Idea #1: Going to Disneyland. Checking out Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge would have been part of it, mostly in the forms of getting a lightsaber and riding the Millennium Falcon attraction. Most of it would have been getting to laze in Disneyland in my favorite ways in the summer: fastpasses to the water rides, Pirates and Ariel in midday when it’s hottest and I’m about to go to the hotel to take an afternoon nap, seeing what new Marvel face characters are around that I like and haven’t taken pictures with yet. Maybe my dream of being on Space Mountain when it goes down, and getting to see what it looks like when the lights go up, might finally come true. And if I went down there, I could venture out of Anaheim and go to places in Los Angeles I’ve always wanted to visit, like the Ripped Bodice.

Variation: Going to a non-Disneyland Disney park. Maybe Disney World, except…Florida in the summer? Maybe not. The dream would be either Disneyland Paris, which I could pair with other French touristing because I’ve never been to Europe at all, or Tokyo Disneyland, which I have been to but not since I was a kindergartener, and they have DisneySea there now. (Also, visiting Japan as an adult!)

Why it’s okay I didn’t go: I’ve been to Disneyland a fair amount, and I prefer going in October or January. This is probably even more true with a new, very popular section of the park; the combination of summer heat (and a lot more humidity than my home turf) with on-season crowds are no joke even without Galaxy’s Edge open. And I’ve been having less fun on water rides lately. (Not that I ever rode Splash Mountain for anything other than the drops. That ride. Oof.) Plus, traffic down there is never exactly fun, especially if you are going into Los Angeles itself.

Idea #2: Las Vegas. Frankly, all I would have to have is an AirBNB with a pool (or a hotel with a pool that isn’t also a club, I guess), but I enjoy so much about hopping on- and off-Strip. Maybe I finally would have done the New York, New York roller coaster that I’ve always thought about. I’ve also always wanted to see a big artist’s residency there, although I don’t have anyone particular in mind at the moment. The Super Rich Person’s Dream would be to do designer shopping, particularly at somewhere like Alexander McQueen. A more modest dream would be a helicopter ride, probably over the Strip, but hopping somewhere like the Grand Canyon would be fun, too.

Why it’s okay I didn’t go: I’ve been in Las Vegas in August before. Ovens are more comfortable. (Late September has been a great time to go in the past, by the way. Like, Life is Beautiful time period, although I’ve never gone there specifically.)

Idea #3: San Francisco, possibly during Pride weekend. It’s a big dream of mine to do a gay tour of the city; I’ve been there a few times, but I’ve never ventured anywhere near the Castro, for instance. There’s also more generic touristy stuff I haven’t done, like go to Alcatraz or art museums. I could sneer at the gentrification and tech bros that have ruined a lot of the city while also eating great food and pretending I’m in a less soapy version of Tales of the City (2019). And if I felt like venturing out of the city, I could walk amongst the redwoods, which I’ve never done, and visit Monterey again.

Why it’s okay I didn’t go: Did I mention the gentrification and tech bros? I really do want to do gay things in San Francisco in the not-too-distant future, though.

Idea #4: Seattle. I almost applied to Clarion West this year, and I’m really hoping I get an application together and accepted in the next five years. I’ve never been to Seattle, but I have some online mutuals there that I might meet up with, and even if I didn’t, I could get suggestions of fun things to do from them online. I don’t know that I have a lot of interest in things like the Space Needle, but I would definitely swing by the first Starbucks and the Museum of Pop Culture (to name just one museum—can you tell I like museums?). And yes, potentially pretend I’m in 10 Things I Hate About You. If I didn’t want to just stay in Seattle, I would absolutely cross over into Canada, and if I drove there and back, I could also go to Portland and meet up with some friends there.

Why it’s okay I didn’t go: I don’t have a super overpowering urge to go to Seattle specifically, although visiting a new-to-me big city would be swell.

Idea #5: New York City. Romance Writers of America is having their yearly convention there as I write this, and even if I didn’t go to the conference itself, I would love to meet up with online mutuals who are there for it (and other online mutuals who aren’t). There’s way too much in the NYC area that I would love to do to list; just the Broadway musicals I would try to see could be its own post. One thing I would definitely do, if possible, is Sleep No More. Immersive Macbeth! There would almost definitely be a concert I would want to see while I was there, and you’d better believe I’d go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and dream of Harry Styles as I walked through the Camp: Notes on Fashion exhibit.

Why it’s okay I didn’t go: I follow enough NYC-based people online to know what a clusterfluff the subways are right now. I suspect everything I’d want to do would be super spread out, and I tend to like to go on vacation and stay in a closeish radius to my hotel, which would probably be even more true if the trains weren’t a super-viable option.

So what have I done this summer? Go to a concert in Sacramento, mostly. Go to a movie and eat a giant soft pretzel. A lot of struggling to sleep in my own bed and failing. A lot of looking at the front door and shaking at the thought of stepping outside. Navigating breakups, both in terms of medical professionals in my life and the fallout of other people’s falling outs. Enjoying the cool summer evenings and the thunderstorm we had. Cuddling with a pit bull puppy and missing the cat who I used to cuddle with who died in the spring. Playing the Spider-Man game and seeing the sights of a fictional Manhattan. Playing the Sims 4 and pretending I could be a mermaid in a Hawaii-like place. Trying to regain the pieces of a life poor mental health likes to steal from me again and again.

Why this is okay: I’m tired. God, I’m tired. Time to close my laptop and go back to sleep.

–

(Big thanks to my Patrons for sponsoring this essay!)

I was assigned female at birth. One of the side effects of that in my particular situation is that I was raised not to listen to my body or my needs. I’ve been doing meditation and mindfulness practices in an attempt to learn more about myself, and I’m picking up on some interesting things.

For instance: on December 12^th, at 5:30 am, I realized my uterus uses he pronouns.

I didn’t know uteruses—uteri?—could be cis men, but mine is. I keep thinking of him as “Chad”, even though that’s the name of the guy who screams in my brain about how worthless I am when my depression kicks up. Whatever, my uterus can borrow Chad for now.

Chad the uterus kicked me low with cramps last night. I took a bunch of painkillers to get him to shut up, and he quieted down enough to let my as-yet-unnamed stomach slide into my DMs in an attempt to get the bacon it knew was in the fridge. My stomach doesn’t seem to have gender or pronoun preferences, but if it was a cis male, it would 100 percent send me unsolicited dick pics.

But Chad, on the other hand, is a cis male feminist. He’s the kind of guy who says crap like “women are people too” and “equal pay” so you’ll have sex with him while you’re ovulating and too frisky to think better about it. And then, a couple weeks later, he punches you in the gut for a couple days straight and laughs while you accidentally bleed on your bedsheets.

The metaphor breaks down a little at the end there, but you get it.

By the way, Chad the uterus is also the ovaries. Maybe Chad the uterus is especially the ovaries. I’m not one of the ovary-havers that feels pain during ovulation—some people feel it when the egg moves around in there, which is yet another joy in the joys that is the menstrual cycle—but I do spend a week with the sex drive that remains after my antidepressants try to crush it into dust, and I spend nearly two full weeks with increased depression and general upset (one the week before and one the week of my period).

How much can Chad the uterus mansplain to me about my emotions? Enough that I wish I could have noise-cancelling headphones for my brain.

…oh my god Chad the rambling voice is Chad the uterus.

Cue the X-Files theme music.

It is currently 5:52 am on December 12^th, and the painkillers I took shut Chad up for now. I’m going back to sleep until Chad starts blaring Hotline Bling on his giant set of speakers again.