I'm Looking Through The Notes; And Predictably, There Are A Small Number Of Posters Acting As If The

Charcuterie

Ah, my spouse knows me so well! For Valentine's Day they got me my own charcuterie board, and I had to put it to use right away!

Ahhh, I love them so much! ❤️

Incomplete sentences

Sometimes, when I’m writing, I will omit words or even entire portions of a sentence. I don’t know why this is; only that it’s something I’ve done for a very long time.

The solution is, of course, to proof-read vociferously. Ironically however, I will often not notice that I have made this mistake because my brain kindly fills in the missing detail instead of alerting me to its absence.

I note this because I know I have written posts previously that suffer from this issue; and I’m sure there will be more in future. To that effect, dear reader: thank you for your continued patience, and understanding!

We have been laughing all evening because my wonderful, sweet, lovable idiot cat fell asleep in the crook of my arm - despite his eyes being wide open!

Just imagine gentle snoring from this little guy as he disaffectedly stares a hole through time and space itself…

A cascade of name changes

When I changed my legal name, I was required to provide public notice of the change. There are legal news services that exist for this exact purpose - you pay them a small fee; they put the notice on their website.

(At least in my county, you can request the requirement be waived; there’s a good argument to be made that it exposes one’s status as a transgender individual and that this invites unnecessary risk in today’s fraught climate. I myself did not pursue this option however.)

The website for the legal news service in my area is, uh... Well, ‘archaic’ is probably the most charitable interpretation. Sometimes I want to share the notice with people, but there’s no search function for non-subscribers - you just have to scroll through the notices until you get to the right one.

(Really, I need to bookmark it or take a screenshot or something!)

Today I was doing exactly that - trying to find my notice again - and I was struck by how many other items between mine and present day were clearly transgender in nature (i.e. from a masculine to feminine name or vice versa). I would estimate a good third or so met this criteria.

It fills a girl’s heart with warmth and hope to see so many people finding their true selves and living authentically!

Office space: addendum

Yep... yesterday's workout did a real number on my girl muscles. I've got minor strains in my forearms, shoulders, and weirdly, thighs (which is what I get for trying to be a human jack, I guess).

I realize now that I'm reluctant to tell the men in my life "I'm sorry, I cannot physically carry this; you need to do it for me" because:

It feels sexist;

Despite all the physical changes I've experienced this year, my frame is still the same - and I worry that people will extrapolate from this that I'm still equally physically capable.

I don't know what the solution is, but I need to figure something out before too long because I'm getting really tired of these injuries...

Silencer

My company had its employees work remotely for much of the pandemic. In June, with the widespread availability of vaccines and the dropping infection rate, we were recalled to the main office.

This was, personally, a terrifying prospect; for I had left the office a Lawrence, and returned as Lauren. Acceptance of my transition was overwhelmingly positive; but such events took place during the remote work era.

Put simply: in-person is a different matter.

Put bluntly: I was deeply frightened of now having to share a bathroom with my cis female coworkers; and how they might react to my presence.

For weeks and weeks post-recall, I tried to time my bathroom breaks in such a way that I never interacted with another employee. I wouldn’t enter the restroom if it was occupied; I would hide in my stall if others should enter the space.

Eventually the inevitable occurred, and I crossed paths with my coworkers. Some were obviously surprised at my (wholly logical) presence; but remained true to their word on embracing the new me.

I’m not sure I will ever quite shake the fear of a bathroom interaction gone bad; but for now, matters are manageable.

This does however bring me to a wholly unexpected observation, and the title of this post.

It’s a multi-stall bathroom. There were times where cis-women were present, and using a stall for one of its many intended purposes: peeing. Not just peeing, but peeing loudly. It was if someone had turned the spigot on a hose pipe!

The difference was only noticeable because I had, at times, found myself also trying to pee; and as stealthily as possible at that. Where theirs was a torrential downpour, mine was but an imperceptible and gentle stream.

It was in one of these strange moments of comparison that it occurred to me that I was capable of such feats - and they were not - because, anatomically-speaking, I am currently equipped with a silencer... And this metaphor has not left me since!

Communication

“A European says: 'I can't understand this, what's wrong with me?' An American says: 'I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?'" - Terry Pratchett

I had the privilege of attending a university with an extremely large contingent of foreign students; many of which I counted as friends, and learned a great deal from.

Sometimes their command of the English language would fail them, and they would apologize. Each time I would say the same thing: "You speak English much better than I speak any other language. You have nothing to apologize for".

This trend has continued over to my IT department, which has featured from inception various individuals of international origin. Occasionally these team members would hit a language barrier, and I would do my best to patiently explain and / or listen to them.

Frustratingly, I found that some of my American colleagues were not willing to similarly engage. Like all such generalizations, there are plenty of diverging outliers; but there is most definitely a tendency in American culture to blame communication failures on the other party.

Some years ago we employed a Soviet emigrant; an exceptionally intelligent and knowledgeable individual, but someone for whom English was not a strength. This wasn't an issue until he was moved - against my protests - into a position that required significant communication skills; and ultimately this became his undoing and he was dismissed.

I was saddened to learn today that this same situation has been repeated with another non-native English-speaking colleague. She was assigned new responsibilities that required an extensive amount of communication and coordination (despite being initially hired in on the strength of her technical skills); and now she too has been dismissed.

Perhaps I am oversimplifying; but it is very difficult to see these conflicts as the one-way failure that termination of employment would suggest.

Third generation Daemonettes! Juan Diaz really captured their unearthly grace in a way unseen before or since; and the sculpts are highly sought after (as evidenced by their 2016 rerelease via the Made-To-Order program).

Diaz also produced a set of Seekers; with the riders sculpted in a similar style (and one, memorably, perched as if preparing to launch herself at an enemy, daggers first)!

I have a set of my own that I desperately need to paint up (if and when I can actually decide on an appropriate color scheme)…

My FLGS had gotten a troupe of some oldhammer daemonettes, and I just couldn't resist that temptation.

Holy crap these models look good for being made in 2001.

…And again in the season one Babylon 5 episode, “Infection”:

“You and the rest, you forgot the first rule of the fanatic: when you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy!”

That JMS repeated himself virtually verbatim goes to show that this is a message he felt very strongly about (and rightfully so)!

That video of Alex Hirsch reading S&P notes for Gravity Falls conveys a few things to me:

1) the U.S. entertainment industry (especially animation) is run by older conservative types who make up offensive terms and get really mad about them.

2) the people who run Disney would be the first to fall in line with a fascist regime.

3) most of the media we consume is tailor-made and watered-down to appeal to the tastes of older, deeply religious conservative audiences.

4) conservatism, not the left, is and always has been the biggest voice of censorship in American culture.

I made a t-shirt. Absolutely no idea what I was thinking at the time, but now it’s out of my head and into the world. There’s pastel pink and blue halftone edging on the lettering for... reasons.