ghosts are good company

i have been very anxious and avoidant lately, which makes the world pretty awesome. it’s that time of the quarter - the new!shiny! aspect of it all has worn off, and very few of the classes are as great as i was hoping. still, i have a new momentary excitement, which is that i have a topic for my Big Paper for one of my classes. i’m going to look at gender variance and tricksters, since… those are, you know, things that this trannypuck is interested in. i’m a little worried about the trickster as a racialized entity, but since it shows up in so many cultures… that would be an interesting thing to research on its own. it’s kind of exciting to have a paper idea that actually feels like it could easily fill its required length.

so that’s exciting, and graduating in a few weeks is exciting, but oh my goodness the stress has been killing me. i’ve had two migraines since getting here (it’s a good thing i’ve still got my medication-toting habit, since it’s been at least three years since i’ve had one), and my body has been wracked with acid. fortunately, i’ve only had one actual panic attack, and even that was… under special circumstances.

work is over after friday, a ‘good while it lasted but oh golly glad it’s gone’ type thing. i still haven’t heard from either of my summer programs to know if i should, you know, buy a plane ticket… if things don’t pan out there, i’m thinking of staying in washington and maybe doing americorps or something, but i really wish that i had any sort of idea at all when i would hear from the programs!!

yep. here’s me frustrated. i’ve been knitting a lot (a lot) to try to keep calm - it’s not a horrible thing, really. it’s kind of fun to follow patterns, that is my new knitting thing.

i want to remember to share with you: some pictures, stuff from the kimya show, and… what the tinies i live with did for my birthday. these are all Important Things that i should get to once the world shifts back into… whatever the second-highest gear is.

hi blog!

things are fine, the world has been proceeding normally without you. i’m heading up to evergreen on fool’s day - although it sounds all like a hoax, since i don’t actually have a place to live, i’m hoping to find some sort of stability once i’m there. i’m registered for eighteen credits at the moment, waiting to get through a wait list to bump it back down to sixteen - i’m taking enough credits to graduate just in case amsterdam doesn’t work out, as it has a tendency… not to, and considering the state of the dollar.

the trans leadership summit was a fantastic experience, and i’m lucky to have been able to go. i made the acquaintance of some great people, and got back in touch with folks i’d lost touch with. i was able to find genderqueers again (it’s lonely down here in san diego) and learned a lot, much of which was a reminder of the binaries and biases within the trans community. i had to walk out of a workshop which began with discussion of how badly the hrc had done with enda - and ended with the conclusion that perhaps the trans community would do better if we had the “normal” trans folks step up in the media, and let the “militant genderqueers” be out of the spotlight. so that “the mainstream” doesn’t think that the whole trans community is made up of “freaks” [like me*]?

i was enraged, and wrote an impassioned piece about it while i was on the plane, and then my computer deleted it. that’s what i get for writing in a program that doesn’t auto save.

i’m going to be updating wordpress sometime in the next few days, so if things get bumpy over in greendinoville, that’s why.

tonight i’m making buttons for the rubber rose (they made my button-helpers volunteers of the month for february, and that makes me happy) and tomorrow i’m going to the getty with my family! yay for things!

the birds are twittering outside. happy spring. i’m looking for the perfect daffodil header for my blog - which i recall doing last year as well…

* don’t you wish your partner was a. i was lucky that this rage was mostly productive, it’s the kind where i got pissed off and motivated, rather than pissed off and depressed.

i am first on the waitlist still, but nowwww the program leaves in less than a month! so chances that i’m going look very. slim.

which leads me to: do i want to graduate in six years but with this awesome gender and sexuality program last on my transcript? or do i just want to freaking graduate already, by taking whatever at evergreen this spring?

the latter is quite appealing (except that the only program that really excites me is this one? but.)… i could still go to amsterdam, it would cost the same (evergreen would want tuition to put it on my transcript anyway), and i could have a college degree. wouldn’t that be nice.

p.s. jaci, there was no way for me to refrain from stealing your boat (garage) for this post. i love you.

not too long ago, i posted about how fantastic my experience with the buffy musical on the big screen has been.

i went again for its second night in san diego, and it was even more awesome than the first - there had definitely been a lot of word of mouth at work, and the crowd was super pumped. it made me happy, and glad that i had sat in the front row and as such could see everything.

and it was good.

and it is gone.

the curator, if you will, of the buffy musical sing-a-long has been notified that “Fox has pulled the license for ALL their TV shows from theatrical exhibition.”

and that pisses me off, because these things have been bringing together some awesome community. usually i hate online petitions, but i signed this one.

in non buffy news, i can’t go skate tonight because of my broken butt.

grr. arg.

i just got out of a hot bath and into dirty clothes. tonight my mother and i are staying at the serrano hotel, which has lovely deep bathtubs - with enough hot water! at my apartment, you have to turn the water to its hottest possible to get anything near a nice bath, and then pretty soon it’s cold.

when we started planning my move, she booked this room with two beds just in case i wanted to stay. it’s good she did, because everything i own is now stuffed into a cheerful ten-foot u-haul truck. a year ago i drove my car down to san diego to sell, and now i’m driving my whole life down there. from here i can see the building in which everything i own is parked, but i can’t see my truck. it worries me - but not as much as parking the truck in front of my tenderloin apartment does.

i should sleep, as i need to be up in five-and-a-half hours to clean (after three hours sleep last night, awesome), but i wanted to check in and tell you that, hurrah hurrah and hallelujah, there will be no ore packing updates from me here. for now.

oh! and my mother was a sweetheart, after me bitching all day, and took us out to dinner at the tonga room. she mentioned as we walked in that she expected birds to start talking - and it was indeed as awesome as hoped.

i hurt everywhere, folks. soon my move will be over, and the world will be happier.

you should really just be glad that i haven’t posted thus far this month, because this may has been perhaps the saddest month ever.

things are feeling a little better, planswise - i had double advice to let time figure things out, so while that’s hard to explain to people sometimes… that’s what i’m doing. mostly. :D

tonight i made seitan. well, today i made a few things. we had a stale loaf of bread, so i had some of that for lunch with garlic and butter, and then i wanted to make…. something… so i made breadcrumbs and then wanted something to fry in them, so i made seitan. it wasn’t from the ppk recipe, which i had used before, but it was very similar…. here! i used garlic instead of powdered garlic, and… we didn’t have some of the flavorings, so i used extra veggie stock for simmering. and molasses. it turned out fine, a bit soy saucey (becuase i used the high end of the suggested amount - i wanted flavrs!) and was completely underwhelming when baked in breadcrumbs. alas. now we have a bowl of seitan and a bowl of garlic butter in the fridge. i’m not sure what to do with them, but it’ll be… something. i stood on the phone with my father and cataloged things i could cook in breadcrumbs - green beans? a beet? squash? … none of them seemed appetizing. i wouldn’t have done well cooking on rations.

tomorrow i have a midterm, and then after that hopefully maybe i will go to a self defense training for trans and genderqueer folks. we discussed hate crimes in one of my classes recently, and that was a major suggestion (of course) for survival. but, i’ve never felt comfortable in any of the self-defense classes that i’ve taken. this one seems like it would be optimal, but it actually starts *during* the midterm. rawr, says dinosaur puck.

sleeping is optimal for children and other living things. and extinct things. including dinosaurs. goodnight or goodmorning or whatever works for you. xo

today was one of the super!productive! awesome. so much stuff recycled and landfilled and going to community thrift tomorrow. we spent six hours sorting. hurray!

i really have no idea, career-wise - which is scary, because that precipice is coming up. everyone keeps asking me if i’m going to graduate this spring, and… i doubt it. i would like to, would like to use that to prove that i’m not as messed up as people probably think i am, would like to use that as proof that my disabilities aren’t debilitating - but i don’t want to graduate just for proof.

the next is a rundown of my summer plans, which don’t exist. chances are you already know these things.

i’ve been waiting and waiting to see the listings for my school’s summer classes. at the beginning of march, “Summer 2007 listings will be available in March” was changed to “Summer 2007 listings will be available in April.” now it’s april and i’m still waiting. a comrade in waiting found the class schedules for summer, though - so at least i know who is teaching when, and the first forty characters of the program title. surprisingly enough, that gives me a lot of hope and eases my worries a bit.

i’m also working on an application for this summer program. it is doubtful that i could both the school of unity and liberation summer school as well as an evergreen class, but i’m hoping that i could work it out - there are a few short-term evergreen pieces that i might be able to schedule around a summer with soul.

if neither of these things work, and if the former works, for that matter, i’ll be looking for a job. i should actually be looking for a job now - temp work would be optimal - to build into the summer, but… i haven’t started. job hunts are an anxious project for people even without anxiety disorders. yippee!

another thing that i want to do before i graduate is take part in this program in the netherlands. working this summer would obviously help support that some… the application for fall isn’t due until may fifteenth, so maybe i should work on that just in case. …except that the program is full. wow.

the netherlands program would also be helpful in my work toward the modern thought and literature program at stanford, in case that’s what i decide to do. for that, “it is recommended that students begin the program with an advanced knowledge of at least one foreign language.” my spanish has always been horrible, but i want to start working on that again - however, by the end of the program i would need to have reading knowledge in two languages. still, i thought at first that it was in two languages *before* the program, so that’s good.

ahh, just thinking about this all is making my stomach hurt. and these are the touchstones, the potential knowns of my future! eep, it’s time for bed.

in one of my classes, i’m doing well - getting each week’s work (because it’s online) done quickly, being on top of things… and it was just mentioned that i hadn’t signed in, yesterday, since the fourth. which is only a week, but apparently in the world of the internet, that’s a Long Time. what can you do?

so, i also haven’t updated here since then. so that’s a Long Time as well. i guess.

it’s been a busy world for cubbie and i, full of lots of delicious drama. we’re working it out, which is lovely. we’ve been Going Out and Doing Things, having dates, which we haven’t done for a while.

in searching for things to do with cubbie, i’ve also found things that i want to do on my own. gay shame meets every week, which is great because i had thought they were defunct.

trouble is, though, i keep finding things to do and then… not doing them. i have one in-person class and the rest are online and you’d think that maybe i would want to get out of the house more, but… no. this is why i haven’t been updating, see, because then i’d have to tell you about this and that’s certainly no fun.

what else, though. something is fun, and i’ve forgotten what it is. cleaning the house? no. um, oh! we’re thinking about moving to a new apartment in our building, if we ever make an appointment to see it. apparently there are studios that are only $50 more per month that are bigger and overlook the bay! i’m so hopeful.

that’s all i got.

today i went to the emergency room! i had chest pain, which started last night, and it got worse so i called my mom and she said “ambulance!” and i said “taxi!” (i’ve been liking taxis lately), and so my friend amanda and my love cubbie and i all trooped down to the emergency room, where there was one person in the waiting room and we were escorted right in, and the ekg and the chest x-ray said “um, nothing!” and so they gave me a prescription for gigantic ibuprofen, which cost, seventy cents, and now i’m home and i still hurt. but i… didn’t have a heart attack! awesome.