State of Affairs

In making this big move to the left coast, I thought I was going to be presented with an interesting shift to this blog--from introspection/commentary to news delivery. I'm doing my darnedest to keep in touch with all the folk back east, but as you can imagine law school keeps one a bit busy, even when not combined with moving across the continent. So, I really started feeling the need to put some basic, bald news up here. That posed a problem on several fronts, 1) I feel like it puts me in danger of feeling less responsible for communicating with people directly, 2) it's not the purpose of this blog, and 3) if I spend all my time trying to communicate daily (weekly, whatever) news, I risk losing the random ruminations on thins, which I really like doing.

A week into law school, though, I am realizing that this won't be an ongoing problem. "Why?" you ask. Well, let's put it this way: as far as straight news goes, while the last couple weeks have been an absolutely thrilling whirlwind of activity and goings on, there really won't be a whole lot to say about endless hours spent in a law school library. It's not exactly gripping reading.

So, for now, I will do what I can to balance the newsy and non-newsy pressures.

For the news, last Tuesday my roommate, SL, and I got all moved into our apartment, which is really very cool. It's pretty big and seems to be very well maintained--the guys did a more thorough job of patching/painting/cleaning than anywhere else I've ever lived. It's also in a much older house than I expected to find in this area. I think it was built in either the 10's or 20's, and as a result has a lot of really neat built-in details and considerations that you don't generally find in your usual house built these days--cupboards built into the walls, decorative edging, etc. The doors that open out onto our little balcony are very distinctly not-modern as well, and the wooden window and door frames are incredibly well preserved.

Unpacking has progressed at a ridiculously slow pace for me. Last week didn't really afford much time, what with trying to get situated, actually moving in, starting classes, etc. Over the weekend I had intended to do much more than did, but in the end after the insanity of my last few weeks at work, driving across the country, etc., I just took a couple days and let my mind vegetate. This coming up weekend is a long weekend, so even if I don't make much progress again through this week, come next weekend I won't have an excuse!

There is also the minor news detail that, oh yeah, I started law school, but my reading assignments call so you'll just have to wait for any real info on that one. Suffice to say, "I started law school."

Two fantastic factoids about where I'm living that I will close with, to satisfy my love for imparting completely un-newsworthy things:

1) I live on the 2nd floor, with entry doors at both the top and bottom of my stairs. At the top of the stairs is a handle sticking out of the wall. If you pull the handle, it actually closes the door at the bottom of the stairs. So, if you come home and have a big armful of groceries or whatever, you don't have to try to juggle everything to close the door. Go upstairs, put the stuff down in the apartment, and pull the handle. (In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that we can't practically use it--the door at the bottom of the stairs is the main secured entrance to the apartment and it locks by deadbolt, which the handle can't help you with. All the same, I think this handle is the funnest thing ever.)

2) I live in the heart of LA. On a residential street, yes, but still in the middle of a primarily concrete jungle, buildings lined up like sardines, on street parking maxed out on most streets, the middle of one of the biggest cities in the country. Of all the things I expected to encounter in this environment, a rooster certainly was not one of them. And yet. It's far enough away somewhere that it doesn't wake me up, but days when I'm up already I'll hear that unmistakable crow.

Road Bests

I didn't have too much time to write about the actual drive, because I was busy driving, so for posterity's sake here's a small recap. A little list of the "greatests" that I came across on my trip across the country. In order of occurrence (or first occurrence, as the case may be):

Greatest Irritation: Dollar limits on gas station credit card transactions, forcing you to execute two transactions to fill a large tank.

Greatest Religious Sign: On I-74 in Indiana, "Abortion Is Forever. Choose Life." Yeah, because, y'know, that life thing is pretty temporary. Or maybe they're implying that you can always change your mind and whack the kid later... ??

Even Greatest-er Irritation: Gas stations that don't let you use the same card over again for the second transaction, forcing you to use a different one.

Greatest Factoid from NPR: The three most popular flavors of ice cream in Japan are eel, cheese and octopus.

Greatest Radio Annoyance: Coming across the Pina Colada song three times, all within Missouri.

Greatest Roadkill: Coyote

Greatest Moment of Disgust: Realizing that the first hotel room I got in Tulsa had apparently been used as a daytime refuge by employee, friend of an employee, or some other resourceful stranger. Most of the room was OK, but the bedspread had been pulled off of one bed, and most lovely was the pee on the toilet.

Second Greatest Moment of Disgust: Hopping out of the truck to get gas in western Oklahoma and landing in a big wad of chew that had been spit on the ground.

Greatest View of Weather Phenomena: Seeing virga from miles away across the landscape

Greatest Scenery: New Mexico Route 185 heading north from I-40 to Santa Fe.

Greatest Circus Sideshow: Digging Tiki out of the boxspring that she hid in while in Santa Fe.

Greatest Town/Exit Name: To'hajiilee (New Mexico)

Greatest Understatement: Said by woman wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt at a rest stop in northern Arizona at 5:00 in the afternoon in August, "It's hot here."

Greatest Shock: Agricultural inspections at the California border. I had no problems, but it was somewhat jarring to have a checkpoint where all cars were stopped and searched (albeit lightly), including the official asking to take a look in the back of my truck. Makes you realize how much we take for granted the concept of free travel within the country.

Greatest Success: Getting the cats across country with little incident or difficulty, scarcely a month after they couldn't even go to the vet's without ending up covered in their own excrement.

Nothing Says "Welcome" Like the DMV

Today was my first full day as a resident of Los Angeles, and most of it was spent at that ambassador that all states have, that official welcome mat laid out to new residents all across the country, the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The first frustration was parking - namely, it was inadequate, the fact that it was inadequate foreshadowed the long wait inside, and the people in the parking lots should have all had their licenses immediately revoked for sheer madness. The second frustration was finally finding parking only to realize that I had left my bag, which had my insurance card and birth certificate, in the rental truck.

You know it's going to be bad when the line just to get a number is about 45 minutes long. All told, six hours of life today was dedicated to securing a California driver's license and motor vehicle registration. Perhaps 45 minutes of it was spent parking and going back to get my bag. About a half hour was spent getting my car tested for emissions. I'll be generous and say maybe 15 minutes of it was spent at actual counters talking to people and having things processed. The other 4 1/2 hours of it was spent waiting. Waiting to get a number. Waiting for my number to be called.

The number one frustration by far was this inane policy that they are only able to process one transaction per trip to the window. Need to do two things (such as license and registration)? Go through all lines twice. I got to the counter, and when told I had to pick which one to do, picked the car registration. Not knowing beforehand that I needed the smog certificate and something called a "car verification," I realized that strictly speaking I would need to go back through TWO more times - once with the required car papers, and again for my license. The woman said, "Well, it's really quick to finish the registration once you have the papers so they can just go ahead and do it."

I came back with smog certificate and car verification in hand (I know...Lancer passed Cali's smog standards...I'm as shocked as you are), ran through the line gauntlet yet again, and once again got slapped with "I can only do one transaction." Fortunately, the woman who I had the first time overheard and told me to just come to her counter when I was done with the license...grazie a dio.

I still have to go back to take the written test for the license. (Apparently when the sign says no tests will be administered after 4:30, that doesn't mean they will be administered up until 4:30.) But everything else is done - photos, plates, fees, inspections, verifications, transactions, numbers, venting. Most importantly, this written test can be done without a number. And it's only one transaction.

Angeleno

Voila! I have arrived in LA. My last post was from Tuesday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Wednesday was a "short" (er) drive from Tulsa to Santa Fe, passing through the rest of Oklahoma, the top of Texas, and the first half or so of New Mexico. About the only good thing I can really say about OK and TX was that the humidity calmed down as I went further west. Oh, and Texas looked like it had really well maintained rest stops, for what it's worth. I ended up not stopping at all in Texas, but when I stopped in Oklahoma for gas, I jumped out of the truck and landed square in a huge wad of chewing tobacco that someone had spit out. Yum...

In Santa Fe, once again sM provided lodging, this time on the other side of the country where he happened to be visiting his girlfriend. What luck! As much as Tulsa was humid and bug-ridden, Santa Fe was absolutely gorgeous! Likewise for the drive through New Mexico to get there. My favorite part was getting off I-40 to take a two-lane road to get up to the Santa Fe area, rather than going all the way to Albequerque and then backtracking up I-25. It really cut right through a lot of the gorgeous scenery that you usually only see from afar on the interstate. I attempted some pictures, but really the beauty is in the whole vista, something a point-and-click digital doesn't have a prayer of capturing.

Then Thursday was the long haul from Santa Fe to LA, with the option to stop in Needles, CA, if need be. By the time Needles came along it was only 6:00, so on the Penske truck went, arriving in Los Angeles around 10:30 or so Pacific time.

I'm happy to say the furkids were troopers the entire ride, with only a small bout of infighting right at the end. I didn't blame them for the last bit--the last day was really long and hard on them, and they were at the end of their little kitty ropes. The temporary apartment my roommate and I are staying in until our actual apartment is ready is a loft-style place, and all the open area has them a little on edge after the stress of the travel, but they're doing OK.

Greetings from Tulsa

A quick note on the second day of my drive across the country. Things have gone very well so far--the cats have slept most of the time, and the truck is great. I had braced myself for a long drive in a rotten truck, but it is relatively new, has a CD player, not just a radio (which means the money I spent on a transmitter to plug into my MP3 player was wasted, but oh well). Anyone looking for a long distance move, I highly recommend Penske. I know it's partly dumb luck, but the truck is in great shape, the people were really nice, I got a free upgrade to a car carrier instead of a tow dolly (they didn't have the tow dolly on hand), they didn't charge me for the furniture pads that were in the back of the truck, and they gave me a AAA discount even though I don't have AAA. Word.

States I went through today which I'd never been to were Missouri and Oklahoma, but although I've been to Indiana and Illinois before, nowhere near the path I took through those states today. The highway skirted Indianapolis too much to get any view of the city, but I did go right through St. Louis--frighteningly close to rush hour, but traffic wasn't bad at all. And I snapped some pictures of the Arch! I was very surprised at how hilly Missouri was--I never really thought about it, but I guess I presumed everything west of Columbus was flat. Now that I think about it, I realize Missouri is never talked about as a plains state. Come to think of it, Missouri is never really talked about... Oklahoma, however, has provided some of the flatness I expected.

All in all, I gotta say, not a fan of the middle of America so far, at least not this part. Missouri and Oklahoma thus far have been insanely humid, and with so many bugs that there were times I swore it was drizzling, and the noise I heard was the patter of drops on the roof. Nope, it was the patter of bugs going splat. Yummy.

Besides the bugs, the only hitch so far was a 45- to 60-minute delay on I-70 west of Indianapolis, where we sat on the highway due to a wreck up ahead. If that's the worst thing that happens on this trip, I'll be ecstatic.

No Title Fits This Post

Too often in our lives, the various things we need for happiness and fulfillment don't quite mesh. We're left making choices which, while we feel they are the right ones, have an inevitable element of bittersweetness. We're left trying to balance the things we want need, the things we want need to do, the people we want need to be with. But there's never enough time. There are never enough dinners, coffee walks, breakfasts, movies, evenings spent running errands, or hugs. There never could be; those things could be infinite in supply and there would still not be enough.

The paths we feel a need to follow never have absolutely everything we want need, and we have the unhappy task of making the best of it.

Even though I'm driving away from this place and these people, I will never leave.

Waiting

Cats have an excuse. You can't explain to them, "Here's what's going on, and why, and you guys will be OK no matter what; I'll keep you safe." Well, you can try, but they don't speak quite that much human. All they know is that their whole life disappeared with a flurry of boxes and a big noisy truck.

And they are kinda freaked out.

I, on the other hand, don't have this excuse. I know what's going on--I made it all happen. On purpose. I know vaguely what is coming down the road and why. And most of the time, I'm doing OK with it all. Every now and then, though, all I know is that my whole life disappeared with a flurry of boxes and a big noisy truck.

And I'll admit to being kinda freaked out.

I truly appreciate the kindness of those who are helping me out, especially MT who from day one said I was welcome to stay with her. But I admit I'll be grateful for the end of this week. Pretty much all I have to do these days is sit and wait, and think about how much I'm going to miss Pittsburgh and the life I had built here. Once in a while, Whiskey comes up to me and paws my arm, and looks up at me with an expression that seems to ask, "Where did home go? Why did we leave it?" I know the answer, but when all there is to do is ponder the question, your confidence in the answer is shaken. It's not exactly doubt, it's just being kinda freaked out.

Seethe

An acquaintance of mine is putting together a photography show, originally planned to be a display of queer female-bodied people in relationships. She started out with the expressed goal of showing couples of all kinds, combinations and identities.

I had thought LT and I would be a fun addition to the show. Not only would we be supporting a young photographer in her first show, but we are probably a fairly rare (at least rare in Pittsburgh) example of a couple comprised of two female-bodied people both with alternate gender identities. Unfortunately, by the time we learned about the show LT was gone from Pittsburgh, so half of the couple was missing.

After a little while, though, the photographer had some difficulty getting quite enough couples, and began including some individuals. So, I volunteered to be photographed, because I figured I could provide a unique subject that is a bit scarce in these parts, thereby allowing her to represent a wider range of identities in the show. She was grateful--she told me that the vast majority of people agreeing to be in the show were femmy, obviously female-identified people. She did have one other person who often performed in drag, but that was about it in terms of alternate expressions of identity.

Today, she called and said that she had decided not to include either me or the drag performer. Her reasoning was that all the other pictures were going to be of happy, smiling, romantic women, and these just wouldn't fit.

Really, just typing those words makes me fucking MAD!

I tried explaining to her that presenting with a trans identity wasn't all drum glum seriousness, that actually discovering this and being free to be who you are is a happy thing. I had actually very much been looking forward to being able to have representation of happy trans people--I would've been downright ecstatic if LT had been here and we could have had pictures of two alternately-gendered people happily being together.

It wouldn't sink in. She used the cop out that with just a few pictures of trans identities in the show, she wouldn't be doing them justice, it would be an insufficient representation of "the subject".

OK, so not representing trans people at all IS sufficient? It IS doing us justice? F that S. Seriously, if you want to do a photo shoot that is just women-identified people, that's fine--you're the artist, you have the right to put in your show whatever you want, and leave out whatever you want. But don't tout that it's an inclusive show to represent all varieties of identity, then leave out the ones that you're not comfortable with and don't understand. And then make it sound like you're doing us a fucking favor by leaving us out.

NOT.

COOL.

Transition, Dependence, Humility, Empowerment

To be quite honest, I don't even know when the last time was that I posted - and at this particular moment I'm too lazy to go look and see what it was.

*the next moment*

OK, we all know I was too anal to not go and look.

So the last time I posted I was just beginning to pack up my apartment. It's almost a week later, and since then I've gotten my apartment all packed up, everything put into storage, the apartment cleaned out, and yesterday I turned in my keys and officially became a roving vagabond. Alright, perhaps that's a bit hyperbolic, but hopefully this will be the closest I'll ever come to being a drifter, so I'm trying to live it up while I can.

There are so many things rolling around in my head that I've thought about posting about...some funny observation, some just plain factual to keep everyone up to speed on where I am (including myself), some deeper observation, and on and on. On any one of these things I could type far longer than any of you could read...heck, I'm accomplishing that with just the meta-commentary.

Today's post is coming from the second of many nights on several different futons, provided by the greatest generosity of my friends MT and sM. This very unique period of transition has put me in a position to be far more dependent on the graciousness of others than perhaps I ever have been before. At least, that I'm cognizant of. People helping me move. People giving me a place to lay my head. People offering advice on a new endeavor, and moving somewhere I know nothing about. People being my constant cheerleaders. People providing 2nd- and 3rd-degree of separation contacts in a far away place. ("You probably won't need this, but just in case you're in a tough spot and need a contact, here's so and so.") People offering amazingly generous gifts that in good conscience I can't accept.

People letting me know I'll be missed.

For a little bit (especially on moving day) I was busy focusing on the people who were failing to come through when I needed them. Look at all these people who are bailing...what does this really say? A few days removed (and blood less boiled), I've had time to reflect on the other side of that coin, and think about these wonderful people who HAVE come through...and what THAT means. I'm realizing, this position of extreme dependence is a humbling and empowering position all at once.

I'll stay away from the cliche that it's humbling to not be able to provide things like your own roof over your head (although it is). Rather, it's humbling to realize there are this many people with this much love for you. Humbling? You ask. Yep.

The rise of a special occasion like this highlights the daily consideration, thought and love that you get from all these people who are now going above and beyond. It makes you take pause, and notice all these people who contribute to the richness of your everyday life, and even when they are not filling such notable favors, all these people without whom your everyday life would not be what it is. Humbling to see the love all around you which helps to hold you up from day to day.

And therein also lies the empowerment. Realizing that you are the person who drew all these wonderful people into your life, that you have the ability to attract them and keep them as friends (because even the ones related to you can choose whether to be your friends). That you made enough of an impression on these people--whether over time or all at once--that they are happy to be part of your life, even through your less gracious moments.

So thank you, friends (related and otherwise). Truly, thank you.