jessica_m1978

jessica_m1978 @ 2009-10-26T10:32:00

2009-10-26T14:33:23Z

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
jessica_m1978 goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as a meth addict.
autumnquest gives you 9 light green licorice-flavoured pieces of bubblegum.
deslockdarkstar tricks you! You get a 3.5-inch floppy disc.
djkiltboy tricks you! You lose 5 pieces of candy!
evinumen tricks you! You get a rock.
iphisol gives you 11 purple banana-flavoured jawbreakers.
scottchurch gives you 1 softly glowing peach-flavoured gumdrops.
stregapez tricks you! You get a rotten egg.
theemeraldqueen gives you 6 yellow pineapple-flavoured wafers.
vincef gives you 8 dark blue mint-flavoured gummy worms.
wisdomdancer gives you 1 milky white coconut-flavoured gummy worms.
jessica_m1978 ends up with 31 pieces of candy, a 3.5-inch floppy disc, a rock, and a rotten egg.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

"I am pretty sure most of you would ask me almost anything..."

2009-10-07T02:18:30Z

...since we're friends and all, but this might be fun:

1 question, 1 honest answer. You can ask me one question (Comments Screened, I may reply to your inbox/e-mail) Any question, anything. No matter how awkward it can be, ill answer it honestly, no catch. But i dare you to put this as your status and see what people ask you.

Just make sure you really want to know the answer.

Will I ever get used to this?

2009-02-01T07:55:14Z

x-posted from jessicamorrissey.com:

I wonder if I'll ever get used to not being treated like a second class citizen. Of course I'm not complaining that I'm not as that it's obviously a good thing. I just don't seem to be able to take for granted things that other women don't notice.

I was a model for a photoshoot today which was VERY female-centric in terms of models (as in 2 male models and 6 female models). This was actually the second shoot with two of the photographers, and another photographer was added to make three. I'm still stunned that I've been asked to model twice and the second time I was requested by both of the original photographers.

So there's a lot of little things that sort of force me into navel-gazing. For one, nobody references my past or seems to make any distinction between myself and any of the cissexual women. Sometimes it makes me wonder if anything's being said behind my back, although usually I'm just appreciative to have made such amazing friends. Sometimes it's both. Something that really makes me think is the fact that I don't seem to threaten guys' masculinity; I show up and leave and get hugs just like any other woman there. Guys seem to enjoy modeling with me.

There's also a lot of interactions with other women that make me think a lot too. Without going into too much detail, I've been viewed as a viable threat to a lesbian relationship as a possible replacement (I'm not as I'm explicitly polyamorous and made that clear so things seem to be better). Overall though, there's just this sense of inherent inclusion as a woman. What I mean is that it's not like "Jessica transitioned so now we're obligated to treat her like a woman and include her in woman-ish things we're doing". It's more that it seems like it's never even occurred to any of them to potentially NOT include me, even when it comes to situations where I'm unable to relate for physical reasons (pregnancy, periods, sex as a woman with a vagina).

So to be honest, it's a little disorienting. Before I started transition, I heard so many horror stories about how badly trans women get treated. So I sort of went into it expecting abuse, staring, exclusion and it simply hasn't happened. I don't really think it's an issue of people not knowing I'm trans or anything; for one, I don't really make any effort to hide my past; sometimes it's impossible to describe your present without referencing your past.

I think maybe more than anything, it just makes me feel like I'm being grossly unobservant. I go into restrooms and locker rooms and gendered social spaces and don't hear whispers or notice dirty looks. While I try to have faith in people as a species, the fact that I've never been confronted for being in a female-gendered space and very VERY rarely notice getting any acknowledgement of the fact that I'm trans despite living in a fairly conservative area of Pennysylvania leaves me feeling like I'm missing something. I don't really think it's that random people don't notice, and just thru sheer numbers, I'd think somebody would have said something.

Occam's razor would probably lead me to think that the reason nobody bothers me is because I'm a well-adjusted young woman and they don't have any reason to do so. Yet I feel like... I dunno... like I'm giving myself too much credit to think of myself as well-adjusted.

Really though, I just wonder if and when I'll be able to simply accept that I seem to be unconditionally and inherently viewed as a woman. I want to not feel like that can't be the answer and that I must be missing something.

I'm starting a new site: this is x-posted as the initial news article

2009-01-30T04:23:20Z

From http://jessicamorrissey.com:

So... yeah... new blog... new website... new lots of stuff.

Some of you know me already. My goal is to have a lot more people who don't reading this eventually. Eventually I'm going to write up a more formal, static page describing the purpose and mission of this site. But for now, it's primarily a site where I try to raise money to pay for SRS. It's also going to be my personal blog, which if I'm hosting it and paying hosting fees, even if it's not much, I'll be far more likely to keep updated. I've been asked to model for people as well so I should have pictures of myself on here as well. I've not determined if I'm going to have more adult-related themes here or not, but if I do, you'll have to register an account to see any of it anyway.

Originally I wanted part of this to be a resource for trans-related information in a concentrated place. Eventually, I decided that I'd prefer to break this resource off into a separate site: http://trans-resource.com. I haven't even started on that yet and I won't get into too many details on my plans for it here. Point being, keep an eye out for it if it's the sort of thing that interests you.

So... yeah... new site... I'll put up a static page going into more detail on the whole raising money for SRS thing. Obviously I still have a LOT of work to do here. In the meantime, keep checking back in and I promise I'll keep adding to it. Oh and I tend to rant in my blog which is entertaining sometimes.

Jessica

All you have to do to make your mom sort of awesome is not talk to her for almost a decade

2008-12-23T20:57:21Z

I got a card from my mother yesterday. On the front, it said something like 'To our daughter at christmas'... it's pretty win even if I don't really celebrate xmas.

I was in fine form at work today. My apologies to the furries

2008-12-17T01:30:17Z

Date: 2008-12-16 12:53:07
PostID: 960461347
Title: (missed connections) RE: Stop it
How do you think us lesbian women feel when we don't even have to make eye contact to have men trying to pick us up in real life. And even if we make it clear we're lesbian and inherently not interested, it becomes a quest to f**k the lesbian and stroke your sad little ego.

Here's an idea... if you're such a scared little bigot, you could always, let's see... maybe NOT read the ones that say m4m?

Do us all a favor... stay in your basement masturbating to furry porn until your mom brings you another Mountain Dew and stop imposing your narrow minded bigoted s**t on the rest of us.

________________________________

"I am so sick of you homosexuals doing missed connections on any guy that makes eye contact with you...people in the service industry are supposed to be friendly...doesn't mean they like dirty ass faggots! "

* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests.

Fucking entitlement

2008-11-07T20:39:06Z

OK, so at the end of work yesterday I get a call from somebody outside of my department. I'm trying to be nice to the guy but he's being a condescending asshole. So I get off the phone and rant to coworkers and find out that I'm not the first woman in my department he's been condescending to. So today, I write a page-long email to my supervisor:

I had a call from xxxxxxxx, the male houseparent from student home xxxxxx yesterday afternoon. He called about some password issues relating to a relief houseparent which essentially boiled down to him needing to know how to change his password (he already had the current password). So this is an issue that really could and should have been handled by the help desk. Yet I already had him on the phone, and I always try to help people out with issues that aren't overwhelmingly time-consuming if I can, regardless of who should really be responsible for the issue.

Despite me trying to be helpful and polite, Mr. xxxxx deigned it necessary to spend the call being rude and condescending. While trying to make sure I understood what he was trying to communicate, he repeatedly felt the need to tell me I wasn't following him and that I wasn't understanding him. He essentially demanded to know why one of the relief houseparents needed "his" password (it was the student home account, not his personal one) and why the relief houseparent needed to get into "his" account. He continued to be very condescending when I explained that the student home account was assigned to the student home and that a relief houseparent would be given access to these accounts in order to perform their duties for that specific home for the period of time they are supervising that home.

My point here is that I feel his attitude toward me was entirely uncalled for. I go out of my way to respectfully and efficiently assist anybody who calls me looking for help. In return, I fully expect to be treated with respect, and Mr. xxxxx was unwilling or unable to do so.

Under normal circumstances, I'm more than willing to write things as such off as isolated incidents. However, after hearing about other women having similar issues with this gentleman, I decided I wanted to bring this to somebody's attention to prevent it from happening in the future. I don't want to make a big deal out of this, but I also feel my ability to provide support in a cordial, effective manner is impacted when I'm not being respected to a degree I make every effort to show to others.

So now I feel all gross and I shouldn't. This is probably the first workplace case of sexism that I've really run into. I thought it was bullshit what the guy did and how he acted so I spoke up. I had every right to, and maybe even a sense of personal responsibility to. But I can't help but feel like sexism is a commonplace workplace element, and while it's DEFINITELY fucked, I haven't experienced enough of it personally to have the right to complain when it's directed to me. There's also being pissed because it looks like I'm like 'oh noes, i was treated badly now that i'm perceived as female, i want my male privilege back, wah'

It's total bullshit. I did something that aligns with my personal sense of ethics and I still fucking feel bad about it. Like I'm obligated to let myself be shit on like a lot of other women, more so because I haven't experienced it first hand for all that long. Despite the fact that more women should stand up for themselves and other women and for a fair workplace environment in general. And knowing this, I still feel bad.

Fuck society for encouraging me to feel guilty for doing what I feel is right.

SOO tired of trans related complications

2008-10-30T00:46:29Z

As a disclaimer, I don't have any issue with BEING trans. I mean I'm not proud OR ashamed of it, much like I'm not proud or ashamed of being of predominately Irish heritage or female. They're just things that are.

However, I am sort of tired of dealing with hassles relating to being trans. I recently applied to a bunch of seasonal mall jobs: The Limited, NY & Company, Victoria's Secret, Bath and Body Works. I had an interview at NY&Co this evening after my forreal job. I thought it went pretty well overall, but I sort of got forced into disclosing that I'm trans simply because it'd come up in background checks as well as reference checks from former employers.

It's not so much that I have an issue with people knowing. It's just that once you're labeled as 'the trans chick' any other label applied to you ends up being pretty ancillary. And right now, I'm at a stage in my life where being trans isn't something I want to be defined as primarily. I mean, I could be that chick who works at a school during the day, or who quit TaeKwanDo over perceived ideological conflicts, or even the girl who wears too much eye makeup and looks like a shitty corporate version of a goth chick. Being trans just isn't significant in my day to day life and it sort of irritates the fuck out of me that I'm sort of forced into that identity by simple things like getting a job selling clothes over Xmas.

Race is just as fucked as gender

2008-10-24T13:41:48Z

OK so last nite I was going to go to the gym, but procrastinated because I was all self-conscious about going swimming, or more accurately being seen in public in a swimsuit. So I end up getting coffee from starbucks and driving out to my friend Reni's house. I'd been talking to her on the intarwebs but this was the first time I'd met her in person. So she's all like... gothy and steampunky and introduced me to Repo! The Genetic Opera which is made out of win. So overall she's pretty awesome. She's also black. I almost didn't want to separate her being black out from all the explicitly awesome stuff in the first list, as that I'm not trying to say being black isn't awesome. But that's what I'm sort of pissed off about. I was sort of like, how cool is that, a gothy steampunky black girl. But the more I thought about it, the more I was like... that is SO fucked. That I thought it the fact that the intersection of a style of life that's more traditionally a part of white culture and being black somehow made her superior. I mean forreal, wtf is up with that? I mean, by thinking that, it's almost like I'm saying somebody is superior for eschewing a culture typically associated with being black. I guess I'm sort of pissed off that I for some reason find a black person listening to combichrist more interesting than a black person watching 106 and Park.

So that is seriously fucked. I mean I'm a poly trans lesbian, so of all people, I should have an appreciation for cultural diversity and fluidity. And if I'm thinking shit like that, what does it say for the rest of Western culture? People like to talk about racism and sexism being old issues that we've moved past. I'm totally calling bullshit. I mean if you follow my thought process to it's logical conclusion, on some level, I think black people engaging in their own culture, god fucking forbid, makes them inferior. And that is a HUGE glass of anglo-centric fucked up.

Stuff

2008-10-23T13:24:38Z

Allright so some people know I've been dating a girl who's explicitly non-monogamous, thus introducing me into the world of non-monogamy (results posted in non-public filtered parts). Well, she broke up with her long term boyfriend fairly recently, so she's sort of upset about that so I haven't really talked to her in a week or two. Originally, I was just like... whatever, I guess I did something that pissed her off or lost her interest. That had me pretty upset for a while as that everybody wants to feel desired. So I found out about the boyfriend thing last nite, and one thing she said was that she didn't want me to be a rebound relationship and asked if we could just be friends for now.

I think this is a stunning example of how much I've changed. 5 years ago, I'd have been pissed off about this. 5 years ago, the idea of a polyamorous relationship would have blown my mind actually because I'd have been super jealous. Now, I'm actually like... omg, that is SO awesome... somebody thinks enough of me that they don't want me to be a rebound relationship. Like I'm actually really flattered. Of course it COULD all be made up just as an excuse to not date me, but then why would she want to be friends while she gets things sorted out? We're actually supposed to carve pumpkins on Sunday.

Oh and I got a swimsuit last nite. I decided that my gym has a nice pool and there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to go swimming in it. I'm surprised as that I found one that doesn't look all that bad on me:

Musings on open relationships/polyamory/non-monogamy/whatever

2008-10-20T18:20:42Z

Warning:

Me thinking about shit does not equate to me applying said things to any particular person/people/animal/vegetable/mineral.

That being said, having recently been introduced to open relationships, it's given me a lot of stuff to think about. As I was walking into work this morning, I was sort of thinking about the distinction between platonic and non-platonic relationships, and more specifically the distinction between the two. Even in poly relationships, there seems to be this focus on the distinction between somebody being a friend and somebody being in a romantic relationship. I'm sort of wondering how much merit there really is to that distinction. Is it really black and white? Does it need to be? Is the love you feel for a partner inherently different from the love you feel for a friend, or is that a distinction we make to make our feelings seem more exclusive and valuable? I'm semi-obviously not trying to claim that there aren't any differences in forms of love. I mean the way you'd love a parent or sibling is (usually) going to be different from the way you love a significant other. But are platonic love and non-platonic love REALLY separate entities or simply different degrees or forms of the same thing?

And what happens when you get into the realm of polyamory/open relationships? Sometimes you have cases where you have a physical/sexual relationship, but you're not looking for any sort of real commitment. Sometimes you have cases where you have that committed relationship yet it's non-physical/sexual.

What REALLY distinguishes a non-platonic and platonic relationship? I've had friendships where I've cared a great deal about the other person's well being, and non-platonic ones where I didn't have as high of a degree of concern. When sex isn't a determining factor, what makes a person 'just a friend' and another a lover?

I really wonder if the distinction between platonic and non-platonic relationships isn't artificial? Maybe not artificial exactly but... maybe a consequence of other things that may or may not be inherent to being human. The more I think about it, the more I think what causes the distinction between platonic and non-platonic relationships is a desire to possess another person and more directly, that person's attention and affection. If you stop looking at attention and affection as emotions with limits as to how much you can give or possess, is there any need for a distinction? Is this need to possess other people something inherent to human nature or is this a product of our culture?

Are these distinctions needed or even useful? Is there really any advantage to having certain people in a romantic relationship and segregating friends outside that romantic relationship?

I guess I don't have a definite opinion although it's pretty obvious that I doubt it's strictly black and white. My bigger question is if this segregation between friends and lovers is something hardwired into us as people or if it's something we're taught but isn't a characteristic inherent to being a human being.

I haven't had a nitemare in forever

2008-10-09T18:04:32Z

So yeah, I had this nitemare last nite that had me all scared when I woke up.

I was in a house that was sort of kind of like my stepfather's parent's house before his mom died. So there were a bunch of cars out front. And it was nitetime. I guess somebody was trying to break into one of the cars out front, but I caught him, no big deal. But a couple of way meaner and scarier people were in the backyard. There was a dumpster full of some sort of liquid-y stuff they were stealing with big hypodermic needles. So I went out to get rid of them, but they weren't scared off, and they started coming after me, trying to inject me with the stuff from the dumpster. So I ended up back in the house with all the doors locked but the guys outside alternated between getting more of the liquid and trying to break in and get me. Eventually, I found a shotgun but for some reason, that idea didn't get too far. So I call the police telling them some people were trying to kill me and they send somebody out to help. But then a bunch of ninjas came, and fixed everything... the guys in the backyard were gone, the cars in the front yard were all gone except for one and the one that was left looked all nice and they fixed the windshield (did I mention that all the cars in the frontyard had spiderwebbed windshields with like bullet holes or like a baseball went thru them). I'm pretty sure they mowed the grass too. So the cops get there and everythings all fixed, but I'm still so scared at this point, I'm more relieved that the cops came even if the ninjas already took care of everything even if it made me look like a liar.

Then I woke up and hid under my blankets all scared for a while. I think I was shaking a little.

I have issues.

I've never done shit on drugs but play Halo 2

2008-10-02T13:26:31Z

Right Here Right Now

2008-09-18T16:39:19Z

The rules:
Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture

I've fallen into the same trap again

2008-09-15T04:24:54Z

The trap of waiting. Of thinking that all I have to do is wait and things will get better. That until that indeterminate point, all I can do is sit and try to distract myself.

I don't want to do that. Life is potentially amazing. It IS amazing and continues to be whether I choose to participate or not.

Yes, I need to make some new friends. I don't feel like getting into what happened with the old ones. I'm looking to move forward not back. I'm not going to do that by sitting in my bedroom playing video games. I should probably interact with my housemates more.

I want to explore Harrisburg. I've lived here off and on for almost a year. I know next to nothing about it.

The various things I want to do... they individually don't matter. Or they do but I'm not going to get any deeper into them. The point is, I'm choosing to experience life instead of hiding from it. Maybe I'll make some friends that way. Maybe I won't.

I want to wake up in the morning looking forward to my days. I want to go to work and actually do my job and enjoy a feeling of doing work.

I want to not want. I want to do. I want to experience my life and not as some sort of experiment to be later analyzed. I want to live for the sake of being in that moment. I want to be enthralled by things that serve no purpose, yet aren't there as a means of avoiding my life.

I've never wanted to be a saint. I always thought I had to be all anti-establishment and contrary and sort of evil. I don't care. Or more, I don't want to try to fit into these categories. I don't want to do things a certain way because that's how other people wouldn't. I want to do things because I want to do them like that.

I may go to Florida to see my mom for Christmas. A year ago, I never would have. You know what? I don't care. I don't want to protest. I want to have a mother who at least pretends to care about me. I want Christmas presents and trees, and going to church on Christmas Eve and baking cookies. I want to EXPERIENCE christmas.

I don't want to make this into a checklist of things I have to do. I'm allowed to skip items. I'm allowed to say in retrospect, this doesn't seem enjoyable so I'll find something I'll enjoy more.

I don't want to be intellectually superior. I don't want to know things for the sake of knowing them so I'm the girl that knows more than most people. I want to learn French just because Montreal looks amazing and I want to go sometime. And possibly get operated on there.

The main idea here though is that I'd like to start experiencing my own life instead of bearing it like a cross.

Letter to the mother I haven't spoken to since 2001

2008-08-26T21:22:07Z

So this won’t really make any sense unless I explain this part up front: I was diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder and I’ve transitioned and live as a woman. My legal name is Jessica Morrissey, I’ve been on hormone therapy for about a year, and very few people who know me now know me in any other context. Maybe I’ll come back to that later.

Obviously, I’ve sort of fallen off the map. I don’t really feel like getting into my reasons for doing so. I’ll just give you a quick overview of what I’ve been doing. I got out of the military in August of 2001 and started college at SUNY Buffalo a few weeks later. I graduated with a 4 year degree in Computer Science in 2004. I got married in June of 2004 and divorced officially in August of 2007 although we’d separated earlier that year. I moved to Harrisburg, PA and I work for a school here as a network administrator. I live with two other twenty-something year old women and two cats in a townhouse.

So why am I writing this? I don’t entirely know. A great deal of it has to do with the fact that both rewiring your endocrine system to run on estrogen and living as a woman radically shift how you perceive and react to your surroundings. I don’t feel as much of a need to be right just for the sake of being right. I’m far less inclined to argue about things and tend to choose my battles more carefully.

Maybe I’m finally growing up a little. A lot more of it is probably that I’m not tearing myself and everyone around me apart because gender dysphoria isn’t making me so miserable anymore.

I know this is probably falling on deaf ears at this point. I understand that after almost a decade you’ve probably written me off. I guess I can’t blame you. I know you probably won’t approve of my decision to transition. That’s actually sort of irrelevant at this point as that the physical changes are pretty much irreversible. I know organized religion has a problem with my decision (I’m agnostic personally) so chances are good you’ll share that standpoint. I realize at this point in your life, you’re probably not really willing to adjust to having a daughter.

I’m having a hard time writing more of this letter… I’m not sure what to say when I’m not the person you spoke to last time you spoke to me. I’m not really referring to gender either although that’s obviously a part of it. I’ve just changed a lot. The vast majority was within the past year or two. You always said I didn’t know how to be happy when I was a child. Well… you were oddly enough right although maybe not in the sense you meant. It’s impossible to be happy when you feel your body is progressively betraying you more and more. All the yelling in the world couldn’t have made me any more miserable than I already was.

I hate to focus on me transitioning. I’ve got lots of other stuff going on. I work for an awesome non-profit school. I go to a Tae Kwan Do Studio a few times a week. I’ve got an on again off again girlfriend who’s a model. I’ve sort of learned how to make friends.

So what’s my purpose in writing this letter? I don’t know exactly. To be honest, if I hadn’t transitioned, I’d never have written this letter. On one hand, I’d like to see if some sort of reconciliation’s possible. I don’t know the answer to that. On the other hand, I want to see how you’ll react to who I am now. Maybe we’ll finally get along. Maybe all the changes will be the final straw and we can both move on sans ambiguity.

I’m sort of afraid to ask how you’ve been. I’m still afraid of your husband. I had nitemares about him for years. I’m afraid of how he’s likely treated you with all the children gone. I’d like to hope he’s taken some anger management classes or something and sorted his issues out. One way I’ve changed is going from hating him for what he did to us and now I’m just sort of sad that a human being feels a need to be that way.

Here are ways to contact me:

At this point, I don’t expect a response. I’m not even sure if I really want one. I can’t imagine what you’d have to say to me at this point. If you get this on Thursday, it’s a little hard to imagine you calling me to say happy thirtieth birthday. It doesn’t matter.

I think I’ve included enough for now to let you decide how to handle this. If I haven’t heard back in a month, I’ll assume that you’re disinterested in continuing our relationship. Who knows though? Life rarely goes how you expect.

Not Queer Enough

2008-06-06T17:52:13Z

So, the trans health conference in conjunction with some stuff I've read recently about pride in being transsexual has me thinking. I'm not proud of being transsexual as that I didn't really DO anything to be transsexual. I generally don't like being trans as that it's a lot of work with the pills and injections and social transitions, etc, and I'm pretty lazy. But going to trans health made me sort of see... I don't know what. I guess what seems like a queer community. I'm using queer in the sense that people identify as queer as being outside of gender or sexual orientation norms. But I also see being queer as a choice, as something you can be part of as a culture, and something that you can be proud to be part of as that it IS a choice.

So here's my issue: I don't really feel like I'm a part of that at all but wish I were. I live with two other white, 20-something year old heterosexual, cissexual women in a townhouse. I work at a school with a 7 billion dollar trust fund where my coworkers are predominately white, married, heterosexual, cissexual professionals. My best friend is a white, heterosexual, cissexual woman with a Master's degree. I think you'll see the trend here. It's not like any of this is inherently bad... but it feels like there's something missing (and not in the "you need to find jesus" sense). I'm pretty open about being transsexual, although I don't tend to make a point of letting people know that I am either.

When I went to trans health, it seemed like there was a community of non-conforming people there that I knew nothing about. I'm surrounded by people who are so house, white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog, and that has nothing at all to do with who *I* am. I'm 29 years old, I have no interest in owning personal property or having/raising children, would set up a tent in Border's and live there if they'd let me, and aspire to become a professional mini-golf player (I don't know if that's real or not, but it'd be awesome if it were). Oh and I'm trans and a lesbian too.

I feel left out. My life is like super normative in so many ways, and yet I don't identify with any of it. When I saw what seemed like a queer community at trans health, I was like "that is SO awesome... i wish I were part of that" Yet I don't know how. In day to day life, most everyone I interact with is really normative. Even most people I talk to online who are gay, lesbian, trans, IS, bi, genderqueer, whatever aren't really part of any non-heteronormative community and don't tend to have any interest in it. So when I go to things like trans health or read people discussing gender theory and queer issues, I'm just like... I identify with this group far more than the people I interact with on a day to day basis yet feel like I'm... outside of it somehow. Like I haven't met the membership requirements.

In a lot of ways, it feels like something I can't WORK to be part of, like either you're part of it or you aren't. Yet, I look at my life and while I love my friends and stuff, I can't really personally identify with their goals, what they're doing. It just feels like... off.

Stuffs

2008-06-02T18:57:20Z

Hmmm... well... I've been busy. Today is my first day back to work for about a week and a half. I transitioned at work, it was absolutely no big deal at all (today is my first day back since the disclosure meeting with my department). I went to trans health in Philly which was teh awesome. I go to Chincoteague beach in VA for the weekend sometimes (I went over Memorial Day). I moved again, back to Harrisburg and now I live with two other girls who are really cool. That's sort of reader's digest-ish but that's basically what I've been up to.

I seriously need to post more often

2008-04-11T15:14:12Z

So let's see. What's happened recently....

I moved out of my apartment in Harrisburg. My roommate at the time said that she was buying a house in June and I told my friend Dre and she got me to move in with her and her bf Dave.

Dre had back surgery. I spent most of the two days in the hospital with her. She goes back to work on Monday.

I joined a new gym. Maybe I'll write another post about it eventually, but they were awesome about me transitioning, and I've had it cleared at the corporate level that there won't be any issues with me using the women's facilities.

I'm looking for a place to live in Harrisburg-ish again. Dave's family basically threatened to disown him if I didn't move out. Chaos ensued. I go to meet two potential roommates tonite. Natalie's mom is coming with me and we're going out to eat afterwards.

Natalie moved back to Philly to go back to school. As such, watching Lost has been put on hiatus.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped being so self-conscious. I stopped caring if people stared at me when I went out places. They were pretty much staring regardless of how I presented myself. Oddly, people seem to care far less now that I don't really care about them staring at me. I've also discovered most people are sort of indifferent to me transitioning. In this context, I like indifference.

I haven't spoken to my father or Maureen since before Xmas. Everybody involved is stubborn. I've considered writing them a letter to explain why I'm so upset with them. Then I realize that they probably wouldn't care or understand. Plus I'm generally just pretty lazy.

I drove to NJ to meet somebody I met online like a year and a half ago and her gf. We went to the Rainforest cafe where I affirmed that they were both made out of awesome.

I got hired full-time by the school I work for. I'm not entirely sure if I'd mentioned that previously. Maybe I have.

So yeah. I've been doing stuff.

Apparently you can't inject social skills

2008-02-25T14:31:40Z

So... I introduced Natalie and Dre. So it was Dre, her boyfriend Dave, Natalie, and I. We ended up seeing Be Kind Rewind which Natalie wanted to see but Dre and Dave kind of wanted to see Charlie Barlett. Well... the movie ended up being pretty bad. Or more accurately, Dre and Dave thought it was really bad. I thought it was mildly amusing but I also didn't expect it to be a masterpiece. So here's the problem. I don't know what Natalie thought. Dre and Dave were laughing about how bad it was... which is fine, except that Natalie is the one who selected the movie. I tried to call her and she didn't pick up, and she didn't answer my IMs so I'm assuming she's upset with me. I made a joke about "are you sure you're a film student?" so I don't know if she's upset about that. I don't know if that's what she's upset about but I was just teasing her. It's not like she made the movie and even if it WAS a bad movie, it's not the end of the world that she chose it. I've seen far worse movies. I don't know if she's upset because she feels that I sided against her. For me, watching a movie is the sort of thing that's so inconsequential that I don't feel like it's even worth having a side on.

So I hate this. I feel fucking stupid for not knowing why or if she's mad at me. For all I know, she was just tired and I'm being a drama queen. But I'm assuming she IS mad or at least upset with me. When I was pretending to be a boy, I used to not know why somebody, particularly Katie, was mad at me, but I just didn't care that much. Now I'm a trainwreck because I think I hurt Natalie's feelings. I don't even know if it's narcissism and I just want people to love me all the time and them being upset with me interrupts that. I'd like to think I'm better then that now. It's such a pain the ass that I don't know what or who she's upset at. Most likely, it's just a big misunderstanding. Obviously (to me), nobody meant to hurt her feelings. Regardless, she's presumably upset, and I'm assuming it's with me as that she wasn't talking to me as of last nite.

I feel horrible. I spent enough of my life hurting people that I want to not do it anymore. Apparently, injecting estrogen into my ass every other week can help me develop friendships... it just doesn't give me the ability to keep them happy. Obviously I know it's more an issue of transitioning and learning to live with myself as opposed to the chemicals I'm pumping into my body. Still... I've inherited the desire to keep the people I care about happy, just not the ability to do so. I hate feeling like I've been a total bitch and stupid for not even knowing what I've done to deserve it.

Meh

2008-02-24T06:50:44Z

I've been super lazy about posting anything. Plus I've been alternating between having a good time and losing my mind over things that are largely inconsequential.

So I've made awesome friends. Which is good as that I've apparently turned into a baby about transitioning. What it comes down to is that I'm pretty much terrified to do anything distinctly feminine without at least one of my friends with me to protect me from criticism. Which is fucking stupid because nobody criticizes me with or without my friends around, and I get far more strange looks when I'm not making any effort to appear female. Which I don't get. I mean I can see obvious differences just over the past six months. But I still feel like I'm never going to pull off the being accepted by most members of society as genuinely female thing. I don't question my identity. Or very rarely anyway and I have to be massively depressed for that to happen. What I think and feel has little to no effect on how the outside world perceives me though. At this point, I have absolutely NO idea what people think. And I don't know how to process the information if I got it. If people genuinely think I'm making massive "progress" in terms of transition and told me this, I likely wouldn't believe them. Yet if they told me anything overly negative, I'd be crushed. So I don't know what to do. Having either cissexual women or trans women who are way ahead of me transition-wise doesn't help either.

Don't mistake me, my friends are awesome and I have a great time with them. Yesterday, Natalie's mom invited me over for dinner and we talked for at least an hour. It was so nice to have somebody's mother treat me like I'm a valuable human being and that me transitioning doesn't make me abnormal. Then Natalie and I watched 8 episodes of Lost and went vagina shopping online. I'm supposed to go to the movies with Dre tomorrow nite. Oh and she asked me to be in her wedding, whenever that may be. Which is awesome on multiple levels. Right now, though, the most important to me is that she's saying she has faith in me transitioning. I mean I have no doubts about her considering me female. I've slept over at her house and stuff and she's talked to me about stuff you would never discuss with a guy. Plus my friends just call me up to talk, even when it's not important. I'm not used to that, but it's nice to feel valuable to somebody.

On the other hand, I'm so not used to having friends that I have a bad tendency to latch on to them. Like today, i was all depressed because I didn't really have anybody to do anything with, after spending most of the day Friday with Natalie. Granted, Dre is convinced that Natalie is stealing me away from her, despite the fact that I keep trying to get the three of us to do things together. It just hasn't worked out yet though. So in a sense, my friends latch onto me as well. I think the difference is, when they do it, I feel loved and wanted. When I do it, I feel stalker-ish. I sort of know what I'm doing. I'm trying to build my own sort of family, where instead of genetics and unjustified biological links that end up not mattering, it's made of a mesh of close friends. It probably sounds like some sort of creepy stalker-ish one-sided polyamory kind of thing. It's really not though. I just want to have a group of friends who actually give a shit about each other's well being and care about each other. Well I mean it doesn't have to be like a commune which it probably seems like. I guess I just want meaningful relationships based on shared experiences and personal choice, as opposed to trying to patch together broken traditional familial relationships.

OK, I'm exhausted. I'll try to write more frequently.

Hot bald guy building a robot

2008-01-16T04:11:54Z

OK... I heard this song on Sirius and loved it... then looked the video up on Youtube and realized the singer was pretty hot too. I don't even like bald guys... I don't get it.

Meh... electrolysis tomorrow... not looking forward to it at all.

Barney Frank and the Slippery Split-ENDA Slope

2008-01-11T19:09:51Z

http://www.mikhaela.net/cgi-bin/showpic.cgi?picdir=toons&picname=bw071025ENDA300C.gif

Blanket statements and generalities stated as truth make me want to start the stabbings.

2008-01-10T21:21:50Z

Right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. William Penn.

I got this quote as a signature in an email today and it sort of irritated me as that it reeks of mindless right wing sheepery while trying to maintain a sense of individualism.

OK... how can you say what's right or wrong when most people can't define it or are afraid to? I'm agnostic and lean toward a position where if there is a higher power, he or she isn't overly concerned with what a group of evolved monkeys on a single planet are doing. Even presuming you don't share my opinion on deities or lack thereof, the U.S. government is at least SUPPOSED to enforce freedom of religion (I'm pretty sure it's the Constitution somewhere). Besides, let's face it; how many people in the U.S. genuinely base their sense of ethics predominately on religious doctrine? We live in a country with drive-thru churches and Vegas wedding chapels with Elvis impersonators officiating. We are NOT a country whose beliefs are genuinely based on "because god said so" (Fred Phelps, you're excused... to the bottom of a tall cliff).

So... what ARE our ethics based on? What makes an action ethically correct? Assuming you either don't believe in a god, or you're more concerned with who got eliminated from "Dancing with the Stars" then what god wants, you've lost being blatantly told what's right by an authority figure as an excuse. Probably the most common answer I hear is something to the effect of an action is ethical if you're not hurting anybody else by doing it. Personally, I think that's a poor answer as that it more closely answers what defines something as not being unethical. A more socialist approach would define ethical as whatever is most beneficial for the most people. While this is nice in theory, it's also a recursive definition. You'd have to be able to determine what's "good" for the largest number of people which is what you're essentially asking by the definition of ethics in the first place.

What I take away from this line of reasoning is that there IS no universal right or wrong. That or I've yet to be introduced to a genuinely appealing definition that doesn't involve a higher power. I'm more than willing to admit that nobody presenting a valid paradigm meeting these conditions doesn't mean one doesn't exist. But until then, I'm going with the idea that there IS no universal right or wrong.

So this leaves you with two basic choices... which are both really the same thing. Either you have your own internal sense of ethics, where you place yourself as the authoritative figure missing from the defunct religious paradigm or you simply believe ethics is a scam which also places you as the authority figure who determines this.

Going from here you can say that probably the closest you'll get to a universal right is an approximation of what most people personally believe is right. It's that or my personal theory that society revolves around the most willful people who can convince the most people to go along with them despite their own personal beliefs with no inherent sense of good or bad.

Either way, the quote doesn't work. With my (most likely completely flawed) theory, there is no right or wrong and the quote falls apart when the components it's based on do. Or we can go with the likely more popular choice that what most people want is right... but wait... that's exactly the opposite of what the quote says.

I may be completely incorrect on this. There's a very good chance somebody could pierce gaping holes thru my logic. THAT isn't the point. My point is that it's completely asinine to make such a blanket, self-righteous statement like the one in question. It seems dangerously close to my theory of the strong willed and charismatic trying to coerce others into things they probably don't really want.

Microsoft's sex change

2008-01-09T23:32:30Z

BY OWEN THOMAS
http://valleywag.com/tech/transitions/microsofts-sex-change-309008.php

Michael Wallent, a general manager at Microsoft, will return to work in January as Megan Wallent. He came out to colleagues as transgender last month, first in person and then by email. Wallent says he encountered nothing but support -- mixed, of course, with some awkward curiosity. That's unremarkable. Microsoft is located in the progressive Pacific Northwest, where one's less likely to raise an eyebrow at Wallent's self-discovery and more likely to worry about the politically correct term to describe it. (For the record, "sex change" is considered derogatory by many; the preferred word is "transitioning.") He's unlikely to encounter blatant transphobia on the job. He should worry instead about plain old-fashioned sexism. How will Wallent's developers react when they come to work on January 2 and it hits them: They're working for a girl?

This is a company that as of late last year counted only 100 women among its top 900 executives -- those Wallent's rank and higher. In becoming Megan, he'll only improve that ratio by 0.1 percent.

Wallent argues, passionately and convincingly, that it won't matter. His track record of shipping products -- including Internet Explorer and, more recently, the foundations of Microsoft's Silverlight Web software -- are what will count. His reputation as a thoughtful manager, he says, will matter more than his gender.

Wallent believes the stereotype of Microsoft management -- the table-pounding, chest-thumping, loudest-voice-wins culture usually caricatured as sweaty, chair-throwing, white-boy-dancing CEO Steve Ballmer -- is a thing of the past. What's prized now is a mellower meritocracy, where the best ideas bubble up to the top through managerial encouragement and support. He says the best compliment he's gotten from his charges recently is being called "Coach," one of the most nurturing labels one can put on a man. That praise may become easier when Michael becomes Megan. Goodbye, Coach; hello, Mom.

Wallent hopes that when he comes back to work, "maybe there are some questions, and then we move on and I keep doing the work I've been doing for 11 years." But at 6'2", Megan Wallent will cut a striking figure.

A question not for Wallent, but for his company: Can a woman, transgendered or otherwise, thrive at Microsoft? Has the culture moved away from its testosterone roots and embraced a way that's more friendly to women as managers? In a few weeks, Megan Wallent will find out for herself.