Still Thankful

I hate to get all sappy, but this is a great opportunity to mention some of the things I appreciate in life. (Seeing as I spend so much time dwelling on the crap that life deals me).

I am still thankful for the internet. Sometimes I think it's a cursed blessing, as the internet keeps me at home and indoors. Occasionally I find myself wondering what I would do with myself if the internet didn't exist. How would I occupy my time? I'd probably sit in a chair and think for hours on end, like I used to do when I was younger, before the internet consumed my life. I might read more books. I might actually get out of the house more and have a stronger "rl" presence. That would be a good thing. But on the other hand, the internet provides me with no end of entertainment. But it also gives me an outlet to explore my interests, continue my studies despite not paying exorbitant tuition fees for someone else to decide what's important to my education, and it's given me an avenue to explore and develop both my writing and my photography skills - and possibly even begin to garner a (slow but growing) fanbase that could help me opportunity-wise in the future. So even were it a mixed blessing, there is no doubt of the blessing part, and that is what I am today focusing on. Oh, and did I mention the internet is filled with porn? ;-)

I am also still thankful for girls. And looking back at my thankful post from three years ago, this year I will stress my thankfulness for 3D girls. I am still intimidated by 3D girls, and there are still things that 2D girls can do that 3D girls cannot (at least not legally), but matched evenly, I have and will always prefer girls in the 3D. They bring so much brightness and inspiration to my life, that I can't imagine how dull my life would be without them. Well maybe I can, as so much of my life has been spent without them - and even now, they are not as close to me as I hope they will be in the future. But, as alluded to above, the internet is a fairly good coping mechanism in the meantime. Girls are just so wonderful. For what it's worth, the nature of my photography has put me into close proximity with the gay and trans cultures (although the upside of that is that it's made me incredibly more tolerant and open-minded, which is something I feel good about), but damn I can't tell you how much more fun and exciting thinking about sex is when girls (real, true girls) are involved. Girl power!

I can assure you that I am thankful for more than just three things, but I don't want to dwell on this topic forever, so I will stop at three. The third thing I am thankful for is the latest friend I have made. I don't want to get all mushy, but she's been such an awesomely wonderful person, and I have no doubt that she's done more for me than I can even articulate. She accepts me, even admires me, for who I am, and that gives me an enormous boost to my self-esteem (previously shattered by a heartless girl I adored, but who would barely give me the time of day, although I don't blame her for not being interested in me, even if I reserve the right to be bitter about it). We get along unprecedentedly well, and having her around to hang out with (even if it takes some measure of effort - more hers than mine - to do so) has made me a much happier person over the last couple years, even in spite of my continuing struggle against my own inner demons.

So thank you. :-)

The Town That Cried Witch

Once upon a time there was a small, quiet town in the countryside. And in those days, a great fear was beginning to grip the land, and in more and more settlements, peace was being interrupted by a very vocal threat. It was a Satanic threat. As time went on, more and more people began to believe in the existence of witches - women from their own ranks of society who were in league with the devil himself, committing foul acts by cover of night in exchange for otherworldly power. People reacted in fear, and though the evidence was largely circumstantial, the punishments for witchcraft were brutal and permanent. As a result, some men began to realize that calling out a witch proved to be a very convenient, if underhanded, way of denouncing a woman who had wronged you. It may seem extreme by today's standards, but life was cheaper in those days, and survival for any much less guaranteed.

In our small town, the first accusation of witchcraft came from a middle-aged farmer. He had been growing distant from his young wife over the recent years, and had begun suspecting her of conducting an adulterous affair. She would leave the house at night and slink through the woods for her illicit trysts, arriving home shortly before the cock's crow. After months of this behavior, she fell pregnant, and while the farmer could not be sure, he had a suspicion that the child was not his. The thought tore at him, and he spent the months in agony, until finally the child was born, and he was of mixed race. The evidence was clear, and in the farmer's rage, he accused his wife of bedding the devil during midnight rituals deep in the woods. The proof was in the genes of his wife's newborn child. The villagers were very sensitive to claims of witchcraft at that time, inspired by stark - and, frankly, exaggerated - stories from nearby villages. So they killed the allegedly bedeviled child in mercy, and had its mother burned at the stake to protect the town from the devil's influence.

Time passed with little incident, and few regretted the deeds that had to be done in defense of the town and the rest of its villagers from the threat of Satan, disturbing though the experience was. People were very religious in that town, and they saw the presence of Satan in many facets of life, as if the devil were constantly hounding them, tempting them away from the path of God, looking for moments of weakness in which to strike. So any accusation that the devil's power had taken hold and turned one of them from their devotion to God was taken very seriously. There was, however, one family that felt the town's divine furor was in excess, and that was, of course, the family of the woman who had - wrongly, they believed - been burned at the stake. And then, of course, there was the man she had been having an affair with, who dared not come out and admit to his deeds, yet was nevertheless very much a man, and not a devil in the least.

But they made up a very small and compromised minority of the town, so when the second accusation of witchcraft arose, few were of a mind to protest the drastic measures that needed to be taken once again. This time, it was a young man accusing his mother-in-law of being a witch, and what served as convincing evidence was the fact the man's wife stood by him and joined in the accusation against her own mother. Those in the town who had known the elderly woman had known her to be a rather shrewd and disagreeable woman. Possessed of their reasoning faculties, they might have considered the possibility that the married couple were simply trying to get rid of a thorn in their side, with the added benefit of an inheritance to be left in the wake of her destruction. But in their cloud of superstition, they hungrily ate up the couple's story that their mother was the high priestess of a Satanic cult, an important leader figure in the devil's besiege of this once peaceful village; and to protect that [now conspicuously missing] peace, they had the old woman beheaded.

But in the wake of this latest atrocity, people's fears did not subside. They saw devils left and right and could not understand why eliminating the high priestess did not severely maim the devil's hold over the town. Some of them began to question the wisdom of their approach, and wonder if they were not being rather hasty in offing women at the mere threat of witchcraft. But those who did were too afraid to speak up against the prevailing attitude, lest they be labeled as being in league with the devil themselves. And after all, they were not certain, and were still afraid - what if the devil really were wreaking havoc in their small town? They could not let their guards down, and they certainly could not take a chance on being wrong - that's the moment the devil would surely slip in.

This is the attitude that preceded the third accusation of witchcraft, which was the most disturbing yet. A pharmacist in town one day observed a little girl in rags trying to steal some goods right from off his shelves. But he caught her, and in his haste to attribute every criminal misdeed to the influence of Satan, compounded by frustration at his shrinking profits due to the villagers' growing fear of dealing in "unnatural" potions, and his eagerness to prove quite vocally that despite his work, he himself was not part of the Satanists' plot, he cried witch. The little girl was a thief and indeed a beggar; she belonged to a very poor and struggling family, half of which was wracked with various illnesses they could not afford to treat.

For once, the villagers were divided in their decision of how to treat this last in a string of witch accusations. Half of the townsfolk had already suspected the pharmacist, and so questioned his motive, and the veracity of his claim. Yet, the girl's body was marked with pocks, which were speculated to be the devil's marks, or perhaps God's pestilent retribution against those who ally with Satan. Yet some began to wonder if it were not in God's power to smite His enemies without human intervention. Thus, it was with confusion and uncertainty that many watched the allegedly bewitched child plunged into the river to drown. Some reminded themselves that the girl was both poor and sick, and that if they were wrong about her allegiance with the devil, then her death was perhaps a mercy killing. But even then, a twinge of guilt settled into the backs of their heads.

And so after that most unsatisfying event, the town's religious fervor was splintered and weakened, and people began to view stories of witching deeds with skepticism. The most religious among them viewed this as sure evidence that the devil's influence was growing very strong, even though, from a logical perspective, skepticism is a far cry from evil and violent acts. But they were now in the minority, and most of the villagers wanted to return to the peace they had before the insistent fear of the devil had descended on their town. It was at that time that an unfamiliar gypsy woman arrived at the village, and set up camp just outside the border of the town. As she had been traveling through the countryside, the townsfolk were hopeful that she could assuage their Satanic paranoia, and she reassured them that in her experience, folk tales about witches were greatly exaggerated - a fact that many of the villagers had already begun to suspect. But just as they were about ready to lay their fears to rest, the religious leaders in the town interrupted them with one last fervent cry of "witch!"

For those few who believed, it was a straightforward case. The gypsy woman was a stranger, she had an unconventional lifestyle, and she seemed to want to make the townsfolk disbelieve in the existence of witches. Among all of the poor women that had been sentenced throughout the hysteria, the gypsy was the most suspicious of them all. But the majority of the townsfolk were no longer inclined to believe in the hysteria, and they couldn't take the guilt of putting another innocent woman to death out of ignorance and fear. The religious leaders saw their own influence over the town waning, and worked hard to condemn the gypsy, hoping it would reunite the town against Satan. But the gypsy was outspoken and charismatic, and criticized those who held her down and called for her death. The town's conscience won out, and the gypsy was forcibly released from custody. She returned to her camp just outside town, but she was less friendly from that point on and spent less time engaging the villagers.

In a week, the new moon had risen, and that night was as black as any. The villagers retired early that night, as there was an ominous feeling in the air. They locked their doors and shut their windows tight. A few were unable to sleep, and found themselves alone, nursing small fires in their homes around midnight, when they began to hear the howling of wolves from deep within the forest. If any had been brave enough to step outside, they would have seen a faint orange glow on the horizon, in the direction of the woods. But had they the courage to do so, they may not have lived to see the dawn. Though perhaps that would have been for the better, as the townsfolk awoke the next morning to find that all of the village's children had been slaughtered in their beds overnight. Blood splattered the walls and stained the sheets under which small bodies lay torn apart, organs missing. There was no sign of forced entry into any of the rooms or houses. It was the darkest day the town had ever seen, but not the darkest that was yet to befall it.

The townsfolk immediately suspected the gypsy stranger, but she was nowhere to be found after that moonless night. Her camp lay deserted, as if she had just disappeared. But she didn't return over the following weeks. Steeped in sorrow, the people in the town tended to their emotional wounds, and couldn't be bothered to worry about protecting themselves from further tragedy. When a fortnight had passed since that terrible night, the full moon rose on an equally ominous night, but with a different atmosphere. Few were sleeping soundly in those days, and the moon lit that night almost like day. Some were out sobbing in the streets, with little left to comfort them. So it was when the full moon was eclipsed and turned to a crimson red. Screams were heard in every direction, accompanied by loud, throaty growls and a gnashing of teeth. When the eclipse finished and the moon returned to its formerly luminous state, the town was covered in blood and bits of scattered flesh. Only a single living soul remained; it was the gypsy woman, and she carried a torch. As she strolled through the town, admiring the devil's handiwork, she muttered an incantation at intervals, and each time her torch flared up and another house was consumed with fire. As she packed up her things in the growing light of dawn, the town burned to the ground, and she left it a smoldering wreckage.

I Wanna Be Where The Girls Are

"I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are" is a song by The Runaways (a band I've gushed about in the past), sung by Joan Jett on their Live In Japan album from 1977. I'm not sure why it doesn't turn up on one of the bands' studio albums, because not only is it one of their best songs, but it reflects rather well the image of the band. These were teenage girls up on stage playing ballsy rock music - something that only boys were supposed to do at the time.

And so the song could stand for girl power - the band's statement that "hey, we're girls, but we can rock just as hard as boys can". But it could also reflect an element of gender bending. "You call me a girl, but why can't I act like a boy?" Joan Jett hasn't exactly been afraid to project the masculine side of her image through the years. And in my recent exploration of my own feminine side, I find myself relating to that quite a bit.

I feel that partly, I am a girl, at least in the sense that I appreciate things that are often more associated with femininity than masculinity. I also like girls, and I have the desire to hang around with them, to engage in the sorts of activities they engage in (as opposed to the activities boys engage in, like competitive sports). Every time I see evidence of the gender segregation that is entrenched in society (restrooms, dormitories, and even social cliques), it bothers me, and I feel disappointed that I can't join the girls on their side of the partition, just because I'm officially considered to be male. The range of behaviors people expect of me don't necessarily conform to the range of behaviors I'd like to exhibit, and when those don't match there's conflict (either in my head, if I conform, or in the heads of others, as they are exposed to my cultural transgression).

But there's another element to it, and it's somewhat more conventional. Despite the concerns I have over my gender identity, my sexuality is pretty clear cut - I'm attracted to girls. I have a driving biological need to approach and pursue hot girls - not just any girls, but those who are especially sexually appetizing. But it's not just a physical desire, it's a desire that invades my psychology as well. When I'm not hanging out with hot girls, I feel like I'm in the wrong place. When I am made particularly aware that there are specific hot girls out there in specific places doing specific activities, I feel depressed that I'm not a part of it.

I cope with these feelings mostly by either distracting myself with other activities, or tricking my mind by spending time looking at pictures of girls on the internet. I avoid going out where crowds of people congregate because I know the hot, social, popular girls will be there. And though seeing them makes me feel good, not being able to hang out with them tears at my heartstrings. And in the moments when I do think about the girl action that I'm missing out on (not strictly limited to sex, though that's included in the assortment of activities I'd like to share with hot girls), the void feels particularly relevant. I may never be rich, I may never be famous, but there's something about my need to interact with hot girls (I blame the procreative impulse) that makes it seem like it's more important than life itself, and that I could never forgive myself if I wasted my life without pursuing that need.

I don't know if other people have the same feeling, but in the absence of contradicting evidence, I tend to assume that they do. It's a feeling that's been particularly strong growing up, as an asocial kid who was never really popular and had a lot of friends - but most importantly, never got to hang out with the hot girls, going to parties and making out and things like that. Knowing that I've missed out on that gives me the feeling of a hot knife jammed into my heart. It's a feeling that has plagued me especially throughout my adolescence (though it neither began nor ended there).

I guess most unpopular kids either get over it, or learn to distract themselves from it. I know there's a difference between making out with a hot girl, and finding someone who is a true companion. And they're often not to be found in the same person. Yet part of me can't help thinking that a lot of people who never get the hot girls are settling for their less-than-hot wives. I don't mean to sound shallow, because I do recognize the importance of companionship. Maybe some people don't have as strong a drive for hotness as I do, and they can live with having the better of the two prizes (hotness versus companionship). But I, I am not content with just the one.

It's like the whole Saturday Night Heist thing I've talked about in the past, except focused on that primal desire of sexual attraction, rather than the need to be cool and have a good time. It's related, I'm sure, because there is a whole social aspect when I think about where hot girls congregate and what they do. And it may even ultimately be an illusion as well. Something that exists only on the outside. I worry about that. That even had I the chance to hang out with a hot girl, she'd quickly become uninteresting once I possessed her, and I'd start pining for the other ones I didn't already have.

Is that just the nature of the male sexual drive? To conquer and move on? I don't know, but even if so, it doesn't mean that I can't satisfy that desire in a way that doesn't hurt and treat girls as pieces of meat - except insofar as those girls are dedicated to chaste, monogamous relationships. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I just want to go out, and actually be liked by the hot girls, flirt with them, and make out with a few, maybe score on occasion. It's the kind of thing that sounds bad for the people who want it, yet the guys who get it tend to be admired for it. But it's this really strong drive that I have.

I've always used to think that I didn't deserve to be with the hot girls because I wasn't cool enough or popular enough, or simply not social enough. That I was the kind of guy that the hot girls didn't like as much, and wouldn't waste their time on. So my desire for hot girls had always been this thing that I could never have, no matter how badly I needed it. And the feeling has dogged me for a long time. I'm wondering now, though, that maybe the one thing that was stopping me the most, was myself. My lack of confidence, my fear, my anxiety. I hid, because I was afraid to be judged. I essentially prejudged myself, and didn't even give others a chance to judge me - even if it were the case that they would judge me poorly. But what if they judged me favorably? In that case, how much could I accomplish? Could I actually acquire the things I want most, that I never believed I'd actually have the chance to have? And how can I know if I don't try?

I wish change was as easy as realization, but habits die hard. Do you know hard it is to combat fear? To change - by sheer force of will - the way your mind has worked for your entire life? Especially when you don't even have any certainty a) that it will work, and b) that if it does work, it will get you what you want, after all. Even more so when you know that the process of change is extremely painful.

But I guess, as Einstein once said, it is foolish to expect different results from the same actions. Unless I change what I put into the equation, I'll never see a change in what comes out. And maybe what will come out will be bad, but it could be good - very good. I've even seen some evidence of that. So it comes down to taking a risk. The kind of thing I don't like to do. But I've gotta change the kind of person I am, somehow. There's a lot I like about me, but the most important things - it feels like there's a fundamental disquiet in the core of my being. As much as I have that I love, it's like there's something in there that I don't have, and it's important enough for me to sacrifice everything.

At least I hope it is. Because being willing to sacrifice everything for it is the only way to have the strength to grab for it and find out. God, I just wish I wasn't so afraid of things, things that don't even happen. I don't know where that fear came from. But it has to go away. I let fear keep me from the things I want in life. I know that fear is irrational. So I have to stop letting it get in the way between me and what I want.

And girls are the most scary - and most desirable - thing in all the world. I have to have them, but the only way to get them is to get over my fear.