My head is so full of depression’s lies about me that I don’t really know what it is like to be in my company.

Smelly, I know that much. Not nearly as bad as I assume it was before the wonder and glory that is my showers at Rosewood^[1], and when I am in public I am in clean clothes and wearing deodorant, but I still feel like I am olfactorily unpleasant.

I assume that I am fairly pleasant to encounter. I’m always at least somewhat cheerful and friendly, and I like to think charming or at least endearing.

Not sure which of those I’d rather be, come to think of it.

I think growing up walking on eggshells around my short tempered father made me acutely aware of how one’s emotional aura affects others.

Especially us sensitive types. Having the high degree of empathy has its pitfalls, to be sure, though I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I can’t imagine only perceiving my own emotions. I’d feel so alone!

I also think that my high degree of empathy is another factor in my being pleasant and cheerful around others as well. Whatever emotions I put out are going to come back to be via others and so it’s very much in my self interest to make sure that I make other people feel good with what I do.

That does cause problems with my ability to assert myself, though, because it makes me reluctant to do things I know will upset people and sometimes that is necessary in order to promote one’s own best interests.

Like I said earlier this week, I end up just telling people what they want to hear. Not only is that more pleasant for me on the empathic level, it makes them go away, which ends the state of tension I was in due to just being around others.

And then I go right back to being lonely.

It’s what I’m good at. What I’m used to.

Thus is revealed the fundamental conflict of my being – I am terribly lonely and long for any kind of human connection, yet my anxiety makes it hard to be around anyone but my little circle of friends.

It’s not too bad in known environments. Like the Community Care Clinic where I go to get my wounds cared for, or our friendly neighborhood Denny’s.

I’ve gone down the road to recovery far enough that places like that only cause the faintest of spikes in my anxiety level.

And, of course, being with one or more of my friends helps immensely. And seeing as since my legs went boom I’ve not been able to go places by myself, wherever I go, I have Julian with me, and that makes a huge difference.

Love you, dear Julian, My life would be a heck of a lot harder without you.

But back to the conflict. I’ve realized that in many ways, I am at my happiest and most relaxed when I am with my friends and being social, and quite often when the time comes to go home and resume my usual life, it makes me sad.

And I find myself thinking, “But I don’t want to go back in the box!”.

And it’s things like that which make me realize that I am actually, deep down, a much more sociable and extroverted person than you would think given how I live and act.

Should I be lucky enough to one day shed my burden of mental anguish and be able to live a strong and healthy life, I am positive that I will want to be doing social things where I can express my personality far more often.

Just how often, I don’t know. Maybe very often, maybe still just now and then.

But it sure would be nice to find out.

More after the break.

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Dear straight boys :

Just a friendly little reminder that unless you’ve seen her naked, you don’t actually know what she has between her legs.

I say this not to make you paranoid but to encourage you to just keep an open mind and be prepared to be flexible in your requirements.

After all, the girl of your dreams just might have a penis.

Well, nobody’s perfect, amirite?

(I’ll leave it to you lesbians to cover the other case. I couldn’t do it justice. )

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I find gender funny

Specifically with how seriously people take it.

I mean, shouldn’t we be past all this gender essentialism by now? People are people are people, no matter what’s between their legs or where they do most of their shaving.

And all the modern gradations of gender (genderfluid, bigendered, femme boy, etc) just point to the fact that the whole thing is a spectrum anyhow, so how big a deal can it be?

Myself, I don’t have the right term for myself. I honestly wish I didn’t need to have a gender, it all seems so boring and restrictive and comes with so much bullshit.

Yeah, I’m male, and I’m fine with that. But I would never let that limit my self-expression. Because while my body has a gender, my soul does not, and sometimes it feels male and sometimes it feels female and sometimes it feels neither and sometimes it feels both with the needle buried at 11 and so what is the point in trying to put a label on it?

Any label you stick to me will be wrong after my next transformation anyhow, so what is the point? I’m a little bit of everything and can become anything, anything at all.

I am, in fact, downright magical, in the sense that I can do things that most people would think are impossible because I operate on levels most people don’t even know exist, let alone that anyone can manipulate them at will.

That’s the magicians favorite trick, after all. Pulling a rabbit out of a hat by moving it though a dimension you can’t see.

Oh right. Gender.

Ultimately, I find the whole thing tedious. Be whatever your soul says you are, and if that changes for you as often as it changes for me, be the thing that changes and don’t worry about which one is the “real you”.

You are not your masks, you are that which wears them.

And that thing, my glorious darlings, is fabulous.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.