Big bad ugly word

Divorce: total separation; disunion

My mother called to tell me it's official. My mom and my step-dad are getting divorced. They've been separated since whenever the last time I posted and said she told me that "lovely" piece of news in October? Probably since before then, realistically they've been separated since my stepdad started his acting studio in San Francisco two years ago. But my mom got her fancy job and doesn't need him anymore... It's probably for the best, they don't really make each other happy anymore but I really just feel like screaming at them or forcing them to reminisce with me all the good times we had since they've been together. Maybe that's why I need photographs of everyone around me all the time. I don't want to forget. They've been together since I was four-and-a-half, maybe five. Which means they were together for sixteen years. And contrary to my mother's current beliefs, it wasn't all bad. A lot of it was excellent. A lot of it we were a perfectly normal, well normal would be stretching it, but we were fucking happy. Not all the time of course, but we were a family. A family that had season tickets to our hometown college basketball teams (women's and men's), went to opening night of many a play that my stepfather directed, or acted in, went to my brother's acting and sporting events and even my (miserable) attempts at acting and sports (Basketball was the family sport and if you didn't play you recorded on video from the stands... aka my mother's post at most games). I only started playing because I wanted to be around my stepdad and stepbrother more often. My stepfather, counter to what my mother and her friends will say, is a good man. Hard to get along with or even get to know, but a good man. He was at every birthday and every performance I ever had. I've told you all this before but for some reason my mom still forgets. Frankly I feel sick. You don't just forget the most important events of your daughter's life. You don't forget the last sixteen or seventeen of yours? Do you? Maybe divorces don't all take place because of all the shit that went wrong. It's that you forget everything that went right. 

Wordpress?

Created a WordPress, debating on rolling over my blogging to there.. what do you all think?

Check it out http://daytodaydreamer.wordpress.com/

Andrea Gibson!

One of my favorite Andrea Gibson quotes from her poem Swing-Set:
"Sir! Sir! Do you realize this is the ladies room?!"
"Yes, ma'am, I do. It's just I didn't feel comfortable sticking this tampon up my penis in the men's room."

And if you haven't heard of Andrea Gibson before...  Go immediately to Youtube and watch any of her videos. Then proceed straight to Amazon or wherever and buy a copy of her book "Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns." Who wouldn't want to buy a book with that title?!

Mississippi teens denied Prom

I don't know who reads this blog but if I have any chance of helping this high school get the best Prom in Mississippi history I'm all for trying. I never went to Prom, I left the traditional high school after my freshman year. But Constance McMillan just wants to go to her high school prom in a tux with her girlfriend... It's 2010 people! We should be beyond this. But I am ranting.

An amazing person and fierce advocate, Robin McGehee, would love to organize a kick-ass event for Constance but doesn't know how to get in touch with her. If you know how or know someone who might know how... pass along the video!

Thank you

Reminder to Myself

Just a quick reminder to myself at 215am this fine Monday morning...

Write it down

Read

Listen

Speak

and please don't forget to fill up on gas before you attempt a drive home from D.C. again.


The End.


Oh and P.S.

I may begin to like D.C. after all? As long as I don't have to drive.
Thanks for an awesome weekend DC Kings, Andrea Gibson (both times I saw her this weekend), Capturing Fire (Queer Spoken Word awesomeness and all the poets who performed there, Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution (a few of these awesome poets spoke tonight) and my beautiful, sexy amazing girlfriend who I may or may not have fucked on the drive home Friday night after the Kings show.

Oh and thanks AAA driver who drove 50 miles to save my sorry ass who didn't want to get gas at the creepy gas station and the police officer who stopped before nice AAA guy got to me.

All around amazing, mind blowing, rejuvenating weekend that I really really needed.

the three things I know

I wrote a short piece for The New Civil Rights Movement which you can read HERE. Check it out, leave a comment, tell them you want more?

Have a wonderful Friday.
I for one, have to leave the house at 7am to go to a stream assessment training.
It's going to be F*ing cold.
That's all I have to say.
Goodnight.

Learning New Skills

I find it interesting that so many ftms and butch women just grew up knowing how to build, how to play sports, how to talk tough and how to fall off a skateboard going 20mph down a hill, and then get back up and try again. In fact, I've never had the guts to just jump on a skateboard to go down a hill that fast in the first place, for fear of the previous scenario. I am learning though. I learn to take more risks in my life, I've learned the difference between a phillips and a flathead which is more than I can say for myself five years ago. I even built some shelves, and I've become increasingly better at identifying tools, and following my boss' directions for construction projects. I now rarely have to ask when looking for tools what said tool might look like. This is a start, for me. When I was a kid I was rarely called upon to help my dad, or play with tools, because in all honesty, he knew less than I know now. Don't get me wrong, I had no idea how to do stereotypically girly things either. My mother never wore more than colored chapstick until she met my stepfather and if she did, I was not playing around in her makeup. Everything I learned about how to be a "girl" was from friends. I learned how to chase after boys by observing the girls in my elementary school that got the guys to be "friends" with them. At least I think that's what I thought was going on. I thought that was the only way to be friends with guys. I learned how to apply eyeliner in my eighth grade spanish class from a gorgeous brunette with long black hair who sat behind me.
I think that there should be classes for people like me. We need classes to learn how to do the things we've always wanted to do. I wanted to learn how to fix my car but got frustrated with my dad because I didn't feel he was an expert on the subject, I didn't want help from my ex-boyfriend, now best friend because I felt I should already know this stuff and felt to "girly" asking for help. Now I observe and slowly learn to do projects on my own. I watch the guys at work and ask questions. Maybe that's the key, you have to pay enough attention so that they want to teach you.

Now that I've changed the oil on one of the work trucks and the van I think I could handle my own car. I can recognize brake lines, brake pads and filters. I can change the oil and air filters, check all the fluids, rotate the tires, and put a vehicle on a lift. And this is all one giant step up from a month ago when all I knew about my car was that it's a manual transmission and I could check the oil, and add water/oil if I remembered to check.

I wish I would have asked more questions earlier, but I think I've finally taken my training wheels off of my life. I moved across country on my own and I'm learning to ask questions I never had the courage to before. The more knowledge I have, the more knowledge I want, the more knowledge I receive.

Or, you know, something along those lines. Was that even what this blog was about?




Currently Reading: Loose End by Ivan E. Coyote

Wrong Bathroom!

I had a very much needed weekend in hot hot hot Arizona for my godmother's wedding. I hadn't seen any of my friends from home and really needed some good long hugs, tattoo shops, singing and dancing. They're part of me, part of my family, even if they're not blood. 

My flight back with Delta was cancelled four or five times and due to weather they weren't answering their phones, or so their automated answer system said. I got to the airport at 630am and then stood in line for two hours with a hundred or so other people whose tickets had also been cancelled. By the time I had gotten to the front of the line I had missed the last flight they had automatically booked me on so they gave me a ticket on another airline in another terminal but it was a nonstop flight and everything finally went smoothly. 

When I finally landed at BWI I stopped to use the restroom on the way to my car. I was tired and cranky from the long day and walked into the Women's restroom like I've done a thousand times before. I've gotten weird looks before, but this woman yelled at me from outside the restroom 

"You're in the wrong bathroom! Sir, you're in the wrong bathroom! Hello! That's the ladies room!" 

I turned around, "Yes, I know that, thank you."

"Oh My Gosh, I am Sooo sorry... it was the hat, from the back..." etc etc etc

I don't know what it is, but that was the first time I'd been called out in a restroom before. This happened all weekend. I couldn't get a drink at the restaurant the night before the wedding because they thought I was a fifteen-year-old boy. I do have two months until I turn twenty-one, but it still makes me laugh.  Right before I got on my flight the guy at the frozen yogurt counter did the "SirMam" as did the guy at the coffee shop. I wasn't even wearing a binder... maybe if I had been they would have stuck with Sir? Of course I probably would have been kicked out of the restroom too.
Such is my life :)