So. I had a brief experience about a year ago, which I nevertheless have trouble forgetting. I was getting ice cream. Here's my internal monologue:

"Hurray for ice cream! Oh, money for ice cream, boo. Giving the mon--ZOMG CASHIER IS A TRANSWOMAN. No, bad Laura. WOMAN. She's a woman. WOMAN WOMAN WOMAN. Oh man, did I make a terrible confused face? I didn't mean it! I think it's awesome that you're out, living your life! Should I say something? No, that would just make it worse. Besides, the whole thing that's cool is that it's not a big deal that she's just working at an ice cream shop. I hope my smile didn't look strained or scared or anything. Do people make awful faces at you when they figure it out? I hope people don't make faces at you. It was sort of a surprise, though, suddenly figuring it out. It shouldn't be a surprise. I hope people don't make a big deal about it. Oh no, I'm making a big deal about it! It's not a big deal! Noooooooo!"

In case you couldn't tell, I was a bit flustered. There was a distinct moment of shock when I first figured out that I wasn't looking at an XX-chromosome woman, and then, actually, this really strong feeling of solidarity. I'm almost as confused by that one as by the surprise. I mean, it's a terrible thing to make a big surprised face at someone just because they are who they are, and I feel bad thinking that I probably did. But then I gave her this big smile, like, "OMG ONE OF MY OWN" which is almost stranger. Because, I mean, trans folk are in the acronym, but my experience as a passing-for-straight lesbian cannot possibly compare to her experience as a transwoman. What right do I have to claim solidarity with her (much larger) struggle? And isn't it kind of principles-violating to judge someone right away based on their gender identity, even if the judgment is positive? I mean, I get to know cisgendered people before I decide if I think they're allies or not. I saw this woman for all of three seconds-- what do I know about her?

For one thing, I know she probably gets a lot of crap for failing to conform to the gender binary. And I do too (when I'm not taking the easy way out and passing). We're both fighting the same fight. Isn't that worth recognizing? I was the only queer person I knew, at the time, so it was a particular thrill to see someone else, anyone, who didn't like society's little boxes either. Seeing my fight reflected in something else, knowing that in the global scheme of things I wasn't alone, isn't that worth a big smile to a stranger? Or is it still problematic, because it reduces a person to a symbol?

I'm still not really sure what to make of it. I did make an involuntary surprised face at her, of which I am deeply ashamed, and I did feel this rush of solidarity with her, which still warms my heart sometimes. I don't want to other her, but I think I am anyway, and I don't know what to do about it. I guess I'll just keep thinking about it.

Today President Zardari has called the joint 'in camera' session of National Assembly and Senate at the NA Building, Islamabad. He also has invited senior party leaders who are not members of the assembly or Senate. Aim of this activity is to take all the parties in confidence about the present law and order situation in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and to get their suggestions and views for solving this very serious issue that has brought Pakistan at a very critical turn. It would have been better if this session could be covered by the media as at this stage the whole nation wants to know about the decisions made out as this is the problem of every single Pakistani now and it must be solved without any further delay. Otherwise Pakistan is going to become next Afghanistan or Iraq. Senior Indian journalist, Mr. Kuldeep Nayyer also crticised this decision and advised that such sessions must be covered by the media so that the whole nation can know about the proposed actions to solve the law and order situation. he was commenting in Geo TV news last night.

We pray to Allah to bless our leaders with wisdom and courage to take the decisions that are best for the country and nation.

It is really starting to affect me and make me afraid of what will happen in the future. I am at a point in my career that I need to start looking for grad schools and getting my PhD. I am worried and almost sick about how I will be able to afford that and leaving a place that I called home for the last three years again. I always thought I was a free spirit and could travel wherever. As I get older it seems harder and harder to adapt to new things.

So the presidental debates and the whole election really scare me. I really really don't like McCain but politics haven't affected my life much before so I don't know how or if it will in the future. I am afraid the US will fall into a deep depression. It seems to be a hole that continues to get deeper with no ray or hope or way way to get out. I see this in myself. Being able to be on my own and spend my money on whatever I want I enjoy that freedom and normally if I want something I get it. I enjoyed having that freedom, but it scares me. I know that I should not be spending alot of money and as a college student I already am basically $40,000 in debt.

I believe the pressure of being away from home is getting to me right now. It is so difficult to afford things when home is 7 hours away. Gas alone costs me almost $120 to get home and back. Sorry but I can't afford that really at all. I do work and I feel bad for complaining about it. It is seriously the easiest job I have had, but homework and my social life suffer. I remember always saying that I would spend my nights and weekends getting homework done and being socail only when homework is completed. I sit here writting this with three books to read for tommorow a paper due thursday and a class schedule to plan.

I guess the only thing to do now is wait. Wait to see if things will get better but I don't believe that the presidental canidates will help, or at least immediatly. I don't know much about economics but whenever that is all people can talk about, I think it is getting pretty bad. What will the future hold for us and will I be able to achieve my dreams?

For once I feel uncertain. I am unsure if I can continue my education after getting my Bachelors degree and I do not want to quit. It has been my plan to continue until I have my PhD without taking a break. Will I be able to do it?

What will happen to my family? Again it is so very hard to be away from them but I know it is for my best to be where I am. I have always felt the pressure to be the best child and achieve at school. All my life I have been following my sister and brother's examples and know I find that I am the one going to farthest and it scares me because I have noone to go to for advice. I want to help my family and make them proud and I will continue in whichever way I can.

Okay so that was alot of randomness but in my mind it made sense.

I will be here waiting. Waiting to see what the future holds for me and the world.

So, here is a video for you to enjoy.

Feel free to post comments. They are moderated, so it does require me to approve them. Since I'm traveling, I may not be able to approve them as soon as you'd like.

Keep praying for us.

Greg Yoder, MNN

I will now take the time to tell you the Quasi-Yuppie one is hot, not regular hot I am talking “God Damn” hot.  I say “God Damn” hot because that’s what type of reaction she elicits from people they will look and say “God Damn she’s hhhhottt.” Fellas you know what I’m talking about right?  She comes out of the bathroom wearing a little number that is tight in all the right places takes one look at me and it begins:

QYW- “What the hell are you wearing?”

PRD- “It’s a suit babe”

QYW- “Uh….what the hell for”

PRD- Making eating gesture with hand “Dinner babe….duh”

QYW- “I know what the hell it is; I just don’t know why you’re wearing it?”

PRD- “Uh For our nice dinner, what’s the problem?”

QYW- “The Puh-rob-lem (said with a slight shift of the head) is, its not you”

PRD- “It’s me tonight….don’t I look SEXXXAY?” (I am rubbing my chest)

QYW- “I don’t like it.”

PRD- “You don’t like it?”

QYW- “That’s right I don’t like it!”

PRD- “How can you not like it look how it makes my ass look?” Turning around to show my ass

QYW- “I am not even fucking around, I don’t like it, you look all stuffy!”

PRD- “Uhh…Wha…Huh?”

QYW- “You look uncomfortable.”

PRD- “I am at a loss.”

QYW- “Put something else on (hands go on hips) and you are seriously jeopardizing getting any …if you catch my drift!”

I couldn’t change fast enough.  If I have learned one thing in life it is to take the suggestion of a “God Damn” hot woman wearing a hot dress and threatening an embargo on nookie.

What does this add up to? Chaos in the big city. 

On Sunday morning before we left, Fitz and I experienced a beautiful NY rooftop deck...fifty stories into the air!

[caption id="attachment_2088" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Dynamic NY Duo"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_2089" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sigh"][/caption]

The coolest thing about this debate is that my mom helped put in the lines and trunks and such that put in extra phone lines and TV feeds and such. To be honest, I don't understand any of that, but I know that it's been a big deal at her work this past week.

I made it through the whole debate, although I did get a bit distracted by playing on the computer towards the end. To be honest, I don't know if I'm going to vote this year. I think it's important to vote and to take responsibility to do your part in government, but as part of that responsibility I think people should go the extra mile to really learn about the candidates instead of just voting along a party line.

I also have a hard time with manipulation, and feel that a whole lot of it goes on in politics. To my non-political mind, the debate went like this:
"I believe this."
"No, if you look at the facts you'll see that you voted against that eleventy times."
"No, that's not true."

How are we supposed to make sense of anything that's said when this is the type of back and forth that goes on? How can we weed out the truth?

I don't know what is the best for this country, but I do think that something needs to be done. I took a peek at my mutual fund account today...yikes. I hope that the person that is chosen in November is the best for the job. Unfortunately, I have no idea who that is.

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And it was a fairly boring debate, at that!  (Thanks, I think, to what may have been Mr. Brokaw's choices from among the audience's questions.)

Now that the debate is over, I notice that I am returning to a resting heart rate (just measured it again: currently 72).

Is there any one out there interested in having a little fun at my expense by offering an explanation for this phenomenon?  For the sake of my family, should I skip the next one and listen to some light music instead -- maybe some Barry Manilow?  (Not Copacabana, of course -- that would be too stressful.)  Feel free to play armchair psychoanalyst or physician, I can take it.  Just don't charge me for your services...

I'll start at the start.

When I got pregnant with my daughter at 18, I was technically on Birth Control, but I was admittedly a little blase about taking it everyday at the same time, and it's no surprise that I ended up knocked up. I was also a bit of a slut the too. So I had my baby, started turning my life around and grew up. A year later when I ended up pregnant again (by my long term boyfriend, Dave, I had left my slut days behind), it was complete shock. This time I had been diligent about administering my pill...it was like my religion. At that time in my life, I was on Welfare, just able to see the horizon to having my high school diploma, and living in a cockroach infested apartment, I had enough to feed my daughter, and that was about it. The decision to terminate my second was not a hard decision to make. Afterward I went on "The Shot". Depo Provera is an injection taken every three months. There were many side effects, but none of which were pregnancy.

Three years after I started taking the shot, Dave I split, I decided to stop taking the shot. The side effects were too much, and I had planned to be celibate until another relationship came along. Half a year later when Lance and I started dating and getting serious, we had the talk. It turned out that when Lance was 19, he contracted a severe case of the mumps which had subsequently spread down to his boy parts. Any chance of him impregnating me where super slim. After we were both declared healthy, we decided to forgo any form of birth control. And so, that's how it's been for the past three years.

At first I was totally cool with not having any more kids. I love my daughter, and am wary of the whole multi-children dynamic. As I entered my mid twenties, my girlfriends started getting married. Then they started having babies. Then I started getting jealous. At first I thought I was jealous because they were having babies, but after some self examination and being completely honest with myself, I came to the conclusion that I was jealous because everyone was so happy for them. It's painful to admit, but understandably, not one single person gave me there best wishes or congratulated me when I was pregnant. It didn't hurt at the time, but it does now. I don't actually want to be pregnant, but I do fantasize about what it must be like to tall people I'm pregnant, and not have them say,"Seriously? Shit! What the fuck are you going to do?". I know, stupid, right? But there it is.

And here I am. I know I'm not pregnant, and like I said, I'm cool about not having anymore. But knowing I'm late, and knowing that there's still that one in a million chance...I get a little sparkle in my heart.

~FERGIE/FERGALICIOUS

Is there anything more bliss than finding that you have the tools at hand to complete a goal?  

 Yes,  you may find that by belonging to the Army in some way, you have access to a huge Gym, Pool, Cardio room and State of the Art weight room...

for free.

Well, I'd gone into the gym before of course.  (don't give me that look!  I have too gone into the gym here) 

 I just never worked out there before today.  I'm so impressed with what i have to work with, I told "him" ,  "I think I will live here now, thankyou."

Give me a few weeks, people.

Sweetiegirlz will be the spokesperson for the mid-life milfs of america!

  I ran and ran and ran, MP3 player on blast. 

 Doug ran on the treadmill next to me, eyeballing CNN on the big TV's on the wall. 

I read the treadmill's recommendations for keeping your pulse in certain ranges to either burn fat or work your heart muscle. 

 The pulse rates were written on the front of the treadmill by age. 

I laughed out loud when I saw the ages went all the way up to 100 years old! (Fat burning range is 79 for 100 year olds btw)

  I doubt many 100 year old people are using the company's machines. 

Maybe oxygen machines...

  We also lifted weights finally, weight machines so state of the art, that they take all the guesswork out of reps, negative and positive force, and...get this... they count the friggin' Reps FOR you and beep when you don't follow all the way through with the movement! 

  A little LED screen scrolls by:  Congratulations, you completed...12 reps!  To repeat set,  press repeat.

GAH!!! I'm in love with a weight machine people!  

  By the way, we could not run on the track because the Junior High had a football game tonight.  Doug jokes around,  "we can still run there"  Yah...um, NO!    Sweetie is an open book but not THAT open! 

So, I am happy now because I wasn't sure if i would have the energy after work to not only work out, but also eventually join the kickboxing twice a week, which is a 25 minute drive away on weeknights. 

This is one class i do not wish to join before I can do cardio to my satisfaction and I have the energy after work to drive and attend class! 

  People think kickboxing is kicking other people's asses. It's not. 

 By the time you are done with class you will feel like you have kicked your OWN ass!   It's that strenuous cardio wise.

Work is coming along nicely.  I am finally getting it down.  I feel oh so important in my suits and pumps. It's a pleasure to finally fix hair and do makeup for a good reason.

  Seeing many people coming and going all day is fun for me. 

Whatever Doug does at work, he's famous.  Everyday the staff never fail to introduce me as his "wife".    "Have you met SSG B.'s wife yet?" they say.  Today my supervisor teased me:

"He comes in here [to the office where i work] an awful lot lately." she laughs,

  "He never used to come in here this much!" 

We came home today for lunch to let Sugar and Prince out for excercise.   It's a relaxing lunch hour.  The whole work thing is just bliss.   I know...I know...visit me in say a year and see if I'm still saying that, right?

I'm just glad not to be isolated from other humans any more.  Way glad.

1. During the First Advent, healing was used to verify and establish the fact that the Messiah had come to Israel. Healing was not used just to alleviate suffering. It was used to present the Messiah.

2. There is no "healing in the atonement."

3. God often provides illness as a means of divine discipline. 1 Corinthians 11:30

4. Good health is not a sign of spirituality or salvation. Beware of judging those who have lost their health.

5. In the pre-Canon period of the Church Age, God the Holy Spirit sovereignly bestowed a temporary gift of healing on certain men to establish their credentials as apostles and other communicators of doctrine. Healing established the man as from God. 1 Corinthians 12:11

6. All temporary spiritual gifts were designed to take up the slack in the Church Age until the Canon was completed and circulated.

7. However, once the Bible was completed (96 AD), all temporary gifts were withdrawn to be replaced by doctrine.

8. Certain gifts, such as miracles and healing, were no longer necessary to establish the authority of Bible teachers and doctrinal communication.

9. Temporary gifts include apostle, prophet, tongues, interpretation of tongues, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits, faith, healings, and miracles. Tongues ended in 70 AD since it was a sign to warn the Jews of the impending fifth cycle of discipline as prophesied in Isaiah 28.

10. Since healing was designed as a credit card rather than to alleviate suffering, it was always removed once the authority of the communicator was established.

11. For example, Paul in Acts 19:11-12 cf. Philippians 2:27 and 2 Timothy 4:20 when he could no longer heal his close friends.

12. God can always heal anyone, but healing is not the order of the day in this stage of the angelic conflict.

A. God never heals through an individual, only through prayer.

B. Those who allege they can heal are totally evil.

C. Healing will be the order of the day again in the Tribulation.

13. No human being has any gift related to healing now that the Canon has been completed; however, in our Lord's day, Jesus performed acts of healing to focus attention on Himself as the God-Man, the Messiah, and the God of Israel.

Unknown Person: Is your mom there?

Me: (indignant) Uh, no. Who is this?

Unknown Person: Oh, I'm sorry. I misheard you.

What part did they mishear? Even over the phone, I am mistaken for a high school student. Or younger. Sigh...

The BroadBand's trip to Chihuahua has been deamed a success by people other than myself. I'm generally a bad judge of those things and I feel like it's nice to believe them, so I choose to. The audiences there were very interesting; after each piece, as soon as the conductor left they stage, they would almost immediately stop clapping. But at the end of both concerts they really gave it to us. It was kinda nice to "get onto the next piece," but a little strange to get used to. All in all, the audiences seemed very receptive to the music we were bringing them, and it was fun to perform that music.

Since arriving back in Rochester, I've been working on Ossia New Music things as well as learning some pieces for my senior recital and for Bob Morris' recital in November. In November I will be premiering Morris' piece Beautiful Best for solo double bass. I can't wait!

Annnnnnd... I felt like putting a video here for whatever reason. A little youtube search brought me this Duchamp film with music by John Cage (I think from a larger film by Richter). Enjoy!(?)

(full screen suggested)

As I sit here, waiting for the fresh polish on my toenails to dry, I was reading old poetry that I wrote. I noticed that several of the poems were centered around a certain person who had been in my life, but is no longer. It got me thinking about relationships in general, and what we (or more specifically, I) look for.

Not speaking expressly to relationships just yet, what we, as a culture, look for in just about anything these days is the “wow factor”.  According to Urban Dictionary online, Wow Factor is defined, in part, as: "The distinctive appeal that an object, behavior or person has on others". We want to be “wowed”; we want to be impressed and we want to be excited. 

The person whom I wrote some of the poetry about really wowed me. I was wowed by them throughout the entire duration of the relationship. In the time that has passed since they exited my life, I had forgotten about this. I am not sitting here ruminating on the past relationship, nor am I looking backward wishing for things to revert to that time again, but looking back at the balladry, I simply remember now the extent to which they wowed me.

This is something I am looking for in a potential relationship- that Wow Factor. What I am sitting here wondering is will I ever find that level of “wow” again? It is a crucial component to any romantic relationship that I might enter. I need to know that I will constantly and continually be impressed and excited by that person. I need to know that I will adore that person a little more each day. And equally, I need to know that the person will feel all those elements in return.  I have been in relationships where I became bored, and I stayed in them out of merely a matter of comfort and convenience. I learned an important lesson from those relationships, and I refuse to ever repeat them.

As far as the potential relationship I am exploring now, I’m not yet sure how I feel. I don’t know if I am wowed to the extent that I desire to be. I’m not saying that I am not wowed at all, I’m saying that I am not sure how wowed I am. It’s difficult for me to tell in this moment. I carry around a lot of fear, a lot of hurt, and a lot of apprehension. It’s not so much emotional baggage as it is self-protection.  But because of that protection, I feel I may have proverbial blinders on.  I’m so busy subconsciously protecting myself that I cannot consciously be aware of how I really feel. And unfortunately, I think I also read too much into interactions, when there is nothing to read. It’s like I am looking for something to go wrong, just so I can say, “Yup, I knew it”.

A friend told me sometimes I tend to ramble on here, and I begin to make little sense. I think that’s what I am starting to do now. I think I’ll take this awareness and simply marinade on it for a while.

P.S. Now that its dry, I realize I am not wowed by my new toenail polish color.