I did something wacky and fun for today’s video.
I added a TikTok filter. One of those intelligent ones that adds something to the video dynamically and I must say I like the result.
Which are this :
I quite liked having that filter on. It made me feel pretty in an admittedly cartoonish way. The urge to bat those long eyelashes like I’m a feminine and coquettish Minnie Mouse or Betty Boop was strong.
Oh, Mickey, you’re so fine.
But I liked the glammed up me. Not to the point I feel like I found the “real me” or anything like that – it very much felt like a costume – but it was nice to have a chance for my more feminine side to show.
I’m the bearded lady!
Protip : The actual number of bearded ladies was quite low. Most of the ones working in sideshows et al were just fat dudes in dresses.
I mean, it’s not like anyone’s gonna inspect her panties during the show.
Well, not here in Canada, anyway.
And I suppose there’s worse ways to make a living. For one thing, when you’re not working, you can just leave the dress behind and be a regular burly bear dude if that is what you’re into.
Or who knows, if you’re actually trans, maybe it’s the beard that comes off and you can go get yourself a ladies’ night out.
Just don’t mess with the straight boy’s heads, dear. And don’t think they will be fine with your misassigned external gender if you seduce them with your feminine wiles first.
To them it won’t be just that “one little thing” that makes you different from the rest of the gals, you know what I’m saying?
Anyhow, back to me. I liked making that video, even though I feel like there wasn’t enough content in the final product.
Yes, dear fans, I feel like today’s video is underweight. I launched into that topic confident that I had enough to say about it, but I did not.
You’d think I would have learned by now not to try to do a video about a topic that just popped into my head. They need to be based on thoughts that have been marinating in my head long enough to soaked up a lot of words.
Oh well, all I can do is move on.
It makes me want to go back to doing them on the computer and not my phone, though. Not being able to edit the video has become increasingly frustrating and I feel like it’s limiting me in ways I find unacceptable.
So back to the computer tomorrow unless I am feeling too damned lazy.
Doing it on TikTok might not be better but it’s so much easier.
As patient readers know, I have been thinking about things like courage and self-discipline and “grit” lately.
I feel like, if my health allowed it, doing something rugged and manly that involves a lot of sweating, struggling, and suffering would probably do me some good.
Yes, this means your gruff and inarticulate father might have been right about that.
I have remained so unchallenged in life. Partly due to extraordinary abilities and partly do to not being the sort of person who seeks out challenges in order to better himself.
I mean, I grasp it and agree with it in theory. I am sure that being truly tested would clean a lot of the gunk out of my soul.
But ironically I lack the character to force myself to do it.
I mean, that sounds like it’d hurt, and be difficult and scary and stuff.
So I could stop being such a FUCKING PUSSY, that’s why.
My lack of courage and self-discipline is making me miserable. I have no backbone, no intestinal fortitude, no courage, no character.
I’m just an amorphous jelly barely held together by my own gravity.
So fuck ME.
More after the break.
The paternal influence
A quick refresher on where this discussion had gone so far :
Maternal figures nurture and protect children, They offer kisses for owies, hugs for sads, and understanding for the day’s upsets.
Paternal figures do some of that too, of course, but their job is to encourage the child to take (smart) risks, expand their boundaries, fight their way through things, and in general learn that there’s much worse things than getting hurt.
Thus, we have the mama’s boy. Without a competent father figure, you get a child dominated by weakness and fear.
This is especially true in highly polarized households where the paternal figure is angry, punitive, and unstable and the maternal figure tries to compensate (afterwards) by being supportive and forgiving and understanding.
Such a paternal figure is wildly inadequate because their angry and instability make it impossible for the necessary bond of trust to form with the child and without trust in the paternal figure absolutely no developmental help can be forthcoming.
You can’t learn much from a father you’re scared of.
I learned extremely little from my late father except how to avoid him. I certainly took no lessons about how to regulate my emotions and/or behave from him. If anything, what he “taught” me was by counterexample.
I didn’t want to be like him. Perhaps I took that too far. But I digress.
So when I bemoan my lack of character and so forth, it’s not hard to see where it comes from because with how my life turned out, I am not sure where it could have come from.
My father was incompetent. My mother was emotionally absent. School was insultingly easy. I had no friends to learn from for the majority of my childhood. In many ways I grew up in a vacuum.
Like I have said many times before, it’s a wonder I am sane at all. Kids are absolutely not supposed to grow up that way.
But whose job is it to make sure that they don’t?
Nobody ever saw me as their problem, let alone their responsibility.
For most of my life I have been very, very alone.
Even when I wasn’t.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.