Some thoughts on strategy

Last week I wrote that I think Biden has done a good job, without being perfect. 

Frankly, I think it's strange that we seem to expect candidate to be perfect now. I mean, we are still voting for humans.

I also mentioned how carefully he had to tread to avoid setting off more violence now that some people have become so confident choosing it.

In fact, he seems to be pretty good at negotiating and navigating. You can't always get others to come around, but when successful, a big part of that is often using caution and tact to not exacerbate the situation.

I think that is a big part of why there is not a harder public line against Israel. 

I don't think it's the only reason. I think the United States' own colonialist history and guilt about the Holocaust has led to a historic support of Israel that is hard to throw off, not to mention the years of treaties and congressional approval... I understand why things don't happen quickly, and that there is a limit to how much one government can influence another government. 

All of which is to say that as horrifying as the genocide that Israel is wreaking against Palestinians is, I also understand that there is a limit to how much our government can do to prevent it, and that there might be things being worked on to that we don't see. 

Now, let's look at the people saying they won't ever vote for "Genocide Joe". 

Given the previous points, that phrasing may indicate that they are not really considering political nuance in any depth.

I will also concede that they are not necessarily operating from a point of honesty and sincerity. I recently saw someone who had posted that he would vote for Harris if she chose Walz for her running mate. He changed that after she did. 

I can only assume he was sure that the pick would not be Walz, so the excuse he built in did not work. I am also sure that his tweets were not a strong factor in the final decision. I only mention it because I don't think it pays to assume good faith in all cases.

Let's assume good faith... once you say that a party can never win your vote, you have no bargaining power. There is no point in the party trying to appease you; they need to pursue other votes.

I won't say that it's not frustrating; I am frustrated all the time.

I will say that I am not petulant enough to forget other people in danger.

Let's look at other ways the position can play out: wanting the death to stop, they decide they will vote for Trump. 

That doesn't sound like it will work. 

Okay, believing that neither party is good, they will vote for a third party candidate or a write-in or not vote. 

That may work to demonstrate displeasure, but it will not do anything to stop the death.

Can showing the displeasure be a moral stand?

Well, maybe, but it is a moral stand that sells out women, LGBTQIA+ people, people of color, people with disabilities... it is going to add a lot of suffering and additional death to the death.

I have seen people profess complete comfort with this. Perhaps that makes them single issue voters.

That can be a strategy that works. To the extent that anti-abortion voters have made great strides toward making abortion harder to get. I am not sure how many abortions they have prevented, but they have certainly created a lot of suffering.

Perhaps being a single-issue voter is a better strategy for causing harm. That could explain a lot.

As much as being against genocide should be a good place to draw the line, what about Sudan? and the Central African Republic? Is it that the US does not have as much to do with those?

I am sure that many people who decide to abstain are probably in states where Trump is unlikely to win. Since the electoral college still exists, they may be right, but some of those margins get pretty close.

Also, choosing spite over participation makes me wonder how much they will contribute to the many repairs needed, no matter who wins.

Spotlight on Yuyi Morales -- Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

No, I am not done with the Pride Month writing. There will be more on that.

As my different reading sections are starting to overlap more (especially as I finish up the post-2016 election reading) I am trying letting the writing overlap and alternate as well. 

I don't know if I will stick with it, but there are ways in which I think it may be helpful.

Yuyi Morales seems like a good starting place. I first learned of her from a book that featured both her and Jerry Pinkney, so she connects to my Black History reading.

In trying to locate her work, I have run into some confusion. Among the books listed on Goodreads there was one, Le Costume de Malaika, by Nadia Hohn. I found one called Malaika's Costume and requested it (different language editions is nothing new), but the illustrator of that book was Irene Luxbacher. Was there a French edition illustrated by Morales? 

I went to her Wikipedia page to check. That bibliography mostly matches Goodreads, except that there is no Malaika's Costume (the French edition on Amazon shows the same artwork and lists Luxbacher). Wikipedia does show another book, Todas las Manos Buenas by F. Isabel Campoy, that Goodreads does not have.

I am trying to get a hold of that now, but tracking down books can be tricky, especially children's books. 

Maybe Yuyi is a good test case for blending and mixing things up.

Another reason that is appropriate is her own artistic style. While she can draw and paint, she will often mix in dolls and fabric and other materials. Sometimes it is blended so skillfully it is hard to be sure what was drawn and what was not.

That makes it seem appropriate that two of her books are tributes to artists: her illustrations for Amy Novesky's Georgia in Hawaii: When Georgia O'Keeffe Painted What She Pleased and Morales' own Viva Frida.  

Many of the books have strong senses of familial love. It may make sense that among her solo books are a counting book, an alphabet book, one featuring a game of hide and seek, and two books about a little boy imagining himself as a luchador. It would be easy to believe that those were inspired by her son Kelly as he was learning and growing:

Just a Minute! A Trickster Tale and Counting Book
Just In Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book
Little Night
Niño Wrestles the World
Rudas: Niño's Horrendous Hermanitas

That is easy to imagine because of the love infused in Dreamers. 

In Dreamers, Morales tells the story of her and her young son coming into the United States. During a difficult adjustment they find libraries and children's books. 

In addition to the beauty and inspiration found in the story, part of the fun is seeing familiar book covers. A future reading month could launch from that, at some point. 

While the term "Dreamers" has a specific meaning now, in the book it is about a mother and child discovering what they can become. There is optimism, but also an awareness that there are dangers. This is echoed in Bright Star, and it makes Morales' participation in a book for Project Amplify, Hear My Voice/Escucha Mi Voz, logical. 

I am glad that I learned about Todas las Manos Buenas before I read the foreword Morales wrote to Celebrating Cuentos: Promoting Latino Children's Literature and Literacy in Classrooms and Libraries. In it, she refers to Campoy, and I knew the context that Campoy's work was the first book Morales illustrated (also a friend):

My friend Isabel Campoy wrote once that there are no Latinos in Mexico. or El Salvador, or Cuba, or in any or the twenty Hispanic countries for that matter, because Latinos is actually the term used to refer to the Spanish-speaking population (and their descendents) of the United States. For the same reason, I realize now, I had to come to a foreign country to become who I am: a Latino author and illustrator. I have learned that to be labled Latino also defines such things as the shelves where my work will be displayed. I sense danger in any term that specifies ethnicity, as if being Latino, or African American, or indigenous suggests the possession of a monolingual voice and a specific vision meant to be understood only by those who are already familiar with these. I must say that I do not fear this label. In my path through schools and in visiting my readers, I have learned that children take from our work what they need the most.

Additional books illustrated by Yuyi Morales:

Ladder to the Moon by Maya Soetoro-Ng
Sand Sister by Amanda White
My Abuelita by Tony Johnston
Floating on Mama's Song by Laura Lacámara
Thunder Boy Jr. by Sherman Alexie
Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull
Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes

Election 2024: Some thoughts on Biden's presidency

I mentioned earlier holding off on some plans to connect more. It would be fairly perilous in an election year. People can be so annoying. More annoying than usual, I would say, except that some of the worst people are making that their personalities now. If I have old affection for them I hope they can come around, but this may not be the time to look for it.

Anyway, one of the minor issues -- and the reason that this post is specifically about Biden rather than Harris or Trump -- relates to the pressure on him to step down, followed by the outcry from those who cried that the previously professed loyalty to Biden was clearly insincere when everyone got so happy about Harris being the new candidate.

Allow me to clarify my thoughts.

I believe Biden has done a good job as president. I think that is more important than debate performance, especially when at our current level of polarization no one is watching the debates to make up their minds. They are watching the debates to reinforce what they already believe. The people who do not find Trump's narcissism, grift, and incessant lying disqualifying aren't going to change. It's awful, but that's how it is.

I would also like to throw out something that I read early on in his presidency, about how much danger there would be of more insurrection, which required some careful treading and diplomacy. Biden has faced a lot of open obstruction, but yes, there are people who were willing to hang a vice-president if it would bring them closer to their desired dictator for life. That group quite possibly includes members of the Secret Service, who are supposed to be the protectors. And with protocol and propriety, you have to send away the dog instead of them. 

Then, that there was so much nitpicking at every minor gaffe as a sign of his age, when he has a speech impediment, he has always been kind of known for gaffes, and the competitor is Trump, who can barely string a coherent sentence together... pressuring Biden to step down seemed very misguided, except it was probably more racist.

Because we had a competent vice president right there, certainly more qualified than Vance. Except she's a Black woman. 

There were just too many reasons to think that was part of the motivation.

Look, I can sympathize with a certain amount of fear about a woman losing to Trump; the last time was devastating. I still feel pretty strongly that the solution to fighting the racist misogynists is not becoming them. For one thing, the people who specifically want terrible white men will never be satisfied by one of ours.

So I was irritated with those -- and they were pretty much rich white men -- who were pressuring Biden to step down. 

Then, when Biden stepped down endorsing Kamala Harris, guaranteeing that she was the choice going forward, it was beautiful.

First of all, Biden no longer has to bother with the debates, he can focus on governing. Good!

We did not suddenly become less progressive. Good!

It was a good move and well executed. I applaud (and only a little bit because it ticked off people who had ticked off me).

Is Biden perfect? Absolutely not. Harris won't be either. 

People are upset about Israel and Gaza, including me. However, the guy who relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is not going to be better for Palestinians. Even if a third party candidate had a chance, looking at this crew, none of them should.

I would have gladly voted for Biden-Harris, and I gladly filled out by mail-in ballot Sunday night for Harris-Walz. 

It is absolutely still important to push for change. Next week I hope to write more about that. 

Pride Month: Continuity

I haven't been putting the year, like "Pride Month 2024". This is not a regular thing for me. 

Last year I was writing for Transgender Awareness Week, which was in November. We are almost there again, and with LGBT History month being now in October, or Pride being in June or July, there are lots of options for a regular rotation. 

When I finished writing about the transgender reading last year, I realized there were more books that I was going to want to get to. I planned to do that in June. That is why I have been thinking of it as Pride reading this year, but I do not know what my pattern will be. 

Here were some things that I knew after last year:

I knew that Janet Mock and Jonathan Van Ness each had another book, and I would read those, which I now have.

Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock

Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness

I can really see the value in reading things in order. 

For Van Ness, Love That Story was material that was important but did not necessarily fit into the first book. If I had read that first, I might have appreciated the greater context given in Over the Top.

In Mock's case, Redefining Realness did come first, but was missing some things that were important chronologically. Reading the things she thought of after putting the first book out in the world gave a more depth. That worked well.

I think both books are also a reminder that you can never tell a whole story. It doesn't have to be a lack of openness or anything intentional. Not only is there always more, but also sometimes things look different after more time and thought.

I knew I was going to want to spend more time on the Interface Project after suddenly not being able to get Eden Atwood out of my mind.

http://www.xysuz.com/the-interface-project 

https://www.interfaceproject.org/stories

That ended up being useful before I got to any of the books. The Olympics brought it up.

Let me be clear that I do not know that Imane Khelif is intersex; it is pretty clear that Umar Kremlev is shady. Nonetheless the topic came up and I had a source for more information on something that people really oversimplify.

Finally, while my focus was specifically on transgender people, there was also some historical reading about the larger movement. This may be another reason why this year feels more like it is related to Pride and the larger group. (I am aware that there are often inclusion issues with organized Pride activities.)

Regardless, after reading And the Band Played On, I started wondering about some of the people who were mentioned in the book, but not mentioned as having died. (It is about the early days of the AIDS crisis and there are lots of deaths.)

Two I remember looking up were Larry Kramer -- who had died, but not until 2020 -- and Cleve Jones.

Cleve Jones is still alive. He has a memoir.

When We Rise: My Life in the Movement by Cleve Jones 

First of all, it was inspiring to see that people did live. Yes, we know now that there are drugs that can fight HIV and AIDS, but for people who had it then, and saw so many of their friends and lovers die, that was not guaranteed.

In addition, just from reading Jones' book, there are at least two more movies and another book that I need to look into. It's not going to happen this year. 

I know that something will happen again at some point in 2025.

For now that's as specific as I can be.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/transgender-awareness-reading-memoirs.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/12/transgender-awareness-reading-until.html

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/08/gender-olympics-and-dominator-culture.html

Allowing space

I have been going back and forth with a very serious decision recently: whether to get social media set up on my phone.

It would mainly be for travel. I used to have a laptop that traveled with me. Once I day I could log on and post the song of the day and any relevant blogs and wish people a happy birthday, but it died quite a while ago. 

Right now I am also posting political content daily through the election as well as trying to stay connected to people. That I might have times when there are a few days with no posting is a concern.

I never worried about using the laptop, but somehow it feels different with the phone.

I suppose this is partly because most people keep their phones on them all the time; something I never did with my laptop. 

It is also because of merging, like Instagram with Facebook, but probably more because Musk ruined Twitter and Zuckerberg is evil and even Google no longer has not being evil in their charter... do I really want to reinforce that connection?

(It is a teeny bit because being in school gave me a new Google profile besides the one that has everything else. That only adds a small level of complication, but does act as a minor deterrent.)

As it is, we have had things come up twice now preventing travel; maybe I just shouldn't be planning on going anywhere.

I am not saying things will never be different. For now, my phone remains mostly just a phone, that sometimes take photos. It's pretty handy being able to call or text from wherever.

While it is technically still a "smart" phone, that part pretty much never works. I know I could figure that out, and I would have to if I were going to maintain social media use while traveling.This decision makes that a moot point.

This means that when I am watching television, I am watching television. 

(I wish my sisters would do that. So often they are there but missing things because their faces are in their phones. I rewind a lot.)

When I am on the bus, I will be reading, or thinking, or watching and even talking to people.

That's not awful.

In church, I... okay, sometimes my mind is wandering rather than me really listening -- there is room for improvement there -- but I am not scrolling my feeds.

Yes, it would theoretically still be possible to be like that with social media on my phone, but it's even easier when the phone has nothing there.

It was also a choice to allow me to have days off from what I am doing, no matter how important it feels. Breaks are important too. 

Pride Month Movies

I feel like it ended up being a very good selection. That was mainly luck, though it is the luck that you get from putting yourself out there. 

Two of them came up when I was searching on George Takei; he narrates Who's On Top and appears in Do I Sound Gay?. The other two were in my Netflix suggestions, I think because of watching Rustin and a Hannah Gadsby special.

I am writing about these in the order in which I viewed them, not in the order they were released. 

Disclosure (2020)

This is about the portrayal of transgender people by Hollywood. 

One of the most illuminating parts was going over the reveal in The Crying Game (1992). The person finding out vomits, and then all of these other films coming after doing that too. They are mainly comic films, like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but still, it enforces that this is the standard reaction.

That is dehumanizing, but the film is great for showing many of the humans that it hurts.

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) 

I have not found much in the way of books on Johnson, which had been part of my plans. This documentary was a good start, giving more about her life and death, just as it describes.

One of the most emotional parts is a former roommate wondering if his actions put her in more danger. 

I knew there were questions about her death, and this does a good job of laying them out.

Do I Sound Gay (2014)

Filmmaker David Thorpe starts getting very bothered by his vocal inflections; hence the title question. (It is worth noting that this happened just after a breakup, and thinking of getting back into dating may have increased insecurity.) Thorpe works with a speech coach, as well as talking to friends and actors about "sounding" gay.

I found it interesting that apparently a big part of sounding gay was ending sentences upward, as if asking a question. One of the exercises for not doing that was a phrase with a specific cadence: "I am right. I am always right." Now that's a phrase that encourages finality.

It made me wonder if part of it was a lack of confidence, and a way of being deferential to be more acceptable. If that's the case, maybe it is something to work on, but if changing the speech patterns is pursued due to self-loathing, then maybe a therapy other than speech would be better?

(Now I am doing it, but I watched a 77-minute documentary. I should not be that confident making assessments.)

Who's On Top?  (2020)

As indicated earlier, this came up on a library search for George Takei, and I impulsively requested it. I had no idea it was set locally, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Yes, the title sounds like a double entendre. The documentary is about a group of four LGBT people (and it is literally one Lesbian, one Gay man, one Bisexual woman, and one Transgender woman) preparing to climb Mt. Hood together.

I really felt for each of the individuals, learning more about them and what being "on top" would mean for them. Seeing Portland and familiar locales was great. It was even cool recognizing all of the newscasters in the clips of stories of deaths, injuries, and search and rescue efforts on Mt. Hood. 

I may have heard before, but it did not really register, that Mt. Hood is the second-most climbed mountain, with only Mt. Fuji having more annual climbers.

I cannot stress enough how little I am interested in mountain climbing. There are so many other activities you can do with less danger, that don't require going to special low-oxygen rooms to condition and starting at midnight so the sunlight doesn't melt your path. I mean, Touching the Void was pretty horrific, but they were experienced climbers so the movie focused on the unusual things that went wrong. 

These are mostly beginners, so there is more time spent on that process of just getting to where you can reasonably expect to safely make the top. It's not that I was really thinking about it before, but knowing more now, uh-uh.

That wasn't the point of the movie, but understanding it was part of getting to know the climbers. 

The movie was great. It was also the one I watched most recently, and it appears I still have some emotions about it.

Exploring my sexuality

When I am doing a series of posts, it often feels right to go in threes. 

There is a long history of people conflating gender and sexual orientation, though I think there has been progress on that. It may be less common for people to think about the difference between sexual orientation and sexuality; that's whom you're interested in and what you do with them, right?

It may be much more about how you do what you do, and not exclusive to the bedroom.

First of all, I should say that in a lot of my feminist readings over time, I have noticed that for many men sex is mostly about force; not necessarily rape, but how hard even the consensual sex is done. 

I remember one woman who had a boyfriend like that. Later her doctor thought she had been violently assaulted because of the scarring. She hadn't really enjoyed it, but she accepted that was how it should be.

Then you have men who claim women are actually incapable of orgasm; it's the only acceptible explanation for why a woman has never had one with them. There is this new trend -- and it is so ignorant I hope it is not widely spread, but can't be sure -- where there are men saying that sperm alters women's DNA so if you have children with a non-virgin, those children will have traits from other men.

No. That's not how that works.

This mindset of sex being something for dominating and changing a woman (without pleasuring her) is really the same misogyny that pays less because they refuse to consider the work equal, while at the same time demanding more household labor and emotional labor without admitting it is labor.

My point is not to bash men (and of course they are not all like that) but to point out once again that dominator culture ruins everything. (I have spent several posts demonstrating that on the Sunday blog.)

What I am more interested in is how things can be better. Some examples come to mind.

First is the segment "Getting Real" from My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen.

She starts at a beach where a recent ileostomy has made her feel worse about her body. The many Barbie-perfect bodies (the companions of wealthy men also there) around her made that worse. Then a middle-aged woman -- older, and a little heavier, but with complete confidence -- sauntered out. All of the men and many of the women stopped and looked at her.

"It was my first lesson in the difference between perfection and sexuality."

She moves on to a patient who had always been perfectly beautiful, then needed a mastectomy, and her transformation. The most important part of it was still about the first woman:

"Real sexuality heals. In its presence I could begin to reclaim my own sense of possibility and wholeness, and I am grateful to this woman for inhabiting her body in this way. Without knowing me at all, she helped me to begin to inhabit my own life."

As traumatic as a surgery that removes part of your body can be, you don't need one to be aware of your own body's lack of perfection. If we think of sexuality as sexiness and believe it requires perfection, that can mess us up pretty badly, even if not as badly as equating sex with domination.

Somehow, we need to appreciate the marvels of our bodies and of each other to get at that healing and wholeness.

Alice Wong's Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire would surely have some food for thought, but right now I am thinking more of Audre Lorde's "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power".

For her, the erotic should be a part of sex, but it was also part of creativity and strength. 

"Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy."

Look, I have given you three options for further reading and they are all worth looking into. Our individual paths toward wholeness may look very different.

I know that I have felt called toward healing for some time. Part of that journey is my own healing, and part of that is bridging the rift with my body that started so young. There are ways in which I am already better, and areas that still require some work.

It's worth doing for yourself too.

The never-ending Pride Month (Pride 2024)

This is not about how Pride Month was officially June and I am still getting through the books I planned on reading (though that would be a completely logical guess).

It is not about how although Pride Month is officially in June but Portland celebrates it in July (because of Rose Festival and graduation and everything). I was more aware of the timing because I volunteered there this year, so it was my first year attending.

This is more about how in my other reading I kept encountering queer authors.

I thought about titling this post "Is everybody gay?", but I was concerned that it could seem derogatory. Instead, I am going to save a really corny and obvious joke for the end.

The pieces started falling into place when I was reading How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler.

It would not have been unreasonable to read it for Asian-American heritage, or even science, but it came up because a friend recommended it and I had asked friends for their favorite books because of a reading challenge.

Imbler is queer. 

I might not have even noticed that if more time had elapsed between reading How Far the Light Reaches and The Viral Underclass, whose author Steven Thrasher is also queer. 

Of course, I was also reading Ocean Vuong and Demian DineYazhi in between. 

Now, DineYazhi's work, An Infected Sunset, was inspired by the Pulse Nightclub shooting; I was reading that specifically for Pride. He nonetheless could fit comfortably into my Native American Heritage month reading, and probably will be mentioned when we get to that, just like Ocean Vuong was featured in the Asian-American reading.

The point is that the boundaries are blurring, and I think that's a good thing. 

Often when there are attempts at representation, it is not done with very much thought. So, if we get a lesbian couple where one half is Black and one is of Asian descent, without any insight into how their backgrounds go together, that might not advance us as much as we would like. It will still make some people really angry, and it may help in terms of acclimatization to something other than a white monolith, but there are probably missed opportunities. 

More people from a wide variety of experiences telling their stories and sharing their viewpoints helps in many ways. It can be more honest than even the best-intentioned white straight person checking boxes. 

Consider The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. A gay Black man is probably going to have a more accurate perspective on that than I could. I encounter inequality in some ways, but there are ways in which privilege shelters me. I want to reach beyond that.

One interesting thing I just learned (from an e-mail from the Movement for Black Lives) is that October is LGBTQIA+ History Month. Now my writing is timely!

Sure, it seems like I should have already known that, and starting in the second half of Hispanic Heritage Month and going right to Native American Heritage Month could present some conflict, but the key is more to learn and remember, not the schedule. (Says the person who is always behind, and is now thinking that maybe October 2025 should focus on queer Latinx and Native American people, but there is a lot of indigenous overlap there anyway.)

If anyone is curious, other queer authors featured during Asian-American Heritage month were Laura Gao (Messy Roots), Trung Le Nguyen (The Magic Fish), and George Takei. 

Around that time period I also read The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson. That was more for science; I don't have a strict schedule there.

Ready for the corny joke?

Maybe the real Pride Month was the friends we made along the way. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/09/spotlight-on-george-takei-apahm-2024.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/09/summer-reading-challenges.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/08/graphic-novels-for-apahm-2024.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/07/spotlight-on-alice-wong.html

Exploring my sexual orientation

Don't get too excited; I'm still straight. I do still have some thoughts.

Part of that has been wondering how much was social conditioning.

I know that I started experiencing sexual attraction when I was a senior in high school. There was a definite flip of a switch.

Before that I'd had crushes, but even before that, I was always interested in boys.

When I was three, I got engaged to the boy next door. There was a boy at church I thought was cute. I knew other boys but they didn't seem to matter the same way. Why? I don't know. This was attraction, but not sexual; why some and not others?

Getting to those crushes, I definitely had types, but I am not sure where they came from. I was capable of being persuaded.

For example, in junior high I liked baby-faced basketball players. I was never attracted on my own to short guys, but I was talked into it, at least once. If other people say someone is good-looking, it must mean something, right?

Then, in college when I fell in love with someone, anyone who reminded me of him caught my attention. 

There was still a pretty specific height range (about 6'2" to 6'4"), but not quite as lean (more football player than basketball), dark hair and piercing eyes. 

The last time I fell in love, it did change my type again. Still tall, but less dramatic hair, a beard (but not a long bushy one) and usually wearing a beanie. Well, you can imagine how often I see that in Portland. It does catch my attention, though I take it in stride more than I did in my early 20s.

I skipped a step. 

I did fall in love in high school. Until writing this, I did not remember it changing the type of guy I was attracted to. I was thinking maybe there was no one else like him, but then I remembered a guy in a commercial, and another one in a movie. Yes, I was noticing similarities. The only real effect was that I have always wished Elias Koteas well in his career. (But it was really just the hair that was the same, and Elias Koteas did not keep the hair.)

Here's the thing that was really important; each of those three times, it was love at first sight. It resulted in attraction, but was more like a recognition.

That's how attraction works for me. As indicated, I can talk myself into an attraction, and have, but I have always regretted it. 

Most importantly, while I cannot necessarily say that they had the same reaction to me, we were mutually drawn together. The more I got to know them, the more I liked them. We wanted to spend more time with each other. Whatever that pull I felt was, it made sense for me to listen to it.

Unfortunately, I was so sure that they would get tired of me that I tried to limit that time, even though there was nothing I wanted more than more time. 

There are two things with that.

First of all, any healing that you can do makes everything else better. I realize lots of people enter relationships loaded down with emotional baggage -- it happens -- but my particular combination of dysfunction was not well-designed for that.

Secondly, having tried various things that did not work for me, I don't have any interest in replaying that. Thinking about online dating or any other type of effort just sounds awful.

If I were to feel that pull again or could reunite with one of my previous loves, that would be a different story, but I'm not looking.

That being said, I do feel good knowing. My examined life is worth living, and I have learned from it.

And, if there is something that is weird about you, or seem impractical or ridiculous, but is actually what specifically works for you, honor that.