One time my mom took me to a hibachi grill with a bunch of her friends and if you've never been to a hibachi grill basically the draw is that theres a bunch of interactive performance stuff done by the cook who cooks for you at your table, and one of the tricks they did at this one was take a squeeze bottle full of liquor and shoot it into your mouth across the table (with permission)
And now at our table my mom explained this because it was my first time going, and she wanted to make sure to warn me it was liquor because she knows I don't drink- she just said "if he offers to shoot at your mouth, say no because it's alcohol".
And so the chef does his thing and it's all very impressive, but the time does come where he pulls out this squeeze bottle of booze and asks me if I wanna try
I of course say no, because I really don't do alcohol, so he moves on to someone else
And I watch, and slowly come to understand that this is some sort of game, because once someone is drinking from the continuous flow the chef starts counting "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
I realize that we're trying to see who can keep drinking the liquor from three feet away without choking or spilling, and its a bummer cause i kinda wanna try and I CAN'T
But he goes around the table with everyone there, and I think my mom makes it to three, one friend makes it to five, I think my brother got to three as well, and he comes back to me
And I'm REALLY bummed out now but I will not drink alcohol, so I sort of sadly repeat that I can't when he pulls out a SECOND BOTTLE and grins and goes "juice?"
And Im like FUCK YEAH LET'S GO and I'm a bit worried he's gonna spray it into my eye or something but he doesn't, it hits me right at the back of the throat, and I start drinking while the whole fucking table counts "ONE! TWO! THREE!"
And like
It just sorta
Kept going?
And Im looking at the chef and he starts freaking out by the time we get to six, and at around seven I kinda start looking around and my auntie is staring back in shock, my brother is laughing his ass off and my mom has her face in her hands
And then at like nine or ten it gets like. Super tense and quiet, and only the chef is still counting
And I guess it got too much for even him cause we're at eleven and I don't believe in quitting early and it is almost painful how awkward it's getting
So he cuts me off at twelve and raises his hands in the air and everyone else cheers and claps like a dumb movie
and I just sit back in my seat to look back at my mother staring at me surrounded by everyone she knows, bright fucking red in the face and choking with honest to god tears in her eyes and she puts her face back in her palms and starts chanting "I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I don't want to know"
So I give her the biggest, proudest grin and tell her, "I won."
So now every time something suggestive happens in a movie, or in conversation, or something shocking happens around us and she goes to jokingly cover my ears, I just ask her, "Remember when I won?" And she goes face-down and groans, because I know EXACTLY how she thinks I trained to develop that particular skill and she HATES knowing that about me
The truth is though, I'm a whole ass 28 year old virgin. I've never so much as kissed anyone in my life. I had no idea I could do that trick until that exact moment
But she doesn't know that, and I'm never gonna tell her
So I had a hysterectomy today (hooray!) and I brought along my stuffed orca, Shamu, as a comfort object. And everyone i interacted with during my pre-op was like "Oh! Who's this?" so I was telling them all about him, how he's been with me since I was 9 and gone on every single vacation and road trip, and they were telling me about their own stuffed buddies (one lady said she still has hers after 40 years!) and all of this while I was signing consent forms and providing a list of the things I'd brought with me, you know, small talk.
So then a nurse comes over and goes "Okay, I've got some stickers I'll put on your things so we know they're yours" and I'm like "OK cool" so she puts a sticker on my coat and stickers on my bags of clothes and then she turns to Shamu and I'm like "oh I guess he gets a sticker too"
But no. She pulls out a hospital bracelet that's an exact copy of mine and slaps it on his tail, like so:
And i was delighted by this, so I took a picture to send to my friends, who were equally delighted, and were cracking me up with their reactions (like so:)
Anyway, they take me back and put me under, and when I awake groggily a few hours later it takes me a minute to get my bearings, so I don't notice Shamu at first. But then I realize he's tucked up next to me in the gurney, so I grab him, and my hand touches gauze.
And I'm like "huh?" so I look at him and I realize
They gave my fucking orca a hysterectomy
Oh ok so it turns out ive been borrowing grief from the future ! it turns out ive been preparing to lose the things i love rather than basking in the light of them while they last. Maybe i should nt do that
normal is when the girl with a penis is in your porn. woke is when the girl with a penis is in your coffee shop.
not doomed by the narrative but saved by the narrative. yeah i know you'd rather die than keep suffering but the story doesn't actually care what you want. you have to keep going, even when it hurts. even being erased from existence won't stop you from being salvaged from the wreckage of un-being. get up. keep pushing. keep bleeding. keep living.
we went to bed at 6pm last night and whenever i woke up my brain would try to slowly reconstruct the phrasing and imagery of McDonald's Honey Bustard Pickled Sea fuck meal and as soon as id get it right i would fall back asleep happened about a dozen times
really confused here because i am primarily an english speaker and i pronounce it yow-ee but i ALSO speak japanese, and knowing how to pronounce the word in japanese, yow-ee seems like a perfectly fine anglicization of the word and yah-oi does not. i feel like separating all the vowels (ya-oh-ee) is the closest to whats "correct" but that just sounds really awkward in american english
Completely unrelated to my blog content but I have to settle a dispute between my partner system and I.
Here’s the little disagreement under the cut:
My psys insisted that it was pronounced “yow-ee” and when corrected, then said that the way I pronounce it (the Japanese pronunciation—“yah-oy” or “ya-oh-ee” and the correct one) isn’t the way she has always heard English speakers say it. I’ve never Ever heard it pronounced like this, even among those that don’t speak Japanese. I’m curious if it just happened to be her friend groups or if this is as widespread as she says!
it doesn’t have to be good it just has to be done
see the THING IS I don't feel like I ever worked hard enough to have "earned" the burnout, which is. probably how we got here.
this speaking as a cis person. Nothing brings me more joy seeing people find gender euphoria in becoming a mediocre representation of humanity. And I mean that so genuinely. Local boy finds joy and fulfillment wearing a cargo shorts and t-shirt combo. Local girl has transitioned to look like someone's disheveled aunt, has never been happier. Local person experiences gender euphoria rocking the world's worst bowl-cut. Without a scap of irony, this shit makes me see the wonder and whimsy in just, being a human. An average, person going through their day-to-day, is a wondrous thing? That's amazing. And heteronormativity has stripped these experiences of their joy. Like you're right, wearing a basic girlypop skirt should make my heart sing. Why not? Why are these expressions lesser because they're normal? All this to say. Shoutout to all the basic bitches out there. Yes that polo shirt does make you look like a divorced golfer dad. Yes, that too is kind of a slay, now that I think of it.