Friday, December 28, 2012

Home is where the heart is?

I was happy to report that after the first few weeks of college my OCD and depression which I struggled with all through out high school were gone. I am sad to report that within just two weeks of being home they are back. I don't want to blame my cousins, my aunt and uncle, my grandfather, my parents, my girlfriend, my old friends. I don't want to blame any of them. But then what is it? What is about this place that has me feeling small and broken because I spilled some water? Why am I hiding in my room feeling so alone and lost instead of getting a towel and cleaning it up? I know why. It was my mom's new floor. In her shiny new kitchen. And she yelled when the water spilled and it hurt my ears and I couldn't think and I didn't close the pourer fast enough. And she asked why and I didn't have a reason. And she yelled and she told me to use a different water jug and my ears rang and all the words just seemed to say that I was a disappointment.

My family is supremely excellent at making me feel not good enough. They make me feel small. They tease me about my inability to do athletics. My inability to cook. How much I sleep. How I'm too nerdy. And it all weighs on me. I laugh it off. But it feels like they don't like me and it hurts. It hurts because I try so hard to love them all as much as I can. Because I try so hard for them to like me. And yet I am the running joke. And none of them even know that it hurts. They should, they should get it, my mental illness didn't just spring up out of nowhere, it's genetic and I know they've struggled too but no one will talk to me about it and they manage to make me feel so damn alone and that kills me. It makes me start adding numbers. It makes the lights too bright. It makes me bite myself to make sure I still exist because they treat me like nothing.

All these feelings because I spilled some effing water.

In college I would have just cleaned it up. People would have laughed, jokes would have been made. But I would have dealt with it. Here I can't do that. And I can't figure out why.

Some Pictures from home

Water

Frosting

Cookie

Frosting

Monday, December 17, 2012

Normal

After a semester at mac I can pretty confidently say that normal is a social construct. But it still seems real to me. It is a wish that I have, a wish to be normal. At college I forget that queer is unusual. I manage to forget that the username "lesbro" is awkward to share, and then when I try to tell it to my cousin I find that I just don't have the words.

People say I look good with short hair. But, honestly, I want long hair again in part so I seem normal. I look fine with short hair, but I also look gay. I am gay, but I want to blend into the straight crowd. I want to be unique and normal.

Normal isn't possible when I had a fling with a girl on my cousin's basketball team. Normal isn't possible when one of the guys who sexually assaulted me asked out my friend and I don't know if I know her well enough to tell her why she should say no. Normal isn't possible when I am trying to figure out adequate rules for my long distance relationship that I want to make work but I don't know the words to say what I need.

But maybe this is all just teenage angst. Maybe everyone deals with things like this. Maybe there is really no normal. Because normal is socially constructed and so rare that the one kid who is normal feels abnormal, because even though normal as an ideal exists, the media also perpetuates the vision of the abnormal and of teenagers who embarrass themselves and what not.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

And then there was snow



Hey look. That there is snow. I thought it would never come. Too bad I have things to study for and an important porn paper to finish editing. I don't really have much to say. I'm just crazy homesick and plotting like crazy to ask various girls out for coffee. But I really just want to go home and skate and see my cousins. So here are some more pictures of snow. And the reasons why people should not ride bikes in MN in the winter and also one of my friend studying like a boss. I may steal his strategy eventually. 







And just in case there was any doubt about the way that chocolate loves you, dove has now solved that problem.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

I am the action and I am the choice to act


A little over ten years ago I told my parents all I wanted for Christmas were cross-country skis. My younger cousins had recently taken up downhill skiing but I was adamant that I would never want to downhill ski. I said I was afraid of the speed and the height of the chairlift. My parents (or should I say “Santa”?) bought me the cross-country skis and for a few weeks I was content to ski all over the deer trails on my family’s six acres. But once I found the hill and went down it, cross-country skiing was all over for me. All I wanted was to go down more and more hills. I wanted to go faster and to feel the wind in my face. It was then that I began the crusade to downhill ski.
            I started downhill skiing not long after that, and I found that I was naturally good at it. I had learned how to parallel ski after about a month and I was crazy about going fast. I loved to bomb the bottom of hills and I loved how my legs would ache after a day of hard skiing. I loved the way my ski boots fit; they were hard and stiff and forced my body to work differently than usual. I felt less awkward about my body when I had skis attached to the rock hard boots on my feet.
            As I got older I thought I would try my hand at other sports. I played volleyball in seventh grade but I found that it was too much pressure. My coach wanted us to win. And all I ever wanted was to have fun. I liked volleyball because I could see myself getting better. I could feel my legs getting stronger and my arms getting larger. I just didn’t have any desire to win. I didn’t make the team as an eighth grader and I told everyone I was ok with that. I considered running track but I never had the courage to go for it. For me skiing was the best sport. I didn’t have to be a part of a team, to work for some greater good, because, for me, team sports were awful as someone (either your team or the opposing team) has to lose and be disappointed. I was my own team when I skied. Skiing was also the best way to take out frustration. I never wanted to hit people to take out my anger; it was the rush I got from catching air that made me feel free from my stresses. I could feel myself free falling afterwards and that was the best feeling in the world. I have had OCD for as long as I can remember and this was letting go for me. I wasn’t mean to my body; I just let go. To go over a jump wasn’t to be perfect. It was to feel my heart sore and to feel myself drop and to feel my body thud to the ground and go speeding down the hill.
            Two years ago I started experimenting in the terrain parks. I have alpine skis, and not trick skis, and, as most people notice very soon after meeting me, almost no sense of balance. My trying out the terrain parks had a very direct correlation to my love of flying and free fall, I was seeking out my thrills. I managed a couple rails. I also managed some higher jumps than I had ever done. My favorite feeling is still the feeling of being in free fall. It is when I am most aware of body. I can feel everything about myself when I am free falling. For those few seconds I feel entirely free and entirely aware. I know how to angle my skis and how to bend my knees. It all feels instinctual now. My friends ask me how I do it and I just can’t explain. My body knows what it is supposed to do and it knows how to do it with skis on. I find it amazing how easy it was for me to incorporate my skis into my being. As soon as I put them on I move like a different person. I move as though my feet are the 170 cm skis and as though my ankles really don’t roll at all.
            The last few winters have been hard for me. I haven’t been able to ski since there hasn’t been any snow in New York. I have spent my winters holed up in my room watching television instead. And to be totally realistic you can’t free fall in bed. It just doesn’t work. I started rollerblading again my senior year of high school, I hadn’t roller bladed or done any sort of skating since a botched attempt at figure skating when I was about four. I found that the speed of skating was very similar to the rush of the free fall and I also knew that if I got to be good enough at skating I would be able to frequent skate parks. I saved up paychecks and finally bought myself nice roller blades. I skated up and down the hills near my house for most of the summer. It was something to do, a way to clear my mind and a way to move fast. I am all about the speed that I can force my body to achieve. I love the rush of the wind on my face and in my hair just as much as I love to free-fall. I also biked like a maniac this past summer. I was never much of a speed demon on my bike, but a bike is naturally faster than walking so it was good enough, and going down hills was perfection.
            When I got to Macalester I knew I wanted to play a sport. I really didn’t know what sport but I had all sorts of pressure from various people back home. I have multiple friends who row for D1 schools and they were all rooting for me to pick crew. I also have two cousins who play every sport known to man, who wanted me to go back to volleyball. Neither of these options really appealed to me. So in the beginning I just assumed that I would bike a lot. The problem was that I didn’t know exactly where I was going, and I was in a new city. I also learned very quickly that I despise going up hills. And if you are going somewhere and back you have to go up and down. I spent a lot of time wishing that I had brought my roller blades with me, but I hadn’t.
            Then I was watching one of my friends in a rugby match and I started thinking about the appeal of team sports. I know I already talked about how much I dislike them, but I was lonely and a team seemed like an excellent way to meet people. At that point it was too late to join rugby or crew, or any other club sport that plays in the fall. So I made the brilliant decision to join the hockey team. I emailed the captains and made my way onto the roster. I found that hockey skating was not the same as roller blading. I have actually found it to be more like skiing. When I play hockey I am on the ice and I hear coaches yelling to go faster I let go and go as fast as I can. It’s a harder sport than skiing for my muscles but it’s proved to definitely be worth it for me. The beauty of it being team sport for me is that I feel like the team is one body. I know we’re individuals but for the team to be effective (which honestly we’re not very) we have to work as one. We block the opposing team as though they are also a body playing parts of it that are opposite to our own.
            For me the beauty of hockey has been finding a place where my body is smaller than just a body, it is also a place that I feel like I escape from societal pressures for some amount of time. I am a unit of a whole team body. We are all covered in pads to protect our individual bodies, but the pads also serve to give us no reason to worry about looking female. I don’t need to think or worry about anything but my job as a wing when I am on the ice. My legs only need to go faster and faster, and I know that each game I play in they do go faster and faster.
            Through sports I have found a way for my body to escape from my mind. I give in to instinct and I just go. It doesn’t matter if I have added skis or skates to my body. Whether I am flying in the air after a jump, riding a rail, jumping a speed bump, or skating as hard as I can to try and get open I feel free from societies pressures and free from my own worries. The physicality of all of these activities makes me reevaluate what exactly it means to be alive. I think I have finally come up with an answer.  For me being alive is to feel your body, to be aware of it. It is to let go of your self-consciousness and to just be. For me athletics is the way for me to be just a body in a way that it totally different from the self-deprecating way that I usually feel I am just a body. When I am just a body in sports I am just a body in motion. I am the action, and I am the choice to act. Athletics make me feel alive like nothing else does. 

Disclaimer: This is a "body story" that I wrote for a class in college. I am just proud of it, so I thought I would post it.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Yeah yeah I eavesdrop...

So I got to hang out with my cousin for pretty much the first time ever over this break. We went to this cute little grill for lunch and spent her dad's money on some really awesome food. I felt like a pig because I pretty much inhaled my food. But it was all good, her dad didn't really feed me much while I was there. Anyway we talked politics and stuff. She was glad both of the vote no's we voted no and all the good stuff.

After we finished that conversation there was a pause while we were both eating and I heard the people at the next table having a heated discussion on gay people on TV. The complaint was that sure gay people were fine and everything but they don't need to be in every TV show. And they definitely don't need to be shown making out more than straight people.

So. Much. Anger. So much was wrong with that statement first of all. For one thing, nowhere near every TV show has a gay character. If that was actually the case I would be the happiest person ever. But no. I have to actively seek out my gay people. I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on huluplus and Pretty Little Liars, and Glee. These are my shows that I watch for the gay characters. I watch Revolution, Big Bang Theory, Legend of Korra and Once Upon a Time for the show itself, and let me tell you, no gays in those shows. And back to the fact that the gays in TV shows do not kiss with the same frequency as straight couples. Back when Brittany and Santana were together on Glee I waited for episodes and episodes for them to kiss. And then they finally did. But it was no where near as frequently occurring as say Finn and Rachel. (Maybe this is bad of me because I don't really pay attention to gay men, only gay women in TV, but still I think my point holds.)

So wrong and wrong on account of gay people not being in every show and not making out more than straight people. But really, for me the biggest thing is that these people don't understand why having gay people on TV is important. For me that is huge. I grew up watching TV, not all the time, not the way I do now... but it was a part of my childhood and a part of my early teenage years. And for me, being represented on TV is something that everyone wants. It validates you as a person in certain ways. I used to watch Friends for Ross's ex-wife and her wife. The fact that they were doing the whole gay-married thing validated me, even if they were minor characters who very rarely if ever kissed they made me feel like being with a woman was acceptable.

Also stray thought, there aren't gay people in advertisements yet. Gay people are still polarizing and don't sell products well. This is interesting to me. I think that advertisements are the ultimate acceptance. Most races are represented even if it is not proportional. However there are very few, if any, muslims in advertisements, just like gay people. I believe this is because these two groups of people are still polarizing to the public and therefore they don't sell products effectively.

Anyway, back to the uninformed TV watchers in the restaurant. The fact that they were even having the conversation helps my case more than theirs. By this I mean that, the fact that they think an increasing number of gay characters equates to at least one in every show shows that they are not yet comfortable with seeing gay people. They are seeing one and taking it to be way more. Also the way that they are assuming that because gays are now ok to kiss on TV that equates to making out or more in their heads, just proves that they need more exposure to this stuff. It makes me happy that kids will grow up being exposed to this stuff on a far larger scale than I was. Even if I do believe there is still a long way to go.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Off for Thanksgiving

Hi. This is the saga of my young life. I am Erin. Female bodied but secretly that one male douche-bag that everyone hates. I am the boy, everyone knows the one, who wants all the girls to like them and will kiss them or whatever but isn't really interested because he thinks he's too good for everyone. Hi. Yes this is me. So as that whole sentence type thing goes to show that the girl who said she would sleep with me, yeah I fucked that up. Basically I really wasn't into her. I just thought she liked me and I was right and enjoying the chase. So you know there goes that friendship. Yep. I rock.

Anyway I am leaving for the weekend. It'll be my first time not sleeping in a dorm bed in at least two months. The bus I am taking to the bus leaves in like half an hour. I am getting anxious and hurried. But such is my life.

Also the bio class that I want to take next semester is super close to filling up. I wonder if I should try and get on the wait-list for genetics.

Yeah. I don't have deep and important thoughts today. Just needed to vent.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Faux hawk it up

Here's me. Since clearly my face is relevant to everything. So I recently learned that it counts as awkward to ask people if they would sleep with you. So far I have accrued only 2 yeses. And one was from a gay boy who said only if he was super super drunk. So basically just the one. But it was from a girl that I kind of have a crush on so I think it is acceptable that it pleases me.

Also my ex/ girl type person of a fling type thing from the summer keeps missing me. I don't mind being missed, especially since my fondest desire is that everyone like and or love me, but it's gotten to a point where I don't think she understands how I feel about whatever happened between us at all. I think that for her I was more than a summer fling. Which is interesting because she knew I was in an open relationship. And she was cheating on her girlfriend to be with me at all. So I don't know why I meant more than a good time. I was supposed to be just a good time. A fond memory. And instead on her day off from school she takes her bike up to the first place that we kissed. And she insists on taking a picture of herself there as the sun rises and sending it to me. It just really messed with my head. It made me remember the fun we had this summer, but it didn't make me miss her. It didn't feel romantic. It felt needy. It felt manipulative. It made me angry with her for making me feel like I should miss her more than I do. And that's not what you do to your friends.

I feel like this may actually become a problem under the terms of my relationship with my girlfriend. Because obviously I love her, more than I have loved anything. And anyone I become involved with will only ever be second to her. And they'd have to know that, I mean I think I do a pretty good job of explaining exactly how much I love her without sounding too terribly cliche. (side note: today two of my best friends spent a lot of time trying to decide if me or my girlfriend is hotter. They never decided because I look "so much gayer" than she does.) So I think I am a bit of a lost cause to most people here. I feel like despite the hook up culture that Mac swears it has there really are a lot of people looking to have a long term emotional and sexual relationship with one person. And so no matter how much someone says they understand what it means to be involved with me I feel like a lot of people would be hoping, like my summer fling, that I will eventually pick them over my girlfriend. Which is so unlikely that it borders on comical for me.

Brief Interlude: I am writing now because my chemistry professor hasn't sent out an email with our homework yet, and I feel like I should be productive because I have hockey practice tomorrow.

I think that I may be adjusting to being in a city. Today I rode my bike way down University Avenue. There were random teenagers at the same corner as me at one point and when one of them complimented my snow boots I actually said thanks. And on the way back I actually said excuse me to a man standing on the sidewalk. However none of this is to say that I don't still have a lot of judgmental and potentially racist tendencies in my thoughts when I ride through the city. I hate it about myself, but I just can't help it. When I see people who look like they might be of a different ethnicity I become a little bit afraid. And I hate it about myself. I actually am quite afraid of white men on the streets of cities too, but that is more because of how I look and less about how they look. I am always afraid I look out of place. The white girl, on the nice bike, no measurable muscle riding through a questionable part of Saint Paul. For some reason I worry a lot in these situations. And yet I ride my bike all over. I love the freedom of it. Anyway, back to my point, I hate my own racism. I hate how black men scare me most of all. I hate it, they don't deserve it. They are standing waiting for busses, or walking with children enjoying the first snowfall, or making a cell phone call. They don't deserve the fact that as soon as I see them I begin plotting about which direction to run, and I start calculating how far and how long until another person shows up. It makes me feel like an awful person.

I try to empathize, I mean, I look pretty gay, and also possibly genderqueer. But people don't think I am a threat. Not really. I am more likely to be the victim of a hate crime, or have foul words thrown at me. And in this way I think I do understand what it is to be a minority to have people skirt you and not associate with you in public, however I don't know what it is to have someone afraid that I will hurt them. I can't fathom that, or how much that must hurt a person who could never hurt someone.

Ok, yeah, those are my kind of super heavy and disconnected thoughts for the day.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Daylight Savings Time!

Yay, extra hour of sleep, means there's an Erin awake and ready to blog! Except for the part where I am still exhausted besides do a whole lot of not much last night. I have refound Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and let me tell you it is going to consume my life. I am already part way through the fifth season, I started with the fourth season last week. But let's be honest, it's so addictive.

Anyway I am clearly failing at this daily blogging business. But it's ok. I have been having thoughts and good excellent conversation.

I am writing a paper about the intersection of pornography and feminism for my 10 page final paper and I am finding it fascinating. I have never thought that porn was wrong or evil or shameful. I mean, it isn't something that I watch, but I always assumed that most people did. I think that because women are so often told not to be sexually active, just to look sexy, that an outlet which shows women actively engaging in sex can be positive and good for people to know about. I know porn isn't the most realistic, but as long as people recognize that it shouldn't be a problem. I watch plenty of movies and tv shows that aren't exactly realistic. Like, I don't assume that there are vampires outside my dorm window just because I watch Buffy all the time. So people should know better than to assume that life is like a porno and I think that most people do. I do recognize that a good chunk of porn supports the patriarchy in that it is men dominating women and that can be harmful, or it can also be separated from reality and recognized as something that is a kink or a sexual act that doesn't have to leave the bedroom.



My professor says that we're not writing argument papers. It makes me kind of sad. I have a strong desire to make a powerful argument for porn. I wonder if I will have to watch porn to do this paper. I doubt it.

I should get back to reading about objectification. Again, yes I know. So much objectification.

Friday, November 2, 2012

a blog post a day keeps bad stuff away

So I was going to blog every day in November, but seeing as it is already the second and I didn't blog yesterday I failed before I even started. Which really is too bad. Because I always have a lot to say. Especially on the subject of homework that I am not doing at the moment.

I am currently in the library with every intention of doing the reading for my FYC and yet here I am looking up when I can give blood again because of the Hurricane Sandy shortage and trying to find the cheapest greyhound bus tickets to get me to my Aunt and Uncle's house for Thanksgiving. Also I just don't want to read 14 more pages on the objectification of women. I experienced it first hand. I get it, it's bad. I am tired of studying the theory, I want to fix it. I want to learn how to fix it. For this reason I am embarking on a 6 week long research paper project type thing in which I get to explore the intersection of sex positivity and anti-porn. I think it'll be a cool paper.

I was also going to try and take a picture every day of November and post them here, but you know whatever I haven't done that either. And I didn't want them to be lame web cam pictures. Not that you don't all love my face...

Also opinions, do I look like a boy or a girl? One of the people employed by the college to glare at us and give us a bad time for trying to steal food from the cafeteria is always messing up my pronouns but I feel really awkward correcting him. I mean he's like 50 and his job title is GateKeeper (granted it was awarded to him  by the student body, but still). Oh wait here's a picture of me, so this question is slightly easier to answer:

I think I may have failed a Spanish quiz just now. But shh, I'm trying not to think about it.

I also played in my first hockey game on Tuesday. I have to tell you, it was awesome. I don't know how to stop, and got in a weird rotation where I was only playing like every ten minutes but it was still awesome. I almost went head first into the opposing team's bench when I crashed into the boards. Also the opposing team was almost all middle aged women. It was good. They beat us 9-2 and gave us brownies afterwards. Also they were way bigger than us. Our hockey team kind of looks like a rag tag band of misfits with like 5 actual hockey players. But it was awesome. And I can't wait to play again next week. I should have played hockey in high school. Oh wait. My high school didn't have a girls' hockey team. I mean there was field hockey but who does that? (besides my cousin... and a lot of other people...)

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Happy Fall Break to me

Here I am. All alone (not actually) on the college campus in the snow. Why is it snowing? It is October. I don't know that I actually signed up for this. I thought Minnesota weather would be way more like New York weather. But it is definitely colder here. I think it may already be the season for winter boots. No wonder hockey season starts tomorrow.

Since this depressing turn of weather events has occurred I think now is the time to obnoxiously display some of my fall photos:



So this is what it used to look like outside. Hopefully the snow doesn't force everyone into their rooms. Because honestly I was just starting to meet people again. It's hard to meet people. I mean, the school is small, I know people. It's just hard because I feel like other people have friends, like the best of friends, and here I am, blogging antisocially in my bed room hoping someone bangs on my door and invites me somewhere. Which isn't actually how it ever works.

My next door neighbor is going to someone's house this afternoon and he left me the address in case he doesn't come back. It actually seems super creepy, but I suppose it is a valid concern. He left a description of what the house looks like, as though the numbers wouldn't be enough for me to tell the police if I reported him missing... (I really don't think he's going anywhere, he can hold his own.)

I love videochatting. It isn't the same as a real conversation, obviously, but it is nice none the less and it is definitely better than a phone call. It just breaks my heart when I see my girlfriend cry through the screen and all I want is to wipe away her tears and I can't. When I lift up my finger all it touches is the web cam. I smudge my screen but I can't do any of the physical things I usually do to comfort her. It's hard. I just want to hold her and make everything good for her. Too bad life doesn't work that way.


Hello

Since no one actually followed my old blog I really feel no shame in getting a new one. Especially since one of the two people that I had given permission to read was starting to harass me about it.

So hey. I'm Erin. I'm half way through my first semester of college. I attend Macalester. I used to want to be a doctor. Now I am considering pursuing a degree in media and cultural studies. I am gay as heck. I am occasionally gender queer. I have recently fallen in love with mumford and sons. My girlfriend goes to college in Michigan. We're in an open relationship and I miss her like crazy everyday. So yeah. This is my place to vent and deal and sort out my life. (People sometimes say I'm funny, so it might be worth sticking around to see if that ever happens here.)