question and answer sessions all day long

Many many thanks to Jon for the gift of cds today. You're right, that is an excellent soundtrack. The first track was one of my favorites in high school and I hadn't heard the song in ages! Yay.

Work was full of meetings, where I think I carried myself well and provided thoughtful comments. It resulted in a new project which I have already begun, so I suppose all is well. Our W2s arrived today too, and as soon as I get my bank statement I can file the taxes. After running the numbers both ways, I determined we get an extra $15 back on our return for filing jointly. (Which I may go spend on books right away.) We'll get a few hundred back, and that's always nice.

Since I have been answering questions all day long, here are a few from jait.

1. You've undergone such change in the course of the past two years. How do you feel about who you've been in relation to who you are?

Oh god. Sometimes I read through my old entries with a mingled sense of horror and relief. I am so glad I am not the person I was two years ago. I've grown so much, often against my will. I'm a lot more stable, more certain, more confident in places where I used to be a wretch. I feel sad sometimes, for all the wasted time and madness. There are some things I miss about my old life, but they are little things like a bedroom of my own and the angle of light on the balcony. I miss school too.

I am very glad I'm not that girl anymore.

2. Who do you want to be in five years? I'm not asking where you expect to be, but rather who do you want to be...

I want to be a scholar, slaving in the ivory towers and leading a strange secret life at night. I want to be a viciously confident, educated woman with a nice kitchen.

3. Tell me about Alan?

He's about six foot three, black hair shot through with silver, hazel eyes, pretty good looking. Dashing, I would say, in the way Henry James or Edith Wharton would have said it. Alan's got an expansive sense of humor, and he's one of the most easy going people I've ever met. A bit spastic at times, he's friendly and quite intelligent. Pretty good gamer, and I can chart his progress through Day of Defeat or Counterstrike by how loudly he's cursing. He is an amazing, self taught, inventive chef, and I've quite honestly gained twenty pounds since we started dating. He comes from a wonderful family, and is an honorable person. He's got a flair and wit just perfect for tabletop RPGs, and he understands characters.

Alan treats me better than anyone ever has. He makes me feel good about myself, even when I'm not so happy about something. He's there when I'm sick, or when I'm upset. He's always there, no matter what. He stays calm when I get angry, and stays relaxed when I frreak out. I honestly can't imagine a life without him now.

We are very different people, but our greatest strength is that we are always able to talk.

4. There is a theory out there that suggests that, as a child, we each choose an archetype of some sort, to model ourselves after. Sometimes it's obviously given to us via a role model, other times it's a figure in a fairy-tale or fictional work we relate to. What kind of archetype had you chosen, and how does this relate to who you've become now?

There's a new prestige class in D&D called the Adventuring Scholar, and I think this is the archetype closest to what I've always identified with. Growing up, I always felt most connected to the wizards and wanderers, even those who were evil characters. I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi while I was growing up, and it was more often than not the wizards I wanted to be. They were smart, quiet, frequently sarcastic. I wanted to control things around me, I wanted to change things the world assured me were static.

Here I am now, still playing a wizard more often than not. I still want to be that eccentric scholar, with a library of leather bound books. I'm still searching for some key to change all the things I don't like about the universe.

5. Tell me a story about you as a child.

I spent a lot of time playing by myself as a child, and had a hyperactive imagination. Frequently, I hallucinated and saw odd things that weren't there. One time I hid in my room because I saw the barbeque grill creeping towards me. Another time, there were creatures in the mud waiting to hurt me and I wouldn't turn the hose off. Instead, I stood in the back yard for half an hour, frozen with fear.I was also convinced the water heater was inhabited by an evil demon and I could only go down the hall at night if I held a blanket in front of me so it the blue flame couldn't see me.

buttercup creek

We took Tsar Slate to the vet clinic this morning. He weighs 15lbs, is very healthy, now up to date on his shots, and has a yeast infection in his ears. Now we have to stick drops in his ears twice a day, and clean them out with q-tips. Cats really don't like that. But he was fairly good, just expressing his displeasure with many squeaky meows. Mom clipped his nails while we were there, and she's ordering me the nice clippers and a fine tooth comb for brushing Tsar Slate's very long hair.

They put a silly bandana on my kitty. He doesn't seem to mind it and it makes me think of Cate buying Halloween costumes for her dogs. We might microchip him in the future, and maybe I'll microchip Alan too. Just in case he ever gets lost and turns up at the SPCA. Hah!

Very gloomy outside, full of drizzle. I'm watching Cops in the middle of the day. Since it's the new trend, I bought Brett an early birthday present. It was too cool to pass up! And if he comes over this weekend I'll tell him what it is. *cue evil laughter*

When a transgendered Rockdale teen asked for help, was anybody listening?

(The Austin Chronicle is our major weekly paper)

Why did Ben Brownlee Die?

It makes me so damned angry. The school districts in this state, our current President's home state, are such shit. Not only are our academic standards floundering, violence and abuse are not taken seriously by teachers or administration. Rockdale ISD's refusal to talk to reporters is the same response you would get in Round Rock or Austin, or any of the other communities around the Hill Country that I know.

Adminstration does not listen. They certainly didn't in my case. It wasn't until I was in the hospital and parents were showing up in our classroom that anyone gave a damn that something bad was happening there. It was so much easier to place the blame on me. After all, I was the disturbed kid, so it must be my fault. Easier to threaten to suspend me than to deal with an abusive teacher. Easier to let Jason transfer schools instead of telling the football team not to beat him up. Easier to let the rednecks bash out Casey's windows than tell everyone that it was wrong to treat gay students like pariahs.

There's no goddamned good reason for kids like this to die. If this was a case where a black boy was taunted and humiliated into suicide by the football team, then law enforcement and administration would take it seriously because racial cases have some higher "merit." It's more important because of the PR, the potential publicity. But if the kid involved is gay or transgender, then forget it. That's not such a big deal.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this leaden feeling in my head is that it isn't new. This has been going on longer than I've been alive. My older friends certainly know. While we've got Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on television now, have we really come all that far? There's more acceptance in many parts of society now, but basic discrimination rights are still almost neglible in our country. Gay people can not even marry! In many states they are blocked from adopting children and having families. Because people have a moral objection to anal sex? Because gay people are somehow less than human? Because Bible passages can be twisted and Christ's love used as a justification for hate? What the fuck? What is wrong with people?

How many times must this happen before we take this seriously enough to enforce antidiscrimination policies that protect gay and transgender people? How many fucking times? Is it ever going to be enough to make people realize beating up the gay kid is just as bad as beating up the Mexican kid or the autistic kid?

I am so angry, so very angry. One thing I can say with utter certainty is that should I ever have children, there's no way in hell that I would send them to school here. Not ever.

concentration

Work is very slow tonight, and the office is for some reason set to 'frigid' tonight. There are many people working in my bay, and I am the only one not cross-training. Cross-training is what they assign you to do when there just isn't enough work. Ostensibly you are sent to a different state and someone trains you to work there, shows you all the resources, tricks and whatnot. Really it's an excuse to slack.

Mostly my concentration is shot because Jeremiah was fired about an hour and a half earlier. I suppose I just didn't take him seriously when he said he wasn't doing any work. Last month he averaged about 14 units a day, and it's been nearly six months since he seriously attempted working. He had worked here two years, and had just stopped caring. Well, at least he expected it and didn't seem very fazed. Hopefully he'll pick up some temp work, and find something more interesting for him.

I was thinking tonight about web records versus paper records. I like keeping my journal here for many reasons. Frequently I post and include links or pictures to illustrate or explain whatever I'm writing about. But what happens to my record when websites disappear, fold, vanish? Should I write the explanations in here, since I can't paste newspaper clippings? Should I care and just think of the this space as fleeting? I don't know. I wonder.

Perhaps I should also begin carrying a paper journal again, clipping articles, printing and such things. When the tax return money comes, perhaps I'll buy a fancy leatherbound book to carry in my pocket.