Saturday, September 30, 2006

Good Morning

So, below are pictures of the quilt that I am making for Sister, Esq. and her partner. Keep in mind that these pictures were taken with my new computer -- so their quality is a little sub-par. But hey, you try taking a picture of your bed with your laptop.








This morning I got up early and scrubbed the kitchen floor and later on I will make K's birthday cake -- sourcream yellow cake, buttercream frosting, homemade lemon curd and homemade rasberry filling. I don't know why I feel the need to mention that everything will be homemade -- you folks already know this about me.

So, it's me the sunshine, the domestic arts, and the classical music station -- does life get better?


(Also, at some point, someone will need to explain to me why Blogger won't let you move pictures around in a post).




Thursday, September 28, 2006

Tipsy Thursday

So, have I mentioned that I'm auditing a calculus class?

I'm auditing a calculus class. Sure, I'm in over my head, but I've been there before, after all, I did take Macroeconomic Theory in Spanish -- which means I can explain policies in response to inflation - but only in espanol. I came home from work and did math homework for too long, and then L. came home and made dinner and then we talked (briefly) about backpacking next weekend and then we went out to the new *lounge*. Complete with boring quintet and sexy bartender -- I had a tequila, cassis, ginger ale concoction and then a Johnny Walker black on the rocks. Because a girl who drinks whisky is a girl indeed. If you know what I mean.

Now, I'm tipsy and blogging. Life could be worse.

Thursday is sleepy identity crisis day. I stay up late Wednesdays because of workshop and the high that follows and then Thursday morning I go to a "work in progress" research seminar that inspires me to be a social policy analyst -- and then I play with data all day wondering whether to unravel racism and classism for the rest of my life or just leave and write a novel.

Tomorrow:
9am: Integrals with pretentious undergrads
10-12:30: Data, hopefully meeting with Boss #2
12:30: Lunch with EconMentor
1:30-5:Editing for Boss #1
6-whenevah: Dinner with friend and roomies, carrot soup, baked apple thing, and maybe a bottle of wine.

Sounds like an okay day. Except for the integrals. Grrr.



P.S. What do the beginning stages of alcoholism look like?

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Rhett Butler, Indigo Girls, and My Studio

So, Roomie L. and I went to the coast this weekend and sat by a picture window and watched the fog move in and out, swam in the waves, made delicious food and watched "Gone with the Wind". Now, keep in mind that this is the first time **ever** that I've watched the whole thing all the way through. Now, there are many questions that it raised for me, many points were I rolled my eyes, dropped by jaw, and generally yelled at the thing -- but there is one, enduring question:

Why do I find Rhett Butler sexy?

No, really, why? Is it his dandy/butch tendency, is it his ability to cut through bullshit, do I love him because he's so fucken patronizing? Because really, deep down, he respects Scarlett? Please tell me it's not about the mustache...

[As a side note, the new Indigo Girls CD, "Despite our Differences", really is excellent. Check it out if you're the type. ]

The weekend on the coast was wonderful. L. and I had a chance to do the sort of conversing and hanging out that we need, and sustains our friendship. Frankly, I've been too busy this past month or so to really devote the time to that kind of thing, and because of that there has been tension and because of that I've been dreaming about moving into a studio closer to NewJob and workshop next summer.

Part of this is that I really want to live by myself at some point in my life. I want to have space where I find my own habits and patterns and can be by myself whenever I want to. I crave a big room with big windows and hardwood floors -- and I can't afford it anytime soon.

TP will probably be moving to HarborCity next summer, and doesn't want to live together then/yet, which I think, and let me stress this: I think that that is a wise and mature decision. But I also feel a little bit like someone is suggesting that I have an extra helping of brussel sprouts when I want a piece of dark chocolate. And even though I like brussel sprouts... Anyway, that and heading into month four of commuting forty-five minutes in each direction is starting to make me dream about living in a studio -- maybe with a writing desk? [Make any Woolf references you so desire here].

The other thing about the weekend on the coast was that it made me realize how sexy it is to spend a weekend in a cottage on the coast and made me think that, despite my present company, surely there was a place in the world for good queer coastal erotica, no?

I'll just leave you with those images for the evening. :)

Monday, September 18, 2006

Random Ten

  1. I have a three month evaluation at NewJob (nee DreamJob) tomorrow. It should be interesting, to say the least.
  2. I made sweet potato burrito filling to make burritos to bring for lunches to try to save money.
  3. TP was meeting with a dean a few weeks ago who referred hir as "Dick" for the first five minutes of the meeting -- is someone revealing their underlying anxieties?
  4. Chocolate and red wine are the only two foods to be confirmed in multiple studies to be beneficial to your health -- I might be okay after all.
  5. I LOVE my new computer. It's so fast, and has wireless, and the loooongest battery life known to man (maybe not, but longest known to me).
  6. I have an ice cream date with a friend from workshop tonight -- I'm really excited. Making friends is my new hobby.
  7. I spent last weekend spending time with my mother and Sister, MD which was a mixed blessing. I love them both - but neither of them nourish my body image -- for different reasons.
  8. Is anyone else in the world as attached to Sarah Waters' novels as I am? Also, does anyone else see the similarities between Affinity and Alias Grace?
  9. I get to vote tomorrow, which is awesome. I'm actually excited to vote, how often does that happen to the likes of me?
  10. How much did posting pictures compromise my anonymity? It's not like anyone really knows what I look like.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Fresh From Workshop

The places we call home do not stay the same. They roll and change, the road commissioner comes and says more here, less there, a little bit of grading, and there is a pile of dirt in the middle of the road and we’re driving on the wrong side to pick up flowers for the wedding, trapped behind a flock of wild turkeys.

The places we call home twist and bend, navigating new curves. They slow at construction zones, deconstruction zones – following orange cones and blinkers. A curve straightened, a mountain shorn off. This past weekend, your body was my home-scape. Never before has your body felt so new and your love felt so familiar.

Last Saturday, after the wedding, it was almost like the first time we fucked except that I looked into your eyes for the longest time. It was almost like the first time, but I knew your body differently and your body was different, four months on T, and your body is my home landscape returned to and returning. It was almost like the first time, but we weren’t drunk, and we were in love. Your curves are straightening, without orange cones. Your landscape still fits -- fits you more. You still fit inside me, like you always have, but differently now that I look into your eyes. You still fit inside my mouth, but more because of this change and more because I’ve loved you in this changing. Like an old landscape in a new season. Roadwork sucks, a renumbering of exits, a repaving of roads can throw a whole population for months, the bumps and turns have changed, but the light still hangs the same on the trees in the fall, and the light still hangs the same behind your eyes. Your breath on my neck still has the warmth of a spring day.

We slipped into bed, after flirting and dancing and a day so perfect that now it feels like a dream. I cried through the ceremony, and you danced with my mom, and met my dad. I sat at dinner with an old family friend and you offered me your jacket and went to get some wine and she said, “TP seems great, but I’m not sure about pronouns”.
“Either, both, it’s a mixed bag” which is the honest answer. She nodded and said, "It looks like a good decision. " You were wearing the suit that you and your mother had picked out together – gray for weddings, and it hangs perfectly, the pants hang perfectly. I love a woman’s hips in men’s pants, and a triple Windsor knot in your tie to make it the right length. I can’t imagine your mom and you in a Salvation Army store in northern Mississippi trolling for a perfect gray suit until she found one that you looked handsome in, maybe this is her way of blessing you through her faithful fear of all you are – with her thrift store skills. It is a good decision.

You don’t remember the first time, you were too drunk, and you rely on my recollections. I remember that we fucked and dozed and fucked and I remember that you didn’t want to lean into me after we were done because you were afraid that you would hurt me. It was almost like the first time, we fucked and dozed and fucked again – much more quietly than the first time because my mother was in the very next room in an old house with thin walls. Afterwards you curled into the spaces, I lay on top of you, and we held each other close until morning. And this time you will never forget the way I screwed you. That is the difference.

People always ask me how transitioning has changed me, how it is to be with someone as their body changes and I don’t have the metaphors down yet. It’s like watching a child grow up – without the pedophilia reference. It’s like watching someone you love become more and more themselves, and that is liberating for both of us. It is like riding a rollercoaster and falling out of a window. It is like coming home to a season I’ve never known.

The first time we fucked I didn’t know your body, and you didn’t know your body. Now it is something we both explore and they always worry that the sex will be bad, or that I won’t continue to find my desire in your skin. But they don’t know the difference it makes to make love to someone who is comfortable in their body, to watch as their body is tailored to fit them, like your gray suit, picked up at salvation army, like the road commissioner looking down a stretch of highway and saying “more here, less there”.

In a month I will travel to your landscape and it will be different, it will be Texas in October and I will look through the crowd to find your profile, a button down and triple Windsor, and a slightly straightened hip, waiting for my hand, and tongue to show you the way home.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Update from la Casa del Matrimonio

  • It's Thursday morning at 7:15. I woke up about an hour ago, but just rolled downstairs to have some coffee because I decided that you 'can't argue with awake'. My mother is doing some intense calculations about surface area and volume -- and creamcheese butttercream frosting for the wedding cake. We are the only two people awake and that is pretty nice.
  • Yesterday I had the totally bizarre experience of being a tourist in my own state -- scenic factories, scenic scenes, heck, even scenic fried food. We also worked in the garden some. All of this with an entourage of 16 people, three of them under the age of four. I got to be a fun auntish person - which is awesome, once these kids are married they better get to some procreating. (That IS what marriage is for, right?)
  • On the docket for today: the tent, my uncle, Sister M.D., my father, and the port-a-potty all have scheduled arrival times.
  • Biggest Joy: Seeing so many people who love Sister, Esq. and her partner gathering in one place and truly celebrating them.
  • Biggest Fear: That I'm just too f*cked up to ever do this, I may just not be the marrying type. Not sure what to do with that.
  • Up Next: Apparently there is a half-and-half shortage that needs to be addressed before the brides want coffee.

Friday, September 01, 2006