User Profile

you can find out more than you wanted to know about me at eriktrips.com. or just keep reading:

I vacillate between making my journal public and making it friends only so it might look like I post a lot for a few months and then don't post at all but that's not really the case. If you comment or just friend me randomly I'll probably friend you back unless you look like a total psychopath or a fundamentalist christian. if you aggravate me unduly while on my friends list I will take you back off.

I filed my dissertation on May 11, 2007, and officially received my PhD on May 18, 2007. This makes me a Doctor of Rhetoric which is mostly a degree one gets when one wants to be a professor but right now I am trying to support my writing habit with as little teaching as possible because teaching gives me the willies bigtime. There is a book in the pipes so watch this space for more information. Publishing date looks to be early next year if all goes well.

Otherwise, things you should know about me before entering:

I am a female to male transsexual. I began hormone replacement therapy July 1, 1997. I went from being a dyke to being mostly something like a gay man, although for me transitioning has made it very difficult to determine just who or what the "same" and "opposite" sexes are in relation to what I am.

I'm sort of a buddhist and sort of an animist and sort of an atheist although I am extremely interested in what exactly the idea of "god" stands in for in monotheistic writings and so am interested in the kabbalah as well. I am fairly certain "god" is not a person-like entity with intentions or will or agency or emotions. This does not necessarily mean I don't believe in the divine. It just probably doesn't look like yours. I'm more than not interested in being saved or converted or reclaimed by any major religion, and I don't suffer dogmatists lightly.

My current top diagnosis is Complex PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder With Psychotic Features Severe Recurrent. Secondary to that are Severe Social Phobia, Major Anxiety Disorder, and possibly Asperger's although it seems that the foregoing combination might just happen to look a lot like Asperger's from time to time. If you think the mentally ill should just get over it and/or can just get over it if they follow your magical advice, you will annoy me greatly and I will make no secret of it. If you think tough love is the way to get people like me moving about in normal society I'm probably going to peg you as an apologist for abusive behavior, because you are probably traumatizing your kids as we speak.

I used to work as a veterinary technician and am a vocal advocate for nonhuman living things. I am probably pathologically attached to my cats, but I don't see anything pathological about this. I like other animals too but speak cat most fluently and tend to act a lot like one if left to my own devices, as cats should be most of the time.

I am radically leftist and have no use for anti-intellectualism, racism, heterosexism, imperialism, egotism, capitalism, individualism, or reactionary politics from the left, right, middle, or outside of the dominant paradigm. I am rabidly in favor of acceptance of diversity, ethical behavior, ecological responsibility, and economic and social justice. housing, food, and healthcare are basic human rights. so are freedom of expression, personal privacy, and the pursuit of any kind of happiness that does not cause suffering to others. private property is not a right. I'm sorry (no I'm not) but it's not. possession, privacy, and property are distinct notions, in case you think you spotted an inconsistency.

I don't particularly value consistency anyway although I do value reliability.

I don't really like to argue very much. Really. If having the last word = winning an argument, I've never won an argument in my life. But then, "winning" isn't really why I argue when I do choose to do so.

I think I'm an INFP although sometimes I am an INTP, although an adequate system for categorizing human "types" would be infinitely complex and impossible to codify in this way. But parts of the standard paragraphs do apply. I'm also a Capricorn but over half my planets are in Aquarius. When I read good horoscopes I tend to be a Capricorn on the outside and an Aquarius on the inside. Generally I find these systems more useful as jumping-off points for interpretation than as guides for prediction.

I suspect that if you've read this far you can probably guess the contents of my journal and do not really need to read it but if you really really want to, drop me a line.

social phobia is love
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cats are love
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opium is love
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