The results of allergy testings

Here is what I am allergic to:
Leather articles (chrome-tanning leather process)
Bleaching agents
Phospate containing detergents
Matchheads
Hide glues
Brushless shaving cream
Chemical surgical catgut
(and my personal favourite)
Green felt (as the stuff on gambling or pool tables)

How weird is that?
Apparently thought this list is not as random as you may think - the common agent that all of these have in common with one another is a chemical called: potassium Dichromate. My reaction to the allergens on my back containing this chemical were through the charts and were all eczema reactions.
So there you go kids.
I have to go buy non-leather shoes, stop using bleach and get rid of my green felt sheets.
Oh, also I have to get rid of all my socks and buy new ones since the chemical can not be removed by washing and sweating puts it into the fabric.
And the other weird thing - I have to bathe my feet in steeped black tea two nights a week to help remove the chemical and allow my feet to perspire less.
Crazy talk if you ask me.

Allergy Testing Fun! (with illustrations)

Flicker of the future

It is a strange world to live in when you get the bravery to do something very important, to open up the lines of communication, to be told by people that they support you - only to find out that when the pressure is on that they chicken out.
Specfically I am referring to my aunt who is hosting christmas this year. She has been a very supportive Aunt/Mother figure to my sisters and has helped them out a great deal with their growth both spiritually and emotionally.
However, now that I have come out to the whole family and am in a committed relationship this has created a new problem: that I have come out and am in a relationship. I guess everyone is okay with my being gay as long as they don't have to be reminded more than my presence.
My Aunt was asking my sisters about Christmas - saying that I was invited but that Monster Squad was not. That it was too early for him to be there, that it would be too upsetting for some people, that the timing was just not right.
My sister was correct when she said that I probably would not show up without my boyfriend. It is not that I would not go without him (well if I liked my family and was talking to my parents that is), but that I want an invitation to be extended to him. He is a very big, very important part of my life and for the two of us to be treated like second class citizens is unacceptable.
His sister invited me to thanksgiving, I went, I was nervous meeting the whole family but I did it. It was lovely, his parents are okay with the relationship and both his siblings are very supportive. So it bothers me that on the other side of the coin that my relationship with my family is so strained and weird.
The thing that bothers me the most is that my Aunt and Uncle are obviously afraid of my grandmother and the rest of the family and having to admit that their position of certain things does not reflect the moral majority within the family. That kind of wishy washy-ness bugs me. It means that they are hypocrites in my opinion.

I Look Like A Rapist

Last weekend I was going down to the laundry room to do the obvious.
In the elevator with me was a woman who was also going to do laundry.
We entered the laundry room to find that only one machine was available.
I jokingly said "Arm wrestle you for it" to which the girls eyes got wider and she said with a bit of nervousness - "What?"
I realized that I had made an unfunny so I tried to clear up the mess by saying: "I will arm wrestle you for the machine - you know HA HA!"
She began to look panicked! She started to back away and said "No you go ahead"
I realized that she was afraid of me.
I asked her if she was sure and she said she was and then she fled.
I have no idea what she thought was going on, but the way she ran away from the laundry room made me think that she suspected that something was going to happen. That I was going to brutalize her or rape her kind of annoys me.
I don't think that any woman would really be afraid of me in that format, but this girl was terrified of me.
I saw her later that day in the elevator again and she would not look at me and she was doing her best to become invisible in the corner.
Tsk tsk. Honestly, if I was going to rape someone it would not even be her.