(I'll think of a clever title later)

[rm]

This is probably going to be long, and so, in advance, I beg your patience with it. It's going to be about me and words and the Internet, about perfectionism and rhetoric, about people I once was, and probably a whole lot of things I don't like to admit to. There will also be spoilers.

The first thing you know is that for a long time on the Internet, my name was reive. Reive was a young hermaphrodite in Elizabeth Hand's Aestival Tide. I named myself after her sometime in the early 90s because I felt third-gendered; because I, like her, am not the best at housekeeping; and because people were afraid of her because her eyes were green, the color of death in her world. My eyes aren't green, but I've never felt quite right or like my gaze was pleasant.

I was reive before there was LJ. I was reive on a place called Mindvox, which I often refer to as the BBS-that-must-not-be-named, because naming it often brings bullshit to my door. But stories aren't as good if you can't name names.

On Mindvox it would be fair to say I was known for a few things, including talking about myself a lot in a manner that some found self-important and/or over-sharing. Some people liked me, and some didn't. Some people were mellow about these things (we all have different tastes) and some people were bullies. The details are long and not very important, but it helps, somehow, if you know two things: First, I, like many people on Mindvox had a number of sexual relationships with other people on Mindvox and talked about them publicly. Second, when someone once asked me what I thought the most important thing in a life could be, I said "impact." I was probably about 21.

When Mindvox died, we found other homes on the Internet – other BBS's and mailing lists, and eventually on LJ. I was reive. That was me. Hello. If you read it, I ask you not to hold it against me.

Eventually I decided I was going to do something other than talk a lot and hope someone discovered me. When I became an actor and a writer, when I did the things that led to my having the many hats I have now, I decided I needed a change, and I came here, became rm in the hopes that here I could be professional and style myself a public figure. I chose my initials over my name for a number of reasons – one a private joke, another just sheer ease. My full name is cumbersome. It's great as a brand, but is often difficult as a life.

Initially, all that went terribly. It was nearly impossible for me to rein in the desire to talk about the things I wasn't supposed to talk about. And so this journal became just as personal as that. In time, I realized that people who dig my stuff, well, part of what they dig is that. That I'll give you me. My story. As much and as often as I can.

I come from a family of image-makers. My father was in advertising. My parents are painters. My mother designed rugs for years and then wound up selling luxury jewelry. And I was educated by image makers too. I had a uniform and rhetoric classes. I learned ways of speaking that have served me remarkably well but don't always make me a pleasant person to be around.

Actually, that's true of a lot of things. It's not just that the work is the prayer. It's that the work is my life and my life is the work, and my life is a prayer, a constant act of will and often desperation on my part to be better, stronger, more successful, more capable than I naturally feel. It makes me ruthless and often sad.

That's a complicated way of saying that what you see here is totally real. It's totally me. It's totally the stuff I care about in the way in which I speak. I don't make up stories, but I do tell them the only way I know how, with catch phrases and force: "my mother never loved me" as opposed to “sometimes, I think my mother never loved me.”

Somehow, somewhere, along the line, a lot of people started reading this. Some of that was because of my Harry Potter book, some was because of therealljidol, some was because of a well-timed rant, or a con appearance, or whatever. Somehow, there's 1,200 people listed as reading this thing (although I assume many of those users are inactive due to the length of time I've been on LJ), and I get a crapload of pageviews. I'm not the most popular person writing on LJ by any means at all, but I also blip far over the average and the mean.

This has meant a few things. Many of them good. I have my assumptions and privileges challenged on a regular basis. I see new issues I need to care about and get active about. I can make a difference (there's that "impact" again), and I have an amazing network of people that connect for everything from jobs to philanthropy to fandom. And you are the audience for this thing that I do, which is mostly just talking about stuff I dig in a way that's hopefully entertaining. You all are funny and smart and often make me the most happy when you're talking to each other. And whether you mean to be or not, you are totally there for me when I hate myself.

I hate myself a lot. It's not really a big deal. It's just a thing. No one has the type of ambition I do because they're a well person. No one puts themselves out there because they feel loved or worthy enough. No one really thinks pothos, no matter how useful, is a good feeling to have all the time. And that's kinda me.

All of which means that my relationship with LJ, the collective, isn't really always the best thing for me. I rely on you all too much and feel a tremendous amount of self-created pressure to keep you entertained and to provide a good environment for you. I get incredibly nervous if I can't respond to a comment nearly immediately or if someone misinterprets one of my incredibly tortured sentences. I worry about posting before going out or to sleep in case someone raises an issue where I made a mistake or a typo or caused offense, and I'm not able to fix it right away, to make good. I just want to be good.

This isn't your fault. It's just how I am. I'm a perfectionist. But the thing is, it's not possible to be perfect. And, if you're me, it's not possible to stop trying.

Of the many weird things about my LJ existence is the public/private issue. Despite talking far less about my personal life than I have in the past, I'm also more public than I've ever been. It is in some ways exactly what I always wanted. In other ways it sucks – some of those ways I didn't anticipate and some of those ways are just peculiarities of being a public person no one's heard of and never knowing if I'm supposed to view myself as a public or private figure (in that we're-all-famous-on-the-Internet way), of never knowing if the icon of me eating babies is, at this point, bullying or satire.

Here's the thing. I want to keep doing what I do. I want my life to be the work and my work to be the life and all of it be the prayer. I want to keep being an activist. I want to be kind. I want to be exacting. I want to use the sins of marketing on my own behalf. I want people to have a great place to talk about issues or random stuff that's fun. I want to provide a place where I can put people together so they can help each other out. I want to create an archive that proves I was once here.

But in order to keep doing that, I'm going to have to make some changes. Nearly all of them internal. I'm going to have to learn to allow myself mercy for my own mistakes and others', even if I will always be (and am not willing to step away from being) a perfectionist.

I'm going to have to keep learning about how powerful my particular language skills are and work to use them more and more and more precisely, while also seeing the consequences of refusing to be a person who says “in my opinion” to negate my belief or apologize for my force.

I'm going to have to be kinder.

And work harder and squashing the mean voices in my head that come, not from you, but from me, and from my past.

Starting Monday, I'm going to start filtering my LJ comment notifications to a folder, so I'm not “on call” all day. I'll check in periodically, especially if I've posted something controversial, and totally respond during those check in periods. If I fuck up – if I typo, if I say something shitty and -ismy, if I post a summary of an article that you think is totally off base – I hope you'll to feel as comfortable telling me that as you always have been (something I've always loved about all of you, because it's generous and because it means you're not afraid of me or don't think I'm a waste of time), and I will respond when I check in and make good as best as I can. Obviously, the ideal is I don't fuck up, but it's going to happen, and when it does, I promise to try to listen and be as responsible as I can be.

A lot of other things won't change. Sundries will still be here. So will my fanfic. And my scholarship. So will my very aggressive belief in the beauty and importance of things that some of you will find unimportant or distasteful. I will still write about sex work, about Miss Hewitt's, about things lost to the world, about my travels, about my creative work and random obsessions, about my arrogance and desire and drive, and about Patty and our life and the funny little stuff we do.

But it's going to be with a different sort of mindfulness, both of you the readers, but also of myself. I cannot guarantee my journal as a safe space – not for you, not for me, nor for anyone. But I need to try more consciously for you, and absolutely do everything I can on this front for me. Because I deserve a safe-ish space too, even if I'm not living a safe life in a safe way. Right now, I don't feel like I have that safe-ish space, because of this self-created sense that I need to be on-call for this journal and the people who read it all the time.

Before you write or comment to ask if you were a straw that broke the camel's back, you weren't. I was.

Right before Dragon*Con, my arrogance caused me to make a faux pas with some potentially pretty awful consequences for myself professionally and personally. Everyone involved was lovely about it, and I'm grateful for that generosity and it's going to be okay. But, as it happened, I was not able to be generous or merciful with myself, and felt a great urge to step back from my public life and my ambition in response, which was pretty hard to do going into my busiest Dragon*Con ever.

Anton, who came to the con, sat in my hotel room one day, and he listened to me speak in my private, quite voice with the swallowed vowels of too much travel about all this pain I have – in how I treat myself, in how I feel I let people down, in how I balance the public and the private both so artfully and miserably. He just nodded a lot. Mostly, I just needed to say it. And Anton knew me before I was rm so he's a great sounding board.

Since then, that conversation has lingered, and I've been thinking too how to say it here. This is my attempt to do that. And this is me saying it now, because this is the week I've had a lot of reason to revisit my past: the year I learnt to act, the year I went to Australia, the year I graduated high school, the year I was no longer reive. It was so good, when I got to stop being reive.

So it feels good and right to write all this now, even if it doesn't really impact you.

My experience of religion has always been odd and problematic, and it's a topic I've tripped on in the past. But for me, the work is the prayer. And I know this is right, because when I prayed in a more traditional sense far more often than I do now, one thing I noticed was that praying nearly always hurt. And that was good.

These words don't feel much different.

Comments

[hab318princess.livejournal.com]

Thank you... for being so honest and for opening yourself as you do. I am nowhere near s self-discrimating (which is NOT a good thing) and have learned more from your postings than I can describe. You have made me examine my attitutes to who I am (how I perceive my femininity and heterosexuality, something I just unthinkingly accepted for over 35 years), what I am and where I unintenionally have prejudices or cannot understand where another person comes from.

I don't say I always agree or understand where you come from, but you have widened my horizons and for that I can only thank you.

I have never seen you as arrogant but painfully honest and brave for being so and letting us see glimpses into another life (I will not go back to check out reive, mainly because I am of the opinion that we are who we are because of our past but it shouldn't rule us... I'd hate to be compared to the girl I was at 16 or 19 or 23 - I've learned from her and her past is part of me but I am different now at 37)

This is your blog and anyone's opionon might differ, but that does not make either of you right or wrong or force you to change your opinion - it's your blog and if they don't like what you write, they don't have to read it... I'm not saying that people can't point out genuine stuff as they appear to do and you are gracious enough to learn from and share... but at the end of the day, as you say: this is your space

so yeah, thank you (and I'm shutting up now)

[heron61.livejournal.com]

"I have never seen you as arrogant but painfully honest and brave for being so and letting us see glimpses into another life"

That is also very much my impression - brave, honest, and often far too hard on yourself and too willing to overestimate your failures.

[dabhug.livejournal.com]

I have a tremendous amount of respect for you simply because of these things. Your ability to first and foremost be honest with yourself - good, bad, ugly or indifferent - and to leave it as it is and not how everyone wishes it was.

I hate myself a lot. It's not really a big deal. It's just a thing. No one has the type of ambition I do because they're a well person. No one puts themselves out there because they feel loved or worthy enough. No one really thinks pothos, no matter how useful, is a good feeling to have all the time. And that's kinda me.

This. So much this. I know I don't say a lot here, but I read mostly every word and discussion like a sponge. I find a kindred spirit here. Do what you need to do for you. I appreciate your efforts. Take care of yourself.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It's always nice to hear People I Actually Talk To go through these things too. Mostly, I have accounts of people I've never met or will never meet (being deceased and all) to relate to on these matters, and it's not always helpful, but isolating.

[myrrhmade.livejournal.com]

I find you hugely inspiring, funny, and real.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much.

[sihaya09.livejournal.com]

I know it's kinda wrong that my first instinctive response to this eloquent entry was "OMG, someone else read Aestival Tide??"

[rm.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA, No! You're one of the first people I've met who's read it and I didn't make them do it.

Do you ever wonder what the third book in the series would have been had it been The Feast of St. Nynex (as the end advertising material in >Aestival Tide says, instead of Icarus Descending?

[dorei.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I don't find you particularly unkind.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

To a given degree this may be both a product of my own self-hatred and a sense of myself that is outdated and more related to who I was in my 20s. Of course, I may also be confusing directness and impatience in myself with rudeness and maliciousness.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

I have, since I started reading you, found your particular and peculiar brand of honesty and storytelling both compelling, identificatory, and something which calls for an equally brave and exposed response in my own explorations of how to be an artist and a scholar and a storyteller in this world.

So it -- works. Whatever you're doing. The work. Or the prayer. It works, it calls for response.

(And I'm ecstatically pleased that we are friends as well, lately; I value that on a completely different level than I value your self-exposure as a live and living story. You are awesome to know.)

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

I know that I'm really new to this journal and that you've had a long history online and in fandom. I won't say that I don't care about your past but only as much as it affects you now. I read this journal because you are honest and open, intelligent and interesting and one of the most self aware people I've encountered. I know that one doesn't become an interesting person without having an interesting life. I understand the perfectionist thing but I'm also aware of how destructive it can be. Please be kinder to yourself. Unless you are a really good AI, I'm willing to bet you are human and as such *not* perfect. I don't expect perfection or even a post everyday. I marvel that you can write as much as you do but then, I know that is your job and your training. I don't expect a response to my comments instantly or at all. Do what you need to do to take care of you first. Without you, there wouldn't be your blog and that would really be a loss.

[logospilgrim.livejournal.com]

~the work is the prayer~

Indeed... Thank you for being who you are. May your work continue to be fruitful; be gentle with yourself.

*tender robed embrace*

[jetsilver (from livejournal.com)]

Your journal is one of my favourite things on the internet.

Your thoughts on grace inform some of the trickier moments in my life. I'm glad to read you every day; thank you for what you put out there.

[abnormal-apathy.livejournal.com]

This!

[irishcaelan.livejournal.com]

Gutsy, yeah, arrogant, no.

I have issues with people who feel the need to dissect intent and response and motivation and weighted worth of opinion as judged through a scholarly lens (which seriously cracks me up as distance in the moment amuses me as a construct).

You, however, bring a kind and caring heart to your observations and, perhaps, now is the time to gift it to yourself.

[austengirl.livejournal.com]

I feel like this post deserves an appropriately thoughtful and considered response, and I'm not sure I'm capable of that at the moment. But I'll do my best to convey what your words mean to me.

I appreciate whatever you bring to this space: the humour, the links, the awareness, the fannishness, the dialogue. I'm glad I found your journal, it has been one of my favourite things on the internet this year. And if it weren't for a friend's chance link to your post on the Lambda literary awards, I wouldn't have known of your stories and your worlds.

So thank you, and take care of yourself in whatever ways are necessary to be well.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Did you know I mispronounced your username for ages? My parents still ask me how my friend "Rave" is doing in NYC (they can't seem to remember your actual name for some reason).

I am glad you are doing what you need to do to take care of yourself. Thanks for sharing what you do and how you do.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Many people thought I was misspelling the French rêve for years.

And I'm trying. I may need to make another post, that's less about how I suck and a bit about how everyone else does. But tonight? I've a party to go to.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I may say more later, but having read this twice, it seems appropriate, :).

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Bravo. Thank you.

[kaffy_r]

Reading your journal has been one of the very important slaps upside the haid that I've needed when it comes to trying to break out of - or at least see out of - the norms in which I find myself. I'm a 55-year-old white liberal broad and your journal helped me understand how narrow that can make me. It's been uncomfortable, and altogether worth it. Do what you need to do. The people who come here because it's a good place to be are your guests, not your taskmasters, and I suspect that we're all cheering you on.

[temporal-witch.livejournal.com]

...the work is the prayer.

I get this, completely. I thank you for sharing yourself, and for writing out the words through the pain of typing them.

You were one of the first writers I encountered when I found TW and, subsequently, LJ, and you've made that impact, at least on one person. You've set a bar with your writing that I strive to meet, and are among a company of select few others in this regard.

I must echo hab318princess in her sentiment that you've forced me to open my eyes and examine my own assumptions about myself and the world, about how people work and why they do as they do, about what 'normal' means, both to me and to everyone else. It's been nothing but good for me, although I'd be lying if I said it was always a comfortable process. It's not meant to be, and it's through that angst (for lack of a better, more precise term) that growth and evolution has occurred. I thank you, too, for this gift.

Be well. Be safe. Be happy. ♥

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Your courage has been an example and an inspiration for me, and, in the brief time I've 'known' you, come to mean a great deal, and I'm better for it.
I'm glad that their are IRL people who love you as much as you deserve.
Peace and Love.

[sqwook.livejournal.com]

Hi, here via friendsfriends. I was just talking today with my partner about how much I admire your writing, and the kind of person you are, and how I was debating adding you as a friend even though we haven’t met. Which in light of this post may be more awkward or less than doing it earlier, but… I like to read what you have to say.

I’m sorry you’re often sad, and I’m sorry you sometimes hate yourself. I think you are smart and witty and interesting … and, hey, flawed, too, so we have that in common. (I try not to admit it about myself, as I am a perfectionist as well.)

This is your space – you do not need to entertain me or anyone else, and no one should expect immediate comments (or comments at all, though they’re welcomed if/when they come). I’m not here for a safe space. I’m here because you are real, and there is just not enough of that in the world.

So, thank you for it all, and it’s truly wonderful that you’ve figured out some of the changes that need to be made to have this work for you on your terms.

[sanat.livejournal.com]

I already considered you one of the more mindful people I read regularly. It does seem to beget itself increasingly, which seems taxing, but noble nonetheless.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

It is a weirdly slippery slope, that perhaps proves that too much of anything is eventually a poison. But, I also cannot be sure of that, that that suspicion is not fear speaking, or privilege, and that is very hard. A lack of certitude is the misery of the modern world though. At least mine's about something, at least as far as I'm concerned.

[rufus.livejournal.com]

If you read it, I ask you not to hold it against me.

I loved reive; i followed you here because I didn't want to lose track of that voice.

you are, in very many ways, a great solace. It's reassuring knowing I'm not the only one in the world with strong feelings about things like Appropriate Dress for the Theater. (Yes, I know that one gets you in trouble all the time. I'll sit on that stoop with you. In a dress.)

Meanwhile: being able to be "off" is vital, vital thing, and a little unplugging can go a long way. I hope your quest for space is a successful one.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

I find this fascinating in that my first introduction to you was the costuming panel we shared at Gallifrey, rather than via the Internet.

Tho' I shall say I find your online voice to be quite true to how I view your in-person voice.

Make of that what you will.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's good to hear. I think people are mostly like "but you're so goofy," but then they probably haven't heard me be speech-y on panels.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

*hugs you*

Having a safe place is why most of my LJ is friends locked. I feel safer knowing I can kick someone out if they cross a line. Boundaries are very important to me...

And yeah, giving yourself the option to step away is huge. That's something I don't do very well (my LJ notifications come through to my blackberry!). Someday, I'll have to work on that...

Would you mind if I read your other LJ?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Me too with the blackberry, although NOT ANYMORE.

Feel free, but it's... jeez, I was REALLY young and REALLY different.

[p-m-cryan.livejournal.com]

Good on you. Really and truly.

I owe you off-journal e-mail.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And that's right. I know you've mentioned such in passing periodically. I know you're swamped as a rule too, but drop me a line whenever it's convenient.

[only-sound.livejournal.com]

I know this post is a lot deeper than all that, but are your Reive of "A Certain Education"? Because then it's strange how I still remember that name and how I didn't know that until now.

Regardless, take care of yourself.

[rm.livejournal.com]

WOW.

I am.

It's lost on the Internet and may survive on a dead harddrive I need to excavate, unless a copy of it lives on your computer, in which case I'm going to be begging and pleading in a moment.

[xpioti.livejournal.com]

Good on ya. FWIW, even your fuck ups are fascinating -- to me, if nobody else. *wry smile* I enjoy reading your LJ because of the wonderful way you use the language, rather than abuse it; it's a happy thing, for me, because I love languages. :) I also enjoy how you're so very real, but in an almost larger-than-life way. You share the doing, seeing, tasting, touching, and feeling in a way that, frankly, few people manage.

Good on ya.