High on Reality and Darkness

I want to tell you something, a lot of things, you being used in its plural form in the meaning of "the people of the world". I just want to pour some things out of my head. I'm not drunk, although I've never before wanted to be as much as I do right now. I'm going to tell you why I'm not drunk in a bit.

This is going to be a long post.

It's the Uppsala International Short Film Festival, and I'm enjoying it as much as I can. Almost 6 hours of short films today makes for a lot of varying quality, and a lot of emotions. They're beginning to settle now because I've gotten home and am returning to my usual bubble, so I have to write quickly. This might turn out a bit without structure.

The last block of films I saw were under the theme of "gay/lesbian". They confirmed even more the growing suspicion of how heterosexual I am. Not that I believe anyone really is 100 % one or the other, but the percentile women who attract me is very, very small. Sadly. Sadly, because it limits my world. On the other hand women scares me, so that might be it. They really, really scare me. All defenses I have, every last bit of bubble and shield and sword, go up at the presence of a woman. Hanging out with guys is much easier. And this from someone who wants to break genders, make them not a factor to social life. Who am I to say "treat genders equally" when as soon as I see boobs I retract like a snail in a shell? No, actually, it's not the boobs. It's the face. The eyes, and the make-up. Women look so sneaky and seductive and mean.

I am coming to terms with that I am woman, and I am disabled. Generally I wanted to paint the former over with thick black paint, and hide the later under a pile of leaves. But the womanhood is still there under the paint, and the leaves blow away and scatter at the slightest gust of wind.

A disabled guy in one of the films compared being woman to being disabled. He wanted the disabled to gather as a people, like a race or ethnicity, and start war on the "healthy". He thought the reasons women are looked down on are the same as why disabled are looked down on. Because humanity fears weakness. He compared disability to Oden's sacrifice of one eye to get the power of the well, or Jesus' sacrifice on the cross; offering one thing to gain another. He cried at the mention of how children with one of those syndromes, I think it was Down's, are no longer born in Denmark because of screening of fetuses. They're selected away.

And I was thinking, if someone gave me the option to cut of my leg right now and replace it with cyborg parts, I would. And the thought have run through my mind more than once, that maybe I shouldn't have children on the off chance that whatever I have is inherited. Not that I have an overwhelming wish to get pregant or give birth anyway, it scares the shitfuck out of me. But still. And I was wondering, would that guy include me in his army of disabled people? Does mine count that far? How bad is it really? On the point scale of sucking, what is mine worth? Or am I stuck in between again.

There were a wide range of women at the showing of the gay/lesbian thing, everything from the femme fatale to the butchy butch. I looked at them and wondered if that was what people saw when they look at me? But I also felt how we overlapped and where we were different. And once again, how much I am a woman. I don't want to replace it, just stash it away in the corner marked "insignificant". Or I don't know what I want. Sometimes I think I know exactly what I want only there is no way to realize it, so I'm just dressing it up in "possible" words, when everything I feel is really "impossible".

I have a new pair of jeans and I love them endlessly. I was waiting for a movie to start yesterday, and a guy and a girl walked by me, and then the guy said to the girl sort of low-key "I thought that was a dude", that's how awesome my jeans are.

I usually have a thingy made from the same stuff that's in hockey sticks to help me walk better, but it's broken so I've been without it for a while, and it sucks giant hairy monkey balls, is what it does. I stumble a lot. On the way home I actually stumbled so much I fell on the asphalt. My thoughts were, chronologically, "oh shit", "cool, I'll scrape my jeans", and "I hope I don't land on my bag and break stuff". Then, on the ground, I was just overwhelmed with anger. A little at me and my sucky leg, but mostly because I felt embarrassed and mortified about falling and it was everyone else's fault that I felt that way. If I'd been alone I wouldn't have. So I was angry at the world, and in an uncharacteristical display of emotion I cursed, flailed about a bit, got up and kicked the curb a few times for good measure. I really wanted to turn into a karate-master, go into a dark alley and kick the shit out of whatever random person I found there.

After that I felt dark. A friend was going to a club and I'd said no because it was reggae and because I wasn't in any way dressed for partying, but I decided I wanted to be drunk and get a hug, so I walked there. I stopped outside, and looked at all the people, and listened to them being drunk and happy, and looked at the girls and then at my jeans, and I turned around and walked home. Even dolphins want to be sea lions at the sea lion beach.

Where are all those butch women normally? I've never seen them before. I've never seen a gay couple on town either. Where are they all hiding? And why can't we all mix? Because sea lions are sea lions and dolphins are dolphins and neither want to admit there are mutant sea animals in between.

Who wants a girl who dresses like me? Boys seem to want women who aggressively declare they are women by the way they are and talk and walk and dress. There might be some evolutionary reason for this. I don't have any clear reason why I dress like I do except I think it looks good. I think skirts look stupid, most of the time on most people. I wish boys would agree with me. Can I has brainwashing power? Most of all I think, everyone want to display who they are through how they dress, in some way, more or less. And if I walked outside in whatever is today's fashion, and felt like I looked like everyone else, I would feel so stupid. Probably how they would feel in my clothes.

It's in my head. I am well aware that the only reason I didn't go inside the club is because I decided against it; I don't blame that on other people like I blame them for feeling stupid about falling. I don't regret or feel like I missed out on something big either. I shot a look at the sea lion beach and decided I wasn't up for it.

If you hug me right now, it'd better not be because of anything I've written in here. Spikes are out for tonight.

I came home and saw myself in the glass in the door to the building, and I thought "you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of". I look awesome. That's not the issue.

I'll make a pact with you. I won't delete this post in the morning when I realize how self-obsessive it is, and you... you handle me with care, ok? Respectful care.

And you might not realize it from reading this, but I am ok. I am so good. I am high on reality and darkness and the energy that random drunken people on town surround themselves with, and the anonymity of being stumbled into or yelled at a friday night. I feel like my edges are sharper. I feel photoshopped. I feel alone and stronger because of it. So no worries :)