Posts Tagged ‘Car’

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?

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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?

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Posted in Heartbreak, LGBT, Love, Personal Growth, Transgender, dreams, family, friends | 3 Comments »

Sweet defensive driving

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

I’m a decent driver…not the best, but tonight I felt like James Bond.  It was pretty awesome.  We’re getting some light flurries tonight, and the roads were a bit slick on my way home from work.  I got to the intersection I have to turn down to get to my apartment off of Oakland Ave, and as I went to make the turn, the car started sliding.  As per usual with a ford focus, the rear end started swinging around.  I’m so used to it that I started steering in the direction of the skid and started to regain control.  I ended up perfectly lining up with the road I needed as I regained full control.  I never stopped moving and just continued on down the road.  It was so perfectly timed, that the guy driving the SUV that was waiting at the corner  that watched the whole thing was laughing and apploading me in his car.  I had a big grin on my face and gave him a thumbs up.  Not going to lie…I felt damn cool after that, and I had to share.  I hope you can visualize it and join me in the coolness.  Yay for defensive driving!

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Posted in Random | 1 Comment »

Car Repair Correction

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

So…I listened to the voicemail left by the mechanic (He called…I couldn’t answer but called back within a minute.) Turns out the estimated full cost when I replace the ignition lock is $225. The actual bill for today is $47. That’s a LOT better. I’m picking up the car tomorrow. *Big Sigh of Relief*

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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Car Repair Update

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

I got the phone call today about my car.  They’ve lubricated the ignition lock and it’s working again…who knows for how long.  I also found out the right tie rod is worn as are the sway bars.  The tires I bought last year are faulty too! Great! I’m thrilled.  Furthermore, the bill for today comes to $225 plus tax.  I looked at my bank accounts and discovered that If I clear out my savings, I’m about a dollar short.  I have some money in my business account, but I can’t transfer it out.  So…yeah…I’m fucked.

I called my mother and she just chastised me for moving and getting into my debt predicament.  She’s never really understood that kicking someone while they are down is not very helpful.  It makes no sense to pick at decisions that were made already.  What matters is the solution.  Why does she feel the need to be mean about it? Ugh..what a day.
:(

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Posted in Money | 1 Comment »

Decision Made

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

So, it would seem my decision on bankruptcy is all but made at this point.  Today my car went in to the shop for a repair.  Since Saturday I’ve been dealing with a weird problem with my car key.  That problem being, I put my key in the ignition, and it won’t turn.  I fight with it for a while, and then it turns.  Long and the short of it, my ignition lock is quickly breaking.  So, it sits at my mechanic’s for a while.  They have to order parts.  The estimate was $225.  I also needed an oil change, and they’re looking at one of my tires that seems to have a flat spot on it too.  So it’ll end up being $300.  Perfect timing, right?

More on that perfect timing thing is that we had a winter storm today.  So…my dad drove out to my place of work to pick me up in the snow.  It took him about an hour to get there.  Then, we drove back in a traffic jam the entire way.  When we got off the freeway, we slid off the road.  A nice man stopped to help us push the car off the median.  We couldn’t have done it without him.  Thanks a lot Mr. Awesome! I stuck around and ate dinner with my dad before heading back home.  The roads were worse I think on my way home.  It took me an hour for what would normally take a half hour.

Anyway…it was a long sucky day.  There was some good though.  I remembered to bring lunch.  So I didn’t have to worry about leaving or spending money.  Also, I got kudos from my boss.  Or more specifically, she and my other coworker expressed their jealousy for my producing techniques.  They openly admitted that they admire my use of excel to make my normally very repetitive and annoying tasks easier.  She specifically said that they wish they could do it too.  I wish I could make it simpler for them to pick up.  I’ve just always had a good repore with technology.

On a not as good note, I found out through my friend Jeff that the position that I’ve been waiting to hear back on was filled by someone else.  He knows the editor at the company and heard him talking about a new girl.  At least I have some closure.  I still find it very rude to tell someone you want a second interview, then never call.  Not only that, they sent no word that I didn’t get the job.  That’s just plain cruel.  I never want to do that as a business owner.  People want to know instead of being left in the dark.  So I guess I have to keep looking.

I want to give a quick shout out to the friends that have been reading this and offering support for me during my difficult financial time.  You have been wonderful, and I very much appreciate the kind words.  It means a lot.

On a completely unrelated note, Hulu.com recently added He-Man to their selection.  Last night I watched the first episode and wow…it was bad.  There was no back story, no introduction of characters, nothing.  The story itself was really thin and the acting was way over the top.  He-Man threw two blows the entire episode.  He punched a rock monster and swung his sword at some robots once.  The show was purely to sell toys.  Still, I loved it as a kid.  To give it a little more credit, today I watched the beginning of the second episode, and it was written by Paul Dini of Batman: the Animated Series fame.  This episode had an actual plot with some quality to it.  The characters showed some emotion and at least a little bit of depth.  I was impressed for a mid 80s show.  Maybe it just needed time.  I’ll have to check out  more to give my full review of a childhood favorite.

One last thought before I go.  I am really thinking it would be beneficial to put my budget online here so that people can see what I’m doing.  It’s a bold move, but I think it might help.  It’ll give me transparency to everyone.  I can get open criticism on it, and maybe it’ll help me learn from my past mistakes and how to be better with my money as a whole.  Plus, then maybe you all can help me make this bankruptcy decision.  We clearly know I’m bad with money since I’m in this position, so maybe I’m jumping the gun.  I think an online budget might serve to be very helpful.  What do you think?

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Posted in Employment, Money | No Comments »