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29 and holding

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

That’s right folks, I am now 29 for the first time. I will continue to turn 29 every year for the rest of my life. I plan to stay young. All I need to do is every year, just get Superman to fly backwards around the earth fast enough to reverse time. Never mind that I’d have to re-live that year for eternity. It’s a good plan. I just need to find Superman and convince him its a good idea. I should be able to talk him into it based upon my interactions with my roommate. They’re both boy scouts. Wish me luck. Hehe.

It was a good birthday. My parents, my younger sister, and my brother in law traveled up to visit over this past weekend. We went out to eat at Manny’s Mexican Seafood place. I got to wear a big, pink sombrero and enjoyed a free fried ice cream. Afterwards, enjoyed a relaxing night in front of the fire and then hung out in the hot tub at their hotel. Let me say, that’s a new level of uncomfortably awkward…swim suit in front of family members, including the sister that’s not quite comfortable with my transition. It went pretty well though. I decided to wear the one piece to avoid totally freaking out my sister.

On Saturday, we had gone to the Leinenkugels Brewery. My sister had wanted a tour and to do some tasting. While there, we were looking through their gift shop, and I came across a selection of pancake mixes. I decided to invite my family over for breakfast on Sunday, despite breakfast being offered at the hotel. It was great! I finally got to serve my family at my dining room table. We made both blueberry and apple spice pancakes. They were delicious, especially the apple spice. I think more than any gift, having my family up to visit and being able to make breakfast and enjoy it with them was the best thing I could have gotten.

After breakfast, my family headed for home. I took a nice nap on the couch, and then afterwards went down the street to another birthday celebration for a good friend of mine, Laurentia. She’s professor at the University of Wisconsin – Stout. My friend Lyle made an incredible french onion soup for all of us. It was drenched in gooey cheese and was so full of flavor. The stuff is like Lembas bread, one small bowl was enough to fill a grown man’s stomach. I really enjoyed my weekend. It was a lot of fun spending time with friends.

My week has been nice too. I took Monday and Tuesday off of work in order to work on personal projects. My friend Addison came up from Madison in order to get things moving on Genderverse.org. If you head over to visit it at some point, you’ll see that we’ve made a lot of progress. We’re not quite ready to launch the site yet, but we’re almost there. I’d say by the start of next week we’ll be ready. I’m excited to finally see us get to the point of being able to use the site. Now the intimidating part of creating content approaches. It’ll be a challenge, but it’ll be good. I recently realized that it’s been 8 years now since my initial research, and I really need to get back into the swing of things there. Research time will be a great experience.

This week has been saturated with Super Heroes like a sumo wrestler’s daiper after a big match. I’ve been reading the giant pile of comics I have sitting on my floor trying to catch up. On top of that, I received the first season of Justice League Unlimited from Netflix. It’s been fun so far. I have to say, reading a year’s worth of Wonder Woman comics is really enjoyable. You get the whole story in a nice block. I’ve now caught up with those as well as the new Batgirl series. I just began reading the Blackest Night series from issue 1. Justice League Unlimited is a lot of fun too. I really can’t get enough.

Speaking of super heroes. For my birthday, Chris got me a coffee table book called “DC Comics Covergirls“. Let me tell ya…*growl*…thems some sexy ladies in there. Chris certainly knows my taste. I’ve enjoyed paging through it so far…for the articles of course. Yes I know…they’re not real. Stop destroying my dreams!

Continuing with the super hero theme, remember me talking about picking up metal working as a hobby a few months back? Well, I’m finally making some headway there. I finally bought a set of hammers. I still need a few things before I can truly get started, but those were important. I need to get a small anvil like object yet as well as some practice materials. It’s looking to be fun though.

Also on the hobby front, I finally went to fencing last week. It’s the first time I went to fencing in like…8 months I think. I had said before that I wasn’t sure that I’d go to fencing again, but I’m glad I did. The guys in the group assessed my skill level and told me that I know my stuff. They had me put on my gear and play. I haven’t gotten to free fight in a long time. I don’t think I’ve actually gotten to at all come to think of it…not in the style I fight now. I had plenty of bouts with the olympic style sabre fencing I learned on, but that was probably 8 years ago. So it’s been a long time.

This experience was really uplifting and an incredible amount of fun. I no longer feel discouraged. In fact, they told me that if I wanted to, I could teach the basics to my roommates. I was told I knew my stuff well enough to teach others! How cool is that?!! I’m definitely going back. I’ve since purchased breast protection and neck protection. I’m just waiting for the shipment to arrive. Yay physical activity!

Completely switching gears…I’m finally starting to feel sick of being single again. It’s taken a year and a half almost. I think I’m ready to start looking again. I think that’s a good sign. Chris and I are likely heading to the twin cities this weekend, and who knows what may happen. Most likely I’ll see many a cute lady, but will be too shy to say anything. I guess I’ll have to get out of my comfort zone and stop being so shy. Wish me luck.

A quick last note before I sign off, I recently walked into a tattoo shop to see how much they cost. I’m considering getting a tattoo of the Wonder Woman symbol with rainbow banners on my right wrist. I’ve thought about a tattoo before, but I think I’m more serious about it now. I’m not sure just yet when I’ll get it done, but I think I want to.

Lastly…everyone’s favorite…the question of the blog: Do you have or have you thought about getting a tattoo? What is it of?

Tags: birthday, family, fencing, metal working, relationships, Superheroes, tattoo, Web Design
Posted in Goals, Superheroes, family | 5 Comments »

Nerf Herding

Friday, February 12th, 2010

I bought a Nerf gun. I’m such a nerd, but I still think Nerf guns are way fun. I’d never own a real gun, but for some reason, firing off little foam darts out of a plastic toy shaped like a storm trooper blaster is just a joy. I think everyone loves Nerf toys. Seriously…I think it’s a universal thing. Anyway, I’m sure I’ve been really annoying to my roommates as I run around the house shooting them in the butt with it. I have grandiose plans of having a nerf gun war this summer. How cool would that be?!!

Things have been pretty decent lately. It took me a few weeks, but I finally got better from my cold / infections. It’s nice to be able to breathe clearly all the time. No major worries about my car or money. In fact, I’ve even had a lazy weekend recently. Those are uncommon at best.

The most exciting thing that happened since my last post was my mother’s 60th Birthday. I drove home, and thankfully, this time it wasn’t a nightmarish drive through a blizzard. That was nice. Anyway, my Mother didn’t know I was heading down until a day or two beforehand. So it was a nice surprise. We all chipped in to make it a really nice birthday for her and my dad (He has a birthday a week afterwards). We got her a Kitchenaid mixer. She’s been wanting one for a while, and my sister got a great deal on one. So we all chipped in. I also gave my mom my old laptop. We were all surprised at how excited she was to get it! She was thrilled. She never spends time on the computer, and now she can whenever she wants to. I was happy to pass that on to her.

My Dad has been coveting a new monitor for his computer for quite a while. Since we couldn’t quote afford the one he wanted so much, we gave him about 100 bucks towards the monitor of his choice. He’s since bought a 28 inch flat panel and loves it. We also passed on some used surround sound speakers. So he’s all set for watching Hulu now. He loves it. It was a good visit home.

The following weekend was my lazy weekend. Saturday night, Chris came home at like…11:00 and asked me to go to the bar with him and his friend, Dave. So on a whim, I got all dolled up and went out. We met a very cool guy named Andre. Andre is a New York City Fashion designer and architect. He had recently returned from Sweden after designing and building a room in the famed Ice Hotel. He was in Eau Claire visiting some friends and had also attended a party in his honor earlier in the day that Chris had also attended. Andre seemed to really appreciate our conversation because we apparently had interesting things to say. At the end of the night, Andre gave both Chris and myself his card and gave us hugs. Several people noted that they didn’t get hugs, but we did. Apparently Andre thought we were cool. I’ve since friended him on Facebook, and Chris has been conversing with him regularly. It was a good time. Otherwise, no hottie girls hitting on me or anything…what else is new.

This weekend should be interesting. I’m going to Ruby Camp to learn how to develop websites using a technology called Ruby on Rails. Ruby is a programming language, and Rails is a platform in which developing is made faster. I’m anxious to dig in. I’ve spent time with it in the past, but never enough to actually build anything exciting.

Thursday is my first 29th birthday. hehe. Seriously, I’m not a person that worries about turning 30. Of course I say that now being that it’s a year away, but I really think my 30s will be great. My parents are coming to visit to celebrate. Otherwise, I’m not really going to do much. Birthdays have never been a huge thing for me. I mainly look forward to the time off.

I’m planning on taking the 22nd and 23rd off just so I can enjoy a couple days. My friend Addison has offered to come up on the 22nd so we can get Genderverse online. I think it’ll be nice to have a personal work day to get that project live. Then we can actually use it as a platform. Then the 23rd will be a sleep in day.

Speaking of projects, I’ve had lots of ideas floating around for my super hero story. I really need to get some of these projects and ideas moving instead of just floating around in the ether. Maybe once Genderverse is up, I can put some energy into writing. That’d be nice.

My life schedule is picking up though. So we’ll see. My plan is to start going to fencing every Wednesday now. I’m also about to start being an LGBT youth mentor again. We have our open house on the evening of my birthday. It should be good. I’ll be bringing some video games to draw in the kids. I’m looking forward to being a mentor again.

I sat down tonight with Quay, who is organizing the youth group at the community center, and we had a great talk. She shared some stories about being in the old youth group when I was mentoring before. She told me that a lot of people were sad when I left for Milwaukee back in ‘06. The group didn’t last long after I left I guess. I feel a little bad about that, but at the same time, I needed the experiences I had in Milwaukee. They really helped me grow and understand what I want better. Still, it’s heartwarming to hear that I mattered and made a difference in those kids lives.

I mentioned in my last post that I have had something on my mind lately, and that’s still the case. I’ve actually written out all of my thoughts already, but I haven’t posted it. I think it needs a few revisits and rewrites before I get it out to the world, but it’ll definitely get posted soon. It’s very personal and introspective, and I’m sure it’ll help me to get it out.

On a parting note, I’ve given thought to doing some video blogging again sometime soon. I’ve had a lot of fun, creative ideas on how to approach it. I don’t want to do it exactly like I was doing the experimental podcasts from a year ago, but I do want to have some fun with it. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.

That’s it for me this time. Here’s the question of the blog this time: Do you still play with Nerf toys? If not Nerf toys, are there any goofy, childish things that still put a smile on your face?

Tags: birthday, code camp, family, mentoring, Nerf, youth group
Posted in LGBT, family, friends | 2 Comments »

Infectious Experience

Monday, January 11th, 2010

I can easily say that so far, this new year / decade has not started well. Hopefully it’s not like the whole “woke up on the wrong side of the bed” scenario. It started with me getting sick with a head cold right on New Years Day. How wonderful…

I hate being sick. It doesn’t happen often, but for some reason I’ve been sick twice in the past 6 months. This one was worse than the last. It didn’t seem that way at first, but after five days of blowing my nose raw it was pretty obvious. Then suddenly I stopped getting better, and the awesomeness coming out of my nose turned neon yellow. So on Saturday, I went to Urgent Care to get my sinus infection diagnosed.

While I was there, the doctor informed me that my left ear had wax buildup. That’s the same ear that had blockage problems last year. So, on Sunday, I decided to try the ear wax removal drops I have and see what happens. I figured I could take care of it. Instead, the drops got stuck in my ear. I couldn’t get them out. I tried just about everything from a q-tip to jumping up and down to a blow drier to sleeping on my ear to let it drain out. Nothing worked. So all night and all day I had a blocked left ear that was kind of annoying.

So that meant today I got to go back to the doctor. How fun! This time they flushed my ear and got the offending wax out. Finally the water drained! My god what a relief. I was then informed that I had an ear infection to go along with my sinus infection. That’s wonderful. I don’t know if I’ve ever had an ear infection before.

What I found odd…my doc told me that most people complain of a big ear ache along with an ear infection like mine. I didn’t really notice. It was a little uncomfortable and the whole being deaf in one ear was annoying. Otherwise, I guess I never noticed. Makes me wonder how high my pain tolerance is. I know I don’t get headaches often and I only keep tylenol in my cabinet because someone might need it at some point. I must be weird…

So yeah, things are getting better. I should be finally breathing easy again by the end of this week. I’m sick of blowing my nose, and I’m sure my roommates and coworkers are sick of hearing it. I’m excited though…today was the first time in a while that I’ve felt truly hungry. So I made myself a big dinner, and it was fantastic!

Let’s see…let’s go backward. New Years Eve was fun. Chris and I went to our friend’s Sarah and Kit’s house. It was a great time. We played Pit and enjoyed everyone’s company. There was good food and a lot of laughs.

Christmas isn’t what it once was for my family. We didn’t do the gifts thing this year. No one could really afford it. So it was really just food and family. Don’t get me wrong, that’s great. It’s just doesn’t feel like it did when I was a kid. Plus, we do everything on Christmas Eve now since my siblings have families. I’m really the only one staying over at my parents’ house now. I miss that feeling of wonder and excitement of childhood Christmases. All things change I guess.

I did end up spending money on myself though. I bought an electric blanket. My parents had one on my bed when I was at home, and I just loved it. I haven’t regretted buying it at all so far. In fact, I’m sitting under it right now.

My family went to see Avatar, which…awesome! If you haven’t, go see it, and go see it in digital 3D. I have already gone to see it twice. I may see it a third time before it leaves theaters. Such a cool film.

I can’t forget to mention this. Right after Christmas, a great friend of both mine and Chris came to visit all the way from San Francisco, California. Her name is Lisa. She went to college with both Chris and I, and she’s the coolest hippie I know. We spent the Monday night after Christmas hanging out, catching up, sharing good food, and loving every minute of it. She is a friend I hope I stay in contact with for the rest of my life. We have such a great connection.

Lisa, Chris, and I are such kindred spirits. There are so few people that I can talk so deeply with about things that are so personal and sacred. I trust them with anything. Lisa, Chris, and I talked about something that I’ve felt for a long time. It’s this feeling…no…longing to go home. By home, I mean back to where our souls come from. This world is so mundane, so harsh, so hurtful…yet we’re here…trapped in these fleshy shells with such limited perceptions of time and space. I know a big part of me yearns to be released from my entrapment, but I know I still have things I have yet to do here. I may not know what those things are, but…I just know. Both Chris and Lisa share that feeling, and it’s nice to know that I’m not alone in feeling what I feel. I think that is a wonderful thing to share. I am so grateful to know both of them.

Let’s see…since I haven’t written since Thanksgiving really, none of my readers know of the crap I had to deal with in December. The big one was that my car’s fuel pump finally died. All of my plans for a new laptop went out the window. I had to put my moneys toward a shiny new pump to make my car run again. $700 dollars later and I got just that. My car has been running beautifully ever since.

Out of that fiasco and disappointment, I did some thinking and really decided that I really did need a new laptop. I finally decided to sell my iMac. I figured it was the only way to get the laptop that I really needed. So I went about doing that and success! I was able to sell it. I realized also that I had some software licenses on it that were also worth money that I could sell separately. I ended up coming out quite well in the deal. I got myself a shiny new fiery red Sony Vaio laptop with some nice fixins on the inside. It’s been serving me well for a couple weeks new, and I am quite happy with it. That was really my Christmas gift to myself.

So, that means…I can actually do some of the things I’ve been holding off on. Unfortunately due to my getting sick for so long, I’ve had no energy to do any of it over the duration of my time with this laptop. So, as this week progresses, I’m guessing more will get done. I’m feeling my energy come back with each day. I’ve been doing theming research for drupal. So genderverse should be set within a week. Mark my words!

I have another major post I plan on writing in the next couple days too. I have had something on my mind that I feel I really need to share. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime…I’m sore from my terrible night’s sleep last night. I’m still recovering from my infections, and I’m tired. So…yes I know it’s only 10:30pm, but I’m going to bed. Sweet dreams all!

Question of the blog: Do you ever feel like I feel about this world and experience?

Tags: Avatar, Car, computer, friends, holidays, new years, sick
Posted in family, friends, sick, spirituality | 2 Comments »

Remembering

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Marking Time

Normally I post about every two weeks. I held off on posting this time because I wanted to mark time. Today was Thanksgiving. A year ago today I was given a rude awakening by someone I loved. I also had my heart torn from me to which I’m still healing from. It was important to me to specifically remember this day…this night.

A year ago, Jenn, my ex girlfriend, abruptly broke up with me after what I thought was a beautiful relationship. She was honest and forthright when she broke it off, and for that I’m thankful. It didn’t change the hurt, but it was the decent way to do it. I’ve been thinking a lot about that night for the past year. It truly changed me. Suddenly I saw flaws in myself that I found myself shocked that I never saw before. For that reason, I felt ashamed of myself. Yes, I know we all have flaws. It’s just…finding out that you have an ego problem and talk down to people when you hate it when other people do that…it’s like a bad dream. I only hope that I’ve at least somewhat gotten past that ego. I don’t want it, and I never want to be that person.

I’m glad Jenn broke up with me for that reason alone. Now…that aside, I had something happen to me recently that made me think. Chris and I have been watching How I Met Your Mother lately. We watched the episode “Slap Bet”, and in it, Neil Patrick Harris’ character talks about what he calls an “O moment”. By that he means that when you’re dating someone, and they do something that makes you go “Ohhhhh….” and think “yeah, this isn’t going to work.” For Jenn, realizing my ego existed was her O moment. She told me so and even referenced the episode of HIMYM during the breakup. I hadn’t seen the episode at the time. I found it interesting that I saw the episode about a year after she decided to break if off.

I have a problem with this concept of “O moments”. Sure we have issues with the people we date, but there should never really be just one thing that does it in, unless it’s something serious, like murder, rape, etc. She couldn’t a. get passed my ego at the time, b. ever mention it to me and c. work with me on my own quest to change. Instead she wanted to just dump me. To me that says that she wasn’t worth my time. If she couldn’t accept me at my worst, then she didn’t deserve me at my best.

One year later, I can definitely say I’m over her. I’m happy that she broke up with me now. I think it was good for me to learn my faults. I also think in the long run, I probably wouldn’t have been happy with her. So it’s all for the best. I really don’t know when I will date again. While I may be over Jenn, I still have a lot to work on as far as my own issues go. I’m sure that will be a life long journey. I’m in no rush, and being in a smaller city, I don’t have as many opportunities to date. Who knows, but I’m sure I’ll write about it when it happens.

Day of Rememberance

Yup, lot of remembering in this post. Last week Friday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I spent the day lecturing at Menomonie High School and UW Stout, both in Menomonie, WI.

At 10:00 am, I was in the auditorium at the High School, and wow…I have never had attendance like that before. There were 250 some students. Hands down, that was the smoothest presentation I have given in a long time. The group was really engaged and asked a lot of questions. I thought I was going to be intimidated by such a large group, but it wasn’t an issue. I actually got asked so many questions that I forgot to talk about the film “Transamerica”, which was requested by one of the teachers. I felt a bit bad about that. Considering the school has recently had some incidents with bad treatment of LGBT identified students, it sure seems like they are headed in the right direction. I had about 20 students come up to talk to me right after wards to say thanks and such. One of them gave me a pride bracelet that they had made for me. I was not expecting that. Thank you to the girl that gave me that. It fits nicely.

UW Stout was also a good time, though the turn out was low. I can’t say that I’m surprised considering it was a Friday afternoon. A lot of college students are quick to head for home on Fridays. Still, for the people that were there, it went very well. I know some of the things I said really impacted some of the people there. They came up and told me so afterwards. I was even asked for my autograph! That’s never happened before.

That night I also was hosting drop in night at the LGBT Community Center. We had good conversation. It was a long day, and I was exhausted by the end of it. I want to say though, it was an honor to be able to represent the Transgender community on such an important day. Every year we lose so many to hate and fear. I only hope that my efforts, and the efforts of all the other trans advocates out there, we can fight that fear and hatred through education and awareness.

Car problems

I had a bit of a scare with my car during the past few weeks. About two weeks ago, I was leaving work, and suddenly my car wouldn’t start. I almost drained the battery trying to get it to turn over. It was odd…and out of the blue. I had to call Chris to come pick me up. My car sat in the parking lot for the weekend until I could have it towed.

The mechanic wasn’t sure what it was at first because, surprise, he could start it just fine. They thought maybe the fuel pump was going. Upon looking, the fuel filter needed to be changed badly. So, I got that done, and now it seems to be running fine. I had one more incident when it wouldn’t start, but since then, no problems. That’s good because I don’t have the 650 bucks it would cost to fix.

Swords

I know I may have said at one point that I likely wouldn’t go back to fencing, but it looks like I may. Chris, Josh, and I watched a film called “Reclaiming the Blade”, which talks about the history of swords and their use in fighting. Specifically it talks about groups today re-learning the historical ways of fighting with them using old manuscripts. It was fascinating.

Josh didn’t know that there was a fencing group in the Chippewa Valley. He had no idea that I had learned fencing of sorts in college and had attended a similar group in Milwaukee. He was so excited because he’s always wanted to learn how to fence. So, we, as a group, decided that we’re going to start going to the fencing group together starting in January. It’ll be great to have people to train with and learn with at the same level. I’m sure there will be many a photo taken, which I will post here.

New Website

Gendeverse is coming along. It looks like I’m going to go with Drupal, mainly due to its flexibility. I don’t know what the site will grow into and Wordpress may be too limiting. I have a logo design done, and I’m working on a site design. I like the color scheme, and I think it’s going to be quite classy. My goal is to launch by the new year.

As mentioned in the last post, I talked about a friend that would make a great asset to Genderverse. If you are following Genderverse on twitter, I put him in charge of that account, and he’s been doing some amazing things. He is none other than Adam Chernow, and he is teh awesome. Thanks Adam for being teh awesome. There couldn’t be a better person to manage the twitter feed for us.

Hollywood

I wish I could use that title to say something like “Yeah, Hollywood called me to talk about movie rights to my life”, but I’m not that amazing. I wish I was, but I’m not. Anyway, what I can say is that I have a friend that has followed my blog for years. She happens to work out in Hollywood as a producer and editor. She has offered to help me get my career started out there if ever I want it.

How cool is that?!! I can easily say that it has been my dream to work out there doing films / TV etc. I remember my mother saying so many times that I put too much of myself out there with this blog, but it has never been a negative thing for me. It’s only opened doors. This is one of those that I never would have expected, and it’s totally amazing.

That said, I’m not in any hurry to run out to California. While it’s a dream, I’m not ready for it yet. I’m actually in quite a good and comfortable place right now. I like my job. I like my living situation. I like how things are shaping up with my speaking career and advocacy work. I have plenty of time. I’m going to ensure that my skills are in shape, and maybe in five years, I’ll move out there. It’s nice to know I have a plan, and who knows…plans change. We’ll see what the universe has in store for me.

Giving Thanks

Before I say good night, I want to just say a few things I’m thankful for. I’m thankful for my family, my friends, my fans, good food, bad jokes, people who laugh at bad jokes, my job, my fellow advocates in the trans community, the interwebs, icanhascheezburger.com, my car still running, having a warm bed to sleep in, life, and love. There are so many more things I could say, but I’ll leave it at that. Thanks for reading everyone.

Question of the Blog

What have you experienced in your life that you needed a long time to reflect upon before moving forward?

Tags: Car, dating, day of rememberance, family, friends, Genderverse, Hollywood, relationships, speaking, swords, thanks
Posted in Heartbreak, LGBT, Love, Personal Growth, Transgender, dreams, family, friends | 3 Comments »

Remember Remember the Squirrel of November

Friday, November 6th, 2009

I start this post with some bad news. Today I hit a squirrel while driving to work. I know some people think they’re rodents and don’t matter, but I still was sad about it. I tried to dodge, but as Yoda would say…there is no try. I heard the “thump” and knew. I saw the damage in my rear view mirror. I had squashed a life. Poor little fuzzy…I’m sorry.

Now that the sad part is out of the way, I have had a busy few weeks. I’ll start as far back as I can. A Geeky Lady shindig was three weeks ago. It was a great time. I got to see @tapps, @jennaddenda, and @ashedryden; three of my geekiest lady friends. We spent the evening behind the glow of laptop screens. It was really great to catch up with them. I need to visit more often.

While I was home, I also got to meet Fezzik, my little sister’s new boxer puppy. He’s a ball of energy and a lot of fun. I had fun playing with him while catching up with my sister. Things seem to be going well for her and her husband. I envy them in a lot of ways. Anyway, I asked Fezzik if there were many rocks ahead. He just kind of looked at me funny. I certainly hope my sister trains him to respond to that line. Haha.

I also got to see Elden again. He’s getting bigger! No surprise. He’s a baby. They grow fast. I got some cute photos of him and my niece, Kalina. In fact, that Sunday, we had an unplanned family gathering for dinner. It’s rare we all get together for a meal, and I’m glad I was there for that.

That following Tuesday was my forum at UW Eau Claire. It went exceedingly well. The room was moved because we needed a more open venue. We had a full house, standing room only! I was blown away. Even though I’ve been speaking for years on gender issues, I still never feel prepared enough. That feeling is only increased because I do it so infrequently these days. Still, about half way into this presentation, I felt my rust shaking off. Suddenly that groove came back, and I felt confident and comfortable.

I am excited about that. I just know that my next few presentations are going to be even more stellar. I’ve got two events coming up on November 20th, the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I’m going to be very prepared for them and I’m sure they are going to be amazing experiences. I’m really looking forward to it. If you’re going to be in the area of UW Stout, stop on by at 2:30 in the afternoon.

I’ve been very motivated lately and have had some great ideas for Genderverse. Despite my comfort returning in my speeches, I want to stay on top of the latest information. So I’ve decided to pledge a day a week next year to research and writing time. I’m going to read an article, book, or something related to gender a week, and I will comment on it through Genderverse. I think that’s a great idea to learn and to help others learn through it.

My idea for Genderverse is to turn it into almost an online magazine with regular columns and articles. I want it to be the place to go to for gender related news and commentary. I’ve already got one person that’s interested in writing. I’ve got another person I want to ask. He tweets a lot of articles and cares a lot about the trans community. I think he’d be a great person to write and give a straight ally / male perspective. Now I just need a design for the site. If you have any thoughts, share them in the comments.

So that’s my excitement of late. I also have to share a bit of sad news. I visited gpac.org the other day. GenderPAC was an organization I worked with when I was in college. It was run by Riki Wilchins, who has been an inspiration and teacher to me through these years. GenderPAC was great in that they worked towards ending gender discrimination, had a big focus on youth, and were really the first of their kind when it came to their approach to gender. Upon visiting the site, I discovered they no longer exist. There’s a letter explaining their history and why they decided to close their doors. They ended on a proud note. I hope I can use their inspiration as a launching point for Genderverse. Thank you, Riki, and the folks of GenderPAC, for all that you have done and that you continue to do even though the organization is no longer.

Two weeks ago was Twin Cities Code Camp. What is a Code Camp you ask? Well, it’s a free conference about programming for programmers by programmers. This was my first one, and I had a good time. I finally got to start playing with Ruby on Rails, which is really cool. I also got to meet some awesome people and came home with a free license to Office 2007 (which still hasn’t arrived yet).

One of the issues that came up at the camp was the lack of women in the field. I was one of maybe 15 women there. In fact, in one of the breakout sessions, one of the women was openly hit on by a guy…during the presentation. There are many reasons that women aren’t attracted to the field, and the ever present misogyny is one of them. I think a lot of it also has to do with the geek taboo. I think in a lot of ways there’s a bit of a cycle that keeps women out. The social expectation for developers is that you are a nerdy, socially awkward guy. Because of that expectation, a lot of people, including women, avoid the field. There’s also a bit of the “good ol’ boys” attitude there. Misogyny has been present in video games for a long time for the same reasons. I also think a lot of people are pushed out of the field because of the way that programming is taught. I almost didn’t even have a CS minor because of that very reason, and yet, here I am a developer now. I’m mostly self taught and from what I’m told, I’m pretty good at it. Yet, I dropped out of the computer engineering program in my first year. Something’s wrong there.

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts about the scenario. I think I will dedicate an entry on genderverse to that topic. To sum up, I had fun at the code camp and had a lot of energizing conversations about computer science. Yes, again, I know I am a nerd. Stop sending me emails telling me that. I know already. Thanks.

Halloween was fun. Chris and I handed out candy to the kids. We didn’t get as many as we thought we would, but it was still a good time. That evening, we dressed up and went to Scooters, the gay bar in town, and had a good time. Chris put the most effort into his costume. He sewed together two suits, did up some crazy face makeup, and went as two-face. He got a lot of compliments. I went with an old standard. I was “Generic Sith Lord #2″, which is the same outfit I wore at my brother in-law’s 30th birthday party a year or two ago. We had fun.

Money has been tight tight tight lately. I had a difficult October, and I blame the fact that my student loans came due. I may have to put them off another six months until I get some of my other debt paid off. It shocks me that even though I’m making better money than I was in Milwaukee, and my costs of living are lower, I’m still only scraping by. I guess I can’t complain though. I have a job and I have food. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not dating. I couldn’t afford it if I was. I do certainly hope that there will be a time soon that I don’t feel poor.

Question of the blog: What are your suggestions for Genderverse? What was the best costume you saw this Halloween?

Tags: code camp, Elden, family, fezzik, friends, geeky lady shindig, genderpac, Genderverse, speaking, squirrel
Posted in Goals, LGBT, Money, Transgender, family, friends | 2 Comments »

High School Memories

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

I’ve had a crazy busy few weeks with a lot of things going on. I’m assuming that this post will be another 1000 plus word post. You’d be disappointed if that wasn’t the case, right?

Wedding

We’ll start by jumping back a few weeks. I went to my former coworker’s wedding a couple weeks ago. It was in the Milwaukee area, and I knew there would be some discomfort involved. I knew I’d see my former boss. I was right too. It was a bit awkward, but I made it through ok. I don’t know if I mentioned, but the entirety of the old department was shut down. So I’m literally the only person in the old department with a job now. Amazing how things change.

Anyway, the wedding was lovely, and it went smooth as silk. It was hot as hell outside, and I was thankful everything was indoors. I’m really proud of Ben and Sarah. They really are two geeks in a pod. I managed to successfully avoid dancing, as well as avoid my former boss most of the night. The big plus was that I made some new friends. I was put at the Sci Fi geek table, and that ended up being a great experience. I connected really well with the group at the table. In fact, we connected so well that I was invited to hang with them afterwards. I ended up heading to their hotel where we chatted until around 11:30 in the evening. If any of you are reading this, it was awesome hanging and getting to know you!

The rest of the weekend disappeared quickly. My parents wanted me to go get some shoes and a car battery, which was not really on my priority list, but whatever. It’s always fun to shop with my mother. The drive back to Chippewa was a smooth one. It was cooler, so the lack of A/C in my car wasn’t a huge suck fest. It was a good weekend overall.

Breakfast Chats

One of the best experiences I have every time I visit my parents are the morning chats at the breakfast table. After we eat, it’s usually coffee and conversation. This particular day my parents brought up the health care debate, and I was witness to them being profoundly impacted by the fear mongering that Fox News has perpetuated. My dad was all up in arms about death panels, and both my parents were all like “It’s written in the bill”. I had to explain what the actual truth was about the situation, that there were no death panels written, and that there was no solid bill yet. Nothing had been decided. It was a lively conversation to be sure. The scary thing was listening to my father call Obama a Nazi. I don’t think he understands where that comes from. As Jon Stewart has put it, I don’t think Nazi’s were ever known for their health care reform plans. This calling this President a nazi is about as ridiculous as they come. Anyway, I just thought that was interesting. It just really surprises me that my parents are so prone to what they’ve been told by the media vs what’s actually true. Does anyone do their research about the issues anymore?

High School Reunion

Last weekend was my 10 year high school reunion, and it was an interesting experience. I had no intention of missing the reunion. Chris was willing to be my date for the event. So we headed down on Friday. It took place on Saturday, the 22nd of August at Nagawaukee Park in Delafield. We got there about 1:00 in the afternoon.

It wasn’t what people usually picture for reunions. It took place outside at a park pavilion instead of a bar. We had a pig roast, which was quite delicious. There weren’t a ton of people there. My graduating class had about 240 people in it. About 40 people came to the reunion. That included spouses and dates. So turnout was low, but from what I hear, that’s average for a reunion.

Arriving was the awkward part…everyone wondering who I was at first. The organizers knew, and they gave me a big hug. I think no one really knew what to say to me. I didn’t really know what to say back. So there was a lot of avoiding going on at first, but once everyone realized I don’t bite, there were no problems.

It was actually quite a bit of fun. I reconnected with a lot of people, and most of them were the people I didn’t expect to connect with. There were competition things going on, none of which applied to me. They were things like longest marriage, most kids, most recent kid, shortest and longest distance travelled, etc. I would have put my name down for distance, but before I got there, I was already beaten. As a joke, I decided to put my name down for “Looks most like high school photo”.

Everyone seemed to think that Chris went to high school with them. He apparently looked very familiar. He also said that some of the people looked familiar too. Not sure why that was, but whatever. I ended up taking photos at the suggestion of one of my classmates. They turned out nice too.

The awards were given out later in the evening after dinner. The prizes were really funny. The person with the most kids got a box of condoms. The person that traveled the most got a travel kit, and the person that traveled the shortest also got a travel kit with the stipulation that they had to get out of town. Ha! Then came the award for looks most like the photo from high school. The organizers said that they should have taken a vote, but decided to go the other way. I won! Everyone cheered. It was great.

I guess that moment says a lot about how well I was received by my former classmates. What a great time. I’m so glad I went. Makes me a little nostalgic and a little sad though. I feel like this was the first time they ever got to really meet me despite all that time in grade school. I had a blast hanging with them, and it makes me wonder what things would have been like had I been my true self in high school. Would I have made more friends, been more a part of the “popular crowd”? Maybe it’s not worth dwelling on the coulda, woulda, shouldas. Regardless, I’ll never forget my high school reunion. Thanks to everyone for making it wonderful.

Love and Loneliness

Chris has found a relationship. It’s not with the guy I wrote about in past posts either. It was a random date that turned into something wonderful. It’s with an old flame, and I’m really happy for him.

No surprise, it makes me think about my love life…or my lack of one. It’s almost September, which means in a couple more months, I’ll have been single for a year. I know that deep down, I’m craving for another relationship, but my rational brain is telling me otherwise.

If you didn’t notice in my last post, I’ve got a lot of crap I’m working on right now. I feel like in a lot of ways, I am really not ready for anything in the love area. Heck, I don’t even go out with friends that often, let alone with a love interest. It’s taking a lot of energy to work on these issues, and that’s energy I don’t know if I can continue putting into it if I was also dating someone.

That being said…damn it’s hard to watch Chris be so happy and go off with his new boy. I’m suffering from empty nest tonight, and while it’s nice to have the house to myself, I actually feel more alone tonight than I have in a while. It would be nice to have someone to be close to myself. I’m on Yahoo Personals, but unfortunately all the responses I’ve been getting are from people that live at a minimum of 2 hours away. Maybe it’s worth the drive…

This loneliness combined with my focus at my job has had me listening to a lot of music lately. I’ve had a song stuck in my head. It was written by James Newton Howard, a favorite of mine, for the film “Lady in the Water” and is entiteled “The Great Eatlon”. It’s a beautiful piece that gives me chills when I listen to it. Then towards the end, the tone changes, and I get tears. It’s beautiful. I’ve been playing it a lot…so much that it’s stuck in my head. If you get a chance, listen to it.

Speaking of Books

Tomorrow I have plans to have my good friend Audrey over for dinner. I’ve been terrible on following up on the plans because this week just disappeared. So hopefully those plans are still on. We were going to discuss plans to have me lecture to her class as well as my book outline. I’ve asked her for assistance in writing the book. I think it’s the right time. She’s agreed to help out as much as she can. Here’s hoping it moves forward successfully.

Oh, I have to mention that in my previous post, I said that I’m presenting a forum on October 22nd. That’s actually incorrect. It’s going to be on October 20th, which is a Tuesday. If you’re in the Chippewa Valley, you should come.

Questions of the blog: What was your high school reunion like OR do you look forward to your reunion?

Tags: Book, coworkers, dating, family, health care, high school, loneliness, Love, music, reunion, speaking, wedding
Posted in Love, Personal Growth, family, friends | 4 Comments »

Stable Ground

Monday, July 20th, 2009

I guess I should begin this post with a simple update on the news from the last post. I got the results from the hearing. It was resolved in the company’s favor, but I didn’t have to repay anything. In the end it was moot due to the new job scenario, but still…I would have preferred to win. I understand why the judge ruled the way that it was ruled. I mentioned the unfairness built into the situation due to my being unemployed and my opponent being a large corporation with a legal department. I also made a point not to talk about my being taken advantage of at my former employer. I didn’t want to seem like a huge whiner. I know I did the right thing, and I stood up for it. I will always have my dignity there. I have no respect for my former employer though. I will forever use them as a baseline for how to mistreat employees. I was always told that you hate your first job or that your first job is always shit. Now I know that from experience. All that being said…the case is closed. I’m officially done with them. Time to move on and never look back.

On to brighter and happier subjects. I have a job. As of Thursday, I am officially full time employed. I love what I do and I love who I work for. I’m a developer now, and I still get opportunities for video work. I really like my coworkers, and so far, I’ve felt stimulated and challenged by my work on a daily basis. I enjoy going in, and I don’t feel like I have to rush out the door at the end of the day. It’s wonderful, and I have faith that it will stay that way. Life is good. Wow…haven’t said that in a long time, right?

In other news, this past Wednesday was Scarlet’s birthday. Scarlet is my orange kitty. Yes, I know…I’m writing about my cat. I’m lame. Still, I’ve never had a pet from kitty or puppy age before. So it’s a new and fun experience. Bonding with a kitten is so different than bonding with a grown adult kitty. So I had to celebrate a little bit. We have so many catnip toys now. Plus, I stocked up on lasers and treats too. No party hats…this time. Maybe next year.

In other cat news, we’ve solved the Serenity peeing problem. I did a little digging…no pun intended…and discovered that some declawed cats have sensitive paws. It may actually hurt her to dig her paws into the standard kitty litter. She may be associating pain with using the box. So instead of a protest, like we initially thought, it could be a physical thing. Serenity was declawed about the age of 2, and it may not have been done well. We picked up some Yesterday’s News litter, which is recommended for cats that have just been declawed. As soon as we put that out, she started using it all the time. So it turns out that it probably was the pain issue. It’s been over a week now, and so far so good. No peeing on the floor anymore. I have faith things will stay that way.

I hate to say it, but the idea of getting a new phone has been burning a hole in my pocket. I’ve been going back and forth between iPhone and Android phone for a while. I finally decided. It came down to financial reasons. To get an iPhone, I’d have to break contract on two lines with T-Mobile before I’d even be getting the iPhone itself. So we’d be looking at like…700 bycks. Plus, I really like my T-Mo plan. So, I opted for the new myTouch 3G which comes out in August about the time 3G speed rolls out in my area. I’m excited and am geeking out about it a bit. Sorry if I blab on too much about it. Oh look at that, I already have…again…sorry.

Jumping back in time just over a week…my parents came up to visit. On top of that, Chris’ parents also came up to visit. It was one full weekend, let me tell ya. My mother is allergic to cats. So my parents stayed at a hotel down the street. Chris’ parents stayed here in the house. Both pairs of parents wanted to go to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair, which just so happens to take place in my current town.

Now, the Official State Fair takes place in West Allis, WI, which is near Miller Park in Milwaukee. It goes on for 10 days and has a pretty large permanent grounds. My family figured that since the Northern Wisconsin one also bears the state fair name, it was going to be just as big. That’s not actually the case. As it happens, the NWSF is about the size of a decent sized county fair. I found out about this maybe two days before they came. So I had to come up with other things to do since we likely wouldn’t spend the whole time at the fair.

Instead we went to Irvine Park, which is adjacent to the fair grounds. It’s also home to the local zoo. That turned out to be a blast. While the park isn’t as large as the Milwaukee Zoo, it does a lot of things right with the open, large natural habitats and beautiful surroundings. It felt like a state park, and since my family spent a lot of time camping during my youth, we felt like we were at home. My parents loved it. The fair was enjoyable, but it didn’t compare to Irvine Park.

The weekend was a success. My parents had a blast. So did Chris’ parents. I know mine are excited to come and visit again. That makes me thrilled. They headed home Sunday morning. I spent the rest of Sunday shopping for work clothes. All in all, it was a very successful weekend. It was also a very draining one. I slept like a rock Sunday night.

Jumping forward to this past weekend…it was a much more relaxing one. We went to see two movies. We saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on Saturday and Angels and Demons in the budget theater on Sunday. I have to say…going to movies in the theater is less and less appealing these days. In the Harry Potter showing, there was a blown subwoofer, the projector lens was dirty…enough that it was terribly distracting, and there was an infant in a carrier in the theater. Why do people bring their 3 month old children to movies that could easily make them cry and ruin the movie for the rest of the film goers? I never understood that.

Harry Potter was great. It was very dramatic. Less magic…more character. It was a little anti-climactic due to the lack of a giant magic fight, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it. Angels and Demons was ok. The book was better. The audio was terrible at the budget. The center channel was so quiet that we couldn’t hear most of the first part of the film. I really think seeing movies at home is much better nowadays.

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to make the Wonder Woman costume as a whole. I’ve been looking for patterns that might work for it. I’m thinking a corset design might work to get started. I’m not sure otherwise. In the meantime, to practice my sewing skills, I bought a pattern for a cloak. I’ve always wanted a pretty velvet hooded cloak. Now I’m going to make one. It should be fun.

I’m really starting to realize how jaded I am about my love life. I’m starting to feel so frustrated that I’m actually getting a little angry about it. I’m so sick of being attracted to straight women. I walked past a beautiful woman today and found myself just grumbling. My finding love seems quite impossible. None of it has helped my self esteem. I’ve been kind of at a low point because of it. I feel ugly, like unwanted trash. I think it’s making my mood overall go downhill. I’ve been a bit bitchy lately, and I know Chris isn’t such a fan of me when I get like that. I wonder how long it’ll be before I heal from all of this.

To help with that, I picked up some Valerian Root. It comes from the planet Valeris…no it doesn’t, but it sure sounds like something from Star Trek, doesn’t it? It’s supposed to help with anxiety, insomnia, and even help with IBS. So I get benefit with at least two problems at once. I figure maybe anxiety reduction might help me past the bitchiness. We’ll see.

Lastly, before I end this 1500 word monster of a post, I’ve decided to start asking a question of the blog each post. I think it’ll be fun. This post’s question is: what’s the worst job experience you’ve ever had?

I look forward to hearing all of your stories in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Tags: Android, anxiety, birthday, cats, costuming, Employment, film, harry potter, iPhone, irvine park, myTouch 3G, parents, sewing, state fair, unemployment, women, zoo
Posted in Employment, Movie Review, cats, family, work | 2 Comments »

Falling into place

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Things are starting to fall into place for me. This move has certainly proven to be a very good decision despite seeming kind of risky at the time. I’m happier. I’m more comfortable. I don’t worry as much, and life just feels a bit easier. With the prospect of this job, things are looking to be nice indeed.

The new job is going well. I should say job prospect. I’m going through a week of trial work before I get offered anything. So I’m not officially hired yet. I’m enjoying the work that I’m doing. I’m finding it simultaneously fun and challenging. So far, each day has forced me to really use my logical reasoning. I’m starting to get used to the people there, but I think that’ll take a bit yet. So far, everyone seems nice though. I’m keeping my hopes high.

On the same topic, I finally finished all the freebie freelance I had on my plate. Only I can be unemployed and overwork myself. I’ve decided that really with the prospect of working full time again, I’m not really going to seek out any more work on the side. I want my free time to be just that…free. If I get bored, I will consider doing some fun projects here and there. Lord knows I have ideas. I’d much rather have fun doing videos for my own fulfillment than someone else’s anyway.

Let’s see…the 4th of July was this past weekend. Chris and I drove down to Milwaukee to see the fireworks. Those actually take place on the 3rd instead of the 4th so that local communities can have their celebrations on the 4th. The July 3rd fireworks are a family tradition. I think my family has gone to see them every year since I was alive. The only time we missed them was a couple of years ago when it was raining out.

Anyway, I have to say, I’m starting to get a little burnt out on the fireworks show. It was an hour long, which as Chris put it, was a half hour of overkill. There came a point several times in the show where I found myself totally daydreaming. I came out of the daydream and was thinking…shit…are these still going off?!! We did get distracted by an inner city guy that decided to just stand right in front of the group of us watching the show. He started scratching his butt, dumped out a beer, was spitting on the ground right by me…it was pretty gross. Then he and his friends decided to start talking about their sex lives and how they “upgraded”. They were using a lot of graphic terminology all while not more than six feet away is a 4 year old boy with his family. Eventually, Sylvia got sick of staring through the guy that she got up and said something to the group of them. They started being a little more courteous after that. Sylvia has no fear. That’s for sure.

I suppose none of you know who Sylvia is. Sylvia is a good friend of Chris’ from college before he went to UWEC with me. She got married about 5 years ago and moved to Australia with her husband. She recently moved back to the U.S. and her husband is coming too in the next couple months. This was the first time I had seen her in about….6 years. What’s more…she may end up in the Twin Cities, which is near enough to hang out frequently. So we’ll see. Regardless, it was great to see her.

This coming weekend should be interesting. The Northern Wisconsin State Fair is happening here in Chippewa Falls. Both my parents and Chris’ parents are coming up to go to it. Chris’ parents will be staying with us. My parents are staying in a hotel since my mother is allergic to the cats. Our parents have only met once, I believe…maybe twice. So, it’ll be a strange weekend.

Chris bought a bike this week. I helped him pick it out over the past week. He got a nice one, a Trek 4300. Now I find myself wanting a new bike too. I have a pretty decent one myself. It’s a Trek 820 Aluminum. It’s also close to 10 years old. It’s been all over the state and served me very well when I was in college. I may trade it in to get a nice new 4400 or something. We’ll see.

So Chris and I have been going on bike rides now. Yesterday we were biking around the area of our house and found a park. We stopped and made use of the teeter totter. I went down the old school metal slide, and we also swung on the swings too. It was just like we were 8 years old again. We had a lot of fun! I now remember why those parks were so much fun as a kid.

A day later…I was coming home from an electrolysis appointment, and Chris gives me a call. He was apparently out on a bike ride with a friend and wiped out really badly. The bike was slightly damaged and he was pretty scraped up. Figures…brand new 450 dollar bike gets damaged not two days since purchase. Chris is going to be just fine. No broken bones or anything. His leg will have a nasty bruise though.

This morning was a painful experience. The unemployment hearing took place and let me tell you, I am so glad I don’t participate in legal proceedings very often. I was nervous. I am not a lawyer, and of course, my former employer had a lawyer. These things are so skewed because it’s obvious the unemployed party is not going to have the money to hire legal counsel. Regardless, I made my case, and I will get the results in a week.

It has come to my attention recently that I have quite a few regular readers. I don’t keep track with any sort of software of how many people visit this blog or view the rss feed. On top of that the entries are syndicated into facebook on both my personal page and my fan page. So it has the potential to be seen by quite a few people.

I talked to a couple friends of mine recently, Dan and @jennaddenda (Jenn Turner of Bucketworks), and both of them made mention of reading my blog. It just took me by surprise. I asked Dan why he reads, and he told me that he finds my life fascinating since it’s so different from his. I took a look at my statistics from my web host, media temple, and found that I’ve been getting roughly 1200 pageviews a week, and that’s just the main blog landing page. That makes me feel like writing this blog has been worth it. I’d just like to say thanks to all of you that read my musings on life. If you’d be willing to share, I’d love to hear what brings you to my blog and why you keep revisiting it. Is it my writing? is my life just that fascinating? is it just a nice time waster? do you like to laugh at my nerdiness? is it because I write regularly? I’m just curious and would love to hear what y’all have to say.

I’m off for now. Have a lovely night!

Tags: biking, blogging, Chris, fireworks, Freelance, hearing, job, Milwaukee, parents, park, unemployment
Posted in Employment, Freelance, family, friends, unemployment | 1 Comment »

Bittersweetness

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

The news of the day is that my family is one member larger today. At 2:00 am on Wednesday morning, Elden Vincent was born into the world. Everything went very smoothly. Both my sister and the baby are doing well. Congratulations Melissa!!

Figures! I drive all the way back up to Chippewa yesterday. If I had just stayed one more day…I would have been able to be there to share the joy with the rest of the family. My sister is so inconsiderate in her labor planning! Haha! In all seriousness though, I’ll be heading back down this weekend to congratulate her in person and share in the joy.

That joy is unfortunately partnered with some other news I got this week. Monday, while I was logging footage at my parents house, I overheard her phone conversation with my sister. I am going to be intentionally vague because I don’t know if my mother wants this getting out. Let’s just say, I heard some bad news about my mom and her doctor visit. It has me very concerned. I’ll leave it at that.

Now…on to the interesting news of late. I was the official videographer for Milwaukee’s Pridefest. It’s the largest gay music festival in the world. It’s also one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world. It’s the largest in the United States for certain. There were over 30,000 people there over the course of 3 days.

This opportunity literally dropped in my lap. I knew two people that happen to be on the Pridefest board. Both of them dropped my name when someone suggested videography. So I was the only person ever considered for the job. Unfortunately it wasn’t a paying gig. It was all volunteer. That being said, they covered everything else. The camera rental, the food, parking, tickets, and really anything else I’d need were all paid for.

I have to say, it was a blast. I made a ton of new friends. I shot 8 hours of footage while I was there. I got some of the best footage I’ve ever shot in my life too. Not only did I get awesome footage, I got it of big stars, like Cyndi Lauper, Brandy, and Etta James. This volunteer opportunity really raised my video profile. Because of the type of footage I shot and access I had, I can now charge people more for the work I do for them.

One of the things that was kind of disappointing about the weekend…I was only asked for my number once. I also have not been called by the girl that I gave it to. I must just look too straight. Curse the queer expectations. If that was the only disappointment though, I’m ok with that. On the other side of things, I was told that everyone was blown away by my skill and talent with a camera. I guess they are very excited to utilize my talents. It will be a big boon to Pridefest.

Some people refer to Pridefest as “Ex-Fest” since everyone sees former lovers or partners there. I only ran into one…my ex Tracy. I said hi, stopped, and had a nice, though brief, conversation. I got to meet her current girlfriend, who is very pretty, and a few of her other friends. It was nice to see her. At the time I was setting up for the Cyndi Lauper performance. So I didn’t have a lot of time. I didn’t see Jenn there, which I’m actually a bit grateful for. I’m not sure how that would have made me feel. Might have taken away from the weekend.

I had a fantastic experience running into someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. Brendan, the manager of the Wal-Mart that I used to work at, was a volunteer for the children’s area. He was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He gave me a big hug, and we caught up on what’s going on. I told him thank you and shared with him that I tell my story a lot and talk about that one manager that was great to me. It was so good to see him again.

One of the other things that happened this weekend that was unexpected…my parents came to Pridefest! They’d never been to a pride event before, and this was the perfect opportunity for them. I was able to get them in free, give them free food, and walk around with them for a couple hours. My mom said to me that she and my dad had a great time. In fact, my parents both commented on how it was better than Summerfest. Summerfest is so jam packed with people, and you can barely breathe. I think they may come back in the future.

Pridefest was exhausting. I rarely got enough sleep. I was constantly working, and I was on my feet almost the entire time. I wouldn’t have passed it up for anything though. It was amazing. So many great people brought together. I finally had that feeling that I was needed, was making a difference, and was appreciated. That shouldn’t be, but is, so rare.

This weekend was just what I needed. My drive to be my own boss and do this freelance / business thing is totally restored. I have my meeting with the small business resource center Thursday, and I think I’ll come out of it feeling much more confident about my direction. I love shooting video. I want to continue it as a primary focus.

So, tomorrow before this meeting, I will be revising my business plan significantly. I know what I need now, which is good. I can easily reduce my equipment list to just a few things. I think I can easily tailor this plan to be very targeted, and very plausible.

I’ve almost kicked the exhaustion. Last night was the first good night sleep I got since last week. I don’t feel like I’m dragging my feet anymore. I feel like I have a spring in my step. In fact, I’d say I’m in much better spirits than I was a week ago. So that’s great.

Even with all that, I did finally find out when my unemployment hearing is (July 8th) and also found out that one of the jobs I applied for is not hiring. So to sum up…some great things…some not great things…it’s been a bittersweet week. I’m feeling the energy of the world swinging my way though. I think things are on the up side for now. Here’s hoping it stays that way.

Oh…and Chris bought the Ghostbuster’s video game today. It’s way fun. I recommend it.

Tags: baby, business, family, Freelance, girlfriends, Pridefest, video
Posted in Employment, Freelance, family | 3 Comments »

I live in a house

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Sunday was a lazy lazy day, and I enjoyed it. I didn’t get out of my pajamas until 7:00 in the evening. Chris and I spent the day playing Boom Blox: Bash Party, which was recently released. I can sadly admit, I played it for a good five hours. It’s a puzzle game that you can easily lose track of time playing.

Chris is sick. He was starting to feel it yesterday, and it seemed to hit hard today. So, he was napping a lot. I did most of the party cleanup because of that. I’m totally ok with that. He said he felt guilty for not helping, but I know that if it was me that was sick, he would have cleaned things up too. So he shouldn’t feel bad. There were a ton of dishes. I miss my dishwasher.

When I finally put down boom blox, we popped in Frost / Nixon. I listened to the first portion of it while I did the dishes. Once they were done, I sat down and took in the end. What an incredible film. Frank Langella deserved the Oscar nomination he got for the film. I haven’t seen Milk yet. So I can’t exactly compare performances, but this was definitely impressive.

Our refrigerator has been smelling something fierce. It reeks badly of wet dog…or should I say…it did. I’ve seemingly fixed it without trying. Apparently the fridge had a water line attached prior to being used in our house. It has an automatic ice maker in the freezer. I switched it on to see what would happen, and it would appear the stagnant water that was left in the line got pumped through. Now the smell is gone. Chris and I are thrilled! It was getting unbearable.

Tonight, Chris and I sat in the living room after our day of relaxation and just talked. It felt different and wonderful that we were both in the living room of our house…something we’ve never had before. It feels like this is the way things are supposed to be. Yet its still surreal. I live in a house with my best friend. We have a yard. We have a garage. We have a garden. This is strange! Haha. I like it a lot.

The future is looking up. I leave you with a lol I created yesterday. Enjoy!

Tags: boom blox, film, fridge, house, lazy
Posted in family | 2 Comments »