2. what in the world??

aka have a nice trip, see ya next fall

foreword. 

I’m writing this two days after the US presidential election and I am struggling big time. Yes, even as a Canadian. I have American friends, first of all. But also, US politics have a far reach and a big impact on the politics of other countries. We’re on the verge of electing our own fascist government and I’m terrified as a disabled person, as a trans person, and as someone plugged into international politics. How can we fight for others, for Palestine, when we have to work so hard to stay alive ourselves? I only hope folks don’t give up or fall into complacency and this instead inspires them - us! - to fight harder, to stand up for each other, to hold the supposed progressive parties responsible for moving to the right and embracing genocide.

We have to believe in a better world. We have to.

author’s notes.

I finally started work on my novel! By which, of course, I mean I’ve been researching names for my main character and his sister. I had names for them but they didn’t end up fitting, so now I have the annoying task of renaming them. I wish I was the kind of writer who could just go on with writing and change the names later, but I feel like I need to know them better before I can start. Maybe it’s just another way to procrastinate. (It is and it isn’t.)

But I’ve also solved my problem with the format of my epistolary. Initially I wanted to have my main character and his friend writing emails back-and-forth about their vampiric ordeal, but I couldn’t find a way to make that make sense for them. These characters just wouldn’t have any reason to be emailing each other. Maybe texting, but the friend is a little irregular with her responses so… nah. Instead, I decided that I’ll have the emails (and legally distinct discord messages) be between my MC and his sister, who I had already decided will have moved away for college. It’ll be a good way to talk about their parents, who I’ve given meaningful (to me) names to despite not knowing if they’ll even be present in my story yet.

I’m coming very close to actually writing. 

By the way, I did end up taking out “the Artist’s Way” from the library. I didn’t read much of the book before returning it - it was just too religious for me. I get why some people like it, but I didn’t find it helpful. I did look up the morning pages section and I think that’ll be a great practice to incorporate into my life, so that is a positive! Morning pages are basically writing three pages of whatever comes to your mind as soon as you wake up, whether it makes sense or not, just stream-of-consciousness. Apparently it helps to organize your thoughts and develop a better sense of self-expression and understanding. I could definitely use that as someone with thoughts and ideas scattered around my head in disarray. 

health updates.

I had my two-yearly eye exam and ended up needing to get steroid eye drops to fix an inflamed blood vessel (I think this was the problem?). I am finally finished with the two weeks I’ve been prescribed to use them and now I can go back to wearing contacts full-time. I have to use regular eye drops for a month and see my eye doctor just to make sure everything’s still okay. If the problem comes back or my eye condition changes at all, I might have to switch the type of contacts I wear… which would be unfortunate because I just bought two boxes for each eye and these other ones are probably pricey. I wish I could just afford lasik so I wouldn’t have to worry about it at all, but alas! I am a broke bean.

Daylight Savings has been over for about three days and I’m already feeling the effects of winter SAD (so specified because I also experience summer SAD). I hate it. I’ve been so miserable, lamenting the fact that I am romantically unattached with no change likely to come. I have agoraphobia, anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder, undiagnosed autism and ADHD. All of these things conspire to keep me at home, freaking out about everything and anything and avoiding it all. SAD is making me absolutely revel in this smorgasbord of shit. I feel unlovable. I feel like my mental illness is a poop cherry on top of a sundae of bullshit, like maybe someone could be okay with me being nonbinary, disabled, fat, poor, etc. etc. but my agoraphobia alone (never mind the other stuff) makes it impossible to relate to me or value me at all. I’m too political, I’m too Jewish, I’m not Jewish enough, I’m too queer, I’m not queer enough, I don’t smoke and hate the smell of weed which pushes away 90% of the queer community, I don’t drink anymore, I can barely function as a human being without tons of assistance. I’m starting to have trouble watching shows or movies where people are in happy relationships because it just sends me into a spiral of self-loathing. 

This is only compounded by the fact that I lose followers every time I have a mental breakdown and start new social media accounts, or stop posting for a while, or withdraw in other ways. I don’t even know why I’m writing a newsletter or a novel because I can really only guarantee that Asher’s reading it. 

Sure, I may be seeing things in an exaggeratedly shitty way because my mental illness is making me catastrophize. But it doesn’t feel better knowing that. It doesn’t feel better to think that maybe people do think of me and like me and want to spend time with me. Because I can’t do it anyway. I have so much trouble just living right now. Everything scares me and that fear is more comfortable to live in than the fear of rejection. So it’s hard not to give into it. Really fucking hard.

On a positive note, the test my cardiologist was waiting on to clear me for top surgery came back negative! It was for renin/aldosterone ratio. It confirms that I don’t have a hormonal imbalance or disorder (or tumour!) causing my Dysautonomia symptoms. It seems that, as suspected before, it was indeed my mono infection years ago that begat my POTS and IST.

Now I need my cardiologist to update my gender NP with the results and clearance for my top surgery and I’ll be all clear for it! Then, it’ll probably be a year or so before I get a surgery date. I wish I didn’t have to wait so long, because of dysphoria reasons AND political reasons (I can’t be sure that a Conservative win wouldn’t somehow fuck up coverage for top surgery even though it’s a provincial matter… in fact, I’m surprised that the provincial Cons haven’t done anything yet since Alberta’s have). 

coffee break.

October was a pretty good month for me. I spent a lot of time in nature, going for walks by the ravine and squirrel-watching (I have become a weird squirrel person). One day, Asher and I went to the park and saw a baby coyote on the trail. It was alone and scurried into the brush when it saw us coming. It was too fast to get a picture unfortunately but it was incredibly cute. I’m a cat person but I also love dogs and dog-adjacent beings. Ever since that day, I’ve been hoping we’d see another one even though they can be dangerous. 

Halloween was more laid back than I expected it to be, and I’m glad. I dressed up in a skeleton onesie and grey hoodie and went as Donnie Darko. I also did some 2000s era messy black eyeliner even though technically Donnie didn’t wear makeup, but it didn’t feel enough like a costume until I put it on. My costume got me 20% off of the price of my haircut, too, which was nice. I got a pixie cut for the first time and I love it. 

After my haircut and lunch at Sneaky D’s, I went home and watched movies. I hadn’t seen “I Know What You Did Last Summer” in years so it was fun rewatching it. That movie was one of a few important bisexual awakenings for me and an early foray into the slasher genre, which is my favourite type of horror movie.  

I continued my monthly body mod streak by getting my eyebrow pierced. I used to hate this piercing but seeing some very specifically and intentionally placed (and fitted) eyebrow piercings made me want one of my own. I made sure my piercer positioned it exactly where I wanted - right on the arch and angled ever so slightly - and it ended up being great. I’m excited to downsize it in a couple weeks, though I’ve had almost no swelling at all. It’s been a very easy piercing so far. I’m not surprised it was such a popular one back in the day. Oh, and my piercer’s hairless cat fell in love with me and now I want my own hairless cat. I always thought I’d be freaked out by them in person but I wasn’t at all. She was so soft and sweet and cute. If I had a bigger space (and therefore room for an additional litter box), I would absolutely be looking out for one of my own. 

I accidentally started wanting to take Russian classes again. I don’t know, looking up Russian name etymologies for my novel made me miss learning the language, even though I was so bad at it. I wish language learning was a bit easier for me. I think having dyscalculia might have something to do with how much I struggle, but I have a hard time explaining how a math-related learning disability is responsible for language learning problems. Basically, my brain sees grammar (of languages I don’t know) as math equations, like with the declensions and conjugations and whatnot, and refuses to accept the information. I’m not sure how to get through it but I’ll try. I finished Russian 101 with a C over ten years ago and so many words are still floating around in my head, so I don’t feel like it’s completely hopeless. We’ll see.

Oh, and Asher’s taking a sign language class right now and I’ve been glomming onto the lessons with him and practicing with him. I will probably never be able to count in ASL - numbers are annoying and hard in every language and I hate them - but being able to communicate even a little bit will be great. Interestingly, my dominant hand for signing is my left hand… I’m right-handed by force (I showed preference for my left hand as a kiddo and was instructed not to use it). I like that some of my left-handedness still exists. 

So, I want to finally build a website where I can post my writing and whatnot, but I don’t have a lot of money to spend so it’s been rough. I don’t want to go with Squarespace because it’s expensive or Wix because it’s Israeli. I think my best option will be Wordpress, but there’s just so much involved with that that I’d like to avoid it. I do have a theme that I paid for last time I tried to start up a website, so that’s a plus. I dunno! I’ll probably just do it. Either way, watch out for noagideon.com! 

afterword.

I know this post was a little bit all over the place, but honestly, I did hold back a bit with some of my BPD-related intrusive thoughts so it wouldn’t be too much. Maybe I shouldn’t do that anymore? How vulnerable should I be in this space? I don’t know.

By the way, I’m posting regularly on Bluesky and getting ready to phase out my Twitter account. I plan on deleting it soon and leaving it for good. If you’re still using Twitter (or not using anything), consider following my Bluesky account! 

Thank you for reading and leaving feedback! I really do appreciate it, even if my brain sometimes tells me it isn’t happening.