On Being Known (Or, Korra Feelings Forever)

I had to write about this.

I had to.

Before we begin, let me post an appropriate warning: this post will contain spoilers for the series finale of The Legend of Korra. Just one, really, but that "one" does happen to be the very last scene of the show. Now, here's the thing: I never spoil people with stuff. Not even when they ask me to. But this is too big. It's too important to me for me to be politely vague about the details.

I don't think your viewing experience will be ruined if you keep reading. But I understand wanting to stay 100% in the dark about something, so jump off now, if that's how you feel.

Okay.

So.

If you know me, then it's no secret that I love The Legend of Korra. Love it. I give it top priority at Comic-Con. I got up early every morning for a week to play the video game before work because that was the only time I could - and I am neither a huge gamer nor a morning person. My third tattoo is Naga, Korra's polar bear dog (also named my bike after her). I love it.

Korra is a character I felt a kinship with immediately. I would've killed to have had her around when I was growing up. As a kid, I had a very hard time connecting with the girls on the shows I watched. They were often outnumbered and overshadowed by the boys - boys who got to be the team leaders, the fiercest fighters, the most completely and complexly developed. I loved losing myself in fiction, but I resented being a girl for a very long time because none of the characters in the stuff I was consuming felt like me.

That changed, albeit gradually. For me, it started with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and kept going. It's still a process, though. I still have trouble fully finding myself in characters, and I still want to - that's not something that has changed for me between the ages of 8 and 28.

And that's part of why I connected with Korra so hard. Since the series began, she has been fierce and flawed and full of heart. She has defined her own femininity. She has grown and matured and struggled, and I could relate to it all, in my own way. It meant, and will forever mean, so much. As the end of the series approached, I was profoundly sad - while I knew I'd always have my Blu-rays (all the special features, guys), it felt like I was about to lose a friend. A kindred spirit.

But then the finale arrived. And whatever I was expecting, it was wildly eclipsed by what I actually got.

Korra began the series with a friendship that turned into a romance with a male character. She ended it with a friendship that turned into a romance with a female character.

I'm not a big, "shipper," - that is to say, I don't really attach myself to specific romantic couplings if I can help it. I try to surrender to the narrative when I watch or read something, at least on the first go around. But I had to admit, this particular lady-pairing (I'm standing by my use of this term, you're welcome) - initially something of a dark horse in the fandom, especially given that heterosexuality is pretty pervasive in American children's programming - was really fun to think about. As the series progressed, "dark horse," evolved into, "Wait...this seems like a legitimate thing." Just seeing two women with a close, healthy friendship was refreshing and wonderful, and possibility of getting more suddenly felt much closer than ever before.

Then, it happened. And it meant everything to me. It means everything to me. When people say, "Media representation matters," they are not lying. There is no denying it. I have not been able to stop smiling, to stop feeling so full and happy and...acknowledged...since watching. I was already pretty emotional about Korra's recent PTSD struggles, but this...this...I could never have imagined, when I started, that I would get this.

That series co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino both released statements obliterating any argument for a platonic or ambiguous reading of their final scenes by declaring that they were 100% romantic and that this end result had been their intent for quite some time, made a great thing even greater. That Konietzko included the line, "Despite what you might have heard, bisexual people are real!" in his statement, for me, made a greater thing the greatest.

As it happens, it was a similar feeling of acknowledgement that helped me finally come out at the beginning of this year. That came from The JV Club podcast (again, I will never shut up about it), which happens to be hosted by the voice of Korra, Janet Varney. She often acknowledges that some situations that arise in discussions would be similar (or different, depending) if the parties involved were gay or trans or bisexual, etc. To have my orientation, which is often erased or ridiculed (and we're not the only ones, I'm well aware), acknowledged and included so naturally and automatically finally helped me feel safe and ready.

To begin the year with a moment like that, and to end it with a moment like this - with a character I love on a show that I adore challenging heteronormativity in such a beautiful and authentic way just. Means. Everything. I feel known. I feel like this is an opportunity for so many people - older than me, younger than me, whatever - to see themselves or their friends or their families reflected back at them in the characters they love and identify with.

I'm so happy and hopeful and proud.

Note: I am not the boss of you, but Mike and Bryan's names in the body of this post link directly to their statements on their Tumblr pages, both of which are really quite incredible and which I highly recommend reading.

On Pop Tarts (Or, I Assembled These and They Weren't Poison)

So, full disclosure: I love Pop Tarts.

Not all of them - the fruit ones never really did it for me. Did this preclude me from eating them? No. When you're bouncing from vending machine to vending machine, you're forced to accept very quickly that you'll have to settle for strawberry. Such is life.

But when I had a choice? Three words: Brown. Sugar. Cinnamon. S'mores were a fair back-up, but it was all about the BSC (nobody called them that)(that's what we called the Baby-Sitters Club)(parentheticals).

I didn't even toast them, you guys. Didn't need it. I'd just tear open that silver plastic and live the dream. Hot or cold, that brown sugary goo in the middle with its hint of cinammony goodness evoked a feeling of warmth. Maybe that's why it felt so appropriate to have them in autumn. Or winter. Or all the time.

Now, when I made the transition to a predominately vegan lifestyle, these rectangles of frosted glory quietly exited my life. Over four years later, I'd largely forgotten about them, until - without warning - they came up on an episode of my beloved JV Club podcast.

Would that I could describe the sense memory that came rushing back. The craving took hold, so hard that it made my blood hurt.

Could I have satisfied it the easy way and shelled out $3 for a box of my old guilty pleasure (it's possible I don't know what things actually cost)? Yes. But I chose a different path, my friends. Surely there was a way to craft a satisfying vegan substitute that would retain all the deliciousness while ditching the ingredients that I couldn't pronounce and thus could not really recognize as being food?

After much research and hours of baking and baseball (Go Giants!), I can now say, with confidence: yes. Yes, there is a way, and I have found it. Behold, my recipe for vegan brown sugar cinnamon "pop tarts" - just as good as, and dare I say better than, the real thing.

On Getting Help (Or, Stuff That Can Happen in a Year...)

I don't talk about my feelings.

It's not the model I was raised with. That's not a slam on my parents, whom I love very much and who I know love me, just an observation. I was with my dad and one of my sisters recently, and he commented that my niece and nephew make him feel like he's on his death bed because of how much they say, "I love you." My sister turned to me and said, "Now we know why we're so uncomfortable expressing that." It's true: we're an emotionally reserved family.

I had my first panic attack just after my fifteenth birthday - 'cause, I mean, what do you get the girl who has everything? It was mid-November. I was a sophomore in high school and it was the night of one of the performances of our fall show. In a freak accident, a friend of mine had been injured during one of her scenes. Most of us had been down in the greenroom when it happened and didn't find out about it until we were about to go onstage for the finale. Adrenaline pushed me through the curtain call, but when I got back downstairs, the room felt like it was crushing me. I was hot, my heart was racing, everything sounded like I was underwater but I felt like I was on fire, and I couldn't breathe.

And I don't talk about this in detail. Really. Ever. I'll say, "I had a panic attack," and move on. Typing all of those words just now made me ridiculously uncomfortable. So forgive the lack of eloquence that may occur as we progress, because I don't know that I'll be able to go back and make adjustments.

The anxiety storm that led to this first explosion had been building since September, something that I touched upon here. My brain's inability to process that didn't absolve it of the need to do so, and I think that this incident - this chance occurrence of injury being done to someone in my life (obviously - and thankfully - with much less lethal stakes) pulled every thought and feeling and worry that had been spinning silently in my head for months together into a single ball of awfulness that I couldn't contain anymore.

It's not my friend's fault that it happened. I don't think I ever actually told her that. We're not really in touch anymore, and I'm sure she knows it, but it absolutely wasn't her fault. If it hadn't happened then, it would've happened another time for some other reason.

Fifteen. That was my introduction to my issues with anxiety and depression, but I didn't feel I was allowed to take ownership of those words. It wasn't because of the stigma that's so often and so unfairly attached to them. Naively, I thought that because I hadn't reached an extreme - because I wasn't suicidal or afraid to leave my house - I didn't have the right to say I was depressed or anxious. Which was dumb. But we're all dumb sometimes, and I didn't know how to ask for help yet.

I'm going to make a long story slightly shorter: it was a long, long time before I figured out how to ask for help.

On My Tattoo (Or, Hey Guys, I Got a Tattoo)

So I got a tattoo a few months ago.

I wasn't planning on saying anything about it, as it was something that I did for myself and shouting about it on the internet right after would've felt like cheapening the moment somehow. However, enough time has passed (3 real life months is basically the same as 3 cyber years) and enough people have noticed it to make me realize that I really need to get better at telling this story.

So.

I got a tattoo a few months ago. Truth be told, it's not something I ever thought I'd do - not because of a problem with tattoos, but because of the permanence of it all. If you're going to have something etched onto your body, I feel like you've really got to be committed. Emotionally, I totally was. I knew exactly why I wanted to do it and what I wanted it to mean. The problem was settling on a visual that would represent that. Several times, I thought I had it, and I'd walk around all smug and satisfied and bad-ass-here-we-go until my old friend doubt would show up and ruin the party.

And here's the thing - I'm all about telling doubt to frak off, because otherwise I wouldn't get anything done. Ever. However, there are exceptions to just about every rule, and if your brain is saying, "Don't put that on yourself forever, idiot," maybe pay attention.

This went on for years - actual years - past my initial, "Maybe I'll get a tattoo...," thought, until I settled into a happy holding pattern of, "Yup, maybe I will, but really probably never..."

Then a thing happened.

At the beginning of May, I went to see Jen Kirkman at the Punch Line. She was doing a stand-up set followed by a book signing, and I was totally on board for all of that. I went alone, because I accepted long ago that while there would be plenty of things in life I'd be able to do with other people, sometimes I'd be the only one who wanted to go somewhere or do something. Flying solo is way preferable to missing out. However, there were two drawbacks to being by myself that evening: 1) There was nobody to watch my tea (shut up, it was cold and I don't drink alone) when I had to go to the bathroom, and very special episodes of every show I watched growing up told me this would lead to me being roofied (I wasn't). 2) I had no wingman to make sure I didn't make an ass of myself during the signing.

'Cause listen, I've had the honor and pleasure of attending several events that have given me the opportunity to meet people I think are awesome, and I love it. There's something kind of soul satisfying about looking someone who's given you a gift through a performance or a book or what have you in the eye and saying, "Thank you for making this thing that inspired me or helped me or just made me happy, and thank you for being here right now and signing this or taking this picture or whatever." The challenge is making those words come out of my mouth. I'm a human being. A shy, nervous, overthinker of a human being.

So while I stood there after the show, first in line (my secret signing nightmare), waiting and wishing I hadn't insisted on finishing that second tea, I decided that the exchange would go one of two ways: A) I would say, "Great show," and, "Thank you!" and then hope that my hands would stop shaking by the time I got to my bus stop, or B) I would say both of those things, then go the extra mile and mention that I'd really enjoyed her episode of The JV Club podcast, because I had.

I've spent so much of my life as an option A girl - safe but scared. That night, emboldened by nothing but green tea, I decided to go with B. And it went well. I left giddy, happy with the exchange and proud of myself for opening my mouth and saying words. A year ago, I wouldn't have done that. A year ago, I would've gotten dry-mouthed and tongue-tied and died a little because that's what any kind of social situation with strangers does to all of us (right?!?!?). Personal. Growth.

By the time I got on my bus, I knew. I knew what I wanted my tattoo to be. It was so clear, so beyond doubt, that it didn't even pop into my head as, "I think this is what I'll do," so much as, "This is it, duh."

The aforementioned JV Club podcast (which I posted about here), hosted by Janet Varney and full of hilarity, sincerity, and everything in between, has been kind of a game changer for me in the best of ways. It's so honest and thought-provoking and therapeutic that my actual therapist is pretty much giving me bonus points for being a listener (disclaimer: I don't think therapists actually give you points). Without going into extreme detail, the podcast has helped me move past so many of the roadblocks I put up in my own life through the simple act of helping me feel like I'm not alone, and I'm a better person for it. Not only that, I feel motivated to keep becoming a better person.

It's kind of funny and awesome that someone who's peripherally been a player in my life for years - Janet's been involved in a bunch of stuff that I'm a fan of and, along with Cole Stratton and David Owen, co-founded SF Sketchfest, which is pretty much Second Christmas - now feels kind of like a friend that I hang out with via headphones for an hour a week and just don't talk to. The conversations on the podcast are that casual and natural and fantastic.

I got the JV Club logo tattooed on my left wrist on May 19th by Kevin at Cold Steel. It's there to remind me that I make an active choice every single day to not be the frightened, angry person I was for so long. It's there to remind me that I am capable of getting through bad days (or months, or years), because they're still going to happen. It's also there to remind me that I have a gorgeous, phenomenal life full of love and light and pure joy that will just keep getting better if I get out of my own way. Once it was on my wrist, I knew I'd made the right call, because it felt like it always should have been there.

So I guess, what I'm trying to say is thanks, doubt. You helped me hold out for something pretty rad this time.

Side note: The day I got my tattoo also happened to be Bay to Breakers here in SF. If you're a runner, it's a race. If you're most of the city, it's a reason to put on a spandex tiger costume and start drinking in the street at 10 AM. Every year, I say I'm going to stay in the house all day, and every year, I manage to forget and make plans. However, the staff at the shop seemed to genuinely appreciate that I was sober and that my best friend, who accompanied me, did not have a tambourine.

Public Service Announcement: You can't donate blood for a year after getting a tattoo. I had a mini-crisis of conscience when I looked this up, because I'm a regular donor (and an in-demand type O donor, which just made it worse) and suddenly felt wildly selfish. I eased my guilt (a little) by donating a couple days before my appointment, and while it's maybe ill-advised to schedule back-to-back activities that result in blood loss, it all worked out. Consider donating in my stead and visit your local blood bank today.

When my best buddy Jennie got her tattoo a few years ago, I was on hand (literally - she's a hand holder) for the experience, and she was always adamant about returning the favor. I am not a hand holder, however, so she took my phone and documented the occasion. Pics after the jump.

On The JV Club, Episode 49 (Or, That Time I Sort of Threw a Birthday Party for a Podcast)

It's a dark and rainy day here in CDogland and I am in bed with a gnarly cold, so let's take a journey back in time about two weeks to another rainy day when I was mobile and not forced to breathe almost exclusively through my mouth.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I am very pro-podcast. Listening to them has expanded my world on all sorts of levels, be it by introducing me to new performers, informing me about events, or even just helping me think about things in new ways.

Two of my friends - Jennie and Natalie - recently mentioned that they'd like to get into some podcasts, but that the idea of just sitting and listening was unappealing. Always one to embrace a theme, I suggested that we start having podcast parties. We're crafty people (knitting, crocheting, baking, soldering - there aren't many DIY projects we wouldn't attempt at least once), so I figured why not pair creating with listening? And, on top of that, why not share what goes into each event with you?

The day of our first as-yet-unnamed gathering happened to fall on the one year anniversary of The JV Club podcast, so it seemed particularly appropriate to start there. Hosted by Janet Varney, the basic premise of The JV Club is that guest and host alike talk their way from adolescence to adulthood. It's a part of the Nerdist network of podcasts, and I found my way to it through them and through being a fan of Janet, who is one of the three co-founders of SF Sketchfest and voices the lead on The Legend of Korra, among other things.

Of my mainstay podcasts, I can say without hesitation that The JV Club is my favorite. Listening to it has made me laugh, made me cry, made me cringe - sometimes all within the span of one episode. It gave me the courage to throw this post out into the universe. No matter what else is going on, the hour and change that I spend plugged in feels like a safe time to listen and learn and let go.

So yes, it was a good place to start. As it was a Thursday, we met up in the evening after being released from our respective work environments. Nat and Jennie have been working on adding crocheting to their skill set, but opted to knit that night, having not quite mastered the former. I, naturally, had completely forgotten how to knit, so I offered to make dinner. On the menu: lentil soup and Mean Girl bars. Both happen to be gluten free, which I am not. I am, however, a vegan, and the twain often meet. Do know that I'll always mention whether anything I post is GF or not, and that any ingredient I mention is vegan, so I probably won't add the extra qualifier when listing it.

We listened to episode 49, which was recorded live at Sketchfest with Tig Notaro in February. I was in the audience, and being there sort of changed my life (note: if you know me, be aware that this is one of those times when I'm being completely serious about something legitimately changing my life and not like the time I saw From Justin to Kelly). I'd seen Jennie and Nat the day after for our Not-Quite-a-Super-Bowl-More-of-a-Showtune-Singing Party and couldn't shut up about it, so they were curious and I was ready to share. I prefaced the episode with Live, the recording of Tig's legendary Largo set, which will be the best $5 you ever spent, so hit that link and go get it now.

Heavy stuff gets tackled point blank, both in the episode and on the album, and maybe one of the greatest gifts of it all revealed itself when we paused to eat: we talked. Just straight up talked about what we'd heard so far and how we felt about it, and that kind of segued into us just talking about our own lives. These are people that I'm very close to, that I've known for most of my life, but sometimes it's hard to really dig in and go for it. It was nice.

We wrapped the evening with a very important first for me: I made a friendship bracelet. 26 years of living, and I'd never done it before. So, under Jennie's gentle tutelage ("Here's what you do. I'll turn away so I'm not watching and making you uncomfortable..."), I created what I'm sure will be the first of many bracelets, in the podcast's colors.

A successful first venture, and my friends are already on board for more (Jennie: "CDog, we want to have a podcast party where we make tea and scones and sit outside. Do you have an episode of something for that?").

Pics and recipes after the jump.