She listens like spring and talks like June
2008-04-18 06:44 -
The past few days have felt like summer – the weather is gorgeous, and spending time outside is awesome. I’ve been swimming a couple of times in my apartment complex’s pool already. My apartment is feeling more and more like home.
I’m amazed by the amount of change that’s happened over the past month since my last blog post – not only have the seasons been turning quickly, but also things that I thought would take months or years to come ended up transpiring in the blink of an eye.
My friend, coworker, and next door neighbor “R” has become much more than that. We’re an inseparably close-knit couple now. “R” and I first met in July right after my return to the Bay Area, and it’s as if we’ve been dating since I moved here in January through hanging out together at gatherings of our mutual friends. We’re perfect for each other in so many ways, and I feel elated and giddy whenever I’m around her. We’ve also met a few awesome people lately including “S” and started going out and being social a lot more often.
The DeFrank transwomens’ support group seems to be a trainwreck in motion, derailed by the presence of a few arrogant individuals. I’m planning on implementing exponential backoff and retry with regard to the group in the hope that the situation improves. In short: a newcomer to the group, “D”, appeared two meetings ago accompanied by the director of the center in order to promote her new book. Cue an hour and a half of paternalistic lecturing and domineering from a self-purported “expert” rather than simply women around the table exchanging stories and advice as equals. I’m going to hold back the harsh words I would have to say other than that I don’t feel as if stories of older transitioners are really the stories that need most to be told – younger transitioners still are denied a voice. This needs to change. I finally finished reading Julia Serano’s Whipping GIrl a few days ago. I regret not having read it sooner – it sums up in a nutshell the motivations of transphobia and cissexual privilege and lays them bare to scrutiny; it highlights what’s wrong with all of the media portrayals of transwomen.
I’ve reclaimed virtually all of my life back from dilation. Only needing one hour every 48 hours is an amazing luxury – the contrast between the amount of wasted time now (~2% of my time) and this fall (20% of my time) is pretty staggering.
I’ve also started cutting back on my World of Warcraft playtime in an effort to have a greater ratio of fun to time spent. My guild has pseudo-merged with another guild, and we’re now tackling SSC and TK (2/6 in SSC at the moment!); Mag and Gruul are on farm now. It’s nice to be able to only spend maybe 4 hours a week raiding and yet make a lot of progress and experience new content.
Work has been definitely getting more and more interesting, as well. Without going into too much detail, I’ve been spotting various things that have slipped through the cracks, and as a result am starting a project to audit the processes my group uses. I’ve assumed leadership of the software tools project to which I was first assigned to when I arrived. My 20% project is making steady progress, although it’s still very much in the planning stages. I served my first week oncall recently – in short, I’ve found my place at Google and am no longer a Noogler.
Last Saturday perhaps marked a turning point in my relationship with my family. It started with an invitation on Wednesday from a fellow gaygler to come up to San Francisco for the APIQWTC Lunar New Year Banquet since she had extra seats at her table. “R” and I said yes. We left about an hour early, because I’d realized that my grandparents’ house was along the way to the banquet, and I wanted to drop in and say hi since I hadn’t seen them in over two and a half years. As it turns out, my parents were there too helping my grandparents set up their new DSL connection. It was a really wonderful afternoon, and “R” got to meet my family for the first time. My grandfather slipped pronouns/names a lot, but my grandmother was spot-on with the pronouns and “R” and her got along fabulously. My dad seems to be doing quite well. Unfortunately, my family’s dog died a few weeks ago, so I’ll never get a chance to see him again :(. My only regret is that my mom was busy dealing with the support techs on the phone and didn’t come out of the computer room to say hello at all, but I think that I’ve finally started on the road to having my family back. The banquet went amazingly too – “R” got to experience a full Chinese banquet for the first time, and we chatted with many interesting people.
What next? I’ll be working from Cambridge, MA next week (flying out tomorrow), and then attending ROFLCon on April 25-26. The Puzzle Pirates gathering in Dallas is still on for May 16-May 18. And I will be making it to Pasadena for Ditch Day, but Ditch Day’s unpredictability means working in Santa Monica on non-Ditch Days during my stay in Southern CA.
I’m expecting the next few months to pass in the blink of an eye – time flies when you’re having fun, and the past few weeks have been no exception.
P.S. one of the most funny experiences I’ve had since my move was going to urgent care for an UTI. I told the doctor that I’d recently had vaginoplasty when she asked whether I’d had any surgeries – she continued right on, “we’ll take your sample and check whether bacteria are present, as well as making sure you’re not pregnant”. “R” and I looked at each other, sealed our lips, and waited for her to leave the room, then burst out hysterically laughing.
It’s been a couple of months since I have read your blog and I am thrilled to see that things have finally turned around for you. Your happiness shows in your writing and no one deserves it more. :)
IV
— IVdripper Apr 27, 06:41 PM #
I always was a sucker for Happy Endings. Or Happy Beginnings.
May the two of you live long and prosper (sorry… I get so few chances to fully unleash my inner geekette)
You’re happy now. It shows.
Hugs, Zoe
— Zoe Brain Jun 22, 07:33 PM #