Tell me Something About You

[bcholmes]

Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant, you know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?

-- Waking Life

Tell me something about yourself. I'd like to get to know you better.

No really. I want to know. Tell me anything. And not one-sentence answers to some quiz. Not that I have anything against people doing quizes.

Tell me something that takes a paragraph. Like, what's your biggest passion in life, and how did you first discover it? Or what is the big thing you and I disagree on radically? What's the biggest regret of your life that you don't mind talking about in public? Or when was the moment that your life changed in a way that you never imagined and which you cherish immensely? What makes you feel warm and safe and loved?

Tell me something.

Comments

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

okay...
gimme a few minutes...

[lovecraftienne.livejournal.com]

If you'd asked me a year ago, I would have said the most important thing in my life was my gender disjunction. That having been repaired, I think my biggest problem is trying to engage myself with my self-definition as a writer. To allow myself to really sit down and make it my way of life, that when I'm not doing anything else, I'm writing. That it become my default state, the inkstained wretch. I find the change in focus exhilarating. I've been trying for years not to "live my pathology", if you know what I mean, not be my diagnoses, just have them. To actually be there feels to me as though my disjunction has in fact given me an opportunity that few ever have: to live a dream. I am profoundly grateful for this.

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

when it's become your way of life,
you are writing
while doing anything else...

[lovecraftienne.livejournal.com]

Touche. I knew that, and had forgotten. Thank you.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Very soon now it will be four years (four years! where does the time go?) that an old Usenet friend, just relocated from Ohio to Seattle, came by to spend a weekend, our first face-to-face meeting. He had his crazy brother and his hyper-talkative wife in tow, and there was a bit of that "ok, I thought I knew this person but now I'm not sure this was a good idea" awkwardness that often happens the first time distant friends finally meet in person. And the wife and brother were pretty high-maintenance, so we barely got a chance to talk to each other the first day, until after they'd gone to bed.

But then we did. And ... something happened. It was like a door opening in my heart, and I realized that, yes, this was my dear friend after all, and that the opportunity was being given for something more than that. I held back, a bit; I've had a lifelong "no getting involved with married people" policy. But at some point during the weekend his wife reminded me that they were poly, and more or less, erm, offered him to me ... and it hit me that my ethical position wasn't about marriage at all, it was about cheating, and deceit.

And it's four years later now, and I can barely remember what life was like without my beloved johnpalmer in my heart. I never imagined myself as polyamorous, but I cherish everything about this relationship, including that.

[gwenners.livejournal.com]

I guess the most notable thing -- or, perhaps the oddest thing -- about me is that I've ended up in a place I rather like, but which I never expected to be in. I mean, I was supposed to be unhappy, unmarried, a man, Instead, I'm a fairly happy woman who also happens to be married to another woman. I never intended to be a writer, yet that is a major part of my life. You get the idea.

Cheers,
Gwen Smith

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

My biggest regret (no kidding) is that I met you IRL about eight years ago and I spent the whole evening with a slack-jawed deer-in-the-headlights expression on my face instead of carrying on a conversation and maybe getting to know you or whatever. I mean, it was shy times fifty and I wasn't expecting to be so taken aback being in the presence of a TG person. Anyway, it probably didn't make a big impression on you, but I'm sorry all the same.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

To actually be there feels to me as though my disjunction has in fact given me an opportunity that few ever have: to live a dream. I am profoundly grateful for this.

That's profoundly cool.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

This is very beautiful. I get a really good sense of the specialness of the moment from your description. Thank you.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

That's great. When you think about that notable thing, now, how do you feel?

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Woy! Can you shed some light on that event for me? That would be... what? 1996?

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

Yup, probably mid-Julyish. In fact, it was the night that France won the World Cup. Anmar was on one of his trips around the continent, and had xlnt with him (who I was seeing at the time), so I drove up from Rochester for a barbecue at Shirley Hicks'. One of those rare ssm/ap blendings.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

hmm. not up for huge amounts of soul-baring at the moment-- i'm doing enough emotional work in other bits of my life.

but i love subway tilework. when my dad and i went to russia, we spent a few days in moscow, and the subways there are *sooo* beautiful. they were meant to be palaces for the people, and they are ornate and lovely and just fabulous. sadly, there aren't a lot of books written about them, or pictures taken, so i am having to slake my wanting for the moscow subways with the nyc subways, with whenever i visit porcinea staring out the windows whenever we're in a station, and with cruising ebay looking for what's been written about the nyc subways.

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

What's the biggest regret of your life that you don't mind talking about it public?

I'm picking this one because I've spent a good part of the day thinking about it. I started by thinking about my father (who died twenty years ago next week), and how he was the sun about which our family of women orbited. How when he died, the family fell apart. How I, at age 24, had not yet worked through my teen resentment at my mother, and how she, soon after, started to really show the onset of Alzheimers. How that disease meant that I never did get to mend my relationship with her, and how much I wish I could tell her how much I appreciate her now, five years after her death.

She was an extraordinary woman. As the youngest girl in her family she was the one who nursed her own mother as she died of MS, when my mother was 13. At 18, in 1944, she joined the British Army without telling anyone in her family. With my father, she left Scotland and her entire family behind to come to Canada, crossing the Atlantic by ship while suffering from morning sickness. She marched on Washington in the '60s. She started her own business in the 70s. She would try anything once. She had no fear. She was a lady, always.

Somehow I have to figure out a way to honour her, to tell her now what I wish I could have told her then.

[persephoneplace.livejournal.com]

My sister in law died a year ago. A year ago and two months precisely. My brothers wife, I loved her with all the heart I could muster at 9, which i was when we met. Her first memory of me was that I was typing out the dictionary. I remember it - I wanted to both learn to type and learn more words - it made sense to me. She thought i was a slightly weird child - which i was for sure. The last 10 years of her life she was ill. She was diagnosed with early onset parkinsons disease the year her youngest child (and she had 5!) started school. She was 42. That was the year I decided to live my passion, and make my life be what i needed it to be - because i saw very clearly that you can make everyone else your priority and then - when its your turn, have it taken from you. In the ten years before her death she grew increasingly ill - she couldn't wash her own hair at 52, hadn't gone grocery shopping in ages. She died from a stroke, and they didn't know for sure whether or not that was related to the parkinsons. I believe she chose to not surface after the stroke - she had lost much functioning before the stroke and the stroke was massive. i mourned her long and deep, and still do. Memories of dancing in her house, shortly after the birth of her first child - that child now being 25 or so - are burned into my memories and my body. Her loss has taught me to cherish what I have now, and to make sure that I am living my life the way I want and need.

[deepforestowl.livejournal.com]

I'll take the passion one...I was always a reader as a child. I spent far too many hours when I was a kid with my nose in a book. I wasn't learning all about the sciences or anything like that but I loved a good fantasy or science fiction novel. I wanted to travel to other worlds and those books took me there. I grew up. I kept on reading and eventually I went off to college and learned about the world that I actually live in right now. I discovered that I love the world I live in. There is so much cool stuff about the past and so many excellent writers out there that write about the world around them. I finished off my BA and then decided that I really wanted to do a MA and I had the time of my life. I loved it! It was crazy and stressful but I wouldn't change a single second of it. I love learning. That is my passion. I love being an academic and I love teaching that love of knowledge to others. It is what I am good at. I just wish I could make decent money doing it. One day, I want to get a Ph.D. I hope it is one day soon.

[gwenners.livejournal.com]

How do I feel? Why with my hands of course.

Seriously. If I think about it, it's more befuddling than anything. I mean, one kinda suspects they have some idea of how life is going to work. I'm plenty happy with it, it's just not at all what I expected.

Actually, let me expand on that. It's not what I thought would be possible for me.I sorta feel as if I was playing black jack, was dealt a 16 versus the dealer's ace, and still ended up hitting 21.

Cheers,
Gwen Smith

[nitoda]

When I finally got honest with myself and with my then husband ... which was in 1997 ... and it led to the biggest changes in my life and hers. We are so much happier, both of us, than we were before then, though it took a lot of heartache and tears to get to where we are now. And what makes me happiest is when I am snuggled up with my two wonderful partners in our bed in our home and all is well with the world!

Something about me

[tibetanmonastic.livejournal.com]

Something that is known among my inner circle of friends is that I live with one foot on Main Street and one foot in the Twilight Zone. Yes I've posted on my LJ that I was born clairvoyant. But that is a very vague and abstract label. The private part is that my friends are aware that I have these gifts and they have come to live with the seemingly odd body cues I display when I’m getting a flood of moments or simply an impressed message from someone to someone I don’t know. A couple of years ago a long time friend commented that watching the Television program “The Dead Zone” is a lot like hanging around me. I’ve never commented how haunted the Bed & Breakfast in Hot Water Springs is. “Woof what a noisy place!”
My favorite food is BBQ ribs.

Re: Something about me

[skylark-10.livejournal.com]

>I’ve never commented how haunted the Bed & Breakfast in Hot Water Springs is.

yah, but they're friendly, cozy kinda ghosts. elmer is well cared for, i think.

Off-topic

[inefficient.livejournal.com]

psst happy birthday

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

That's neat. I remember when I first visited Toronto, thinking that the subways were fascinating in that each stop was a different style. Different colours. Different types of tiles. Some had more artistic flairs.

And standing at the front of the subway, so you can look through the window and see the tunnel ahead, ahead, always ahead. I used to get drunk on that experience.

Re: Something about me

[tibetanmonastic.livejournal.com]

Elmer is well cared for.

Please Email me
we obvious run in the same circles.
cheryl
dragonladyinc@aol.com

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

That's so sad.

Do you think that you're like her, in any aspects of your life?

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

Well, this is hard to answer as I've spent so much of my life to this point (almost literally - I started really thinking this through yesterday) trying *not* to be like her. But, I've got her save-the-world gene. She was a social worker. I used to be fearless, but lost it somewhere along the way. I'm trying very hard to get it back. I'm left-handed. I can't do math.

The fact is I've spent so much of the last 20-odd years closed off from being willing to honour her - in part because of guilt, in part because being like her might mean getting Alzheimers (she had the kind that is inherited) - that there might be a lot more ways we are alike that I'm just not seeing.

I don't know. But I think today I'll take a trip to the cemetary and start figuring out how I can do this.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

There's an article here with links to photo galleries about the opening of the Sheppard subway line -- our most recent subway line in Toronto. There's some interesting tile work in some of the stations. One station has perspective-driven artwork (i.e. artwork that only forms a picture if you're standing at the right spot in the station). One station has tiles that have the station name written on in marker on each tile by residents of the area. On station has tile frescoes. (http://transit.toronto.on.ca/transit.cfm?tt=subway&id=5110)

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Eep! Sorry that all ended up as link text. I forgot to close the anchor tag.

[silverkarakuri.livejournal.com]

Im getting to those last few weeks before I turn thirty-one so I think this shouldn't be too hard, given that any year old that has a zero in it tends to be quite introspective.

This is going to sound a little odd, but my moving from Toronto to Vancouver was the biggest most stupidest mistake I made in my entire life. I moved hoping that I could change things, that I could make things better, and in part, being T I could kind of make a go of it without much of a past. I moved thinking I would improve my life, but life went down hill pretty quickly, nearly ended up homeless and got into a few pretty sketchy relationships which I perhaps did out of pure needyness (emotional/physical, whatever) I don't like admitting this because I put so much emphasis on making a new life and making my way and becoming successful by moving out here... my last voice communication with my bestfriend in Toronto was her telling me to 'grow the F*#CK up and stop whining' I recieved a piece of snailmail from her a month or so after pretty much that ended our communication forever on May 9th 2002.

But because I didn't run back to Toronto with my tail between my legs, that despite everything nasty that has happened, I stayed here... and now I am working on a new bit of enthusiasm, I met a woman who I have fallen so deeply in love with I actually want to marry her and despite our occasional problems (which relationship doesn't have a few?) we are strongly bonded and I care for her deeply. I believe in my future right now, and its starting to look pretty bright and cheery if not just a lot of hard work ahead of me. But then as my mother said, life is never easy...

A shame I never did get a chance to meet up with you while I was in Toronto, we had a few common friends, the two Tina's (one good one EVIL!!!! :) ) and my best friend in Toronto pretty much idolized you and your writings on your site for years (and she isn't even T!! she did meet you eventually, alas I wasn't there). But well we can't do everything at once, and perhaps someday... someday...

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

[Aside: I came directly to your journal to post a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" on your latest post, which was this one. I couldn't recall having seen the post, though. Some investigation confirms that this post doesn't display on my friends page, although other posts of yours do.]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

epi_lj nature fact: I've begun posting this four times now and threw it out three times because I didn't think that I could find anything interesting to say about myself. I still don't, really. However, what has made my trepidation worse is that I find you intimidating. It's not that you do anything to create that impression. There are simply some people that I have that reaction to. It's more about me than the person in some ways, but some people just trip my, "No matter what I have to say, this person will find it intensely boring." I actually have frequently opened comments to your post, typed half a comment and then just closed the browser tab because I concluded that whatever I had to say was too banal for your journal. I don't know *what* it is about the people I have that reaction to that I react that way to. I have yet to find a real pattern.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

[Aside to the aside: It's showing up on my friends page now, although I verified several times this afternoon that it wasn't. Hmm.]

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's sad. My grandmother suffered from parkinsons and was in a very bad way for several years before finally passing away at the beginning of 2002.

I'm really struck by your last line. It's very... I can't even find the word. But I think highly of that ability to cherish.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

*nod*

What I'm about to say is probably way too dopey, but I've always been moved by the song in Mary Poppins when Dick van Dyke sings "I do what I like and I like what I do!"

Often, I find myself in conversations with people who talk about other jobs that might pay more money, and I'm always asking: "how much money is having a job that you love worth to you?"

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

That's really cool.

I'm glad I got to meet the three of you in person when I was in the UK.

Re: Something about me

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

I've seen you get into that place. It's quite a gift; you should be thankful.

And, hey, you'll never hafta worry about being boring and ordinary :-)

Re: Off-topic

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[deepforestowl.livejournal.com]

True. Very true in fact. When you love your job, it shows. I just wish that I made enough money to eat. I am earning pretty much nothing right now and if I didn't live with my parents I would be living out of my car. I've got my fingers crossed for better pay in the future. One day in the future I will have that Ph.D. and will make enough to eat and have a place of my own, somewhere. BTW, I love Mary Poppins. It was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

When I first met the_siobhan she told me that when you turn 30, your Saturn returns and begins a big new cycle of life, and you go through major changes. That was a pretty woo-woo claim but, hey, I can handle woo-woo. And it turned out to be very true in my case.

I'm sorry about your best friend. And, yeah, I remember Tina and Tina. One of them is on my friends list, actually.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

However, what has made my trepidation worse is that I find you intimidating.

Well, for what it's worth, I get that reaction a lot. Especially in a work context, but sometimes out of it.

Also, for what it's worth, I think you're pretty cool, and have enjoyed the few times we've gotten to speak to one another.

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this one for ages and am still having trouble. Writing about my passion seems too trite, too banal (everybody loves books, right?); my life-changing moments all seem like very obvious lessons that I had to learn anyway; things that make me feel safe and warm all seem so predictable. Regrets? I can't say I don't have any, but somehow I can't articulate them. Also most of these things are things I talk about with many people, since I tend to wear my past pinned next to my heart on my sleeve.

So have a life-changing moment that I talk about less often: the moment I first realised I was bisexual.

This was at uni; I must have been...18 or 19, can't remember if I'd had my birthday by that time or not. Anyway, I was sitting in a computer lab reading an email from a friend of mine about a dream he'd had. Most people (myself included) manage to make their dreams sound very boring, but he had a real gift with it; I was involved with his dream on a deep level and when, in his dream, he met a man who eventually kissed him, he described kissing the man back with great enjoyment and then backing away a bit, thanking him, saying, "Sorry, I like you a lot, but I'm really straight." And I dno't know why, but something clicked in me when I read that and I knew that I wasn't, that I girls work for me as well as boys.

This wasn't the first time I'd contemplated not being straight, nor was it an unequivocal realisation—it was a while yet before I could feel comfortable and claiming my sexual identity as bi, and a long while longer before I was actually comfortable with that identity itself. But this was the moment I think it all actually changed on the deepest, most important level.

[lovelyangel.livejournal.com]

I have a concern that as I get older my passions are devolving into mere interests; I seem to be investing less energy in anime, my Macintoshes, the trans community, and environmental concerns. And as much as I love to read, I haven't been making time to finish books. So I've recently applied a self-test. What could I not live without? If something is truly a passion, I would be loath to surrender it. Interests I could sacrifice; passions I could not.

If I were thrown out into the streets -- or had to live out of my car -- what would sustain me? I'm sure I would have a box of my favorite books. But what I really cannot do without is paper and pencil. I have to write. I need to weigh the meanings of words and play with their textures and nuances. I want to craft sentences as though I were sculpting in clay or sketching with charcoal. And oddly, I don't know why. I cannot trace this back to a memory. Perhaps it comes from my reading so many books when I was young. I'd rather not watch from the sideline; I want to participate in the sport.

Just because writing is a passion doesn't mean that I'm any good at it though. Desire has no correlation to quality.

I hope you had a wonderful birthday, BC. May this new year in your life be filled with inspiration and delight.

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

When you and I first met I was still very nerveous about having a trans partner and what that meant to me and if i could deal with it. Mostly because Sweetie was the first sane trans person I had met. Then I found out there was this other trans person that seemed to be a sane human, then I met her and she was a babe, and I realized that it wasn't the trans issues I had problems with, it was just some of the trans people I had met, and that made things with sweetie easier.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

The past two years have been a period of change and upheaval for me. In that time, I’ve changed jobs, bought a house, come out as bi and poly, and become involved in a poly relationship. If you had told me 5 years ago that this is where I was going to end up, I would have said you were crazy, and yet, here I am.

Oddly enough, what causes me the most discomfort is the realization that I could easily be seen as a walking cliché or bandwagon jumper. I have a lot of queer, poly friends, and it would be easy to interpret my sudden emergence as bi and poly as a desire to seem cool. Except that’s not the case. I could talk about how I ignored my attraction to women for years, and about how I started lurking on alt.poly almost as soon as I first heard of it, or would that come across as protesting too much?

More to the point, why do I care? After all, my decision to start acting on my long-hidden impulses stemmed from my desire to live my life for me, regardless of the judgement of others. I’m still working all this out, both inside my head and in comments and conversations like this.

[eve-l-incarnata.livejournal.com]

I don't mind participating in these sorts of things, but I only do it if I know that there will be reciprocation.

Belated happy birthday.