I am always different and it's hard to think that way. The moment I write it down, I'm already different. I wonder just how many commas I'm using that are unnecessary. Once again, it's hard to think that way.

I have applied at Ed McKay's and filled out the application for Hot Topic. Don't you dare fucking judge me... Hot Topic's piercing and tattoo policies are fucking fantastic. They encourage that shit, plus crazy-ass makeup and clothing. Heaven much? Next I will go to the mall and fill out the one for Macy's (just because the clerk, Mercedes, was such a total sweetheart) and maybe grab one from Pac Sun or the bookstore. I have to fill out the apps for Border's and run by B&N to see if they would prefer a walk-in or an online one. These are all in Winston Salem ad it kind of sucks that I can't work in Greensboro, but I understand why. Until I get a full-time job, I will keep working at TJ's for my grandfather. It's really not such a bad deal, because making 7.00 an hour to be a cashier, etc. is a pretty good deal when I've never had a job other than "working" for Habitat for Humanity. I have learned better customer service skills and how to take orders from my superiors without throwing a defiant hissy fit. I still hate the rush to get out, because it usually involves my grandfather assigning fifty errands I could have done earlier, but I figure he does it to extend my working time so he can pay me more, which is sort of cool with me. Plus, he lets me take breaks to smoke and eat, etc. All I have to do is ask and make sure everything is in order. If nothing else, it's taught me how to be polite (like I normally am with strangers) without causing everyone else any kind of hassle. I haven't become less nervous, because I am constantly afraid of making mistakes and embarrassing myself, etc., but that probably won't fade until I am in a job that I go to routinely instead of just being randomly called in whenever I'm home.

Sometimes I feel like my glory days were too early and short-lived. Those days where it was freedom just to run away from campus and hop a train from one side of the block to the next, and then go antique browsing. Because it really was browsing--we never bought anything. When we didn't have cars and wandering around was the thing to do, when we had to buy cigarettes from one store, when the only drugs that we did were alcohol and pot. I loved so purely when my mind was free from the constant chains of my self-hating thoughts. Life was crazy. I was crazy. But, Greensboro was my turf. I knew my territory like the back of my hand, and the future was hazy. Now I listen to "Left and Leaving" and try not to cry, because I miss it so truly I can feel it in my bones, further still in a place inside me that bears no name. People loved me and not because I am different, but because I'm me, and that entails being different and wild and crazy and self-defined and loving you with all of my heart and more. When I wore pearls and the Queens of the Stone Age shirt my father got from a free concert in New Orleans after Katrina. When I still spoke to my father.

Before I realized that I couldn't let him come visit me in Winston Salem because my mother's girlfriend had done things that were unforgivable in his eyes. I haven't fully forgiven her either. I have never wanted to strike someone more than when she called my father a sperm-donor and then postured herself as if going to hit him or me or both. I wanted to punch her in the fucking throat, but I didn't, and sometimes I still regret that. It was like that time Alex Cowett asked my father if he had a job yet. But I was only 10 then and it would have been okay. Because fighting is forgivable when you're young. Even when seemingly justified, I stop myself these days. I don't want to hurt people because I know how it hurts outside and inside. There's no salve for that kind of hurt. It's why I knew how to cut my mother down time and time again just by telling her all of the mistakes she had made in raising me. It's why she knew how to cut me down by saying I'd end up like my father. But, fuck that. I am not her and I am not my father and I am not anyone but myself. Maybe that scares me, but it's true. Inarguably definite, because I am one of a kind, even if that kind is undefined.

These days, it's like my mind is somewhere in Purgatory (I will always fall back into Catholicism) while my body dances through the proper motions of survival, of coping with my decisions and the directions my life has taken. I've been told it's no one's fault but my own, and I agree completely. I am such an event at all times, there is no question whose fault it is. But, it is not even fault. These are the results of my decisions, not the consequences of my mistakes.

These days, the mirror does not scare me and does not please me. I wonder if this is what it feels like to accept what you see. When people say I'm beautiful, I catch myself saying thank you and smiling and laughing. It's not bragging and it's certainly not vanity. I am not vain. I am not any of those self-righteous things that I've feared being all of my life. I feel as if I have been privileged, but I am not a spoiled brat. No matter how many times I'm told by someone whose opinion I care about that I act as if I'm arrogant or entitled, it isn't true. Sometimes I am just acknowledging how good my life has been and how God really has smiled upon me. I'm so smart, so talented, so... beautiful? I feel unsure typing that last one, but I don't think I would get as many compliments if I wasn't actually what they say I am. I love it when elder men and women give me those double-edged compliments, like "it's a good thing you're so pretty" regarding my shaved head. A few days ago some random guy outside of work was just like, "Hey, sexy." I don't feel like that's misogynistic. I feel like that's a compliment in the given context. Normally, when somebody says that it is accompanied by really obnoxious body language that makes it inappropriate, but he was just smiling and kept walking. Saturday night, some beautiful guy at the gas station was getting into his car and waved at me before saying, "You're really beautiful." I smiled and said thanks. That was the day I got my fur coat, etc. It just made that day a little bit better. I've always gotten compliments, and while they used to make me uncomfortable, now they just reinforce what I'm starting to feel about myself. I just thought about one occasion that was particularly uncomfortable. One of my best friends in tenth grade told me I was "beautiful in a different way." Back then, it hurt. Now I appreciate it because it's true and it was just an awkward phrasing of something she meant to be really heartfelt. In a group therapy session for young adults in Renfrew, one super sweet girl went on for around five minutes about how I was one of the most beautiful people she had ever met. Not even just the outside, but the inside too. Because I am beautiful in myself and to others. She said I had one of the best noses ever. :)

Even with the compliments, I am not defined by other people's perceptions of me. I like seeing myself as I do, as a combination of all these pieces that make me who I am. I don't really know what I look like, but I like what I see these days. Not even just my face, but I like my body, too. I like this combination of soft, solid, curvy, etc. I like my hands and my feet, my long fingers and my long toes. I love that my thighs and butt have finally gotten some of the weight I gained a while back. I love that my hips seem wider, even if my muffin-top is fiercer than ever. I like that my shoulders are broad and that my collarbones are not crazy-obvious. I like that I can have fat and muscle and bone without forcing one to dominate the others. I like my thick lips and my teeth (I have cute teeth, don't lie!). I like my freckles on my shoulders and my face. I like my chipmunk cheeks and my smile lines. I like my nose, even if I have no clue what it really looks like other than small and kind of pointy and with nostrils. I really like my eyes, because they are pointed and bright, like red-veined ivory almonds. Even my eyebrows are winning me over as I look through photos of myself, whether or not they are thin and femme or thick and masculine. Everything just kind of fits into place, if that makes sense. Oh God, I forgot to mention my belly. I know that's usually a sensitive thing for a lot of people, but I really don't mind it anymore. It's wide and plump, but that's better than how it used to be... and I mean way better.

As far as how my physical self fits into gender and sex, I feel like a woman. Maybe a girl. Mostly I feel like a kid, but not like a child. I don't feel like a young woman or a teenaged girl. I feel like a genderqueer female. I don't always express myself that way, but I will probably always define myself that way. It just works. For me, when I feel comfortable with my physical self, I feel better about my mental self and visa versa. Sexual orientation wise, I will call myself a dyke and be pansexual until they come up with a more vague and ambiguous label for me to squeeze myself into. I'm kind of hoping they get rid of all of the terms except queer and dyke anyways, just because queer is functional and dyke is kind of just a nickname, a title of grandeur. I've always been queer and I've always been a dyke. Looking back, there is no question. I've just never known which labels to claim. Tomboy, lesbian, etc. I just don't like those. They feel odd for me.

I still want to be a drag-queen/king just so I can be fucking glamorously fantastic and fabulous, but that's an expression kind of thing for the most part. It has a little to do with identity (my craving for playing dress-up), but I can do without it. I just have those hopes of strutting my stuff in tuxedos and cat-suits and dresses and capes and boleros and platform heels and leather and lace and studs, etc. I want to go all out, balls to the wall with my life. But in the end, I wear creepers and skinny jeans just to run errands. I do my makeup casually even though I want to wear falsies and glitter, etc. I settle for urchin when I want glam. But, I strut all the same.