Digital Alterity

I don’t think I could say it any better than Rogue already did in “Quicksilver”:

I’m taking back my love, taking back my pride,
taking back my dreams and my life.
This is the ground I will defend.
A rage of angels bears the end.

I’m taking back my hope, taking back my goals,
taking back my memories and my soul.
This brand is forged to my crusade —
Quicksilver, the future belongs to the brave.

Things are going to get better. I’m going to make them better with nothing more than rage-filled determination, if that’s what it takes. Life is too short. Life is too precious. I’m not going to live someone else’s idea of a comfortable life. I’m not going to numb myself with food and apathy. I’m not going to just sit down and cry about what I can’t have or can’t be.

The future begins right now.

If I’m to be a narrative, I shall be the kind of narrative that I enjoy — largely pointless with little deliberate attempt at theme, with clear continuity, yes, but a continuity so largely irrelevant that you’re left questioning how the obvious character development ever actually happens.

I’m often possessed by an urge to go dancing. There. Now, I’ve outed myself. I can’t listen to anything by Crüxshadows, Moby, or The Smiths without wishing for a club where they played nothing but such music all night long. I dream of dancing by myself out there on the darkened dance floor like some kind of drunken, gleeful fool with all of the glee and none of the drunkenness.

I want to connect with the music in a physical way. I love listening to music with my eyes closed, so that I can focus every bit of my attention on each of the layers in the sound. I love pondering the lyrics in a way that leaves my mind’s eye free to conjure up images that synthesize into a pure and wonderful gestalt. The only way I can imagine making this any better is to allow my body to move with that imagination, to elevate the sublime experience into an even higher and more vital experience.

I never picture myself dancing with anyone else. I want to dance with the music itself. Catholics have Communion. Muslims have their daily prayers. This would be my communion with something larger than myself, my own private altar call, my chance to be completely surrounded and enveloped by the music that connects with me with a larger humanity, a kinetic koan pointing toward a higher, more vital truth than language could ever express.

I wouldn’t care that I’m fat. I wouldn’t care about the gender constraints that say that straight men aren’t allowed to enjoy dancing. I wouldn’t care whether I looked silly because I have no idea how I’m supposed to dance. I would dance my heart out and not care who knew it.

And on that day, I would revolutionize the fucking world.

I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you who contacted me after yesterday’s post. Every single person that contacted me was positive and affirming. Some of you said that I inspired you. Some of you said simply that you loved me just the way I am and that you’re with me every step of the way. I’m saving every response as a pick-me-up on days when it seems like I can’t possibly tank what’s in front of me.

Today was the first full day confronting my problems head-on. I started my day by playing WoW for a bit and then taking a nice relaxing pre-work bath. Having successfully woken up and relaxed a bit, I started two lists that were going to serve as the focus for my day:

• Shit I’m Nervous About. These are the things that make me start feeling the stirrings of nervousness, panic, and general ickiness. These are exactly the sort of things that I would be tempted to ignore until they turn into full-blown crises. These items are officially marked with a skull. They come first in the kill order. I have to face them, and I have to make some progress on getting them out of my way. I’m allowed to delegate these tasks to someone else if I think they can help, but I absolutely cannot ignore them until they become someone else’s problem by default. Some things on this list might not even be proper tasks that can be done or things that can go away in any tangible sense. In these cases, I look deeply at them, try to figure out why they make me so nervous, and think of one tiny thing I can do to make them less scary or life-breaking.
• Shit I’d Like To Do. These are things that are either fun or that genuinely sound like an unscary but productive task. This is the easy stuff. When I feel my resolve slipping, I hop over to one of these items to build my confidence back up. I’m not scared of these tasks, so I don’t feel an obligation to confront them. Some of them might even be safely ignored.

These lists are only for me. They’re not preserved for posterity. At the end of the day, I’m going to throw the damn things away. Tomorrow is going to be a completely new day with completely new lists. The quest doesn’t seem nearly as big that way.

The lists worked out great today. I had six items on my “Nervous” list, and I dealt with four them before lunch. On a less tangible but still important level, I felt far more in-control today. I was actually tanking my problems on my terms instead of letting them run around my head all willy-nilly. That feeling of control goes a long way toward keeping my calm and collected.

Today, I had a lot of victories. They’re small — hell, they’re even microscopic — but they’re the trash mobs that tell me that, yes, I can complete this instance if I perform to the best of my ability.

It’s time to start tanking my life.

In World of Warcraft – hell, in most any game – I play the tank, the guy designed to run up in the middle of everything and face it head-on. Give me a game mechanic that lets me run up, directly confront, and leave others free to go about their business without distraction, and I’ll inevitably choose that option. So why the hell haven’t I been doing this in real life – you know, the one shot that any of us has on this planet?

I’m clinically depressed. I have been my entire adolescent, young adult, and adult life. I’m over this. This isn’t my armor designed to protect me from all the scary things that lurk outside my door. This isn’t an excuse for why I do or don’t do anything. It’s part of the terrain, and frankly, if it stands in my way, then it’s just another monster to tank on my way through life. Fuck depression.

I weigh over 300 pounds. This is a logical result of the pathetic way I’ve lived my life. I’m not going to skirt around this fact and ignore it for one more day. I hate being fat, so it’s time to take charge of that and actually change the shit that makes it happen. And while we’re on the subject, yeah, I know I’ve lost weight before. I’ve dropped a hundred pounds in a year. I used to run 5 kilometers every morning before most of you woke up. I can lose the weight again, and I’m going to. The difference is that this time I’m going to tank it. I’m going to keep fighting every day until the obesity is gone and will never – can never – come back. Fuck obesity.

Social situations often cause me to have panic attacks. If you only know me casually, you probably have no idea that this is even the case. I’m extremely socially adept. I can small talk. I can chit-chat. For that matter, put me in front of an audience, and I’m not even the slightest bit bothered. But ask me to go hang out with a small group of people and there’s a 50-50 chance that I won’t show up. I’m afraid to pick up the phone to order a freaking pizza. I’m too nervous some nights to even queue up for a random dungeon in World of Warcraft. I’m going to stop being afraid. I’m not going to force myself to become an extrovert, but dammit, I’m not going to let myself avoid things that actually sound good to me just because I’m scared or nervous. I’m going to own my life. Fuck social anxiety.

I am the tank. I’m going to run up every single one of these problems, and I’m going to punch it in the face. I’m not going to stop fighting until the problem is down. Then I’m going to dust myself off and move right on to the next problem standing in my way and do the same damn thing. And if at any point I feel like I’m too tired to keep it up, I’m going to get some help because I refuse to quit and I’m too mean to die.

I’m going to ignore every single voice in my head that says I’m not good enough or that I’ve screwed this up in the past or that maybe I just shouldn’t even try. I’m going to do this because that’s the person I want to be, and excuses have no right to take that away from me. I won’t let excuses or obstacles take that away from me.

I’m no longer just some poor white kid from a rural background. I’m not a slave to your gender norms. I am not bound by the rules that some old geezer wrote down before I was ever born. I am not a checkbox on a form. I refuse to be merely a digit in your spreadsheet. I’m not a demographic in your weird focus group cult. I refuse to be someone else’s semantic construct. I am a force of nature, and I hereby refuse to be contained. Think you can try? I dare you.

Special thanks to my wife Allyson, Bear, my guildmates, and everyone who has taught me what it means to be a tank. I dedicate my upcoming successes to you guys. Because I’m going to win.

From an email to a friend from several years ago…

My friend wrote:

is it strange…or not at all…that i always end up respecting a thinking unbeliever more than a unthinking believer?

I think that the dilemma really comes in the classification itself. Any time we simplify a complex person to a simple ideal, we are committing a form of violence. In essence, we are dismembering that beautiful person in front of us until they fit into a convenient mold.

I’ve had to do a lot of work talking to people to show by example that, while I’m one of those Christian types, I don’t fit into the classification they’ve built from their youth. Likewise, I’ve had to learn that my own childhood notions don’t fit anyone other than that non-existent ideal caricature in my head.

One of the lessons I’ve had to really learn in teaching myself to draw is that lines aren’t really all that common in the world. Boundaries aren’t made with clear cut lines segregating things. Most often, when you really look deeply at the boundary in question, you see that what we interpret as a line is really just a difference in tone (or “value” to use my recently acquired artistic jargon).

In much the same way, our categorization of the people around us have fuzzy boundaries. Christians aren’t a single group mind. Both the lapsed Catholic and the fundamentalist Southern Baptist are Christian. Atheists are likewise a diverse set. Richard Dawkins is an atheist out to expose what he sees as harmful ideologies of the theists. Other atheists are just quiet people who don’t share a belief in God. There are theist Buddhists and atheist Buddhists, but both groups attempt to follow the same dharma.

I resist the attempts of my culture to balkanize us via religion, race, politics, ideology, gender, and sexual preference. Sometimes I don’t notice my biases, but I’m always happier when I do so that I can mindfully seek what they have to teach me about myself.

So no, I don’t find your experience strange at all. You’ve just found a point of commonality with a fellow person. That’s something precious to be cherished.

If you spend any amount of time in my house, you will hear my cat Tux addressed in any of the following fashions…

• Tux
• Bitch
• Tux-Bitch
• Fuzzy
• Fuzzy Britches
• Wee Bitch
• Tragi-cat
• Kitty
• Fuzzy Kitty
• Furry
• Jingles
• Jingle Butt

He answers to both “Tux” and “Bitch” interchangeably.

Edit: I added a couple more names to the list that I noticed myself calling Tux the other day.

On Facebook, my friend Alison sent me one of these interview/survey things about me. I decided to just put my answers here because, hey, free content.

What time did you get up this morning?
About 04:10. I went to bed pretty early.

How do you like your steak?
Medium rare. This is correct.

What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

What is your favorite TV show?
An epic three-way gladiator match between Star Trek: The Next Generation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Good Eats.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
London, England. Without an effing doubt.

What did you have for breakfast?
2 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, and a Pepsi. This is somewhat odd for me because I usually have cereal.

What is your favorite cuisine?
Chinese food. Well, speaking honestly, the Chinese food that Americans eat.

What foods do you dislike?
Raw onions. They invoke a vomit reflex.

Favorite Place to Eat?
My house.

Favorite dressing?
Ranch. What do you expect from me? I’m a Southerner.

What kind of vehicle do you drive?
A 2005 Toyota Prius. I drove my 95 Corolla until an accident made it fall apart.

What are your favorite clothes?
To wear? Oversized black t-shirts with khaki cargo shorts. In general? I’m sucker for a girl in a peasant skirt.

Where would you visit if you had the chance?
Azeroth.

Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?
I’m a realist. Optimism and pessimism are both crutches for avoiding the world that actually is.

Where would you want to retire?
London, England. We already covered this.

Favorite time of day?
The hours between 3:00 and 5:00 in the morning. The whole world is still, and it makes me feel like a ghost.

Where were you born?
Georgetown, Ohio. My dad was starting a Baptist church in Ripley, Ohio.

What is your favorite sport to watch?
Football/soccer.

Bird watcher?
Avians are not particularly captivating to me.

Are you a morning person or a night person?
Because my schedule forces me to be, I am a morning person.

Do you have any pets?
Yes.

Any new and exciting news you’d like to share?
I’m only six emblems away from obtaining The Egg of Mortal Essence.

What did you want to be when you were little?
The President of the United States.

What is your best childhood memory?
Getting up in the middle of the night on Christmas to play with all my new He-Man figures.

Are you a cat or dog person?
Cat person. Dogs are too obedient and subservient.

Are you married?
For eight years now.

Always wear your seat belt?
Yeah, it’s habit.

Been in a car accident?
Only minor ones.

Any pet peeves?
I don’t have “pet peeves” so much as a lead crusades against everything wrong with the world. Stick around for the show. It might be fun.

Favorite Pizza Toppings?
Mushrooms, bacon, artichokes.

Favorite Flower?
Flowers smell allergic. Blech.

Favorite ice cream?
Can’t really eat it. Lactose intolerant.

Favorite fast food restaurant?
These days, Chipotle. All time? Easily Taco Bell. I used to eat multiple meals per day there.

How many times did you fail your driver’s test?
Zero.

From whom did you get your last email?
Myself. I have reminders set up for daily next actions that greet me every morning.

Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
None of them. I fought too damn hard to finally get out of credit card debt. Never again.

Those of you who have known me for an appreciable amount of time must surely understand by now that my sociability can best be described by a periodic function much like a sine wave. Sometimes I drop off the face of the planet. Sometimes I’m doing something with someone nearly every night of the week. It’s easy to assume, due to my conspicuous lack of blog posts, that I’ve in one of those off-the-face-of-the-earth phases. Strangely enough, the truth of the matter is anything but. I seem to be more social now than I have at any other point in my life other than perhaps the first couple of years of college.

On Sunday, I spent 2-3 hours running a 4th Edition D&D game over Skype for my college buddies. On Friday, I spent 3-5 hours hanging out with friends here in Gainesville and running an in-person 4e D&D game. Every other night of the week, I’m hanging out with and conversing with literally dozens of people from all over the world via World of Warcraft. When you add in my constant fascination with Twitter and my begrudging relationship with Facebook, I’m suddenly more connected than I’ve ever been precisely while my poor neglected blog cries itself to sleep with only the RSS feeder to console it.

To that aim, this blog space is going to undergo a bit of a reinvention/revival. When I first started my proto-blog, News from Dimension Rusty, my aim was to inform others about what I’m up to and — perhaps more importantly — what I’m thinking about. Twitter already does a marvelous job managing this sort of thing. Likewise, I’m not in a mindset for writing the big in-depth articles some of my readers from 5-6 years ago might remember. Instead, Digital Alterity is going to become the back-page magazine feature that talks a bit wider in scope than Twitter. I’ll talk about instance runs in WoW, places Allyson and I go for dinner, random lists of pointless things, my latest D&D adventure, comics I’m enjoying/hating, etc. Basically, the things I do and think about are going to flower here.

1. Masters of the Universe
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
3. Voltron
4. Thundercats
5. GoBots