Thursday, April 24, 2008

sex type thang

I'm sitting here right now in a hotel room in Salt Lake City thinking of Jenn and feeling warm little waves of pleasure wash over my vagina and whole body. I'm not touching myself (yet) in any way, but I am flexing my muscles (or are they flexing in reaction?) down there a little in an attempt to maximize these subtle sensations. It seems these awesome sensations are a regular thing now for me. At least once a day (sometimes many more) they randomly descend upon me, usually when I'm sitting for some reason. Fucking awesome having a vagina!

On the other hand, I still haven't achieved full-on orgasm. I'm 15 months out from surgery. Jenn and I have regular sex and it's spectacular sex, believe me. I love our sex life and this lack of orgasm on my part is no fault of Jenn's. And I'm fully sensate down there, I believe (although I have nothing to really compare it to).

It's a purely mental thing, me thinks. My dumb-ass mind simply hasn't been able to re-map the neural pathways to the deep core pleasure centers. That and or my stubborn mind has thrown up some invisible walls that I just haven't figured out how to scale yet. After all, I have no real idea what a full-on orgasm as a post-op transsexual should feel like and so perhaps my logical brain, having no clear instructions, goes into shut down mode. Who knows. It's frustrating to say the least, but I'm confident I'll get there (with Jenn's help, of course :-). These daily mini-orgasmic sensations seem to be a portent to this; they are my mind's wet dreams....

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

call out to all trans librarians and library employees

I've felt for a while now that having some sort of community of interest around being trans and working in a library environment could be a great thing. Lately hearing from a couple others has spurred me to take more direct action.

Any other trans librarians and library workers out there interested in such an endeavor? If so, let me know via this blog or e-mail (danahlongley at yahoo or on Facebook). Of course, very few people read this blog, so how can we reach a broader audience?

Perhaps even someday get our own roundtable at ALA (although I'm not a member at present). I know there's a GLBT roundtable at ALA already, but as usual, my guess is that we who fall into the T part get the usual shaft of being lowest on that totem pole and so our interests take a back back seat to the G and L folks.

I have no idea how many of us there are out there, but if we got enough interest, perhaps it could start simple with a Ning and or Facebook community group, or something? Perhaps such a thing already exists? I am, I must admit, a bit of a hermit and whole movements often escape my notice... :-)

Sunday, April 20, 2008

catch all catch up

Been busy with lots of work and personal stuff lately, but here's a summary of where my mind's at presently.

Personal stuff:

Just got back from a trip out out western NY; Syracuse for work stuff and Brockport for a library conference. The SUNY Brockport campus is very nice. Next I'm off to Mormon country (Salt Lake City) on Wednesday for another library conference. Gotta get some more travel conditioner!

Politics:
HC just keeps showing her true, do-anything-to-get-elected mentality as time goes on and my choice to support Obama seems more and more right to me. Despite his statements being taken way out of context and blown waaaayyyy out of proportion, he's managed to stay calm and collected and sort of above the fray (as much as you can be at this level of politics. You know Obama is the right choice when the GOP starts doing everything in their dirty playbook to get Hilary the nomination.

Trans stuff:
I think I'm finally getting to a point at work where I don't have to think about people reacting adversely to my gender expression. Certainly I think most know I'm trans at this point, but I don't think many care. I do my job and do it well.

On the other hand, I think it does hinder things socially for me. I am not accepted into male spaces, such as joining football pools or discussing sports, nor in most blended environments such as going out for beers, etc., and I'm not fully accepted into female spaces either. I think there is an unconscious, culturally-driven perception of us as coming from male privilege and intruding into spaces where our presence makes people feel uncomfortable.

I'm not saying these things are conscious in most, nor do all exhibit them. But I do feel that when I walk into a social situation people tend to get more quiet and or defensive. I think it may have something to do with not knowing how to address me. And since pronouns are so heavily relied on in our language, not knowing can be a real conversation killer.

I'm not sure if any of this makes sense or is just a projection of my own lingering insecurities and communication shortcomings, but it's how I feel sometimes. But things are getting better, just far more slowly than I can stand sometimes.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

current addictions/time wasters

  • City of Heroes/City of Villains - totally engrossing MMORG - Jenn vents that I spend waaayyy too much time on this...
  • Twitter - yup, I've jumped on the mini-blog bandwagon for some unknown reason...
  • Once Soundtrack - great little movie and awesome music from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.
  • Buffy Between the Lines - podcasts of well-crafted, fan-created Buffy the Vampire Slayer audio drama. Hours and hours of Buffy adventures on my iPod!
  • CD Ripping - one last batch of CDs left to get the bulk of my 1000+ music collection onto my computer!!!!!

Friday, April 04, 2008

LGBT@NYPL

The New York Public Library has just launched a new online resource for LGBT history and studies:
LGBT@NYPL

This great resource includes access to the rich archival resources at NYPL, a blog, photographs, contact info for an expert at NYPL in this discipline, and more that I haven't had time to explore yet.

Needless to say...cool!