Mucho Dollar Care a Junk CIA

I want to write something, and I've got a couple topics lined up, but my heart's just not in it right now. Consider this an IOU.

An Eternity in an Eternal Place

I was playing cards at a friend's house when I got a call from work. They offered an extra shift tomorrow morning, and I said yes. Now, I've gotta finish baking a cake for another friend's birthday, take a shower, and get some mediocre sleep before I go to work and start the cycle anew. I get all pissy when I feel I haven't enough time to myself in a day, such as this one. I don't necessarily want to relax, I just don't want to be around other people.

In a day, I'm sure I'll be in a completely different place, but that's no reason to deny what I'm feeling right now. It's all sour in my mouth.

Alodia Gosiengfiao

I ride public transit here in Chicago. Often enough, I get in confrontations with people who have some sort of problem with me. One time, some random, crazy-eyed guy screamed "DONUTS!" and punched me in the face. I responded by telling him to get off the train until the security guy hustled him out. Still, for months afterward, I'd replay the scene in my head, my reaction growing more and more violent. At the apogee of my fantasies, bits of the guy's skull were in my hair. My brother is the sort of person who will take brutal umbrage at an insult, and when I told him the story, his first response was, "Why didn't you punch his ass out?" It was a difficult question to answer. The best I could come up with was a partial truth: I didn't feel it was worth getting kicked off the train, and possibly crossing paths with the police. And the truth is, getting punched in the face by an amateur doesn't hurt.

But there's more to it than that. I'm a big person, and rather strong for it. Should I truly need to, I'm well convinced that I could disassemble anyone below the 90th percentile of ass-kicking ability. If I uncorked my violence on someone, I'm not sure I'd stop before they were meat on the floor. Beyond that, I'm a calm person nearly full-time. Not quite a pacifist, but I try. It'd feel like I was betraying that aspect of myself if I allowed some fool to make me lose my cool.

I don't want to paint my dilemma as anything high-minded. It's the classic struggle of Id vs. Ego, with Superego throwing in a few words every so often. The primal reaction I feel precludes all of this reasoning (and, perhaps, rationalization.) Today on the bus, some teenagers were talking shit about my attire. Homo/transphobic stuff, enough to get me riled. My fists clenched, my heart raced, and I couldn't decide what to do. Looking back, I feel I should've cussed their asses out, but at the time I couldn't see that ending in anything but blood. Which wouldn't have proven anything . . . but maybe made me feel better.

I always feel diminished after getting into a confrontation with somebody. My father tried to instill in me a sort of manly martial pride, and chastised me when I didn't return measure for measure. It didn't really land for me, but sometimes the teachings we reject stay with us. He died when I was 14, far before the revelation of my ladyness. And now his voice is the one I hear chastising whenever I find myself lacking in some masculine virtue. Most of the time it doesn't bug me, but there's always a pressure. To, y'know, Be A Man.

Power is not evil, but it tempts one to use it. That temptation scares me as much as it elates me.