Posts Tagged ‘family’

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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.

Pink Birthday SombreroIt 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?

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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?

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Posted in LGBT, family, friends | 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 »

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?

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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?

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Posted in Love, Personal Growth, family, friends | 4 Comments »

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.

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Posted in Employment, Freelance, family | 3 Comments »

Getting settled

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

It’s been a busy week and a half.  Finally things are settling down.  So…my last post was on the 11th at 10:20 in the morning.  At about noon, my friend Adam, my friend Jackie, and my father arrived at my apartment to load up all my stuff to move in with Chris in Chippewa.  We loaded things up until about 5 or 6…It might have even been later than that.  I think it was 6:00ish.  It took around 4 hours or so to drive there, and it was a little scary.  My dad almost had a major accident.  The uhaul trailer started swaying and my dad had to compensate, which resulted in swerving all over the interstate.  It was a windy day.  We took it slow after that.  We got up there around 10:00 and unloaded very quickly.  It probably took an hour to unload…maybe an hour and a half.

I spent the next few days unpacking and getting everything set.  I unpack quickly.  I don’t like being stuck living out of boxes for long.  So I quickly got most of my stuff where it needed to be, my clothes up in the closet, and things organized.  It’s nice to feel like you actually live somewhere.  The only annoyance is that I didn’t have everything yet.  I was constantly doing the whole…”Where is the…oh it’s in my old apartment…crap…”  thing.  That gets old quickly, but to be honest…I wasn’t excited about the drive.  It’s a long drive and gets old.

During that time I found myself watching a lot of Mythbusters on netflix.  We also got Charter cable set up with the same 10 mbps up / 1 mbps down speed as I had with Time Warner’s Road Runner in Milwaukee.  I can easily say this right now.  Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner beats Charter High Speed in performance, customer service, and quality hands down.  Road Runner is consistently faster, has a much more solid DNS, drops out very rarely, and has no ports blocked at all.  Charter is exactly the opposite.  I had to figure out how to get my personal ftp server up and running on an alternate data port because of it.  Tip of the hat to you, Time Warner Cable.

I also was dealing with the worry about paying my bills.  I hadn’t heard anything from unemployment yet about whether I’d get benefits or not.  I also had not received anything from COBRA yet.  So I was having worry fits that were causing me to lose sleep.  I’ll talk a little more on those issues later.

At the end of the week, it was time to head back to Milwaukee again to get the rest of my stuff, clean up the apartment, check out, and go to a birthday party.  I was looking forward to the latter much more than the former stuff.  The party was on Saturday.  It was a surprise 60th for my Aunt.  It went off without a hitch and was a lot of fun.  She really wasn’t expecting it at all.  I took a lot of photos.

Sunday came around, and it was time to clean and pack things up.  We got to my apartment around noon and got started.  There wasn’t a whole ton left, namely a bunch of boxes and a bit of loose stuff.  I suppose I did have my pots and pans in the kitchen and my bedroom closet too.  Still it went pretty smoothly packing the rest of it in the car.  Since we had all the big stuff already moved, it wasn’t so bad.  However…

Have you ever had your mother tell you: “You live in my house, you live by my rules.  When you move out, you can live like you want.”  Yeah, turns out that’s not true.  My mother is anal retentive about cleanliness.  It runs in our family actually.  My grandmother had a house so clean it was practically sterile.  My mom’s house wasn’t quite that clean, but still pretty sparkly.  Personally, I tend to live with a more lived in feel.  I want things in their place, but I don’t run around with a feather duster all the time.  Sometimes there are dishes in the sink.  Sometimes I leave my bed unmade.  That’s my perogative…it’s my apartment, right?  Nope.  My mother started yelling like crazy at me for not coming down earlier in the week, packing everything up nicely and neatly for things to be very easy for her.  She started calling me selfish and basically told me I needed to live differently.  I was really shocked.  It seemed like it randomly came out of nowhere.  She was fine, and then suddenly she was angry…and it surely seemed misplaced.  She had no idea how much work we put into moving a week ago, how much I had packed up before then, or how much effort I put into unpacking.  On top of that, it didn’t make sense for me to come down earlier due to the party…I just didn’t see where she was coming from.  I said a few things back that were, to be honest, rude.  I acknowledge that.  When I get frustrated, angry, and defensive, sometimes I say stupid things.  We all do it.  Anyway…regardless, it was drama none of us needed that day.

I talked to my dad about it later, and he informed me that he didn’t understand why she was yelling at me either.  He felt that her argument was unfounded and said nothing because he didn’t want to get into it.  I guess later she chastised him for not standing up for her.  As far as I know…she’s still mad at me for it.  She was still mad as of Wednesday.  I just don’t get it.  She knew I had to move.  She knew why I was moving.  It wasn’t a choice.  I had to get out of my apartment and get someplace cheaper asap.  I’ve had a lot going on in my head too.  This past few months with the job and such has been really hard to manage emotionally without drama like this.  My mother may be right or wrong about my being selfish.  I’ll leave that up to the rest of you to decide.  Still I think she was being the selfish one in being upset that I didn’t drive back earlier, miss appointments here, leave the house a mess for Chris…just so I could make my old apartment clean up easier for her.  Ugh…I hope this blows over quickly.

Anyway, the apartment was cleaner when we finished than it was when I moved in.  My landlord came in to look and she was blown away.  If my apartment is rented for June, I will get my security deposit back.  She has been so understanding of everything, which I so very much appreciate.  I would be happy to rent from them again, and she said she’d rent to me any time.  That’s good news.

The hard part was that we had two vehicles filled.  I was going to have to drive to Chippewa with my parents’ van, unload, drive back to my hometown near Milwaukee, swap to get my car again, and then drive back…all in all it totalled about 10.5 hours in the car over three days.  I wasn’t looking forward to it.  Surprisingly, it went by pretty quickly.  When you have a lot to do, time flies.  So, Monday came, and I drove up to Chippewa.  I unloaded…got as unpacked as I could by Tuesday evening.  Then I drove back to Milwaukee.  I stayed overnight.  Turns out at my favorite bakery, Kaiser’s Six Point Bakery in West Allis, I had won the weekly business card drawing for a dozen free donuts.  I also had to pick up some tapes for some freelance work.  So I made the last trip with a lot of sugar on hand.

Here we are now…it’s Thursday evening, or Friday morning depending on how you look at it, and I’m as unpacked as I’ll ever be.  There are a bunch of empty boxes in the garage.  I feel like that’s pretty good all things considered. There’s a little bit of junk lying around I need to put in places, and I haven’t yet hung artwork.  But otherwise, things are good.

The cat situation is interesting.  We’ve got four cats here now…my two and Chris’ two.  They are doing just fine with a couple exceptions.  Scarlet, Kitty (aka Meat), and Vincent are getting along  just fine.  Serenity is Chris’ female cat, and she’s a bit of a priss.  She’s not taking well to anybody.  So she’s been hissing and growling all the time.  She just wants to be left alone.  Kitty / Meat is a problem sometimes too because he’s a bit of a pervert cat.  He likes to lick girl kitties in the no-no spot.  Scarlet is kinda used to it.  I stop him whenever I see that, but Serenity, rightfully so, gets very upset.  So…we need to figure out how to stem that behavior.

On Monday, I went to what’s called “Business After Hours”.  It’s the Chippewa Chamber of Commerce meeting essentially.  I went with Chris to get connected to the community of business owners for freelance and so forth.  I met some great people there.  Unfortunately I also saw someone I have no interest in ever seeing again.  Mike Olsen, owner of Micon cinemas and former manager at Carmike cinemas in Eau Claire….also the man that severely sexually harassed me back in about 2003.  I’m the reason he got fired from his job.  I saw the back of his head there, and knew it was him right away.  I never made eye contact.  If he ever makes an attempt to talk to me, he will get a very short response and me walking away.

On the positive side, I ran into a lot of wonderful people including someone from a local business that’s hiring.  She asked me what I do and upon my response, she suggested I drop my resume with them.  Sounds like they are looking for someone with just my type of skills.  I will be sending it to them Friday.  That’s awesome.  At first I wasn’t sure I wanted a full time job, but the more I think about it, it’s probably better for me to have one at this point in my career.  I’ll get the non-profit going as a side project.

Thursday night, Chris and I went to help the local Lions Club out with feeding needy people at a local church.  It was a feel good experience helping people who need food get it.  I know I could be very close to that even right now.  I may qualify for food stamps at the moment.  So, it’s a humbling experience.  I’m a giving person.  So I would have done it anyway, but still.

While there, one of the lions asked me what I do, and I explained that I’m funemployed.  I did tell him what I do freelance and what I want in a job.  He told me to come pick up an application at his printing company.  He could use a web designer.  I was pretty surprised.  Two job leads in a matter of days.  People have said that things happen for a reason.  This job change and move seem like they definitely were supposed to happen the way they are.  That’s good and makes me feel a lot better.

Speaking of feeling a lot better, I finally got word from the unemployment office.  I am officially getting unemployment.  What a relief!  That means I can survive while things get figured out as to where I’m going next.  I can easily say I’ll sleep better tonight knowing my bills will be covered.  I also finally received COBRA paperwork.  So I’ll be fine with health insurance too.  Both are great news.  To top that all off, I saw a Bald Eagle flying over the Chippewa River today as we drove through town.  What a stunning sight!  I’ll be sure to have my camera out a lot this summer to try to catch them in action.

In the meantime, I’ll be working on getting the new site live over the course of the coming week.  Now that I’ve gotten settled in, I should have plenty of time to do so.  Keep watching for that change.  As usual, thanks for reading!

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Posted in Employment, Uncategorized, family, work | 3 Comments »

Twitterpated

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

Yes, it’s been a while.  Fair warning…this is a long post.  I took a break after the last podcast.  First things first, I joined twitter. You can follow me using the username janiukjf. I hope you enjoy all my pointless musings during my average day.

In the time since my last post…I got older.  I’m now 28! I feel pretty much the same as I did at 27.  I have to say, it was a nice birthday.  I took an extra day off from work and had a four day weekend for it.  It was very relaxing.  My family also took me out to dinner.  The food was family style Italian, and it was fantastic. I also got a few meaningful gifts.  My sisters gave me a shadowbox picture frame that is really nice.  My parents gave me to gorillapods (bendy and flexy camera tripods).  It was a lot of fun.

I have to be very vague here, but I spent a year and a half working on a project at work, and it’s finally…finally…launched.  It feels really awesome to know I saw the project through to completion.  Though, its easy to say no project is ever complete in my mind.  I also am going to start using something I call the JSI, or Job Satisfaction Index to which I will create an arbitrary color scale to represent my feelings.  Today’s JSI is orange with yellow polkadots.

While I talk about work, let me mention freelance.  The flash project I took on seems to be a bit troublesome.  I think I bit off more than I can chew.  I learn from examples, and I haven’t had anything to launch off of here.  I just don’t know where to start, and since I’m learning actionscript 3 from the beginning, it’s tough.  I decided to work with someone on the project, and from there, I’ll use that code as an example.  I think getting past this project will help me move forward with stuff I’ve been sitting on.  I’ve felt guilty working on other projects while having this on my plate.

Speaking of other freelance, I’ve had several meetings regarding the puppet video, and it’s been almost all non-stop frustration.  It’s hard to get through to the other video person that we can’t work with the footage we have.  So, I’ve written a script and a rundown for a short video showing the differences between analog and digital video and the progression of technology in video.  I’ll post it on here when I’m done with it.  We’re having a meeting in a week to discuss the project.  If we can’t move forward the right way, I’m not sure I want to be involved with it.

Things I do want to be involved in is the arts organization that I’ve been connected with lately.  I’ve been asked to produce a 30 minute film with them. They’re applying for a grant and production would start in June.  It’s not a lot of money, but it would be a lot of fun for me and everyone involved.  I think it’d be a great portfolio piece too.  More on that as it develops.

Jumping back in time a week, Valentine’s day, or as I like to call it, Singles Awareness Day, was a week ago.  I had a party for all my single friends.  It was a huge blast.  I made hand tossed homemade pizza for my guests.  We played Rock Band and Boom Blox until 3:00 am.  In fact, we managed to turn Boom Blox into a dirty game.  I haven’t had fun like that in a long time.  I plan on throwing another event in a couple months probably to a made up holiday.  Maybe it’ll be the blorthog party Chris and I have been thinking about for a long time.

My friend Tracy, who came to the party, had so much fun that she and I decided to plan a weekly gathering.  We’re going to do something like bowling or Rock Band.  Not sure exactly what yet, but no matter what, it’ll be a lot of fun.

Random stuff going on, my friend Adam came over a week ago.  Instead of doing geeky things like Rock Band, we did geeky things like build a TV antenna from plans we found online.  Amazingly…it works! Better than my powered antenna from Radio Shack.  We also started to build a PVC frame for a portable green screen.  I finished it to the plans, and it looks like it’ll work great.  I have a few modications I’d like to make.  I also need the green fabric yet.  Way to be a nerd, me!

Speaking of nerdish things, I’ve gotten back into the video game “Okami” of late.  It’s very much like the Legend of Zelda.  I’ve spent a bit too much time with it lately, but I had some somewhat negative things happen recently.  So as usual for me, it was escapism.

I’ve been kinda sad lately that Conan O’Brien has ended his run on Late Night.  I’m a big fan.  I know he’s going to be on the Tonight Show, but its still sad to see him leave the venue we know and love.  I just watched the final episode today.  It’ll be a couple months until we see him again.  I’ll be interested to see how Jimmy Fallon handles the reins of the show from now on.

Another show that I’ve been watching a lot lately is Exosquad.  If you don’t know the show, it was one of the best American animated series ever made and not seen.  It aired back in the early  90s, and it was more like an anime.  It was episodic and followed a briliant story arc.  They now have it on Hulu and recently added season 2.  I’ve been re-watching it, and it’s actually still as good as I remember.  There was even a moment that brought tears to my eyes.  I recommend it.

Of course, tonight I’m engrossed in a once a year TV production known as the Oscars.  I really like Hugh Jackman as host.  I love seeing the sing and dance routines.  Otherwise, the Oscars are pretty dull this year.  I know they’ve tried to make major changes to bring new audiences and change things up.  I think they need to do something else though.  It seems too much like every other Oscars.  The only thing that is different to me is the switched up order of awards.  We’ll see how viewership is.

Unrelated, but very interesting…my 10 year high school reunion is supposed to be this year.  Since there’s been no official communication about it, someone started a facebook event surrounding it.  So, it should happen at some point this year.  I think it’ll be very interesting.

In that same vein, I got an e-mail today from a friend I haven’t talked to since High School.  He decided to look into old friends and looked me up.  He saw everything out there on the web about what I’ve done in regards to gender and found this blog too.  His message was very complimentary towards all my work and what I’ve done.  It was wonderful to hear that, and I found myself inspired.  I really need to move forward with personal projects to get myself out there more as a gender activist.

This sparked a conversation with my mother about making a career out of this.  She actually thinks its what I should be doing! I have always thought my mom wanted me to do what makes money.  She’s always said things that suggest that.  I think after seeing me speak once back when I was in college, she saw what I can truly do.  It makes me happy to know I have the support of my mother.

That means its time.  TransLife is going to be my non-profit.  Let’s get this thing started!

OK…that’s it for this novel.  Wordpress tells me this is 1336 words long.  I don’t think writing books is going to be a problem.  Until next time…

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Posted in Freelance, Goals, Transgender, family, friends | 2 Comments »

Hopes for the future

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

It’s almost 3:00 am, and I’m starting to finally get tired. I’ve been working on the function and structure of my new budget / finance spreadsheet, and I realized there is a bit of hope there. I’ve been clinging to my current situation like gum clings to hair. I have been unwilling to budge to change my lifestyle and what I want. However, it would seem that maybe my best bet would be to sacrifice my situation for now and get into a position where I can maximize my debt payments.

First off, if all goes as planned next month and I can bill for the amount I think I can, then I can quickly and easily pay off my furniture and my medical bills in one swoop. I can put some money aside for taxes too. After that, I am down to a 4 dollar deficit for the month. In that situation, I could make some changes to get into a more secure situation. For example, I could negotiate with T-mobile to remove my data plan from my phone. I could cut my donation to NPR. I could also cut netflix, as much as I’d rather not. I could cut back electrolysis by 15 mins. That’s a savings of 63.33 a month. Then we’re at a positive 59 dollars a month. Sure…still need food, cat supplies, toiletries and gas, but its closer. If I found some way to get started on a debt consolidation plan, that would drop my rates significantly down to $504 a month total. Right now we’re looking at a min of 650. So now we’ve got an extra 146 to that number, totaling $205. Now that can feed me, my cats, buy toilet paper, and hopefully gas. Things would be tight, but if I keep doing freelance, we’re a bit safer.

The more extreme option…and I’m not sure I want to do this yet…would be to move home. It’s probably the smartest thing to do honestly, but I’d have to find a subleaser. Rent is the other single most expensive cost I have right now. Due to this change, I’d be cutting out the internet bill, the electric bill, and my insurance rate would drop….I think. In that situation we’re looking at an 850 dollar surplus. If I consolidated my debt, we’d be at a $1000 surplus. Food becomes a non-issue. Same with toiletries. I just have to keep my cats comfortable. I could put $400 in savings and an extra $500 towards credit debt. Essentially we’d be looking at paying off my debt in 2.5 years if I did nothing but save my freelance money. If I used my freelance to supplement my debt repayment, who knows. The thing I sacrifice…freedom. Dating is impossible again. Phone calls are no longer private. Plus, I have to deal with parental drama. Can I tolerate living at home that long? Also, what if I land a sweet job elsewhere? What happens to the plan? If I make more money, probably nothing, but who knows.

What are your thoughts? I’m going to go sleep on this idea, and probably will have to sleep on it for a few days.

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Posted in Money, Uncategorized, family | 1 Comment »

Time for a change…

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Today at work I sat staring at my computer screen thinking…I hate this place.  I hate what I do.  I’m depressed about it, about life, and about money.  I want out.  Ever since I visited the Transgender Suicide Memorial and Transgender Resource Center in Second Life, I’ve had a resurgence of interest in getting back into the trans activism role I’m meant for.  I absolutely am in dire need of a life change.  I just don’t know how to go about doing it, or where to go with my life.

I’ve been thinking about starting up a non-profit. I’ve always dreamed of creating a half way house for runaway trans youth.  I want to start a charity for the disenfranchised trans community, which is a large amount of people.  I want to monitor and criticize the media in regards to gender, and I want to conduct research on gender in society.  I want to speak about gender issues, write a book, and get this documentary finished.  These are all my goals.  I need to point myself in that path.  As much as I love video, I’ve realized lately that I’m a better story teller than I am a shooter, editor, and motion graphic artist.  Sure, I can take a picture and get a good looking shot on video, but it’s not good enough to get me a decent job in this field. Plus, we’re all so drastically underpaid.  Why are artists so devalued? I’ve never understood that.

The other thing is that I’m lonely.  I miss being around friends regularly.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have friends in Milwaukee.  Unfortunately though, many of the closer ones are hermits.  The other ones live far enough away that it’s not convenient to hang out regularly.  And well…I don’t spend a lot of time with my family.  My sisters and I aren’t the closest.  I love them, but we just don’t get along as well as we could.  Maybe I need to move to a place where I feel like I’m closer to friends I see all the time, like Chris, Sarah, Audrey, and all those other wonderful people up in the Chippewa valley.  I don’t want to move back to Eau Claire, despite the lower cost of living.  I would like to move to the Twin Cities.  The last time I was there, I was impressed by the town.  I spent a lot of time there when I went to visit Audrey and when I was dating Lindsey.  I know there’s a larger video community if I did want to get into that.  I also know the state of Minnesota protects transgender rights in employment.  Maybe its the right place for me.  Maybe I’ll be happy with what I do then.  Maybe I’ll get my motivation, energy, and desire to be proactive back.  I haven’t had it in a while.

I do realize I’ll have to find a job as non-profits are hard to get started.  I don’t know where my funding will come from, but it’s a good goal.  What do you think?

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Posted in Employment, Transgender | 2 Comments »

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