It's been a fortnight since my last post as this time last week I was at a wedding! Mel's mum got married so I took myself off to Devon to celebrate/visit my girlfriend. We had a nice day out in Taunton where I spent far too much and I played a hecking lot of games. I don't want to get my hopes up too much but I might finally be getting somewhere with doctor's etc... We'll see.
Screw you, technology. I win this round!
Before all that, though, I had to get through my current bugbear - recording more Mass Effect. Now, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love playing the game and making videos for you to watch. What I don't enjoy, however, is when you record 2+ hours of stuff only to find some random thing has inexplicably gone wrong and all your efforts are unsalvageable. Again. In total, I think I've probably lost a good 12 hours of footage due to corruption, faulty tech and temperamental software. Good times!
Anyway, I finally got the damn thing done (by 7am!) and I did enjoy playing it and oh my gosh exciting new things! Since I didn't post last week, you have four videos to check out, you lucky things! Links below, as usual.
Part 6 also available
Part 11 also available
[CN: food]
On the 3rd it was my mum's birthday. I'd tried to book an afternoon tea but for whatever reason, the restaurant I got in touch with just never bothered to reply. Mum decided we could do one of those 2 for £10 meal deals at M&S like we did for my birthday last year. I had other ideas. I happened to look up the M&S website to see if I could order food for delivery (I thought it would be a nice surprise to have the food already here instead of having to go out and buy it straight after work) and immediately stumbled on a section labelled Afternoon Tea. Perfect! I chose some canapés, tarts and profiteroles and Becky (mum's sister) donated some money towards the champers; sorted!
I sent mum off to buy a few things from Boots and went to collect my little feast. I think it took mum a few seconds to work out what was going on when I told her I hadn't been able to get the 2 for £10 because 'some awesome person bought all this stuff for afternoon tea.' She's always so surprised when she gets nice things, it's kind of adorable but also breaks my heart a bit that she never expects it!
The rest of the family & I clubbed together to buy her a nice new camera after the old one died a death. And my lovely pal Chloé helped me pick a good one with the specs that'd be best for her.
We had a really nice afternoon filling ourselves with food and alcohol while we watched... Far from the Madding Crowd. Very cheerful! I have no idea why she put that on, but it was still a nice day. Apparently one of our old neighbours helped on set with the sheep, which is why he always styled his facial hair like they do in the film!
[/CN]
The following day, I was up bright and early to get my butt down to Bridgwater ready for the wedding. It was a bit of an odd trip with everything being organised around me Mel was popping up and vanishing every few minutes and I spent a couple of nights in her room without her which was... strange. Thankfully, Gracie was around for me to annoy though! We've always gotten on very well, literally from the moment we met, so it was really nice to spend time with her anyway. I know technically she's 'my girlfriend's friend' but I have never understood that sort of unwritten rule that you can't hang out with Person C without Person B also being there. I love it when my pals become pals!
Sadly, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. A couple of Mel's friends have had a mysterious problem with me since day one. And by 'day one' I mean a good 2/3 years before I actually met said friends. Amazingly, this hasn't made me feel super amazing about myself; I tend to yo-yo between feeling like there's something wrong with me to being angry at the unjust prejudice.
I'd been in two minds about going to the wedding. I wanted to be there to support Mel, obviously, but was put rather on the back foot when my invitation to the celebration came with clauses attached. In short, my admission to the party would only be given if I cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die didn't overwhelm the poor party-goers with gay.
The people in question didn't seem to understand just why I was insulted. It had nothing to do with not being allowed to hump the leg of every woman in sight, and more to do with the assumption that, based on my sexuality (which is, frankly, no one's fucking business anyway), I need to be told not to drag females back to my cave by their hair and seduce them with plaid shirts and armpit hair. Amazingly, Tegan & Sara doesn't start playing every time I walk into a room and I don't need to chain myself up in the cellar every full moon. I may be getting my myth streams crossed...
Nonetheless I tried to be the Good Gay; I smiled politely and chatted to whoever I was permitted to and pretended I didn't know that I was buying a drink for someone who said I was poison. It was only when it got to the first dance that it really hit me. I sat at a table like the obedient little dyke that I am and watched my girlfriend dance with three girls. No one batted an eyelash. I'm fairly sure that 95% of the guests would have reacted (or not reacted) in exactly the same way had I danced with her too. But because of my sexuality our innocent dance would have been something else. I had to sit on the sidelines and watch the heterosexuals have heterosexual fun without me.
Please don't misunderstand this and think I am biphobic/ignoring my girlfriend's sexuality. I say 'heterosexual' because it's quite clear from her family's reaction that she is not bisexual but hass imply had her head turned by me, the sneaky trickster gay that I am. So, not only am I the spawn of satan, Melissa isn't old/clever enough to make her own decisions about who she dates and loves.
I haven't felt so obviously unwanted and out of place since I was at school. I've spent years building up a circle of friends who accept me for who I really am and it was quite a kick in the teeth to suddenly be fifteen again, surrounded by people who will always hate me because of a quirk of genetics that made me queer. It doesn't matter if I'm a communist, a nazi, a murderer or the saviour of humanity. I'm queer. That means I don't deserve the chance to be a human being, I'm just a smear to be rubbed out. And that's not even going into the oldnaming and misgendering I endured (I think I may have spontaneously combusted had anyone found out my gender).
I'd honestly forgotten just how bad it felt to be that person. Worse, it made me feel guilty for being so complacent in my every day life. How can I relax and smile when other people have to deal with that stigma and far worse every day? How dare I be happy? I didn't feel ashamed of who I am but I felt small. I felt powerless and ostracised. I realised that Melissa will never understand how that feels. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely thrilled that she will never know the fear and loneliness that comes with being openly queer and trans like me - sadly, she will have her own battles with biphobia and bierasure - but that night, it felt like a wedge being hammered into place between us. A distance that grew wider with every track the DJ played.
I would like to emphasise that this imagined wedge was just there that night, drawn into existence by the negative emotions that were building up inside me. The rest of my time with her was wonderful, as it always is. And we had a lovely time shopping together (despite both having to buy emergency shoes when the ones we were wearing decided to troll us). I bought lots of HP stuff because Hogwarts will always be my home and a new Playstation game which I might do a series on.
It's been a busy week in terms of documentation and medical stuff:- I got my password to book an appointment at the sleep clinic, I got my room confirmed at university, I got my DSA funded and my name change documentation should be arriving any day now. It's a lot to juggle, I feel like I'm going to spend so much time trying to work out what I need to do next that I'll not actually get any of it done at all!
My sleep clinic appointment isn't until October, which I expected, but just think how different it would have been if I'd managed to get it sorted in January when Dr Walker first mentioned it! I was once again made to feel like it was my fault that it had taken so long and starting university wasn't a great step forward but an inconvenience.
Phew, that was difficult to put into words. I want to be honest about my feelings and experiences but I also don't want to reduce my blog to a bitchfest and I am painfully aware that reading this will probably hurt Mel's feelings. I've been honest though, which I think is the important thing.
Anyway, I'll see you next week!
Xx
