At one of Qiao's doctor appointments, he was given several forms to fill out. One of the forms asked for his relationship status, and included an option of "Life Partner". That tickled both of us.

time for bed. time for bed.
you can't figure out the universe when you're tired.

i'm still confused. i'm still unsure.
I will never be certain.

i'm afraid.
i don't want to have to take care of people when they get old.

already old.
i'm getting old myself.

too old for walks
too old for stairs
too old for running
too old for being young

it's not real.

whose favorite androgyne am i?

it's not real.

good fucking lord. LJ's spellchecker doesn't know the word 'androgyne'.

would i miss it?
what would I miss?
it's not real.

a pat on the shoulder.

a cold shoulder.

it's too real. it's mundane.
it's not fantasy, not special.

i'm so sick of being alive.
there's nothing good about it.

I want to feel awed. Not by a stranger's physical or mental skills, but by something more personal. Mystical. Magical.
I want to feel that sense of belonging, contentedness, which I've only felt in a few ancient dreams and fantasies.
I want to feel gleeful excitement.
I want to have fun.

This relationship soothes some of the pain but does not heal the wound.
I am still alone.

I want to feel something, something other than pain.

Qiao has several times expressed disdain for certain methods of child-rearing / discipline. He thinks that "touchy-feely" types of discipline don't work on all children, and that they wouldn't have worked on him or his brother. He's scoffed at the Super-Nanny TV show. Nevertheless, I turned the show on yesterday to watch it, because I find it interesting, and because SuperNanny is awesome. (SuperNanny seems able to see exactly what the problems are in a family, and how to fix them.) Qiao commented that we must not usually be home on Fridays when the show is on, because we've very rarely watched the show together. He didn't realize that we haven't watched it precisely because I don't feel very comfortable turning it on when he is here, due to his negative comments about it.

Yesterday, he scoffed at the show again, calling it "psycho-babble". He says that time-outs may work for about half of children, but not the others, and that it wouldn't be so bad if shows like this at least admitted this fact instead of pretending that time-outs work on all children.

Things like that get under my skin. It's a conservative versus liberal thought-pattern thing, and it feels like an attack on me for being liberal as opposed to being conservative like him.

I don't totally disagree with him. It is possible that time-outs won't work in a good way for all children. It makes sense that a single method would not work for everyone, because people differ a lot. But having him use words like "touchy-feely" and "psychobabble" irritates me a lot.

I'm not even totally against physical discipline such as spanking. Perhaps spanking works best for some children; I don't know. It probably depends on the child's personality, as well as how it is implemented - how forceful and how often, and for what kinds of infractions. From people's own accounts of how physical discipline affected them, I know that it can emotionally scar some people, while other people feel it was necessary for them to to grow into the well-mannered and successful adults they are now. Perhaps the difference is due to the physical discipline not having been done correctly in some cases, assuming there is some "correct" way that would work in all cases. Likewise, perhaps time-outs don't always work, due to them not being done correctly. Or perhaps the difference is due to whether or not the child feels accepted and loved for who they are during the time when they are not being disciplined.

So anyway, today I was reading this article, What Makes Time-Out Work (and Fail)?.

One of the points made by the article is that in order for time-outs to work, the rest of the time (the time-ins) must be a rewarding and positive experience for children:

A child’s daily environment must be pleasant and full of positive attention from caregivers if time-out is going to work. In short, if a child spends most of his day being bored, ignored, belittled, and yelled at, going to time-out might not seem that much different and consequently will not change his behavior. In fact, many children will misbehave on purpose, even during time-out, just to get some kind of attention, resulting in their parent’s faulty thinking that even more severe discipline strategies are needed.

So basically, when rearing a child, you have to spend a lot of time at it.

I don't want any children. If forced to take care of a child, I'd want to spend as little time at it as possible. I'd be looking for quick simple solutions, ways of getting the child to behave and not cause me grief, and hoping to be able to ignore them most of the time. But there aren't any quick and simple solutions.

It's similar with the puppy. She's a cute puppy, and she deserves love and affection and a caregiver's time. But I don't really want to have to spend any time on her. I feel sorry for her when she's outside or in the garage alone while I'm in the house doing other things, but neither do I want to spend hours playing with her, cleaning up after her, and training her. When thinking about giving her away, my main concern is that she ends up in a good home where she will be happy and well-taken care of, and that she won't feel sad that I've abandoned her. I don't feel sad in thinking that I'll no longer have her around.

I've been wondering if I might feel self-conscious for having a flat chest, if I get top surgery. For looking like a female, but not like a female. Which doesn't really make sense, since up till now, I've always been self-conscious when I notice my breasts are noticeable, and not self-conscious when I wear a sports bra which makes my chest look flatter. But I guess I worry that having them removed would make me even flatter... like with a sunken chest, maybe... and that people might pick up on that more. Oh, who cares. But I've been trying to think of the possible negative effects, to make sure I'm willing to put up with them.

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Q said something which struck me in a bad way. About how us not being able to sleep together in the same room would defeat the purpose of me going a particular place with him.

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What if I get on anti-depressants, and they don't make life feel any better? Then what will I do?

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So many people have things so much worse than I do.

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At work, I don't *want* to lead any meetings. I don't *want* to be put in charge of anything. Give me some work, tell me what needs to be done, and I'll do it. Tell me to present something in a meeting, and I can even do that. But if you tell me to lead something, or to be in charge of other people, then I get all uncomfortable and nervous. Please don't do that.

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A hawk flew towards me and past me, following the path of the street I was walking on, between the trees on either side, carrying a small animal in its talons.

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When I was looking at the Valentine's cards at the pharmacy, there was one which was worded "To My Partner"... I liked that part of it (and there was only a single card worded like that), but the rest of the text wasn't quite right. There was another card, where almost all the text sounded appropriate... but then I saw that the card had a narrow side-flap which said "To the Woman I Love". I thought, I could cross out the "Wo"... I mean, who cares if the card was intended for a woman or man - the message is the same. I thought, I could cross out the "Love" part too, because I'm not comfortable with that word... no, crossing that out would be bad. I could have just cut the whole flap off... Then I looked at the text of the main card again, and the very last part said something about me feeling "truly happy", and I realized, that part wasn't right either. I can't honestly say that I feel truly happy. I'm happier with Q than without him, but "truly happy"? No, I don't feel that way. There were a couple of cute cards which I didn't find any fault with, but which didn't say much at all. I was thinking, maybe I should get Q all of these cards which came somewhat close, and tell him, these are the ones which come closest to what I feel, even though none of them are quite right. That didn't seem like the greatest idea though, either.

I thought of perhaps getting Q's mother a birthday card, but then I thought that she has so many family-members, and she must get so many cards... And the cards I was considering seemed humorous to me, but she might not be as amused by them.

It's too bad that all the little heart-shaped candy with the little messages on them has gelatin in it. I used to like them as a kid. But I guess I wouldn't want a whole bag of them anyway. I'm not as fond of eating sugary candy as I used to be. Sometimes my teeth are even sensitive to the sugar.

I am looking forward to washing the windows in the sunroom today. It feels a bit odd, that I am so eager to get at it. I am glad there is sunshine. Q is all 3 of those things; that's all there is to it. But I have no faith in humans. No faith that anyone else would be any better for me, nor that I could be attracted to anyone else ever again. At least there is some kind of attraction between Q and me.

Oh dang. I ought to go by Forestfen's to install something on her computer for her, and to pick up collard greens... but not till after I wash those windows, or at least as much of them as feel like doing today.

I was thinking today that a part of my problem is that, all logic aside, I haven't emotionally accepted that me and Qiao are finished. That it's finito, game over, no more. But I'm getting there. It's strange how emotions and logic can be such separate and conflicting forces within a person. (And how emotions themselves can be so conflicting. There were emotional forces, after all, in addition to the logical ones, which led to the break-up.)

I do want Qiao to be happy. I do want him to meet someone nice who is compatible with him. Yet imagining him already now being or getting involved with other people bothers me, because that would mean he got over me faster than I got over him. That would mean he didn't really care that much about me. Although that reasoning wouldn't necessarily be true; it might just mean he's more pragmatic than me, or deals with sadness in different ways than me, or gets on with his life faster than me.

I still don't totally trust that he wasn't involved with other people even while involved with me. He's so nice, and he hasn't done anything to tarnish his image in my eyes like Wododu did, but still I have these niggling doubts. What does that say about me? Will I never be able to totally trust anyone, even when they are trustworthy?

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What does "to play the dozen" mean? I heard it on TV, a teacher was dealing with a difficult student and told him, "I'm not going to play the dozen with you". So I searched Google, and found an instance of it in a JayZ song, but that didn't explain the meaning or etymology for me.