Wednesday, May 24, 2006

horning in on my territory

Some new neighbors just moved in next door. Wow they are a smelly, horny bunch. At least they're vegetarians...

This one was mooing up a storm and almost charged us as I was trying to get a close-up. I think he may have smelled all the leather clothing I have hanging in my closet and wants it back for his patchy flank... Emmitt almost charged back (my brave 'lil protector!). He ended up sticking his nose against the electrified fence and getting a good singe instead. Here is what he thinks of the new neighbors... All in all, these gentile creatures, while they have taken over my beloved back woods and deprived me of easy access to leisurely wooded jaunts, are quite fascinating. They move around a lot more than the cows down the road and there is just something mesmerizing about those horns; I almost feel like I've wandered onto the plains of the Serengeti and am watching a herd of free roaming wildebeest. The only difference is that those critters have curvier horns and darker hides. Luckily, I haven't heard much nighttime mooing yet.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

past tense penance

I am going to preface this post by stating categorically that this is not meant to be any sort of relationship self-help or advice thing for others - I am no more qualified for that than any other shmo off the street - it's merely a contemplation and analysis of my own circumstances...

I've been examining all the relationships I've had in the past lately in the desire to avoid the pitfalls and destructive patterns I exhibited that may have played a part in dooming those relationships. My current relationship certainly feels far stronger and deeper than any I experienced previously, and I intend to do everything I can to keep it that way.

Having the dark shadow of my "gender secret" no longer hanging menacingly over me changes the dynamics radically. The thick walls I had to put up in the past to protect that secret are no longer there and I believe Jenn fully accepts and loves me for who I am, not what I am. And I believe this circumstance has also allowed me to fully accept Jenn into my heart and being, something I never felt I could do in the past. And I know I've said this before and I also know that it sounds somewhat self-helpish in an annoyingly smug way, but I believe you can only truly accept someone else into your heart after you've accepted yourself.

It's the ideals of truth and self-acceptance at its root. I'm no longer afraid of exposing my weaknesses and faults (and I have many) to her and I hope she feels the same way. There is something absolutely freeing and exhilarating in letting someone through that door we all normally keep tightly locked that hides our nasty habits and short-comings and irrational fears. So, for instance, while I still fight strenuously to keep the farts away from our more intimate moments, I'm no longer mortified when they do occasionally slip through. And I'm actually proud to show off my "still-under-construction-and-normally-self-conscious" body to her (lol!). And I will try my best to share my darkest fears with her (funny - I just remembered that was a conversation we had just the other night!).

I have also in the past had a habit (as I think most of us instinctively do) to start taking for granted parts of the relationship once it reaches a certain age. For example, common aspects to drop out of a relationship or at least diminish after a while are the romance and the sex. While Jenn and I are still too early along for that to even come into play, I will try and keep this in mind and fight hard to always keep those and all aspects of our relationship fresh and creative. And my guess is that it can often just be a little gesture or action or word that can help with this, if done on a regular basis, and if made from the heart.

I've also had an inclination in the past to avoid conflict or argument at any cost, often to the detriment of communication and resulting in the building up of resentment on both sides. This one may be the hardest for me to overcome since I believe it is hardwired into our brains and nervous systems to avoid decisions which will result in pain. Up to now, I've been a master of this behavior; keeping all my feelings bottled up inside. It's what my family has practiced almost religiously for as long as I can remember. Again, Jenn and I are not far enough along for this to have arisen between us yet (and we're also I think comfortable enough with each other already to share our feelings) though. Hopefully acknowledging this potential problem will help me identify it going forward. No one seeks out conflict (not if they are sane), but I think sharing all your thoughts and concerns with your partner is essential to a healthy, trusting relationship and easing any potential tensions before they grow into actual problems.

So that's my confession for today, padre. Now just say a couple hail mary's and tell me what my penance is. Sorry, this last part was just a vestige of my mostly forgotten catholic past bubbling up with the rest of my distant and mostly better left forgotten past. It's usually hard to escape your past and your upbringing - but not impossible as the life of any relatively happy transsexual can attest to.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

civil liberties wars: roll call of the wounded

Even though my last post described my often allergic reaction to any math-based problems, I think it's time we took a little survey of just what the administration and republican-led congress have been up to on the civil liberties front recently. In the end, is there anything more important than civil liberties? If you think security is more important then just what exactly is that security defending?

  • Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment TO THE CONSTITUTION: these right wing yahoos want to amend the foundational document for our ideally all-inclusive democracy and our country, as well as detract from states' rights, in order to deny people who might be of the same gender and love one another the same basic rights their hetero neighbors all enjoy by default? Can you say "how to create a divisive and controversial distraction away from dismal poll numbers and legislative failure?" While we're at it, why don't we also prevent all convicted, atheist, mentally-challenged and left-handed freaks from getting married! Let's also throw into that list anyone who works in Hollywood or that believes in evolution or that speaks french or that isn't christian...'nuf said?
  • Spying and Privacy: let's see, our all-seeing government can now "listen in" on lawyer-client conversations, phone and e-mail messages from any citizen, and they can find out what books we have been reading and what stores we have shopped at. Hell, they can even track the movements of our cars and our persons via cell phone "pinging" archives.
  • Dissent and Right to Address Grievances to Government: protest groups are now routinely spied on and infiltrated by various local, state and federal government entities. In addition, protest permits are more and more limited and protest sites are out-of-the-way and often inside fucking cages!
  • Due Process/Right to a trial by jury: any citizen can now be designated an "enemy combatant" or "terrorist" based on the opinion just the president with no judicial oversight and denied the right of a speedy trial or even legal representation and detained indefinitely. Anyone can basically be "disappeared" on the president's say so. And then they can be flown out of the country to some nation that permits torture...
  • Right to die with dignity: just look at the fiasco of the poor brain-dead Terri Shaivo in florida and the government's struggle to overturn Oregon's Right to Die Act and you can see how the government is trying to trample on this basic human right.

I wonder who's winning this essential war at the moment?...certainly not those on the side of stronger civil liberties. To sacrifice ANY basic liberty or human right for the sake of a never achievable guarantee of safety and security is to live only with fear; in other words, to not live at all.

Monday, May 15, 2006

anti-post

I haven't been posting much lately for several reasons:
  1. I'm head over heels in love and as a result my brain has pretty much turned to mush; occupied 24-7 with smiley-thoughts of sleeping peacefully against my lover, or spending an entire day in bed with her, or kissing her lips in a flurry of passion, or relaxing together as we picnic amidst a giant field of beautiful wildflowers and with a vista that would rival any, or serenading her with my brilliant poetry (insert laugh here!) and or guitar work, or just looking deep into her eyes and seeing how much she loves me back. Haha - 'nuff said? On the upside, I've never been so happy in my life, despite that fact that this nagging geography between us is a constant reminder that I can't (yet) indulge in any of the above activities with her on a daily basis!
  2. I've been sick last few days. Got a nasty cold (thanks for the get-well beautiful flowers babe!!!) that I am still recovering from.
  3. Work has been crazy-hectic lately and so often when I get home the last thing I want to do is spend more time staring at a computer screen...

But as always, I will try to keep things up here so that I can continue to harangue the mass [reality: probably less than 10?!!] of faithful readers of this blog. I have come to understand that my output on here is directly proportional to the amount of effort required, which is itself defined by a wave pattern of the ups and downs of my life. In other words, when I am most happy, it takes more effort for me to muster the energy to rant and hence I don't post as much.

Here's a little formula that may explain it better to the numerically-oriented: O = e2 + (h / t)

where O is my output, e is the square of required effort, h is level of happiness and t is time available. Can you tell I myself am serverly numerically-challenged?

I'm now in the midst of a bitter court battle to get a law passed providing equal rights protections to those such as myself who struggle with the numerative sciences. My proposed protections include providing easy-to-use calculators for use at all public venues such as restaurants (wouldn't that make figuring out the tip so much easier!!!) and cabs, creating a "number-free" zone where we could feel free of the stressful perplexities of math calculations, and the outlawing of all math-based discrimination, such as that underlying our existing education and business institutions. Vive la d'anti-nombre révolution!!!

Guess I'm in a trough blog-wise at this point, but that'll change, I assure you. Till then, I invite you to peruse the other excellent blogs listed on the left side of this page, especially dooce.com, which I read religiously...

Friday, May 05, 2006

"national day of prayer" nonsense

I'm not sure where to start in on this thinly-veiled, evangelical-run travesty being foisted on the American people under the guise of generic god-ness. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against religious faith, except when it is shoved down my throat by groups that think they are better than everyone else. I will look past, for the moment, that such an almost-government-sponsored/sanctioned (it was created by an act of congress in the 1952 and given an official calendar home on May 4th in 1988) and taxpayer-funded "holiday" is a direct affront/attack on myself and other "non-believers."

But let's take a closer look at what exactly this "National Day" is. This quote is taken directly from the official website of the "National Day of Prayer" (emphases below are my own):

Mission: "The National Day of Prayer Task Force's mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the five centers of power: Church, Education, Family, Government and Media. <http://www.ndptf.org/about/index_5.cfm>

This is from the volunteer application form on that site:

"A volunteer must be an evangelical Christian who has a personal relationship with Christ." <http://www.ndptf.org/profile/profile.cfm?blnCoordinator=1&redirectURL=5&amp;amp;amp;amp;mode=1&function=&entity=0>

One more tidbit from this "official" web site FAQ:

"The Chairman is Mrs. Shirley Dobson...Though Mrs. Dobson is married to Focus on the Family board chairman and founder Dr. James Dobson, the NDP Task Force is a separate organization. It is housed in the Focus on the Family headquarters for convenience" <http://www.ndptf.org/about/index_13.cfm>

Ahhh, so now, rather than it being a generic religious holiday, it's actually designed as a tool for evangelical christians to spread and promote their own religious beliefs. And if you are unfamiliar with James Dobson and Focus on the Family, here is a refresher course on their widespread shenanigans over the years:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/08/073923.php

Moving on, let's see what our current "illustrious Leader" has to say about this national day (emphases are mine):

"Throughout our Nation's history, our citizens have prayed and come together before God to offer Him gratitude, reflect on His will, seek His aid, and respond to His grace. On this National Day of Prayer, we thank God for His many blessings and His care of our country."
-from Bush's May 3, 2006 proclamation (
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060503-14.html)

That's much clearer. Obviously, you should also believe that god is a man in order to take part...

For a good article discussing the Bush administration's use of religion in the political realm take a look at this article from 2005:
http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=17

In the meantime, maybe I'll send some of my hopes out into the chaos that is this universe for an end to all this "our country was founded on christianity" and "all must repent" bullshit being spoon fed to the American public by our elected representatives...

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Savannah sojourn

When the chance to attend the most relevant and interesting conference in distance library-dom came up a few months back I of course jumped at it. I can be a bit of a library geek if you get me in the right mood :-). Anyways, the conference took place over three days at the end of last week in the soothingly comfortable confines of a posh hotel in downtown Savannah, which I had never before been to. My rear hotel room sliding door let directly out onto a 4th floor sundeck and a clear view of the Savannah river and the beautifully constructed bridge over it. The real letdown, however, was that there was no free internet and the per day fee high speed in-room service was for wireless-capable laptops only, which my work-provided decrepit portable comp was less that adequate for! Ce la vie! I had also arranged to stay the extra friday night (at a cheaper hotel) so that I could partake of some detailed city exploration and librarian-free nightlife.

Savannah, for those who have never been there, is a bit of an anomaly. While it has touches of big city hanging around its edges, it has a definite small-town, easy-living feel to it, which I think the denizens of the city promote to keep the tourist dollars flowing. And there were lots and lots of tourists wandering around in chinos, hawaiian shorts and birkenstocks, with cameras flashing and folded up maps under their arms. In my own aimless wanderings I passed several city horse carriage, bus and trolley tour businesses that had lines going down the street half a block. The downtown area is also punctuated with a series of southern-style little grotto-like parks. These little pockets of nature really give the city flavor and served me well several times when I needed a break from hoofing about under the glaring sun.

But back to the conference. I should say right out that I have a touch of social phobia in that I can get extremely wallflowery when confronted with a room full of strangers (which in most cases for me, is most work-related social events), although this suaree was to be a little different because an old college suite-mate who I hadn't seen since graduation was attending and presenting. He was coming down from Canada with his fellow librarian wife, both of whom it was wonderful to meet. We had previously touched base and I had luckily had the forethought to let him in on the various "radical changes" that had occurred in my life since our undergrad days. Needless to say he was awesome and gracious about that issue and when we met, he and his wife put me at ease from the start. Beyond that that the conference was very informative and useful but I would never dare to bore my faithful readers with further droll details...lol.

I ducked out of the last sessions a couple hours early on friday to explore a bit of the nearby city and then, with rolling suitcase in tow, headed over to the other, cheaper, rattier hotel I had reserved (and which my employer would not pay for b/c the conference was over). And believe me it was a hole, but sufficient for my needs as a place to rest my head come late friday night. After checking in I strolled over to a cheap buffet at a nearby chinese joint and then prepared for my planned excursion to a nearby night club.

The club was the infamous Club One, famous for having drag shows that sometimes feature Lady Chablis, the feisty TG woman who was featured rather prominently in the movie version of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." Anyways, I had of course left all the materials detailing where the place was and what was happening at home, but I had managed to pass by the place in my earlier wanderings and it was only about 4 blocks from the hotel. I was under the impression that they had an industrial/goth night at the club on fridays and so had brought and donned for the evening all my dark accountrements - hehe. Alas, I was mistaken - the goth thing was the night before and I would have to settle for a drag show and dancing.

As you can imagine, I stuck out a little bit amongst the friday night club crowd - which primarily consisted of bachelorette parties and older men oogling at them and or the performers. I was wearing my sleeveless black corset top, black, above-knee length crocheted skirt, black biker boots and heavier make-up than I am used to wearing out these days. But it was still a good time when right off the bat this older guy buys me a drink and then later comes over to talk. Turns out this guy is just about insane - not in a bad way - but in a full-of-life, say anything, throw money at everything, fuck anything that moves way. lol.

So we get to talking and he asks me if I like to get high because he has a stash in his car nearby and I say yes with a qualification that it is a rare pleasure for me these days and that my acceptance of said offer will in no way lead to any sexual contact whatsoever. Dangerous move? Probably, but I was feeling a bit buzzed and confident that this guy was harmless, so I accompany him out to this brand new $40,000 slick white sports car (no idea what it was - thats how little I care about that shit) with all the options in it. It's parked right on a main street with cars drifting by regularly, but we light up one of his joints anyways right inside with the windows shut. I catch a very good high and we head back to the club. Turns out this guy has been married 3 times, has a platonic relationship with his current wife (said he hadn't had sex with her for several years but they both were free to explore elsewhere) and that he had bought the car and had just stopped by in Savannah from picking the car up on his way back to Arizona to give it to his wife as a present. This guy has a little spare cash, ya think? He even, later on in the night, off-handedly offered to give me money for my surgery - to which I reacted vehemently that that was something I had to pay for myself as much as possible. But he was a nice guy no doubt.

Through this guy's outgoing antics, I met a group of girls making up a bachelorette party. Almost all bleach blondes, and all from Atlanta. They were all quite cute and surprisingly around my age. They were shocked when I told them I was their age - they had assumed I was in the 20's, which of course, I never get tired of hearing :-))

So that's about it for the trip - the girls left for another club, the older guy had disappeared and I headed back to my hotel room. I returned to the much colder and sodden environs of upstate NY content with the results of the trip and happy that the following weekend I would be traveling down to NYC to be with mi amour...

lovebirds in black and white

"Love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams."
-Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II