I’m still not ready to reach out to him. I’m just not. If he wants to repair the situation, he’s more than welcome to reach out. I’m not going to force anything, not when I’m this angry.

Fuck, I’m nearly 40 years old, and I’m still trying to justify myself to this man who hasn’t been in my life for nearly a fifth of it, by his choice. I don’t think he understands that a relationship of any kind is a two-way street and that sometimes, if you want it to work, you have to actually work at it. I’m sure that he’s under the impression that this is a turn-based thing, and that since he made the last move, it’s now my turn. I’m not ready. I’m just… not. And I know that it wears on my grandmother, too, when I talk to her, because I’ll talk to anyone else in the house except for my father or stepmonster (who is an entirely different subject. She’s never liked me, I’ve never liked her, and I couldn’t give two juicy shits if I ever saw her again, religious and societal hypocrite that she is).

I dunno. I’ll get through this. It’s a matter of time. I just need to put them out of my mind. I need to figure out a way to do that. I have far better things that need my attention than this bullshit.

1) Fitness. I haven’t been to the gym in a couple of weeks. I suck at that, evidently. I’m going to start going back, though, since I’m paying for it. I want to get there 2-3 times a week through May, and then try to up that to 3-4 times over the summer. I’m not pushing terribly hard for the “musclebear” thing, but muscle wouldn’t suck. I need to start losing the weight and getting more active. I’m also rebooting my Couch to 5K program, starting April 30. I want to be able to run the whole 5K in December, so I need to start now. Because I suck at commitment to something like this. And there’s nobody who’s willing to do this shit with me. Part of my fitness goals will also be changing my diet somewhat. It’ll be a slower process, but the biggest thing for me will to be phasing out soda. I drink far too much of it, and I want to get rid of all of those empty calories. More water is a good thing, milk and fruit juice are a good thing, iced teas are a good thing. Soda, not so much (he says, cracking open a Mountain Dew).

2) Spirituality. Leon and I have a decent library of spiritual books, and I haven’t read most of them. I’ll be starting with T. Thorn Coyle‘s Evolutionary Witchcraft, and then moving on to The Inner Temple of Witchcraft by Christopher Penczak. After that, we’ll see what happens. I want to try to start meditating more, but I’m terrible at it, so it’ll be a challenge for me. More study is always good, so hopefully, I’ll be able to learn more and feel that connection to the Divine more strongly.

3) Personal. I’m going to set the goal — again! — of blogging at least once a week and more if I can do it. I’ve got a looooooong list of possible topics, and I’ll be pulling from those, as well as updates on health and spirituality. Hm. Perhaps those can be their own posts. Nobody said that blog posts have to be dissertations. They can be short, yes? I’ll still have this post over to LiveJournal, but I may turn off commenting over there. I would rather have people comment on my blog; these posts feel awfully lonely over here, with no comments. Not everyone can see my LJ or the comments.

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot.”
          – Thomas Jefferson

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”
          – James Madison

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
          – Thomas Paine

Video games have been a big part of my life since, oh, about 1983-ish, when I was 10. That’s the year that my father married my stepmother. We spent a lot of time at her mother’s house over the summer, it felt like. My new cousins, Kevin, Scott, and Steve, had a Colecovision that they’d bring whenever there was a family gathering. These three were the ones who just didn’t seem to care that I wasn’t a blood relative, never mind that it was a STRONGLY Catholic family (we were ostensibly Lutheran, and my parents were divorced). They accepted me for who I was. And the more I think about it, most of the family did, surprisingly. Evidently, it was my stepmother and a couple of the older folks in the family (both her siblings and her neices and nephews) who didn’t ever seem to approve of me. But whatever, their loss, and totally not the point of this story.

So, yeah, video games. My brother had an Atari 2600, but I was “too old” for things like that. Like that, and like Legos, and like anything that didn’t involve reading. Which, really, was thanks to my father, who then proceeded to get pissed off when I didn’t want to fish when he wanted to go fishing and I took a book instead. Again. Tangent. Angry tangent that will never get read or understood by the person who needs to read and understand it. Moving on. At least temporarily.

Three weeks before my 13th birthday, Nintendo did something that would change my whole world: they released the original Legend of Zelda. I have, to date, every LoZ game (I think; I’m pretty sure). I don’t know what it is that draws me to this series, but it’s ridiculously important to my whole world view.

Over the next few weeks/months/whatever, I think I’m going to start blogging about the video games that I play, that we own, that are important to me. It should generate quite a bit of content for my blog, I hope, and possibly get me writing more.

And if my father and stepmonster ever find my blog, maybe they’ll figure out that they need to understand why my anger is so strong and directed at them. More than likely, they’ll continue to ignore me. Whatevs.

And the names in this post haven’t been changed. It’s not tough to figure out who my family is, and while I may forgive (some of them), I do not ever forget. Some of this, I’m not terribly proud of, but you know what? I’m not sanitizing any of it just to save face. All of the misspellings are true to the original texts.

Anyway. I got a text from Mom today:

If there was any way possible, I’d put George on the next anything headed east.

Uh oh. Evidently, my youngest brother got himself in some trouble. Again. A few months ago, he went through a break-up. He’s still stuck on her, she’s moved on. He has anger management issues and has evidently been drinking a lot. He was arrested for public intoxication today. Again. The “again” was news to me, but want to help him. And we all know how I can get.

So at 4:30, I sent out the following text message to four of the five friends I have in common with Tasena (George being the one I didn’t send it to – the other four are family members: Sarah, Mom, BJ, and Clare):

If you want to help him get over her, DEFRIEND HER ON FACEBOOK. He can’t move on until all of you make him.

I heard back from Mom (“Okay”) and Sarah (“Oh hell I forgot.”). Didn’t hear anything from BJ, but I didn’t expect to. Over the course of the next hour and change, I was involved with this conversation. My texts are in the normal font, hers are in the italics.

C: What?

J: Take Tasena off your Facebook.

C: No.

J: Then you get to deal with George’s bullshit and you don’t get to bitch about it.

C: Um also no.

J: Um, yes, Princess Selfish.

C: Um, no Jeremy.

C: Acquaintences don’t tell me what to do with my life. Plus, I’m trying to keep myself alive so I’m not doing shit for anyone.

C: And you’re only Mom’s favorite cause you’re firstborn. Big woop.

J: No, I’m Mom’s favorite because I’m the only one she hasn’t had to ever worry about or cry over. FUCK YOU.

J: If you think it has anything to do with birth order, you really are as retarded as your pet hobbit.

C: Fuck off Bastard. I was civil with you.

J: Bullshit, you werw. You’ve been a self-centered selfish bitch since you started high school.

C: Like you fucking know me. If it weren’t for my “pet hobbit” I wouldn’t have lived pass high school. Go fuck an ass queer.

J: You hateful, bigoted, redneck fucking CUNT.

C: That, Jeremy, shows how much you know about me.

C: And I’m not scared of the CUNT word.

C: Its just Facebook. You think what I do there affects the real world? They really should stop living together first for him to get over her, don’t you think? George is a big boy. He doesn’t need me to hold his hand. DO NOT mistake that for apathy, I’m more than happy to be there for him. But no one tells me how to live my life or who I associate with.

J: I’m sorry, did I not make myself clear? Let me change that. I want NOTHING to do with you ever again, bigot. Stop contacting ne.

C: You’re ignorant.

J: Spoken like a true homophobic bigot. Stop contacting me.

C: Yeah the chick with the gay brother and who has had multiple girlfriends is the homophobic bigot. Spoken like a true ignorant.

C: You don’t know jack.

J: The girl who tells her gay brother to “go fuck an ass, queer” is the bigot, yes. Stop contacting me.

C: You were being a queer. And insulting me, my choice in a mate and my husband, so I insulted you. Tell me, how does this make me prejudice, intolerant, or hatefull. Ill admit I can be mean when others are mean to me.

J: Stop contacting me.

C: Coward. Make me.

C: You started this conversation first and then proceeded to insult me and my family.

C: You expect to roll over? I don’t think so. I’m a Taylor, retaliation is our tgiu.

C: *me

C: *thing

C: Seriously, go back and analyze this text thread. I just refuse to let anyone run my life.

So yeah, that’s where I stand. I’m SO VERY DONE with this shit. She’s been nothing but a spoiled, stuck-up, selfish, self-centered, overly-dramatic Jan Brady-acting fuckin’ PRINCESS since she hit puberty. She has blamed her entire family for the mess her life is in. She refuses to take responsibility for her own actions, and she refuses to accept the consequences of her own actions.

I called Mom and vented at her when all of this happened, and I apologized to her for the fact that she will never have all five of her children in the same place at the same time ever again. I told her that if I don’t walk out of wherever Clare is, I’ll be escorted out in the back of a cop car for assault and battery for punching Clare in the head.

You don’t get to call me a queer and expect that there will be no consequences. I want her nowhere near my life. I can’t wish her happiness far away from me. What I can wish for her, though, is that she get everything she deserves.

Mrs. Hansen, you just lost a brother.

When she was at her peak, Whitney was fierce. The Greatest Love of All. How Will I Know. Saving All My Love For You. I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Where Do Broken Hearts Go. I’m Your Baby Tonight. It’s Not Right But It’s Okay. My Love Is Your Love. These are songs of my coming of age. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard these songs. When she was on, she was on. Bobby was a shitty influence on her, and it makes me sad that she didn’t or couldn’t get away from him. She was an amazing talent, and it sucks that she’s gone. Yeah, she made shitty choices (Bobby and drugs being the top two) and I wish that she hadn’t made them. Without those two things in her life, I think we would have seen more than five albums from her, and I’m pretty sure she’d still be alive and kicking the crap out of the music industry.

When I was in junior high, I remember seeing the video for The Greatest Love of All. It was after a Confirmation class (I grew up ELCA Lutheran) and all of us had piled into Pastor Kerr’s living room to watch some MTV. It’s an amazing black and white video of Whitney on a stage, singing for all she’s worth. She just belted and sang with a purity I’d never heard before. Some time later, I’d see the Day-Glo video for I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me). It was so much fun and dancey and it made me happy to be around. Same with How Will I Know.

A few years later, after coming out, I learned that I wasn’t the only person who fell in love with these songs. I can’t even begin to count how often I danced at the Cavalier and Players to It’s Not Right But It’s Okay. In the last year of my drag era, I remember hearing stories of Stephanie telling us about her act to that song, and how she would have two beer bottles and just drench herself and the front two rows of the audience during it, like some kind of twisted Gallagher act. That same song would later help me get through a shitty, shitty, shitty break-up with a lying, cheating asshole.

Her last decade or so have been pretty awful. Bobby, as I said before, was a terrible influence on her, and her addiction absolutely ruined her voice. She hasn’t sounded good for a long time, and it just rips at me because of it. So much talent, so much potential, destroyed and taken far too soon. I didn’t even realize how much this affected me until I started writing this. The only thing I can compare it to would be the way many people feel about how Michael Jackson’s music affects them.

Get you some peace, Ms. Houston. You will be missed. But take this with you: you will never be gone. As long as there are drag queens in this world, Whitney Houston will shine on stage.

The biggest other thing would be this. On Monday, January 23, I started working at the Ohio Humanities Council, permanently and as a real person. I worked for them for the last six weeks of 2011 as a temp through OfficeTeam, but they hired me on as of January 23. This office… I can’t even tell you how awesome everyone is. I’m probably not going to do a lot of referring to them in my blog, though; partially, it’s because my job doesn’t define who I am, partially it’s because I’m kind of a representative of my employer even when I’m not at work (like everyone seems to be), and partially it’s because the Executive Director knows where my blog is and reads it on an infrequent and random basis (HI BOSS!). Suffice it to say, the depression I fell into when I didn’t get the job at the school was more than filled by OHC. These people rock so hard, it’s amazing that they don’t have a recording contract and people throwing various underthings at them when they’re on stage.

Knitting is knitting. Nothing major and/or new on the needles, which is how I’m planning it. I have a ton of yarn that I could be knitting into new things, but I’m concentrating on working on the things that have been on the needles for a good long time and have been promised to people. I need to get so many things done. Hell, in the first month of 2012, I’ve already finished one sweater and two baby surprise jackets. I just need to add buttons to all three of them. I’ve got one more BSJ to do for yet another freakin’ pregnant woman at Leon’s job, but then I’m done with the jackets for a bit. I’m finishing off the first half of a pair of fingerless mitts tonight then casting on for the second mitt. They go quickly, even with all the cabling, and I have at least one more pair of them to make. I’m also about half done with a sweater for The Princess (see the Fat Family Fitness blog if that makes no sense to you because you think that either Belle or I answer to that) that will make her look so freakin’ awesome. A shawl for Melissa. A lace scarf for Niki. A hat and a blanket for Scott. A sweater for Jason. A sweater for me.

I’m looking into joining a gym. We’ll see what February specials at the local places look like, but I’m leaning heavily toward Planet Fitness. Their whole “No Judgment Zone” philosophy speaks to the fatboy in me. I don’t need some no-neck ‘roided up lunkhead giving me shit for not being able to benchpress a Buick. Also, I don’t need to be where every judgey homo in the world works out. It’s not a scene, it’s not a be-seen, it’s a place to drop this 60 pounds and turn it into sexy, sexy, furry muscle.

(Aside: It’s odd being up high enough that helicopters are buzzing by my office window. Kind of awesome, though. We’re on the 16th floor.)

We’re heading to Drenched Fur (link probably NSFW) in Erie at the end of March for their waterpark night. Those poor pool filters. 300+ bears? Yeah. Awesome. I’m looking so very forward to it, more for the getting-together-with-friends and getting-out-of-Ohio of it than for the bear run side of it, but that’ll be neat, too.

I think I’m going to start posting stuff about my City of Heroes/Villains/Going Rogue characters, complete with photos of all of their costumes. That’ll give me some fun shit to talk about, hey? Maybe I’ll blog more often! Perhaps a Tuesday or Thursday feature! I’m also thinking about starting a monthly or bi-weekly podcast. Anyone interested in just listening to me talk?

I’m very excited about this, honestly. It’s hard to be the only one in a household who’s trying to get back into shape, especially when it comes to the food aspect of it. That’s our biggest stumbling block, I think. Nearly every meal we eat has a main course (usually some sort of meat, usually pork or chicken), a vegetable (usually corn, and yes, corn counts. If you’re just going to comment to say CORN ISN’T A VEGETABLE BAWK BAWK BAWK, keep it to yourself; there’s not a lot of veggies I can eat and fewer that I like), and a starch (potatoes or rice). It’s a LOT of food, but cutting it down doesn’t seem to be something that we’re very good at.

Starting on Wednesday, though, we start hitting the Weight Watchers cookbooks to figure out what the healthier options are. We’re also going to be digging through the low-sodium cookbook and a couple of other healthier-choices cookbooks. We’ve also got SparkPeople to use as a resource as well.

Then comes the exercise. I think I may introduce The Leon to the body-weight exercises that will help. I know that he won’t be joining me with the running when the weather turns again or at the gym when I join up, but there are DVDs and self-paced workouts that we can both do or that he can do on his own.

And honestly, I prefer to start things like this in February. Half of this county knows January as “Failure to Keep a Gym Commitment” month; February will be nicer that way. Finding a gym, though, that’s the tough part. I have ideas, but I’m not sure how to implement them. Maybe trying the week-long guest pass that it seems like every gym has will help make the decision easier. Anyone wanna help with that search? Because, really, I have to get to a gym and I don’t wanna go alone.

Crossposted from Fat Family Fitness

The thing I love about this line of videos is that the people in the videos, aside from the trainer, are big people. They’re not Evil Blonde Aerobics Bunnies and Giant Humpy Muscleheads. They’re people who need these videos. It’s kind of inspiring, to a point.

I got 25 minutes into a 35-minute workout before I had to stop because I just couldn’t finish. I’m… kind of a self-loathing mess right now. I know I should be proud that I did what I could, that 25 minutes today is better than the zero minutes yesterday, that it’s better than the zero minutes that I’ve done for the last six weeks. I’m having problems getting myself into that mindset, though, and I don’t know how to get out of this shame-and-hate spiral.

Cross-posted from Fat Family Fitness

I also want to reboot my Couch-to-5K, as well as add a Jillian Michaels workout with resistance bands, as well as a body weight workout that I snagged from SparkPeople. I’m also hoping to mix in a couple of the Biggest Loser workout DVDs (if anyone’s buying, I’m looking at the At Home Challenge, Last Chance, and Cardio Max Weight Loss workouts) and my Wii Fit and Just Dance 2 (and maybe 3, if I get it). I’ve got at LEAST one 5K run planned this year, and I’m hoping to be able to finish a 10K. I’ve got a five-year plan to be able to at least run a half-marathon. I’d love to see a full marathon so that I can jump on Team Reeve and support the Roller Skate a little bit, but I’ll be happy with 13.1 for now.

I need to start making more healthy choices about food. It’s difficult to eat healthy when you’re doing it solo. Hopefully, I’ll be able to convince The Leon to get on the bandwagon with that. Wish me luck. He doesn’t like whole wheat pasta (which I love), and we eat a lot of pasta. That would help our food problems a great deal.

I’m tired of being approximately twelve thousand pounds (I rounded up). I’ve got some great friends behind me on this to keep my fat ass moving. I just need to make myself do it when they’re not around to kick me.

Mirrored from Fat Family Fitness