Briannah

We're not building anything new in the kitchen, we're painting over the ugly cabinetry and counters, and the tutorials require sanders.    It's a large sanding area, and Nikki has already informed me he's not doing an area that big for multiple times (you have to sand the entire area each coat of the cement) if we go the faux cement veneer by hand.  But all the brands look the same to me, none of them stand up and scream 'I"M QUALITY I"LL LAST!".  None of them even look that sturdily built, and I guess sometimes I live in my childhood and want to buy thing that will last for 30 years like grandpa did.  We're first sanding to rought up the counter to increase adhesion, then sanding for smoothness of what we put on it before we seal, not to strip anything.  The nifty thing is we found a diy one for painting the cabinets, no pre-sanding needed, just use chalk pant and it adheres fine, covers well, and the site did a two years follow up and it lasts.  SCORE!  And I can't really help sand thanks to carpal tunnel I picked up from years of retail and my insurance is unwilling to pay for surgery since Im mostly functional, just hurty on repetitive action things which I no longer do to make a living since the last 11 years I was working were in an office instead of the scanning/cooking tasks that caused it, so Nikki gets his way here.  And in the worst case zombie apocalypse scenario I can use it to be a zombies brain in. 

The saw is to build the built-in bookshelving and possible lock-in wood wall slats(light weight locking slats that just go on over your existing walls and we can easily fix the living room walls!) to cover the panel issue in the living room that will require a LOT of precision cutting thanks to some really unfortunate architectural choices in there..  And the craft table Nikki wants to build that folds up and is really small when we are using the spare room as a guest room.  Both of which will also require large scale sanding after finish apparently, in addition to the saw for him to cut all the pieces. It's a lot of wood cutting as I understand him tell it. 

Would it help if I pm'd you the links to some of the projects? 

I'm going to start banging my head on my desk in numb misery.  Researching good brands is painful, the reviews are HORRIBLY boring reads and I want to spork out my eyes.  How many things can anyone say about a power sander?  I did make a little progress despite the mindnumbing horror, found one that catches dust through the pad, so while I have no iillusions it will catch ALL the dust, minimizing as much as possible sounds good in theory.    Nikki and I are both a wee bit lazy on the manual labor part, and sanding down a whole kitchen by hand sounds...painful.

Right, don't wear gloves, because I won't be able to feel anything.  That is generally my experience with gloves of any kind.  I have a weird aversion to sleeves too, although I do force myself to deal in the winter.  So that is a great relief, thank you Emma!  We do have the power drill and a bunch of bits, but we need some sort of power sander for the kitchen and power saw for building the built in bookcase/shelving unit in the office and the folding craft table thing I found, we're sorta settling on a convertible guest room/craft room for the offsprings old room.  So when we have guest there is a place to put them, and when we don't it will function for his art/modeling and my scrapbooking/origami/whatever new thing I decide to try next.  And we plan to work very slowly.  Grandpa was a big proponent of checking and rechecking until you have what you are going to do in your head for sure, and testing it out (hence the weird dollhouse thought) to practice.   

I'm not entirely useless to Nikki in this, I got a B+ in woodshop and learned a lot growing up with Grandpa. But Nikki is definitely way more skilled and forepersonlike in this mess.  I'm sorta the idea/slave labor assitant! 

STill super excited about my art though.   I can't wait til he has time to paint it!

And another potential path to dealing is that like so many other things, holidays are cultural expectation.  We are taught these feelings and expectations for the time of year, it's not a natural biological/brain chemical response.

We have the choice inside how much weigh to put on this cultural construct while we are figuring it all out.  It takes a lot of years, I know, but from personal experience I know it's possible to take a good look at our actual lives, and adjust our internal feelings about them, which has been the absolute best remedy for me personally in dealing with the change, and I'm in group a, the really dysfunctional, trying to have tv perfect holidays, then back to the day to day crap.   Realizing after several years that it's just another day altered by the cultural understanding which I never really fit into all that great anyway.  This is not a slow process, and not right for everyone, but if you think it might be right for you it's completely worth persuing and can be done. 

How I ended up on the path is this.  We have a holiday here called Sweetest Day.  It's basically a second Valentine's Day that Hallmark made up to sell cards in thier off season between the summer wedding season and the winter holidays.  I had never heard of it growing up on the east coast where it didn't catch on, and my freinds in Jersey still tell me they've only ever heard about it from me when I ask outta curiousity.  So I watched people scrabble about to make it a 'perfect holiday' for their so's like they do in feb for Valentine's day, and it was a revelation.  Holidays are just social made up things, and I had the choice to participate or not.  (Once someone wrote down the name of the holiday for me and I understood it, I kept makeing swedish meatballs because I thought they were saying Swedish Day and I Thought it was some heritage celebration locally like the German Festival they do annually in Toledo with all the food, not just beer).  And I didn't feel left out, or alone on years I didn't have either a boyfriend or girlfriend at the time. And that made me stop and look at the other holidays, and realize...they're the same.  So now Christmas isn't a huge deal other than having a bit of fun looking at all the bling all around town and a nice family dinner with gifts.  And if the gifts and family dinner went away, no big deal.  Because I spent years working out my internal feelings vs. the cultural ones I was taught and get externally reinforced.  It was...freeing. 

What other paths have you guys taken?  I'm curious what my other options were aside from Monica's excellent suggestions and the one I took. 

Best wishes on the healing!  I think Karen's advice about the hydration is really good. 

LOL  You have never seen me completely lose my mind in the presence of a tiny garter snake.  Phobias are fun!  I can handle heights, spiders, bugs(except maggots, so gross), whatever, but things have to have LEGS, FINS, WINGS, or something.  Some sort of limbs.  I love all limbed reptiles, but not the limbless ones.  The legless lizard freaks me out to.  I'm convinced the biology peeps are nuts and lying to me, that's a snake. 

Hm...blue crab mabye...but don't quote me in stone on that. Grandpa used to take me to Assateague Island a lot, I love that place, it's a rolling island off the coast of Maryland/Virginia.  If you've ever heard of the book Misty of Chincoteague (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_of_Chincoteague) book series, they're written about Assateague and it's sister island Chincoteague.  There's a herd of wild ponies on Assateague (with a fanciful origin story of a sinking spanish galleon, but most likely someone was using the island as a natural corral and never went back) and you can camp on the Maryland side of the island with the ponies roaming around, it's awesome.  They come right through your camp site as they please.  Waking up to find one looking int the window of the camper at you was amazing.  Once a year on the Virginia side they round them all up, swim them on the channel between the islands, and auction off the foals to support the fire house and other emergency services on the island with a large fair, best crabcake sandwhiches ever, quite the spectacle.  People who buy them though need to be aware they're only ponies because of the high salt content in all the vegetation stunting their growth, if you take a foal and feed it nutritious food you will have a full horse.    I love Assateauge so much, we're going to try to orchestrate a camping week this summer.   One summer I got within a foot of a great blue heron, I'm not sure who was more starlted, bird or Bree.

But one of the things you can do there is crabbing by these docks, and we had a little too much fun and had a little too much crab, so we brought it all home and shared with the neighbors and unwittingly unleashed the Great Crab Plague of 1992 I think it was.  One neighbor put them in her tub until it was time to cook them, and they got out and chased her and her husband around the apartment.  Another's dog got curious and apparently went streaming through the apartment yelping with a crab hanging off it's tail like a streamer.  LOL  They weren't very big, but had to be at least 5 inches across to keep.  The ranger station gave out these little flexible  plastic red crab rulers, very helpful. 

I nearly lost a finger on that trip, since neither Grandpa nor I live near any good crabbing spots we opted to by the $5 cloth net instead of the $20 metal net.  We didn't realize the reason the metals nets are there (they're like solid metal baskets on a pole) was that those little crabs are manaical about getting tangled in the cloth ones.  So I wasn't as careful as I should have been trying to untangle it, and it got a hold of my hand just under one of my finger knuckles.  A nearby fellow fisher realized what was happening.  Now to my point of view, I'm in incredible pain in my hand, and a strange man grabs me and is pushing me down to the dock facefirst more or less.  So I'm screaming bloody murder, Grandpa is completely stunned, and no one milling around knows what to do.  But the minute he got my hand in the water that little sucker let go and I was free!  Apparently he was quite the crabber, and told us to be REAL careful aroudn them, if they get you on the knuckle their pounds per square inch is enough to take the finger.  OY!  And then he taught us how to tell a male from a female for that species (the bottom markings were either a half circle like a dome building, or a tower shape like the washing monument, and if it was a cone shape the crab was changing sex). 

I wish we'd caught him, I totally would have eaten him in vengeance.  But I ate one of his relatives instead.

Not a problem, I just wish I could remember what I siad to just rewrite it.  But you know me, happy Bree, no problems with a technological goofup.  Now if you 'll all excuse me I'm going to go resume laying down and begging my body to hit menopause and stop trying to harm me.

​It's gonna be!  We went to buy some more food at the kitchen was nearing empty, and found a heated mattress pad with dual controls for a reasonable price.  Score!  I particularly like the ability for both Nikki and I to set temperatures according to our comfort, so I'm not freezing him and he's not roasting me.  I am a temperature wimp, to hot or to cold and my body gets upset.  LOL Nikki has a much greater tolerance of temperatures in both extremes.  I envy that sometimes.

I think I"m going to have a find an alterer, a few of my favorite pieces would be sad to lose and I'd like to hold on to them longer.

​Thank you Emma!  I went to the back of my closet, and pulled out an old pair of jeans. I  haven't fit in these things in ages, but I figured what the hey.  The worst that could happen is they don't find and I send myself on a spiral of obsessive failure freakout.  But..I'm in them.  And for the first time in ages my pants aren't falling off since I'd been walking around in patns a full two sizes too big for me like an idiot. LOL  Now I have to go get on the rower for the next six hours or so...but man that cookie butter milkshake was so worth it. 

I think a little bluntness solves so many problems.  Of course, I've been accused of being overly blunt int he past, so I may be biased to your worldview.

​You and me both.  The world will eventually get better, I believe that.  Some day.  Just not today. 

Thank you Emma.  She did it again.  Apparently Nikki didn't take her to her crate when he went to bed, but she put herself in her crate before I went, so I thought she had, and she came downstairs when we were sleeping and ate the rest of the homemade bread I had out in the kitchen to dry out to make french toast.  *headdesk*  This dog is out to get me this week.  So now Nikki and I have a strict protocol that whoever goes to bed first must take the dog with her or make sure the other person is aware to stop this scavenging monster! 

And today it's hit the funny stage.    Yesterdays temper is today's laughter I suppose. 

I've never been on your road, but I do understand it is a hard one and I think you handle it with a great deal of humor, grace, and self-awareness that will help you on this journey.  I wish you all the success in the world and an awesome life to fill your future!

Thank you for reading them!  I was thinking about the whole sorry mess of marriage in relation to several recent conversations with a variety of friends looking for advice/comforting listener on a variety of topics, including the ever terrifying friend of mine attacking his wife and one of her children, and now he's stalking her after she left him.  Man is that a mess, and I backed the hell away from him fast, he's not the person I thought he was obviously.  Gyah.  But it all stirred up a  lot of thought on the whole thing.  And how pervasive that 'you have to do it just like I do' really is.  It seems like I don't know anyone who doesn't have to constantly defend the state of their marriage to others.  Children, how many people are involved, what races are involved, religions, money, behaviors, etc. etc.  Why are we on the culture as a whole so obsessed with external validation of our own situations by forcing others to mirror them or getting a cheap superiority thrill at their expense by labeling them lesser for those differences if they refuse to change to please society?   Did we lose the ability to live and let live individually, or did we never really have it? 

I don't understand my world.  I just live in it. 

I think you have a very realistic and empathetic view of what is going on in your house, unconditional acceptance of a person for who they are versus unconditional acceptance of her sense of self and her own feelings.  And you're right, it doesn't really matter why.  It could be as simple as her romantic/relationship maps just do not work at all for women, and if so that is immutable.  Or it could be a series of complex life and social experiences that can be mutable, but only if she chooses it to be.  And unless she makes that choice, you're right, the result and dealing with it maturely is what matters, and you are so elegant at that.  And at understanding that sometime letting go IS acceptance.  You're so far ahead of so many other people.  When you talk about her your words ring with the knowledge between trying to make it work and accepting that you can't force it, and that is a joy to hear these days especially.  If only my former friend could understand that. 

So I tell my son all of this, and let him make of it what he will, but when he hits my age, he won't be sitting here wondering why no one really talked about marriage as a whole.  The ups and downs.  I've been criticized before for talking openly with him about most things, 'children don't need to know their parents baggage', but I really disagree, and children SHOULD see thier parents baggage, and that their parents handle it, and are willing to talk about how they handle it, where it comes from, and prepare their children for doing the same instead of just 'good luck, we don't talk about those things'! 

I'm so sad for the yellow, so many neat clothes for both Nikki and I in that color...and it goes horribly wrong. LOL It makes us look like we have some form of severe jaundice going on.  The dress arrived, and it fits nicely, despite my panic fears because I ordered a size smaller than I usually do becuase I have lost some more weight adn ignoring that voice in my head I followed their size charts after Nikki took measurements.  I have an awkward body where my shirt size is different from my pant size, and this can get really tricky with dresses, but I tried it on yesterday and it works beautifully.  Although it weights a ton, it's been so long I forgot how much sequins WEIGH when the entire garment is covered in them.  Nikki has been teasing me that I loaded it with a lead lining.  I think I would fall over if I tried a full length sequin covered gown.  I can't imagine how heavy that would be with all that many more.

Oh, I never said I didn't run into or live a sheltered life.  I've had men tell me in graphic detail how they want to cut me up into little pieces and throw me in the trash for daring to play a video game, which is a 'man's world'.  I've been assaulted.  I've had it made clear to me that I have no value in the world from my father to men on the street because I'm not a great sex object for them. 

And evertyhing I was worried about in my post is coming to pass.  These incidents I and my female friends (Both cis and trans) go through are spiking on a sudden rise, because those people just got a huge validation in their feelings.  It's not about the press released, it's about what is actually happening to me and others I know.

Thank you, the headache has finally gone, and luckily the part of my head I decided to headbutt was in my hair so no visible bruises to scream "CLUMSY GIRL WHO CAN'T SHOWER WITHOUT A CHAPERONE HERE!" to the world.  I'm still all...weird inside, but it's calming down a little bit.  It's just this insane feeling that I'm vulnerable to some sort of attack and I can't find the hole in the defense wall or even a logical provocation to explain it.  It doesn't even make sense, as I've removed most of the actual unpleasant influences in my life.  Brains, who can understand them?

My new super awesome homemade from scratch (sorta, I admit I buy the cornbread crumbs instead of making bread and crumbling it, but close enough!) is going to debut Tday.  The family always brings dishes to each others on the holidays, and I"m really not sure why AJ and I do this, because I host one holiday and she the other and it just seems like a weird dance of traveling food, but whatever keeps the peace I suppose. 

My home organization project came to a screeching (but temporary) halt as my main work area is my dining room, and is currently stuffed to the gills with a stegosaurus in a santa hat, a polar bear in a scarf, and two snoopy sculptures.  Nikki go most of the string lights up yesterday, is going to finish them and get my light sculptures outside and set up today.  We're moving the sculpture things from the front yard to the side yard, last time we put them up some jerk kicked my polar bears head backwards.  Grr.  I love my polar bear thing, it's adorable and his head moves slowly back and forth.  My holiday stegosaurus is adorable too.   I will go full Negan from Walking Dead on anyone I find kicking their defenseless heads in. 

And I'm geared up for this years 'why do you celebrate christmas as an atheist' round of crazy.  Cuz it's a giant holiday in my culture that has as much meaning in the spirit of catching up wtih family, taking a break from the winter dreary, and submission to the fact that it's EVERYwhere so might as well have fun with the sparkly lights and presents as it has religious meaning for some.  Meh.  No, I"m not cranky today, why do you ask?  *smirks*  I miss my pool.

TO be clear, it's not really the president I'm worried about.  It's the senators, congressmen, and lobbyists that have spent years building up thier constituancy on the idea that Christian religious values must be legislated and anyone who doesn't fit in them loses their rights.  I feel like as a country quite a few people have lost the ability to understand the difference between the freedom to practice their religion and make thier choices based upon that religion and turning that religion into a tyrrany for others by legislating it and forcing them on people with different or no religions in a country that was created with the intent to separate religion from state matters is so scary to me.  Not to mention the wave of harassment we're seeing all around the country by people on the streets around me. 

Trump will be what he's always been a dude on the tv far away from me.  But those people in the streets, there around me.  And using his televison persona (and who knows what the real trump is like) as justification for a lot of scary things. 

We focus too much on the president, and as a society don't pay enough attention to what is happening in congress and the senate. 

I'm so glad your getting the full benefit!  And your initial thought,t hat counseling is something to prove to others, isn't unusual.  Sadly our world stigmatizes counseling and belittles its' value.  I was 17 when my father decided I was crazy and forced me into a therapist, and I was really resistant to it, since my mother had done the same when I was 11.  When I was 11, that therapist wasn't very good, she reported EVERYTHING to my parents, and it backlashed on me bad.  So between what I had absorbed of culture and prior experience, poor Dr. H.  But then that moment came, when I realized it was about me and learning to cope with my family. that Dr. H's intent was to help me be healthier and find what healthier meant for me, and that I wasn't the one who didn't understand the reality I was living in, that moment was tranformative.  It was super emotional for me to read your post about that moment, most people won't share about moments like that in therapy for fear of the stigma, and it's lovely to see someone else doing so.  Thank you!

Did that feel awkward as an interview format to do?  Of did you find it helpful in getting across what you wanted to say?

That is such an odd format, to ask an interviewee to repeat the question then answer themselves.  I wonder why they chose that, it seems that it would be awkward to do and to watch. 

Just a hug.  Loneliness is one of the hardest things, and I'm happy to be here for you if you enjoy  my company.    Feel free to pm me for more direct contact info if you'd like. 

Hugs.  We've talked a lot about everything, and I completely understand how hard it is to separate what we picked up in those early formative years from today.  You have my number, yes?  You're always free to call if you need an ear for that!  I don't have the answers, but I do have empathy and intimate familiarity with that road of what do I do with this stuff that I let hold me back forever.  *hugs*

I don't just mean in this community context either.  It's this weird growing anti-language thing I keep butting heads against.  And don't even get me started on the war against words like to.  Seriously?  Anyone needs to type 2?  Two letters is too much typing?  Gyah.  Rage.  And wrestling is okay, that is how we define them and realize the need for new ones, to be able to more accurately discuss topics.  Any topics.  From transgenderism to origami to intercultural understanding to modern science advances. 

Words are the power of thought.

Oh, I thought it was one of those deals where the author made a mistake and forgot to count.  LOL