#barachiki recalls a moment from the paaaaast!

[barachiki]

Here’s something that happened today. Someone in my real life, who was not my close friend, wished me a happy pride.

It was my boss, who was trying to say it cautious but from a kind energy. And you know, I’m not waving a banner or anything saying I’m queer, and I’m not hiding it or anything… but it is quite obvious since my wife and I both work for the company and we are pretty well known in our circles.

Anyways, I was really confused at first, not really knowing how to react other than saying thank you (obvious and correct reaction).

But I have been out for over twelve years now (late bloomer). And I have been in a relationship with my now wife for ten years, married for four. In all that time nobody, other than with a few close queer friends, had mentioned pride to me.

I’m in an odd place about this, not because my boss wished me a happy pride, but because it almost felt like a rite of passage for me. I have constant imposter syndrome for every community I belong to, and this time, I felt a little like I should belong and I was seen.

I’m happy to report that I feel okay about this.

Happy Pride.

[barachiki]

When Sherlock came back, not everyone was happy to see him.

[barachiki]

Here's a story because I mentioned the coffee I had:

In university, I used to be really addicted to caffeine. Like full blown shakes and teeth grinding and migraines and anxiety if I didn't get it. I had my own espresso machine, and I had a café right below my dorm where I'd get cheap triple shot lattes every day before class. I was so bad that I usually needed at least a little coffee to calm me down enough to sleep.

There was this class I took, Psychology of Adjustment. I have no idea what it was about anymore, but I do remember this one assignment. We had to break a habit using a method we had learned about, scientifically describe the process, write out the successes, failures and if you were using positive or negative reinforcement. We had three weeks to do this.

My friend Tony did his study on stretches. If he did his physio stretches before noon, then he'd get a piece of Halloween candy as a treat. A simple positive reinforcement.

Sleeping in was the habit I wanted to break, so my plan was that each day I slept in, I wouldn't be allowed my favourite thing: coffee. It was supposed to be a negative reinforcement study.

The thing is, I didn't know how addicted I was to coffee/caffeine. As well, I was horrifically depressed and I've been an insomniac since I was a kid, so I never got the sleep I needed. The task was impossible.

First thing I did was sleep in the first two days. So no coffee for me. I did the negative reinforcement for those two days... but by the third day, I was so beyond irritable, nauseous and headachy and shaky that I snuck some coffee even though I still slept in. Then over the next week, I was practically hallucinating without the caffeine, so I was shaking and making stupid bargains ('I only slept in a half hour so I should get half the coffee', 'Maybe I can just try again tomorrow and have a mocha tonight,' that kind of thing). With classes going until 9pm and trying to get up for 6am, I was fighting a losing battle with both sides of the study.

I quit even trying after nine days.

By the time I had to write up the study, I had no data, no results and nothing to show other than my failure. So I lied. I made up data, I fabricated these tables, notes and explained how I broke my habit and now only take coffee occasionally and I wake up on time cheerfully every morning blah blah blah.

My prof, who was not an idiot, asked me for my handwritten notes. I panicked and said I kept my laptop by my bed and wrote down the notes on my computer. I know he didn't buy it. He was a Psychology prof, who has seen a million of these assignments. But my writeup said all the right things, and it showed that I understood the concept, so I got a C instead of an F.

I realized later that not everyone was 'successful' with their studies, but still got good grades. I knew then that if I had explained how badly I failed my study in the assignment and why (discovering I had a caffeine addiction), I probably would have aced the assignment. After all, it wasn't about breaking the habit, but the process.

I think of this every once in a while, that it is possible to be perfect and still fail, but also it is possible to fail and still be perfect, if you take my meaning (or some other philosophical garbage like that...)

I also know now that denying an insomniac university student her coffee was ambitious and idiotic. I should have just done the stupid Halloween candy thing.

[barachiki]

I saw Barbie with my sister in law tonight. It was a great time and I went into the movie head empty about it, but it brought some big laughs. I’d probably say it wasn’t a movie for everyone, but it was a wild time.

Here is a Barbie themed picture for you as a bonus:

[barachiki]

I placed a grocery order for pickup, mostly because I am still recovering from my concussion and wandering through a packed grocery store didn’t appeal to me. At any rate, I wanted three bananas to go with my order, I usually get three because I don’t like them too green, and I don’t like them too spotty. Just yellow. Note here, they are just for me, as my wife has a banana allergy.

I get my order out in my trunk and head home. When I get there, I see these.

Three BUNCHES of bananas. Wtf am I going to do with 19 bananas before they spoil?

I blame it all on the concussion.

At least I have an event to go to this weekend, and I can make some banana bread for it, but that is still minimum of seven loaves!!

Ugh, I just should have gone in and bought groceries myself.

Edit for fun:

[barachiki]

This is a pointless story but here you go anyways.

My wife and I went on a little vacation. An Air B&B, lovely place we had a great time. But we had to bring our food to prepare in the kitchen that had no stove, so I packed some microwaveable food, including a microwave poutine (I’m Canadian, we have to eat poutine, it is the law). Anyways, the poutine was terrible. Never buy frozen microwave poutine.

On the way home we decided to get breakfast at little greasy spoon diner. On the menu was ‘breakfast poutine’ and we thought, ‘hey, the poutine last night was terrible, this might be good’ so we ordered that.

If you don’t know, poutine is fries, gravy, and cheese curds, (which is a particular type of squeaky cheese). This breakfast poutine was tater tots, cheddar cheese, baked beans, caramelized onion, and a fried egg. It was hilarious but not poutine at all and the tater tots weren’t even crispy. Also the portion size was minuscule, like a side plate size. We were so disappointed, I should have taken a picture.

When we got home some hours later, we do our unpacking and take care of our dog, and then it was time for dinner, and my wife suggested a PROPER poutine from a poutine restaurant. I run out to the takeaway restaurant and bring back two large poutines. By the time i got home they were cold and just barely better than the microwave stuff.

I feel like being sick… of disappointment and too much potato.

I think I will make my own, (but not today, I’m going to lay down and digest).

Remind me to tell you about my air B&b stay later.

Edit:

[barachiki]

Hi tumblrinos!

It has been a long time since I climbed out of my cave to talk to you all! I miss our talks. So pull up a chair and gather round, it is barachiki story time!

In high school, I hated wearing shoes. I wanted to wear sandals or flip flops all the time, even in winter. This posed a problem with the Canadian winters, but I had a solution, it was a crazy time in the 90’s when toe socks were in fashion, so I just wore toe socks when it got too cold to go barefoot.

At one point, I had misplaced one of my favourite toe socks, but it had just fallen behind my laundry hamper, and I found it the next day. That is a pointless story, a lost sock, found the next day. Whatever, boring. But for some reason I told it to some people while warming up for my choir class. I told a room full of people “one time, I had a sock, and it was my favourite sock, and I lost it, but then I found it again.”

We laughed at the stupidness of the story and I thought we dropped the issue. I don’t remember why I told it, I think it must have been related to what were talking about, but the utter lack of any point to the story made us all laugh.

It was months later that I was in a different class with some other classmates, and someone had mentioned my toe socks, and said that exact story back to me. This person wasn’t there at the initial telling of the sock story, but they recites it exactly: “One time, I had a sock, and it was my favourite sock, and I lost it, but then I found it again.” Others laughed like it was a big inside joke.

I found out that one choir member who HAD heard the initial telling of the sock story used it to fill in dead air in another conversation. And then more people just started saying, and it became a kind of meme in our grade… but somehow I had missed the viral sharing of my sock story. So for at least two months, people were sharing my stupid nothing of a story about my toe socks without having any context.

Now you know the sock story. And the story of the sock story. I hope you found it as pointless as it is.

[barachiki]

So a little story. I made that comic in like, 2012 or something. Pretty sure 2012. Everyone was full of angst for reichenbach already and I had just started participating in corners of fandom. It was an early post of mine in the comments of someone else’s text post (which was allowed at the time). That person reposted my doodle (without credit mind you) to their now deleted blog, and I am grumpy but say nothing, then I forget about it.

Well today I was cleaning out some folders online and I bump into this doodle again and thought I should finally save it to my own blog.

[barachiki]

Still not feeling well so I will cheer myself up by telling you a story about the most amazing meal I have ever had.

The context first: I used to have a terrible overbite. I used to be teased mercilessly about this and my dentist said maybe the shape of my jaw was also one of the factors of my headaches (turns out: no). So we decided that when I grew up I would see if I wanted the surgery to realign my upper jaw.

Flash forward to 2006: I just graduate university and I make the decision to get the surgery. It… was awful. I will spare you the grizzly details of the surgery, but it involved a lot of numbness, swelling, and a few weeks of liquid morphine and a liquid diet.

I was living with my brother and my cousin at the time, and they knew I was feeling pretty down, drinking my protein shakes and feeling sorry for myself. I couldn’t even have mashed potatoes because it was too heavy, and it wasn’t recommended in this leaflet I got from the hospital of suggested foods.

But one day, I was sulking in my room, probably on my Livejournal or something, and I get a knock on my door, and it is my brother with a glass of this orange liquid and he said he made me some lunch. It looked like a mango smoothie, but it smelled different. He had a big smile on his face and the hospital recommendations in his other hand. I take a sip and am entirely shocked... (This is going to sound so bizarre) it was a glass of blended up macaroni and cheese with a little hot sauce. He had looked through the hospital guidelines and found a recipe for blended mac and cheese, and it was in my life the best meal I think I have had and will ever have.

Now you might be thinking, Barachiki, that sounds revolting. How can you say that was your best meal ever? Well let me remind you, I had consumed nothing but Boost and protein shakes for over a week by that point. I was in pain and drugged, I was sad and was dying for some comfort food. And my brother made me something very comforting. It sounds disgusting, but it just tasted like mac and cheese with a bit of hot sauce for extra flavour (which helped because all the protein shakes were so bland I had forgotten food could have flavour) And I was used to the liquid diet so the texture didn’t bother me.

Also, before anyone asks, I probably wouldn’t like to have that meal again. It needed the context of being in the situation, the recovery etc. and I have such a perfect memory of how it felt, I don’t need to do it again.

Anyways, I was thinking about this today, because I had a protein shake (which are still disgusting to me) and I was reminded how awesome my brother is.

[barachiki]

So one time when I was a kid, maybe grade four or five, there was a new walking path out in between my house and my school. It was paved and had a bike lane and a walking lane painted and designated on the pavement.

One day I was walking home and I was thinking, if I walk in the walking lane, everyone will think I am a nerd and a rule-follower and just a goody-two-shoes and make fun of me. But if I walked on the bike side, people would make fun of me for trying to look like I didn’t care about the rules and trying act cooler than I was. So I decided to walk home on the painted white line in the centre of the path. After which someone in my class shouted at me, “Linewalker!”

And I learned a number of lessons that day but the main one I have in my head is that people will judge you on literally anything you do (and I have heard that children are almost like people so they count in this story), so do what feels right anyways. There is nothing wrong that so long as you don’t get run over by a bicycle doing it.

[barachiki]

Did I ever tell you guys about my Pez dispenser chapter of life?

I used to own hundreds of Pez dispensers. You know Pez candy, right?  Those pointless candy/toy combinations that are neither fun nor tasty.  I got one randomly as a gift as a joke, probably a tie in to some movie or whatever, but it was at a party, so most of my friends and family heard about this Pez dispenser. Almost immediately, everyone I knew started giving them to me for every gift because they were cheap and easy to find, and they assume I must like them because I have a lot of them ...because people kept giving them to me.  So I thus began my Pez dispenser collection. I probably had over three hundred different ones, and some repeats on top of that.

At no point did anyone ask if I actually liked Pez dispensers, they were just a me thing.  I wasn't overjoyed or burdened by the collection, it was just something to collect, and honestly, it was a relief, since my family and friends always complained how difficult I was to shop for so it was just one fewer things to worry about.

...Until the end of the year. At the end of that year, they all said that they didn't know which of the readily available cheap Pez dispenser I had any more, so they stopped giving them to me. Family members would still find the collectable ones online for a few more months, but they had assumed I stopped collecting because people stopped giving them to me.

I donated almost all of them to charity in the end. I kept one in the shape of a truck which gave Pez out the back, and this giant freaky clown one. It dispenses rolls of Pez.

Edit: Here's a photoshop just for fun:

[barachiki]

I don't think I ever told you guys about my Cupcake Story from way back in university. I'm remembering it now because it came up in conversation recently and it is a good story so let's share. Buckle in, it is pretty long.

When I went away to school, my mom packed me all kinds of food from the cupboard to take with me, which was a kind gesture, but a lot of it was old or just on the verge of being old.

After I got settled into my quad (like a 4 dorm room apartment) and my school life, I decided that I'd go into some of the cupboard food and have a look at what was there to use, and I found a cake mix. So I decided that the following week before my 6pm English Lit in Creative Writing class, which was my favourite class, I'd make the cupcakes.

My roommate and I weren't the most experienced at cooking or baking at the time, so we were just trying to follow our gut. And our gut was wrong, because the box cake was a lemon angel food cake. And if you know anything about angel food cakes, is they DON'T make cupcakes. They turn into crystallized little sponges.

We also made a buttercream for the topping, instead of something good like a fresh whipped cream or something, and it was greasy and somehow thin and thick at the same time. We iced these horrid little sponges and they turned out beautiful but if you cut one open it was just soaking up the liquidy part of the icing.

We tried one and it was so awful, I got as far as the study room in my dorm hall and just left the tray there with a sign that said 'take one'. Then i ran off to class. Why didn't I throw them away? I was a student and I couldn't imagine wasting food. But I did not want to admit that I made them.

I let it leave my mind until a few days later when I'm returning the hand mixer to the person I borrowed it from. They ask me how my class liked my cupcakes and I tell them I chickened out and left them in the study room. She looks aghast and says, "THAT WAS YOU!?"

Apparently, people DID eat some of the cupcakes, and assumed that since they were so bad, they must have been tampered with somehow? I was mortified. Now there was a rumour that there was a mystery poisoner in my dorms... It had been two days and I was already an urban legend.

Fast forward a week: I go grocery shopping. I buy all the ingredients to make a batch of beautiful chocolate cupcakes with homemade ganache on them. They are sampled and they are excellent. I bring them to my 6pm class and give them out, and everyone appreciates them. But I tell two of my friends in the class the original story of the bad cupcakes and the dorm room study hall and me being a mystery poisoner, but not really. They thought it was hilarious, we have a good time and class is over.

Fast forward two weeks: We had an assignment called "Eavesdropping a Scene" where we had to eavesdrop on a conversation and quickly turn it into a piece of fiction that can be acted out in class. Near the end of the class, a guy, let's call him Glasses, offers his scene, and it is about a woman named my IRL name, let's just say Barachiki, who goes around poisoning people with cupcakes. He had overheard my conversation with my friends in the class where I handed out the cupcakes, then exaggerated it to the point where I was an evil person maliciously and intentionally killing people with confectionary.

The class was not amused. Glasses was a bit of an odd character and perhaps they thought he was being unkind and weird (i have lots more stories of how weird he was but later for those). The class was also getting uncomfortable that he had overheard a conversation that I had admitted to poisoning the chocolate cupcakes that I had brought them. So they demanded an explanation from either of us, which led to me having to explain the whole story starting from stale lemon angel food cake mix.

For the end of the year, i baked one more batch of cupcakes for my class, and put little skulls made of white chocolate on them and told everyone to eat at their risk.

I think I learned from this to always check labels, speak in a low voice and throw away old cupboard food, don't give it away.

[barachiki]

Screen Name Meme

Here's going out to all of the people who tagged me in the "What does your screen name mean" meme, most recently @helloliriels. (edit: sorry that was @justanobsessedpan, not helloliriels)

Barachiki is an old moniker of mine from way back in high school. Honestly, I'm not sure why I made it my tumblr handle, but I had it as a spare email address at the time, so it was one of the first things I thought of when making my account.

But there is a story about the screen name itself. I am sure I've told it a few times, but I was in choir in high school, and this was part of an a capella song called Chili Con Carne by The Real Group, which my section (me and three other girls that had lower ranged voices) didn't get to sing so much as do the percussive noises. Some of those sort of percussive noises can be heard as "bara-chiki bara-chiki". My section would joke about the fact that we really were never allowed to sing lyrics, we only got the "barachiki" parts and it was a joke that lasted for the rest of the year, and continued as a personal joke that I just kept in my corner.

That's the story! I don't usually think of it that way very often. I'm not nostalgic for high school or anything, but I loved the joke and kept the email address.

The song is fun though. Give it a listen.

[barachiki]

Hello tumblrinos!

Thought I would share a story of mortification that happened to me this week!

I was taking photos at a corporate breakfast event at the place I work, and one of the organizers came to sit down beside me and chat. I was chatting with her and I saw something in her teeth, so I do what I do when my wife has something in her teeth, I said “look at me,” and I indicated that she had a little something at one of the top front teeth. Yeah no. It was a chipped tooth. I apologized profusely of course since I basically demanded that she show me her chipped tooth.

Earlier in the year I did the exact same thing , with a different coworker who I am good friends with. We were called in a group zoom call with the rest of my team and leads and as a few of us were entering the call, it was just me and my work friend R there and she looked like she maybe had a smear of makeup on her face. So I said a quick “you’ve got something on your face!” To her so she could maybe duck out of the call and take care of it. Turns out, the story is that she had been helping an injured neighbour shovel snow and got smacked in the face with a shovel arm and bruised her mouth area. So the ‘makeup smear’ was a huge bruise! Mortified.

I guess the point is that I would like people to point out if I have something in my teeth or a smear of makeup (not that I really wear an) on me, but it is fair that I shouldn’t do this for anyone . The first coworker was not impressed, and my friend from work R was lovely about it. You can’t do the science with that low of a sample but we can infer.

Also I think I had a fairly judgemental sibling growing up picking apart each action I did and it made it hard to do anything without saying the wrong thing or getting a new complex lol.

[barachiki]

Do you ever have a moment when a memory just pops into your head? And there's no reason for it, it just pops up.

Anyways, this particular memory that just popped into my head was probably from about 12 years ago. I was in the dollar store, it was summer and I was buying water balloons for a water fight at a park with some of my friends. I was wearing a black tank top and these green and blue hawaiian print shorts.

A woman walked up to me and told me she liked my shorts.

I was polite, and said thank you. She asked where I got them. I told her that they were a steal of a deal from a thrift store, because they were.

SO THEN she told me "Well in that case, I'll give you $20 right now for them." Like, she wanted to buy the clothes that I was physically wearing at the time.

"No, thank you, I'm just doing some shopping!" I try to be polite to the weird lady. She then insists and offers $25, and says I can go home and change and bring them to her, as if I otherwise would just go home in my underwear from the dollar store?

I was so shocked all I could say was, "Actually, my friends are expecting me, so I don't have time to go home. Nice to meet you!" and I paid for my stuff and left.

That is an example of 'being in your 20's' and still having the brainwashing that you have to be polite to everyone. If that were me today, I would tell her to fuck off, or maybe try to have a conversation with her that involved something that repeated what she was asking me to do, so she could understand how weird it was.

And I know what you might be thinking, this woman was not in distress, she didn't seem to be having issues, or was unstable or anything like that, she was just looking for a bargain and didn't know the rules of shopping or something.

In the end, I think I kept that story to myself for a long time, because I kept thinking I had done something wrong, like "oh man, I really should have sold my clothes to that nice lady." But seriously, that was a weird situation.