Mad Men’s Trans Narrative
I recently finished watching the fourth season of Mad Men, and am glad to call myself All Caught Up with the rest of the AMC-watching world, which in the grand scheme of things, is not that large. I’ll add here that I’m not nearly as happy to hear that Jon Hamm refuses to wear underwear unless he’s wearing skivvies in a scene. He may be handsome, but all I can think of is the unlucky dry cleaner on the set. Regarding his character, Don Draper, audiences have known since early in the first season that his identity is a stolen one, and the narrative around this subplot only gets more complicated from there. There are spoilers from here on out, so please consider this my warning. Read More…
I saw 
Many of us who had the fortune to attend college, or who lived in a tight-knit community can relate to the concept of venturing out around campus and its nearby neighborhoods and running into lots of people they knew. In Syracuse, an acknowledgment or short conversation seemed to happen every 6.3 yards. With my move to Washington, DC, after nine years in snowy Central New York, I was suddenly anonymous. And in that urban landscape, hardly anybody cared if they saw a masculine woman in a tweed jacket, so I was initially pleased that I’d gotten some degree of quiet in my subway/walking commute to work. But quickly, I realized that I missed the little, often pithy small talk from New York. What I missed was that degree of community. 
It never did, really, except that NaNoWriMo is a great front for a writing program for young people, so I enjoy making a donation to them, and no, I’m not their pitch boy. But as far as writing goes, it’s a lot of fun to struggle through a first draft when hundreds of thousands of people are doing the same and talking about it online and in meet ups across the country. That’s wonderful. And it’s a fallacy, because in any given month, hundreds of thousands of people are slogging through a first draft. And most of them don’t finish. And most of the ones who do wrote something awful, or close to awful. And the vast majority of finished projects won’t see the light of anyone’s ebook reading device. 
I was 21 years old and everyone had forgotten my birthday. I’d come out one month earlier and promptly broken my ankle in three places—which makes a hell of a terrible sound, for those unfortunate enough to hear it—and was at the tail end of a friendship that soon wouldn’t survive my coming out process. Full of angst and sadness, and not especially mobile, I slowly crutched a half a block from my upstairs apartment onto Westcott Street in Syracuse, New York, where I was about to start graduate school in English literature. Woe was me. I figured if I focused on a simple goal of sitting down and having a two-egg lunch at the corner greasy spoon, I could just get through another moment in what I was sure would be my worst birthday ever. 
So much about writing is having confidence without losing a cap on one’s ego. If I can’t even call myself a “writer,” then spending time at the keys is even more ludicrous, because it’s too easy to believe these hours are all a waste. At least, that’s how the equation works in my head. Somehow, I’ve muddled through since I moved out West, and all of my education that looked wonky or out of place in the government contract/technology world now fits snugly against these latest endeavors. English literature, critical theory, and psychology are the ham to these eggs, or the Not Dogs, for those who are vegan inclined, to this tofu scramble. 
Nearly there, with a scant 48 hours left until the end of the NaNoWriMo. If you’re lagging behind or thinking that there is no way on this good green earth that you can finish and make the 50,000 word count, don’t despair. I’ve said all along that this exercise isn’t about a number, it’s about a practice. Writers write. Dolphins dolphin or erm, swim. Forward, or even lateral progress, is what November has been about, so if we’ve stuck to our keyboards, pens, indelible markers, or chisels, then more power to us. Let’s look at some other benefits of continuing to plug away at our intrepid novels:
Yes, I’m still here. Tapping at my keyboard, in between basting a 12.5 turkey. I made my mother’s recipe for stuffing, produced sweet potato biscuits last night, and by this evening will be digesting vast quantities of tryptophan with the best of them in the United States. And I am thankful for all that I have, truly. So among the items on my be-grateful-for list is having the time to write, which although appearing in scant amounts this last week, is generally available to me whenever I need it. I’ve made a habit of writing every single day, and it needs to be said that some days, this is easier than others. November 25, 2010, is not one of those easier spots on the calendar. I may only get through a few hundred or even a thousand words, but I’m only 3,000 away from 50,000. The careful readers out there will remark that I set a personal goal of 60,000 for this NaNoWriMo project this year, so yes, tomorrow afternoon, after the apartment is cleaned up and the guests departed, I need to make some serious headway. 
So many voices on the Interwebs say that writers write, that writers must scratch out a stream of words every day, that not doing so on one day sounds terrifying to us. It turns us back into velveteen rabbits; it takes away our sense of authenticity as writers, and for some of us, that felt like shaky ground to begin with. But I suppose there’s a reason the NaNoWriMo gods (read: Chris Baty) decided to set the project in November, which not only has a scant 30 days instead of January or March’s 31, but which is also stricken with the biggest American holiday of them all: Thanksgiving. 
Trans/plant/portation 