Dan's Illicit Rantings

Your Eyes Only

[oftenwrongdan]

I think maybe Jon Stewart ruined America

I swear I'm not trolling.

This has been on my mind for a while, and I kind of fell backward into this conclusion, so bear with me while I try to spell it out and lead you through the convoluted pathways of my brain.

One of the biggest problems in American political discourse for the last decade plus has been that most people seem to be more focused on taking shots at political figures than criticizing policies or suggesting solutions. This bothered me a lot in 2016, for example, when everyone was falling over each other to make cracks about Drump's weird hands, his combover, his orange skin, etc. To this day, the vast majority of online comments are about how he obviously lies about his height and weight, his diapers, his weird late night online rants. And while everyone is dunking on this cosmetic stuff and high fiving each other over their zingers, I don't see nearly enough people talking about the absolutely atrocious country and world destroying decisions he's making or policies he's implementing. And the effect is not limited to him! There are a million jokes about how clearly gay and out of shape Kegsbreath is for every one comment about how he's systematically turning our military into the Klan. We're all laughing about brain worms while Kid Rock's bff is taking medicine in this country back to the literal Dark Ages. It's all about couch fucking and not complicity in Christian nationalism and ethnofascism.

Partially we can place blame for this on the obvious and inescapable corruption that now infects every aspect of American life. The news and social media are almost entirely controlled by people with a heavy stake in propping up the far right, so any criticism of substance is going to get buried. It's a modern psyop: let people feel like they're winning by mocking the powerful so we don't notice those same people we're mocking are taking everything away from us. It's hard to take a threat seriously when they're so obviously ridiculous.

I remember when my friends and I discovered The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It would have been around 2003. We had graduated high school the previous year and gone our separate ways but were still close and got together as often as possible. We were political nerds and had spent most of high school dunking on GWB with the rest of the world. Then we stumbled across clips being posted online of TDS. The style of political humor coming out of the show was exactly what we loved and was also something we had not seen much of to that point. For the next several years we all watched religiously. We became part of the growing Jon Stewart cult, convinced that this man could singlehandedly fix all the problems in this country just by mocking the powerful and saying the quiet parts out loud.

But while the mockery continued, the fix never happened. TDS became a franchise, Jon Stewart became a celebrity, writers and cast members became huge names. And everything continued to get worse.

It wasn't just Stewart, of course. I also see the growing impact of social media and Twitter in particular as part of the problem. With it's character limit, Twitter was almost designed to be a place for zingers and one-liners rather than any meaningful conversation or examination. We got Vine as well, which was about small bursts of content. This post isn't about the shrinking attention span of the populace, but it's worth noting because it's hard to have a serious dialogue about the growing shadow of capitalism and fascism in 140 characters and/or 10 second clips.

Now the butts of all those jokes are running the world. And while there are people out there shouting into the void, heroically trying to draw everyone's attention to the atrocities taking place every day by the people we elected, and in our name, they get drowned out by the comedians. The things that should be infuriating us to the point of torches and pitchforks and guillotines are instead running jokes, punchlines that never stop, an endless supply of engagement bait.

Comedy is important, especially in dark times. Mocking the powerful is important at all times. But as we always do as humans, we have latched on to this one thing that was a source of joy and made it our entire personality until nothing else matters, nothing else can get done, and even the joy has been leeched entirely from it. And now we are all our own little Neros, fiddling manically while our homes burn around us. And it all traces back to one little dude on a late night cable talk show, taking cheap shots at politicians.

[oftenwrongdan]

Random Thoughts II

Here's a fun thing my brain does: cell phones/the internet/social media make me feel lonelier and more rejected than I ever could have without them. I'm old enough to remember before I even had an e-mail address, when hearing from someone involved a phone call or a letter or a physical visit. It took a little planning, a little effort, even a little expense. So it wasn't all the time, or even every day. Close friends could go days or weeks without hearing from each other. Now, I have this little device that I carry around everywhere I go. It recieves instant messages and connects me to my email and the two social networks I'm still part of (is discord a social network? is tumblr?). And every second that it isn't beeping or vibrating to inform me of an inbound message is a rejection. Everything I share with my friends they don't react to is a rejection. Any moment I'm not being interacted with is a rejection - because the potential for interaction is there, which means (in my diseased little brain) that if someone isn't interacting with me they are deliberately choosing not to do so, which is a rejection. Every day is filled with hours of nonstop rejection. Even this: I started posting to tumblr again to have an outlet for the nonstop thoughts in my head, not expecting or consciously hoping for anything. But every day that I log in and have no interactions on my posts hits me like a rejection. The whole world, telling me I don't matter.

Sometimes I think hey, just say something to your friends. My inner circle is small and close and we are very open with each other about our various emotional battles. Shouldn't be a big deal to tell them this bugs me, right?

Except.

By telling them "you not interacting with me makes me feel rejected, which throws me into an anxiety/depression/self-loathing spiral," what I'm actually doing is making my mental health their responsibility. And I can almost hear my therapist (and my friends) saying "yeah, duh, that's the point." But then the toxic swamp of my mind bubbles and a fetid voice whispers in my ear "that cheapens it." The point, after all, is to be wanted. To be thought of. To be respected, loved, to be found amusing or wise, etc etc etc. If I have to ask people to interact with me, that undercuts all of that as well as throwing all their future actions into suspicion. Oh, you just "randomly" decided to text me? Or did you set an alarm on your phone because Dan's a vulnerable baby and he needs you to tell him he's pretty at least twice a day? Did you actually ❤ that thing I sent, or are you humoring me because I'm a whiny baby who cries if you don't react to my stupid memes?

Three medications. Monthly therapy. Regular psychiatric appointments. And this is my mental state.

I keep thinking that I used to be stronger than this. That shit like this didn't crush me the way it does now. That somehow my ability to tolerate emotional turmoil and navigate my various neuroses has eroded over the years. In fact, I think I was always like this but now I'm more honest with myself about it. And too tired to pretend, even internally, that I'm okay.

And this kind of thinking creates other problems. How can I tell if I'm actually being neglected/abused/taken advantage of, etc? At what point or in what situations should I stand up and advocate for myself? When the emotional needs are so high, and I've got more than a touch of paranoia and narcissism feeding into that, every time I feel like I should say something I also feel, quite strongly, that it is I who am in fact the asshole and I need to learn to deal with my shit rather than shoveling it on to other people.

As a bonus: everyone I know is married. I am single and live alone. Meaning I don't have even the opportunity for a truly reciprocal emotional relationship with someone. When the person or people who are you go-to for emotional support has a built-in, live-in go-to of their own, it's utterly impossible not to feel like you're creating an imbalance every time you unload. No one needs me the way I need them.

Huh.

No one needs me the way I need them. If that isn't my entire fucking mental health in a sentence.

The line between "am I just someone who feels a certain way" and "do I have a diagnosable illness" is so blurry.

[oftenwrongdan]

Queer Trek

Although it is my favorite Star Trek series, the older I get the more I realize that DS9 is full of missed opportunities. To be fair, there is a lot more awareness of how broad the queer and gender spectrums are today than in the 90's, but I definitely feel like if they made the show today it couldn't help but be more representative. Here's my take, by character:

Ben Sisko - Not a great start for my case, because he's the character I would change the least. It's not that I think he has specifically het energy as much as his romance arc is basically perfect for the character. Sisko has a lot going on: he's a dad, a commander, an administrator, a freaking Messiah. He's still mourning the wife he lost in a violent tragedy. Sex and romance are secondary concerns for him, so it fits that he has so few entanglements and ends up in a happy domesticity with Cassidy. If I changed one thing, I'd have his mirror universe double be sleeping with Bashir instead of Jadzia. It makes as much sense and is funnier.

Kira Nerys - Gaining a little momentum here. There's a tendency in the fandom to code her as a butch lesbian, which is understandable and fits the character. I do think she's bi, though, and definitely a serial monagamist. She's also the first link in the polycule - more about that later.

Odo - This is kind of my Big Deal character. Odo's love for Nerys is a series-long plot point, and he has a couple of other dalliances along the way, but I would do away with all of that and make Odo, at the very least, ace. Possibly aro, but I'm willing to discuss that aspect. But consider: Odo is an entirely different kind of life form. His default state is a gelatinous ooze. He "grew up" in a lab. Not only does he not have hormones or any sort of mating instinct, he doesn't even have the social programming to make it feel like a priority. The idea of sex should be as weird and gross and alien to him as eating or drinking. Something solids are driven to by their biology but which holds no appeal to him.

Julian Bashir: Bashir is absolutely that bi person who didn't now he was bi until well into adulthood. Maybe he grew up in a very heteronormative environment, but whatever the reason it just...didn't occur to him. And hey, he's good looking and smart and reasonably charming, so it's not like there weren't girls around. He had male friends but never formed a romantic or sexual connection. Until DS9. Suddenly he's being seduced by a scary/sexy Cardassian and simultaneously finds himself very drawn to and eager for the approval of an older Irishman. He's also spending a lot of time with Jadzia, who in addition to having a certain amount of masc energy herself is the dangerous combination of perceptive and completely lacking in filters. When she casually points out that he's obviously into both Garak and O'Brien, it changes his whole world. He's the second link in the polycule.

Jadzia Dax - the most explicitly queer character on the show. Jadzia is omni and poly, no two ways about it. She and Nerys have a fwb thing going on, which causes occasional tension because Nerys (as stated above) is super into monogamy but she understands that's not Jadzia's bag, but aside from that she's completely a free agent and remains apart from the polycule. Or maybe she kind of dips in and out of it? I do like her and Worf together, but more on that later.

Miles O'Brien - Like Bashir, O'Brien came out to himself late in life. Much later, in his case. He's a no nonsense, no drama kind of man. I think of him as very "meat and potatoes:" it's not that he was raised in an environment that demonized queerness, it just never occurred to him that he might be queer. When he fell in love with Keiko, he was happy to get married and have kids and let that be the end of it. Then he got to the floating love shack that is DS9. First, there was the doctor. Half his age, utterly not his type, and already on his way to a somethingship with the Cardassian spy, and yet. It takes a while for him to come to terms with what's happening, mostly because he knows he's in love with Keiko and the idea of polyamory isn't something he's accustomed to. Push comes to shove when the pregnant Nerys moves into their quarters and the pair of them begin to develop feelings for each other. Finally, he makes a complete confession to Keiko, confused and frightened, only for her to basically shrug it off and ask if he wants to invite Bashir and Nerys to form a polycule with them. Some explaining and reading later, he agrees, and the core of the station's polycule comes into being.

Quark: Hoo boy. My first instinct is to tread very carefully with Quark, because Ferengi culture as portrayed in DS9 is suuuuper toxic even though it has a definite progressive arc. But there's something about Quark, and about all the Ferengi males we see, that I just realized: they're all subs. Every one of them goes absolutely gaga anytime a dominant woman enters the room. From Ishka to Leeta to Jadzia and Mirror Ezri and beyond, these dudes lose their minds for an assertive, powerful woman. And I think that's an interesting angle to take. It adds a bit of kink to the show overall and throws an interesting curve into examinations of Ferengi culture and how it begins to shift. Why is the Grand Nagus implementing all these reforms, you ask? Because his dommy mommy Ishka told him to. Also with Quark I think there's an opportunity to explore sexuality via the season 2 episode "Rules of Acquisition." Quark's super tight bud Pel, who is also really great at business, kissed him! And confessed his love! But, twist, Pel is a female! (spoilers, I guess) And now Quark is completely lost because he doesn't know how he feels about the whole situation, and what that means for his sexuality as a whole.

Jake: He's a kid. I'm just not going to go there.

Okay, look: he comes of age over the course of the show. Maybe we can show him dating various genders and species just to see what he likes. Maybe some masc or androgyne or even hermaphroditic alien asks him out and he's like "huh, sure." Also: mommy issues. He likes older women. It's a thing.

Worf: I feel like Worf is a big ole bundle of insecurities, false assumptions, and cultural programming. At heart, he's a romantic. He's the product of two sets of loving, committed parents and he's made that his goal. He wants the love story that ends with marriage and happily ever after. Unfortunately, it leads him to love bombing and jumping way too deep into relationships way too soon. His time dating Deanna helped a little with that, but it's still a problem. On top of that, he's obsessed with being the perfect, ideal Klingon warrior. So obsessed that it makes him kind of a loser nerd among the Klingons, who generally aren't nearly as hyperfocused on honor and glory and all that jazz. He was so young when he was removed from Klingon culture that he only has vague memories and whatever Federation culture believes to be true. I think Worf may be the only actual heterosexual on the crew, or if not he's so deeply closeted that even four seasons on the Queer Love Boat isn't going to get him out. He does fall in love with Jadzia, but can't make it work because unlike Nerys he just can't acclimate to her poly lifestyle.

Garak: Have you read A Stitch In Time? Read it. Garak is bi and sapiosexual.

Ok. At this point I could spiral into going through every secondary character, but I've made my point and set the foundation for what I really wanted to describe: The Polycule.

It starts with Keiko O'Brien, not so much as an instigator but as a catalyst. Keiko is bi and at least familiar with polyamory. She hasn't done anything about it since we met her because she's in love with Miles, and he's always presented as hetero and monogamous. Then one day he comes to her all torn up and confused, feeling like he's already cheated on her emotionally by having all these feelings about Nerys and Julian. And Keiko just smiles gently and explains to him that love and sex and relationships are so much more complicated than he's always thought about them, and if they need to make room in their marriage for his needs they can at least have a conversation about it. So they do. Several, long conversations. And by the time Kira Yoshi is born they've decided to approach Nerys. She's surprised, but has been quietly struggling with her own growing feelings for both O'Briens. And being part of a polycule is much more up her alley than the casual fwb she has with Jadzia. They go official, and with a little coaxing Miles approaches Julian as well. Julian takes much less convincing and soon they are a quartet (note - not foursome). Julian, emboldened and enlightened, then approaches Garak and they begin to date. So we end up with: Miles married to Keiko, dating Nerys and Julian. Keiko, married to miles, dating Nerys and fwb with Jadzia. Nerys, dating Keiko and fwb with Jadzia. Julian, dating Miles and Garak. Jadzia, fwb with Nerys and Keiko, occasionally domming Quark and sleeping with Worf. Odo harrumphing over all of it and Sisko good naturedly rolling his eyes and quietly praying it doesn't all implode in some drama chain reaction that would destroy the station more thoroughly than anything the Dominion ever tried.

[oftenwrongdan]

Business Pitch

I may be alone in this, but the more I find out about being neurodivergent the more I realize I've never been as alone as I felt. And who knows, maybe someone with the right type of brain and the proper resources/connections will read this and make people's lives a little better.

A lot of people find themselves in jobs they don't enjoy. Facts of life, right? There are bills to pay in this capitalist dystopia, and unemployment means not knowing where your next meal is coming from or if you'll have a home. So you put out the applications and take what you can get.

But what if we could streamline that? What if we could make everyone just a little happier?

Imagine a system in which instead of raw skill, we look at interest as a primary job qualification. This job involves interacting with the public...are you someone who enjoys that sort of thing? This job involves cleaning...are you someone who enjoys that sort of thing? Match people to what they enjoy doing and watch train them into it. Most will probably have some foundational knowledge anyway because they've been doing it for fun in some capacity.

Obviously this is a naïve, surface level idea. We would need a lot of deeper, social changes as well: higher pay for starters. Why take a cleaning job, even if you love cleaning, if you can't pay the bills with it? And this only is looking at what would be considered "unskilled labor." We would also need some sort of vocational setup where people whose interests are in fields that require degrees can find out exactly how to go about getting those degrees, and into those fields. And if you're thinking "isn't that a school counsellor?" hey, congats, your school counsellor was better than mine. But also that doesn't do anything for adults who are wanting to change their career trajectory.

I guess at this point I've evolved from a business idea to a social movement. But I still think there's something there. I picture it as something like a temp agency, like Manpower, but with a slightly different focus. Making partnerships with local businesses and higher education centers so that people can come in and say "These are the things in life that bring me joy," and someone can tell them "ok, here's how we get you a job doing those things."

Something to ponder.

[oftenwrongdan]

Random Thoughts

Infuriating to be on three different brain chemical medications and still be this fucked up in the head. More and more I just want to stop taking all of them. How much worse could I get? FFS

I should be so happy right now. I have an amazing, supportive friend group who have encouraged me to grow into my best self. I have as much job stability and security as someone of my background and educational level can reasonably hope for. I have my own home, vehicle, and cat!

But all my brain wants to do is hyperfocus on the shit. Every bad/weird/awkward thing I've ever done or said. All the worst ways that people can interpret the things I say or do. All the reasons my beloved friends should stop talking to me entirely. All the ways their words and behaviors could indicate some sinister activities I haven't noticed but which will blow up my entire life when they come out.

And I don't even feel like I can say anything because everything I say is the wrong thing. Somehow I've completely lost whatever ability I ever had to express myself coherently, so everything that comes out of my mouth makes me sound like a complete asshole or a needy, whiny little shit.

Or maybe I am just a complete asshole and a needy, whiny little shit.

I just want to be chill. Enjoy time with my friends, and time alone between. Focus on my hobbies, my health, and maybe living like a functional human being. Instead I am trapped in an ouroboros of self loathing and doom predictions from which there seems to be no escape.

So now I'm turning to Tumblr like some angsty adolescent because I need to process my feelings externally but I don't want to bother anyone I know.

I'd really like to bake or cook something this weekend but every time I look at a recipe my executive dysfunction kicks in and tells me that's way too much work.

[oftenwrongdan]

The ongoing search for identity

I've still been tooling around the internet learning about the aromantic spectrum, and it's just been fascinating. For a variety of reasons (growing up in a small, conservative, Christian community in the 90's being chief amongst them), I internalized a lot of what made me different at a young age. I was drowning in a cishet sea and would be cruelly mocked for any behavior that didn't fit that mold, so I never talked about it with anyone and assumed I was just weird. Now I'm finding out that not only do other people feel similarly, enough of them feel that way to have terms! And flags! What a time to be alive.

Maybe the most important term I've come across is propeestromantic. This is super valuable to me because it embraces the idea of the spectrum. Propeestromantic people basically identify under an umbrella that includes multiple micro-labels on the aromantic spectrum. How cool is that? I've spent so much of my life trying to fit into individual boxes that it's still so refreshing to realize that the very idea of a spectrum means that I, and all of us, are really many things all at once.

Another term that resonated was caedoromantic. I touched on this when discussing bellusromantic, because it's the idea that a person once experienced romantic attraction but ceased due to trauma. I've definitely had romantic trauma in my life, and the idea that my journey into aromantic territory is at least partially the result of that trauma has been in my mind.

There's also singuluromantic! That's someone who only experiences one type of attraction to a person, and it doesn't change. Boy do I relate to that. I've always had this thing in my brain where people get sorted into categories soon after meeting them. This person is friend, this person is romance partner, this person is asshole, this person is sexy. Once someone gets "friendzoned," to use a controversial term, they don't get out. And vice versa: I can forgive and forget, but if I have labeled someone an asshole they're not getting back in my good graces easily or quickly. And I have a hard time staying friendly with exes because the switch from "romance/sexual partner" to "platonic friend" just doesn't happen.

Demiromantic is something I wish I'd known about twenty years ago. Someone who only develops romantic feelings for someone after forming a deep emotional bond? Hi, that's me, I'm Dan! I long ago concluded that love at first sight is just lust in a romance novel wrapping. And hey, I've had that. Anyone who isn't asexual has had that, I figure. But I've never fallen in love with someone until I knew them well and felt emotionally close to them. In fact it was one of the problems I had with dating when I was younger: by the time I knew someone well enough to be romantically interested, we'd past the "friends" threshold and there was no going back.

Idemromantic is a notion I need to noodle on. It describes people who have no internal difference between platonic and romantic relationships. I definitely feel like I relate to it. I said when describing my relationship to bellusromantic identity that I get the kind of emotional fulfillment from my closest friends that I associate with romantic relationships. The feelings are not sexual, but I do feel like they blur the line between romantic and platonic. Or maybe that's just me not fully understanding...um, anything. But there are, and always have been, people I'm emotionally close to that I want to spend that "romantic energy" on: gifts, compliments, sharing of feelings, remembering dumb little details, idle time, common interests, non sexual touches and cuddles. Is that just what friendship is and I'm thinking too much about it? Again, something to noodle on.

In my less charitable moments toward myself I feel like a bit of a fraud. Surely it's not just me who has all these complicated feelings, but here I am trying to be some sort of super-queer with a thousand labels. Or maybe it's my ADHD hyper focusing on this and eventually I'll move on to the next thing and forget I ever thought about being aromantic. Or maybe I'm gatekeeping myself. I have a weird relationship with my own queerness: I've been single most of my life, and the handful of romantic or sexual relationships I've had have been very cishet. So anytime I apply any sort of label to myself I feel like it's stolen valor and I wait for the alphabet mafia to come break my kneecaps. But then I start to think back and recontextualize old relationships. I know now there were at least two boys in high school that I fell deeply in love with and didn't know what to do about it.

Okay, that got a little dark. Getting back on track: gender is a spectrum, sexuality is a spectrum, and attraction is a spectrum. For a long time, I visualized the spectrums as just sliding bars on a line. One end being cishet, the other being whatever: aro/ace, gay, trans, etc. But it's not that simple. It's a three dimensional cloud in which an individual can be a thousand different things. That's the whole point. I contain multitudes, and they are queer af.

[danshive]

I think part of the “attractive woman equal dumb” trope (prevalent in many old sitcoms) was the misconception that masks worn for seduction, and job-related entertainment, were the reality.

“She’s dumb and cutesy.” She’s feeding a man’s ego while minimizing how intimidating she is. She’s sweet and vulnerable and not at all smarter than the big, smart man in any way.

It’s cashiers having to smile dialed up to eleven.

Then sitcom writers were like “mask? What mask? That’s who they are. Also, stupid jokes are funny.”

[oftenwrongdan]

The road goes ever on

It's very frustrating to be in one's forties and still figuring out basic things about oneself. It's the product of a million things: shoddy education, ignorant parents, a media bent on expressing only one viewpoint through my entire childhood and adolescence, etc. And while it's empowering to break out of those restrictions, it makes me wonder how different my life could have been if I had been allowed to know and be my true self decades ago. It's why the fight for education is so important, so that future generations can have that privelige.

I came out as bisexual in my mid twenties, because that's how old I was when I realized that was a thing. I'd always known I was attracted to women, so I couldn't be gay. So being attracted to men was just...something? And then I found out you could be both and it was like an explosion in my head. Holy cow.

Just in the past few years I've been on what has been described as a gender journey. I'm AMAB and never really questioned that, even when I knew I had attitudes and behaviors that were more traditionally fem. But as I've come to understand that gender is a spectrum, and internalize that, my personal idea of my own gender as began to drift. For a minute I thought I was a cross-dresser: I like dresses and nail polish and have begun wearing lipstick and experimenting with eye shadow. But that's not quite it either. At this point I'm on he/they pronouns, but the journey is ongoing.

And now this.

I've been grappling with the idea that I may be on the aro spectrum. Like my sexuality and gender, it's something that's always been with me but I never had the knowledge or terminology to properly address it before. When I was younger, I was very invested in being in love, being in a relationship, someday getting married. As I've gotten older, that has fallen in my priority list until it just fell off entirely. Now the idea of a relationship is a little weird and unpleasant. I've told myself it's a trauma response: I've had bad relationships, I've had rejections, and I've been single/lived alone for most of my adult life at this point, so my brain just kind of scabbed over that part of me. But what if that's not true? What if my younger self was just heavily influenced by peer pressure and media into thinking I needed to be in love and in a relationship to be complete and happy?

I'm not an island: I do need people in my life. But that feeds into the point: I have felt entirely fulfilled by close friendships. There are people in my life (not many) who fill the space in my heart that a romantic partner would, but with no sexual feelings or any of the strings I associate with romantic love. I've called these people found family, but that isn't right either. I have family, and this is something else. Something deeper and more important.

Tonight I decided to do some real studying and came across aromanticism.org and their glossary of terms. (https://www.aromanticism.org/en/all-terms) I was amazed at how many I related to on some level! Alterous attraction, amicusromantic, angled aro, appromour, aromate...by the time I got through the "a" section I was no longer questioning whether I was on the spectrum. Then I came across Bellusromantic and once again there was an explosion in my head.

"Describes a person who has interest in conventionally romantic actions, yet does not desire a romantic relationship."

Have you ever read something that you thought was unique or even weird about you but it turns out enough people have the same thing that there's a term for it? Life changing. Because I do love romance. I love giving and getting gifts, telling people I love how amazing and beautiful they are, giving hugs and platonic cuddles, taking care of and building up the people who mean the most to me. And I've always struggled because it feels difficult to lean into that part of myself with my friends without crossing some line, coming across as not platonic, or giving people the ick. Of course, that part will always be true because just because I feel a certain way doesn't mean everyone else does and it's obviously super important to respect their boundaries. But just knowing where I'm coming from in my own head gives me a much more stable base to navigate those situations.

This isn't the end of this journey. I still need to learn more and figure out how this is going to effect my personal goals going forward. And there will always be problems. Being single still sucks in a lot of ways, especially at this age. All of my friends are coupled up, and even when I'm close to both members of a romantic unit I'm still outside that unit. It's hard not to feel like a burden sometimes because I rely on my friends for so much emotional support and because they have partners they don't need to rely on me the same way. It feels very one sided and I hate that. But that's my baggage to work through, and I am doing my best to do so.

Support the queer community. Amplify educational sources and voices. Make sure the current and future generations of young people have the ability to know themselves at an early enough point to shape their lives around their actual identities and not the ones their parents or society wants to shove them into.

[oftenwrongdan]

My father is dead

Somewhere in the archives of this blog is a post about my grandmother dying. It talks about the different reactions my mother and I had: to her the woman was a bitchy mother in law, a rival and enemy while to me she was a nice old lady who gave me Nutty Buddies and watched wrestling with me. One of the reasons my mom hated her was that she and her husband weren't there for my brother and I, and that's certainly a legitimate complaint; they kind of evaporated when I was 10 and were never seen or heard from again. I only found out she was dead third hand. But to me, Nanny and Poppa will always be Little Debbie snacks, WWF pay per views, Bob Ross, and cold coffee. And those are memories to cherish. I don't have the energy to resent what wasn't.

And yet

Last week, that woman's son died. By a strange coincidence, he happened to be my biological father. He and my mother divorced when I was still too young to be forming permanent memories, so my memories of him are all holidays, birthdays, and the occasional weekend when he would actual step up for his custody agreement. (part of the reason I have so many fond memories of my grandparents is that they would take my brother and I on his weekends just to give my mom a break. Where he was and what he was doing I never knew) Like Nanny and Poppa, dad was a sometimes presence in my life: a bushy mustache that tickled my nose when he kissed me (gimme some sugar, he would say every time), a present and a card. And then one day, like his parents, he just...vanished. No more visits, no more presents or cards or phone calls. I was ten. By the time I was thirteen I had stopped wondering what happened and just started quietly hating him. By the time I was twenty I had stopped thinking about him.

I'm 40 now, and he's dead.

When I first learned of his death, I immediately shrugged it off. Thirty years of my life have passed without this man in it; he could have died in 1994 as far as I'm concerned, right?

And yet

It's been eating at me, gnawing away at my brain, for days now. And it infuriates me. Why do I care? How am I not over this? The man made a choice not to be part of my life. He missed my entire adolescence and young adulthood, the times when a boy really needs his father. And in an age of text messaging and social media, he has continued to make that choice every. Single. Day.

And so did I.

I could have reached out. I looked him up on Facebook once, years ago. I could have sent a message, tried to establish contact. But my pride wouldn't let me. He walked out on me...let him be the one to offer the olive branch.

But he never did.

And now he's dead.

Except

A couple of years ago, he reached out to my younger brother. Wanted to make contact, reconcile, whatever. And my brother hesitated. Came to me. I told him it was his choice to make but I'd back his play. IN the end they had a couple of empty phone conversations about nothing, and then he faded back into the ether.

Why he chose my brother and not me, I'll never know. My brother doesn't know.

I have a personal philosophy of not regretting my decisions. Every dumb mistake and poor choice I've made in my life has led me to where I am, and if I changed one tiny thing, who knows what I would lose? Which friendships would never exist? What experiences would I never had had? I look forward, always. But this is different. Because this is someone else's decision as well. And I'll never understand why I wasn't good enough for my own father.

There. I said it.

I wasn't good enough for my own father to want to be a part of my life, and what kills me even more than that basic fact is that I have lost any opportunity to find out why. I'm not going to miss him; that ship sailed decades ago. But now I'll never get to know. And I'll never know why, when he did finally reach out and the end of his life, he chose my brother and not me. Specifically excluded me, in fact.

And that's not even the end of it. Because I realized something today: by abandoning me when and how he did, he immortalized himself in my mind in a certain way. When I think of him, I don't think of the absentee father. I don't think of the abusive monster my mother describes. I think of an easy smile, a mustache that tickles my nose (gimme some sugar), of hugs and love and the innocent joys of childhood.

I can't hate that man.

That man's my dad.

And now he's dead.

[oftenwrongdan]

Audio fiction 13

Lucky number 13, and we're out of grab bag territory. Now the pressure is back on for me to actually have more than a paragraph to say about these shows.

And I'm starting with The Far Meridian, a show everyone needs to be listening to.

Created, written by, and starring Eli Barraza and with sound editing by the amazing Mischa Stanton, The Far Meridian is a show about Peri. Peri is a young woman who lives in a lighthouse. One day, she opens the door to find that her lighthouse...is not where it was. And again the next day. Her home has started relocating in the night.

The terrifying strangeness of a home that has started wandering is compounded by Peri's severe agoraphobia. The show tracks her dealing with both of these issues (the one very much tying into the other), as well as exploring her past traumas and giving us views of the world through different perspectives as she encounters other people in her travels.

It's a sweet show, beautifully written, performed, and produced. Unfortunately, it's been over a year since the last production update, so I don't know what the status is. But I'm hoping it comes back, because Peri has more story to tell and I really enjoy living in this world. 5 out of 5.

[oftenwrongdan]

Audio Fiction 12

I think this may be the last grab bag. That was a short series. But, looking through my list of podcasts yet to be reviewed, I only see three that I think fit this criterion. The rest deserve solo posts. Um, no offense to the nine podcasts that got grab bagged.

Anyway.

Strange Air

An AM radio host for a show about the paranormal, supernatural, and unexplained vanishes in the middle of a broadcast. Ten years later, his daughter, who was a child at the time, is producing a documentary about her father's disappearance with the hope of finding out what happened to him - and hopefully, finding him. That's the premise of Strange Air, and if that didn't get you at least a little interested, I don't know why you've read twelve of these posts because we don't have much in common. It's a locked room mystery with touches of science fiction, spiritualism, and everything else. The cast is great, from the very damaged daughter to the various sources she interviews. The writing and sound design are solid. It's a fun show that wraps up after two seasons, so you can listen to the whole thing right now. 4 out of 5, recommend.

Vigil

I resisted Vigil for a long time. I heard ads for it on various other shows, and they just didn't do it for me. But finally one caught me in the right mood and I queued it up. What I found was interesting, to say the least. Vigil takes the form of an audio documentary being produced by a news team in a world where superheroes are real. Vigil himself is a "support hero," kind of like DC's Oracle, who has maintained such a low profile most people have never even heard of him. The show covers the early days of his career, gradually expanding the world in the process, while simultaneously the documentarian deals with emerging threats in the present day. It's a low key kind of story, but it has my attention and I'm in for season 2 when it comes out. 3 out of 5.

Spaceships

I'm not even going to try to sell you on this show. It's exactly what it says: it's about spaceships. Sentient spaceships. In a universe where every intelligent organic lifeform suddenly, mysteriously died. The story follows a science ship, a cargo ship, and a warship as they team up to figure out what happened and, perhaps more importantly, what happens next. It's a fun show, honestly, with a good sense of humor balanced with suspense as the stories unfold. Season 2 has been...less great, but I'm still on board. 3 out of 5. I just realized I made a joke with "on board."

[oftenwrongdan]

Audio Fiction 11

Let's do another grab bag! Also, I forgot to mention last time that I've given up on reviewing shows in the order I listened to them. The first few were easy enough, but at this point I'm basically lost on the sequence.

Uncanny County

This is another anthology show, not unlike Mayfair Watchers Society, with each episode being about a different weird event taking place in this rural county. Unlike Mayfair, in which the stories all take place in the same small town but are otherwise mostly unconnected, Uncanny County has recurring cast members and stories that connect to each other or reference back to previous episodes. It's absurdist comedy as much as horror, and I quite enjoy it. 4 out of 5, definitely recommend.

Newts!

I kind of feel like Newts! deserves its own post, but at the same time I don't know what to say about this weird little show. It's a quick 6 episodes, so not a big time investment. The creator took one of his favorite science fiction stories and created a strange musical dramedy. And yes, I said musical. The songs are kind of the best part? Like I said, this show is hard to describe, but it's definitely fun and the music is catchy. The performances are strong, and I don't regret listening to it one bit. Honestly, check it out. 5 out of 5.

Sidequesting

This is, to me at least, very much a comfort food show. There may or may not be a larger story slow-brewing, but basically it's a series of done in one episodes. The protagonist is an adventurer who does exactly what the show says on the label: sidequests. Occasionally there will be mentions of a Big Bad and a Prophesied Chosen One, but our hero would rather worry about the small stuff and let someone else take on that challenge. It's a charming, fun show. Tal Minear gets a lot of credit as producer, sound designer, and the voice of Rion (the protagonist). It's nice to dip my toes into this world and go on a nonadventure with Rion after a stressful day. 5 out of 5, add it to your list.

[oftenwrongdan]

Audio Fiction 10

I've been a little lax about these reviews, not without reason. Part of that reason is that I write these at work, so it's a question of down time and how much energy I have. And part is that I got to a point where I felt like I was repeating myself or didn't have enough to say about a show. It's harder than I thought it would be to review multiple shows without just saying the same things over and over. I guess that's why people use formulas for these types of things. I think of myself as well read and well spoken, but my vocabulary for this sort of activity feels like it comes up short. Also, I'm desperate to avoid spoilers because I came to most of these blind and the ones I love most are the ones that surprised me.

So in order to keep things going (or get them going again), I'm going to shake things up a bit. This will be a grab bag post, brief reviews of a handful of shows I don't have enough to fill an entire post with. I'm also going to limit myself to five, so I don't go too long and still have material for future posts.

Let's jump right in:

Zero Hours

Created, written, directed and produced by Sarah Shachat, Gabriel Urbina, and Zach Valenti. I followed this trio over from Wolf 359, a show I have reviewed yet but hopefully soon. I picked that show up from trailers and followed Gabriel and Zach there from The Bright Sessions.

Zero Hours is an anthology show about the end of the world. Each episode is a different apocalypse scenario featuring different characters, allowing the creators to meditate on a new theme each time. Some are funny; some are sad; some are heartwarming. Each episode creates its own world and I fell entirely into every one. It's a limited run, only 10 episodes, so definitely worth your time. 5 out of 5 stars.

Out of Place

Produced by (the prolific) Pacific S. Obadiah and written by and starring Ben Counter. I came to this one through one of Pacific's other shows, because the concept seemed fun.

Out of Place is narrated by a character who works cataloguing artifacts for a museum. The catch is that every so often he'll get an artifact that clearly isn't from our reality. The show, which is an anthology format with each episode centering around a different artifact, is a description of the item and then the narrator speculating about the world it came from. There's also a slow-burn story taking place that links them all. It's fun and interesting. 4 out of 5 stars.

Mayfair Watchers Society

Another Pacific S. Obadiah show, this one is produced by Tom Owen and Brad Miska with sound design by Brad Colbroock.

Based on the works of writer/artist Trevor Henderson, Mayfair Watchers is an anthology horror series set in the town of Mayfair. Each episode focuses on some new creature, with a new cast of characters. What I like about this show is that it's very small town, so the reactions and interactions with these eldritch manifestations feel very organic and genuine as they're coming from normal people instead of soldiers or scientists. 4 out of 5 stars.

That's all for now. Hopefully more soon.

[oftenwrongdan]

Audio Fiction 9

There, new title firmly in place.  Not that anyone but me cares.  :p

Disclaimer: at this point I’m not terribly clear on the order in which I listened to shows, but I’m going to do my best.

The next show I’m going to talk about is one I heard a LOT of trailers for, and they never really impressed me. (that’s going to be kind of a recurring theme, actually: great shows with meh trailers) In fact, I even listened to the first episode at one point and decided I didn’t like it.  It wasn’t until much later that I went back and decided to give it another chance, and ended up falling in love.

The show in question is Civilized.

I think what threw me about Civilized at first is that I didn’t quite grasp the notion: this is an IMPROVISED story.  Rather than writing a script or even creating a world, the producers (see below) gathered a bunch of improv actors, gave them a prompt, and hit record.  And they do that every episode.  And it’s amazing.  Over the course of four seasons they’ve built a fully realized world, three dimensional characters, and a still-unfolding backstory full of drama and intrigue.  All from what they call “Friends” prompts: each episode starts with “The one where...” as a prompt.

The show is produced by the prolific Sean Howard and Eli McIlveen (you’ll be hearing those names again down the road), and sound designed by Eli McIlveen.  It’s a more subtle sound design than, for example, Celeritas, but no less engaging.  Eli has a real skill for matching sounds, background noises, and music to what the cast are saying, creating a truly immersive experience.

And the cast themselves are phenomenal.  Kristi Bolton, Michael Divinski, and the aforementioned Sean Howard have been on since the beginning and have a hilarious chemistry.  I listen to this show at the gym and am often laughing out loud.  Phil Johnston and Tyra Banda, who joined the cast later on, both hit the ground running and only added to the dynamic.  Mbula Enobong was a regular in season one, and unfortunately passed away, but she deserves her own recognition - her character was a key component to that first season, and she was a funny improviser in her own right.

I’m not someone who has a lot of money to throw around, but Civilized is one of the few projects I am a Patron of.  I love this show and never want it to end.  Check it out!

[oftenwrongdan]

Podcasts / Audio Fiction 8

We’re transitioning!  Titles, I mean.

The last few shows I listened to definitely fell into a specific genre, and the next one continued that trend, but cranked it up to 11:  Celeritas.  

Hoo boy, this show.

I have one complaint against Celeritas, and it’s this:  the show doesn’t come out often enough.  There are months-long gaps between episodes, to the point that I have more than once assumed the show was no longer in production when a new one popped into my feed.  I assume this is due to production difficulties, and I forgive it for that, because it is a-mazing.

Celeritas is primarily a single person audio drama about an astronaut/scientist/test pilot in an experimental spacecraft.  Something goes wrong and he finds himself in the distant future and at the far end of the solar system.  On paper, the show is about him trying to get back to Earth, connect with whatever passes for Humanity in this era, and all the usual jazz.  In actuality, the show is about one person struggling (and sometimes failing) to hold it together in the face of the most devastating catastrophe an individual could survive.

Alexander Adell is simply phenomenal in the lead role.  I feel every ounce of his panic, his despair, and his grim determination to keep going.  The sound design and production, also by Adell as well as Brad Colbrook, are the perfect complement to his performances.  I feel present in a very visceral way - I’m in this world with him.

Fantastic show.  Check them out.

[oftenwrongdan]

Podcasts 7

It just hit me that I really should be titling these “Audio Fiction,” but that ship sailed six posts ago.  Ah well.

A show that I was advertising heavily in my feeds at the same time as Among the Stars and Bones was The Oasis Transmissions.  I wasn’t terribly sure about this one, because I didn’t think the trailer was very good, but I decided to give it a shot anyway, and boy am I glad I did.

Like a lot of audio fiction, they created a gimmick to explain away the format.  In this case, these are the transmissions being received from a fledgling human colony on a distant world.  A handful of narrators unfold a complex story, each from their own point of view and with their own agenda.  The story, world, and characters grow over time to create an incredibly rich tapestry.  There are three seasons, and they play with the format over time, but they never lose that richness and complexity.

Definitely worth a listen!

[oftenwrongdan]

Podcasts 6

By the time I finished Dust, my pending queue of audio fiction had grown pretty long.  I was ready to check out anything with a halfway decent trailer.  After all, so far I hadn’t been disappointed.

Among The Stars And Bones continued that trend.  It’s the story of a bunch of future human archeologists studying the ruins of a long-dead alien race.  Given the context, it’s a surprisingly grounded and human story about the relationships between people, and the difficult relationship between bureaucracy, science, and capitalism.

The writing and production by Chris Magilton are very strong, and the performances are captivating.  This is the first time I heard Graham Rowat’s voice, though it wouldn’t be the last, and this remains possibly my favorite of his many (many) performances.

Among The Stars And Bones has a second season in production, and I’m looking forward to hearing it!