread the info about it to several places today. So, maybe people will be interested that way. 

For some reason, I was feeling really down Friday night. Some of my friends are into Snapchat, and I decided to download it and checked it out. Many of the pics my friends have shown have been cute and funny. Why not add a little humor when you're feeling down. Perusing the filters was interesting. I did take a pic with, I think, a bunny with ears down. Some sort of animal, anyways. It had big droopy ears, made my eyes bigger, added a pink nose with whiskers, added more blush to my face, and hearts were floating around. My shirt was crooked, but oh well. I thought it was funny looking, and probably the best one for my face. I don't know. I posted it on fb, and I don't think anyone reacted to it. I've had a couple of people on Instagram like it. Again, not many. It must have fallen under the radar with people. It's rare for me to not have anyone at least like something like that. Now that I think about it, with almost everything I posted Friday night through Saturday (which wasn't much), had no reaction. Weird.

When I posted a reminder yesterday for the local ace group on fb, I got 3 quick likes. Interesting. I hardly ever get reactions to my reminders. It might be that those 3 people will be available, and are interested? That'd be cool. It's an unusual one, considering it's the 5th Saturday. For the local trans group, they have the 5th Wednesday as social/potluck/movie sort of thing. There has only been one other member that's shown up to the local ace group meetings so far. So, I wouldn't do anything 'special' for this one. Not sure what we could do at a cafe that would be different. 

I've tried some of the new anime this season, and quite a few felt like duds. A couple of them I thought would be great if they didn't have just 5 or 10-minute episodes. (Normally with most anime, without the op and ed theme songs, episodes are about 20 minutes.) I can't really get into those. Apparently, a lot of people were complaining that so many shows are that short this season. I wonder why they are? I ended up keeping only 5 of the 'new' anime. 

Uchouten Kazoku or The Eccentric Family's season 2 started. It's just about as weird, interesting, and funny as it was during the 1st season. They do 'weird' right in this series. It seems even darker this time. Although, last time the humans wanted to eat the tanuki. One of the brothers, who has been stuck in a well as a frog for years and can't transform back, might finally be able to get out and return to normal. He was recently given a special medicine that might help. He seems to be the wisest of the brothers, yet something is keeping him down there. I think during the 1st season, they mentioned it might be a mental thing for him. The son of the tengu that Yasaburo takes care of has returned to town. He's very into English things, teatime, dressing in Western clothes, having certain furniture, etc. He doesn't approve of his father. It seems if everything isn't perfect or he doesn't get his way, he snaps and becomes violent. He's extremely polite the rest of the time. Seems really dangerous.

Seikaisuru Kado or Kado: The Right Answer, has been very interesting. The animation's a little weird, but the rest of it has kept me from dropping it. It seems like, what I like to call, a very cerebral show. It's constantly making you think. It's basically about an alien that arrives in a cube, that immediately engulfs an airplane as it lands on Earth. The passengers and crew are going to be stuck inside this cube for a month. Apparently, it takes that long to amass enough energy for that many people to be pushed out. The cube is called Kado. The alien's, Yaha-kui, main objective is to advance mankind. He didn't plan on absorbing the plane in his cube. One of the passengers just so happens to be a well-known negotiator, named Shindo. Yaha-kui is only taking him outside of the cube to help him communicate with the Japanese government. He tried communicating with that negotiator at the beginning telepathically, but all Shindo 'heard' was loud screaming. So, Yaha-kui, learned the basics of how to talk by putting a smartphone in a mini cube and analyzing it briefly. He apparently can make small cubes appear anywhere he wants. He also was first shown naked. I don't think that human form is actually what he looks like. He just uses it so humans won't be afraid, and to appear more 'normal'. Anyways, he recently showed that one of the ways he wants to advance humans, is by using little balls or wam that have an infinite amount of energy. Like batteries, but they never run out of juice. It'll be interesting to see what the government does with them. He wants them to share the wam with the rest of the world. I wonder if there are other things he wants to give humans? He seems very peaceful, but what if he changes his mind or gets pissed off somehow? Or, what if the wam are really something else?

Kabukibu has been interesting, too. I didn't think I'd like it, but it's growing on me. It's about a kabuki school club. At the moment, they're having difficulty getting members to join. I've noticed that they seem to be breaking gender norms/roles, which I think is pretty cool. One of the members used to really be into dance. At some point, he dropped it, thinking it wasn't 'manly' enough. He forced himself to be hyper-masculine (trying to be tough, into weightlifting, etc.), and wasn't happy. After some talking to, he broke down, and showed his feminine side. He finally agreed to join. They're also going over the history of it. It's thought of as an all-male production, but was actually started by a woman. She acted as both genders on stage. Another member that finally gave in to joining is a woman. She has a very masculine look, and is often mistaken as a man. She's also into sports and things that are considered more 'masculine'. One of the clubs she's apart of already is drama, and she's into acting. She wasn't sure if it was ok to join, because most people think only men can do it. She thought the story of the first kabuki actor was cool, and joined after that. The one that wanted to start the club the most has never acted nor danced, but seems to be obsessed with it. The other member that's helping him recruit others is very quiet. Still not sure about his interest in it.

Re:Creators has been better than expected, too. It's about characters from anime/video games/books/etc. that suddenly appear in the real world. They call the real world the Land of the G-ds. They know their creators live in that world. One of them, I think, might be planning to gather all the 'characters', and have them kill their creators. She's attacking everyone, though. I think she might actually be the main character's (from our world) 'creation'. He just doesn't recognize her. He draws in his free time, and one of the incomplete drawings looked a lot like that character. Still don't really know. He's just helping a couple of those characters at the moment. The first character he met, just found her creator and interacted with him. They think their creators can help put them back in their worlds somehow. Also, many of these characters have powers, but when they use them in the real world, they follow this world's physics. So, something that might not have hurt people in their world, might kill them in this world. 

Boruto has been decent. Again, I'm mainly watching it to see what happened to the characters from Naruto. Who got together, if they had kids who are they, what are they up to now, etc. After seeing that stuff, I'll probably drop it. It's interesting that the next generation seems to be more talented. However, a lot of it is kind of recycled stuff. The first few minutes of the first episode, showed a much older Boruto fighting someone. It seemed like Konoha was deserted, and Boruto ended up being a rogue ninja. That does sound like it'll be a different 'thing', but it's a while into the future. How many episodes will it take to get to that point? Are they thinking of making this really long like Naruto? I don't know. 

Almost done with Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan, or the Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo. I've really liked this one. Although, they talk super fast. It's apparently going to have a 2nd season soon. So, that'll be nice. 

Almost finished with Handa-kun, too. I'm conflicted with this one. There's a lot of misunderstandings, and even if there weren't, it still seems like his classmates are cruel to him at times. He's paranoid of everyone, and thinks everyone hates him. The only person he trusts is a childhood friend, but I think he's the worst one towards him. He essentially created this complex that Handa has, and thinks it's funny. (Although, there have been moments where he felt horrible about it.) To everyone else, Handa is the most popular, some worship him, he has his own fan club, and people think he says amazing uplifting things. In reality, he's constantly trying to figure out ways that'll keep people from bullying him (in his mind), and people will leave him alone. He's not trying to sound profound or anything. This is apparently a prequel to another series, Barakamon, where he has an opposite personality. Or, that's how some have described it. They say it's better, too. I might watch that one in the future.