During the decade I took care of my parents full time, my goal was simple. I wanted to give them one more good day. I achieved this pretty well, I think. They both made it to 89, and for my father, that was fifteen years longer than any of his siblings. My father thought his … Continue reading One More Good Day
“It’s not the frivolity of women that makes them so intolerable. It’s their ghastly enthusiasm.” — Horace Rumpole, “Rumpole Of The Bailey” (John Mortimer) When you are a delightful gamine creature, enthusiasm is seen as a charming affectation. When you are a big, hulking lug, though, enthusiasm is seen as a terrifying potential lack of … Continue reading Impassioned
A blog may be the worst format ever created for telling stories. Blogs, and all their descendants, like micro-blogging, image-blogging and social-blogging (e.g. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) are structured in reverse chronological order. The most recent entries are at the top with older ones pushed down and down, made almost invisible through the accretions over time. … Continue reading Bloggone It
To be a woman is something so strange, so confusing and so complicated that only a woman would put up with it. — Søren Kierkegaard In FemmeStruggle (2007), the challenge of being a queer woman in a complicated world is made very difficult by how the social conventions work to make complex choices invisible, devalued … Continue reading KISS It Goodbye
Marine scientists who ply the Pacific Ocean around the US northwest have studied killer whales for a characteristic they have in common with humans but few other mammals: menopause. Why, in some species, do females continue to live on even though they are infertile and cannot add to the population? In humans and killer whales, … Continue reading Crone Knowledge
Walking in the world as a visible transperson often feels like you are a one person parade. In a sea of other people, you know that you are the one who is concerned about standing out, about concealing what might set off other people, about keeping everything in place as you move through your life. … Continue reading One Person Parade
People, on the whole, don’t like to change their minds. Always, transsexuals were told, let someone see you full face before you speak. If they see you as a woman, your voice will be a woman’s voice. If they don’t see you — like talking on the phone — that choice may well go the … Continue reading One Or The Other
It may have struck you that I probably do identify as a writer, and that I identify writing as art. I am one of those artists who is committed less to product and more to process, not on one piece but rather on a disciplined creative process which facilitates continuing growth and expression. Writing, like … Continue reading Writing For Good
My goal when taking care of my parents for the last decade of their lives was to give them one more good day. That meant many things, but mostly it was about keeping them safe, cared for and engaged, their lives full of interaction and stimulation. It is hard for me to remember the last … Continue reading Good Day
My father died two years today. Last year my sister and I went to the hospital where he spent his last five months. I wanted to be there before I had to be there, to let the ripples calm down. This year, Arlo is playing a concert locally, so she’s out. My brother couldn’t even … Continue reading Two Years Today
“Welcome to woman,” PerformanceGal told me, “Welcome to crazy.” I have never understood transpeople who want a day where men can wear women’s clothes without any concern. They imagine boys competing in beauty pageants, or bosses forcing men to wear women’s clothes to work, and never consider the way that changes society. Nobody embraces womanhood … Continue reading Woman, Crazy, Good
As we grow up, we start to understand what has been missing in our life and we begin to search for it. For some of us, we are lucky enough to find someone to give it to us, but for many of us we have to learn to invoke it in ourselves, claim it as … Continue reading Someone Had To Be The Mommy
What are the components of a good spiritual practice? That’s a question ShamanGal and I have been talking about. She once told me that she was never going to beat herself up again. I laughed. “Of course you will beat yourself up again,” I told her. “People and events will beat you up too. “The … Continue reading Milestones
“My life, my life,” said young ShamanGal to me. “I spent so long denying who I am, and that lead me to do so many self destructive things, and now I am hurting. How do I get over this?” The lovely thing about other people’s challenges is that the answers are clear to us, objective … Continue reading Holding The Good
Never waste a good question, I always say. I can spend days chewing on a good question, even if bereavement lady doesn’t understand how I both trust my relationship with the creator, if not with creation, and squeeze every scrap of support I get for all I can wring from it. The question asked at … Continue reading So, What Would Feel Good?
Last night, my sister took away the car I use to run errands for my parents, and then threatened to call someone to have me put out of their house as a danger to them. She later explained all this as her being bad at emotional manipulation. Their goal was to strongarm me into engaging … Continue reading The Girl Everyone Sees As An Ogre
There is a Visa ad on now, where a gal breaks a heel and a fairy godmother takes her into a shop where, with one swirl of a beauty chair, she has a great hairdo and a fabulous new dress, then a line of handsome men offer her elegant shoes, and she dances down the … Continue reading (Not) Looking Good
It’s like Christmas in North Carloina here, temps in the 40s and sunny on Christmas Eve. I’m actually in a pretty good mood here cracking up Feliz Navidad — the live Tropical version — and dancing. But I know when my parents get back from their afternoon jaunt, things go back to bland, no stereo … Continue reading Holiday 11
If you read this blog regularly (and I have seen the stats, so I know that you don’t), you might have determined that I am what has been called a “compulsively pensive” person. In other words, I think a lot. It’s just how my mind works, how it always has. What many people wish for me is … Continue reading More Or Less Mind
On Friday, my mother got her diagnosis of degnerative joint disease of the spine, with one disc already hernieated. We don’t know what this means other than what her doctor said: “really bad, really bad.” Her appointment with the orthopedist is after she comes back from her Winter Jaunt. But it looks to be a … Continue reading Even More
Callan 