a) whiskey + earl grey cream + pseudoephedrine + ibuprofen + guru + poppers + more whiskey + sambuca = most extreme dance moves of my life.

b) (scene: i'm leaning against the wall outside the unity washroom, waiting for marina. a gym queen fag comes up and leans against the wall over me)
gqf: c'est quoi ton prénom?
k: kat...
gqf: quoi?
k: kat.
gqf: c'est un nom de garçon?
k: (shrugs)
gqf: oh, t'est une fille?
k: (shrugs)
gqf: scuse!
k: (shrugs, smiles, sees marina & goes back to the dance floor)

too late to say anything, really.

i got this letter, just now. and it tapped right into this feeling that i have, that i've been fighting: that i'm chickening out. that i'm walking away from these hard situations, when i know i could keep fighting and keep working and maybe, maybe things might get a bit better.

i know they're not analogous. i know that being on a board is not the same as being in a relationship. i know that if something is consistently detrimental to my emotional state it is not a cowardly thing to walk away from it.

so why am i having such an intense guilt-induced anxiety reaction? i talked about this thing i do a while ago, here: this feeling that i can't forsake a commitment because how will they get on without me? it's egotistical and ridiculous. i need to let go of it.

i just feel so irresponsible. fuck.

i can't stop crying. the tears stay right there behind my eyes, waiting for the moment that my breath will catch and i won't be able to hold them in. they don't have long to wait, these days.

today was fine. it went fine, i was impressed with my acting skills, and impressed at the progress we've all made towards true poker faces in fucked-up situations. i'm alive, still.

right now i feel like i just want to curl up in a ball and cry til i'm asleep. instead, i'm making a dance party mix for EJs. all i ate for dinner was a half quesadilla and three pints of beer.

and now i feel lost.

i think that my body has taken the knowledge that it gets a break, and understood it as a chance to break down. i woke up this morning with an aching throat, and i'm still yawning. i'm shaky, and bleeding, and mentally exhausted.

last night i rode the fight/flight adrenaline to a giddy sensitivity to the ridiculousness of several hundred people waving little red flags in the air. i'm happier than i can say that we had a vote of confidence from the membership, and i think that what came out of the meeting last night was pretty much the best thing we could hope for, but at the same time i want out. i don't want to think about this anymore, and i'm worried about my bird.

i haven't been writing things down lately, and i think it's because a large part of me wants to forget it all.

actually, that's a lie. i write a lot of things down right now: legal responsibilities, notes on what we can do next, strategies to address the huge amounts of bullshit flying at me, emails to confirm facilitators, ask for contracts, assent to some changes and suggest others, and schedule 6 hour long meetings.

but i haven't written things here, because truly i don't think i want to remember all of this business too clearly. i mean obviously i want the nice parts: the dates with Our Favourite Meal, the little bits of flirtation, angela davis being a true star, a laser show with a throbbing beat. but the rest, i'd rather leave behind.

i started out with a headache but it went away eventually. maybe thanks to the advil o had in their bag, or the food we ate (probably not due to the intense situations the labour committee was mulling over as i ate) or the nice company. it didn't even come back during the information session on university b.o.g. politicking, so i knew it was safe to drink a bit of red wine and hang out with my colocs from the board.

it was cute: j & l in particular are adorable in familiar ways, which i tried to get across but probably failed at communicating. and it was a beautiful little setting, behind the hole-y white wall with a little box of wine.

afterwards o & i ventured across the street to eat burritos (& chips & green salsa) and talk for a moment - i gave them a summary of some of the conversations i had this weekend, and to my surprise and happiness it turned into a more in-depth conversation about it. 'it' here being the complicated role that gender, both one's own and one's partner's, can play in the dynamics of a relationship. particularly in cases in which you're both strangers to everyone around you.

i think the best part is that o & i don't usually have these kinds of discussion. generally i'll talk a lot and then get a little back - well-chosen words, to be sure, but few of them. today they fell out of their mouth like a little waterfall of understanding and similar experience and theories and anecdotes and analysis, and i loved it. i wished i could remember some of the exact words, but i knew at the same time that i wouldn't be able to, that i couldn't translate them accurately beyond that one moment. but still, i guess i'll try.

with a caveat that this generally applies to straight world/stranger world circumstances:

+ the frustration at having one's gender erased a bit because yr partner is read as a boy & therefore you must be the girlfriend, nevermind the truth.
+ the way this reading of a dynamic can interact with p.d.a. - our relationship is by no means a heterosexual one, but knowing that when we hold hands in public people see a boy and a girl holding hands makes me feel fucked up. fuck straight privilege.
+ ultimately, in my case, both of us are having our genders erased in some ways
+ more, and more eloquent things.