Weekend
southplains and I mostly played hooky from Pride this year. We did go check out the Broadway festival, which was small and low-key, and got brunch with ophanim on Saturday, and went to the Broadway Grill for the anniversary of the day we met Sunday (note to self: meet next boyfriend at Canlis), but we decided to ditch the parade and the Seattle Center festival and went and saw Up instead. (In 3-D! Still not sure it was worth the extra money.)
I think my moderate Pride-apathy and my difficulty updating this journal may be somewhat related phenomena. If Ben and I have been together almost four years now, that means I've been completely out of the closet about three and a half years, and out to almost everyone...longer than that. I feel like my identity has kind of settled down for the moment. There aren't as many big changes in who I am compared to who I was a year ago. There hasn't been much forcing me to grow. (Watch me get the adoption call tomorrow and completely invalidate this.)
In some ways, I'm sympathetic to the straight white guys (a small subset of the larger group, of course) who complain that gay folks get a parade and black folks have a history month and women have feminism but there's nothing for them. (Don't get me wrong. I think we'd all still rather, you know, not be oppressed.) But I think figuring out who you are is one of the big challenges in life, and having the world tell you some fundamental aspect of who you makes you not good enough means that you have to face defining yourself whether you like it or not. I've got a few acquaintances who are on one side or the other of the coming-out process and watching them reminds me how exhilirating that was. I'm very happy with where my life is right now; I'm just not having profound thoughts about who I am as often. I wonder if I should find a way to try to change that.
That said, the fun I'm having IS a lot of fun: games and bars and all the good things that are going to get much harder to schedule once I'm a parent. Work is...I wouldn't say fun right now, but I'm achieving throughput, which is good, and the rest of the team looks as tired as I am, which means I'm probably stack-ranked fine. I'm looking around the team and wondering when I became one of the old-timers, though; I've been at the Company eight and a half(!) years now, and seven of those on my product, which makes me practically venerable in a division that values mobility. I'll consider moving again at the end of the cycle, but things are good where I am and I'm not postive I want to upset that apple cart.
Last night's Dungeons and Dragons was short but sweet: our party demolished the dark cleric Kalarel and saved the town of Winterhaven with relatively little difficulty. I've really been enjoying letting that particular freak flag fly and I'm very grateful to ophanim and jaydedone and the rest of the table for the opportunity to play with them. I am considering running a few one-night games as a DM, probably starting in late July, to dip my toe in the water on that side; I know dreamline and inevitableguy expressed some interest.
I think that's the sum total of useful things I can think of to say right now.
I think my moderate Pride-apathy and my difficulty updating this journal may be somewhat related phenomena. If Ben and I have been together almost four years now, that means I've been completely out of the closet about three and a half years, and out to almost everyone...longer than that. I feel like my identity has kind of settled down for the moment. There aren't as many big changes in who I am compared to who I was a year ago. There hasn't been much forcing me to grow. (Watch me get the adoption call tomorrow and completely invalidate this.)
In some ways, I'm sympathetic to the straight white guys (a small subset of the larger group, of course) who complain that gay folks get a parade and black folks have a history month and women have feminism but there's nothing for them. (Don't get me wrong. I think we'd all still rather, you know, not be oppressed.) But I think figuring out who you are is one of the big challenges in life, and having the world tell you some fundamental aspect of who you makes you not good enough means that you have to face defining yourself whether you like it or not. I've got a few acquaintances who are on one side or the other of the coming-out process and watching them reminds me how exhilirating that was. I'm very happy with where my life is right now; I'm just not having profound thoughts about who I am as often. I wonder if I should find a way to try to change that.
That said, the fun I'm having IS a lot of fun: games and bars and all the good things that are going to get much harder to schedule once I'm a parent. Work is...I wouldn't say fun right now, but I'm achieving throughput, which is good, and the rest of the team looks as tired as I am, which means I'm probably stack-ranked fine. I'm looking around the team and wondering when I became one of the old-timers, though; I've been at the Company eight and a half(!) years now, and seven of those on my product, which makes me practically venerable in a division that values mobility. I'll consider moving again at the end of the cycle, but things are good where I am and I'm not postive I want to upset that apple cart.
Last night's Dungeons and Dragons was short but sweet: our party demolished the dark cleric Kalarel and saved the town of Winterhaven with relatively little difficulty. I've really been enjoying letting that particular freak flag fly and I'm very grateful to ophanim and jaydedone and the rest of the table for the opportunity to play with them. I am considering running a few one-night games as a DM, probably starting in late July, to dip my toe in the water on that side; I know dreamline and inevitableguy expressed some interest.
I think that's the sum total of useful things I can think of to say right now.