chuckpetrizzi

[chuckpetrizzi]

Recently I smoked a lot of weed while wearing my “DARE Student of the Year” medal. It felt right.

[chuckpetrizzi]

Literally why taxes exist.

But they’ve deluded us into thinking taxes are for what? The Military Industrial Complex? social security we’re never gonna get? infrastructure that’s falling apart? Public transportation we still have to pay for? Public schools that are severely underfunded?

[chuckpetrizzi]

I can confirm this. I am just finally coming out of a period of 3-4 years of complete and total autistic burnout. It started in 2019 and I am just now getting to a place of new normal. I couldn’t hold a job. I barely got out of bed or changed my underwear. I bathed maybe once a month. Everything seemed/was impossible to do, and I spent both days and nights crossfaded and barely holding on.

The support of my partner, getting diagnosed with ADHD/Autism and coming out as trans saved my life. Even then, it was a long slow process getting to the place where I’m at now. I just started working a job again and I can only manage 2 days a week right now. I have the privilege to have a partner who is employed full time and can make up the difference.

I’m now learning how to manage my energy levels, establish routines, and regulate my emotions. This level of burnout is real and preventable. I’m hopeful for the future and that I can learn how to understand myself and structure my life in a way that will prevent a similar crash in the future. But it’s still a long, slow, difficult process.

[chuckpetrizzi]

When I was a child (raised evangelical), I remember not understanding why I would learn about the parable of the Good Samaritan in Sunday school but then my mother would pull me quickly past an unhoused person asking for help without making eye contact.

I would ask “why aren’t we stopping to give that man some money?” Because it seemed like the thing I had literally just learned Jesus said we should do.

“We don’t know what he would use that money for,” she would say.

“Aren’t we supposed to give to those in need?” I would ask.

“We give to several charities who help people” she would respond.

I still never understood.

Now I look back and realize that it wasn’t about giving to those in need. It was about being able to control where their money was given how it was going to be used.

Better to give your money so that “poor starving” children on another continent could get a shoe box worth of cheap toys for a Christian holiday than to the man right next to you who has been chewed up and spit out by the society you support and benefit from.

Because those kids are going to be forced to listen to the version of “the gospel” you want them to believe in, whereas the man sleeping in your gutter just wants food in his stomach.

It’s the same mentality of those Jesus referred to as a “brood of vipers.” But hey as long as we’re not gay and not jacking off we’re following Jesus right? Because Jesus mentioned those things so many times……

[chuckpetrizzi]

To say that life transitions are difficult is a massive understatement, and the last two and a half years since coming out are no exception.

Two and a half years.

Saying that now feels incredibly ridiculous. Because it can’t’ve only been two and a half years when it feels like at least a decade. The amount of growth, change, development that has happened in such a short amount of time is mind-boggling. Second puberty (we’ve had one, yes), two neurodivergent diagnoses, a myriad of relationships gained and lost (while only a handful remain the through lines), the ongoing struggle with mental health, and so much more all crammed together in a tiny package like an eclectic group of sardines.

There are times I’ve had the words to say to perfectly explain it all. And times when I’ve gone completely quiet. Little bursts of creative expression and long drawn out (no pun intended) periods of existential silence.

There’s been joy and there’s been pain.

Understanding and confusion.

Moments I’m certain I finally have it all figured out, and I’ve fallen into a rhythm like a well-piled machine. Followed, almost immediately, by the most soul-crushing burnout I have ever felt. Left a shambling husk, devoid of all motivation.

Rinse and repeat.

A new day.

A ceaseless night.

A new day.

Many a time I feel as though I know who I am. But just as many leave me feeling disconnected with the me I thought I knew.

I’ve changed so much, yet not at all.

I’m a totally different person and yet I’m exactly the same.

One question persists, growing ever louder as the days pass: Who do I want to be?

On one side, there’s Anna. Her life so recent yet so incredibly distant. She urges me not to forgot her and the things she believed in. But she doesn’t yet know how much of it is a lie. Not all of it. But…enough to break her down.

Then there’s the kid. The me before Anna. The one who told all his baby sitters to call him Jimmy because he was a boy. Though, I haven’t been that kid in over 20 years, in many ways, I feel closer to him than I feel to her. Yet he is a kid. And I cannot be what I no longer am.

They’re pulling me.

Dragging me.

Tearing me.

“Come this way” they say. “This is who you are.”

I cannot forget them, yet I cannot fully embrace them. Not at the same time. And trying to do so is breaking me.

So then what do I do? I stand in the middle. Overwhelmed. Unsure. Sometimes I feel as though I’m standing still and yet I am being ripped in either direction. “Torn in Place.”

It is dark all around me. The well-meaning voices of my past lives turn to wailing and gnashing of teeth as the pendulum of time swings on. Each day as long as a life age of the earth.

Though I cannot see it clearly, sometimes I catch a glimpse of another way. For there is light and high beauty up there that no shadow can touch. Somewhere in the middle. Somewhere beyond my past where I have yet to go, intermingled with both parts of who I once was. The person I want to become. But I cannot yet fully see it in my own reflection, and, sometimes, when the darkness is particularly strong, I feel as if I never will.

But still I hope

Even when I don’t.

I don’t normally share what little art I make here. But this one I had to, because it is a picture of me. A self portrait showcasing my past, my present, and, hopefully, my future. Becoming me has been a long and difficult journey, an arduous transition. Yet, when I take a step back and behold that journey for all it is, I am met with the sight of something complex.

Something joyful.

Something broken.

But ultimately, Something Beautiful.

[chuckpetrizzi]

“Oops.”

Art by me

[chuckpetrizzi]

As a trans guy with a degree in biblical studies, all I see here is accurate hermeneutic and interpretation

[chuckpetrizzi]

Above

[chuckpetrizzi]

Below

[chuckpetrizzi]

Happy Father’s Day…

It’s been almost four years since last I saw you, and yet I see you more and more each day. It’s bittersweet.

As I unearth the me I buried long ago, I am stunned to realize how much of you exists here.

There are moments when I look down at my arms and I see your’s, both in their shape and the way they move.

There are times I hear you in my deepening voice. Echos of your tone or the way in which you spoke.

Sometimes even the ways in which I shift in my chair or how my hair falls upon my face. I pause in the weight of familiarity.

Sometimes I feel your presence as I repeat (for the thousandth time) your tired old jokes, laughing to myself more than anyone who hears them, savoring the groans and eye rolls they receive.

My ears recall the timbre of your laugh within my own. The impish giggle that emerged when something really tickled your funny bone. “That’s him.” The feeling warms my entire being. “That’s my dad. He is still here.”

A spark of joy fades into a dull pang of grief. You will never know the man I have become. If you were still here, you would insist that I would always be your daughter. Yet I see so much of you in me. Even more as I dig through your old journals and discover the you before I knew you. You really would’ve liked me.

In another life.

Another world.

Another time.

You would’ve been proud to have me as your son.

Yet all I have is now. And so the bittersweetness of this day continues.

At the end of it, like the corny paraphrase of a cartoon baboon, you live in me.

I miss you.

I miss the relationship we had like I do the one we could’ve had. More so or less I cannot say.

I wish you could see how like you I am and know the man I am becoming.

I wish you could be proud of me.

But it’s been almost four years since last I saw you,

and I am proud of me.

Thank you for giving me so much of you.

The rest is up to me.

Happy Father’s Day.

Love forever and always,

Punky​

P.S. I know you would’ve loved Chappell Roan, and put “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” on one of your Spotify playlists. And I love that for you ❤️

[chuckpetrizzi]

The farther I get into this whole transition thing, the more I realize I don’t really identify with being a “man” all that much. I’m absolutely an adult male. But I’m more a “guy,” really. A “lad” if you will.

Just a goofy lil guy

Just a silly smol lad

That’s the kind of masculinity I vibe with.

[chuckpetrizzi]

Hey to all those dickriding the Watcher boys right now taking about how 50+ US dollars a year “isnt that much and is cheaper than all the other streaming services.” Fuck you. Most people can’t afford groceries right now.

To all the Watcher fans shaming their own community for being upset that they can no longer watch something that they enjoyed. Fuck you too.

To all those who are signing up to have a subscription to this completely new and know nothing sub service. Or are donating to this google forms raffle thing. Please direct your money towards a charity of your choice or the Genocide that is happening to the Palestinians.

It will be a cold day in hell when I support someone who drives a Tesla over the starving and war ridden people of Palestine. Free Palestine. Eat the Rich. Fuck you Watcher TV for giving your audience something NO. ONE. ASKED. FOR.

[chuckpetrizzi]

“Artists need to be paid for their work!”

Agreed however they ARE getting paid!! If Patreon+ ad revenue+ merch sales + tour sales isn’t enough to cover the cost of the videos Watcher has been putting out, maybe the answer is to downsize and scale back instead of punishing their audience for their poor financial decisions.

[chuckpetrizzi]

I absolutely HATE that she said “paying people fairly and making a survivable living…” It’s buzz words to connect with their mostly left-leaning, millennial and Gen-Z audience. But it’s a bunch of BS when you realize that

1. They all clearly make a survivable living. Steven drives a Tesla for chrissake. Ryan and Shane both just had weddings (which don’t come cheap). They are all surviving so much better than the majority of their fan base getting to do something that they love.

2. If they’re worried about paying their staff a survivable living, maybe that’s an internal issue. Again, the three of them appear to be relatively well off. If they’re driving Teslas and they’re worried about their staff not being able to make a living, maybe deduct a bit from their own pay first

3. If they’re worried about their staff making a survivable living, HAVE LESS STAFF AND LOWER PRODUCTION VALUE. If you can’t pay your workers, stop hiring so many workers. Or prioritize their pay over the expensive production value that isn’t necessary to make good content. So many YouTube channels have survived for longer than Watcher has existed by keeping costs low or even being a part of a platform like Nebula (why they didn’t consider something like that FIRST is mind boggling to me).

This comment from Sara is SO out of touch. It’s enraging that she uses those buzzwords to try and connect with an audience of mostly people who are legitimately struggling to make a “survivable living” working jobs we hate. You get to do a job you LOVE and be creative and, from the looks of it, none of y’all are living paycheck to paycheck like the fan base you’re trying to get money from. Hearing this from her makes me think that Shane’s “eat the rich” mentality was just “oh look I’m hip with the kids” without actually understanding the situations most of his fans are living in.

Lastly, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: THEY SHOULD’VE GONE THE NEBULA ROUTE. Join up with other creators on a site that is already doing what they’re trying to do but offers a much wider breadth of content and is well worth the money. Try literally ANYTHING before deciding that the best way to move forward is to make your fan base foot the bill entirely.

DONT give us that “it’s so hard to make a survivable living being a creative and doing what we love.” The vast majority of the fan base you’re trying to get money out of can only DREAM of being in the position you’re in. You make a living. If it’s getting hard to pay the people who work for you and expanding the business/production value is putting you in the read, hire less people and cut back on expenses BEFORE you extort your fan base. You’re not in the financial position to expand? Don’t expand! Watcher is biting off more than they can chew, but, instead of taking smaller bites, they’re making fans pay for the food.

We’re Leaving YouTube

[chuckpetrizzi]

lol me

[chuckpetrizzi]

The most inspiring thing I have heard all week

writing a garbage essay feels like you’re the cow who gave birth to the two headed calf. in the morning, my professor will wrap him in newspaper and dissect him on a cold operating table. but here he is alive, under the pale glow of my computer screen. he is beautiful. there are twice as many logical fallacies as usual.

[chuckpetrizzi]

That time your partner asks you to get the mints while you’re in the kitchen, so naturally, you walk back into the room with two (shelled) hard boiled eggs and a ramekin of tajin.