Roommate Troubles

When I was younger, I started leaving rooms when I got really angry.  I didn't have to do it a lot, but occasionally I did.  I did it mostly to allow myself the time and space to calm down. 
At around one in the morning yesterday I realized I needed to do the same thing.  So I grabbed my key and left. 

I ended up in one of the common rooms, watching television.  The screen was all snowy, but I watched part of an episode of Stargate Universe, which I had actually never seen before.  I tried to concentrate on the show and not what was making me angry, although my mind kept wandering back to my problems.  I hate this. 
By the time I went back to my room, I had a compromise in mind.  It was too late to do anything about it tonight, so I tried to sleep. 
And couldn't.  Again, even though I tried to concentrate on sleep, my mind was wheeling around problems.  This is both a good and bad feature.  Good in that I can usually quickly figure out how to fix something.  Bad in that I have a hard time thinking about anything else, and when I'm trying to sleep, not being able to relax is bad. 
But also because, well, the problem was my sleep.  There's a lot of noise on the street below us, even well into the night.  My roommate won't let me close the window at night because she says she gets too hot.  And then the noise keeps me up.  (It apparently doesn't bother her one bit.)  Instead of her, say, not wearing winter pajamas to bed, which would be an obvious way to fix it, she said something that angered me last night, which is what prompted the retreat.  I was trying to be the better person, but trying to do that was meaning I was up half the night, the sound of ambulance sirens and car door alarms keeping me up. 
I tried to tire myself out.  I have all sorts of tricks that sometimes work.  I got on my computer for a half hour, hoping the harsh computer glare would make my eyes tired.  No luck. 
Around 4:30 this morning, still awake but in that state of "dear God, just let me sleep," another set of sirens went off and I finally shut the window.  It took me at least another half hour, but I finally fell back asleep. 
She woke my up in the morning, opening her drawers and doing something strange with liquid.  (Every morning there's a glug, glug, glug sound and I find myself wondering why she can't do that in the kitchen, since that is where she is heading next.  I am trying to be patient, but I am stunned by how generally inconsiderate she is.  When she is sleeping and I'm awake, I try to do things that are either inherently quiet or if they aren't and they have to get done, I try to do them as quietly as possible.  Every morning she must open and close at least six drawers.) 
I got up then because it's not worth trying to fight it.  I just got up and waited for her to close her drawers enough to let me walk past.  Once she was out of the room to get her breakfast I changed and got breakfast myself. 
I was tired at breakfast this morning.  My eyes were doing that itchy thing that tells me they're red and that I'm tired.  I didn't really feel like talking to anyone.  I thought about offering her a compromise, trying to decide which one would be the best. 
When I got back to the room, I sat down at my computer and started doing my usual morning routine of catching up with the news.  And she left.  I was going to offer it to her this morning, but she's gone. 
Part of me is still really angry.  Like, ready to pick a nasty fight angry.  But the other part of me so wants to make this work, since other then the noise thing, I mostly don't mind her.  I can try to forgive the early morning wake up if I can just manage some decent sleep in the first place.

Optometrist

Like most people, I hate going to see doctor's.  But I recently realized what I really hate about going: socializing. 
This seems like a strange thing to say, since I'm relatively social.  But those people I socialize with are friends.  I don't want to talk to my doctor's about stuff.  When they ask "How are you?" I want that to be a cue to assert my overall health, not as a chance to catch up on my family, my career and the drama with that one friend. 
With this in mind I went to see my optometrist.  I sat in the waiting room, reading one of those celebrity magazines that I only look at when there's not something more sophisticated. 
I went in with the assistant, an older woman.  We tested various small things with my eyes.  There's a test where you're suppose to tell if certain circles are jumping out at you while wearing 3-D glasses.  As the years have gone on, I have failed more and more of that test. 
Failing eye tests are nothing new.  When I was thirteen, I had to take an eye test while at school.  I failed the first time, with my glasses on.  So they called me in a second time, and I failed a second time, again, with my glasses on.  I tried to explain to the lady running the test I had really poor eyes, and I think she believed me, but I was really embarrassed by this.  I didn't fail anything at that age. 
We kept going through tests, and, even with my glasses on, it's amazing how little I can see.  I think if I had lived before glasses, I would have been confined. 
The doctor came in and I braced myself.  This doctor really likes to socialize.  It's not that I can't be polite, or that I can't speak back, but this particular doctor likes to talk about politics, and we do not share the same beliefs.  Several years ago, he complained to me about a apparently gay English professor who tried to pick him up.  I have gay friends, and I know there's almost no way this story is true.  LBGT people are scared to pick people up if they don't know their sexuality, especially if they're doing so in an "unsafe" place.  (They're more likely to pick up in a gay club or bar, but there it's expected and assumed you're okay with that.)  I didn't really tell him I disagree, but I don't really want to talk to him about politics.  I only rely on him over my eyes because my Mom insists, but the truth is I'd rather try someone else. 
We had a long discussion about surgery.  We've been considering surgery for my eyes for what seems like ever now.  At least high school, though I think it goes back farther than that.  (I was first told that I could use contacts at ten.  I never have because something about putting shards of plastic in your eye strikes me as gross.  I can't even look at someone who is putting in or taking out their contacts.  It's one of the few things I find unsightly.)
Anyway, the surgery option is always on the table, though it's unclear if I qualify.  I would need to get checked. 
Thankfully, there was none of that.  Instead, he went through the usual tests, checking my eyes with those various glasses.  When he decided on something, we moved on to making sure I didn't have things like glaucoma.
I hate those eye drops that you get.  They always make my eyes sting and they give me a headache.  I don't even try to do anything after an eye exam, because I know it's futile to try. 

Freud and Race

I've been spending the evening trying doing some reading.  One of things I was working on was an article called Freud's Negro, which takes Freud to task on the issue of race. 
One of the first things the author, Claudia Tate, mentions is that since psychoanalysis always seems to boil down to is sex regardless of race.  As I have only read some of Freud, I would have to take Tate's word on it, but I suspect this has been an advantage, since Franz Fanon applied Freud's sexual theories to race and race relations in his book Black Skin, White Masks.  (He has two chapters dedicated, for instance, on inter-racial relationships.  He stipulates that Black men favor White women as partners because they perceive it as a way to have something the White man usually has, thus themselves becoming white.  He also asserts that White men favor Black women as partners as a roundabout way of dominating Black men.  This theory is also, I believe, based on Foucault.  But I digress.) 

There is lots of troubling (but also enlightening) information about Freud.  Apparently Freud told racist jokes.  I can't help but roll my eyes here.  Tate goes on to break this joke down, depicting it as a remaking of the master/slave relationship. 

I am hoping that psychologists who do work with Freud's theories are aware of this, because psychologists don't exist to be masters in a master/slave dichotomy.  They exist to as a guide, like Virgil was to Dante, so that the patient, regardless of race, can have mastery over their life again. 

That said, I like this article a lot.  It gives a good backbone to an argument that I'm assuming as been expanded elsewhere.  Her work on Freud and race (White, Black and Jewish) and gender are interesting.  There's a scene early on in the novel The Book Thief where a young white German boy, Rudy, puts on blackface in an attempt to costume himself as his hero, Jessie Owens.  (The book, set in Nazi Germany, would be at around the same time Jessie Owens won at the Olympics, which were held in Nazi Germany.)  Rudy then runs to the nearest track and runs around, pretending to be Owens, having just won another race.  His father find him and immediately removes him, dragging him home and instructing him not to wear blackface again.  I think this part of the novel, and the actual events surrounding Owens's win, would be an interesting situation to analyze in the context of this theory, which juggles three races. 

Con Virgin

Yesterday, I headed over to a steampunk convention. As some of you know, I'm really interested in subcutltures, and steampunk is one of the newest around. I wanted to do a little amateur anthropology work.
But one of the things that happened was that I ran into my old friend Jack, who I went to high school with. It was through him that I heard about the convention.
Jack's a transman, which means that he's going through a transition right now. He's really cool. He mentioned to me that he wants to go back and see a particular teacher, but since he's begun taking hormones (his voice is very different now), he's a little worried about going back to see that teacher. Not so much because that teacher would hate him, but because it might be a little bit of a shock.
I know if I was in Jack's position, I would feel really awkward about it too. I told him that if he went with a group of friends (we all sat together in the back) or someone gave the teacher warning, it might be fine. I didn't think about it at the time, but I probably should have offered to go with him. Hell, I'd even be polite to my ex-boyfriend to get this to work for Jack.
Anyway, I digressed before I even got started on what I wanted to say. The steampunk convention was really cool. There was a merchants room, and I saw all sorts of cool costumes and props and other nerdy things for sale. Even though I had a fair amount of moolah on me, I always feel like I should be very careful what I buy. (NO impulse purchases.) So I mostly looked. There were some beautiful hats and costumes for sale, and they were very expensive looking. I actually managed to make myself a pretty decent costume just out of the stuff I have in my closet. The only thing I really need to do is to improve this look is maybe add an accessory or two to make it more steampunk-y. I collected tons of fliers and business cards, so I'm hoping that there will be people for me to go to for more stuff, should I decide to buy it. I'm a big believer that it's never too early to start making wishlists for Christmas or your birthday.
The only thing I ended up buying were some clip on magnifying glasses. Basically, one of the most important parts of a steampunk costume is the goggles. But of course these goggles have a very particular design, one that suctions down on each eye, making them less than ideal for those of us who wear glasses full time. So, even though this is one nerdy subculture, you can't help but feel, as someone who wears glasses, that you're being discriminated against once again. But they also make these handy magnifiers you can clip to your glasses to give you a steampunk look and still use your prescription lenses.

I'm also thinking that maybe I should use one of my belts and just buy a few simple add-ons, like a flask or jar or gun holster (with gun, obviously) and that will look way more steampunk than some of the other people I saw there. Steampunk is all in the accessories.
Matt and I headed over to the game room for part of the convention. We played the game Arkham Horror, which is based on the Lovecraft stories. It was this big, impressively complicated game involving investigators trying to stop monsters from destroying the town. The representative showing this game looking like he belonged in a mobster movie and smelled like Burger King fries.
100 posts! Which would probably be more impressive if I hadn't skipped two days of posting, just because there hasn't been much going on or too much going on for me to get to room in the day to post something.