Two worlds and in between

All my life, I've always been "other."

Politically, I'm liberal on some issues, conservative on some other issues, but I have a philosophical objection to centrism on the grounds that 1) the centre is always shifting anyway, and 2) holding compromise and the middle path up as the highest political good is a great way to get nothing at all good done. I suppose I'm moderate, leaning slightly left. If it was 1975, and the GOP still had a large and active progressive caucus, I'd probably be in it, but I doubt that will ever happen again... Hmm. That makes me... "Independent." No big deal, if I don't vote in primaries due to lack of a party ticket, my choices in the past have always been losers anyway. In fact, my preferred candidates would probably benefit from my not voting for them until they're on the general ballot. Anyway: "other."

When it comes to other people, I'm definitely "other," because I might as well be from another planet. For one thing, I'm on the autistic spectrum (Asperger's, or what used to be called Asperger's before the APA changed everything). I'm a complete nerd, and would be even if I wasn't an asp (and a geek, and a wonk...) On the other hand, at least now that I have a diagnosis, I know I'm human. As opposed to, say, an alien, or a changeling, or a fallen angel, or "otherkin" of some sort (no offense to my therian friends, but I just never identified with that subculture, no matter how little I feel connected to the human race, because I don't really feel a connection to therianthropes, either, not much). Yay me.

More otherness: I'm queer. I'm bi; and I'm not overly identified with a gender. I tend to float. I have female plumbing, which made it easier to give birth to four adorable children and marry my spouse legally, but plumbing is a bodily feature to me, not a reflection of my soul. My defining organ is not my set of ovaries, it's my brain. For me gender is largely situational. At some point, remind me to regale you with the amusing story of how my best friend in sixth grade managed to convince me that I had a penis, which at the time was rather traumatizing... it's a funny story. In my teens, it made me rather obsessed with being "feminine," except when being "feminine" involved things that did not suit me, such as dieting, wearing makeup, and acting docile, in which case, I would conveniently ascribe my disinclination to my "other" half. Silliness. Anyway, as an adult, I am whatever seems convenient or whatever other people seem to bring out in me. I've been in cis mode for years because when I'm being called "Mama" on a regular basis, I'm more one to fill the role than I am to correct my children on pronouns. If it was purely up to me, I would say my gender was "meh." I tried that on Facebook. Facebook didn't even offer an "It's Complicated" option. How annoying.

So this is my blog. It's primordial chaos. I nurse my youngest at the keyboard and go online while she slumbers away in a milk-induced coma, and my Tumblr and Facebook feeds explode accordingly at those times. I am a house spouse with delusions, er, ambitions of being a writer, and I post about politics, lactivism, politics, intactivism, politics, homebirth activism, midwifery, attachment parenting, "natural" parenting (caveat: I'm granola, but chewy rather than crunchy), politics, neurodiversity, science fiction/fandom, sang/psi vampirism, cooking, POLITICS, gardening, literature, history, philosophy, TREE PORN!, and snark.

Gotta have snark.

House spouse does not equal house mouse.