Not Anonymous

Holy Crap, I haven't written here since October.

That's a really long time for me and I hope most of you follow me on other social media or something? I hope I follow most of you. I'm mainly on twitter (@the_eumelia) these days, tumblr is a hell hole of despair.

Long form writing for me has gone by the wayside in a big way, I have much less time to meander on the text, I am really good at condensing my thoughts into 140 characters, who knew, what with the way I ramble on off line and here as well, historically.

Too many commas.

The thing is I always have DW and LJ tabs open on my browser. I feel secure in the knowledge that I still have these spaces that mean so much to me, that I hold so much of my history.

I'm an entirely different person now than I was ten years ago when I first opened an LJ. I was 20. Twenty fucking years old. I'm turning 30 in May. Thirty years. I'm so much less of an adult that I thought I was when I was 20 and fresh out of the IDF.

Thinking about what I've been through and actually done and accomplished over the past decade is actually extraordinary now that I think about it. But I'm looking forward to the next decade a whole lot more.

I'm financially independent, I'm living alone, I've recently adopted a cat (he is a beautiful tuxedo short hair who needed a home and whom, at 7 years, would have had a hard time of it) and I feel like I'm finally living the way I want.

A single, queer, crazy cat lady.

There's liberty in that and that's my message for this Passover.

I hope to write more here in the first year of my 30s.

Bless you friends and readers.

So, back in May I turned 29. Not the actual news I want to talk about.

I sometimes feels it's superfluous to write long entries, when I'm on twitter (not so much tumblr anymore, I haven't been there for the past month or so, unless someone links me a specific post) and I manage to regurgitate everything I want to say in short, declarative sentences.

This is helpful because I find myself completely frustrated with everything that's been happening and being able to just tweet "ARGH" at the world has been therapeutic.

Kind of.

Not really.

I took the time to skim through the blogging I did back in the 2006 and I'm amazed at what I managed to churn out during one of the most stressful times of my life. I can't even consider doing the same sort of thing now.

Moreover, it's hard to look back at who I was back then, trying so hard to justify the shit that was going on, out of some misplaced loyalty to people who are no longer friends.

I don't even know who is reading this anymore. If anyone. Maybe this like back in the beginning of my years on LJ and then DW, when I was just shouting at the void.

If you follow the news, you know my country is murdering people again.

I've been thinking about a lot of things to do with that lately.

I hope there is something left to salvage.

Meanwhile, hi? How are you?

Good evening.

It's the night before Erev Rosh Hashana (New Year's Eve) and I'm freakin' exhausted.

Those of you who follow me and are active on twitter will know of the saga of the window that has been haunting me since Friday morning.

What is the saga of the window you might ask? Let me tell you from the beginning.

My bedroom had carpeting put approximately 20-odd years ago. It was brown. In the late 1980's early 1990's I assume this was he height of floor fashion. I was a mite too young to appreciate it. Nevertheless it was brown. My parents decided my room needed a renovation and put in parquet. It looks lovely, really it does and it makes the room look bigger and lighter than the god-awful brown wall to wall carpeting - a thing I will never do in a home of my own, it is a horror to clean (when one bothers to do so) and collects dust and hair and insects.

Insects.

If you've been reading me for long enough, you know I have a terrible phobia of cockroaches. You see, last summer the humidity and temperature were ideal for these cretins to spread their wings and fly. And so father put a mesh net over the inside of my window as an attempt to keep the creepies out. It worked for the most part, but looked ugly as sin and it was a bitch to clean my shutters and window panes.

And so, along with a brand spanking new floor a new window was installed.

Only on Friday when everything was supposed to have been done at the same time, floor and window, there were malfunctions.

The window workman brought a torn net panel that was designed to be on the outside of my window to keep my mortal enemies outside my domain. So... it was decided he'd come back on Sunday.

Only on Sunday he decided he couldn't make it.

So he came on Monday. Only when I got back from work that evening I was told that he'd torn the mesh net again.

I swear, I felt like I was going to have a tantrum that rival my 2.5 year old niece! You see, all my stuff, all my property was in a pile in a living room while we waited for this incompetent ass to get his act together. I spent my nights in my childhood bedroom, where my nieces and nephews sleep when they come visit. It wasn't bad, but I was stressing out because it was taking so long and on the Saturday when I started cleaning up the floor and rearranging my bookshelves a baby cockroach flew on me.

It was creepy!

But this afternoon my mother sent my a text in which she told me "Tonight's the night!"

My reply was "Hallelujah! :)"

Yes, smiley included.

So tonight I sleep in my own bedroom, in my own bed, with all my stuff clean and tidy.

It was a rough week because as I said, I was stressing out and I everything was going wrong and my mom was resenting my bad mood, which made me resent her and her bad moods like fucking whoa!

But we got through it and it's now over.

Tomorrow the whole entire clan is coming over to celebrate Rosh Hashana. I'm so glad alcohol is a mitzvah.

Work continues to kick my ass. I continue to do well and make mistakes. I can see that I'm not making many mistakes, but you know, no one praises you for a job well done when you manage a day in which you don't have to fix a hiccup.

I've signed up for the ABC H/C Hawaii Five-0 Challenge.

I got the creepiest prompt of them all; "Buried Alive", which I had planned to make hopeless and terrible, because my brain is a lovely place to stay for a holiday. Thankfully my beta-to-be talked me out of my original idea and now I have something creepier, really!

What I don't have is time or discipline. I need to sit on my ass and write, but it's a hardship and I'm annoyed, because I want to write more, but my lifestyle is such that I basically get home from work and vegetate.

Tumblr is very good for vegetation.

I still want to write all the meta and a spiel about identifying with a fictional character in the most profound way, but at this point it just feels like I'm reaching for the impossible.

Getting back into the groove of writing long sentences and expanding thoughts is not easy. I think the fact that I hadn't been writing here as also prevented me from being able to write fiction and meta.

I had this whole long thing written for an episode and I just didn't manage to get everything I wanted down. I suspect that I might post my meta posts over the next few weeks. Or maybe just try and articulate my own feelings and getting back to expressing myself in a way that isn't about being as concise.

I also feel that I'm on reaction mode. I mean, something happens and I react. I react in a way that is sometimes off the cuff and may not always be the most constructive, but my voice is the only thing I have.

I want to be proactive again.

I'm trying.

Tumblr crosspost

Good afternoon.

I've been avoiding my DW and LJ.

The reasons for doing this evade me, but I realised that this is what I'd been doing.

Due to that behaviour I'd actually been neglecting some of my dearest and oldest friends from my own online life.

It's a terrible feeling, realising this sort of thing.

Work has been eating my life and sometimes the very quick and instant gratification of spaces like twitter and tumblr have been more convenient. But I miss you guys and I know it's up to me to rekindle the love for DW and LJ and to make them welcoming again.

I look forward to doing just that, and I figure the 1st of March is a good time to (re)begin again.

Can't wait to get to do all this again.

I would like to turn back to the tie scene. The whole court room scene in fact, as it’s a good opportunity to discuss something that bothers as a general rule and I don’t think it’s discussed openly enough in fandom.

About a year ago, I very pretentiously and arrogantly posted a post about “being queer in fandom”, you can read it here (on DW or LJ, as is convenient), and I got a lot of insight from the feedback (and reading what anons thought of me on that meme), which aided me over the past year of teasing out what really bothers me as a queer fan in what is evidently a rather straight fandom.

What I write here, as should be evident, is my own opinion and comes from my own feelings. And while I’m talking about my specific fandom, this is something that I’ve seen happen all over slash fandom, so let me hear what y'all have to say.

It should be readily clear to everyone who watches H50 that Danny and Steve as a romantic couple will never happen in canon. It won’t. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t want it to either.

I’m saying this now, because the season has given us many beautiful moments (on the boat, with the bomb, the straightening of this tie, and many other smaller ones) which have been fantastically fun to explore and have given us great insight into the nature of Danny and Steve’s friendship and relationship.

These are not, as they say, gay moments. They’re not. Because trust me, if they were, we’d know about it. Because subtext is not, I repeat, not representation. And the fact that I ship them doesn’t mean my friend ships them. Them not shipping Danny/Steve isn’t anymore more right than shipping Catherine/Steve, the main difference being, and wait for it, it’s a big one, Catherine/Stave is actual, fucking, canon. And regardless of how you interpret their relationship (romantic, convenience, fuckbuddy) their sexual relationship is canon.

When I hear people in fandom accuse others of homophobia for not shipping Danny/Steve all I can do is laugh bitterly. Talk to me when someone shouts “Dyke” at the street at you, or tells you all you need is a good fuck by a man (i.e. threatens you with rape), or your parents demand you “behave yourself” at a wedding because god forbid I slow dance with my girlfriend. Unless someone has said that slash is gross because it’s gay, it’s not homophobia, so get the fuck over yourselves.

Danny and Steve are not “gay for each other” (may that trope die in the fiery pit from whence it came) and the insistence of certain places in fandom that they are, is fucking offensive. Let me tell you why. It smacks of appropriation. Just like saying that not shipping a certain ship is homophobia, the insistence of that ship is a fetishisiation of a fantasy of same sex male relationships.

I hate the marriage jokes and the “dads” comment. When I hear them and see them, all I feel like is a punch to the gut. As though any kind of close same sex friendship is something to mocked, especially if it’s between two men.

As mentioned, those are jokes, my best friend and I have been mistaken for a lesbian couple, we’ve been told that we act like we’re married.

We’re not together and we never were. She’s happily married to her partner and I’m happily single being very lazy about finding love.

In the show, the idea of Danny and Steve being “married” and a couple is laughable and a joke, thus it is presented as such. It is constantly averted in order to maintain them being canonically straight. What is explored in the show and what makes it special is the nature of male/male friendship and the expression of those feelings in a way that is uninhibited.

Slash is an interpretation. Slash isn’t representation.

When I see factions of fandom insist on the “canon “of Danny and Steve as a gay couple all I see is a bunch of entitled fangirls appropriating gay identity and culture.

If you really want LGBT content, stop trying to make your own personal OTP into a peepshow and go look for shit on your own. No, really, here you go.

If your *squee* feels harshed I’d like you to take a step back and consider that some of us are invested in actual LGBT content because for the love of god, we need it. I need it. I’m not looking for gay content on Hawaii Five-0, but I would like my identity as a gay and bisexual woman to be fucking respected and to not have it appropriated for the benefit of someone else’s *squee*.

I love this show and I love fandom and I want us all to do better.

H50 is not the only fandom to do this. This is a pan-fandom issue that needs to be discussed openly and internally, because I honestly don’t care about the way we’re perceived by others, it’s not about them, it’s about us.

While I don’t think the show queerbaits as such, the fandom can behaves like it does. Moreover, it behaves like queerbaiting is a good thing, when all it is, is the creators having their progressive cake and eating it. I’m glad Lenkov et al aren’t falling into that trap, because no matter how much we insist, H50 transformative fandom on Tumblr and AO3 and LJ/DW is tiny. And while we may be loud, we are not the target audience and he certainly doesn’t cater to us (no matter how much he likes the vids and the fanart, and it's awesome that he does).

Tumblr crosspost

Originally posted on Tumblr.

I have a co-worker, whom I hate. I would say the feeling is mutual, but I suspect she’s too thick to notice.

She’s one of those people who think they’re funny, that they have insight on matters of life, the universe, and other people’s business.

We’re a small group working together, and we work long hours. Obviously, casual talk will commence, especially when many of us have a lot in common - geekery and gayness being some of them.

I’m out as gay at work, on my team there are two other gay guys, and we’re a majority women team (including my boss, who is a woman), so my workplace has been very comfy for me, woman wise and queer wise.

This co-worker has been making my workplace hostile.

Earlier this week one of the parents’ at the office brought their baby to work. He was a big hit among everyone.

Obviously when there’s a baby in the office we start talking about babies, and the having them, or not.

I mentioned that it was fun to play with them, but it was so much more convenient to give them back at the end.

This co-worker said, “well, you’ve said you didn’t want a family so maybe it is better for you.”

Family

I was hurt deeper than I expected. Yes, I’m an out dyke. Yes, I mentioned that I don’t intend to have biological children, or adopt any. That doesn’t mean I don’t want a family.

That I don’t have a family.

I was erased by her words, her mind cannot entertain the idea of a family that isn’t a heterosexual one made out of parents and their children.

This happened days ago and I’m still thinking about it. She isn’t worth my time of day, I know this. I shouldn’t even think about what she said.

And yet, in her eyes, I’m not a real person.

That cuts deeper than anything else.

First of all, to everyone who commented, sent me emails, pm's, etc. Thank you.

Thank you.

You are all wonderful and I'm so lucky to have you in my life one way or another.

As you may have heard there is a ceasefire. I'm still extremely nervous as I do not think it will last long, nor do I consider my nation's memory strong or long enough to remind ourselves that our current government brought rockets to the centre of the country and brought bus bombs back from the past.

The occupation, of course, remains and will not be moved at this time, no matter how much violence and damage it puts us through (Israeli and Palestinian).

Despite the ceasefire I didn't go to the office today, but rather spent my entire day working from home. I finished working but moments ago, technically still the 22nd of November, so my work didn't slide into the weekend. Whew.

I didn't go because I was anxious and because there was traffic that would have kept me and my co-workers who live in the same city stuck on the highways into Tel-Aviv for about 2 and a half hours.

Oy.

So I worked and faffed from home.

I'm rather pleased, but for a totally different reason. The reason being I'm going away for the weekend with friends! We'd planned this long weekend (took a day off and everything) over a month ago and god, I need this. I need this weekend like burning, I just need to clear my head, get away and regroup.

My hypervigilance was way out of whack this week. I have other thoughts about that, but that's for another day, I feel.

Right now I need to unwind from my long, long day of work and prepare for my long weekend ahead, which will be full of friends, puppies and rain!

Plus my laptop, there shall be some writing done!

I just got home.

I spent the evening with friends.

We amused ourselves, played with the dog-niece, talked about almost anything other than the fact that we're at war.

Again.

What else is fucking new.

I'm so sick of this shit.

Rockets are now reaching Tel-Aviv. There was a siren and the office travelled down to the underground parking lot where we waited the ten minutes we're supposed to. It was tense, but not overly so. Someone said there was an anti-war demo being planned and she couldn't understand that.

I said, "It's very easy to understand when you see that violence doesn't actually solve anything, but only make things worse."

I can handle a lot, but I can't handle dehumanisation. It doesn't matter to me who is dead on which side, I only care that a life was lost. There is a disproportionate amount of life lost on the side of the people who don't have the option of escaping and have much weaker weapons.

That doesn't make them better than us. We are no better, we just have bigger guns.

The Israeli government is as blood thirsty as Hamas, make no mistake. They have no intention on stopping the fight, the IDF is calling up 30,000 reservists.

A ground assault is immanent.

With it, a bigger body count.

It doesn't matter to me who is dead on which side.

I'm fine.

I see no horizon.