Lots of Stuff and Polar Curves

The L Word

So I've started watching The L Word again. At the Rainbow Pride group in University, we started watching Season One The L Word once a week. I've just finished Season Two and have begun Season Three.

I love that this series exists, but I'm a little annoyed that they're mostly lipstick lesbians. Sigh. Same with Exes and Ohs.


Illness

Backstory

Last year, James house-sat in the city for a week. Unfortunately for him, it was the week before exams, when everything was due; and he also caught a nasty bug. And, of course, this is the first time he'd, effectively, lived alone. No Mum, no siblings, not many nearby friends.

On his last day there, I came over to take care of him. I brought him garlic soup, which was a hasty and sloppy experiment involving green roasted garlic, sage, bay leaves and, did I mention garlic? It turned out decently, thankfully. I stayed overnight in the spare room.

Having a robust immune system, I didn't catch his bug that night.

Unfortunately, I later sprayed some artwork with a fixative, and inhaled some acetone. Acetone hurts my throat so bad. I slept fitfully that night, and my nose bled (from the acetone) into my throat (because I was asleep), and I awoke with one nostril entirely plugged and one bone dry, and a throat that felt as though it had been scraped with steel wool.

In comparison with what came next, this was nothing.

The fever started in the late evening, as I recall. It was warm, then cool; then hot, then freezing cold. And everything hurt. Anywhere that my skin was touched, it hurt. I went to wash my hands, and the water falling on my hands hurt. I tried sleeping, but my back was wrought with pain--and my joints! Man, I would really hate to be arthritic, if that was anything like it. All my joints hurt: when I moved and when I was still.

I think the lowest point was after I had fallen asleep a few hours.

I awoke, crying. And I thought, "WTF, why am I crying? Oh! I'm crying because I'm cold! OMG WHY AM I SO FUCKING COLD?!" and I ran upstairs, crying and shivering and sweating, to my mom.

From there, it got better. I was able to sleep, and the pain even went away, slowly but surely. From start to finish, this was about three nights.

Now

Yesterday, I slept badly, and I think, once more, my nose bled backwards into my throat, because I awoke, today, with that same type of scraped-throat pain.

I'm not sure what happened, but I was sitting with my mom, talking about what groceries to get, and then she went off topic and talked about a bunch of other stuff. I'm not sure why, but I got really upset--even punched the wall--the metal part of the wall. And then I ran crying to my room.

Then I went to get groceries. Man, not good. I came back with a splitting headache, partly because I read the bus schedule wrong and went out half an hour early.

I'm not too bad now. Just trying to relax.


St Valentine's Day

St Valentine's Day is rapidly approaching.

There's this guy at work, he seems to be buddying-it-up with me, a bit. It's kinda cute. He's totally not my type--which reminds me! Mark asked me, "On a scale of 1 to 7, how sexy am I?" I said, if seven is the sexiest, he's a five. Then I asked the same question to him. He said, with my long hair, a five; but with my short hair, a three. He's totally not my target audience anyway :P.

I want to send Kevin flowers.

Not specifically Kevin, but I just feel like it would make someone's day, to receive a single, brightly-coloured flower--a gerber, maybe. Something about sending flowers just strikes me as...a beautiful thing to do, and that, the only possible way it could not make someone's day is if the person were allergic or didn't like the colour, or the person had nowhere to keep it.

Anyway.


Polar Curves

This is what I really wanted to talk about!

I recently got this program, Graph, which, as you might've guessed, is a graphing program! It's lovely! I'd donate if I had money!

To the right is a snapshot from Graph, of a cardioid, which is named thus because it looks something like a heart.

I graphed a bunch of other polar curves on this. Mostly, I made "flowers":



I also made this one, which looks something like a seven-leafleted plant. Sweet.

So, yeah. Polar Co-ordinates. Great stuff.


Off to sleep, hopefully.
--Charissa

Boobfest IV

Boobfest IV is up on my deviantArt now.

I'm not terribly happy with this one, but I needed to draw again. The colours are off, the skin didn't turn out as I'd wanted, the background is unintelligible and it's generally sloppy and less detailed.

A few things I did differently this time:

• No reference picture used for the pose
  
• The figure is not based on my appearance
  
• This one has a background
  
• This one has long hair (not me)
  
• The body fades out instead of being cut off...

I keep the most recent Boobfest pieces together on my wall. I think IV looks much better when placed with the rest, than by itself.

I kind of want to put up a large sign that says, "WALL OF BOOBS" above them, but if I just fill the wall with boobs, that would be just as obvious.

And, speaking of boobs...


And, speaking of gratuitous...

I watched 300 with Kevin and Mark on Friday.

What is up with that movie?!

If you just watch the end credits, you've seen every fight scene. And if those 300 Spartans are all professional soldiers, why does their drill suck so bad?! And what kind of soldier THROWS his spear so early in ANY battle; and how fierce of a battle could it possibly be if you can actually RECLAIM the spear before it's over?!

Granted, Mark and I came in part-way through the movie, so if there was anything else to the storyline, we missed it.

The entire time, to the annoyance of everyone else, Mark and I were making snarky comments. Like, when Xerxes and Leonidas chat, and afterward Leonidas comes back to his men and is asked how the meeting went, Kevin said, "Oh, y'know, we talked, had coffee--" and I said, "--He put his hands on me and asked me to kneel..."

And--seriously, what is up with Gorgo? "It makes me more of a woman to crave your kingship! The only way for a woman to have power is to have sex with powerful men! I can manage to steal Theron's sword--in public--and run him through with it--in public! Because I'm a woman! Nobody will stop me!"

Before a battle, I'd say, "THE PERSIANS ARE COMING, THE PERSIANS ARE COMING!!" or "Don't you just love how this movie came out in, what, 2006?"

Well, it was fun, at least. And some of the fight choreography wasn't too bad, just... repetitive.


Then we brought out the game Catchphrase, where you try to get someone to say a word/phrase. It's like Taboo (without taboo words), and hot potato, because you don't want to get stuck with the word-wheel-thing when the timer goes. Great fun, especially when drunk!

Last time we played, we'd gotten into the booze. Eventually, Kevin started guessing every other word was Penis.

It was Mark's turn, and he said, "Kay, it's like, methane, and octopus," and Kevin shouted, "METHAPUS! ... PENIS!"

For the word "chopsticks", Mark said, "All Asians use them," and Kevin said, "GLASSES!"

And it was great fun.

--Charissa

Ice Skating

I learned how to ice-skate today!

More specifically, I got to practice stopping, which is something I'd never really practiced. I'd tried that "push out with your heels" thing, but I always ended up falling or slipping or something that wasn't that ice-scratching stop I was trying for.

Today was a very strange day, and I miss days like this.

Today, I woke up for church, and I wanted to cry. Last night, I don't know, I felt free--for even just a moment. It's amazing that I could forget I'm a human being and capable of creating art, or of expression or of something meaningful... And yet, I had forgotten. So, last night, when I was listening to my music--which I hadn't heard for months--and making sketches--something I hadn't done seriously for months--I realized how much I had lost.

I lost so much of myself when I moved up from the water damage. I lost my room--my computer with my writings, my journals, my morgue of pictures that brought me joy, my music... And to have it all back--that wasn't what made me cry. It was the thought: "I don't have time for that now, I need to get up early tomorrow" that made me cry.

I don't know what's happened these past months, but it scares me.

I went to church today, and the wife of one of the pastors, she came up to me and asked how I was. Mokai, my friend, has told me that she is a wonderful counsellor, and I believed him, but in a "head knowledge" type of way.

She came up to me after the service, and asked me how's life, how's my mom, my dad. I told her I'm running three jobs, at least one of which is terribly unsatisfying. I told her about Dad's leg, and that I didn't know much about it (because I try not to think about it so that I can go to work the next day without crying--but I didn't tell her that).

And then she prayed for me. She had even forgotten my name, and yet she still knew my face enough to know that I hadn't been here for a month, and that something must be up. After she said Amen, I looked up and thanked her, and then had to leave because I was starting to cry.

I went downstairs to the washroom, and tried to cry soundlessly. It felt awful--crying silently in the far bathroom stall in the basement of my church. I decided I needed to cry properly--which wouldn't have been possible, since I was scheduled to work today.

I called in sick.

"I'm not feeling well," I told the scheduler.
"Get better," he said to me.

I went to Mark's house.

I called him first, and although I knew I was intruding, it's technically his house, so as long as I'm not intruding on him, I'm not intruding. It was so good for me. I just sat and cried, and cried, for about half an hour. He'd play piano or watch TV or throw cats at me. "They're very comforting," he said, and he was right.

We went to an outdoor hockey rink and his brother took shots on him while I tried to skate.

I've ice-skated before. Twice. It's like roller-skating, but you can slip. And where roller-skating has wheels and friction, ice-skating has blades and considerably less friction!

The first time I ice-skated was with James, while we were dating. To his credit, he did all he could to teach me; but he's not a very good teacher for me. I didn't know how to stop, so every time I wanted to stop, I'd just glide into a snowbank and start walking until I felt my momentum die down.

I learned something about myself today.

I learned I was afraid to fall.

Mark's brother seems to glide naturally on the ice (of course, when you play hockey, I guess that skating is the last thing you should need to think about). And I saw him fall!

I got over myself--my fear of falling. I mean, what the fuck, it's ice, and I'm wearing a fucking ski jacket! It's not going to fucking hurt that much!

So I kept my eyes on some of the parents who were teaching their young ones to skate. At least two were extremely good: natural and even a little showy, as if to demonstrate to their kids that skating is fun and exciting and full of impressive tricks; and also to instruct. I liked that.

There was this one little girl in a baby pink jacket who was also trying to learn how to stop. She was skating around, falling over; and at one point, she called to her guardians, "Look, I can stop now!" as she sat awkwardly on the ice.

The one method of stopping that I wanted most to try was pivoting on the toe, and sliding the heels out by 90 degrees and coming to a full halt. I knew that wasn't going to happen immediately, but I also recalled another method where the skater is going forward, and then suddenly swings around 180 degrees, the skates describing a circle, and stops. I wanted to try a combination of both.

Most fortunately for me, by this time, everyone else had left, so I had half the rink to myself! I can't count how many times I fell, but it was so worth it.

I realized that I had been afraid of scratching the ice; like if I put my skates that way, I'd simply fall over instead of halting. And sometimes I wouldn't even be trying to halt, because I was scared that trying to stop would make me fall over--so I'd be only changing directions or only slowing down, instead! What dumb fears!

By the time Mark and his family were ready to leave, I had gotten the gist of stopping. Mark had fallen over from exhaustion (it's normal, he says), so I skated over to him and halted. Oh man that felt good.

"You can stop now? Let me see!" he managed.

I skated around and stopped by him. I was so happy!


[post abandoned]
--Charissa

TEH GAYS!

What means "gay"?

Ask around, and you'll get so many different answers.

"Gay means you like men, if you're a man."

"Gay means you fart rainbows."

"Gay means YOU'RE A FAG!"

"Gay means you like people of the same sex."

"Gay means you like people of the same gender."

"Gay means you're a homosexual."

"Gay means you want to have sex with a man, if you're a man."

...

Truthfully, I'm not really sure what gay means, either. It has something to do with liking someone of the same sex or gender. It gets blurry when you add in things like trans-gendered people, trans-sexual people, actions, history, preference... But, in the broadest sense, it means a same-sex or same-gender attraction.

Does being gay mean you're physically attracted to the same sex or gender (for the purposes of brevity, I'll just say one or the other from now on)? Not necessarily. It's totally possible to have a purely emotional bond.

Here's another way to think of it. There's a celibate holy man who has no physical desires for women nor men. Is he gay? Is he straight? I don't know!


I like to call myself gay sometimes and generally use the word gay very loosely. I also like to use the word lesbian, but gay is more hilarious. Rush Hour Three was gay!

Honestly, aside from a few general guidelines, these word--gay, bi, lesbian, gender, sex, trans-gendered, trans-sexual, gender-queer, lesbi-bi, curly... They're not well-defined, and their meanings really just depend on what you decide they mean to you.

If someone asks me whether or not I'm gay, I might simplify things by saying, "Yeah." And if they're cerebral enough to realize that wasn't a very descriptive answer, they'll follow-up with, "What does it mean to be gay?", whereupon I'll tell them what it means for me, myself, to be gay.

It means I like women. I love women's bodies. I love the way women can think, feel, and generally live in the world. I'm physically attracted to women. I feel a deeper connection with certain women, and the idea of powerful or empowered women.

It means I'm not overly feminine. I like wearing neck ties. I like wearing men's suits and blazers and jackets. I like passing as a man when I go to the symphony. I like being given the key to the men's toilet when I ask to use the restroom.

It means I like men--a little. Mostly, I like certain men, or have liked certain men. And I don't believe that my like or love for them was any less real because of my being gay. I could love another man. But I could love a woman in the same ways.

It means I love the Queer community. Lesbians are amazing--they'll bake you cookies and lift heavy objects! Gay men are quaint and inspiring. And everyone, on any part of the "spectrum" (rainbow) is beautiful and lovely and wonderful! Everyone has a story. Everyone brings his or her story and qualities and questions and experiences to the community.


When I talk about "being gay", I'm not just talking about my attraction for women--or any one lone part. It's so much more than that three-letter word. It's a part of who I am--and this is more what people mean when they say, "I identify as ______." It's part of who you are.

I am Charissa, and I am a Rainbow Person
I am Bisexual
I am Gender-Queer
I am Curly
I am Queer
I am Gay Sometimes
I am Charissa!