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Challenge post 1
Apr. 3rd, 2008 11:32 pmThe first prompt from this post:
"I love what you do write about, but I don't know anything about your background or current situation!"
Basic facts:
I was born in 1969. I grew up in Long Island, in a small fishing town with a large ghetto area. I grew up in an apartment. Never did all the "housey" things. I went to Yale (but did not graduate). I was in the Army for the first Gulf War. I spent a good amount of time in the Goth, Rave and Psytrance scenes.
My dad was an exiled Albanian aristocrat. He was also a fucked up human being and an inveterate gambler. He taught me how to play poker, and I'm pretty friggin good at it.
My mom was the grand-daughter of a Cuban cigar factory owner and a Swedish farmer. She was an extremely talented artist who ended up dropping out and giving up on her art. She was a very typical 50s june-cleaver type, but also a deep misanthrope and has a wicked sense of humor.
Intellectual pursuits:
I've been programming computers since I was 8, but never did it in a corporate environment, really.
I've been writing fiction since I can remember. I loathe showing other people my fiction, maybe it seems too personal to accept criticism of it.
I have also always been fascinated by politics and economics, probably because humans seem so irrational and backwards when they interact in groups.
I was introduced by my Dad, who was a philosophy major in France in the 40s and 50s, to existentialism, at a very early age. Later on I adopted daoism and gnosticism, and have been marginally connected to discordianism and the Subgenii.
I wrote pen and paper RPGs when I was in my teens, but kind of gave up on it. I know game mechanics and simulation algorithms on a deep-structure level though.
Psychological things:
I've known I was trans since I was about 9 years old at least, I don't remember a whole lot before then, but possibly earlier, it's blurry.
My dad always had serious problems with me. I was smart (but not socially aware), anarchistic and "girly". I liked stuffed animals, fantasy and sci-fi novels and was mostly quiet and kept to myself. I wasn't very "Albanian" in his mind, completely absorbed in American pop-culture and such things. He may have realized that it was mostly his own fault in so many ways and sort of abreacted to his guilt. But basically, he crushed all my dreams and physically beat me a lot.
My mom tried to protect me, but in very awkward and self-defeating kinds of ways. She would encourage me to pursue things but then would sort of back off and let them die. I'm pretty sure she realized that I was trans in some sense, but I don't think she understood it, and probably suppressed it in her mind. I used to ask her about makeup and fashion and cooking and such things and she would give me answers, but she probably didn't put 2 and 2 together why it was compelling for me to know these things.
Grade school was pure hell for me. It felt like stepping into a war-zone. I would invariably make enemies without understanding why. The only thing I had going for me as a small child was raw guts to confront anyone who challenged me. In the end though, I broke and just became the quiet loner type, I guess I realized that there was too much arrayed against me.
Because of my psychological background and my weird version of sensitivity and empathy, I respect people, but I don't like them, in general. I think this is the opposite of how most people operate. I'm very good with animals, and am practically a "cat whisperer". Little kids don't bother me as long as they haven't become evil asshole kids (you know what I'm talking about...), in which case they're intolerable.
I was raised non-religiously. I've basically only been in churches, temples and such things when friends were getting married, for funerals, and 1 bar-mitzvah. Nonetheless I've always found religion fascinating. I've read the entire bible, old and new testament, the dao de jing, much of the confucian analects. I haven't read much of the koran, and I probably should.
I've always believed in God, and my concept of what God is intuitively, hasn't changed much, only gotten more nuanced. I think the Dennett-type atheists are entirely off base and are making many of the same mistakes the pseudo-christian "fundamentalists" are.
Current Situation:
I spent most of my adult life trying to repair the damage that was done to me as a child. I think I'm just about to a point of being healthy. It's given me some advantages that other people don't have, psychologically, at this point. I don't have the "normal" neuroses and self-destructive beliefs that most people have. But in the mean time, I haven't been a functional citizen/human resource/economic unit for about 2 decades of adult life.
So I have a shoddy work history, no money and few worthwhile material connections, and my credit rating is real fucked up.
I live in Brooklyn right now, but that's going to change soon, in a shitty little flat with a shared kitchen and bathroom. I make about 35k per year, which doesn't go far in NYC. I'm working my ass off to find a way to change all this and make money without having to defend my past (or lie) to some asshole HR fool who wants to hire a safe drone type. I am also trying to transition, at an age where testosterone has done enough damage that it's going to take more than just hormones to effect the changes I need to happen.
"I love what you do write about, but I don't know anything about your background or current situation!"
Basic facts:
I was born in 1969. I grew up in Long Island, in a small fishing town with a large ghetto area. I grew up in an apartment. Never did all the "housey" things. I went to Yale (but did not graduate). I was in the Army for the first Gulf War. I spent a good amount of time in the Goth, Rave and Psytrance scenes.
My dad was an exiled Albanian aristocrat. He was also a fucked up human being and an inveterate gambler. He taught me how to play poker, and I'm pretty friggin good at it.
My mom was the grand-daughter of a Cuban cigar factory owner and a Swedish farmer. She was an extremely talented artist who ended up dropping out and giving up on her art. She was a very typical 50s june-cleaver type, but also a deep misanthrope and has a wicked sense of humor.
Intellectual pursuits:
I've been programming computers since I was 8, but never did it in a corporate environment, really.
I've been writing fiction since I can remember. I loathe showing other people my fiction, maybe it seems too personal to accept criticism of it.
I have also always been fascinated by politics and economics, probably because humans seem so irrational and backwards when they interact in groups.
I was introduced by my Dad, who was a philosophy major in France in the 40s and 50s, to existentialism, at a very early age. Later on I adopted daoism and gnosticism, and have been marginally connected to discordianism and the Subgenii.
I wrote pen and paper RPGs when I was in my teens, but kind of gave up on it. I know game mechanics and simulation algorithms on a deep-structure level though.
Psychological things:
I've known I was trans since I was about 9 years old at least, I don't remember a whole lot before then, but possibly earlier, it's blurry.
My dad always had serious problems with me. I was smart (but not socially aware), anarchistic and "girly". I liked stuffed animals, fantasy and sci-fi novels and was mostly quiet and kept to myself. I wasn't very "Albanian" in his mind, completely absorbed in American pop-culture and such things. He may have realized that it was mostly his own fault in so many ways and sort of abreacted to his guilt. But basically, he crushed all my dreams and physically beat me a lot.
My mom tried to protect me, but in very awkward and self-defeating kinds of ways. She would encourage me to pursue things but then would sort of back off and let them die. I'm pretty sure she realized that I was trans in some sense, but I don't think she understood it, and probably suppressed it in her mind. I used to ask her about makeup and fashion and cooking and such things and she would give me answers, but she probably didn't put 2 and 2 together why it was compelling for me to know these things.
Grade school was pure hell for me. It felt like stepping into a war-zone. I would invariably make enemies without understanding why. The only thing I had going for me as a small child was raw guts to confront anyone who challenged me. In the end though, I broke and just became the quiet loner type, I guess I realized that there was too much arrayed against me.
Because of my psychological background and my weird version of sensitivity and empathy, I respect people, but I don't like them, in general. I think this is the opposite of how most people operate. I'm very good with animals, and am practically a "cat whisperer". Little kids don't bother me as long as they haven't become evil asshole kids (you know what I'm talking about...), in which case they're intolerable.
I was raised non-religiously. I've basically only been in churches, temples and such things when friends were getting married, for funerals, and 1 bar-mitzvah. Nonetheless I've always found religion fascinating. I've read the entire bible, old and new testament, the dao de jing, much of the confucian analects. I haven't read much of the koran, and I probably should.
I've always believed in God, and my concept of what God is intuitively, hasn't changed much, only gotten more nuanced. I think the Dennett-type atheists are entirely off base and are making many of the same mistakes the pseudo-christian "fundamentalists" are.
Current Situation:
I spent most of my adult life trying to repair the damage that was done to me as a child. I think I'm just about to a point of being healthy. It's given me some advantages that other people don't have, psychologically, at this point. I don't have the "normal" neuroses and self-destructive beliefs that most people have. But in the mean time, I haven't been a functional citizen/human resource/economic unit for about 2 decades of adult life.
So I have a shoddy work history, no money and few worthwhile material connections, and my credit rating is real fucked up.
I live in Brooklyn right now, but that's going to change soon, in a shitty little flat with a shared kitchen and bathroom. I make about 35k per year, which doesn't go far in NYC. I'm working my ass off to find a way to change all this and make money without having to defend my past (or lie) to some asshole HR fool who wants to hire a safe drone type. I am also trying to transition, at an age where testosterone has done enough damage that it's going to take more than just hormones to effect the changes I need to happen.