Friday, December 25, 2009

Thank you

I just want to take a moment and thank the many people who share amazing gifts with me. Gifts like love, listening, and treating me like a real person who is human and many times makes awful mistakes, yet forgive me for such failings. I have been especially thankful for the lovely conversations I have had this past week with wonderful people about art, books, food and music, with very little about the state of trans activism. Thank you for this break.




Wednesday, December 23, 2009

When cats are forced to celebrate holidays


Graham is thinking about escape, but this holiday shirt will give him away on the streets. At least it's not an ugly Christmas sweater.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Sunset on Snow Day


 
 

Snow Day

Means loading up the breadmaker for fresh loaf of honey wheat bread, laundry, and puttering... lots of puttering. I am starting my two vacation, this will be my first consecutive two weeks off without homework, being at a residency for school, or overlapping with a conference since 2007. I have plans, probably more than I have time for all that I want to do, but it will be delicious not to be trying to keep all the balls in the air for a two weeks.

I will be going to Vermont for a few days to visit friends, going out to a few clubs and parties, and organizing my home office. I never really did organize my office when we moved, I just kind of dumped everything on the desk. So its time to toss, archive, file, and clear off some surfaces.

Here is a shot of Goddard's Campus from February 2007

I also just got a new lens for my old school film camera - Nikon N70. I am going to go buy some film (do they still sell film?) this week and go out and about to do some shooting. Of course I will have to get it developed at CVS or something, but it will be fun to use the camera anyways.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Season's Greetings from the White House

I went to the post office box this morning to get MTPC's mail and along with some returned fund raising letters was this heavy cream colored envelop embossed with "The White House." Inside was a Season's Greetings Card from Barack and Michelle Obama... Okay I swooned just a little as it was addressed to me. I made it onto the "list" now maybe I will be invited to one of those state dinners... as transgender person it would be unwise for me to crash one.


 
 

Sunday, December 13, 2009

More pics from San Fran

I know its been almost week since I went, but I got the rest of the photos uploaded and wanted to share. Overall, I had good time in San Francisco, but I am not sure if I would want to live there. There are three different bus/subway lines that cross over Oakland and San Fran and they all require a different pass or exact change, that is a bit crazy.

 


I did have lunch with the only other queer from my high school (that is out) and it was fantastic to see him. We met in the Castro for sushi. He is quite funny and very sweet, hopefully we will catch up when he is back in Mass for Xmas with his family. I totally missed him playing though (he is still a musician)  as I had already committed to going to K'vetch with folks from the Equality Federation board meeting I was attending.

 
 
 

K'vetch was a throw back for me. There were some folks that read that I had read at Gender Crash so long ago and much like Gender Crash was there was the good, the bad, and wow open mic pieces.
On my last day of sightseeing before the board meeting I went to the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art.


 
 
 
 

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Where am I today...



I am at Google's office in Cambridge learning about all their free products for non-profits. Hopefully, I will get some new tools for organizing MTPC and my work. This is timely as I am currently (or really never ending) drowning in emails and phone calls to return. I currently use many google products including having a phone that is google enabled.

At lunchtime, I was at the State House at the Commonwealth Seminar end of the year event with the keynote from Gov. Deval Patrick. The Commonwealth Seminar provides legislative training, networking opportunities with top policymakers, and public service job opportunities for diverse leaders in Massachusetts. I hope to build a relationship with this organization in order to get transgender folks into the trainings, myself included.

Where will I be tomorrow? Hopefully in my office catching up on all those emails and phone calls.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

I took off for the west coast and encountered an orange toe biting furball

I am in San Fransisco, technically for my third time, but my first trip was for less than 36 hours and my second - I spent really in Oakland, in a hotel conference room and only ate dinner in San Fran on my way to the airport. This time I have two days to site see and then I will be stuck in a hotel conference room. So today, the big plan was to get to the Golden Gate Bridge, by public transit. That was a feat in itself, the maps at the stations - not so helpful and the tour books gave suggested public transit routes, but I felt like I was going in circles until I took out my phone with GPS.

Let me tell you I fell in love with my phone all over again, I put in my destination and hit the directions on transit and BAM! bus routes right from where I was standing... told me which bus to get on, what bus to change to about how long each ride would take. I got myself all over the place with that handy GPS and google maps feature, even back to where I a staying in Oakland. Granted, I missed my bus stop by 4 blocks, but that was my fault, I couldn't see the street signs in the dark.

So for $12 Bart fare and $2 bus ride I went to from Oakland to Golden Gate Bridge, to Russian Hill, to Chinatown, to Union Square, and back to Oakland. Cheaper than a rental car or zip car. I even managed to find a Trader Joe's along the way and pick up some dried mango and chocolate.

Some shots from today

 
 
 
 
 
 

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Seriously... it was Wednesday an hour ago

I totally let this week slip away. I am leaving for San Fransisco in about 12 hours and I still needed to do laundry, pack, organize, figure out where I am going and how I am going to get around while I am there... oh yeah breathe. Not to mention some transphobic BS blowing up just before I left the office that required some attention and time... breathe.

Fred is beside himself with the sight of my bag packed, pacing, chirping, and pushing things over. He is more bonded to me... for this cat, I am his person.



I hope he doesn't act up and tear up the place while I am gone.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

World AIDS Day 2009


I attended the Medicine Wheel at the Cyclorama earlier this evening with a friend who had never been before. It seemed so bright in there this year in past years I remember it feeling dimly lit which made the space seem more intimate. The space feeling larger and brighter was probably because the installation consisted of quite a bit of black ink block prints on white paper. It still quieted my heart to be there.

My favorite cousin died of AIDS during what I call the first wave, the early years. He was the older one, probably 17 when the rest of cousins were still under 10 years old. I didn't find out he had died until almost ten years after his death. No one ever talked about him being gay, let alone be dying of some new virus. It wasn't until his father's funeral, my uncle, did we find out, in quiet whispers in the back room of the funeral parlor, that he was gay and that he had died in the 80's of that "gay disease" - like it was dirty secret.



What is the dirty secret that needs to be told is the number of transgender people, most being transgender women, that have died of AIDS or who are living with HIV, but we never hear about them. Mostly, because that data is wrapped up in with the same data collected for those labeled MSM - Men who have sex with men. Not exactly the label I would use for someone who is MTF, not even close. As for FTM's well we are almost completely invisible, yet I keeping meeting FTMs who are living with HIV more and more. 

AIDS is still killing us.