Trans/plant/portation

Moderate-time readers will recall a certain visit that was paid to my abode this winter by a random church member who wanted to ask me all kinds of questions about my belief in God and the upcoming doomsday. I knew there was a chance I’d get another knock on my door, but I didn’t think about my mailbox and honestly, the incident I’m about to reference may have nothing whatsoever to do with my previous conversation. There are more than enough folks around here concerned for my soul to go around. Not that my soul in particular is of any interest; I’m quite sure that there are people in Walla Walla who are gravely worried about humanity in general. This is not to say that I couldn’t interest them in my specific soul, but I won’t go there. I wouldn’t want to frighten anyone with my misdeeds. Read More…

A few days ago a trans woman was attacked just outside of a women’s rest room at a Baltimore area McDonald’s. Two nontrans women, one of them a minor, beat her until she was curled into a fetal position on the floor, and then kicked her in her back, head, and neck. The terrible video, captured by a McDonald’s employee who did nothing to aid or defend her, was quickly posted on YouTube, whereupon some ignoble comments were added to the physical injuries already sustained. The violence lasted around 3 minutes, and the Internet erupted, all over again, with vitriol, calls for quick arrests and/or vengeance, and a whole lot of assumptions about transfolk, people of color, and the McDonald’s anti-discrimination policy.

It is, as is the case so often, a lot to sort through. Read More…

Anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes trying to craft prose or poetry knows there are a bajillion books, periodicals, and Web sites out there with copious advice on getting published, not all of which begin with the phrase “How to.” Everybody has a tidbit, talking point, piece of experience, whatever, on what to do and what to avoid. For my part, I have read something like 6 percent of what’s been written on the subject. This is not a hallmark of my lazy reading commitment, but much more a statement on the volume of ideas, with much more being churned out daily.

So why not jump into the fray with a few points of my own? Read More…

Let it be known that I fly a lot, especially now that I’ve moved to this dusty corner of the country. It just isn’t possible to drive everywhere I want to go, certainly not with $4.00 gas staring me in the face at the station. Most of my trips originate not at the lonely Walla Walla airport, which hosts a few flights a day to and from Seattle, and which will bump up the fare anywhere between $400 to $1,000. So I trek out to the Tri-Cities, an hour away, and go from there. It’s a Planes & Automobiles adventure every time. Read More…

It’s hard to land in Las Vegas without at least a few preconceived notions about the people here—degenerate gamblers, greedy casino owners, exhausted showgirls and the like—images conjured up from so many Hollywood flicks, tell-all books, and mafioso lore. I’m sure Sin City lives down to its seedy reputation on a regular basis, but there is another side to the place that doesn’t get much attention, probably because it’s not as dramatic.

There are actually a lot of hard-working people here. Read More…

I’ve just read something like 25 beginnings of stories, most of which were for a literary contest, but then there are a few books I’ve bought or have out on loan from my library, a couple of draft manuscripts for friends, and some online journals I try to keep up with on a regular basis. Twenty-five openings, designed to plunge the reader not just into the plot, but the whole world of the characters; 25 attempts to get me to identify with who those characters are, so much so that I won’t be able to do anything else in my life until I’ve consumed the whole tale.

Many of these 25 were great, balancing exposition, character introductions, the tone of the piece, and the basic conflict. Yet many  more missed the mark. Read More…

Where once we were used to a monthly routine of trying to conceive, which came with its own arc of emotions, we’ve had regular prenatal visits with the good doctor here in Walla Walla. The good news is, she’s more than competent, a fixture in the city for newborn delivery, and there are no more fingers crossed visits in which we plunk down a lot of money and spend down our reserves of hope that we get knocked up. As folks know, we are happy to have a fetus in formation.

The bad news is, the doctor looks like Sarah Palin. Read More…

After all of the insider politics and hurt feelings, Maryland’s House Bill 235 was sent back to committee yesterday, an ignoble death at the end of their legislative session. Trouble had begun with the public accommodations clause of the bill was removed, leaving employment, education, and housing protections, but not covering transgender people in some of the most vulnerable situations they may face. Activists put pressure on Equality Maryland, one of the main organizations lobbying for the bill, and the sponsoring Delegate, Ms. Pena-Melnyk, and surprisingly, the activists were quickly dismissed as adversaries, and when they posted comments on Equality Maryland’s Web site and Facebook page, their comments were deleted, their accounts banned from future posting.

This development, unsurprisingly, did not go over well. Read More…

Last year, I documented the supreme failure that was my attempt to go turkey hunting with one of Susanne’s colleagues from school. Waiting around at 5AM for a no-show date with something other than destiny, I raised an eyebrow when a year later, he told me that we were once again nearing turkey season. Fool me once, shame on him, I responded. No, no, this time it will all work out, he said, a big grin on his face as reassurance against my skepticism. Let’s try some skeet shooting first so you can get the hang of guns, he said.

There are some days in my life in which I feel moderately unprepared to handle the events as they stream toward me. This certainly counted as one of them. Read More…

It’s springtime in the Wallas, and the lawn care has resumed in earnest. If winter is a time of hibernation, a lack of produce in the local grocery stores, and complaints about utility bills, then springtime, not summer, is its opposite. People can’t wait to burst outside, and daffodils thrust themselves through the crust of the ground. Echos of children bounce off of the houses up and down the street, so it sounds, from our living room, like there are hundreds of kids playing hide-and-seek in the afternoon sun. Read More…