This is going to be hard to write.
First off, I don't like writing about myself. I write-or, at least, try to write-fiction to avoid that. But, this year has been pretty crappy, and I need to get it out in the open. I might just delete this later on, but a friend of mine recommended I at least get this crap out of my head. Yes, this is going to be drama, it's going to be weird. I sort of recommend not reading it, if that makes sense.
Anyway.
January. New Years Day, my grandfather calls my parents and tells them he's dizzy and hit his head. He's 94 years old, and he's been taking care of my 93 y/o grandmother since they married about 14 years ago. My parents take him to the hospital, and I stay with her for the day until he recovers. Usually, she's the sick one. They got married a month after she had a major stroke, and has served as her caretaker ever since. In sickness and in health, I guess. Already, this year's off to a rocky start.
My roommate, aka my best friend, aka the guy my parents thought I was sleeping with (he's straight. Mostly) started calling me over the next couple days with increasingly random questions, and it wasn't until the week before FC that I figured out he was manic. He was supposed to come down from Santa Cruz and help me move some stuff the week before that, but was...delayed. FC itself was pretty good, but I had to foot the bill for the room on my credit card and was...let's say irresponsible with my money. It was a new card, no interest, I was dumb. The con itself was a great time, and I sort of consider it one of the high points of the year. Playing Cards Against Humanity at 2 AM with Bellua, Rikoshi, B-Hop and them was a fantastic episode.
I get back from FC and my roommate comes back a day later and tells me he's in a manic episode. He's diagnosed bipolar, and going home seems to set off his mania. If I were him, I'd avoid going home, but he's an adult. Sort of. He's manic, and for the first day it's interesting. He has lots of energy, he's chatty, we have some good times. Three days in, he's not letting any signs of slowing down, and I'm getting spooked. Sunday, the day before my semester begins, I come home from a meeting (more on that) and he comes home from work after asking me to do the dishes. His exact words were, if memory serves, "I'm really annoyed you didn't do the dishes. By the way, I need you to tripsit for me." Turns out he did slow down, and was going to take shrooms to 'correct' that. Amanita Muscaria. I looked it up, told him I wasn't comfortable with him doing it, and his response: "Well, too bad. I need you to stay here and make sure I don't go into the kitchen, grab a knife and plunge it into my heart." A brief aside: I HATE drugs. A lot. I take something for ADD, which means I get lots of folks asking me if I can give them some. Don't ask me that, it only makes me hate you more. After an hour of trying to talk him down, he goes into his room, gets high, and comes out looking...creepy. Giant eyes, twitchy hands, mouth yapping away about something and nothing. I'm scared, and he's not getting any less scary. After another hour of that, he starts talking even creepier, and I finally have to leave. I call a friend and get a ride to my parent's house, with nothing but my laptop and a backpack. I know, I should have called the cops. I end up sleeping in, and miss my first day of classes. Great start to the semester. Roommate didn't kill himself, says it was only a joke (BULLSHIT) and says I don't get to call him out on that because I've never lost someone like that. "When you do, then you can criticize me." His best friend from high school killed himself 2 years ago, and his first manic episode was a month after that. Big coincidence, I'm sure.
February: A friend of mine has some roommate trouble, and needs to sleep on my couch. My roommate knows her, and after helping her get all set up and comfortable, gets high on shrooms again. I leave the room before I start screaming.
Last semester was also the semester of giving back. I was on the board of a conference, and was part of a group called Peer Health Exchange, which goes into high schools that no longer have health classes and teaches them to 9th graders. I taught the opening workshop and mental health. I needed my friend to drive me down to the high school for my workshop, was late, and kind of mouthed off to the kids about my roommate. Not a wise choice, but I was PISSED.
I was also elected treasurer of my school's LGBTA this month. It was a good position, and the other people were nice. 3 board level positions on three different orgs. Full time student. Don't let anyone tell you college is a time for being lazy.
The last weekend of February, I went up to a conference in NorCal to help get the word out about the conference I was working on. A good trip, but it still spooked me. I was getting exhausted for no reason, and my roommate posted some very manic sounding stuff on facebook. I called him out on it, and-oh, right! Forgot to say why he got delayed before FC. Anyway, he apparently went into the women's restroom in a mall in Santa Cruz and proclaimed, in sharpie, that it was his throne, and he was king of Santa Cruz county. Yes, that happened. I've only just learned how to laugh at that without clenching a fist. So, he says something about how I used the word 'shroom' incorrectly, and blah blah solipsistic bullshit blah. I come home and everything's fine, though I give him the coldest shoulder in the world. He texts me through the next day about how he wants to talk, and ooh did it give me a creepy vibe. I get home at 9 PM after another meeting for the conference, and...I hate the term crazy, but this was crazy. There's drawings on the walls, the place looks terrible, he's got a bunch of stuff on the table, and he's stomping around in-I kid you not-cowboy boots, the pants of a karate gi, a shirt and a jacket. Ginormous eyes, of course. I lock myself in my room, he bangs the door telling me to come out and play, why am I being no fun, here I left you a weapon (plastic sword) and I tell him I'm calling the cops. He stomps (like, really, you know the ceramic hooves that bovine fursuits have? It sounds like that) away, and a minute later a huge BANG! goes off. I think he has a gun. The cops finally show up, and he answers the door. They call me outside, we talk, and while I'm explaining the situation to the cops, he calmly reports that he lit a firecracker in the toilet because I wouldn't play with him. They cuff him, try to talk him down, and it's only then that I realize he took my meds. Thank any God who's listening I only had the one pill, or he might have died. What a tragic loss that would have been.
Remember how I said I hate drugs? Here's what he was on: Two kinds of bipolar medication (Zoloft, I think, and something else), my ADD meds, weed, his shrooms, and booze. Why they didn't arrest him or put him under a 5150 I don't know. I was told to leave by the cops, and after securing my valuables, I did. I stayed the night at a friend's place, slept on their couch, and missed a day of school to make sure I could go back to my apartment and secure stuff. My landlady took pictures, and talked to him. He confessed to all the stuff, and didn't get evicted. He's kind of charmed like that, I suppose. I leave for a week after taking all the stuff I can fit in my friend's car, and go home. This time, my parents are fully briefed on everything, and the awkward questions flow like rainwater. Also, my toilet starts spurting water, and costs $100 to repair. Safety deposits are your friend. When confronted with this, roommate blames me flushing his leftover firecrackers, not the one he detonated.
March: I come back a week after all this, and tell him he has 21 days to move out. Every snippet of conversation between us has a countdown clock now. Two days of this, and he tells me he doesn't get why I'm throwing our relationship away over nothing.
His exact words. "Over nothing."
I am not a man prone to screaming. I prefer clever sarcasm to throat-searing rage.
I yelled at him so much it woke my landlady.
I called him out on the past 2 months of bullshit, and on his general lack of competence, and on his complete blind silliness overall. He seems sorry at first, even apologizes when I yell in his face (like, I may have accidentally spit on him) that he's not said sorry once for all this crap. Of course, as I again scream/spit, that doesn't matter any more. After that, he's all defensive, back to being the king of Santa Cruz county. How can I be so liberal on sexuality but not drug use? Don't I see that these issues are exactly the same? How can I be so thick!
I slam the door in his face so hard there's a crack in the frame.
A week later, Vex and Waarhorse die. They were close aquaintences, maybe even friends, and I was sad to see both of them go so suddenly.
I do a mental health workshop where a girl asks me very pointedly about ADD, and says she thinks her brother might have it. I give as many resources as I can, and she is incredibly greatful for it. Another high moment.
The last was the conference itself. Might as well say it: I was on the board for the Queer People of Color Conference. It was a lot of work, and a 20 hour day on Saturday, but it was another fantastic experience. I learned SO much. I don't agree with all the politics of the conference, but overall it was a grand, glorious time. The highest high point of the year, I think, was when the conference ended and everyone told us how great a job it was. Well, except the people from Berkeley, but fuck them.
Also, my roommate got his car stolen the day before the conference, so he had to go home. Glee!
April: Spring Break was good. Uneventful. Roommate kept making excuses about how he would leave soon, the usual junk. I rented a bunch of movies from Redbox.
I was also planning a prom for LGBTA. That went off...alright. The night was fun, but the lead up suuuuucked. We were $400 short thanks to the previous treasurer, and that amount came out of my card. I also had to pay a performer for the conference off that card because of an issue with the school. So, I was $1000 in the hole at this point, not including little purchases made along the way. The second to last weekend, I go camping, don't tell my roommate about it. I come back to find a note referencing our previous conversations, that said "Why I decided to vandalize the bathroom and throw a fire cracker in the toilet: BECAUSE IT WAS FUN AND EXCITING! What's so crazy about that?"
That was when I decided to get a restraining order on him.
I would have gotten it the week after, but I sort of almost killed myself.
I left my apartment with nothing but a swimsuit, a shirt, a towel, and a book for class. No keys, wallets, or cell phones. And the door was locked. I tried reaching my apartment manager, my landlady, no one was home. SO, I tried to jiggle the window open after 2 hours of waiting patiently, and...I jiggled too hard.
The cut on my wrist needed 8 stitches. It is pretty ghastly. So was the $1000 bill from the ambulance for driving TWO MILES, and the ER bill. My parents covered both those bills, but damn did it shake me. There was some stupidity with the insurance, and they didn't get it in time or something, so I might still have a collction agency on me.
May: The Avengers! Yes, I'm counting that as a high point, don't hate me 'cause I'm awesome.
So, the week before finals I get back on the restraining order train. I go to the courthouse, tell the judge what happened, and she says I can only get a temporary one. Here's the part that kills me: She says if we'd been lovers, I could have ejected him from the apartment. I told him no, and she thought I was offended by the insinuation that I was gay. No, ma'am, I'm an out and proud bisexual, but fucking him after all this? Hell no.
I serve the TRO to him, which legally can't be done, I now realize, and he gets whiny. But, he also gets moving. He leaves 4 days later, just as I finish my finals. A good conflation of events.
A semester, in review: 3 volunteer jobs. Full time student. Living in fear of my roommate. And my GPA iiiis...3.4. One point off from Dean's List. Am I the man? I think I'm the man.
And I feel like the man, until Friday, the 18th, when I get a text message from a friend saying another friend of mine has died. Tanny was 22 years old. I didn't learn until the next day, at the memorial, that she killed herself. So much of queer rights advocacy is engulfed in suicide prevention now that to realize I've failed, that we've failed, in protecting those closest to us hurts like a knife to the heart. So, yeah, I did have a friend die on me by her own hand. The 'jokes' still suck. I would tell my roommate this, but that would involve talking to him, a nasty occurance that hasn't transpired since.
June: Califur! And new roommate. Yes, I put an ad on craig's list, and it went alright. She (yes, a woman roommate, omg shocker) is from Baltimore, and came out here to study make up for movies. I helped her move in the friday of califur, then let a near total stranger into my apartment for 3 days. I would have left califur, but I was serving as CFAC. I had a good time with that, though I did accidentally piss off someone that I actually like. It was a horrible move, and one that I intend to make better when FC rolls around.
I also saw a therapist, and had my money disappear. He's a good doctor, but outside my coverage plan. He also had to deal with the uncertainty of what happened after Califur, namely the death of Dlab. He was...I honestly don't remember. Dlab and I were very close at one point, but had a falling out, and haven't talked much since. I saw him at califur, and he tried to talk to me, but between CFAC, my foul mood, and our history I didn't talk back much. I regret that now, of course.
I started working an internship at a publisher, so my days were full of books. Mostly, very bad books. Slushpile reading can kind of suck.
The rest of the summer just kind of happened. The days melted together, and I wasn't doing very much. Stuff got messy, and I didn't keep on top of things. I did get to meet John Scalzi at a book signing in June, and biked 18 miles to do so. Yes, I was the sweaty nerd archetype, but I EARNED MY SWEAT. Scalzi is a very nice fellow, as is Wil Wheaton.
The school year started, and I got a job on campus! Thanks to it, I've paid off half my credit card, and I'm in good shape to pay down the rest. This last semester, I started realizing how cold I've gotten over the last couple months, and I tried to get out more. Barely. Things were improving, barely, and by November I felt okay.
Then my grandmother had another stroke.
A massive, bilateral atom bomb went off in her brain the day after Thanksgiving. Monday, we were told she wouldn't get better. I skipped a week of work, and Friday I actually left class because I got an e-mail from my mom telling me she had passed away. She was 94 years old. Rest in Peace, Betty.
The last month has been mostly dealing with that. Memorials, funerals, cleaning her stuff out, trying not to spend all day on the couch of my apartment playing Civ 5. (I've failed in that regard) Christmas was nice, and there was a lot of family over. I'm still working through all this, but it's good to get it done. Part of that is getting everything out in writing like this. So, if you've made it through all this, congratulations! You've survived reading this year. Some people weren't lucky enough to make it to this point. So, on that point, I'm going to end here. Have a good year, see some of you all at FC.