Earlier this week, I saw an ad from Obama encouraging people to take off work on November 4 to campaign. Now, I’d love to do that, but know I can’t. And, likewise, I’ve been saying for a while that I know I don’t have the time to go to a swing state or volunteer all day at a phone bank. But I discovered that the Obama site has a page which lists ways you can get involved, including making phone calls from home. They’ll provide you with names, numbers, and a calling script, and you report back how the call went (who they support, were they even home, etc).
Well, I’ve been doing that for the last hour and I’m beginning to wonder where all these so-called ‘voters’ are. Of the probably 40 phone calls I made (just checked my phone – 44 calls total) I had
- About 25 wrong/disconnected/out-of-service numbers
- About 10 answering machines where I left messages (hopefully at the right number…)
- About 5 parents of students off at college
- 2 of whom said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be voting for Obama.”
- 1 of whom hung up when he heard “Obama”
- 1 (not “About 1,” just “1″) call where I reached the voter I was supposed to be calling, and she said “Oh, I appreciate what you’re doing, but we don’t vote that way.”
I’m still glad I took an hour to do that, and hope to find a few more hours before Tuesday (maybe I’ll call tomorrow on my lunch break) but it was a little frustrating! Phonebankers have my sympathy for having to do that all day, although at least they get paid for it…
-R
(An oldie-but-goodie from the Best of Craigslist.)
Dear Red States…
We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and
we’re taking the other Blue States with us.
In case you aren’t aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon,Washington,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We
believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially
to the people of the new country of New California.
Continue reading 'Dear Red States'»
This weekend I got to see a bunch of theatre and such, and it all had stuff I felt was worth sharing.
First, on Friday, I saw an absolutely tremendous production of Our Town that a co-worker was in. It really just blew me away. The audience was seated in two rows facing each other, with the minimalst set – just two tables with sets of chairs – running down the playing space. All of the actors were dressed in jeans and t-shirts, certainly not period clothing, and all of the props were pantomimed, with the occasional exceptions of baseballs or school books.
The first act was solid, although not amazing. The scene between Emily and George walking home from school was really adorable, and since they had this big playing space they were able to make long walking circuits around, and had the ability for Emily to keep walking and George to stop and have to run to catch up, which was great for the energy.
The second act, with the marriage, was great and Emily and George’s inner thoughts on marraige were really addorable.
But the third act just stole the show.
Continue reading 'A Weekend of Culture'»
I always feel weird figuring out what I want for my birthday because I become plagued with indecision and too many options. This year my mom was good enough to give me a combined birthday/Chanukah financial gift going toward my hair removal, but I couldn’t figure out what to ask my dad for. Well, after our recent discussion, we were back at my apartment and talking about more mundane things, including the video camera I bought over the summer (which was funded in part by the artist’s stipend from the mentorship program I’m working on). At the time I was torn over a video camera and a still camera, and decided on the Sony CX12 because it can take solid – if not amazing – still pictures and serve well as a standard and high-def video camera. I’ve been happy with it on both accounts, and some of the pictures and video I’ve posted on this blog were taken with the CX12.
Well, I realized a nice still camera (or splitting the cost of a still camera, as I think it’s unfair to ask for things beyond whatever the general established history of gift costs) would be a perfect thing to ask for, and yesterday my dad and I went to a camera store and I came home with a shiney new camera.
Continue reading 'New toys! A nice DSLR camera'»
I finally talked to my dad a bit about the divorce. Or, more accurately, I asked him about it and he talked about it for a while.
I’ve realized over the last year (and posted some about it here) that I’m still pissed at my dad about the divorce, eight years later, but never actually talked to him about it or heard his side of the story. I’d pieced together a version of events from overheard conversations and my own impressions, but never actually asked him what happened.
So at dinner a week ago, I did.
Continue reading 'Talking to my dad'»
An event inquiry that came in today…
Already sent it over to The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks…
-R
I’m doing a lot better than I was in my previous post, in no small part due to G being awesome and giving me a good pep talk. (And browbeating gently encouraging me to schedule an apointment with my therapist.) She also reminded me that not everything about going back on hormones is sunshine and roses (my words, not hers). Specifically, I know from experience that they can contribute to extreme emotions and, as she so-diplomatically put it, “I don’t think you should question what you’re feeling, but remember that hormones effects how you feel it.”
-R
I know I just said that I’m not going to “pretend (explicitly or via omission) that I’m not trans” as part of a response to a post from Being T about photos and their place in the author’s life as a trans woman. But I’m currently going through old home videos because I was hoping to use some of them at some point in the solo performance project I’m working on.
And they just make me want to cry.
They make me feel like I’ve wasted 23 years of my life, and lost something I can never recover.
They make me remember that I’ll never experience childhood as R, grow up as R, go to highschool as R, go to college as R, graduate as R, and on and on and on.
They make me hate who I am now, for dallying and postponing and delaying and waiting.
Continue reading 'The Past'»
A beautifully written post over at Being T got me thinking about how my identities before/during/after transitioning all interact. The post, titled Picture Perfect Past, talks in part about how pre-transition pictures affect the author, and seems to be something of a followup to The Secret Origin of Riftgirl, a video piece which uses a lot of pre-, mid-, and post-transition photography. From Picture Perfect Past:
Being trans isn’t what I am. But it is a part of me. Just as being a writer, a candy addict, and, yes, even a woman. And a woman who happens to have a pretty unique – and fabulous – past. And I’m through selling myself short.
Since reading the post I’ve been thinking about my own life, and how transitioning around people who knew me pre-transition affects how I see myself.
Continue reading 'Astride two worlds'»
The mentor from the solo performance project I’m involved in was back this week, and we (myself, the other two metnees, and the mentor) met again this week on Monday, Tuesday, and again today, as a sort of we’re-getting-close point between the July program and the November performance.
The week was incredibly helpful for me and let me push the sections I’ve been working on to toward where they need to be. Seeing everyone else’s work was also really helpful – I said to one of the other artists on the way out that I think we’ve all brought each other up to a higher level.
One of the hard things that I’ve been dealing with is how to process anger in the piece. The first section of this program, in July, surprised me in the anger I found around the transition. I don’t like thinking of myself as angry, or as having difficulty with the transition. I want to think about the transition as solely a positive thing.
So I’m trying to figure out how to deal with it when its not.
(But I’m not ending this post on a downer: the solo piece is still going really well!)
-R
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