Significant, You Say
A man named Silvia, a self-described “multi-talented and eclectic trans artist,” struggles with convention:
At which point, readers may wonder whether the struggle is with something more fundamental – say, adulthood, of which the potential for lifelong commitment – something serious – something much like marriage – is generally considered a feature.
Silvia, we’re told, by Silvia, is “trying her hand in everything from film and video production to interior decoration.” As one might imagine, intersections abound, along with feats of the aesthetic:
Do note the eclecticism, the “air and movement.”
Update, via the comments:
Mr Muldoon notes Sylvia’s dissatisfaction with non-married coupling terms, and offers, among others, main squeeze, easy/steady rider, and paramour.
If something less colourful seems in order, might I suggest my Temporary, my Conditional. My For Now.
Oh, and sH2 adds,
Answers on a postcard, please.
And so, we have a grown man who dismisses marriage as beneath him, as something “for the conditioned masses,” while bemoaning the inadequacy of common terms for his preferred, supposedly more daring, alternative. As if the connotations of “girlfriend / boyfriend” – connotations of adolescence and immaturity – were somehow random or unjustly imposed.
It’s not made clear which aspects of marriage so offend our enormously radical interior decorator. But if it’s the lifelong monogamous commitment thing, with all of the advantages and obligations that typically go with it – the bourgeois grown-upness, as it were – then I can’t help wondering on what basis he would object to connotations of immaturity and unseriousness.
“utilizes clutter”
For Silvia, descriptions of all kinds would seem to be a problem.
I’m now trying to think of a situation in which referring to oneself as eclectic is a good look.
I’m just going to leave this here.
As a reminder to us all.
There isn’t one.
“
Marriagegrowing up is for the conditioned masses.”Is that ‘before’ or ‘after’?
Can you not sense the “deep interest in space”? Or the passion and all those intersecting things? All that “air and movement”?
Tsk.
I bet you’re married and everything.
So he identifies as a woman in the same way he identifies as an interior decorator?
Oh-oh. Rumbled.
Needs more feat. And aesthetic.
Um … I don’t find “clutter” comforting at all. Oh, by no means am I obsessive about it, after all I chose to have/raise four kids and tolerance for transitory clutter is a must. Cleanliness is a separate issue … keeping things washed, vacuumed, wiped down was always the priority even as toys, books, crayons would escape their bins on a regular basis.
But who does find clutter comforting? Hoarders. And I’m not talking the clutter that comes with hobbies (which is why I have a room for my sewing and painting that I can close the door to… none of that is anywhere else in the home) but bathroom and kitchen counters filled with stuff. Gathering dust. Out where the clutterer can keep a loving eye on it at all times.
Dealing with a relative with mild hoarding right now. Yikes, the panic attack that sets in when you try to address cleaning stuff up.
So I look at those pictures and I’m “you deliberately want it to look this way??”
“Can I interest you in meeting a therapist?”
I was promised “transphobic” dammit and there was no “transphobic.” What’s this world coming to.
I’m assuming that the decision not to participate in chappie’s pretence of womanhood is now construed as a phobia. A moral shortcoming of some sort. Rather than, say, a reluctance to tell obvious lies.
Well, this is a grown man who not only wishes the rest of us to pretend that he’s a woman, but who also dismisses marriage as beneath him, as something “for the conditioned masses,” while bemoaning the inadequacy of common terms for his preferred, supposedly more daring, alternative.
As if the connotations of “girlfriend / boyfriend” – connotations of adolescence and immaturity – were somehow random or unjustly imposed.
Terms for S/Os he may like:
Main squeeze, easy/steady rider, same old, lesser vessel, paramour, ball & chain.
The exterior often reflects the interior. I’ve had my own struggles with clutter, and they’re not a question of “liking it that way” as not being able to address it. Turns out it takes a certain degree of mental vigor to impose order on chaos, and my afflictions having robbed me of such vigor, I have to “not see” it.
But I don’t remain unaffected by it. The presence of clutter is enervating, which creates a cycle of clutter making me less and less able to deal with it. External interventions have been required.
I’m not a hoarder, tho. I’m able to toss trash, and I’m not traumatized by the idea of getting rid of stuff. I’m just not equipped to do it on my own. Hoarding is a trauma response that may even be genetic-ish. Having been traumatized by a terrible loss (of a child, spouse, etc.) hoarders psychologically need to hang onto everything instead of losing even more stuff.
Maybe if you ensconced the hoarder in a hotel room or Airbnb for a week, then they come back to the cleaned home. I’d be OK with that. But then I’d look for things I know I had and they’d be gone. Probably worse for a hoarder.
[ Fetches enormous eye-glass, squints, removes bothersome particle of dust from otherwise pristine work surface. ]
What?
His bio reads “chic cult underground art girlfag”. How serious do we think he’s capable of being?
Not phobia (fear) but odium (hatred, aversion, disgust)–although that switches from Greek to Latin.
“Have you met my For Now?”
Says Silvia, “I don’t like the idea of marriage at all.”
It’s not made clear which aspects of marriage so offend him. But if it’s the lifelong monogamous commitment thing, with all of the advantages and obligations that typically go with it – the grown-upness, as it were – then I can’t help wondering what his more radical and edgy alterative entails, and on what basis he would object to assumptions of immaturity and unseriousness.
I think “husband” and “wife” work well. With “fiance” for a brief period prior.
ETA: You use both “man” and “her” in the post. Is there any agreement on the biological sex of this … being?
The her is in a quoted sentence in which Silvia refers to himself.
If you see what I mean.
So, an adult who is still playing about and expecting applause. “unserious” sums it up. It is like the polyamorous who wonder where all the drama and loneliness comes from.
No doubt the normie-ness and bourgeois-ness. As well as the fact it requires maturity.
It is true that the abolition of the family is a longstanding Marxist revolutionary goal, but that is one of the many aspects of Marxism which attract childish and twisted people.
In my early 20s I was all about cool stuff and not interested in a stodgy lifestyle. But with time I came to see women getting knocked up by hip dudes who then left them, letting them collect welfare. I saw dope heads flunk out of college and become stupid. My good friend shacked up with a woman with a little girl and he acted as a dad to her for 7 years but when she dumped him he had no rights to ever see the girl again. I saw lots of stuff and realized (maybe subconsciously at first) that the old ways reflect long term accumulation of knowledge. We might even call this wisdom.
As to “eclectic”, this is a luxury, as is being “multitalented”. Any actual art or profession takes focus and practice. Not just farting around.
The face fits the stereotype.
The last thing we need is a Transgender Day of Visibility.
What we need is a a little relief in the form of a Day of Invisibility.
Remarkable how they do us such a favor.
Cluster B glasses: check.
Anti-feminine hairstyle: check.
Cluster B smirk: check.
The last thing we need is a Transgender Day of Visibility.
Speaking of “trans”, an MP has thoughts.
Well . . . it thinks it has thoughts.
Old New Yorker cartoon:
“This is my daughter Sarah and her paramour Josh, and my son Liam and his concubine Annabel”.
Note: old. At least 30 years ago, IIRC.
Intriguing, but at the same time a whoooooole lotta nope.
This is the problem, right here: they posit two sides only — h8rs and allies. The aggressors in the culture war attempt to normalize their proposition, and any pushback is immediately characterized as h8.
Why yes. Yes it does. But who’s the irrational one, here? I’m seeing an overlarge woman with aposematic coloration engaging in Cluster B reversal as she defends the notion that… well, OK, technically a man can’t be a woman… but… and on the other hand there’s a bunch of us saying “men are men and women are women.”
[ Post updated. ]
Well, despite his emphatic dismissal, our immensely radical interior decorator doesn’t specify which aspects of marriage are so disagreeable. Which is perhaps noteworthy. Though it occurs to me that marriage generally implies having children, not being children.
So maybe that’s a factor.
“Room One utilizes clutter”
Utilizes, you say?
Open thread you say?
During the flight of Redstone II Ham the Chimp actually had to perform tasks, and went higher and flew longer than the recent flight of Bimbo I. Now Megyn Kelly, flanked by a pair of redoubtable stalwarts, takes to the skies in a commercial vomit comet and bravely outdoes the feats of the Counterfeit Cosmonauts. Long, but worth it…
“running is a privilege that not all people have access to”
Forget it, Jake. It’s Minneapolis.
I was gone for a week to a workshop in Texas, near Dallas. Interesting time – we got to go to a horse farm to photograph Friesians. If you don’t know, they are huge black horses and truly are majestic creatures. This is a portrait I did of the farm’s stallion, named Sjabbe (it is a Dutch name – treat the “j” like an “h” and say “SHAH-buh.”
It’s good to be back, though, and to be able to relax with a cup of coffee and comments herein as I do most mornings.
“running is a privilege that not all people have access to”
False. I’ve watched “COPS” and the underprivileged seem to do a good job. Until they release the fur missile. I like the fur missile.
“running is a privilege that not all people have access to”
Who knew all those track and field Olympians from Ethiopia, Kenya, and the like were privileged?
That.
The term does generally imply a putting away of childish things. Or at least some acknowledgment of other, more pressing priorities. Which may be difficult for someone who wants the world to know he’s a “chic cult underground art girlfag.”
Hoist by her own petard.
This doesn’t happen often enough. Particularly sad it didn’t happen to Bill Ayers.
Apropos:
Also from The Telegraph, I was assured this was always the sole province of far right yte males in the UK.
Also apropos, a bit of advice to students about to get married, from Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, a great Jewish educator:
Men darf avekgeben a bissel selfishkeit (“you have to give up a little selfishness”).