The Shore

When you are on a ferry, the first few yards go quickly. You can't take your eyes off the land. The shore backs away so fast, then seems to slow down. You take a moment to glance around. You get distracted. You look the other way. Then, you look back. And it's gone, hidden behind the horizon.

I just reached that point. I'd been looking forward for so long, that I hadn't glanced back since my freshmen year. But something - a new 17-year-old friend, to be exact - made me look back. And I saw that I couldn't see it anymore. Highschool fell behind the horizon.

In retrospect. I really do miss it. There was a degree of stability to being in one place five days a week for eight hours a day. There was something nice about most of the people you know being surrounded by the same campus. It was easy to fall into a rhythm, easy to develop a pattern. Easy to make new friends through old friends.

It's funny to think how young you are in highschool, discovering those very mature things like sex and drugs and which academic pursuits interest you most. But, the whole time you are still a child, and so much of highschool feels like a game looking back. Like dressing up for school dances, decorating cars, doing drugs, it was all like childhood play.

I can't quiet swallow it, looking back, to see what a difference three years make in life. It's so far away I don't know the person I was then anymore. And that scares me.

Hard to Answer Questions

There are just so many questions I never know how to answer.

• Where are you from? (Depends why you are asking.)
• How many states have you lived in? (Five? Four, plus DC?)
• How long have you lived in Colorado? (Well, I first moved here ten years ago, but I've since moved out  five times for anywhere between four and twelve months.
• How long have you lived in the US? (Most of my life). How old were you when you moved to the US? (Seven) When did you move out of Russia? (When I was nine). When did you last live in Russia? (When I was ten. Are you confused yet?)
• Where in Colorado are you from? (Denver? Boulder? TR/Bailey? I've called all these places home at one point).
• Where in Denver are you from? (Well, I'm not actually in Denver, I'm from the suburbs...) What suburb are you from? (My address reads Englewood, but a more accurate answer would be Greenwood Village or Centennial, I guess...?)
• What school do you go to? (....CU Boulder, I guess....)
• What year are you? (Senior? Junior? ... Fourth year?)
• What do your parents do, or worse, what does your dad do? (Well, I could answer the question honestly and you'd apologize for asking it, or I could skilfully dodge it so that you don't learn that my father is dead).
• What pronoun do you prefer? (The one that won't make you assume my gender identity... oh wait.)
• How many countries have you been to? (Does Vatican City count as a country? Do I count Wales and England separately, or the UK all together? Do I make a political statement and count Catalunya and Pays Vasco separately from Spain? Is it fair to count Germany if I've only been to Berlin, France if I've only been to Paris, Ireland if I've only been to Dublin, and Mexico if I've only been to the beach-side tourist resorts?)
• What's your name? (Kae? Ksenia? Ksyusha? Cream/Kreme? Depends who is asking, your native language, the context, and which of my friends you already know. I always pause before answering this question...)

Oh, questions....

Queer Isolationism

There was a short time when I lived a mostly queer-isolationist life. It was my freshman year of university. I came out three times in that year, all with different identities. I was exploring my sexuality and my gender for the first time. For the first time, the girls I met were potential partners. For the first time, the pronouns people used to refer to me held a lot more weight than before. And I embraced it. I surrounded myself with people who supported me and knew what I was going through. 90% of my friends were queer. Every conversation I had was queer. Every extra-curricular activity was queer. I began to act cautious around straight people. I began to actively seek out queers.

I no longer live this lifestyle, and now have several distinct and overlapping communities based on common interests beside being queer. For example, I love philosophy. I love to travel. I watch Doctor Who. I work with children. I read books. I play the violin. I hike. There is a lot more to my life then being queer.

If someone hung out only with philosophy majors, or only with other Whovians, I might laugh critically at their decision. There is a lot to be gained in life from reaching out to different communities and people. Yet, despite that, I strongly support queer isolationism, and still revert to it on occasion. Because, you see, there is something about being queer that none of those other things have.

I will never walk into a philosophy classroom, look around at my fellow philosophy students, and know that each and every one of them at some time cried because of their love for philosophy. But that does happen with queers.

I will never tell a new acquaintance that I like to travel, and watch their eyes skirt away from mine, turn to the floor, as they step back awkwardly and say "oh". But that does happen because I am queer.

I will never walk into a grocery store with a Doctor Who t-shirt, and notice people staring at it and at me. I will never sprint from the store to my car, fearing for my safety because I am a Whovian. But I have done that because I am queer.

I will never lie to my parents about going to babysit to avoid another fight. But I make these lies because I am queer.

I will never fear bringing fellow book-lovers home with me. I will never have to search for a place to live which is book-friendly. But that's happening because I am queer.

I will never hear of orchadorsks like myself being murdered, knifed, and beat. I will never see it on the news. I will never hear of friends of friends who are no longer around because they played violin too much. But that has happened to queers.

I will never be told to act differently because I am a hiker. I will never have someone tell me that hiking is ok, but only if I dress and speak like a city person. I will never be asked intrusive details about my hike, because people are curious. But thay do that because I am queer.

Being queer is more than a mutual interest. Being queer dictates every part of my life. Although I am a lot more than just queer, being queer is the integral part of my identity. In an ideal world, I wouldn't need to be a queer isolationist. I wouldn't need to occasionally surround myself with only queers to feel safe. But this world isn't ideal. It is a world that continuously mistreats me, hurts me, and beats me for being queer. To survive, sometimes I must make a world of my own. A world of queer isolation.

My Good Luck

I've always had very good luck. Which is odd, since everyone else seems to have bad luck more often than not. Perhaps I took all their luck away from them. Perhaps I actually deserve this in the form of karma. Or perhaps all this good luck will come back and kick me in the butt with some really bad luck, but I'm still waiting for that to happen.

This is a story of one of those incidents of really good luck. This is how my good luck works.

It came after a string of bad decisions, especially concerning my sleep. First, I took a friends shift at work on my only day off in two weeks. What more, it was an opening shift (6:45) and I was closing the night before (12:15). But I volunteered for it anyway, with the impression that I can just sleep during the day. Which was very unwise, since I know full well that I don't sleep during the day. The night before, I was also closing. I worked until 12:15, went to a party, stayed up until three or something equally ridiculous, went to bed for a few hours, woke up at 7:20, attempted to take another nap during the day, and, after no success, went to work. I worked until 12:15, went home, slept for a few hours, and was back at work at 6:45. In short, I was exhausted.

On my lunch break, I ate what I brought, but was unsatisfied and wandered over to the food court to get some cream cheese ragoons from Panda. And, of course, there was no line, given my good luck. And, of course, I found a seat right away, given my good luck. So I enjoyed those ragoons and headed back to Macy's. Well, there's this candy shop by the foodcourt, and I always pass right by it, but that day I couldn't resits. That day, from my exhaustion and a powerful craving for strawberry gummies, I wandered in to the Sweet Factory.

First, I stood in the middle of the store, glancing around me at all the candy in the way one might look at an unrequited love. I knew full well that I shouldn't have walked in, that a five dollar bag of trifles is not something I want to spend money on. And then I saw it:
                                   Camera pans left.
                                   Zoom in.
                                                  75% OFF ALL CANDY
                                   Zoom out.
                                   Camera pans right.
                                                   75% OFF ALL CANDY
                                   Zoom out.
                                   Zoom out further.
                                   God's eye view.
                                                   I'm surrounded by signs that say
                                                   75% OFF ALL CANDY

So I got myself a bag of delicious for 71 cents.

and it was the last day of their sale

lucky me

Nightmares

Have you ever had nightmares? Nightmares that repeat over and over again? Nightmares not of monsters but of real life at its worst? I didn't used to have nightmares until just over a year ago.

They started when I was nineteen and a half, just as my twentieth birthday seemed near. But these thoughts - these fears- these started even sooner, before I even turned nineteen. I never thought they'd turn into nightmares, but they did.

They repeat, exactly the same, sometimes more or less vivid. They are nightmares of my 21st birthday. When I wake up from these nightmares, when I spend all day crying because I still feel that fear, it's because these dreams are so real. "Can you imagine?", I beg my friends, "being alone on your 21st birthday?". I don't think they understand. I don't think they can imagine. Me? I don't have to imagine. In my dreams it's real.

In my dreams, it's December 22, 2011. Evening. My sister approaches me occasionally to tell me how jealous she is that I am 21. How excited she is for me to "party it up tonight". I pretend I am excited too. Inside, I am shaking. I cannot breathe straight. I feel sick. I want to disappear, to die. It's my 21st birthday, and I have no friends to go out with.

As the evening draws on, I am scrolling through my cellphone contacts and facebook friends, thinking of who I should message. I've already texted a few or my closer friends, but they are out of town, or working, or out of money. They aren't there, and there's no one else. I have no friends.

I post a hesitant status: "It's my 21st, come hit the bars with me!" or something along those lines. Inviting, only I can't tell anyone I don't have anyone the truth: that I'm alone on my 21st birthday. People "like" my status. People respond: "have fun tonight!" or "I'm so jealous, can't wait to party with you when I turn 21". I'm not alone. But I have no friends.

The night draws on. My sister is preparing for her own party to go to, and I know I have to leave soon. She can't know. She'd look at me in that way, with that insulting pity. Like "why are you so stupid/socially incapable that you can't even have friends". Insult. Pity. There she is, parties every weekend. Of course she thinks I'm inferior. I'm in college, and I don't have any parties to go to. She doesn't care that I'm suffering. She'll tell me how to fix the problem by making me feel worse about myself. She doesn't understand how I struggle.

So I leave. I look up some bars on Yelp and I leave. I take the lightrail downtown. Things get blurry past this point. Not so clear, since I've never been to a bar. I enter. I show my ID. I order a drink-whiskey. The bartender looks at the ID, at me. "Happy birthday". Then he steps away. And I see him, with a few other people, looking back at me, laughing at me. I have no one.

I Might Be In Love

I might be in love. Is this love?

I wonder not because of how strongly it overwhelms my senses, but because of how subtle it is. So easy to forget for weeks or months until it slips back into my mind - you slip back into my mind, and I wonder - I might be in love. Is this what love's like for me? Always in the background, like elevator music, but I can always fall back on you when love crosses my mind.

Or maybe its not. Perhaps this is just another incident of a romantic interest that one day will easily be exchanged for another.

I'm not the type to brood on my solitude. I'm either happy with where things are, or too distracted with the sorrow of having few friends. Love and romantic loneliness seldom cross my mind. But when it does slip through the cracks, I can't help but wonder - am I in love?

Until it again slips my mind.

On Bugs

I am ambivalent about bugs.

I don't take them outside to save a precious life. When someone asks me to get rid of a spider, I squash it quickly and move on with my life. No fear: I've become the default but killer with many of my friends. But I don't kill them with fury, either. The spiders I find in my room or the bathroom just keep living. I don't bother them, I don't fear them, and they, too, leave me alone. I've been bitten by spiders before, but it doesn't really hurt so bad. Just an unfortunate consequence of co-existence, I suppose.

Bugs can be pretty cool. When I find an especially interesting one, I might examine it and stare at it for a bit. But I don't gasp with joy at the possibility of seeing such a creature: the great beetle who's latin name is Bugister Coolisco! Nothing of that sort.

Just little bugs in large amounts freak me out a little, but I've even gotten over my once awful fear of ants. I just walk away. No fuss. No problem.

I just wander why I feel the need to write a blog post about something I'm so ambivalent about.