November has been a very challenging month for me. It's, at least in part, my own fault for over-scheduling myself. Now that things have calmed down a bit I'm getting back into the swing of writing. The only major plans ahead for me are Comic Con San Diego (this weekend) and Comic Con Los Angeles (the weekend after that). But the hardest parts are behind me.
Me before an event.
Me after an event.
So what happened?
Well, first of all, much of November was dedicated to putting together Puppypalooza, a huge human dog show that benefits the ASPCA. The planning for this was, and I don't say this lightly, bigger than it was even for my wedding. The event went off without a hitch and we easily raised over $1,000 for charity, but the stress leading up to it was extreme.
On top of that, we had three houseguests in rapid succession.
First, Andrew's mother and sister both visited at the beginning of the month. It was a nice visit; certainly a little tense because Andrew's family hasn't historically liked me much, but I think things are softening up a little thanks in part to Calvin's wonderfully personable presence.
At the beach with Grandma.
The next visit was my little sister, Kellen. I met Kellen in 2004 through the Big Brothers, Big Sister program, and I've missed her very much since moving to Los Angeles. Andrew and I flew her out for a five-day mini vacation to Los Angeles. It was fun but definitely a lot of work to try to fit in all the things we wanted to do in such a short time. Doing it with the 2-year-old meant doing it on "hard mode."
Isn't Kellen's hair cool?! Also, that mask was given to just by Papa Niko. That's the symbol for clan Ventrue. Kellen joined in for a Vampire: The Masquerade LARP!
Kickin' it downtown at Cole's, home of the speakeasy Varnish.
Checking out the touristy stuff: the Hollywood Stars and the Chinese Theater.
We ended on a high note at Beetlehouse.
We totally split the fishbowl, which I've always wanted to try. It matched Kellen's hair! Haha.
Seeing Seamus, 10 years later.
And then there was Andrew's friend.
For the sake of privacy I won't give their name or many details. You'll find out why in a second:
Recently, we found out that this childhood best friend of his was living in a homeless shelter. We asked them if they would like to come crash on our couch, as our home seemed like a more stable place for them than a shelter. They agreed and came, and within a day, I realized we'd made a grievous error.
Their behavior was absolutely erratic. They were completely lacking in self-awareness and spent most of their time sitting on the couch staring blankly into space. They left out pill bottles, cigarette packs, and food all over the place. (Not great when you have a toddler and a dementia-riddled dog.) It was pretty much immediately apparent to me that they were either abusing drugs or had some sort of physiological issue. I contacted their ex to figure out what was happening, and it was then that we discovered that they are a diagnosed schizophrenic going through an episode right now, hence the homelessness.
They have obviously suffered some kind of trauma BUT it's almost impossible to figure out what happened because so many of their stories were part of their delusions. (They went into vivid detail about various assaults but some of those stories were so fantastical that it's unlikely that it happened as they remembered, which isn't to say that it didn't, only that it was clearly put through some kind of manic filter.) (Oh, and they did this at dinner, when I had a guest over. It was fairly embarrassing, although my guest, Kieran, is one of the kindest and most understanding people in the entire world. Kieran really managed to roll with the delusions without any hint of discomfort and I was deeply grateful to them for their understanding.)
Andrew's friend was absolutely obsessed with topics of sex and gender (due to a past sexual assault). Combine that with a media diet that revolves madly around these topics, and guess what? They had decided they were trans. Mind you, this person is in their 30s and is, in every way imaginable, acting, presenting, and living as a heterosexual woman, and has never before expressed any trans ideas.
They got very obsessed with me and pretty much fixated on me, and kept cornering me to talk about how badly they needed HRT, how they wanted to be a "faggot" like me (yes, those were their words), how "validating" being a man was to them. It was (and I say this without exaggeration) a little bit traumatizing.
One of the consequences of all this is that it is hard for them to get into homeless programs because they "identify" as a man and don't want to go to women's shelters, but aren't safe at all in men's spaces, especially because they look and present as female, and act hypersexual.
They were with us for less than 24 hours before I told them they had to leave, and we put them on a bus back to the shelter, because the truth is, their unpredictable behavior made them unsafe and it was clear they needed WAY more intervention than just a couch to crash on. It was deeply uncomfortable to inform them that they had to leave and I felt like a monster as I drove them, sobbing, to the bus station to see them on their way.
It's worth noting that I believe that if someone wants a body modification for any reason, I think they should be able to get it, and that I don't want gender-affirming surgery or treatment to be prohibitively difficult to get... but only if the person getting it is in a good place when they're getting it and are able to reasonably consider the long-term ramifications. This is why tattoo artists won't tattoo drunk people.
Oh, speaking of which, I finally got my back tattoo fixed! You don't need to know what it looked like before. Only that it looked kind of bad and now it doesn't:
