thoughtsoffoxes

[thoughtsoffoxes]

Gender is Confusing

 A few days ago, I checked on my Tumblr which hasn't been active for several years. I didn't scroll through it much, majority of it is reblogs. The header though is something I changed over the years. In its current state, it says 

"Hello! My name is [REDACTED]. Nice to see you have dropped by. This blog is trying to be an Undertale blog/humor blog. I'm sixteen, and ace/aro. Gender is confusing, but please use they/he pronouns please ^~^ Have a great day friends!" 

It's been so long since I looked at it. I get the same feeling as watching my old shitty YouTube videos. Like 'who let this child be on the internet?' Things have certainly changed too. I'm no longer 16, I'm 25 now. I don't identify with asexual or aromantic anymore. I don't use they/he pronouns. My name is not [REDACTED] anymore, and I won't be spilling those beans here. The thing though is that "Gender is confusing" bit. At this point, it's around 2016, and I had seen plenty of explanations on gender identities, sexualities, and discourse. Even within my group of friends we had talked a little bit about gender nonsense, but when came to following through with pronouns or genderqueer identities, nothing. I didn't really talk to my parents about my gender until 2017, and even then I had simplified it to 'I'm a trans man, and I want to go on hormones and get surgery some day.' Because at least the hormones and surgery part were true and I wanted to go by he/him pronouns. But if you've been on Tumblr, viewer, you should know there's tons of different genders and pronouns, but not a lot of people showing off how they expressed it. There were tips on how to pass better, on what sort of hair cuts to get, on what foods to eat, and what workouts to do. There were affirmations. I'm not sure what 'cracked my egg' but I'm sure whatever it was, it was on Tumblr. I know that the conservative transphobes are barking 'Tumblr Trans-ed their gender! Ban Tumblr!' Whatever. But there's more than the 'egg-cracking' and Tumblr to point to. There were signs. There were weird feelings from when I was very young. Tumblr had only given me the language and the space to realize it. 

Let me guide you, viewer, through what led me to identify as a trans guy. One of the biggest signs for me was my 5th grade school photo. Starting the year, I had long hair that went down my back. I had told my mom I wanted to cut my hair short. A side note, I had thought girls couldn't get their hair cut short until they were 18 for some reason. My mom cleared that up for me. She took me to a salon and a very nice hairstylist worked with me to cut my hair short. It wasn't buzzed down or anything, I had hair touching the tops of my ears, but I absolutely loved it. I looked in the mirror and actually felt something. I didn't really know what that feeling was, but I thought it was just confidence. Something I had been lacking. Anyway, school picture day. I wore a white tank top and a knitted jacket, all clothes I had gotten from the girls section somewhere. I didn't try to look any different than myself. Maybe the photographer made me pose differently? Maybe it was all the hair's doing. But once I laid eyes on that picture, I couldn't stop gushing about it. When I came home with it, I told my parents that I looked so grown up. It looked so good! I loved it infinitely more than any of my other school pictures. I remember the look my mom had when I told her how grown up I looked, she grimaced and tried to smile. I think she had said something like "I'm glad you like it." Years later, we were switching the customary 'school picture' frame with the most current picture. At this point, I knew that I didn't identify with being a girl. I wasn't out to my parents or really anyone. I asked to look through the other photos, wanting to see how much I had grown over the years and my dad obliged. We put each picture beside the other chronologically. 3rd grade, 4th grade, and... 5th grade. I felt like the world paused as I saw the picture. I looked like a boy. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was always there and I remembered all the praise and love I had for this picture. I realized it was all because I didn't look like a girl. It's honestly the first photograph of me that I liked. It looked like me. 

Growing up, there was a lot of talk amongst my girl peers about babies. What would you name your babies? How many babies did you want? Did you want twins? Who would you want to have babies with? It seemed like it was natural, girls grow up and have babies. But there was a turning point for me where I was terrified to be a mom. My own mother told me about her labor with my sister and myself, where she had almost died each time. Both of us had to be cut out of her. Not to mention, having to be awake for all of it and strangers looking at my private parts and insides. The terror I felt was immense. Would I suffer through 9 months for a baby? Would I be cut open? Would I shit myself giving birth? Would I be the same afterwards? How many babies would be enough? Throughout a lot of my childhood, I was resigned that after getting an education that I'd have to give birth. It was a milestone that was decades away, but every mention of pregnancy sent my stomach in twists. In the present, I am privileged enough to live in Colorado where if something horrible happened to me, I could get an abortion if needed. To make it clear as well, if I didn't have access to a safe abortion, I would absolutely put myself in danger to abort any pregnancy as soon as possible. Another thing I should make clear, being able to give birth isn't a requirement to be a woman and being a woman isn't a requirement to give birth. To me though, the thought of being pregnant brings the same dysphoria that I had before I got on hormones, before I had top surgery. There's trans men and queer folk who have kids, but I am not one of those people. 

There's a lot of things that girls my age did that I didn't understand or like or felt comfortable with. I didn't like barrettes, or having my hair brushed. The first time I painted my nails, I painstakingly picked and chipped the polish off. Once at a friends house, her family offered to take us swimming but I didn't have a swim suit. Her mother gave me a bikini to change into but I couldn't. I only wore one piece suits and would not change into it. I remember her mom saying "we're all ladies, it's nothing we haven't seen before" but that did nothing to ease my discomfort. We didn't go swimming that day. My peers had celebrity crushes, "who's your favorite Jonas Brother? Are you on team Edward or team Jacob?" I just wasn't into it. I'd give a fake answer, lie, and awkwardly expand upon my fake crush with Nick Jonas. One day I answered truthfully, that I didn't have a celebrity crush, and I got "that's weird" as a response. I hated wearing skirts, but I did like dresses. I guess it's human instinct to go spinny in dress and watch it twirl. There were girls I knew that had their ears pierced as a baby and had always worn earrings. My sister asked me once if I would ever get my ears pierced and I, disgusted, said no, never. Weirdly I did get one ear pierced at eighteen, but the hole's since closed back up. For Christmas one year, my parents got me one of those American Girl books that explained puberty and various things that would happen to my body. I remember staying up and reading it and getting more uncomfortable. In retrospect, the book was nice. It explained various things that 'girls' might experience when going through puberty with questions and life experiences of 'real girls'. How to deal with eating disorders, or not looking like the women on TV, or simply being comfortable in your body no matter the shape or size. But my fears weren't assuaged. I remember crying so hard that my sister came to my room and asked me what was wrong. I told her that I wanted to return the book. I didn't want it. I think she passed the message, and the book, to my parents and that was the end of it. 

Once in middle school, I was accused of being a lesbian and a dyke, a transvestite and a tranny. I lost friends because they thought I was in love with them. If another girl was my friend, they'd get branded as a lesbian too. On a field trip to a museum, the tour guide was asking questions and I raised my hand. He called on me, "The small boy in the back?" Giggles erupted as I corrected him and answered his question correctly. It was a strange moment because at the time I was embarrassed. I tried making excuses too, that I wasn't wearing anything feminine. Just a t-shirt and jeans and of course my hair. I didn't wear make up and my chest had always been small. The guide was incredibly old as well so maybe I could blame it all on him. This was the first time I had been misgendered. I know it's confusing 'how can you be misgendered when he called you a boy? Isn't that correct?' Yes, it is in the present day. But I didn't know back then, I didn't want any attachment to being gay or trans or anything because how my peers treated me. So as I go into high school, people wanted to date me which was a surprise for me since every boy where I grew up wanted nothing to do with me. At first, dating was exciting! Someone wanted me! But I got weird feelings every time I dated someone even before I realized I was trans. The best way I can describe it is an upset stomach. I felt uncomfortable with whoever I was with, I didn't like kissing or touching. For a while I figured I was asexual because of it, but no. In junior year I had a girlfriend and around this time I had realized I was transgender. I hadn't told my girlfriend, I hadn't told anyone. That same feeling permeated the relationship until we broke up, we didn't remain friends either. It wasn't until my next relationship that I figured out why. Before then, I was being dated as a girl. I was the girlfriend. That perception and affection made me uncomfortable. The people I was dating probably didn't just date me because I was a girl, but to them I was a girl and that was too much for me. My first time being the boyfriend, I didn't get that weird feeling. Hell we even had sex which was something I thought was out of the question given my uncomfortability. I'll let you know now, viewer, that this relationship didn't last very long. At least it had given me clarity, I could not stay in the closet. If someone was going to date me, they wouldn't be dating a girl. 

By this point, viewer, you're probably thinking "I get it, you're not a girl. You're a trans man. What's so confusing about your gender?" That's the thing, I'm not wholly a trans man, more trans man-ish. I'm a person first, not a man, but I also don't like people using they/them pronouns for me. I am a he/him queer. My partner and I are married, but I don't like the term husband. We are partners. Out of all the things hormones changed, facial hair is my least favorite. (I'd also say my nose getting wider, but I have no idea if that's testosterone or good old aging so.) I don't want bottom surgery, and I'd take a lot of convincing to consider it. I like my body hair, but I don't want to get much hairier. When 'queen' was trendy slang, I've had coworkers refer to me as such which I quickly shot down. And yes, I despise being misgendered no matter the circumstances. But I know that it doesn't matter at times. I usually get misgendered by customers and I'll probably never see them again. Nowadays, I get nervous correcting people too. People are violent towards trans people and if they didn't clock me before, they will after I correct them. I couldn't pinpoint what makes me a man, or more of a man than others, but it's something deep within me. That same something sings when I look particularly handsome or pretty. It sings when I'm able to open a jar for my partner, funnily enough. It sings when I sing. I could go on. When I notice my sideburns are growing longer. When someone gets my pronouns right on the first try. When I make burgers way better than my dad ever did. When I toss something in the trash and it goes right in. When the veins on my forearm extrude a little bit from exercise. When I put on a nice outfit on the first try. When I run, when I dance, when I go up the stairs two at a time. 

The things that designate either male or female gender to me is non-sensical. Even for cisgender people it's not as cut and dry as it seems. Conservatives whine that about real biological women and when asked to clarify, they seem to spout off "They have a uterus, they can give birth, they have ovaries, etc." During the Olympics last year, there was a lot of accusations that a woman boxer was trans because her face was 'masculine'. But none of these cover all cisgender women. Some cisgender women can't give birth, don't have ovaries or a uterus. Some cisgender women, like that boxer, have a 'masculine' face or a deep voice. Conservatives want to ban gender affirming care when cisgender people get gender affirming care too. Male cisgender people go on Viagra, get hair plugs, or even chest reconstruction surgery. Female cisgender people also get breast surgery, go on hormones, and get laser hair removal. I know for a fact that these things won't get banned for cisgender people, but will become even harder to access for transgender people. It just drives me crazy that people can be so dense and close-minded. Gender binary isn't strict and, honestly, isn't a binary. And yes, I do believe that there's 77,000 genders and every time someone asks how many there are, another 1,000 gets added. You can wear whatever clothes you want, and whatever color as well. You can shoot guns, go fishing, and then go get a manicure in the same day if you have time. If you surgery to get bigger boobs, fine. If you hate how you're balding, then get on hormones. But don't ban these things for us queer folk because just like cisgender people, we need it too. Think about your own gender, viewer, when you look in the mirror. Ask yourself the question, "if I didn't have the genitalia I did right now would I still identify as male or female?" 

I hope this was informative, whoever you are. And keep living your best life as whatever gender you are.

[thoughtsoffoxes]

I'm not ready yet

I like to burn bridges 

Stand triumphantly at the edge

Watch the other side as they shout 

They reach out and I watch, confused 

They cry even though they pulled out 

The boards underneath their feet. 

I don't want them to do that. 

And they chuck the board at me.

One day they throw a stone. 

A note tied to it. 

"Please respond in kind"

I stare at the other side. 

No one is there. 

I keep the stone. 

Maybe they will throw enough to rebuild the bridge. 

I don't want them to do that. 

I'm not ready yet. 

I keep stones that people throw. 

They sit all in a cave. 

Some with harsh edges. 

Some are round. 

Some, heavy as lead. 

But they sit and I can't let them go. 

They tell stories, these rocks. 

But the cave is getting full. 

So full that my cave is no longer

Mine.

The cave belongs to the stones. 

The heavy one that hits your gut like a bomb. 

The sharp stones that cut you without noticing. 

The harsh ones? Usually hit you right in the eyes. Tears. 

Enough to cry a river, ironically. 

But I can't let go of them. 

People throw stones. 

They can't take them back. 

If I let it go, it will be like

They never threw anything. 

The rocks will stay. 

Because I'm not ready yet

[thoughtsoffoxes]

I have a mouth and I must scream.

The desire builds up inside, but there is no outlet

There’s no way, without concern

To release the pressure because it would destroy all

That I’ve lived for and struggled for

[thoughtsoffoxes]

Knots and more Metaphors

 A while ago, I had a pretty awful day. I woke up earlier than I'd like for work. I lost my headphone case on my daily walk with my dog. I didn't have breakfast. Nothing I tried on felt like me, so I had changed like four times before we got out the door. We go down the stairs to the parking garage and this broken gate thing in the stairwell rips my shirt. So I go back upstairs to get another shirt. It's like 5:30 and I'm going to be late for work. My spouse tells me to just stop and take a breath and talk, and I cry and babble about all this nonsense. Not to mention there was going to be a music event at work that day. Eventually I calm down and they take me to work. Now, viewer, all that was a messy morning. What ever random number generator controls the universe, it gave me shit for breakfast.

When my spouse and I have time after work we drink a little and have talks. I get pretty chatty when drunk and honestly I love to yap. After an absolute shit day, of course I wanted to talk about it. To this day, I still feel upset by little tiny microscopic things that ultimately don't matter. I expressed how annoyed and irritated I was that my brain works like this. That no matter what I try I can't let these little things go or if they go away they get replaced with other things. It's ridiculous. I'm sure if someone else gave my brain a shot, they'd instantly understand that it's hard. 

If you've ever been in therapy, viewer, therapists usually will give you a way to reframe your thoughts. I've seen the clouds, the trains, the flowers, the affirmations, the leaves on trees, the mandalas, and even been suggested singing my thoughts away. Because you know, it's silly. It's just not worked for me. My thoughts aren't clouds or trains or leaves. If any metaphor works, it's like trying to get a bunch of people out of my house that won't leave, but even that doesn't work the more I think about it. Realistically and logically, they're just chemical reactions. Despite being off SSRI's, I guess that part's not going away. 

So I discuss this sort of thing with my spouse and we bounce a few metaphors on how my brain works and we found something that worked. I described that certain interactions will relate to another and that one to another. Maybe the feeling I got was similar to one in high school and so it relates to when I felt that feeling in high school. It can all relate back onto itself. Like a messy, messy web of knots and tangles. 

Viewer, you should totally watch the Spider-verse movies if you haven't already. Maybe by the time you're reading this viewer, the third one is out. There's a scene in the second movie where they show a big visual for the Spider-verse. A big interconnected web that the more you look into it, the more webs there are. It's just inconceivable, it's infinite. It goes on and on and on and on and you get it, viewer. 

There's two specific visuals or metaphors or whatever it's called that we came up with. One is every day starts with a new string, and every little inconvenience, every regret, every mistake becomes a knot on that string. Some strings are longer than other, some knots are smaller than others, but once I go to sleep we start with a new string. If the string gets too knotted, hopefully there's a way for me to untangle it, but if there isn't... the metaphor falls apart a little but you get it. 

This one is similar and relates more to how my brain might relate memories. So, all those strings are still in my brain. We might start with a new string every day but we still got a whole storage container full of them. Who knows what the hell is going on with this metaphor. God. Anyway, when a knot gets too tangled, it relates to other knots on other strings. Like a spider, finding similarities between certain memories and then all those knots get knotted together. It's delightful. And to make it better than all the ones I've been given by therapist, it's just a mess! No imagining the bad thoughts away, it's just all one big fucking mess. 

There's no catharsis to this really. Just that's how my life is right now. My spouse suggested that I need to find a better way to 'untie' the knots before it overwhelms me. I agreed, but said I don't know what that'd mean. They said to, of course, get back into therapy and psychiatry. But that means calling people and calling people is my Mt. Everest. A lot of metaphors this post. 

Either way, the knots bug me. They overwhelm me. They make me cry and spiral. Therapy hasn't been kind to me. I've had so many therapists, so many social worker therapists, and they just don't work for me. Their advice is not enough and basic and feels like something I could've googled. I don't want to go to therapy for this basic shit. Give me the deep stuff, help me untangle this mess. I swear if I hear another "do some daily affirmations" I will definitely not do something bad. I think too, I don't want to talk to a new person about my issues all over again. Some people have had therapists for years, and the longest I've had the same one is a little over one year. 

Even now, I just want it to be better. I don't want knots. I don't want to spiral. I don't want these little things to bother me so much and matter so damn much. I don't know why it does matter. Life always keeps you on your toes. So why do I hate it so much? Why does it feel so frustrating and awful? I don't expect any answers from you, viewer. But I will say farewell for now, and I guess, don't stop believing. 

[thoughtsoffoxes]

I've tried to write something, do something, because I'm having a lot of emotions. I feel a lot of guilt. I feel a lot of anger over things that don't matter. I feel like I'm being over-dramatic, and that I need help. Things keep being difficult and they shouldn't be. I guess it's just a perfect storm of all these damn dominoes falling on each other. And I keep getting pelted with them. A whiny part of me thinks that it's everyone else's fault, the world, the people, my parents, etc. Another part thinks it's solely mine. If only I applied myself or tried a little harder, then things will be easier. If only I... Actually finished the book I was trying to write. If only I... Finished paintings that sit abandoned for years. If only I... Reached out to my far off friends and few bits of family. If only I... worked out. If only I... did something important.

People work day in and out for money. Side hustles, 40+ hour weeks, reselling, door-dashing, etc. I see the tiktoks of classes, seminars, workshops to "make up to 1000's of dollars a week" by using AI, by drop-shipping, by flooding markets that didn't need more shitty product. My friend and I did open an Etsy store to little success. She even wanted to sell t-shirts with prints of her paintings on the back, but no buyers. Plus, listing things on Etsy cost money. Not a lot, about 20 cents an item, but after a few months you have to relist and give another 20 cents to Etsy. Viewer, you're probably suggesting right now that we should've opened a booth at a local craft fair or tried local places. Maybe we should have. But I much like my art to stay at home with me. I am their parent after all.

There's other people who go out and do things. They volunteer, go jogging, go to book clubs, go hiking, go travelling, go out. It's hard for me to find time, money, and energy to do these sort of things. Hell, I can't even travel out of the country due to lack of passport. I get home from work and all I can think of is nonsense that needs to be done around the house. "I need to do the floors, do the dishes, clean the bathroom, put away laundry." And I barely get around to half of those things. When my partner and I have time off together, it's mostly used to go grocery shopping or other errands. Even if all the stars align, the weather's nice and we have the time, my partner has chronic pain and we can't go exploring Colorado like I've been wanting to for a while. Even on the internet, I feel isolated. I guess because I don't reach out or do anything. I mean this entire blog is the most I've posted on the internet in a long time. People talk about Discord servers and I don't understand. People have group chats on Instagram and I don't understand. I've made one internet friend and it's been five years since we've talked, but I do hope sincerely that they're doing well.

If it isn't obvious, I do write. When I was in middle school I wrote a lot of fiction, mostly based off of roleplays I'd do. I stopped roleplaying in high school and my ability to write kind of fell off. The 'book' I've been trying to write for going on 6 years now, only has a few chapters and I have literally no idea what to do with it. At first, I had written a bunch of lore and character sheets. I thought a lot about geography and what certain settings were like, but they were still all based on roleplays I did back in high school. Now, trying to write by myself there was very little coming to mind. I still get glimmers of inspiration but none of them are enough for me to open the document and let loose. These blog posts are the closest I've come to writing something. Even if it's just me moaning and venting about my frustrations with society or trauma or whatever. Hell I've even posted poetry, because hey, this is my blog there's no rules here.

Maybe this feeling of "I want to do something but I can't" seems silly. The solution looks pretty clear cut, just do the thing. Paint, write, play music, whatever. Just do whatever it is you want to do. I wish it was that easy, viewer. I feel like even if I was locked in a cabin for a month with all my paints, canvases, laptop with access to my book or empty documents but nothing else, and my guitar, I'd still come out and not done anything substantial. Maybe I'd make excuses or shrug because there was no inspiration. It is mind-boggling. Because of this lack of inspiration to create things, I then feel guilt or shame. Then that compounds onto why I feel no motivation to do these things.

Maybe writing classes would help, stirring some inspiration or stretching old muscles. I took a creative writing class in high school and I loved it. However, these classes normally cost money and I don't have it to spare. At least not right now. For painting, I have to be wearing clothes I don't particularly care about. I've 'ruined' t-shirts and pants and blankets from painting. I also don't like painting after I've showered because I usually get paint on my skin. The last thing standing in my way is myself, I don't have any idea what to paint. Normally when that happens I stick with ol' reliable. I find a nice color palette and draw some squiggly lines and voila, a cool looking piece. Maybe I'll take some pictures of them and post them here for you to see, viewer. For playing music, I have to abide by quiet hours at my apartment and I'll usually miss my chance. It's not like I'm playing drums or hooking up an amp to my guitar, but I already am a noisy upstairs neighbor who's gotten notes on the door so I'd rather not add onto it.

I guess I'm just getting in my own way, like I normally do. I'll just keep living and keep regretting over every little detail in my life. And live with it. Maybe one day I'll break out of this funk. Until then, I'll just keep writing here. Thank you reading this viewer, if you made it this far. I really appreciate you.

[thoughtsoffoxes]

There’s a weird sort of pain I get, where I miss so deeply miss

A mother, who held me gently as I cried, who made my favorite dessert

Who stood up for me and saw where I needed support without prejudice

Who put down her work, her phone, her cigarettes, and spent some time with me

I miss a mother who played with me, took interest in me, noticed me

This woman didn’t exist in my life, but I mourn her. I miss her deeply. 

My actual mom was imperfect, because a loving mother wasn’t in her life either.

I’m sure of it. She never had a mother to stand up for her, to take care of her.

How would she know how to take care of me when no one took care of her?

I deeply miss this woman who doesn’t exist, to fill this void in my life

The one I did have was not enough, though she’s said she’s tried.

And I know it’s selfish, childish, to wish for your parents to not be your parents

They aren’t perfect, they’re human too, but their mistakes affect their kids

It digs under their skin, into the depths of their brains. It’s a miracle

That we aren’t all broken down, corrupted, on the edge of a psychotic break

Maybe some hide it too well, doing everything they need to look okay.

God knows what lies inside our brains, what our parents planted, their pain

And when will it come out show its rage

[thoughtsoffoxes]

Why do we have to monetize everything?

I haven't been doing so well, but recently I've gotten more stable. It's probably a life crisis. I'll think about how working is what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. It won't matter if I'm in this same position or in another, but I'll be working. I get really upset thinking how lots of people just stay at jobs for decades. I haven't been able to stay at a job for over a year in a long time and I just have to strap down somewhere? Maybe other people are more fortunate and are able to find something they're okay with staying at. Personally, it's been hard. After a few months I get tired, I want to leave, things that are just standard for the job are annoying. I think maybe it's the sameness of it all. After a while the luster wears off and it's the same thing day in and out. I doubt there's any job that will truly fit the 'we do different things every week'. 

It's also crazy the sort of things people do to supplement income along with a full time job. We do door-dashing and sometimes it's been worth the money. Some people do Uber or those other delivery apps. If you have an extra house, somehow, you can rent that out as an AirBnB. One plus is that you can make the guests do all the housekeeping if you want so it's an even easier side hustle. Some people do tutoring, which is great if you're educated but I am not. Some people do art commissions. Some people do streaming. Some people do sex work or feet work or whatever kinky work, but (I hate to say this) the market is saturated and brutal. Some people do TikTok shop nonsense where they earn commission on drop-shipped items. Or they run little companies or brands. '5 ways to WFH, use my link on my profile.' 'Here's how to uplift yourself financially, Step 10 is buy my book'. People doing brand deals. Even pyramid schemes just popping up all over the place. I knew people who would do dog-walking on their breaks through Wag or something. There's apps to 'pay' you for scanning receipts or playing games or walking or some 'too good to be true' nonsense. There's transcription sites where you get paid one cent for every 'e' you write or something. Hey do you have a backyard you aren't using? Try Sniffspot! So people without a backyard can rent one for like thirty minutes for their dog! Have an extra car laying around? Put it on an app for people to rent! You just have one car laying around? Well get it wrapped with ads!

It's exhausting. It's disheartening. I can't paint one thing without pondering having a store and selling them. But I don't want to sell them. Not really. I've been trying to write a book, but I think I've put so much pressure on publishing it and making money from it that the joy is gone. When I play the Sims, I think about how I could post it and build a brand from it. But building a brand takes a lot of work and dedication and time. The Sims community is also oversaturated with content creators that I'd have to be extremely lucky to make it. I think about making a Youtube channel (again). I think about posting pictures of my body (and have) in the hopes of some cash. I then feel humbled in my job because I know other people would love the time to work on their various side hustles. Maybe if I just make the right TikTok and post it at the exact right time, it'll blow up and I could do something. 

Is this what the economy has to be now? People working a main job, a side job, and a side hustle to make ends meet. There's people making shitty AI music to make a few extra bucks. There's people begging on TikTok for money. There's people advising you to use all your time to make something of yourself, but I still have laundry to do. I still have groceries to get. It's bleak and part of why I feel so damn hopeless all the time. I constantly feel like I'm not doing enough, like I've failed in society for not wanting to labor more. For not wanting to spend more. 

In the first Hunger Games movie, Gayle asks Katniss, "What if everyone just stopped watching?" She responds with "They won't, Gayle. " He goes on to say, "If no one watches then they don't have a game." I've always had that concept bouncing around in my mind, like what if everyone stopped voting? What if we all stopped driving? What if everyone stopped paying rent? What if everyone stopped working? What if everyone stopped buying things? But they won't. There will be people who vote, who will drive, who will pay rent, who will work, who will buy things. Not that boycotting things hasn't worked in the past, but viewer the amount of chaos spread by one day of no one buying things? I doubt we'll see a significant amount of change like we did during the pandemic. As a kid I also thought about what would happen if no one voted, but even then I knew that the people who would absolutely vote no matter what would send things into ruin. Or at least change things that I could have avoided through voting. Imagine the change that could happen if we stopped buying things? Or just stopped working altogether? Would that actually change things? Would the minimum wage increase? Would the rents go down? Would quality of life improve? Probably not. I don't know, I didn't go to college.

So now we have too much supply, in my opinion. We have clothing factories making so many clothes as if everyone and their mothers are buying it. We have a plastic problem, despite how god damn useful it is. At least one fast food place in your town had someone drop a fuck ton of plastic lids on the floor and had to throw them all away. If one person doesn't follow recycling rules, one piece of non-recyclable material, the entire recycling bin is now trash. Even the new electric cars are bad for the world, using child slave labor to mine the cobalt for the batteries. 99% of food places have food waste. Someone screws up an order, things get dropped, things get thrown out at the end of the day. Maybe you're wondering, viewer, if we could just give this away? It depends on the place you work, honestly. But for hot food specifically, after two hours it can't be served anymore. For donations, it has to be food safe, so only one day before expiration. It's a lot of bureaucratic nonsense. 

There are lobbies with empty chairs and chaises as tons of homeless try their best to survive outside. Empty offices with no workers, just gathering dust. In Denver at least they've been bouncing the idea around of converting it to housing, but that will take years to come to fruition. The streetcars that used to get people around are no more, replaced with efficient RTD. If you haven't noticed, viewer, I'm talking about Denver specifically. Granted, many big cities did this too. They sold their streetcars and replaced it with personal cars. Instead of taking a nice train up through the mountains, we all drive. Just increasing more and more ozone. New cheaply built high rises keep getting built. They add another lane on the highways. They revoke more social services. Things keep getting more and more expensive. Then the planet will be too hot for us humans to survive. We will have brought on our own demise. Those with the money and power to change these things, just won't. The current way makes them too rich, too powerful. Those of us who want things to be better, who fight, who protest, all have to work together, but there's just too many of us who can't stop our lives. So we're just stuck on a speeding train, heading towards a cliff who knows how far down the track. 

[thoughtsoffoxes]

Brains, snaps, and how we need to take a step back

     History has always repeated itself and I know we don't mean to. For example, every era we think that we're better than our past. We innovate and understand our world better than our predecessors. Despite how far science has come, I feel like we still imbue either mysticism or anthropomorphism into the things we don't quite understand. Our brains we don't fully understand, and I'm not a psychologist, but I think about how I think. I think about how I think when I'm not sober and in my opinion it's probably not as complicated as we think. Yes, viewer, I think I said 'think' too many times. 

    So the brain is a big ol' bundle of nerves, which branch and cross over one another to different sections of the brain to emit hormones or chemicals or whatever so we can keep going in whatever weird way our brains manage. All these nerves are bundles and knotted and tangled together. Now, there are brain sections and I'm not a brain scientist so I have very little idea what does what or what relates to what. Here's what gets me. Dopamine, serotonin, and all the other chemicals are just that, molecules strung together, and when they go along nerves they affect us. Because we've got really big brains and imaginations, we think we're important, there's a better reason why memories work the way they do. In my opinion, we are only a conduit and we regularly forget we are animals. 

    Last night, my spouse and I were talking and as we were retelling some of our earliest memories we kept remembering more little bits. Here's the thing, we both started from our birthdays which as a small child are normally exciting. It's memorable. Usually there's cake, and you get a really cool toy in your four year old mind, viewer. I hope you did, viewer, but like I said in my first post I am privileged. Anyway, because these were starting points, we could piece together little bits, or little snaps as I call them. Maybe other people can remember all their childhood, but I am not one of those people. As time has gone on, the mundane and day-to-day disappear. I'm sure that I had cereal for breakfast most days, I'm sure I played with my toys, I'm sure I watched TV. But I don't remember what I did specifically, or what I watched for sure. I remember these snaps though, and most of them are related to big emotions, usually stress. 

    I hope you don't mind, viewer, if I talk about these childhood memories. My first memory is boring and I'm still unsure why it was the moment my baby brain stored it. I was watching TV in a duplex (I know that now, not as a baby), specifically I was watching a puppet 'Winnie the Pooh' show. I turned from the TV to look out the window behind the couch, looking through the blinds. That's it. I don't know what I saw, I don't know how young I was but I was no older than 3. Though, I wonder if it was a noise that made me turn around and because of the feeling, the chemical tickle it gave me, caused it to be etched into my brain. I can't really place how the little snaps of memory work and it doesn't help that there are home videos that could be influencing my memory. The thing is too, I can only date these little snaps by where I was living. So going over my next memories, they probably aren't chronological. 

    I remember playing with my sister, we were pillow fighting and both our parents came downstairs. I have no idea why, what the problem was, but my dad instantly gets angry and punches a hole in the wall. Maybe we were supposed to be doing something but mind you, viewer, I was no older than 5 when this happened, my sister was no older than 11. I can still see him in a suit, on his way to work for the morning and that's it. I don't know what happened after that. Looking back as an adult, it's no wonder I remember this specifically. It wasn't common, he never did it again as far as I know. But it instilled in me a fear of him, to not make him angry. It also shaped how I express anger I realize. I lash out, snap, and one day I might punch a hole in the wall. Maybe it's how his parents treated him growing up, but I can only speculate. 

    This series of memories are long, but please stick with me, viewer. 

I remember going to my grandparents house for the first time, meeting them, and I was shy. I did what every stereotypical kid does and hid behind their mother's legs. I remember feeling scared because someone new was encroaching on my space. I remember both my grandmother and mother laughing over my shyness like it was cute. 

I remember exploring the house which was the biggest home I'd been in yet. One room which was my cousins had pink carpet, had shutters on the inside that I couldn't figure out with my baby hands, and the ceiling light was always on. 

I remember being in the big basement family room, getting a stuffed elephant and expressing how this was my favorite animal ever, but all animals were my favorite animal at that time. 

I remember going into a room and my grandfather was in a reclining chair in a sunlit room. He was most likely watching NASCAR or something like it, and he had a bowl of candy orange slices. The ones you buy at any gas station and they're chewy but get stuck in your teeth. I remember trying one and disliking it immediately, and feeling disappointed that there was a candy I didn't like. 

I remember them having a big, white, fluffy dog, which looking back on it, it was probably a Samoyed. Later my mother told me that it wreaked havoc and peed everywhere, probably because it was under-stimulated and didn't get enough attention that eventually my grandmother gave back to the shelter.  (Viewer, I need you to know that not getting enough attention is a commonality that runs through my family. At least on my mom's side. My grandparents didn't give my mother enough love and support, and my parents didn't give me enough either. All these adults at some point got dogs and also didn't give them enough attention or love or care. I would know, my parents also got a dog they later gave back. As a dog owner, I'd never do that to my dog and I will take care of him better than them. )

Their backyard was a garden, the greenest grass, trees shading you from the sun, and stepping stones that led to the front. I remember hopping from one stone to the next, back and forth, unbothered. Maybe the dog was running around with me, I'm unsure. 

The final snap I can recall is my parents putting me in the car outside that house. Inside the car, either I was given a sippy cup or there was one already in the car. Whatever was in the sippy cup was bad, I know for sure it was not drinkable anymore. But it was one of the first times I could hear little whiny sounds coming from the cup. I instantly thought it was little tiny people, a la Horton Hears a Who, being destroyed from me drinking whatever was inside. Like vividly, two parents colored in the same hue as the orangey liquid, with a kid begging to not die. Quite morbid. 

    All those little fragments I doubt happened on the same day, but it could have. I won't know. I do know, however, that I tried to put things in my mouth all the time as a young kid. Polly pocket shoes, fake coins, hard plastic bears that to me looked like candy, and more. One of these times was at night and my mother is sitting with me and I start choking on a neon yellow Polly pocket shoe. She does get me to cough it back up, but I'm sure it didn't help my fussy record so far. She had told me that we had gone to the doctors a fair bit when I was a kid, but she didn't say why specifically. She had told me that getting me in a daycare/preschool was difficult too. Which brings us to one snap located in said preschool. (I want to be clear, this isn't the only one I have, but this post is long enough. Thank you viewer, for staying with me) 

    This preschool was in a church, or maybe it was a church affiliated school, either way this building was also big. The room I had preschool in was on the first floor which then opened up to the main area, a big main area. Standing in the middle of it and looking up, you could see the upper floors and their mezzanines and a skylight on top, it was beautiful viewer. I have no idea why I was in this preschool because my parents weren't religious, but maybe it was highly rated as far as preschool goes. Anyway, during nap time on what felt to me a random day, both my parents shamble into our dark classroom as awkwardly as two adults with some balloons can. They turn on the lights. They told me it was my birthday and they were coming to pick me up to celebrate. It was magical for 4 year old me. We went to Chuck E. Cheese, a titular kid's birthday place. We had ice cream cake. I got presents. The works, most likely average birthday affair. But I don't remember all the little things that happened that day, I remember the strange thing that happened. My parents came in during nap time, holy shit right? That's pretty exciting. 

    That's the thing, the stranger memories link the more average ones together. The hormones or signals or god damn farts go through the little branches in your brain to find and rediscover things that you've forgotten about, viewer. It's how I view it at least. If I spend my time on these memories, I'll only get more snaps. Even as I write all this out I keep getting more. Maybe they're connected, maybe they're on the same day, maybe they're months apart. It's very hard to tell and I won't ever remember the full story. 

    This memory is emblematic of that. Let's set the scene, viewer. I am home with my mother. I might've been bothering her or doing whatever nonsense toddlers like to do. All of a sudden, she gets so angry. I don't know what I did, but she got so upset and she's yelling and she's threatening to have my dad come home from work. Now here's the thing, my dad at the time left in the mornings and came back late in the evening, so it was very unnatural at the time for him to be home in the daylight. This is where things get confusing to me because it feels like my mother's threatening to tell my dad and then he's there. He's home and now there's two adults yelling at me. That's it. Possibly that night, my dad comes up to me as I'm watching TV. He's still in his suit, so he most likely went back to work. He's holding up a toothpick. He says 'lying is bad'. He breaks the toothpick and says, 'I didn't break the toothpick, that's lying'. Here's the thing, I don't even remember what I lied about, and for the longest time I thought breaking toothpicks was a bad thing. Even now, I'm not sure if those two snaps are on the same day, but they have the same emotional stress, my parents being upset with me. To this day, it makes me incredibly upset if someone gets angry with me or if I feel like I've done something wrong. 

    I want to be clear, viewer, this is a rambling shamble of words. All of this typed by little chemical reactions and signals that went off in my brain to press keys on a keyboard, to see what I'm typing, and then judge that it's so long and spirals out of control. I guess this is a good representation of my brain. I find it interesting that I can keep going on and on about this. How these things shaped me. How it's become integral to my being. I get curious, and I am shy. I like buildings, exploring them or hanging out, and especially when something in it is beautiful. I'm a people-pleaser, I'm sensitive and I get angry like my dad. This is only for me specifically, but everyone's like this. 

    Every single human being all the way back to the first humanoids grew from their circumstances. All these interesting events, snaps, whatever you call it, viewer, are like butter for a flaky croissant, an incredibly big mega croissant. And I do like butter, but maybe it's too much now. Things have gotten too complicated. There's too much butter. Too much tragedy. Too much arrogance and greed.

    We think too much about thinking, we think about how things could have gone differently. Some people think that their thoughts and actions are judged by a higher power. That when we die that higher power determines whether you burn in hell or chill in heaven. Some people think that this higher power speaks to them, as if to guide them on The Path™. Some people that they have a destiny or some higher purpose than to just live, eat, and shit. Some people think that we're more special than the world around us and we aren't that special in the scheme of things. 

    Over the course of all time we slowly have evolved by accident, atoms smashed together over and over again to eventually make stars, to make debris that makes our planets. It's all math and physics and things that as humans we can prove and write out formulas and theorems. But none of it matters, it is all neutral in our world. It happened and stuff will continue to smash together and make happy accidents. At some point, a chemical reaction caused a series of molecules to make life. It ate up the sun's rays and pooped out the oxygen we breathe, and here we are in late-stage capitalism. Even the way our cells work, it's all complicated chemical reactions that depend on one another to work and keep going. Hell, there's even more cells and organisms than there are us-cells. It's incredible that we've gotten to this point and also tragic.

    My experiences as a small child are common and unique, they shape me as all our memories shape us. Our parents traumas, their parents and so on, compound over and over, like that god damn croissant. No matter where in the world you go there's trauma, there's death, and that affects us and our offspring. When a human first murdered another, we all hold that sorrow of the victims family and we all hold that rage and hatred. Humans like commonality and when someone's different from what we're used to, what we think is correct, it somehow gives justification to harm, to enslave, or obliterate to extinction. 

    We should be smart enough by now to accept that people will be different. Hell I should be more accepting of people but I'm not. If we realized that we're just a mass of organisms and chemicals and the only thing that matters is surviving and accepting. There's no top to climb up to, no way to be better than another person. No we aren't all exactly the same, but we are similar enough to each other. 

    I want to leave you, viewer, with this; Human brains are confusing and we think too highly of ourselves. We should be more mindful of our world, of other humans, of our actions. Though, knowing humans and the scale of things that need changing, it will take an incredible amount of time and luck. 

Farewell, whoever you are, and keep trying. 

[thoughtsoffoxes]

Let's see how this Goes

I should explain myself. This blog, this entire thing, is going to be a mess because I'm a mess. I've been debating on starting a blog and posting all my thoughts somewhere. I guess I took the leap and now, maybe, you're reading this, viewer. I don't want this blog to be anything more than a place where my inner thoughts go. Before they were just on an insanely long Google doc and I want to be done with that. Maybe for gigs, I'll post them with a proper timestamp.

    Now since this is my first post, I guess I'll introduce myself to you, viewer. Whoever you are. 

My actual name doesn't matter a whole lot so you, viewer, will know me as Fox. 

At the time of writing this I am 25. 

I have a lot of anxiety, a lot, like boat loads, more than I know what to do with, which is one of the reasons I would rant on a Google doc and now here. 

My perspective is objectively Queer. If you don't like it, viewer, leave. The internet's a big place and this blog is just one little crumb compared to it all. There's something you'll like out there, viewer. Try Reddit, I heard it's fun. 

I'm also married, queer married, and my spouse and I have a son dog together. 

Just so we're on the same page, viewer, I want you to know that I am priviledged and fortunate. Not all Queer people have it as easy as I do and I am thankful for that.

That should cover the basics, I don't want to overwhelm anyone yet. This is my first post after all. I could go on and on and on about the little things in my life or the big events that made me who I am, but we got time. I'll fill you in on the details later. I don't want to get into all the childhood trauma on this post, we've only just met, viewer.   

Well, maybe that should be it. I was never good at writing conclusions in English, and even some of my rants just stop unexpectedly. Maybe I moved onto another thing or my shift had ended, either way. I hope you, viewer, can get some mild enjoyment from my ramblings. No pressure though, I'm just here doing this out of my own enjoyment. Farewell, whoever you are, and keep going.