Month: August 2013

The Most Beautiful Ruined Moment

Such a wonderful story, I hope everyone reads this.

"Write!" she says.

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Dear Master Jedi,
       
       This is an open letter of deep appreciation to you. I hope that somehow it finds its way to your computer screen.

     You are an actor, and a damn funny one to boot. You’re really skilled at working with the unpredictably of kids and turning it into entertainment. I really hope that when you auditioned for and won this gig, that you’ve been as pleased with your job as your audiences have been with your performance. I also hope that this leads to bigger and better things, if that’s what you choose. You’re a supremely decent man and I’m ever in your debt for how you helped me out Tuesday, June 4th at the end of the last show of the day.

You see, during the months of planning for our Disneyworld trip, I found out about the Jedi Training Academy in Hollywood Studios…

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Thoughts For The Day

So… Another day, another hour in a dentist chair. I guess the good news is it will be a little while before I can get back in to finish this in depth cleaning. The bad news? Well, I still have a tooth which will need to be pulled and they want to take my wisdom teeth too… I don’t care about the wisdom teeth, they should have gone a long time ago, but this other one is being a major sore spot which is going to need to be dealt with sooner than later. The other bad thing? The pain killer they use isn’t doing the job completely and it wears off almost before the hour is up… and I was told they were using something stronger… <sigh> I’ll have to see what happens the next time I’m in.

 

Okay, enough of the light stuff.

 

In some small way I’ve been thankful for having other things to write about beyond Trans* issues. It however has been rather dishonest of me in that I have had things I should be talking about but haven’t. Part of it is I’ve had trouble expressing my thoughts and feelings in a way I feel comfortable sharing, in another, I haven’t wanted to seem like I’m finding reasons to complain. Over all I have been fortunate in being able to maintain the status quo in both in my relationship with A and the boys, and I’ve remained functional in the male roles I have to keep up for them and at work. I know I didn’t express this very well, as I said, it has been a problem in how I wanted to explain things…

I believe I can handle working as male. It’s been sixteen years now, and even if there were not the issues with my coworkers, I still can’t say I could comfortably transition in such an environment. My day to day life however is becoming a different matter all together. 

Every day interactions have become more difficult. Just knowing I present as male is bad enough, but the constant barrage if male pronouns and greetings has become an endless stream of negativity. Every one a little barb which tears away another small piece of my heart. I think I mentioned before Jodi’s concern over how easy it is to push me over the edge from having a good day to having a bad day. A has also pointed out my bad days usually become bad weeks where she is back to walking on eggshells… this bothers me deeply. I don’t want her or the kids to feel this way, and I don’t want to feel it either… So to that end, I spoke with my doctor and had my Prozac dose doubled. I haven’t mentioned this before because I don’t want to jinx myself, but after today I think I can say it is helping, but I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not.

I had a salesman stop by today to try and sell me new windows, which is the last of my worries at the moment, but it was trying to be nice, which means what? You guess it it, plenty of attempted male bonding and a ton of male pronouns with a handful of “Guy” thrown in for good measure. Before this would have sent me into tailspin, but today it more or less ran off like water from a ducks back. I took note of it, but it was as if there was a window between the words and myself. It was a strange feeling to say the least. I guess I’m worried about have too much separation between myself and my emotions. As with so many things, I guess I’ll have to wait and see how it goes.

Still, each day it is becoming more apparent to me there is a line I am going to cross where I will no longer be able to interact with the world at large as male. I just don’t know if I should find the prospect exciting or terrifying. I think more of the latter and less of the former. 

Blame It On The Dentist

It’s early Wednesday here and I had another dentist appointment yesterday where I spent an hour in the chair and I have another one this morning which is going to be as long, maybe longer. I know these are things I need to have done, but it really messes up my sleeping pattern. As it is, I took the night off so I could sleep instead of going two days in a row feeling like I had been run over by a bus. Of course it meant I wasn’t up to posting any sooner, but at least i was able to give everyone a little update.

I am going to try and get something ready for posting later today, but I can make no promises.

Setting Up My New, (To Me), Computer

Cinnamon

 

My in-laws gave us their old computer and I’ve been messing around with it trying to see if I could use it as a blogging platform, but I think I’ll stay with my laptop for the time being.

The computer didn’t have a working operating system when I got it, though it was suppose to be running Vista or Win7, I’m not sure which. It didn’t come with any restore software and I can’t afford to pay what Microsoft is asking for Windows, so I installed Linux Mint 15. It runs fine, was a great price, (the cost of a DVD RW disk), and works well as a spare computer for web surfing and watching YouTube videos, but as a blogging platform, it leaves a lot to be desired. There are only two programs I found which even seemed as if they might work, QTM and Blogilo both of which are on par with PixelPumper which I have already reviewed. Neither could auto detect this blog and instead wanted to post to an old, deleted blog. None of these choices offer the features and simplicity of MarsEdit, which at $40 is really a bargain. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer a Linux version. Since I prefer to use my laptop for most of my computing needs, it isn’t a major issue. It is simply frustrating… 

In case you haven’t noticed, I love electronic gadgets, I have since I was a kid and got my first transistor radio which I carried around with me everywhere until I wore the poor thing out. With the rise of Personal Computers, which I was introduced to in high school, learning programming on a Apple IIe, Yes, I know I am dating myself, but it was so amazing to be sitting in front of this thing, typing out commands in glowing green letters and then watching as all those lines of seeming gibberish made the computer do what I wanted it to.

Back in the early Nineties I got into building my own computers. At the time it was more cost effective and I knew everything inside those ugly beige towers. At about the same time Linux was making a splash with all the geeks at the local computer store and I dove in right along with them. It was fun and exciting to be working with something new, not to mention free. I suppose even back then money was a driving factor in my software decisions as I simply couldn’t see how the cost of Windows was justified. Add in some of the horrible decisions they made, WinME anyone? Of course I drove poor A nuts with all my tinkering. I was changing versions of Linux like most people change underwear and when I wasn’t, I was more than likely trying to fix whatever I had just broken by making changes… and reinstalling the software too many times to count.

I finally made a decision to go with a brand name, prebuilt system when Apple unveiled Mac OSX and I haven’t looked back since… until now. At this point I have to put back money for several years to afford a new computer and so I want my dollars to count and I haven’t seen a version of Windows which was worth the cost since XP came out. I also couldn’t afford to buy more than one computer every few years and as I said, my choice has been Mac. Of course now I have a new toy to play with which has only cost me the price of a new mouse and a DVD RW disk. I did look into buying Win7 but why should I fork out over a hundred dollars US for an operating system when I’ve got something which does the basics I need and cost me nothing?

Now getting back to the issue of blogging. As I said, I prefer to use a desktop editor, but I can use WordPress via the browser if I have to, or even the WP app on my phone, tho there are downsides to both, which means, if there was no other choice, I could use Chrome on the Linux machine which I suppose would meet my needs of both usefulness and cost effectiveness as Chrome is free. 

The question is, what works best for a given situation? For some things free or low cost works fine, but for others it is worth paying for something which does the best job.

UPDATE: Dad Begs Son To Surrender In Transgender Web Reality Star’s Death

Dantjier Powell dated Domonique Newburn for years before cops discovered the ‘Hollywood Houseboys’ star murdered in her Fontana, Calif., apartment. Loueadry Powell pleaded with his boy to turn himself in.

Read the article HERE