Coffee

My drug of choice :)

This is how you do it

 

A Jesus moment

Steve Shives is a "Trekkie" who every so often spouts off quite eloquently on conservatives and their tactics which is why I posted his video yesterday. Some conservatives can be cured but they would need their own "Jesus moment" and realize that constant fear of change is irrational.

They have always been with us and always will and every generation sees them look foolish once you look back. If we listened to them we would still have segregation and women wouldn't be able to vote. So we put up with their mongering and scare tactics until the dust settles on every new acquired bit of social progress meant to elevate everyone.

I tend not to argue with the ones who are too orthodox because they often fashion their own logic and their own alternative "facts". Bad faith arguments seem to be a staple of their tactics and more often than not they are caught red-handed in their fabrications.

However someone open-minded can in theory be saved and they are the ones I will engage with.

Soon to be a relic

One of things I love about today is the openly lived gender variance (in different combinations of identity and expression) of the GenZ generation. They aren't hiding who they are, but instead they are showing it to you every day in the street or on public transit. No double lives are necessary or desired and no one gives them a second look because they are so remarkably confident.

Near the end I despised living a double life because it was slowly draining away my spirit. It was also bolstering the idea that who I am is something to be kept from view and to be ashamed of. Today I live but one life.

Soon there will be no such thing and people will look back in their history books (virtual or otherwise) as something people once did to live in a society where they feared for their safety or were embarrassed that people would know about. We are almost there with youth leading the way.

Without a doubt, stopping living a double life is the best gift I have ever given myself.

I talk to people

This morning Linda saw me on the walking path and gave me a hug. We hadn't seen each other for a long time and we exchanged numbers. I used to see her often in the early morning during the pandemic.

Yesterday an older lady started talking with me at the bus stop and we ended riding part of the way together. She told me a bit about her life and she was so lovely.

The day before that, I met Andree on the bus who is 60 and works as a hairdresser in Old Montreal. She has children a few years older than mine and has been alone for quite a number of years. She is reflecting on slowing down before retirement.

Where I live is walkable and friendly but also I am in a good place and people notice it. Even Linda told me it looked like I had taken off years.

Turns out that living with stress is not a good thing.

Times change, conservatives don't

 

How much choice do I have?

If you've read my writing for some time you know I talk a lot about choice. For example, a fox doesn't have any choice but be a fox and can do nothing to change it.

So when I reflect on the axis of identity and expression I am always thinking in terms of choice and how much is being exercised. In principle, the more one is entrenched in identity, the less choice one should have in trying to reject it.

I have met many people over my life who seemed to be exercising different levels of choice. The more they spoke in terms of identity the less choice they felt they had. The problem for older people is that their childhood programming did not readily permit them to think in terms of identity and they may have confused their desire for cross gender expression as compulsion rather than affirming who they were.

If we accept that there is a biological component involved in creating transgender people, then this would be an element which removes choice. Therefore when we reflect on who we are, we should think in terms of how much choice we feel we are exercising.

Criteria

As a transgender person here is the type of questioning I have gone through regarding extended family:

1) Do I want the best for them? Yes
2) Would we be friends if we were not related? For the most part no
3) Are we obliged by virtue of blood to develop a connection? No
4) Have they done enough to come my way in 16 years? No
5) Have I effectively communicated the struggle that transgender people go through? Yes
5) Do I miss them when I don't see them? Not really
6) Would their absence leave a gaping hole in my life? No

This type of exercise is useful because it helps develop our contingency plan when family detracts from uplifting your identity. If you feel a strong sense of obligation you ask yourself why which does not mean I wouldn't help them if they need it. 

My mother and my kids are a different story and they have come through.

There isn't malevolence involved with extended family only that being obtuse is not an admirable quality and the vapid conversations when we have been all together only reinforces a stance which was largely honed over the pandemic.

"The Outfit"

"The Outfit" plays out in only one location; in fact it could be a stage play. An English cutter of fine suits practices his trade in 1950's Chicago with consumate detail and tries desperately to mind his own business despite the indiscretions of his dangerous clientele. There are a myriad of wrinkles here which force his obvious cleverness to the forefront signaling he is more complex than we first surmise.

There is nothing telegraphed in advance here and I was immediately entrenched in the story and as details slowly reveal themselves, the feeling of foreboding increases in parallel. There is clearly a tip of the hat here to classic film noire even as the style does morph near the story's conclusion.

Highly recommended 

Vocal Fry

 

Madman

A beautiful tribute to one of my favorite albums including Paul Buckmaster's wonderful string arrangement...