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Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
It was hard to come up with nine things which were worth saying but hadn't been said a billion times before. Whether I managed to find that balance, I don't know—but they'll do. This has sat around waiting long enough.
1. I present as female, and am fairly content to be identified as female, but the truth is that I don't have a strong gender identity. I relate to some female social roles, and given my body type tend to conform to some aspects of female self-presentation. I relate to many masculine sex roles and some social roles. More often, and especially where my therianthropy is concerned, I relate to a null-gender, more neuter than gender-neutral. I find myself somewhere between both and neither, with twinges of gender-related dysphoria in both my physical body and my gender presentation; I wish I could toss out the entire idea of gender, but don't need to do that or to redefine how I present and am identified. In other words: this is just enough of a thing to bug me, but not enough to hold a candle to the more significant gender issues that others face, so I try not to fuss about it overmuch.
2. I read an average of one page per minute. This proves to be a reliable and universal estimate, as long as we're not talking verse or textbooks; it's also damn useful, because I can use pages read as an approximate timer.
3. I dislike unfinished stories. I rarely read or watch anything that isn't finished—I can make allowances for TV shows (single episodes of crime dramas which don't have strong overarching plots, or finished seasons of long-running series), but I won't read manga that's ongoing and will rarely start books with sequels still to come (and I may not even read books in a finished series). In part this is pragmatism: I don't like getting to the end which isn't an end, waiting for the real end to come isn't my strong point, and I like to consume the media that has my attention now rather than the one that caught my attention with the first installment two years ago. In part, it's fear: like everyone else that began InuYasha a decade ago, I know that a promising start can turn into a painfully long and mediocre story; worse, some strong starts never reach their ends. And in part, I just think it's lazy and selfish to string along the audience for one more season, one more sequel, another year of waiting, another bundle of cash spent, on something which may not turn out to be good after all. I can and do bend this rule, some of my favorite pieces of media actually break it, but for the most part: I dislike unfinished stories.
4. After a lifelong habit, I stopped biting my nails in a single moment. Devon told me that saliva weakens nails (a casual search backs this up), and that was sufficiently strong and logical reason to stop, which apparently was all I needed.
5. I have little connection to my given name. Jessica just doesn't feel like me. It doesn't feel like it's not, me, either; it is null. I have a stronger connection to my screen name because I chose it and have used it for so long, but I wouldn't pick it to replace my given name. I have some connection to my middle name (Erin), because of its relation to my Celtic heritage and red hair, but I wouldn't chose to go by it either. I've considered going by Jesse, which as my maternal grandfather's first name is the source of my given name, but I know most people would hear it as Jessie, which is too cutesy and familiar for me. Sometimes I sign myself as J, which is a happy compromise but obviously not ideal. None of this bothers me overmuch, but it makes me feel a little unconnected, unknown, freefloating.
6. I've always had a strange relationship with my singing voice. While my speaking voice is high, my singing voice is fairly low (for reference, I tend to find Maynard James Keenan's range a good fit). I've long been shy about my voice and unwilling to sing in front of others, and I tend to have difficulty finding notes when singing without accompaniment. But when singing along to music, I'm adept at harmonizing or dropping an octave to stay in my range, and I find the act of singing satisfying in a physical, almost sensual way. Falling in love with Florence + The Machine has taught me to belt it out, and for better or worse—these days I love to.
7. I don't visualize. I mention this upon occasion, because it greatly impacts how I take in and interpret stimuli—but only on occasion, so it's not a bad fact to throw into a list of lesser known things about me. Rather than images, I think in words, often in full sentences. I've explained this in more detail in this comment. I also have what is probably minor dyscalculia, which gives me some trouble with numbers and distances but mostly means that I constantly reverse digits. I have a bit of synthesia-esque cross-wiring, and so read color into scent and feeling and sensation into letters and words. I have minor facial blindness, and primarily use hair to recognize people (even Devon somewhat a stranger after a haircut). I remember specific, random events rather than general trends or long passages of time. Oh and also I think I'm a cat, and I'm diagnosed with depression, anxiety NOS, and agoraphobia. (Now I've certainly grown redundant.) I do not think that I'm a special snowflake and that the eccentricities of my brain are particularly remarkable or extreme; I do find them interesting, and think that knowing and respecting them aids and helps explain me.
8. I have problems reading sideways or upside-down. You'd think, given how intimate I am with words, that these things would be easy, but even on an angle I have problems. This means that I have to sit upright to read subtitles, which sadly makes the bulk of my preferred visual media a little more inaccessible.
9. I run a more-or-less porn blog on Tumblr. It's probably not the sort of images you're thinking, no matter how well you know me—which is why I don't link to or mention it. You probably don't want to know what is there. I wish it were more popular, but I find a lot of joy in this silly little side project—in ways that are meaningful enough to justify in-depth explanation, perhaps, some day.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn offs.
Day Eight: Three turn ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
It was hard to come up with nine things which were worth saying but hadn't been said a billion times before. Whether I managed to find that balance, I don't know—but they'll do. This has sat around waiting long enough.
1. I present as female, and am fairly content to be identified as female, but the truth is that I don't have a strong gender identity. I relate to some female social roles, and given my body type tend to conform to some aspects of female self-presentation. I relate to many masculine sex roles and some social roles. More often, and especially where my therianthropy is concerned, I relate to a null-gender, more neuter than gender-neutral. I find myself somewhere between both and neither, with twinges of gender-related dysphoria in both my physical body and my gender presentation; I wish I could toss out the entire idea of gender, but don't need to do that or to redefine how I present and am identified. In other words: this is just enough of a thing to bug me, but not enough to hold a candle to the more significant gender issues that others face, so I try not to fuss about it overmuch.
2. I read an average of one page per minute. This proves to be a reliable and universal estimate, as long as we're not talking verse or textbooks; it's also damn useful, because I can use pages read as an approximate timer.
3. I dislike unfinished stories. I rarely read or watch anything that isn't finished—I can make allowances for TV shows (single episodes of crime dramas which don't have strong overarching plots, or finished seasons of long-running series), but I won't read manga that's ongoing and will rarely start books with sequels still to come (and I may not even read books in a finished series). In part this is pragmatism: I don't like getting to the end which isn't an end, waiting for the real end to come isn't my strong point, and I like to consume the media that has my attention now rather than the one that caught my attention with the first installment two years ago. In part, it's fear: like everyone else that began InuYasha a decade ago, I know that a promising start can turn into a painfully long and mediocre story; worse, some strong starts never reach their ends. And in part, I just think it's lazy and selfish to string along the audience for one more season, one more sequel, another year of waiting, another bundle of cash spent, on something which may not turn out to be good after all. I can and do bend this rule, some of my favorite pieces of media actually break it, but for the most part: I dislike unfinished stories.
4. After a lifelong habit, I stopped biting my nails in a single moment. Devon told me that saliva weakens nails (a casual search backs this up), and that was sufficiently strong and logical reason to stop, which apparently was all I needed.
5. I have little connection to my given name. Jessica just doesn't feel like me. It doesn't feel like it's not, me, either; it is null. I have a stronger connection to my screen name because I chose it and have used it for so long, but I wouldn't pick it to replace my given name. I have some connection to my middle name (Erin), because of its relation to my Celtic heritage and red hair, but I wouldn't chose to go by it either. I've considered going by Jesse, which as my maternal grandfather's first name is the source of my given name, but I know most people would hear it as Jessie, which is too cutesy and familiar for me. Sometimes I sign myself as J, which is a happy compromise but obviously not ideal. None of this bothers me overmuch, but it makes me feel a little unconnected, unknown, freefloating.
6. I've always had a strange relationship with my singing voice. While my speaking voice is high, my singing voice is fairly low (for reference, I tend to find Maynard James Keenan's range a good fit). I've long been shy about my voice and unwilling to sing in front of others, and I tend to have difficulty finding notes when singing without accompaniment. But when singing along to music, I'm adept at harmonizing or dropping an octave to stay in my range, and I find the act of singing satisfying in a physical, almost sensual way. Falling in love with Florence + The Machine has taught me to belt it out, and for better or worse—these days I love to.
7. I don't visualize. I mention this upon occasion, because it greatly impacts how I take in and interpret stimuli—but only on occasion, so it's not a bad fact to throw into a list of lesser known things about me. Rather than images, I think in words, often in full sentences. I've explained this in more detail in this comment. I also have what is probably minor dyscalculia, which gives me some trouble with numbers and distances but mostly means that I constantly reverse digits. I have a bit of synthesia-esque cross-wiring, and so read color into scent and feeling and sensation into letters and words. I have minor facial blindness, and primarily use hair to recognize people (even Devon somewhat a stranger after a haircut). I remember specific, random events rather than general trends or long passages of time. Oh and also I think I'm a cat, and I'm diagnosed with depression, anxiety NOS, and agoraphobia. (Now I've certainly grown redundant.) I do not think that I'm a special snowflake and that the eccentricities of my brain are particularly remarkable or extreme; I do find them interesting, and think that knowing and respecting them aids and helps explain me.
8. I have problems reading sideways or upside-down. You'd think, given how intimate I am with words, that these things would be easy, but even on an angle I have problems. This means that I have to sit upright to read subtitles, which sadly makes the bulk of my preferred visual media a little more inaccessible.
9. I run a more-or-less porn blog on Tumblr. It's probably not the sort of images you're thinking, no matter how well you know me—which is why I don't link to or mention it. You probably don't want to know what is there. I wish it were more popular, but I find a lot of joy in this silly little side project—in ways that are meaningful enough to justify in-depth explanation, perhaps, some day.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn offs.
Day Eight: Three turn ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.
