ghosts are good company

i didn’t get the job. i mean, i might get the job in the future. but they’re not going to hire me as immediately as they had suggested. so i’m frustrated, and not sure where to go from here with some of my plans.

nat came home today and excitedly announced that he was surprising me with dinner guests (or an invitation to be dinner guests? i wasn’t paying too much attention, because). the response he got was perhaps not as he expected, as it involved me groaning (and whining!) in a fetal position. after consultation with said potential dinner companion as to where a low income health clinic could be found (yay after-hours and the lack of health insurance) and a visit to the doctor (i hate doctor visits), it was determined that i had a bladder infection. go go team awesome. i’m feeling a little better now, still not-so-great but stunned by nat’s rockstardom around a medical ‘emergency’ and the related anxiety/incompetence that builds in me around medical situations.

it was my mom’s birthday yesterday! it sounds like she had a great day, which is what she deserves. part of the frustration with changing plans is that i was hoping to see her this weekend, and now i’m not sure if i should head down there or not.

those are the things on my mind, this 3:35am. i’m heading back to sleep, and hope that your rest is better than mine.

although it’s been raining wonderfully for the past seven hours, and that’s perfect.

CIMG4072

Originally uploaded by geoffy

i found my missing login information! that’s always a good thing.

i’ve been wandering around the puget sound region lately, sleeping on couches for the last month. currently i’m in des moines, at the kindness of my grandparents. their house is one of my favorite places, it has such a beautiful view of the water - i just wish that it were reasonably public transportationable.

the region is making me antsy, and i’m hoping that opportunities elsewhere pan out soon. for now i’ve been making mini-trips to pretend that i’m going somewhere; last weekend a friend and i explored bainbridge island. it was very very warm.

also last weekend i met up with some of my (now) favorite strangers from the internet, in BALLARD of all places. i got to go to archie mcpheeee where i found a fantastic green dinosaur finger puppet (see photo!) and spent too much money.

ALSO last weekend, the derby liberation front beat the throttle rockets, which was delightful but also sad as it was mommacherry’s last bout with the team. the team, mascots and all, did their introductions in aprons in homage to mommacherry, which amused me since i was wearing an apron that day anyway.

this weekend has, unsurprisingly, been calmer.

a few years ago i started a trans group at my college… now my baby group has grown up without me, and i’m back with exciting plans. the first year we did an open mic focusing on people talking about their bodies, generally specific parts of them. this quarter, i want to do it again, with a lot of prep time and beauty. we’re meeting tomorrow to iron more stuff out, and i’ve scheduled space for on editing workshop at the end of april. what’s next on the list is, of course: a name.

i was drawn the body project, until i remembered… that’s a book. that i just purchased for class. which you can see in the video in my last post. the body monologues is just too… yeah. i’m thinking maybe bodies talk? but that seems a little too talking heads. i want… something inviting and fairly obvious to folks seeing the fliers, something that mayyybe gets into gender, but also is open to other folks - largely this is about how people experience the world through their bodies, and how those bodies affect those experiences.

maybe i need to pull out a thesaurus. hmm.

moral of the story: advice, please?

and so it goes. it’s olympia, it’s raining. i can hear the rain on my balcony. i’ve moved into a house just above the fourth avenue bridge, with: two cats, three kids, four dogs and, come may, five adults. my room is pretty big - maybe twelve by eighteen, or a little bigger (larger than two pucks plus three pucks), plus closets. it’s got nicely green walls, two redorange doors, and a yellow ceiling, which matches the trim on the windows and th balcony doors. it might be hailing, actually; the rain is bouncing a bit more than usual.

at first i thought there was no wireless here, but there is and that is helpful - for one of my classes our weekly assignments are primarily blog-based, which makes sense. for another i have to have a livejournal, which makes less sense.

all of my classes seem pretty awesome, which is delightful. five courses means scads of reading, but it should be good. i’m trying to not get too distracted by student activities and such this quarter, but i have a plan simmering for a giant final project for myself/STAR (my trans group grew up without me!). if i want to make it happen i have to start NOW (after i get my homework for this week in order), so i need to decide if i want to commit as much time as it needs. i’m currently trying to have my entire College Experience As a Single Person in one quarter, so that’s exhausting in itself.

there is a corgi demanding my attention. i must go.

i have a challenge between making this blog [my] “family friendly” and making it… about much of my life. but i guess since folks wouldn’t know me very well at all without knowing this, i spend the vast majority of my social time engaged it trans community activism and/or at the “local queerlady-owned sexuality boutique” - “a sex store even your mother would love.”

partially i bring this up because they (the rubber rose, the store mentioned above), just hosted the annual traveling roadshow that is the sex worker’s art show. i’ve been four out of the last five years now, and this year i had the most fun (even though nomy lamm wasn’t on the tour), largely because carly and lea (see above queerladies) made it such an awesome environment.

i attribute the environment mostly to lea and carly, even though the show was at a different venue, because it had the same spirit of delight, enthusiasm, and wonder that makes all of the rubber rose’s events awesome. still, it was missing as much of a feeling of power (youtube, sound) as some of their past events. the show was at a different venue becauuuuse the rubber rose has permit Issues. due to their being an “adult business” apparently there is a whole laundry list of things that are not allowed in their performance space. which drives me crazy.

ah, well. if you haven’t missed it yet, go see the art show. and if you’re in the area, go give the rubber rose some money. because i can’t. because i still don’t have a job. awesome!! oh: and official no-go on amsterdam today. double-awesome.

i decided to backpedal - um, skate backward - with my skating practice. i’ve been going to boot camp with the san diego derby dolls off and on, but having trouble there because i’m Just Not Good Enough. so i decided (on the recommendation of a skater who used to live in s.d. but has recently moved down from san francisco…) to try out the Adult Skating Lessons at skateworld. they’re shorter, cheaper, and more geared to people my level - and also a totally different kind of workout! we were doing a “scissor” thing around the rink, where you use your legs to move your feet out and in without lifting them up? and ow, my thighs. i don’t get this much of a thigh workout just striding.

so that hurts. but also, i managed to fall down and kick myself pretty hard in the inner-thigh. no wonder derby’s hardcore, if i can injure myself this much just on my own. i haven’t worn my skatetown shirt to the rink yet (it was a “paulie bleeker is totally boss” day, so orange - but different orange), but i hope to soon.

and i did actually skate backward today! woo!

there’s been discussion lately about “yo” as an organically developing gender neutral pronoun, but none of the discussion that i’ve seen really addresses race or class issues, which i find… fascinating… especially considering the demographics of the communities contriving other gender neutral pronouns so far.

(note my not addressing it either? i’m just bringing it up for people to think about what connotations “yo” has in their minds.)

i’m still an epicene “they,” myself, and damn anyone who tries to tell me that it’s grammatically incorrect. they seem like probably the people who would make sad faces at me if i took “it” instead, and if they want to find something 1) grammatically correct 2) not dehumanizing 3) that flows well in language, i welcome them to go ahead - and tell me when they’ve found it.

dear buffy musical,

i kind of love you.

i’m just sayin’. i was petrified about last night, about going by myself, until i saw that they were looking for people to assemble goody bags (”i used to do this all by myself, until i realized that people might be willing to help me!” / “when did you start having people help you?” / “oh, about three shows ago.”), and so i did that and met people and then i wasn’t all by myself! which is awesome.

and while i was the only one really injecting the musical with the overabundance of lewd that it so obviously deserves, it was still full of the sauce of awesome, because everybody was having a great time and being clever.

it also plays tonight, and i am hoping hoping to go again (that would be, um, my third time?). hurray!

last night i made a mix cd based on seattle - songs about seattle, not by people in seattle. it’s a little obvious, a little lewd, and a little amusing. do any of you want a copy? maybe we could do a mix cd swap? if you’re interested, leave a comment and we can exchange addresses or whatever by email.

here’s the cover image (shrinkified):

the image is from the pi. a “composite photograph” from 1986. ’shop!

the tracklist, in case anyone’s interested:

The Long Winters - Prom Night At Hater High
Craig Chaquico & Russ Freeman - Seattle Child
Brazen Abbot - Restless in Seattle
Abigail Anderson - Seattle
Bob Rivers - West Seattle Girls
Sir Mix-a-Lot - Posse On Broadway
The Postal Service - This Place Is A Prison
Anti-Flag - Seattle Was A Riot
The Business - Holiday in Seattle
Kimya Dawson - I Will Never Forget
Connie Smith - Seattle
Steve Vai - The Boy From Seattle
Bill Cosby - Seattle

in a different direction, fish with no name is no more. apparently i fail at having a fish. the building i’ve been working in has amaaazing fish in the lobby, but i won’t be working here after tomorrow. i wonder if they’d mind me coming in to see the fish anyway. :D

my alarm is set for six hours and forty-two minutes from now. i have a job (for a week), which is a pretty awesome thing because it means, mostly, five hundred plus more dollars than i had before.

unfortunately, i am already spending some of that money in my head… i’m wanting to buy roller derby pads, probably from sin city skates. expensive, but important.

jorb is good for structure. i’ve been better at getting getting things done just knowing that it’s coming - making things ready for the next day, sure, but also cleaning the house. it’s crazy, how important it can be to have something to work toward.

that said, though, my sleep schedule still isn’t working. i trained for two hours today and then came home and accidentally napped for five hours. i just downloaded an alarm clock for my computer, so hopefully that will help, but still - obnoxious.

saturday: my mum has a hair appointment at nine downtown. at eleven downtown there is a tranny picnic (until two, i think). at one, a tiny we know is being baptized. at five-thirty, there’s a tranny meeting. of course saturday is the day we decided to go to the padres game…

sunday: knitting. it was fun this week, i went with my aunt. i was afraid they’d make fun of my garter stitch scarf, but they really liked it. nobody could advise me on fulling, but someone taught me how to do an i-cord. and then i taught some other people. there were six new people there, including my aunt and i - and maybe twenty people there total. crazy! we left three hours after it started and they were still knitting like mad.

…this is how it works
you’re young until you’re not
you love until you don’t
you try until you can’t
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe
until their dying breath

no, this is how it works
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into some
someone else’s heart
pumping someone else’s blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it don’t get harmed
but even if it does
you’ll just do it all again…

i’ve certainly heard of regina spektor, i’m pretty sure she’s fairly popular among a certain crowd, but perhaps the first time i’ve heard her music was the other day.

my mother mentioned at some point radio sophie, and i was charmed by the idea because one of my favorite people is named sophie, and i would love it if she had a radio station because it would play delightful music. the actual radio sophie isn’t actually so delightful and it’s owned by cbs, but it still has perhaps the best playlist of all of the corporate radio in san diego. which maybe is saying something.

anyway, i first heard regina spektor’s “on the radio” on the radio, on my way home from somewhere - oh! bowling, i think. my mother’s work goes bowling every so often, and i was invited to bowl with them. i bowl badly. i warned them when i was invited that i would bowl about eighty, and indeed i averaged seventy-nine.

anyhow, on the radio was “on the radio” and it made me cry. you can listen to it here, at least for a little while. i think it was a minor hit a while ago? i like it the most of any of her music that i’ve heard.

i have a new friend who is a fish. he doesn’t have a name yet, but he is a pink betta fish with light blue and silvergray coloring. he is pretty lovely, and he lives in the kitchen.

tomorrow is knitting at the whistle stop. i need a new project, though, because i finished my current one at the trans discussion group i went to tonight. it’s a long and skinny garter snake, i mean scarf, out of some lion brand landscapes i picked up when my ex worked at jo-ann - in summer fields (mine is a bit looser gauge, i did it on fifteens), which is a color scheme that i love sooo much. for no apparent reason… but it makes me excessively happy. i am thinking of doing this with it, but i am not completely sure if i want to - i’m afraid that it will get thicker, and i don’t want that. i really just can’t decide if it’s nice or horrible. i *do* want tassels, so i need to figure out whether or not fulling is go. any thoughts, knitters? suggested needles are thirteens, so it’s not like there’s giant holes. i might take it with me to the stitch and bitch and ask them.

so, that’s why i don’t talk about knitting. also because i never know what to knit. i want to do fun things, but i’m horrible at remembering patterns. i made a… thing… today that was an experiment in how stranded colorwork will felt (i wasn’t very surprised that the cuff, or whatever it will be, got twice as wide around after i felted it and then snipped the carried-over yarn. i’ll felt it again and see how it turns out. i want to make this eventually, and it would be super fun to do some kind of symbol (piiiiirate bag?) on the middle panel.

i have so much yarn, especially considering how little i knit. and so many needles!

i’ll suffer you through discussions of these things in the future.