The Packbats' Weblog

Being raised, we were handed a box to remain inside. Be polite. Don't be prideful. Stay cautious. Practice your piano pieces. Wear a suit. Get good grades. Sit in the first rows of the classroom. There were cracks in the box, to be sure but we were expected to keep ourselves contained. We knew, compliant though we were, that pieces of us stuck out, but we held ourselves in enough. Told ourselves that we held ourselves in enough.

We were lucky enough to be spared attack for our parts that stuck out.

...well, for a while. Did you know that being trans stuck out of the box? We didn't know being trans stuck out of the box. We thought that fit in just fine.

I don't know if that was a turning point. Connecting our dots, we can see holes in the box from before that. I do know it was impossible for us to accept being contained that far. Surely that was allowed. We knew we wouldn't stop being trans - not for anyone.

I don't know if that was a turning point, but it meant that we knew what it was like to have a wall pressed against us, and we knew how to break it.

We're nonbinary. We're not a woman. The world isn't a sphere, it's an oblate spheroid. We're nonbinary, and there was a wall pressed against us, a wall beyond which was neopronouns, beyond which was expressing gender through language more resonant with ourselves than "they" and "it", and it was a wall we knew how to break.

Nonhumanity ... took more force, to break a wall to reach. Plurality, not as much force but more time. Disability, mostly took us time to name and tentatively claim. By the time we knew the thickness of the wall blocking the way to asexuality, we were already well past it, and we easily explored aromanticism, polyamory, and relationship anarchy from there. The person who showed us our autism, years before the rest of these, was happy to do it and happy to see it, and so were we - the box wasn't even on our mind.

The box is on our mind sometimes. That fear that we are somehow inexcusable for being outside it, leading to dread as we look at how far our wings span and see that we will never fit back inside it.

But also fuck that box. It was a prison. We'll never go back.

Does anyone know why, when a MacBook Core 2 Duo running 10.5.8 crashes hard - so hard that even a Vulcan nerve-pinch is ineffective - that the iTunes will keep playing until it finishes the song?

Interesting (in a very whiskey-tango-foxtrot sort of way) fact of the day: Sunny D contains canola oil.

Best, packbat

DeviantArt just added a feature where you can sort your "favorite" deviations into boxes. This is a box.

If you can figure out what it's a box of, I'd appreciate.

Pharyngula just linked an item by jwz on the latest Orangina mascot and advertising video (and I say latest for a reason).

I have only one thing to say:

DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN MY VIRGIN EYES!

Edit: ( Okay, so I guess I have more than just *one* thing... )

Edit #2: The redoubtable (and doubtful) ^z suggests this could be a fraud - checking the DNS registry, he has found that orangina.fr (the official site) is registered to Schweppes, but naturellementpulpeuse.fr (which orangina.fr forwards to) is registered to some address in Paris. He hastens to add, however, that he has doubted and been wrong before (notably, regarding rumors of Bobby Fischer's 1992 Spassky match he heard in '91).

...are dangerous and scary places, respectively.

Beginning with the first of the two: yesterday, I went with my friend K and his family down the Gunpowder River (or "Little Gunpowder Falls" - I don't know which bit it was, although I think we passed under I-83). Just for a change, his father decided to start a little further upstream than before so we could go through a little of the Class III rapids. In spite of K's mom's reservations, I, being the guest and not experienced with the river, decided to go along with it.

Actually, correct that. I, being not experienced at all, went along with it. For what it's worth, K capsized first (and since his boat had the lunch and the dog, that was quite a major deal). That said, I capsized twice, and the second time ended up traversing the fourth of the four sections of Class III on foot. It cost me, first, my prescription sunglasses, and second, my watch and one of a pair of socks (the one with the smaller holes).

Other than that, though, it was a pretty nice day. Besides, the glasses were cheap, the watch old, and I was planning to get new socks anyway.

Thus segueing to the second item in the title: going to the mall to buy socks today. Remarkably, the 'socks-buying' bit was fine (although finding U.S.-size-16 socks was a bit of a hassle). It was coming out of the sock shop that I got in trouble.

I'm walking down the hall, minding nothing in particular (hey, I'm sleepy!), when suddenly I am accosted by a short, vaguely East-Slavic looking (not that I can judge ethnicity) woman who steps in much too close to me and asks if I'm married.

I, being too dumb to flee, reply with the it-seemed-clever-at-the-time "I'm busy."

She asks again. (Or maybe she asks if I have a girlfriend - I am an Unreliable Narrator™.) The scent of chocolate on her breath is both evident and oddly disturbing.

"Uh, who are you?"

She turns to her accomplice and pronounces that This Guy (meaning me) Is Funny. She then drags me over towards the table to offer me a demo of some plastic-and-thick-wire contrivance that looks vaguely like the ribs of a basket, and, in my bewildered state, appears inexplicably threatening.

"Uh, hey, I have to go, and I'm not buying anything..."

She insists that this is a free demo, and throws some lump of fabric into an inexpensive recent-model-year microwave that is incorporated into the cart-stand-thing.

I continue babbling ineffectually as the whatever-it-is nukes. Then, as she opens the microwave, I spot the box of aromatherapy pillows (or something) that this obviously is one of.

I announce I am leaving as I back away. (Aromatherapy, like chiropractic treatment, is as a rule too easily adopted as a cover name for pseudoscientific practices. It is a reflection of my lack of experience in the 'hard sell' that it is this that leads me to suspect chicanery, rather than the patently nonkosher actions of the salesperson.)

She thrusts the pillow in my face. (Literally. Physical-contact-with-nose-and-mouth literally.)

I, still babbling, flee.

And so I have two new rules.

• When boating, everything you value should be either tied to you or tied to your boat. (My pack, which was the latter, survived wet but intact.)
  
• When someone accosts you to sell you something, leave. Don't say anything, don't even break stride, leave. Even if they're zaftig.

Okay, so I got two phones: the old, prepaid, cheapo Nokia phone, and the new, camera-enabled, flip-open, Verizon Singular phone. It should be obvious which one's better, right?

Except the new phone is kinda fragile (I bent the cover for the power socket yesterday), with an inferior user interface (more features, but less resolution on both battery life and reception), no decent games, a camera that keeps photographing the inside of my pocket, unintuitive call-waiting, &c., &c., &c.

The old phone? Snake II (i.e. Snake with bonus features), and, as I just discovered, an honest-to-goodness flashlight.

Great Ghu! A cell phone with a flashlight!

At IHOP this evening, I was filling out a comment card when I observed the following (quoted from memory, emphasis added):

[...]
Quality of food:
  Flavor of food
  Appearance of food
Temperature of food: Hot food Hot!
Cleanliness of restaurant:
  Cleanliness of exterior
  Cleanliness of dining area
  Cleanliness of restrooms
[...]

...what?

Second Life ≅ Chicago.

(Or, excluding people who've been absent for more than 60 days, Second Life equals San Jose.)

Don't be like Spoonless Joe – buy a spoon today!

P.S. I got my laptop back!