where no man woman or child, friend, family or lover has gone before. . .

This here is a photo of Counselor Diana Troy of Star Trek, The Next Generation. There is nothing remarkable with it beyond it's inherent awesomeness. Except when you take into consideration that it looks just like my new therapist, minus the hoop earrings plus sweet v neck onesie. I kid you only the slightest bit. The universe has conspired with the galaxies to bring me this fine gift of emotional mentorship in the form of a lovely grad student made in the image of my fantasy childhood counselor. To you, modern day Earth bound Diana Troy, I open my heart and mind. . . it all began back in StarDate 3.2435.18937, I was playing in the yard with my sister, when my mother called us in to . . .

my biologically female body is sore.

I worked the KISS show the other night. they offered me tix! but I was too tired to take them up on it. (also, no one I texted wanted to go. what gives? it's KISS!). they/them being my boss, not KISS themselves, tho I did catch a few songs of their afternoon sound check, all decked out in plain clothes. it's one of the great perks of my career in Stage Hand, seeing behind the scenes stuff, getting free/$3 tickets. it's a trade off for slaving away, hauling kilometers of cable, pushing around gear boxes thrice my size, dealing with Road Crew Dudes till 2am-ish.
Road Crew Dudes, the ones who work on bigger, arena sized shows, are an interesting breed of human. I understand the ease with which one can find themselves acting crotchety/gruff. I mean, their job isn't the easiest. but for reals, you don't have to verbally innuend other's lives as being lesser than thou cretins. news flash: we are just like you. 'cept we don't know what we are doing because, oh wait, we are waiting for you to direct us. that goes out specifically to that one Lighting Dude who I was not stuck working for, thank you, lucky stars.
but anyways, for being such a Dude's club, I work with some great non-Dudes. maybe being in Seattle has a bit to do with it, but at one point during load in, I was working with one (ok, I am totally assuming) straight (but you would too if you saw him) not too much of a Dude dude, one older trans guy, and one my age-ish trans woman. wow, what are the odds of that? Seattle rules. my union siblings rule for being so accepting/not openly assholes about it.
Road Dudes (Bros?) from So-Cal, not so much use to the gender variety that grows so well in this weather. at one point I found myself standing with Stage Dude, who earlier had been "discussing" trans woman with Sound Dude ('her hands were bigger than mine!'), and he asked me what her gender was. or, more specifically, 'that's a guy, right?' honestly, honesty got the best of me. 'well,' I began, 'biologically, yes male, but she identifies as female.' those words precisely did not go over as well as I had hoped and I think they reached his brain in the mutated form of 'yeah, that's a dude.' to which he replied something to the effect of 'eh, he's a wanna be.' sigh.
dear fellow queer union worker, while I did indeed try my best under the put on the spot circumstances to be there for you, I recognize that my efforts fell really really short of their intended mark and will try harder next time by replying with a firm, resolute, 'no, she is a woman. she not wanting to be anyone other than who she is. where do you want this cable to plug into?'

M., O.W., I'm glad you are here.

strangers amongst us. well, stranger. there was only one, actually.

a couple of years ago, I picked up my roommate at the time's copy of The Stranger, by Senor Camus, read it, and as soon as I finished the last page, returned to the first page to start it again. I do believe that is the only book I have ever done that with. apparently, I liked it. (incidentally, it is not my most favorite book. both Life of Pi and Watership Down are well above, yet I have yet to revisit either fully. once I chose Watership Down as my at work book, I love it, had been talking it up to roommate to date, wanted to relive the lapine adventure. well, turns out I love it a little too much. After a mere handful of chapters, I forced myself to put it down and pick up something less engaging after missing a cue ('sound, go.' warren this, warren that. 'SOUND?! GO.' 'oops, sorry.') for the first - and last - time that particular show. this concludes my tangent.) I didn't like it enough to write a song about it. no, scratch that. I didn't like it enough to finish a song about it, remember it past a few months, teach it to my band mates, get radio play, and be super cool to boot. owner of said copy of The Stranger roommate informed me that The Cure had beaten me to it. it's called 'Killing an Arab.' oh. alright then. well, at least I'm in good company.
but all this is basically just a lead in to talking about THE STRANGER that we, seattle, are more familiar with. our beloved always weekly, sometimes snarky, name rhymes with danger, artsy hip rag. and why do I chose to bring this up? BECAUSE I'M IN IT! HA! I got a serendipitous review in the Party Crasher column. they called me an 'artistic love child,' to take their words totally out of context. you can read the whole thing at

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/party-crasher/Content?oid=2712010

or just find pick up a hard copy and flip to page 65. there you will see a photo of two persons I know and a clever title that refers specifically to yours truly, me. yesterday, a friend of mine commented on the article, wondering who it was. 'it' being Party Crasher, 'Party Crasher' being random stranger coming to your party taking photos, taking notes. all I gots to say is that, it is really nice being friends with peeps who eventually end up working for local media. in other words, big warm shout out to my non-stranger stranger. muchas gracias, jv.

trying to awaken my computer's compassion

I just spent like a good few hours (some last night before going to bed, some this AM soon after waking) trying to download the ebook, Awakening Compassion, by Pema Chodron from the seattle public library so I can listen to gentle posi affirmations whilst I clean/wait for the bus. I am looking at a 50% success rate right now. the other book, also by aforementioned American Budhist nun - which, on a slightly unrelated note, did you know that Michael Flatley, AKA Mr. Lord of the Dance, is American? I thought that was pretty funny. anyways. - would not download because the program that the library required me to downloaded in order to download the library book wouldn't support the format of the file even tho the other book that I successfully downloaded is formatted the exact same way. also, the 'wizard' living in the downloaded program couldn't find my ipod (this is all I've ever really wanted to use this ipod for, books on e)(er, ebooks) even tho the icon was right there staring at me from the desktop - I had to go the round about way and, using geode's smarts, find it thru itunes. I have yet to even crack the virtual spine of this book and already things are awakening, tho I think at the moment frustration is beating out compassion.