It seems like it's been a long time since I just talked.

For once I'm not talking about holding conversation. This I do regularly now, and it's wonderful.

But I don't talk anymore. I no longer have anyone I can just pour everything into their ears and let it go. And I don't know how it came to this, but I don't journal or blog anymore. At all.

So it makes sense that I should feel emotionally constipated.

There's just so much going on now, it's hard to wrap my head around it all.

Life is great. Truly, it is, or in general at least. I have everything I could possibly want. I can even recognize on a regular basis the wonderful basics I have. A fresh roll of toilet paper every time I go to the bathroom. So much food I can hardly decide what I want to eat (and more and more of it healthy, organic, and just bloody delicious). Air conditioning against the blazing heat, and a warm place to retreat to when the AC is on too high. A family, complete with brilliant and beautiful siblings and both biological parental units. My own computer.

And more! I'm going to college! I'm going to the college I chose, which I got myself into, and I'm going to be doing the things I want to, in my own room, with food on one side and healthy lifestyle assistance on the other, and every kind of entertainment and time filler in between!

AND I have Quill. I have a closet full of garb, my own tent, two boxes full of gear, and plenty of largess and other goodies. I have a lovely Shire that wants me around and looks out for me. I have friends to play with on the weekend...

Yet... there's always something more, isn't there?

I'm lonely. If I swallow my pride and get right down to it, that's the problem. I miss Renee, I miss Mandy, and I miss Josh. It hurts so much to admit it, but I do.

No. I miss and idea. I miss what I thought I had with each of them. It would be a lie to say I wish they were here right now, or I wish I could talk with them, because not only do I not wish to talk to them, I don't want to have anything to do with them.

Each one has proven her- or him-self a loser. Sad but true, and I can't let them suck anymore life out of me.

Then why do I miss them so much? I don't know

In the end it's selfish really. I want someone just dumb enough for me to feel superior toward to bitch and brag to.

And I wish so much that I had someone to who understood the situatoin I'm in. This... medical situation, it's driving me up the wall-----


already tired of talking. Wow.

For a year's worth of lessons in one thing, I would like to spend it focused on learning something that would benefit my mind, body, and spirit. To that end I think I would choose a year of some kind of movement classes - perhaps dance, tai chi, yoga, or a martial art of some kind.

It might not be a good idea to dedicate myself to the idea of a year on something I've never tried and still might not like (don't know that I could really put up with hours of yoga for a whole year, nor the music that goes with hip hop or jazz dancing) - on the other hand, it could be very fulfilling to take the plunge into the unknown.

For a year, 365 days, of continuous but varied lessons, I would learn (or relearn) the basics of everything I think contributes to making me a well rounded person. Things like Etiquette, decorum and courtly manners, fashion, art (painting and the like), music (there are several instruments I'd like to learn, and once I know the essentials I can teach myself the rest), cooking, formal dance, that sort of thing.

And there are the things they say can't be taught, no matter what...

Names are, to me, of greatest importance. I believe that names hold great power. Therefore it is unsurprising that I should want to share my name with you:

They call me Quill.

Now a quill is a feather. In this case the feather is meant to come from a Phoenix. The Phoenix represents the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth, and is a symbol which has been significant throughout my life, for I am constantly dying and renewing myself. But I am not simply a quill, but a gray quill, for the phoenix is more than a body; she is feather and flame, blood and breath, smoke and ash. Covered in ashes. Gray being, amongst other things, the color of neutrality, I hope therefore to remain neutral and open to all things in life.

A quill is also a pen, a voice for those who cannot speak. In a vision I was once gifted the plume of a phoenix for times when my voice will in fact fail me. Words that are worthy of preservation should be written down.

Quill is also technically short for "Cuillioc", pronounced KWEE-yok but with the Welsh "ll" sound in between. Supposedly Cuillioc is Cornish for "soothsayer", 'sooth' being the old word for 'truth'. It contains the name element "Cuill" as in the legendary Mac Cuill, who was named after his god Coll, the Hazel. In Druidic Tree Lore the Hazel represents wisdom. Therefore the intended meaning behind my name is to imply that I am one who hopes to speak truth from the roots of wisdom.

There's this word that has been thrown at me for a long time and which my mother has been using more and more frequently, most notatbly in a recent conversation over breakfast at Denny's in which she outright blamed my "gender situation" on my "gifted" status.

So after running across the word a few more times in some completely unrelated scenarious, I finally decided to look up a few things about "gifted" children. There certainly seems to be quite a lot of information out there.

Sad to say, the word "gifted" in my mind has developed a definite stigma, for there has never been anything good about being "gifted" in my life. It's now come to equivocate with the word "special" as in "You're special; yeah, special-ed."

How terrible is that! It really should be a good thing to be gifted and special, but like so many words in the English language it's become completely the opposite. God forbid we should any of us considered special or indeed gay! *gasp*

Anyway, I don't really feel like reaching back into that cesspool which is my oh-so-recent childhood, but I just want to say for the moment it's not easy and I would, in all honesty, much rather be "normal" than "gifted" even to this day, because all it's done for me (aside from the abuse) is made me arrogant and more often than not act like a bastard because I've had to convince myself I'm better than everyone.

Yeah, well, even gifted people have to work on their personality problems.

Anyway, one last thing did occur to me. My mother says she thinks that the reason (or rather, one of the reasons; she's subscribed to the idea that I was also sexually abused before retained memory kicked in) I want so badly to "be a boy: instead of just getting comfortable in my femaleness is that I'm gifted and always have been and the trauma that comes with that is what messed me up.

Now, curiously a common implication with giftedness is that the gifted child/person in question often has difficulty because their minds work at a higher maturity level than usual; in other words, they think older than their physical age. So, mother dear, can't you consider that it may in fact be possible that I also think as a different gender than my legal/physical one?

Just a thought.

I don't know what it is or why, but for some reason when I look up stuff on the internet what I see can have a profound effect on me, especially in the area of my emotions.

For example, all I have to do is start looking through other people's photos from events and start getting SCA crazy. Literally my heart starts pouding really hard, really fast, my breathing picks up, my palms get all sweaty, I feel dizzy and all I can think about is when's the next time I get to dress up and swing a sword?

That's the good side to it. There is of course the bad side - when I start looking up Eddie Izzard videos, for example, and end up zombified in front of the screen until three in the morning, or I browse through online stores for things like ink or instruments and thank god I don't have a credit card (and my bank account's still in transition) or I could easily go broke. (Six dollars here, seven pounds there, next thing you know that stuff adds up!)

And then there is anything online that has to do with transgender/transsexual topics.

Let's just say I try to stay far FAR away from an "communities" and "groups" and "forums" because as soon as I open my metaphorical e-mouth it's going to get a cyber-foot shoved in it - interents people are so touchy!

And looking at photos of successful transmen, reading their stories, checking out their sites, this does nothing for me. I only get depressed because of how far it seems I have to go... see, just thinking about it brings me down.

It's terrible. This should be an uplifting, or at least educational thing, but all I feel is rage against my own situation, jealousy for a complete stranger's life, and sadness about the futility of it all.

It's worse now, of course, considering recent events, which I shall go on to recount later.

Anyway, the point is it's not good for my spirit, and I really need to quit it unless there is really a need for research purposes or something.

I just got the report back on the "wiccan" ritual that was just held on base from the chaplain who was in charge of supervising. Keeping in mind he didn't have to tell me anything, this is what I got:

Very dull/boring.

A lot like a regular church gathering in that afterwards they all sat around the barbecue and bitched about this that and the other. But  not in that there was no singing and no fun to be had, not even by the practicitioners.

Apparently they talked about how while the ritual was going on the mosquitos didn't bother them but as soon as the circle was broken they attacked - nevermind the fact that they stopped after the sun went down and the wind stopped blowing ie. "mosquito hour".

The athame (sharp pointy thing) had to be used twice - to "open the door" for latecomers.

Probably the main reason (or rather, main reasons) there were twice as many men as women were the apparent leaders breasts - which is alright, one supposes, considering it's a "mother goddess" type religion.

The ones in getup look like Saturday Night Live ripoffs. (This is a direct quote, and I'm not sure exactly what he means.)

The person they were expecting to show up as leader didn't come, so they had to scramble for a last minute leader.

In interviews afterward the three-ish people who seemed to have some small idea what they believed all claimed to practice something different, as if an excuse for why things didn't exactly go all glowy-mystical. The others were apparently there to sort of learn. (And this is my opinion: great job! Now you've completely confused and turned off a couple of converts because apparently "wicca" means "I don't know what the hell I believe but it's definitely not the same as you".)

Now keep in mind that I am not pro- or anti-pagan or wicca at all. In fact it's a saying of mine that "I like religion so much, I have three!" and much of my personal belief system could easily and justifiably be deemed "pagan" (but certainly NOT wicca by any means).

I am, however, very much against the wave of neo-paganism sweeping through the united states due directly to the fact that it's such a self-centered undirected random load of... well, as one who has spent their entire life submerged in religion, it strikes me as a total crock. People who desperately seek spirituality (some - the rest are just attention starved teenagers and twixters seeking to make a statement, and they have: "I am full of crap.") but don't want to be restrained in any way by authority or don't want to deal with the history of any organized religion (Christian, Muslim, Jew, we're all murdering bastards one way or another, right?).

*sigh* I don't know. It makes me sad, in a way. I am glad it didn't turn out to be a freak show.