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February 10, 2013 | 6 Comments

Entropy and Apathy

I’ve never let this much time elapse between blog posts since I started Trans/Plant/Portation more than four years ago. Even when Emile was born, I’d planned ahead and lined up several friends to write articles that were scheduled to pop up every couple of days. A few spirited times since August 2008 I’ve even posted more than once in a day, although regrettably one time it stemmed from a former online colleague deleting all of my writing from the I Fry Mine in Butter blog, and I was grabbing whatever I could off of Internet caches in a reposting fury.

It’s not that I haven’t anything to write — far from it — but that I’ve been embroiled in revisions to a novel in progress, communications to set up the publication process for another book, writing a new series to appear in the next couple of weeks for a well known site, and a smattering of submissions of some short work to various literary journals. I’ve also just applied to a writing residency and hammered out details for a speaking engagement in LA next month, and oh, I have a wonderful pen pal, fulfilling one of my goals for 2013. There are thick streams of words pouring out of my brain, I promise. Something has had to give.

Now then, it’s a shame that the blog has taken this hit, immediately after I topped 100,000 views from readers. But maybe it’s a good time to ask a few questions:

  • Why don’t my posts inspire more comments from those readers?
  • Which topics (LGBT civil rights, writing, popular culture, raising a baby in a nontraditional family, politics, zombies, humor, travel & food, Walla Walla living) are readers most interested in? Which topics bring readers back for more?
  • What else would people like to read at T/P/P that I don’t discuss?
  • Is anybody out there?

Today the sun is out, haze-free, making anyone outside squint in the brightness. I love days like this, even when it seems they’re inextricably bonded with a chill in the air. Anything is possible on a day like today. So tell me — what would you like to see around here this spring?

Meanwhile, here’s an interview I did this week. Enjoy!

February 1, 2013 | 0 Comments

Easy to Remember Instructions for Clueless Guys

This post is filled with triggering stuff about sexual assault.

Okay, so there’s this guy. He’s about my age, from my home town, and in 1984, the summer before I started high school, he was up in my bedroom while we goofed around listening to Pink Floyd and wondering what to do. The upshot here is that our long friendship collapsed in a sexual assault and after he left to walk home, I was left wondering what the hell had just happened.

I took a very long shower. I told nobody about it, but that fall, some part of me asked the guidance counselor if I could join the women’s group therapy meeting. She didn’t ask me why, just said yes, and there I was, holding my uniform skirt to my knees and listening to the awful things in the lives of my peers, wondering why I was there. Repression is a strange thing. I’d blocked out most of what had occurred in my bed the summer before, but close friends asked if everything was okay. I’d picked a high school (I was in the parochial system, not in public school) that most of my friends hadn’t selected, so it was up to me to make new pals and to keep in touch with my besties from eighth grade. As with other people my age in the mid-80s, the phone was my constant companion. I had a cord that stretched down the hall, and luxuriously enough, I had my own number and a phone in my own room (thank you, elder sisters, for paving the way for me).

The story of what happened to me (as opposed to the reality of what happened to me) warped inside my mind, as objects will when submitted to extreme pressure and stress. I told people I’d lost my virginity willingly, I used food to cover up my fear and anguish, and believed that adding another 20 or 30 pounds would limit my appeal to other people. Instead many boys figured I’d be the easy play, so I became more choosy about which after school clubs I should participate in, and which friends would be safe. (Read: Not many men made the cut.) Read More…

January 26, 2013 | 0 Comments

Coral Reef Therapy

coral reef hawaii fishI’ve known, abstractly at least, that I’ve wanted to go snorkeling since I stood waist-high in the crystal clear water of Puerto Rico, way back in 1983. Seeing tropical fish up close, in their own environment, was captivating to newly minted teenager me. But we didn’t have much time on the island during that vacation, and didn’t get around to snorkeling.

I told myself that I was too clumsy for something that would require breathing a different way, plus hand-flipper coordination. I’d probably concuss myself on a reef, get into an altercation with an eel, or worse. I satisfied myself with episodes of Blue Planet and short-lived glances at tiny tiger fish in local mall aquariums. But by the time we booked our trip to the big island of Hawaii, I’d promised myself to strap on a mask and fins and check out a nearby coral reef.

And now I’m addicted to snorkeling. That didn’t take long.

Water fills up my ear canals and then all I can hear is the sound of my own breathing through the snorkel tube. Other than the taste of briny water on my tongue, I stop noticing all of my senses but my sight. There’s a bright yellow angel fish, nipping plankton off of the coral ridge. A dark black, blue striped fish darts in front of me, followed by a school of them. A silvery fish that looks like a living dagger hovers near the surface, as if she can’t wait to evolve to a land-walking biology. Sea urchins that range from dark purple to bright pink nestle in the pockets of the reef, and now I can’t imagine eating one cut in half.

A school of tiger fish off in the distance, eating in such a frenzy that they generate the only cloudy portion of water I see around me. If it looked like the water was overcrowded with other snorkelers before I headed into the pool, I now have lost myself in solitude and mind-numbing beauty. And where I’m generally clumsy on the surface, I feel almost masterful under the water’s edge, able to spin and turn and control my trajectory. Read More…

January 22, 2013 | 2 Comments

Some Enchanted Plane Ride

DSC_0011I have a shortish bucket list of places to visit in my lifetime, because I’ve read about different corners of the globe and I’ve always had a hankering for seeing them up close. Patagonia. Paris. Senegal. Lebanon. Hawaii. The trick is, getting there takes some doing. I imagine that for millennia, most people stayed pretty much where they started, with some nomadic peoples making long treks, or some specific folks earning a reputation for exploration and such. Perhaps there’s a wisdom in nesting, because with all of our technological prowess and transportation advancement, venturing from Point A to Point B is still a total pain in the keister.

Ever since we moved to Walla Walla, one of our quieter gripes has been that it takes 2-3 flights and 12 hours or more to get to the East Coast, usually at an expense of $500+ per traveler. At some point Susanne and I toyed with the idea of going to Hawaii instead of making multiple trips home for the holidays. Once we assessed that the prices really were similar, coming here shifted from a tongue-in-cheek thought experiment to a plan. And because we’ve struggled with getting in and out of Eastern Washington so many times now, seeing a three-legged airplane journey didn’t feel like a big deal. What price to pay for paradise, we asked ourselves.

Turns out, a 6-hour flight is no small feat for a toddler. The entire ride, we listened to wailing like I’ve never heard come out of any human being, much less a small child. Thank goodness it wasn’t Emile having the extended purple scream. Sure, he fussed, asking for “down,” and saying “all done” with the jaunt just 20 minutes after takeoff. But he held it together for the most part. Getting to the big island, Emile notched his 12th, 13th, and 14th flights in his new existence. A couple of bouts with turbulence notwithstanding, Hawaii Airlines gave us a smooth ride and a strange meal box. But hey, they have a meal box. It was a step up from the pretzel bag from Delta, and 10 light years better from the three sips of flat cold soda that they serve on United. (I think we all know I will never again breathe a friendly word about United Airlines.) Read More…

January 17, 2013 | 0 Comments

Breaking the LGBT Debate Rut

I remember the 1990s well–ATMs were a novelty, all the cool kids had neon-colored pagers, and Friday nights were spent playing an X-Files drinking game.* 1992, the year I graduated college, was an election year, and there were all kinds of debates within and about the queer community, some of which made the mainstream news–also known as “the evening news.” Which was watched on television, not on the Internet.

1993 March on Washington for gay rightsThese debates included:

  • Whether bisexuals should be included in the umbrella of “queer”
  • Whether we should try to reclaim the term, “queer”
  • Whether gays should be able to marry
  • Whether queer civil rights should be about liberation or assimilation
  • How best to advocate for more/better access to health care (mostly in light of the AIDS crisis)
  • Whether lesbians should date bisexuals, and what that would mean about their lesbianism
  • Whether gay men occupied too much of the priority list at the top of LGB civil rights
  • Whether butch/femme or androgyny should be the preferred goal for lesbians

Twenty-one years later, we haven’t moved far from these debates, if at all.  Read More…

January 12, 2013 | 3 Comments

Ten Things I Learned Watching Miss America

Miss America contestants in swimsuits

1. Pageants still exist for people over the age of 8.

2. When singing a rendition of … well, anything, it definitely leaves an impression if your last note sung is flat. Just not a good impression.

3. When giving an answer to an important question of our contemporary culture, flash a smile at the end to show you’re still a lighthearted gal.

4. Ernst & Young considers questions about Boo Boo Honey and gun violence “of similar complexity.” Ernst & Young should not be allowed to evaluate anything anymore.

5. “Medical marijuana” and “recreational use” are not the same thing. Unless one is in Iowa.

6. Never name your child Mariah Carey. That’s just cruel.

7. Nobody looks credible with a tiara on their head. Except maybe the Queen of England.

8. Reality television has really fallen on hard times if Miss America contestants recommend we all take reality television “with a grain of salt.”

9. When in doubt, break into a vigorous tap dance.

10. Miss America is much more bearable when Donald Trump is nowhere to be found.

UPDATE: Okay, two more items —

11. It is mean to taunt pageant contestants with doughnuts.

12. There’s always an opportunity to tout Sketchers shoes.

January 11, 2013 | 1 Comment

Why We’ll Never Have a Series Like The West Wing Again

the west wing castThe West Wing rushed in at the end of the 2oth Century when we were all worried about Y2K and our brand-new Internet crashing down around our ears. Helmed by Martin Sheen, Aaron Sorkin’s vision of the capitol city gave us a non-sexist image of a Democratic president, quick-witted and principled to the hilt, someone who would never receive, much less request, oral sex in the Oval Office from an intern. The biggest argument inside the Beltway was whether Ken Starr needed to spend $20 million of the taxpayers’ money to investigate the commander-in-chief’s sex life. We may not have thought of it as a simpler time, and it wasn’t all that long ago, but well, in retrospect popular culture was somewhat less complicated.

This is not a series that didn’t manage to hit the point of poor performance, often called “jumping the shark.” It did become somewhat preposterous, with a pretend coup of a pretend nation that could not possibly compare to the destruction of our national mental stability brought about by 9/11.

But many of us watched anyway, for the rapid fire dialogue, for Rob Lowe (until he left, of course), for the rich relationships among the senior advisers to the president (C.J.! Toby! Lyman!), and the ways in which smart people in Washington were portrayed. Intrigue on the domestic front was especially believable, First Family kidnappings aside. Audiences were willing to go along with a few half-baked story ideas because so much else about the series rang true. And when Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda ran for the highest office in the land, viewership rebounded. Read More…

January 8, 2013 | 0 Comments

Post in the New Year

congresswomen2013 is here and already people are waving their fists at the sky in frustration. Mitch McConnell of the US Senate is angry his congressional colleagues want to take up gun control debates on the floor. Murmurs from DC point to anger over the nominations of Chuck Hagel to head the Department of Defense and of John Kerry to lead State. Shooting victims from Aurora, Colorado, bemoan the possible trial of the Man Who Would be Joker, and the Hell’s Angels rode en masse to Connecticut to obstruct the Westboro Baptist Church from protesting at the Newtown victims’ funerals. If any of us had any hope that the end of the election could bring down the vitriol a notch or two, we had another thing coming. Glenn Beck may be relegated to the superhighway, but Ann Coulter continues to get attention for saying this jackass thing or that, and the Tea Party continues its clamp down on legislative productivity.

Therefore, I propose a few things for the sane among us to get through these trying times: Read More…

December 31, 2012 | 1 Comment

2013 New Year’s Resolutions

These are my personal resolutions, and my 2013 to do list. Feel free to share yours, comment, or examine. Thanks, 2012, for being a helluva year. And on to next year…

1. Be the best support I can be to the people around me who are suffering with depression–I’m tired and sad to keep hearing about acquaintances who have attempted or successfully commit suicide. So I am starting my list here, and I’m saying again in a public space that I’m around to listen, to troubleshoot, to talk, to help muster resources. I care about my friends and extended family, and I’ve been in that dark place. Life is so much better when one can get through those awful moments. Please talk to someone you trust when you really need a helping hand. If that’s me, I’m honored.

2. Be the best dad I can be for Emile–Parenthood, I’m learning, is about finding your kid where they are, and with the rapid learning curve my son has, I’m constantly on the move to ascertain where that is. He’s standing, walking, running, making sounds, then words, and last week, his first real sentence: “I want Momma.” Probably can’t go wrong there, kid. But I have to keep checking myself to keep my own issues out of his way, and I see that this is a lifelong tactic I’ll need to employ. So here goes.

3. Finish these two book projects–I’ve got a novel-in-progress and a nonfiction humor book, but darn it, there’s no reason I can’t put both to bed and complete them. I’d cross my fingers, but I need them to type. ALSO: Come up with some new damn jokes.

4. Get a pen pal–I have an idea where I’m going to start, with the Black and Pink program.

5. Make better connections to progressive thinkers and writers–Living in Walla Walla, 225 miles from Seattle and 210 miles from Portland, this is difficult. But I need to come up with something other than spending thousands of dollars flying around the country and going to the same writer’s conference. Better, more efficient, more purposeful are my goals. Maybe more regional meetups, maybe through setting up an event here in town, I’ll work on this. Read More…

December 28, 2012 | 0 Comments

We all need to support each other more. Please.

Justin Tanis's avatarNational Center for Transgender Equality's Blog

Transgender Lives are Precious: National Suicide Prevention Week

Suicide sadly remains all too prevalent in the transgender community. Unremitting discrimination takes its toll and transgender people pay the price for the prejudice of others. Sometimes, transgender people turn to suicide when they can’t find work, housing or other practical necessities of life. In the survey that NCTE conducted with The Task Force, 41% of those who responded reported having attempted suicide at some point in their lives; this compares with 1.6% of the general population.  That’s a rate 25 times that of the rest of the United States.

NCTE has created a new resource of information about transgender people and suicide, including results from our survey, and resources to help prevent self-harm: Preventing Transgender Suicide. Transgender lives are worth living.

If you are in crisis, please reach out. Here are some numbers to call:

  • Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender…

View original post 75 more words

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