Time to introduce my friends.

I have, over the past week or two, had a couple of different things I wanted to write about--the counter to my last entry, for instance, on why writing workshops are not entertaining, on gender issues and why it's hard to come out when you don't know what you are, and on writing in general--but I don't think any of those are quite as important as this one.  I think that five entries is far too many to go by without properly introducing my friends and why I love them.  I'm going to stick to the ones that are really, deeply important to me; understand, if you get left out, it's not because I love you less.  It's because I don't have space or time to write a novel about why I have the most amazing friends in the world.

My friends, I'm afraid, will be going by nicknames, because I feel I need to protect the not-so-innocent.  They are probably the only ones who will understand these nicknames.

The first person I have to talk about is my Bunnie.  (I am her Doggie.  This is all you need to know.)  She's been my best friend since 8th grade, though one might argue that we didn't hit best-friend-status until at least 9th grade.  Truth is, this is one of those friendships that I feel like was fated to happen, because she and I fit like puzzle pieces.  We're different, but we work.  And I love her dearly.  I would not be a writer if it weren't for my Bunnie.  She's the one who got me started writing original stuff--I'd been writing fanfic before, and I'd been writing all my life (well, 'writing', I use the term loosely), but if it hadn't been for her and the fantasy novel she's been working on since 6th grade (she'll correct me if I'm wrong), I never would have found my calling.  And I wouldn't be where I am now.  Bunnie is responsible for a lot of things I am now.  And I love her for that.  She's not in Arkansas right now, and that makes me kind of sad, because I haven't seen her in since October, but we've talked on the phone, and that's okay.  No amount of space can really separate us.  We manage to be joined at the hip even when we're in different time zones.  I actually foresee myself growing old with Bunnie, just because I really doubt any significant others will ever come between us.  (We've discussed it.  Even if either of us get married, we're going to live together anyway.)  Bunnie is the reason I believe in soul mates, and also why I believe that 'soul mate' doesn't have to mean 'lover' or anything of the sort.  She's just my Bunnie.  And I'm happy with that.  This is the Trapper to my Hawkeye, the Aziraphale to my Crowley, and, more importantly, the Dylan to my Taylor, the Cedric to my Dameon, but those last two don't make sense unless you know us.

Next is my Pookie.  Pookie and I met in a high school math class when I was in the 11th grade.  We bonded over anime, she got me into Quiz Bowl, and she probably turned me into a furry.  She has been the one who was there for me when Bunnie was driving me crazy, when I was down and really needed someone to lean on, and when I needed a break from reality for most of the Spring '09 semester.  She has been the Dollar Bill to my Mothman, which no matter how many fandoms I go through, she always will be.  She is my Radar.  She is my favourite penguin, and the Wilson to my House that I need when I'm busy being everyone else's Wilson.  Most importantly, she's my taco buddy, and I probably never would have discovered Taco John's without her.  Nor would I have discovered what it means to be a Nerdfighter.  Pookie and I have had a rather strange friendship, in that I kind of realise that I should have considered her one of my best friends all along, but it took Watchmen to really hit me over the head with that, and that's why Watchmen will always have a special place in my heart.

The next one, if she'll forgive me, I had a really hard time coming up with a nickname for, but I think I'm going to call her my Foxy Lady.  She'll know why.  I met her around the same time I met Pookie, and if I recall--though she's had to remind me--it was in an 11th grade French class.  I spent a lot of time not really getting to know her, because to be frank, her girlfriend at the time terrified me.  Foxy and I really became better friends somewhere during 12th grade or after I graduated, though I can't for the life of me tell you how or why.  I think what really did it was the fact that we started RPing together back when we were playing that epically insane VtM game.  She's the Adele to my Gabe, which in more generic terms means the Toreador to my Gangrel, which you'll have to forgive if it makes no sense.  She's the Hot Lips to my Hawkeye.  She's Sally to a lot of people, the feminine allure to my masculine tendencies.  She's been my go-to when I start having crazy gender issues lately, and I think it's a lot because she was in the right place at the right time and she was exactly the right person to talk to.  I owe her a lot right now.

I have to give a token mention to my Little Sis, who is not actually blood related to me, but who is probably at fault for half the people I was friends with in high school.  I've known her since...sometime in middle school.  She gave my story the push it needed to go in the right direction, and Dr. Adon would literally not exist without her.  She's kind of the Goten to my Gohan, if you'll pardon my using a ridiculously old reference.  She and I kind of drift in and out of being really tight, but I can't ever abandon her, because I love her too much for that, even during the times she was driving me batty.  She's also the entire reason I became friends with Bunnie, so I have to thank her for that, and she's the reason I got into roleplaying, which changed my life considerably.

Lastly, I have my Badger, who if Bunnie is the Trapper to my Hawkeye, Badger is my BJ.  I've only known her for a couple of years, and this is another one of those friendships that I kind of feel like was fated, because it spiralled into something incredibly close incredibly fast.  What you have to understand about me is that I do not make friends easily.  All of the people above I only began to really consider myself close friends with after I'd known them for two years or so, which is mostly because I have problems trusting people and truly committing to people.  Badger is special.  Badger and I met through writing classes and realised that we were quite a lot alike and somehow ended up being really good friends, and over the past couple of semesters, she has become one of my sisters.  She's someone I feel I can really talk to, and someone I really enjoy talking crazy character things with until all hours.  She introduced me to the awesome that is the Magical Doughnut Adventure.  More importantly, she introduced me to Pickman Studios, which has more or less been a weekly salvation for me since Bunnie left back in October.  She's been my inspiration to be more outgoing and to take more risks with getting close to people, because if I'd gone with my usual instinct--which is to shut people out until I know they're safe--I wouldn't be where I am now, and I'd probably be in pretty sorry shape.  But because of Badger, I have someone I can go to when I just need someone to have lunch with at random, or when I need to write, or when I just need a hug, especially with all of my other friends far away.  If I were the type to believe in miracles, I'd be convinced Badger was mine, because she showed up in my life just when I needed her and welcomed me into her fold of friends.

These people are all my sisters, and I love them all more than I can put into words.  I'm going to sign out before I start waxing too incredibly sappy here, but I'm afraid I already have.

This is why writing workshops are entertaining.

I'm taking two different fiction courses this semester--a forms class, and a workshop class. The piece I submitted for the former earlier this week was a first-preson narrative in which the identity of the speaker was never clearly marked.  My intent in writing this was to obfuscate the gender of the speaker.  Call it an experiment.  The story was about my speaker's very sexually geared relationship with a young man named Dylan.  Part of my intent was to see whether the class interpreted the speaker as male or female.

Of course, it doesn't matter either way, because my speaker was Taylor, who is both intersexed and gender-neutral.

(That was fun to explain, because the guy sitting next to me was asking "yeah, but how often does that happen?  Like one in a billion?"  Not that I have much respect for this guy anyway.  I was happy to hear the girl on the other side of him comment that it happens "more often than you may think".)

Most of the class interpreted my speaker as female.  Now, part of this could be due to the writer=narrator fallacy, which in a class of this level, I'd expect.  But I tend to think it was more a matter of that interpretation being heteronormative.  Two people, the professor included, read my speaker as male, which is closer to reality, since Taylor mostly presents as male.  One read the character as male because of the Fight Club references to "I am Jack's..." which makes sense, since people do tend to refer to the Fight Club narrator as Jack because of these lines.  The professor read the character as male because he didn't think a girl would refer to what the two characters were doing as 'fucking'.  Which I tend to think of as more of a male phrasing, myself.  But it was interesting.

Now, I really can't say why they read it one way or the other, but I just thought it was interesting that they did.  And the questions I am left with are these: is it because the other character is male?  Is it because the narrator is a submissive?  Is it because they know the writer as a female?

Just some random thoughts.  Things I probably won't find out the answers to, and I'm probably reading too much into things.

I was just incredibly thrilled that the first thing in my workshop that happened was a rather lengthy argument over whether the narrator was male or female.  I'm enjoying breaking down the idea of the binary being so clean-cut and real.  I intend to keep playing genderfuckery out in my stories this semester, just for my own entertainment.