Because DD asked

What do I want in a romantic partner?

That's a good question, seeing as I don't really care about having one. I'm not aromantic, I don't think, but I never really saw what the big deal was with romance. Capital R Romance, sure- I adore the entire movement. But I think I'm the type of person to write poetry because I like poetry, not because I like the person to whom it's addressed. So it's hard to think of the important attributes. I suppose my ideal romantic partner would be the equivalent of a super cool friend whom I could make out with and stuff. That would be swell. With this in mind, I'm not super picky; I just want someone who would mesh with my values. So!

I can't stand jealousy or possessiveness. Like, I get that it's a human emotion and stuff, and of course it's natural to feel some. But people who let it control them REALLY bother me. I don't belong to you; I don't belong to anyone. And frankly, if you don't trust me enough to hang around people who aren't you, we shouldn't be in a relationship anyway. I mean, gross, right? Keep your possessive ass at least 3 miles away from me at all times, please and thank you. (If we're in the bedroom, it's different- I'm such a bottom it's ridiculous. But anyway) 

What else? I don't like people who refuse to be open to things. Life is a learning experience, and I want to keep learning and growing until the day I die. And if that means admitting I'm wrong sometimes, I'm more than happy to do that! I never want to be a condescending know-it-all who has an answer for everything, and I don't want to be in a relationship with someone like that either. Let's explore the world together! We'll learn and grow and mature and never become stagnant or complacent, and when we argue, it will be fun, because we'll believe in what we're saying. Or maybe not, but at least we won't be stick-in-the-muds about it. I always want to be open to change, and I want my partner to be too.

Sort of in the same vein, I love people who can see the beauty in things. I love beauty; it's my goal to find and create it in the world, through kindness, love, humor, all that- and yes, beautiful things too, like a sunset, or a lovely poem, or a code, or anything! So it's important that the person I ship myself with is amenable to this. Like, cynicism might seem cool, but it's annoying when you're trying to talk about your passion, and they're all rude and yucky about it. They don't have to be a rosy optimist, I mean I'm definitely not, but they shouldn't try to be dark and brooding just for the sake of it. That's totally uncool.

What else? Oh! Patience and understanding and flexibility! All of those are different, but they go together, so I'm mentioning them together. I think it would be exhausting to be around someone with a short fuse, and besides I'm a timid little person sometimes, and it would scare me. Empathy is incredibly important to me, and I'd really want my SO to have it. I'm not saying I want a doormat person- that's no fun, and I would get really bored. I want someone who can challenge me, but who is ultimately kind and understanding, and who will try to see where I'm coming from. That would be the best! This means they would treat everyone with respect and kindness no matter what, unless that person needed a smack down, and even then, they would be mature. That's not too much to ask, right? I don't want an asshole who's only nice to me; I want someone who's genuinely nice to everyone, including me!

first draft of the letter I'm going to send to dad's shrink

Madam,

My name is Maria K–, and I am a third-year linguistics major at UCLA. At the moment, I am home for the summer, and will be until late September, so I have a front-row seat to the events that are unfolding in my family.

Recently, my father, C–, entered the BHI program under your counseling, and as such, both my parents have received advice from you regarding how to proceed. Since some of that advice concerned me, I am taking the liberty of asking for clarification on certain points which have come to my attention.

While I believe in the power of physical touch as much as anyone, I believe that it is only effective when all parties consent. However, I have been given reason to believe that you are suggesting to my siblings and I that we somehow owe it to our father to let him touch us whenever he wants, however he wants, and without regard for our comfort. Furthermore, you have suggested that this is especially important for my sister and me, since as women, we must be groomed for further (presumably heterosexual) relationships. Ignoring all the incorrect assumptions you are making with this, and even leaving aside the fact that it is frankly not really your business whom we are involved with and how, I still feel that it is necessary to point out the frightening implications of your assertion. Do you really believe that a healthy relationship is founded on a blatant violation of boundaries? In the contemporary discourse, this notion lies under the umbrella of rape culture. As a healthcare professional, I would hope that you do not endorse this type of thing, and if you do, that is a cause for deep concern. "Daddy issues" stemming from a lack of physical touch have not (and will not) hurt me or my sister in our relationships, but I believe that a constant lack of respect for our boundaries definitely will.

There is another problem that I would like to ask you about. Recently, you told my mother that she should move out and leave my father to learn to provide for our family. Either I am missing something vital in what you said, or you have some very strange ideas of what is tenable, because this does not seem like a good idea in any respect. I understand that my father needs to learn responsibility, and it is important that he becomes a functional member of society, but children are not collateral, and I refuse to allow my siblings to suffer while he works through his issues. If you push this idea, I may have to take time off from school to care for my siblings (and my father), since I cannot let them go without proper care. You do not know me, so I must impress upon you my desperation in this instance; school is what I live for, and only in a case of the direst need would I consider derailing myself. This may not perturb you much, so I will ask you to consider the fact that the kind of household my father would run, even if he were capable of doing so, would not be a healthy one, and would not be the kind of place in which children could thrive, or even grow. He would be happy as an anachronistic autocrat, yes, but at what cost? I believe there are other ways of allowing him to be fulfilled and content without other people paying the price.  

I do not know what my father has told you regarding our family, and I do not want to know. That is between him and you. But I do ask you to keep in mind that his version of household events are necessarily skewed, and he does not share the same perspective that I, or the rest of my family members, do. I know that you have spoken to my mother already, and if you would like to hear from another member of our family, I am more than willing to speak with you as well. Please reply at your earliest convenience; I would like to hear your thoughts on all this, and hopefully, you will prove me wrong in my conclusions.

Best wishes,

Maria

👊💥

So I'm a wreck, and I think my body knows that, because I haven't had my monthly time for the entire month of July, and I don't think that's right, but even if it were okay, my tummy won't shut up, and my ear hurts so badly that I really think I'll be tempted to punch something soon. Why? Who knows. Maybe I sinned too much in a previous life. I can only hope that it gets better overnight and I feel more like a reasonable human being tomorrow. 

Physical ailments aside, though, I have ample other reason to be grumpy. Interestingly, most of them have to do with my family. At the moment, I'm convince that they all hate me, which is of course irrational, or at least I think it is because I'm usually convinced that everyone hates me, but anxiety is a funny thing, and it can be very persuasive. Like, Dad is the de facto Bad Guy of the family (which, granted, isn't without reason), but if he leaves, there will need to be a new scapegoat, I'm sure, and there's no reason it shouldn't be me. I mean, I'd hate me if I met me. Now, I'm not sure how being the family counselor would work after that- maybe they would continue to use me, but hate me for it? That would be a circumstance quite full of drama and meaningfulness and it sounds like a bad 19th century novel. So that's probably what will happen. Of course, then I can expect to be beautiful and virtuous and completely one-dimensional, and I can be swept off my feet by a handsome and equally one-dimensional author self-insert, and we will move to Paris and cultivate our gardens and everything will be roses and honey from then on out. Which sounds like quite a terrible fate, really, except for the moving to Paris part (although I don't love their political situation at the moment, so who knows about that either). But where was I? Right, my irrational fears of everything under the sun. Do you suppose that I'm being a bit melodramatic, possibly? I do. I'm like the self-referential equivalent of a Phillip Roth poem. Why anyone puts up with me is anyone's guess (though not mine, because I'd be sure to imagine something thoroughly unpleasant that would keep me up all night). You know, maybe I should start doing some of those coping strategies that I learned from the Program. It couldn't hurt (probably).

Another reason for my crankiness (as if I needed one) is that it's terribly hot in here. We don't use the air conditioning much, and even if we did, it probably wouldn't help, because the heat has become so engrained in our lives that the idea of heating us has absorbed into the very structure of the house, kind of like House of Leaves, but more exothermic. So when I say my blood is boiling, for any reason, you can be sure that I mean it quite sincerely. I will probably end up creeping downstairs in the middle of the night to bask in the slightly cooler air and make myself an easy target for all the burglars who no doubt want to rob us of all our emotional baggage. That's what I did last night, and it was nice, only then everyone else woke up, and I was the only one sleeping while they puttered around me, unheeding of my slumber. Also, I had really weird dreams. That's probably not a result of sleeping downstairs, though; I think I would have had them anyway. But still, it did lend a surreal atmosphere to the whole experience.

Here's another thing: Andrew has been texting me again, and it's kind of funny, but it's also hella annoying, because every time he does, I'm reminded of the time he told me not to get my PhD because it would hold me back in my personal life. I mean, I told him to stuff it, and I totally won the argument because his logic is abysmal, and he's still in his Sophomoric Philosophy Class Show-Off phase (and probably will be forever, if his age is any indication), but it still ticked me off, and now it's really hard to take anything he says seriously. Why do boys have to be so stupid? I'm telling ya, when my Sydney Carton finally comes along, he won't do any of this stuff. 

OH. Okay, so this is the last one, but it's arguably the worst, and it's been bugging me for awhile, so I must share it and then it can bug you too. So, you see Dad has started a mental health program, which is good (I think), and at first, his therapist seemed quite thoughtful and competent. But THEN she told Mom that physical touch is important (which, I guess), and we should have seven minutes of cuddling every day. Mom demurred, because a whole big problem is that Dad will continually touch us when we don't want him to, and we feel very uncomfortable and disrespected and all that. But then the therapist said that people, especially girls, should be touched even if they don't like it, because otherwise they will grow up emotionally stunted and have problems in their relationships, so Talia and I should let Dad touch us whenever he wants. And I hit the roof. Because this is exactly what I'm trying to prevent, you see. This sort of attitude goes against everything I believe, not even just as a feminist, but as a decent human being, and the thought of a licensed psychologist spewing this bullshit, especially to someone like my dad, honestly scares me. It reinforces his already problematic views, and that's something he totally doesn't need. We were talking a few days ago, and he told me that even if I feel uncomfortable, that doesn't mean it's wrong, and I should just let it happen, because it's "good for me" and because it satisfies some kind of craving of his. Which is frankly one of the creepiest things I've heard him say. Naturally, I'm always going to do my damnedest to protect my siblings, but who's going to protect me? Well, me. That's who. First chance I can, I'm going to go off on this therapist, because this whole situation is immensely fucked up, and if you think I'm done, you're off by a longshot. I'm going to sleep now, because Talia is here and I don't want the light of my phone to keep her up, but you can rest assured that even in dreamland, I am

still deeply unhappy. Okay, goodnight!

So I finished The Stranger between today and yesterday, and it's got me all kinds of hecked up, like let me tell ya man, modernist folks sure wanna be something else real bad. Besides all of the thought points and reflective statements and nuggets of philosophy that will undoubtedly haunt me in my dreams ten years down the road, there rests the plain and simple fact that Meurseult is an asshole, and  now I feel like him. It's insupportable! I can't go around feeling like a remorseless asshole, now can I? That's just not done! It's quite a problem with literature, really, especially modern literature in the gritty neo-realism~ vein; every time I encounter a singularly unpleasant character, be it hero or brooding Byronic anti-hero, I end up feeling like them, and there's nothing I can do about it. I suppose that's props to the author, and demonstrates some excellent literary technique, and really, I am happy when I can get invested in a story long enough for that to happen. But like, why can it never happen with nice characters? I've spent questionable amounts of time reading Les Misérables and watching the musical and looking at art (and yes, reading fan fiction), and not once have I entered a mind-meld with any of the characters. Not even Marius, and we all know he's a dweeb of the first order! It's terrible. I feel that I would get quite a lot done if I had the revolutionary passion and fire of any of the Barricade Boys, or the grit and go-get em attitude of Javert. And don't even get me started on Valjean, man, I could probably bring about world peace or something. But no, sad indeed is my fate. I will forever doomed to share an empathy link with the denizens of the literary underworld, living out my days in pretentious melancholy and overblown monologues about the human condition. What a hand I've been dealt! This must say something about me, but I don't dare contemplate what.

On the topic of misery and the wretchedness of the human condition, may I just humbly report that life in my house is growing worse and worse every day? Every one of us is unhappy, some more than others, and this has all come home to roost on the shoulders of none other than yours truly. I feel a bit like Atlas, only I didn't even get to participate in the drama of rebelling against the elder gods, or anything like that. All I did was try to help. In that order, maybe Prometheus would be a better allegory? Shelley, help me. I need to be unbound.
Well, no, I don't, not really. Because I'm helping out, and that's the truth. I couldn't leave my poor defenseless family to bumble along by themselves, now could I? (According to our therapist, that's exactly what I'm supposed to do) It's terrible, though. These past few weeks, I've drunk vodka before going to church just to be able to handle it, and if that doesn't tell you something, I don't know what does. I would say that I'm excited to go back to school, only I don't want to leave my poor siblings all alone to deal with this.
Okay, Dad is throwing a fit and trying to demonstrate his control over all of us, so I must go and prepare dinner. Bye now!

tmi

I'm demisexual!

I've been trying to deny this for a really long time. I never thought I could be part of the ace spectrum, like no way, I'm totally allosexual, totally alloromantic. Right? I'm ashamed to say it, but I was so convinced that I was allo that I disrespected demisexuality as an identity, because the definition fitted me to a T, and since I obviously didn't fit under the ace umbrella, that couldn't be a real thing. What a problematic person I am. Okay! But now I'm learning to unlearn my problematic world views, and I'm getting to know myself as a person too. Which is so exciting! Who knows what I'll find out next?

So you see, it's okay that I'm demisexual. It's part of who I am! It's what makes up me! I still have so much to figure out, and that's okay. It's a journey, and I'm only on the first part yet.

Oh wow okay but I'm having a lot more trouble with thinking that I might be aromantic. Because I might be. Like 80% probability that I am. But I don't want to be, gosh I really don't! And I have been in love before! So maybe it's not completely like that? I have this feeling that it is, though. And that's pretty weird, to be honest. I admire people so much who can embrace everything without feeling weird about it! There's so much for me to argue against. Hmm. But man, like I said, this is a journey, and I'm going to make it. I'ma figure this out. Yes I will. Everything will be okay. 

<<optime! demi me!>>

Everything is yucky.
Just yucky.
In case that wasn't clear enough, please allow me to expand, so you can grasp the full scale of the ickiness and appreciate as I surely don't. So! To sum up, these past few weeks have been nothing short of ridiculous, as Mom and Dad work through to their separation. Well, really, only Mom is working for it. Dad is still in denial, and he takes every opportunity to try and change all of our minds about getting involved. It's not our place to do this, both morally and HIPPAA-ly, and none of us are sure that we even want to get in the middle of the storm. But this is terribly hard to explain, because Dad is unused to not getting his way about everything. Both parents are using me as a therapist, which is charming in its own way, I suppose, but I'm sadly not very excited about it (and I'm continually growing less so). How many heart-to-heart conversations can someone have in one day? I'm certainly testing my limits on that one.
Today, Dad found out about my antidepressants, and shockingly didn't yell as much as I thought he would. He's still upset with me, though, I think. What can I say? I'd rather not feel suicidal all the time, if I can possibly help it, even if I have to sell out to the evil drug companies to do it. Think of it as me doing my part to aid the economy. Mom also told him about hers (and he took it okay as well). Now I have one less secret to keep. I like that a lot better, because I'd like to think I'm an honest person, and keeping secrets (well, secrets about me) feels uncomfortable. I'd rather be open about who I am and what I'm doing. But some things can't be said out in the open, especially in this family. I think there are some things that my parents will never ever know about me.
Mom has gotten me a job over the summer, and it's decent, because I get to work from home. But it's also not so great, because she keeps giving me stacks on stacks of work, and not money. I feel a bit like the Sisyphus of the academic world. It's not even fun stuff either, like I have to do data entry on about a million surveys, and apparently, I have to write an entire textbook from one of her coworker's lecture notes and Powerpoints and stuff. Well, okay, that part does sound fun, doesn't it. And I guess it might be, but it's about pharmacy, and call me a hedonistic humanities heathen, but that just doesn't seem very exciting. Now if someone wanted me to write about the linguistic habits of pharmacists, we'd be in business. Currently, I'm also volunteering at a week-long international conference for science teachers at the university. It's surprisingly not so bad. Aside from a 29-year-old from Georgia who may or may not have been trying to flirt with me and a completely inconveniently placed School of Public Health that I had to guide people to, everything is going smoothly. There's air conditioning and free wifi and lots of free pasta, and I get to sit in on the sessions, and people are very nice to me (some excessively so, but let's not worry about that). I hardly have to work so far, and it's all a very nice and easy way of boosting Mom's connections at the university (and maybe my own, though what they will be good for is beyond me). Even so, I'll be happy when the week is over and I can go back to my ignominious life at home.
Beep is texting me now, and I'm not sure why. These boys are really persistent, aren't they? I'm honestly not even sure why. Maybe they like linguistics puns, or maybe they're just entranced by my freckles. Either way, though, they keep on coming, and they don't stop. These are probably my peak days, and in twenty years I'll be bereft of all romantic possibility. But I can't say I really mind that. There are sentences to be diagrammed, and codes to be written, and life stops for no man. These are the days to collect the stories that I can tell to the children that I won't have, and when I can no longer gather rosebuds, I'll content myself with the memories of time before it went a-flying. Hopefully, I'll be as content with that then as I am now.
I'm still not sure what to do about Beep, though.
Talia has gone off to a summer music festival for three weeks (under extreme duress, may I add), and Xander has gone with her to be an RA. It's very quiet without them practicing scales and vibrato exercises at all hours of the night, and now there's no one to rant to about Les Misérables (which I read in five days, thank you very much). But I guess it's good for them to be out of the house, and I am happy that they're doing something with their summer. Maybe they can make friends with some rich people who will take us all out to dinner or something. Can you believe it's already the middle of July? Time flies, doesn't it. Well, it does and it doesn't. But I'm pretty sure this will be the first year when I won't dread going back to school.
It's 1:16 AM, and I should probably be getting off to bed so I can make a nice early start for the conference tomorrow. But first, I think I'll read some cute Les Mis fan fiction, because you know that's how we do it here. Some of it is so good that I'd almost say it has literary merit. Anyway, have a lovely night! Vive le France!

Summertime and the Living's Not Easy

Metaphorically speaking, I'm in hell. Literally speaking, I'm also in hell, because I feel that it would be poetic justice if I were punished with living over this period of my life for all eternity. See, Mom has finally gotten tired of Dad's shit, and she's divorcing him, and he is NOT taking it well. I've never seen him this way before, and it's terrible. As always, I'm the psychotherapist for both, which is going to take a lot more alcohol than we have in the house right now. I sympathize with my mom, of course, because who wouldn't after what my dad has done, but at the same time, he is my dad, and I hate seeing him like this. He's begging all of us for a second chance, for forgiveness, and for love, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one willing to grant that to him. But really. This is the only way to do it. We can't live this way anymore, none of us can, and this is long overdue. Still, it's making everything absolutely awful, and I don't think I'm handling things well. Sure, I look good on the outside- especially compared to Xander, who got totally violent in the therapist's office- and I'm doing a pretty good job of making sure everyone stays sober and fairly cheerful, but my head's in a whirl, and I don't know what to do. Really, it's not a big deal, because there are people whose families beat them and starve them and worse, and at the end of the day, I know my parents care about us all in their way, so we're not as badly off as we could be. But we're still not doing so well with this, and I don't like anything about my life right now. Cesar tried to text me to tell me about his problems, and I'm glad to help, but I feel like I'm probably the worst person ever to ask. Then again, though, of how many psychologists could it be said, "physician, heal thyself"? Maybe I'm right for the job after all. I'm also concerned about my siblings. Heaven knows I'd do anything to protect them, but I don't think this is something I can shield them from, and that's terrible too. Like, this is happening, and we all have to deal with it in our own way. Which, judging from Xander's behavior, I don't think we all can, at least not immediately, and that's yet another thing for me to feel bad about. Maybe I should have taken summer school in LA. No, but it's best that I'm here for this, so I can be here for anyone who needs me (which will probably be everyone). I still feel useless, though. Man, after this, I will have all the makings of a grade-A psychologist. Maybe I should change my major.