intimacies

Jun. 7th, 2025 03:38 pm

Last month I met someone whose visa has just been approved and who started T today.

What a good day.

I was excited to meet another trans immigrant... so much that I immediately behaved as if there was a kind of intimacy between us that does not in fact exist: I teased him about how he only had a few hours left until he started being stinky...and then as we were leaving he asked me "wait, so about that smell thing, was that serious, because I've been wondering...."

oh no!

But! It worked out okay: I saw him again a fortnight later, and he made a point of telling me I was right about the stinkiness. Which made me smile but also gave me a chance to apologize for saying something that could be so easily misconstrued. I tried to explain about the false sense of intimacy I immediately felt when

He said it was fine, it was funny. To be understood as I'd intended was a relief!

He told me that the person standing next to him, an acquaintance of mine, someone he had been draped over all evening, has been counting his facial hairs.

As of that day there were eight of them.

It was so heartwarming and delightful to see early transition so intimately documented like that. Especially for a masc person; the loving detail is something I'm so much more used to seeing from trans fems.

Intellectually I wouldn't say I feel very differently about trans, disability or immigration advocacy and activism (no body is illegal).

But on a subconscious level, it's always the UK xenophobia stuff that leaves me feeling most triggered.

I don't think about it, but I have to feel about it. My body really is keeping the score here. It's a feeling I don't get any other time, I can't quite explain it but it feels like mold smells and it's claustrophobic.

Naturally I talked about this and then related things in tonight's counseling appointment. Second time in a row I've felt absolutely wrung out like an old dishcloth by the end of it.

#TransJoy

May. 1st, 2025 10:46 pm

Tonight I met someone whose visa has just been approved and who started T today.

What a good day.

I was so excited to meet another trans immigrant.

Yknow, Microsoft Word, I actually agree with you that ‹neighbourhoods› is misspelled -- based on the mistaken assumption that any English word ending ‹-or› must be an Americanism, therefore necessitating ‹-our› in the UK, leading to the nonsensical frenchification of this perfectly good Germanic word (cf. Nachbar)...

...but why do I get the wiggly red line under it?! I've double-checked and all the settings are UK English and no other words (like "recognise") are getting the wiggly red line!

Friday Five

Feb. 7th, 2025 12:02 pm

1. Of the various cultures, ethnicities or nationalities you belong to, which most strongly do you consider yourself? Minnesotan is the only one I identify as. I'm white as hell, I've chosen a name for myself that overlaps with the Scandinavian and German (speaking) heritage that three of my four grandparents have (including the one I get my last name from). I have progressive politics, few emotional skills, conflict aversion, a childhood on a farm, a love for ranch dressing, and when I look at Tim Walz I think "oh that's what I'm gonna look like in twenty years." I am Minnesotan.

2. Is there a culture you cannot claim heritage from but which you feel quite close to? I mean obviously I feel close to English culture now. The Danelaw parts of England feel very familiar, maybe the Scandinavian influence again. I've learned the pop culture and other references (school, food, politics, etc.) that resonate with my peers here. I am always very clear though that I might have a UK passport but I am not British. (My passport is full of lies anyway, I don't identify with it too much!)

3. What's one language you wish you knew fluently? I mean literally all of them. But I'd love to know Mandarin. Also I'd love to know BSL. Also...well I really would be happy knowing any other language fluently.

4. If you could move anywhere in the world and be guaranteed a job, etc., where would you go? Right now, especially with the first two questions getting me thinking about being an immigrant, all I want is to be where my people are and where we have human rights.

5. If you had a time machine, and could witness any one event without altering or disturbing it, what would you want to see? Again, primed by the earlier questions perhaps, and my aversion to witnessing great historical events or whatever... I just want to watch Game 6 of the 1991 World Series.

I think this is the fourth year that D and I have made Christmas dinner together, and it's always so fun and good and fancy enough to feel special without being stressful, I love it. I love him.

menu )

While

Feb. 27th, 2024 09:41 pm

I had to do a scary thing at work, which is tell an email chain made up of people more senior than me that a couple of them are barking up an unhelpful tree.

I can tell I was scared because I got more formal in my language. "Positioning themselves as the beneficiaries..."

I even changed a "while" to "whilst," which I hate because it feels so pretentious to me, but I know it's just a normal word for Brits and I'm trying to seem normal to them.

An Australian friend told me "Whilst, amongst, amidst, unbeknownst, some of Australians’ favourite words!"

Which I thought was interesting because I feel very differently about all of those words.

  1. Unbeknownst: great, wish I got to use it more but sadly it's so rare
  2. Amidst: good
  3. Amongst: fine, but I would reach for among first, myself
  4. Whilst: makes my teeth hurt

So it's not just the -st ending! Something else must be going on in my brain.

Big immigrant moods here:

The book has me thinking about what it means to have a history somewhere, not just to be known by the people around you, but to know that they know your parents and grandparents too. To have a relationship with a place that goes back not years or decades but generations. When I take my kids to the playground, we are surrounded by people who, like me, have followed various currents of migration, people who are far away from the places or cultures that birthed them. One dad is Turkish, his wife is Ukrainian. They moved here to escape the war and now they worry constantly about her family. Their son, who is two, cycles through three or four languages in a single sentence. Another dad is from Nigeria; he has twins the same age as mine and he told me, laughing, that their last flight home was so miserable they’ve decided not to go again for at least a few years. (I so get this laugh, and also the heartache behind it.)

The flight can be so miserable for me on my own. I remember once watching a young woman try to wrangle a toddler on a flight and I thought If I had kids that'd be me. Ugh. And as sad as I am that my parents aren't grandparents because they'd be excellent at it, I also realized that they'd see the babies for two weeks a year just like they saw me two weeks a year, and it would feel like so much to me and hardly anything to them. I couldn't imagine getting to decide not to make that trip for a few more years because the flight had been so miserable; I'd never hear the end of it.

I never planned to stay in Appalachia. When I was seventeen, I worked as a cashier at the local K-Mart and customers would come through my line with their gallon of milk and their bag of potting soil and their box of ammunition and their Martha Stewart brand bed sheets and I’d ask how their day was going and they’d look at me and say, “Now, where are you from?” I was so pleased by this question. “Here,” I would answer, and smile at their surprise. I learned early to tone down my accent. Because even in our very homogenous part of the world, I knew that how I spoke conveyed something about who I was—or who I wanted to be. And I wanted a life that was bigger than Appalachia.

I once got accused of being from Wisconsin when I was in college -- a small school in western Minnesota, it was almost all Minnesotans: either people from within a hundred-mile radius of it, or people from the Twin Cities (my favorites of whom hated that the rest of us called it all "the Cities" and really wanted us to care whether they were from Plymouth or Wayzata or whatever, good luck with that!) -- because I'd taught myself to say "soda" instead of "pop." I too wanted to run from how my speaking portrayed me. Joke's on me: now it hurts when people don't believe I'm from there, I can't do the accent well enough even if I try! Now I know the source of linguistic discrimination isn't inherent in us but is socially determined like so many other things, I am fierce in my speech and longing for my native accent never goes away entirely. But when I was a teenager, it was also for me a sign that I had my sights on things I thought "bigger" and "better."

What I’ve been feeling lately is not quite homesickness but it is a kind of loneliness, a kind of longing. Or maybe it is a very specific version of homesickness. The version where, even though you really like your life, you sometimes long for a part of yourself that is no longer accessible, that is, in fact, invisible to everyone around you.

My brother is invisible to everyone around me. I think a lot about that specific version of homesickness...just sickness, maybe. The kind of farm I grew up on is invisible to everyone around me. My upbringing did not share the cultural references of cartoons or toys. School was completely different -- and little or nothing like the movies and TV shows have told British people to expect school to be like in America.

Yet they elide it all together, so the fact that I'm from the rural Midwest doesn't matter, it's just "America." Someone was once disappointed that I don't say "sneakers" and she would've been even less happy if she'd known that I never did: I grew up calling them tennis shoes or tennies. And every time someone Britsplains "Now, we call this jam but you call it jelly," I want to shove the jam jar up their butt. Because I have always called that jam, I did grow up calling it jam, people in the Midwest say jam! Those making it at home might distinguish between jam, jelly, preserves, and all that, but the average person just calls it all jam same as they do here.

I don't really have a point to end on here, I just wanted to share this link and how it resonated with me.

Work was a lot. I keep saying "work was a lot" because a) it is b) I don't want to go into any detail heh. Maybe I should make a filter so people can opt in to this boring nonsense.

Other events of today: just before my work day got really miserable, I got to listen to Lizzo live on Radio 1. Which meant I got to listen to at least three Radio 1 DJs gushing over Lizzo. That was even more fun than her cover of "Unholy" (which was amazing of course). I love how they were losing their minds and she was just complaining that you can't get hot cheetos here.

They try to tell her about Monster Munch and she can't even understand the words in Melvin's accent. She is right to be suspicious of it to be quite honest! They play a song and then one asked her the kind of question I recognize as a USian in the UK: "do they have valentines day at the time time there?"

In reply, Lizzo deadpans, "No, we have side chick day."

At the end they're saying goodbye and Melvin says next time he'll get her some Monster Munch. She says "You make it sound like I don't want that." I laughed so hard. Because I can't even stand the smell of Monster Munch.

The other day, when I finally escaped a video call I didn't want to be in (maybe more about that another time), I wandered into the kitchen and [personal profile] mother_bones asked me "Are you going to the loo?" I was -- it's a pretty easy guess for the trajectory I was on. I forget what she said then but it was some kind of "okay, can I talk to you afterward" kind of thing; I didn't remember the words because I was busy worrying -- she was probably just tired, I later realized, but she looked so serious! I was worried that something bad had happened. Or maybe that I'd done the something-bad! She had to reassure me, "no, it's fine, I want to give you something!" haha.

So I had my pee and then she gave me a box full of USian food! She said it was because she knew it was hard on me not to be going back to see my family again this year. (Can't remember if I mentioned that here but last Sunday when I spoke to them Mom said that people had been asking her if I was coming back this year and she was telling them no, it won't be safe. I'm so lucky that my parents are basically on the same page as me about how to live in a pandemic. But it means this kinda snuck up on me: now it's absolutely officially not happening and I have Feelings.)

So now I have
  • more graham crackers (I've been saving the ones I did have for s'mores! maybe now I can branch out a little like to graham cracker crusts!)
  • jiffy mix for both cornbread and what she and I both knew to call "proper biscuits"
  • flamin' hot cheetos which I've never had
  • and grape jam! Heck I miss grape jam so much. I'm so excited.
It's so thoughtful of her to do this because I'm now officially definitely missing yet another birthday/Christmas with my family (my first two in my whole life!) and I've been trying not to think about it too much so I don't get too fucked up about it. And here she is thinking about it in the sweetest way! Which it turns out is paying attention when I complain about how there's no grape jam here and nothing has graham cracker crusts.
A bunch of stuff happened on last night's Skype call, I just only had time/energy for the dog update last night (all day, whenever I've remembered it today, I've been thinking my dad gets a dog! and I'm all excited again).

Part of the reason a bunch of stuff happened was that my parents were visiting relatives -- ones distant enough that I really like them. So I got to see and talk to them too, if briefly. They're very old and Skype on iPads isn't really their thing I think. Particularly when I talked to J, she told me when she passed the iPad to her husband L probably wouldn't be able to hear me -- I know his hearing is poor these days -- but she said "and with your accent", heh! They're from Wisconsin! I talk like they do! I forget my family thinks I have "the British accent."

Anyway, while she was talking to me, J was telling me it's so nice we have this technology, where my parents can talk to and see me when I can't visit. She said she thought of "Grandma G," the G being my grandma's maiden name (J is her cousin): coming over from Luxemburg, with a bunch of kids [I want to say six? can't remember if that's right], on her own, she made it all the way to Iowa, and she left behind a twin sister that she never saw again, they sent each other a few letters a year.

I do think about that kind of thing a lot, how different emigrating is permitted to be in some circumstances these days. Skype wasn't a thing when Andrew and I met but we had hours-long phone calls. Then I had them with my parents once I moved here. Now we do have Skype, and now family-Zoom-get-togethers are pretty normal even over shorter distances. Imagine a few letters a year. Imagine never seeing your sister again, knowing you'd never see your sister again. It'd be like you'd died, only you would be able to send a few letters a year. And your grandchildren could end up talking to their cousin's grandchildren on Skype. it's sometimes dizzying to try to think about too much.

[237/365]

Aug. 25th, 2021 10:03 pm
It has been profoundly weird these last few months watching the "about to emigrate" conversations and preparations happen to people who aren't me. I have never been as close to anybody who did this before me or since.

These two are close enough that they've been staying here for the last few days before they go, and I have some big feelings when they left for the airport this morning. It's similar in lots of ways but different in lots too, all the differences are for the better and I'm really happy for these guys but I'm sad for my younger self.

I'm making sure to make space for sadness so it doesn't turn into resentment of some lovely people who aren't living their lives at me. I think I'm doing an okay job.
Tonight I've tried to stop my mom from being so "helpful".

One of the kids I used to babysit for is getting married -- I got the invitation a couple days ago, already after the RSVP was due, heh; at least I don't have to choose between beef or pork for the dinner (the same choices there were at my own wedding dinner; I was so hungry all that day because, having been harassed for my menu decisions, I was then thoroughly ignored).

Anyway, out of nowhere yesterday Mom emails me to say "I got an England tree ornament that I will give [this person] for her wedding from you." She reminded me I sent England coasters for the sister, the other kid I babysat, when she got married a few years ago, and I'm fine with giving something to this sister too.

I barely remember the coasters but I think Mom had told me to get a Christmas ornament then too; of course it was summer and I couldn't find any such thing in the souvenir stores in town. But my mom thought of an ornament because my mom likes Christmas ornaments. And t-shirts. My dad likes coffee mugs, and t-shirts. I know this because I get a lot of coffee mugs and t-shirts because my parents don't have a lot of theory of mind and think everyone must like what they like.

So I didn't want my mom to give up a precious England ornament! When I expressed dismay that she might give away something of her own she said "no I won't give mine up but this is something that represents where you live", which left me with more questions, all irrelevant -- why does she have this if it's not hers?? -- the only relevant point being that I am apparently expected to get something that "represents where I live." I mean I appreciate I can't run to Target or Crate & Barrel where the happy couple are registered, but this expectation of my mom's, apparently that the present match the sister's, means it has to say "England" and very often actually "London." Even in Manchester (or Liverpool or York or anywhere else I've been, even Wales or Scotland) a lot of the tat says London on it.

Anyway, when I was ranting about this stupid email exchange to [personal profile] mother_bones, she was like "I can find something on ebay", and she has! More coasters (maybe my parents will think I like coasters now like they like t-shirts...), but these are heart-shaped and in that kind of line-drawing-over-blotchy-watercolor style. They have random words all over too: "London" and "England" and "hello!" and "travel." One building seems to be labeled "United Kingdom" while another is presumably Westminster Abbey but most of it is cut off so it only says "er Abbey."

I hate buying this kind of stuff for people because it feels like I'm playing a cruel trick on them but then my family do always seem to adore these things and I'm trying to demonstrate the theory of mind that my parents lack by getting people what they like instead of what I think they should like.

I don't know whether to laugh or roll my eyes though that bad line drawings that might be of London buildings will be universally understood as "representing where I live."

[165/365]

Jun. 14th, 2021 09:02 pm
I was hit with a big wave of homesickness the other day, about a week and a half ago. I was surprised by it. Maybe because I was doing the very Minnesota thing of watching the Twins lose? Maybe it's the newly-warm weather? I always want to go jump in a lake when it's warm and sunny out.

Eventually I realized what has really caused it, and I wish knowing made it go away but it doesn't. It's a big sad thing I can't do anything about and it's still there.

In the previous week, [personal profile] diffrentcolours's mum and her partner had come to visit, and one of [personal profile] mother_bones's sons and his partner had come to visit too. I hadn't thought about them much after either had finished but part of my brain was clearly going: "okay, when's it my turn? When do I get to see my family?"

And I don't know. This time of year I should be, if not seeing my parents yet, at least having a plan to. But I don't know when it'll happen.
No Recourse to Public Funds was the bane of my immigrant existence, it meant my first years in the UK were just panic attacks, bailiffs and empty cupboards.

It actually got me into party politics after a Lib Dem councilor helped us when even the council didn't itself didn't understand why we weren't either paying council tax or getting council tax benefit. Ten years later, I ended up convincing the Lib Dems (well, I was the speech-giving figurehead of a group effort) to make it our policy to scrap NRPF completely.

I made the argument that it's ableist but there's plenty of other arguments against it. Another argument won today: it endangers children.

Fuck NRPF. I really hope the Home Office actually get rid of it this time (it's the second NRPF case they've lost in the last twelve months (here's some details on the first)) but I bet they'll just tweak it again.

Exempting immigrants with children, which is what I suspect will happen, wouldn't have helped me but it'd still be a big win because it'd end so much needless suffering that's happening now.
3. Favorite fast food chain?

My first thought is Chipotle, since I don't really get fast food from chains here. BarBurrito does an uncanny-valley job of replicating it but here I have access to better options: Panchos actually does nicer burritos but I don't think of it as a chain (even though technically there's two of it, sorta?).
Tonight Katie called me and said the sister who lives in Wisconsin has just sent her Wisconsin Monopoly.

At first she just wanted to tell me this because I'm USian but when I told her I'm from a neighboring state and therefore best-placed to explain Wisconsin's ridiculousness, she started asking me questions like "...is Wisconsin a dairy place? Why is one of the Monopoly pieces a cow?" I laughed a lot.

Now she knows about cheeseheads, and the difference between a cabin and a lodge, and how to say "Lambeau" and what cheese curds are.

Her sister sent her a Brewers cap too, so I said the next time we go on a socially distanced walk she can wear that, I'll wear my Twins cap as per usual, and we can take a picture for her to send her sister. And, thinking about it, for me to send my dad.

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the cosmolinguist

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