Haunted

I stumbled upon the realization while ghost hunting, wandering around abandoned hospitals--I feel haunted.  Not in that moment, but in my daily life.

I feel like so much of my most basic personality, the bits of me that make me feel most like myself, hinge on confidence.  The confidence that I am being myself as hard as a I can and that no matter what happens I will manage. 

I mean, I still feel like myself, but I also feel like I'm always watching myself too--always peeking around the next corner trying to see the blurry faces of strangers just before they're in my line of sight.  It's a weird feeling.  It's not the feeling of loneliness which is this weird gnawing grey thing, vague and insubstantial thing that could be easily distracted and mitigated.  This is something very specific, a noticeable lack.  Like there's this hole in the world and like a hole everything rushes to fill it, but it still drains away.  

I have always been very fortunate.  It's cliche to say this, but it's probably the most accurate word, but I've been blessed.  I've always managed somehow and I've managed to become kind.  I've met wonderful people and continue to go on wonderful adventures.  I have learned to appreciate kindness and the difficulty of being kind.  I have seen my goals and taken steps towards them--for me there are no more "what-ifs."  It hasn't been easy and I won't lie, there have been very dark moments.  But that's what they were--moments.  There was no disconnect with myself; the person I was awake was the person I was asleep.

But now, my dreams are so angry.  And I have differently dark moments.  They're dark the way lava is dark.  But also bright and violent and burning.

What do I do with this?  Is this something I can bring to a priest or witch or whatever?  I feel like I can't talk to my friends, how do you explain that you're being haunted by yourself?  I feel whole, I mean if I'm not myself, who else can I be?  But now it feels like there's someone else here with me too.  

Let Me Culturally Appropriate Your Penis

Lately, I've taken to thinking the treadmills are like a two/four player fighting game.  And the only way to win at it, is to run faster and longer than everyone else.

So, when someone hops onto the treadmill next to me, it's like, "A CHALLENGER HAS APPEARED!" cheesy music and all.

And it's not even that I can run particularly fast or particularly long.  It's just running on a treadmill is pretty boring and I feel like this wears some people out, so lots of them tend to hop off sooner than they wanted to.  I'm winning at the treadmill only because I have a high tolerance for monotony and am button-mashing in my brain.  

In other news, I wrote an email to the developers of an app, Hula, regarding their cultural appropriation and cultural insensitivity, and how they were only further marginalizing a group that they actually meant to help, and they wrote me back a non-apology and pat on the head, saying they didn't mean to be offensive and are talking to community leaders.  The app is supposed to help people find free/affordable STD/STI testing and also help them share their status to, I guess, viable bang buddies.  

Huh.  

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while educating yourself is good and building understanding and compassion is better, but I wrote that letter so you would rename your fucking app.  Like, literally.

Not only is it offensive (hula being an art form and form of non-written history; also see the banning of hula by colonizing missionaries), but you could have SO MUCH FUN with the name of an app that is meant to help find people find free/affordable STD/STI and HIV/AIDS testing.  Just flipping through Urban Dictionary for five minutes will give you at least 25 viable names.  This is just uncreative laziness.  It's named Hula because it helps you get "lei-d."  Huh.  

And I could see someone arguing that for the sake of sexual health becoming a more acceptable topic, it'd be okay to just go with the flow, but no.  Continuing to marginalize and appropriate culture isn't going to help foster an environment that encourages open communication.  

Furthermore, this only underlines the tired trope of native people being uncivilized and lazy.  "Oh, hey. Instead of talking about our sexual status and discussing our sexuality, barriers to sexual expression and sexual health, let's just fiddle with our phones before we bump uglies." 

I'm conflicted because I deeply want sexuality and sexual health to be discussed, but I don't want it to be at the expense of an ethnic/cultural group.  It shouldn't be.  

Whoa.  I didn't mean to get serious.