This post is almost entirely about women. And eBay.

Still not sleeping. Stayed up entirely too late last night, but upon getting to bed, all I found I could do was stare at the ceiling. When I finally nodded off, it was almost ten, and I barely managed to stay asleep until three. I hate sleeping through the day, but it's getting more and more normal for me. Scary thought... too much happens during the day for me to go totally nocturnal.

Haven't finished much on the short [Re: The Trendsetter]. Notes are copious for it, I would guess that what's on legal pad is about 95% of the total work, and if I'd just sit down at the computer and bang it out into Word, I'd probably be done in a couple of days. Maybe a straight 24-hour run. So tired, though, beyond the point of even being useful.

Finally got all my stuff up on eBay, my listing is here. The two big lots of comics [Dr. Strange and Swamp Thing] look expensive compared to much of the other stuff listed, but I swear I calculated those prices from the lower side of those comics' prices. I probably fucked myself, but I was trying to be fair. Here's hoping, for Christmas's sake.

Talked to Mom yesterday about Thanksgiving. The long story goes back to when I was ousted from my house, and wound up with my Grandmother again -- the reason was that my mother and step-father had decided to separate, which may not seem like a straight line to me losing my home, but in this case was. Anyway, mom has had a new boyfriend for some time now, and recently she offered for me to come over to his house for Thanksgiving, as apparently his family has a rather large gathering.

Honestly, I didn't want to do this. I never had to go through my step-father's family stuff until at least an engagement had been announced, and I don't think it's unfair that I want to skip this because I'm not sure how long this man is going to be in family's life. Mom assures me it's serious... I think at this point, I'm allowed to make the judgment as to when it's serious enough for Thanksgiving dinner. Nevertheless, I've been through this all before, and there are other reasons I didn't want have Thanksgiving -- part of which is loyalty to my step-father. Pity knows the two of us have not gotten along, and have hardly ever seen eye-to-eye, but the man supported me for the majority of my life, and moving on to the next man in my mom's life, this early in the game, doesn't square with me. And that's whether it would hurt his feelings or not -- probably not. But that loyalty still seems important.

And let's also just look at this from a practicality perspective -- my mom wants to bring some of her family to table here [which is always a show of good faith to a new family], and doesn't want to be "alone" as it were. But in turn, as the +1, I fall into the category, where I have to meet/be pleasant with these people I have never met and do not know, and I end up as the one all alone. It's smart on her part, socially, but for me, it would be a terror... and I also can't even promise I would be pleasant, with the way things have been striking me these days. I'm nasty and eccentric after all, and I can't promise I wouldn't be able to fight my better nature and not be down right disturbing to this group.

If Anna were here, of course, she would call bullshit as she knows all that waspy training and buried sensible disposition I have would likely take over, and I'd be down right amicable.

Still, yesterday, I called mom, explained [some of] this, and tried to bow out with grace. But I could tell, she was pissed, and this is going to be something that I'll have to pay for in later dealings. Ah well.

It's my own fault. I could have easily gained a pass on this, and just lied, and said I had plans with my grandmother that day. It's not entirely untrue, is a completely understandable excuse, and would have caused me far less problems than "honest" route -- explaining to my mom that I wouldn't be comfortable, and that I wanted to wait and see how long-term this relationship really turned out to be before I started meeting family. I should have lied, and have no idea why I didn't. I was aware of the two choices while on the phone with her, and could have easily gone the safe way, but...

Sabotage, I suppose. I offered to have dinner with the two of them somewhere neutral sometime, though. Maybe I'll be able to bring Ally along with me. Anything that'll make sure Mom and I behave. Or just someone to stop me when I start to lose it.

So, anyway, that's a Happy Thanksgiving.

Been thinking intently about things I've wanted to do, and actually can do, what with funds being limited and all. One of them is getting more into "Joshi puroresu," or Women's Pro Wrestling from Japan. As a wrestling fan, I'm not sure why it's been so interesting to me what happens with women's wrestling, though it had it's heyday in Japan in the 80's and 90's, its strictly a niche market now, and in America, thanks to Vince McMahon and his "Wrestling Entertainment" its almost always been a joke here. While TNA has done a fair enough trade in it, the quality isn't as high as I'd like it to be, and the Japanese indies seem like not a bad place to get started. The biggest thing that had impeded my ability to see it was probably how hard it was to find on a budget -- even the most popular Japanese men's professional wrestling is difficult to find at times, sometimes I have to slit a few throats to even find a pretty popular NOAH mid-card match, so this was all but an impossibility.

But a friend recently pushed me towards a large cache of Japanese wrestling hidden away online, and I decided to start from the beginning of this year and just download as much as possible, and see what "Joshi," as it's often called, has had to offer 2008. Coupled with youtube, and this blog ---> Joshi Puroresu Diary, I think I have a good start, and have high hopes. I'm sure part of this compulsion is due to some bridge being built between the feminist and the wrestling fan in me, but I also just expect it to be fun. Here's hoping.

Speaking of wrestling, in my few hours of sleep I dreamt Sam was dating Eddie Kingston... which was funnier when I remembered after waking up that the two of them have actually been in the same room together on two separate occasions, when Chikara Pro Wrestling came to Bennington.

Rest of the dream was strange too. I was out on a date with my ex girlfriend's friend Audrey, which is worth mentioning because usually in my dreams I find people's most striking feature is muted, that is, if you had, say, bright pink hair, then in my dream it would appear faded, or just in a more natural color. I've never met Audrey in person, but in all the pictures, she had the most striking smile, and much to my surprise that translated into my dream.

Lots of dreams about raven-haired girls these days.

Been thinking a lot lately about the way I used to be -- particularly in college. There seems to be a laundry list of regrets, mostly due to my attitude, that I sort of wish I could go back and change. Today, for some reason, I thought about these two trans students, who I wasn't close friends with, but who I knew through other people, and when I'd hang out with them, I'd mangle my pronouns terribly. A lot I could chalk up to nervousness, and just generally not being around people who were so sensitive to "he" and "she." Another part had a lot to do with meeting them in situations where they were first presented to me as female rather than male, which as time progressed just stopped happening. Still I look back on that confusion, and wish I'd been more collected and progressive about it. Kicking myself for that today.

Also, I know more people are reading -- I've already been called out a couple of times for things I've posted here [some I meant to delete -- sorry], and a few people are starting to know stuff I don't talk about out loud much, but do post here. Kind of cool. Never really thought anyone would make it past the first entry of all this.

We'll end with something Justin wrote [Re Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name]. Check that out here. Added a Stalin quote I've always been fond of, I just hope google translator didn't mangle it when I translated it back to the original Russian.

Shalom.