...

I'm in a really hard place right now. Mentally, physically, spiritually.

I don't have a good answer for my friends that don't know what to call me. I want to say I dislike every option equally, but that's probably not true. My legal name, I see it as a poem that my mom wrote. All the names I've come up with since, they've gotten lives of their own to such a degree that it feels murderous to even suggest another name. And yet, the clock is ticking. I only have so many years to consciously decide upon a name before I'm silent bones to most of us. Of that majority, there might be a historian that picks through the dregs I've left behind for some kind of moniker. What if they don't find one? Maybe I end up as a numbered case subject?

"Subject 37 seems to have been a very prolific writer, though much of what remains is only a small portion of what 37 wrote."

I've come down with an illness, not entirely sure what it is. My throat is really sore so I've been speaking rather ghoulish. I'm not going to be able to work the way I do forever, I've made my peace with that, but what's really frightening to me is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. One of those things that just randomly happens to people that get sick sometimes, just being super fatigued for the rest of their lives. I really hope I don't get that. I'm miserable when I'm locked in on my computer, everything starts feeling really boring. Stepping outside to check for an Instacart bag feels like an embrace from El Elyon. So bright that I squint my eyes...

"Thank you, Neil! I increased your tip by 2 dollars."

I don't know where I should begin with what I believe in, especially what I believe women and men are. I'll respect people's beliefs that they are woman, or man. None of that's any of my business, I don't mean to step on anybody else's sacred ground. Where I'm caught up is how I'd begin to classify myself, what I think these things fundamentally are before prescribing myself. Frankly I don't know what either of them are enough to confidently say I'm anything. I'm grateful to have a penis sometimes, where other times I feel melancholy about never bearing children. Neither of those seem inherently male or female to me, both are equally meaningless.

"If you say you're x then I'll just assume that you know what you're talking about."