Author Archive

So, Lady Gaga won a GLAAD award. Cuz, you know, there’s nothing like supporting the lgbT community like making an openly transphobic video.

The Bad Romance hitmaker was honoured with the Outstanding Music Artist award in recognition of her most recent album, The Fame Monster, and for her efforts in promoting equality in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

BLAH. Whatever.

E.T.A. link from pink bat princess – – “..It’s not sexy, I look like a tranny.”

Arizona seems to be in the midst of a complete meltdown, but I can’t help but wonder how much it is actually worse than before. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the fucknuggetry isn’t horrible or hard to deal with. I’m saying that I’m pretty sure that the level of fucknuggetry that is going on there and elsewhere isn’t new. Perhaps it’s hit a temporary peak with President Obama and the accompanying right wing fear-fest, but I doubt it had that far to go. This level of hatred and doesn’t come out of nowhere. Guess what, this is what PoC have been saying all along.

Erasure, disenfranchisement, being targeted by law enforcement, told their history is unimportant or dangerous, and that laws of this nature actively encourage violence against minorities. And all of those are just in one state. There is more going on every day all over the country. Acting like these trends are new has the same effect as trying to deny the context of a racist society they exist in. It gives the serial fuckheads cover under which to operate, and perpetuates the culture of purposeful ignorance that is so harmful to any actual dialog that might come from any one event.

Oh and for those celebrating the firing of the racist twit who was behind the mural campaign, yes it’s good he lost that platform from which to speak, but I have to agree with Serolf Divad:

Don’t get too excited. I mean, after all, it took a bucket full of bad national press to get this guy fired. He wasn’t fired for promoting White Supremacy through his radio show, or he’d have been fired the day he first launched his whitification campaign. He was fired for embarrassing the wrong people.

(This is the first of four posts discussing life with ADHD)

Depending on how you met me, you may not have realized that I’m about as ADHD as they come. Like many ADHD adults, I’ve learned to cope with many of the social tells that I had as a kid and have calmed down a little bit. Dealing with ADHD is still a significant part of my life challenges and in many ways causes me far more difficulty than being transsexual. This may sound odd to some, but being trans never stopped me from completing work on my own projects, with my own tools and no help needed; my poorly managed ADHD has. Its cost me jobs, respect, and and severely damaged my self-image. At times it even threatens my relationship.

No matter how deeply Lissa cares for me, it is impossible for her or anyone to hide how frustrating I can be. She’s the type of person that always wants to be early, and plans things out weeks ahead of time.  I’m always rushing and have one last thing that I have to do before we go. I don’t complete tasks and regularly have real difficulty with even doing simple things. It’s a regular topic of discussion between us, and one that she’s shown more patience for than I can tell you. Recently during one of these discussions, I found an answer to the question,  “What is it like?”

For me, living with ADHD is like there’s a sock on the floor. You’re walking past it so you bend down, pick it up, and take it to the dirty clothes. Then you go back to what you’re doing when you notice another sock, then another. Pretty soon you’ve forgotten what you were doing and are off on some other task; which gets interrupted by a sock on the floor.

The source of some distractions are really easy see from the outside.  Trying to put a knife sharpener away leads to 10 minutes of attempting to sharpen the serrated knife that is also in the block, while the dishwasher door is down and the rest of the plates remain scattered across the counter. I’ll get frustrated with how a sentence or a function is working out, catch a glimpse of my empty tea cup when I look away for second, and spend 20 minutes futzing around the house before I realize I’m not focused. Let’s not even get started on what twitter and blogs do to me.

On second thought, let’s. Y’see, the distractions that are easily seen from outside are only half the problem. Even when I’m not getting distracted by whatever objects happen to be sitting around, my mind tends to be busy fiddling around with the socks on my mental floor. I’ll be cleaning and think of something I want to say on twitter, or a response to a blog post, or just some completely random idea that needs to be worked out in my head. One thing leads to another and it’s 30 minutes later.

Many of the people I’ve spoken too seem to think that the distraction part of being ADHD is like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. While this seems correct, it really implies a connectivity to the pattern of distraction which distorts the ways ADHD is confronted. Many of the distractions that I deal with on a daily basis are completely non-linear, and in reality it’s closer to “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want to pet a moose”.  Removing things that act as distractions only has a temporary effect, and even in a completely spartan environment, my mind will insert plenty of distractions without any assistance.

The other common assumption about ADHD based distraction is that it is because the person just doesn’t care, has misaligned priorities, or is just plain lazy. While this can be true about individuals, in general attitude isn’t the cause of ADHD distraction. Authority figures treating people living with ADHD as though they are lazy or uncaring can also lead to severe depression, which exacerbates any existing problems. I don’t pretend to have the right answers and I doubt that the “right answers” for me are anywhere close to universal, but we’ll talk about that in a few days.

*As a side note, I suspect that many of the children misdiagnosed with ADHD actually have symptoms of depression or other mental problems that lead to difficulty focusing on schoolwork or acting out.

So, as many have realised before me, this blogging thing is hard. Generally I have several ideas that are banging around in my head at any one time, and flesh them out in my head, on twitter, or through discussion in person. This is still true right now, but I’m having trouble expressing them in this format, or even the more familiar (to me) essay format. The post about the Rep. Joe Towns silliness is a good example of this: I know there’s a meta-narrative I’m trying to coax out of the incident, but I’m having trouble framing it correctly.

A significant part of this difficulty is likely that I’m just plain out of practice, which is why I’ve taken out the part of my brain that is responsible for formulating coherent long form arguments and taken it to Davis Cookware to get polished and sharpened. Unfortunately, they are running a few days behind so I’ll have to do with the cobwebs and these short practice posts until they get around to it. It should also help as a writing discipline exercise, working to keep my writing short and on point.

Y’see, one of the few things I know about fiction writing is that drama is a product of confinement. Keeping characters confined and keeping the story within strict boundaries helps focus the story on the core ideas and conflicts. I have the feeling that blogging is much the same way. Many of the bloggers I really enjoy reading seem to have a very good sense of narrative, and how to connect the ideas in one post to another, but keep each one separate, focused, and clear. These are the things I need to harness in my life in order to make my way through the day instead of being run over. Narrative is the path that we walk, drama generates interest and is the motive force, and starburst jellybeans are my rations. This blog and its posts are simply the tool I’m using to follow that path and contribute something to the world around me.

So I’m going to try this blogging thing, and see if I can use it to break out of a cycle that I’ve built. Given my post-a-day goal, I can’t promise that I’ll always be interesting, in fact I’m likely to be boring and long-winded a great majority of the time, but lets see how it goes.

Quick overview of the topics that for now I view as likely to be common themes: ADHD, Transsexualism, art, Leftist politics in a conservative area, and cheese. I really like cheese. The rest are things that are a part of my life, and I think aloud about. One of them, ADHD, is the reason I’ve started this blog. For several years I’ve been building a cycle of self-defeating behaviors centered around a fear of failure. I’m constantly driven to try new things, design, build, imagine… and then I falter in implementation due to fear and frustration. I convince myself that whatever I’m working on isn’t worth it, or that I’m just going to fuck it up.

This has got to stop. There are many things I could do to help train myself to shut up and just do it, but this blog is one way that I can reach out to the world in the process. Feel free to reach back, I enjoy the conversation.

Speaking of which, lets lay down some ground rules. These will be in a separate page, but lets go ahead and touch on them now.

  1. I’m big on freedom of speech, and I expect people to challenge me and my ideas. This is how we learn. This is my space however, and my patience has limits. None of these rules should be construed to mean that I don’t want you to participate in the discussion, even (or especially if) you disagree. If I make a moderation decision that you dislike and you ask nicely I may reconsider, but don’t press your luck too hard.
  2. Do not use my space for personal attacks on anyone. I don’t care if it’s Dick Cheney naked doing the penguin dance on the back of our civil rights, keep it to the point and refrain from personal attacks.
  3. Things I will not tolerate. Racism, Transphobia, Sexism, Ableism, or any other treatment of a person or group as anything other than fully human and deserving of respect.
  4. I reserve the right to disemvowel, moderate, and generally act like an autocratic ass. If I think you are being rude or uncivil, expect me to take action against it.
  5. Sillyness is fully encouraged, as is the commonly discouraged form of humor known as puns. Humor is still subject to the above rules.
  6. Summary: Don’t be a Douche, Have fun, and lets get this party started.
  7. P.S. If I make a horrific spelling or grammatical mistake, let me know…. in an email. not in comments.