Upon discovering I am terrified of taxidermy, most people’s first reaction is to laugh. And I laugh too. It’s ridiculous! It’s a crippling fear of an inanimate object that can’t possible harm you (unless it fell on you and an antler pierced your chest or something). Nonetheless, when faced with a moose head or a full-standing bear, I am left with a fight-or-flight response. I hyperventilate. I fight every urge to start making guttural noises and run from the room.

Because, you see, if someone is unfamiliar with a phobia of taxidermy, they wonder who that crazy woman is. And since no one I have confessed this phobia to has ever heard of such a thing before, that’s everyone who doesn’t know me. I have to keep it together.

The Trigger

I think I know where my phobia originated. I was always a bit squicked about taxidermy, I mean it’s an animal corpse, stuffed and made to look alive again. Other than Ed Gein, no one would dream of doing this to humans. Because it’s fucked up. But I digress. As a youngster around the age of 10 maybe, my family was on a trip in Montana, and we stopped at a little taxidermy museum. It was quite the place. This was a long time ago, so I’m relying on old memories, but I do distinctly remember the standing bears at the entrance. Because they are rigged to “pee” on people as they enter. Yes, a dead bear peed on me. Through his dead penis. On a 10 year old girl.

If you think that sparked the phobia, you would be wrong. It wasn’t until we were deep into the museum. And it’s not like a museum where there’s a dead animal there, and another one over there. This place was packed with taxidermy, with just little aisles going through the room. There were dead soulless eyes staring at you everywhere. While perhaps ill-at-ease, even this didn’t bother me too terribly much.

Among all the various forest creatures was a seated bobcat. Very cute. I remember pointing at it and telling my brother to check it out. And then it moved.

The dead animal moved. The taxidermy moved. It is dead and it stood up and started walking away. This bobcat was alive. 

You might be thinking “holy shit, a live wild bobcat, get the fuck out of there!” Nay. You see, I was already familiar with domesticated bobcats. In the backwoods frozen tundra of northern Minnesota, there was a domesticated bobcat who wandered around my neighborhood freely like your average housecat. I knew this bobcat by name (I can’t recall it now), and pet him and played with him from time to time.

The fact that it was a bobcat in this museum did not freak me out. The fact that it was alive sure as fuck did.

So you see, my worst fear has in fact happened. A taxidermy animal really did come to life in front of me.* When I see any taxidermy, in my subconscious, I fear it is going to start moving at any moment. I know, intellectually, this is not true. It is nothing more than furniture at this point. But I can’t stop the hyperventilating and the chills coursing through me when coming face to face with a bison head.

*Yes, I know the bobcat wasn’t actually taxidermy. But among the packed forest of taxidermy animals, one that moved sure created the vivid illusion that any of these things could actually spring to life at any moment.

My Continuing Self-Torture

An amusing anecdote. In New York City stands the American Museum of Natural History. A super awesome place with huge models of dinosaurs. Also housed in the AMNH is room upon room of taxidermy animals. All of them posed and in what are essentially dioramas of their natural habitats.

I took it upon myself to take the ultimate challenge for someone with a phobia of taxidermy: tour the AMNH in its entirety. And I did this on three different trips to NYC. Why? Because I would like to put this phobia to rest. The result? It still freaks me the fuck out.

The funny thing about my tours of the AMNH is that there was something that somehow made these taxidermy animals feel less threatening to me: they were behind glass. Inanimate object. No more of a real threat than furniture. Somehow felt less threatening to my phobia because they were behind glass. Because, totally, if a pride of huge lions came back to life, a sheet of glass would stop them from eating my face.

Now, don’t go thinking I was perfectly fine. I was still hyperventilating somewhat. I think the only noticeable reaction was probably my flaring nostrils. And wide terror-filled eyes. But I made myself walk slowly through all these exhibits and look at them. I was alone and no one paid me any mind. My phobia flared up when I reached the herd of elephants which were not behind glass. I still walked slowly and looked at them all.

When I was finished with the dioramas, I went to the dinosaur exhibit. I was in such an incredibly good mood to be free of my arch-nemeses (taxidermy). No, bones do not scare me. They gave me chills, but more from the awe of their massiveness.

The Exceptions

Taxidermy fish do not bother me. I have yet to see a large shark in taxidermy form, so I have no idea if that might bother me, but your average Northern will not. Also not a problem: smaller birds or mammals. I guess anything small enough that I could totally “take” in mano a mano fisticuffs. I wouldn’t want to touch any of these things, but if I see them on a shelf somewhere, they do not illicit my phobic response. Usually.

Confession

The entire time I was writing this, I had chills. At the memories of all these situations that terrified me. At the very thought of being in close proximity to taxidermy. Phobias are so stupid and defy all logic. But, what can ya do? Laugh at it, do your best to deal with it. Try not to let it run your life.

But, I will not visit your home if there is a deer head on the wall. A bearskin rug will have the opposite of a sexy effect on me.

Being a military girlfriend is not easy. I knew that, intellectually, going in to this whole situation. But it’s one of those things that you can’t understand until you’re in it. He is stationed in Europe. I am in the middle of the states. He’s a career Navy man. He’s not on deployment with a return date. He should be moving to his next location this year, but we have no idea where that might be. Could be as far as Japan or Bahrain. Could be in the states somewhere. And that’ll be for a few years. No six-to-twelve months and then we can be together again and all squishy and lovey and happy squee! Nope. The future is a complete unknown.  He won’t be all mine within 4 years or less. He could still have 7 years left in the Navy.

I mention this because so far it has made it harder to find an online “community” of people in a similar situation to mine that I could read about or commiserate with. I don’t know anyone in person who has someone in the military. There are many “milspouse” communities/blogs. Many communities for new milspouses. Even some communities for military girlfriends who are going through their lovers’ first deployment or boot camp, etc. I don’t fit into any of these. I still try to find some common ground with these bloggers, but other than a small handful in a general sense, I haven’t found any who I can really relate to.

I’m not a spouse, so I’m not a milspouse. Milspouses are often militarily (lolol) Christian and extreme-Republican. I am an atheist and have a heart. I have no children. I have no plans for marriage or children, so finding things to relate to, other than missing our men, is pretty much impossible. Some of these women are dealing with deployments to dangerous areas, so I’m pretty lucky that my sailor isn’t in that kind of danger. There are some perks they get to have with being a spouse as opposed to a girlfriend, so their struggles are different than mine.

The new military girlfriends (like myself) are not 29 and own a home and are established in a community a world away from their lover. They seem to be typically in the 18-20 year range. They’re thinking about marriage and babies. They are just embarking on adulthood at the same time as they are dealing with their lovers leaving. They are devastated at the idea of a 2-month boot camp stint (I think it’s 2 months?), whereas I’m trying to find strength in having no idea how many months or years it’ll be til I see my sailor. That’s certainly not to belittle their experience, it’s just that what we’re struggling with is very different, and doesn’t satisfy whatever I’m trying to find in not feeling alone with this.

I’ve even tried seeking out bloggers in long-distance romances (LDRs) to relate to. Mixed results. Again, it’s hard to relate completely since their lover isn’t in the military. The military throws a huge wrench into a relationship. Your schedule is your lover’s schedule which is the military’s schedule, which has no wiggle room for negotiations. You can’t be like “let’s visit in May!” and plan it out because anything could come up between now and then and dash your plans. Even planning a Skype date can be difficult. A 7-hour difference in time zone is also a factor.

I suppose what I’m saying is, are there any new military girlfriends in their late 20s with a career-military man far far away? Or someone who was that? Finding that combination in someone other than myself has been impossible.

I think a few factors have made it a little easier on me. I’ve spent the vast majority of my life single, so being alone every day isn’t any different. As a web designer, I have the kind of job that (in theory) is pretty portable, should I be able to move where my sailor is.

(I say “in theory” because jobs that let you work from home, even as a web designer, are incredibly scarce. With all the technology we have, employers still can’t wrap their heads around having remote workers. Get with the times! Grrr!)

Another factor possibly in our favor is some maturity. Would I have been able to deal with this a few years ago? Or at 18? Probably not. I have a better understanding of relationships and time and waiting for worthwhile things. The flipside to that, of course, is that time is ticking. We won’t live forever and time apart is time we’ll never get back.

Since I still can’t find any communities that I fit into, I’ve been working on outlets of my own to deal with the diffcult side of all this. I started a tumblog called Inconvenient Love. Just a place to repost things that are funny or inspirational relating to having a love that is inconvenient (whether it be long-distance or unrequited or forbidden, since there is some overlap in sentiments). Hopefully people who feel the way I do can find something there that helps or makes them feel less alone with their situation.

Another outlet? Blogging about it and sharing my story.

I suppose I should wrap this up by stating how happy I am with my sailor boyfriend! If given a choice, I’d certainly rather have him be with me, but I’ll take what I can get to be able to have him. The pros far outweigh the cons. When things get tough, I remind myself that hopefully someday we will be together on a regular basis. This will all be worth it on that day. We are ridiculously compatible and drawn to each other. It’s very rare to get along with someone so well and feel all schmoopy and squeebily, and have that someone feel the same way at the same time! (You know what I’m talking about.) I wouldn’t trade him for the sake of convenience. ♥

Ingredients:

• A bag of frozen berries (or any frozen fruit, I guess. Berries are lower in carbs, if you’re watching that.)
• 4 packets of  Weight Control Quaker Oatmeal in the Cinnamon flavor (hard to find, it’s on Amazon)
• Some sugar/Splenda or cinnamon (optional)

Instructions:

Pour the berries into a 9×9″ pan. Sprinkle some sugar/Splenda or cinnamon on it, if you want (I sometimes skip this and haven’t noticed much difference). Mix up the oatmeal with some water and olive oil until it gets some thickness to it. Spread the oatmeal over the fruit.

Bake at 350 degrees F until the berries start bubbling or the oatmeal gets dark around the edges.

Yummy yum!

Me: “Oh this seems like the nice thing to do.”
Game: “DARK SIDE.”
Me: “Fuck!”

Like, the latest one. People on the good team were beating and torturing a lady captive in the name of interrogation. She’s claiming to be innocent. The captors say they’ll stop if I give a hidden mic thing to another guy on the bad team. I opt to do this, AND I GO FURTHER TO THE DARK SIDE. Wouldn’t stopping a woman from being tortured always be the right thing to do?!

Or another one. I could opt to be part of some obstacle course race thing that involves freakin’ bombs, or place bets on other people doing it. I figure doing the course myself is the nicer option than betting on other poor schmucks. DARK SIDE.

This just explains so much of my life. I fully believe I’m a good person, but I’m actually evil. It makes sense now!

Designer at heart.

I also missed customizing my design. I’ve been on a weird bender lately with designing and building projects (overhaul of silencia.net and creating bitchin.me), and felt “inspired”, so to speak, to redesign ohsoang.com. So here it is. Still needs some work. There are a couple minor glitches in Firefox and IE (bleh!). I’m still not sure what to do with the footer, so it’s a bit random and messy.

I’d also like to figure out how to get 2 widgetized sidebars. Right now, only the right column is the widgetized sidebar, and I’d like to have the left also work like that. Twitter’s default widget is hideous! Widgetized footer too, for that matter. I’ve been spoiled with themes on my other websites using WordPress. That’s the best way to learn though, right? Tearing apart existing things and seeing how they work.

Thanks to those themes, I’ve gotten into dabbling with Google Web Fonts. On this page now, you see Droid (general text) and Waiting for the Sunrise (headings). Fun! And my favorite price: free.

New*bee!

After years and years, I finally joined the Quilting Bee. I think I was only an approved member for a day before I was digging full-hog into the Present Hunt activity and creating free*bee patches and even a Pixel Train car (mine is the rollerskate). I’m a newb to the “pixeling” world. I also designed and built my own Quilt page. I’m not kidding: I’m on some weird web project bender! I can’t explain it, but I’m running with it. Maybe it’s due to my holiday break from uni?

School’s out!

Speaking of, I got a “B” in European Impressionism & Post-Impressionism (art history) and Photography Alternative Processes, and an “A” in Design Technology and Typography. Huzzah for me. The photo class was all about creating cyanotype prints, which royally kicked my ass for the past couple of months. I never want to do that again! I’m all-digital now, damnit. I do not have the patience for cyanotypes.

So here I am.

Back at my old WordPress stomping grounds. More things to come? I’ll be working on my other pages, as well as doing some more tweaks to the design. Be a peach and subscribe?

Damn right my SWTOR smuggler is sexy as hell. This is with my graphics as low as they can go, so’s I can actually play. Finally got the settings right so it’s not *too* laggy. Playable at least. Pewm pewm!

http://ohsoang.tumblr.com/

“I did everything I was supposed to and I have nothing to show for it.”

It’s not the arrests that convinced me that “Occupy Wall Street” was worth covering seriously. Nor was it their press strategy, which largely consisted of tweeting journalists to cover a small protest that couldn’t say what, exactly, it hoped to achieve. It was a Tumblr called, “We Are The 99 Percent,” and all it’s doing is posting grainy pictures of people holding handwritten signs telling their stories, one after the other.

More at the source.